Barry Eisler - Requiem for an Assassin

“This man’s hurt!” I called out to the people who were staring at us. “Somebody call a doctor!” There, that ought to make us look more like the good guys and lower the chances of someone disputing our passage. Theoretically.

We made a left onto the main pier and kept moving. I saw that Kanezaki had backed all the way to the edge of the pier. Boaz must have called him. But Christ, it was taking us forever. Why the fuck did the boat have to be on the farthest perpendicular? I thought. Murphy’s Law. Unbelievable.

People stared at us as we walked by. No one said anything, or tried to interfere.

Fifty feet out from the access road, I started to think we were going to make it. I could see the exhaust drifting from Kanezaki’s idling engine.

Two uniformed security guys burst through the main clubhouse doors and onto the pier. They sprinted straight at us. Each was wearing a sidearm, still holstered.

“They’re shooting back there!” I cried out in a high voice. “Hurry!”

For one second, I thought they were going to buy it. They looked down the pier and I could feel their attention shifting. Then their eyes came back to us, their expressions hardening.

For all his concern about rules of engagement, Boaz had his pistol out as fast as I did. “Do not reach for your weapons,” I said, loudly and evenly, pointing the HK at the guy in front of me, while Boaz covered the other man.

Neither said a word. Their mouths dropped open and their hands crept north. Whatever they were paid to provide “security” at the yacht club, this wasn’t part of the job description.

“Over the side,” I said. “Into the water.” Neither moved. I pointed the gigantic suppressed muzzle of the HK directly at the guy’s face, suddenly pleased at the intimidating size of the thing, and shouted, “Now!”

He jumped in without another word. The other guy followed him an instant later.

“Very humane of you,” Boaz said, and we kept hustling forward down the pier. The automatic side door of Kanezaki’s van slid open. We helped Dox in, then followed inside. Kanezaki pulled smoothly away.

“You got him?” Boaz said to me.

For an instant, I didn’t even know what he was talking about. “Who?”

“Hilger.”

I shook my head. “He wasn’t on the boat.”

“Damn it,” he said. “Delilah told me…” He stopped and smiled. “Well, I guess she was wrong.”

“Intel,” I said. “What can you do.”

He laughed. “I think maybe things between you two are better than you let on.”

Dox was lying on his back on the floor. I used the bolt cutters to get the manacles off him. While I cut, Boaz called Naftali. He was a half-mile behind us, and there was no pursuit.

Kanezaki pulled over. I removed the fake plates and we set out again.

We kept driving. Naftali called again. Still all clear.

It looked like we were going to make it. I pulled off the hat and shades and patted Dox’s shoulder. “How are you doing?”

“I feel like shit.”

He looked it, too. He was pale and he was having trouble breathing. Adrenaline was probably masking a lot of his pain, but that wasn’t going to last much longer. I knew Kanezaki had morphine in the medical kit. I got out a syringe and gave Dox a hit.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Oo-rah,” he said. “John Rain, my angel of mercy.”

I laughed.

“Who’s driving this thing, anyway?” he said.

“It’s me, Dox,” Kanezaki called from up front. “Tom.”

“Good to have you here, man,” Dox said, his voice a little stronger now, rallying from the morphine. “I’d shake your hand and thank you properly, but I’m a little laid up at the moment. And who’s this?”

Boaz pulled off the hat, wig, and shades. “Boaz,” he said.

Dox held up his hand and Boaz shook it.

“I didn’t know John had other friends,” Dox said, the words slurring slightly. “I thought I was his only one.”

Boaz smiled. “I guess that’s why he wanted to get you off that boat so much.”

“My skin’s starting to hurt,” Dox said. “What did you guys use, some kind of millimeter wave device?”

“Am I the only one who’s never heard of these things?” I said, and heard Kanezaki laugh.

“Sorry,” Boaz said. “Calibrating the waves isn’t an exact science. You probably have first-degree burns, maybe second.”

Dox laughed, grimacing as he did so. “Jesus Christ, you think I give a rat’s ass about a sunburn? Uncle Fester back there was fixing to decapitate Nessie.”

Kanezaki glanced back. “Nessie?”

“Please don’t ask him,” I said.

“If you’d shown up ten seconds later, I’d be singing in a girl’s choir somewhere, I’ll tell you that,” he said, laughing and grimacing harder. “Goddamn, I’m telling you, that was a near, near thing.”

Then his voice cracked. “I…ah, fuck, this is embarrassing,” he said. “I really thought I was dead, though, I…ah, fuck.”

He lay there, gritting his teeth and shaking, and the tears rolled silently down his face. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Go ahead,” I said. “Get it out.”

“Why did it have to be in front of you?” he said, half laughing, half crying. “You never puke, you never cry, and you’re going to make fun of me for this for the rest of my life.”

“I’m going to tell all your lady friends, too,” I said, and he laughed again through the tears.

It lasted another minute, then played itself out. “Thanks for bailing me out,” he said, looking around. “All of you. You too, Boaz, whoever you are. I will not, ever, forget it.”

“I’m glad we could help,” Boaz said. “And I’m sorry about the sunburn.”

Dox tilted his head back toward Kanezaki. “Where are we, anyway?”

“Singapore,” Kanezaki said. “On the way to a private jet at Changi. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” Dox said. “Good. ’Cause I’ve got a joke to tell.”

“You don’t really have to,” I said, familiar with Dox’s notions of comedy.

“Tell me,” Boaz said, with the boyish grin.

“I swore I’d tell John the kabunga joke if I came out of this alive, and I mean to keep my word, even high on morphine.”

“You really don’t have to…” I tried again, but he was already rolling.

“There are these three missionaries,” he said, “and they get captured by a nasty tribe of aborigines deep in the jungle.” He looked at Boaz. “You don’t know this one, do you?”

Boaz shook his head. “Keep going.”

“Well, the aborigines tie them up and set them down before the chief, who as it happens speaks a little English. The chief says to them, ‘We are a hostile tribe, and we despise you and your missionary ways. So you have only two choices. Death or…kabunga.’ Then he gestures to the first missionary and says, ‘Choose!’

“Well, the man doesn’t know what this kabunga business is, but he knows what death is, all right, and he knows he doesn’t want that. So he looks at the chief and says, ‘I choose…kabunga.’

“The chief raises his arms and cries out, ‘Kabunga!’ And a dozen warriors rush out. They throw this boy down, pull off his clothes, and sodomize him but good.”

“There’s a theme in your jokes, are you aware of that?” I said.

Boaz said, “Shhh. I like it. Keep going.”

“So now the chief looks at the second missionary, and he says, ‘My friend, what do you choose? Will it be death, or…kabunga?’

“Well, this boy knows what kabunga is now, and he doesn’t want any of it. But choosing death, well, that’d be suicide, and suicide is against his religious principles. So he swallows hard and says to the chief, ‘I…I choose…kabunga.’