Barry Eisler - The Last Assassin

I shot him a look, then said to Delilah, 'In fact… in fact, you should stay with French. It'll make you that much more exotic, and anyone there using English will be more comfortable talking in front of you if they think you can't understand. Yeah, whoever you encounter, try French first, and if they can't understand it, switch to basic, struggling, screwed-up, heavily accented English. Play it right and they might actually start to feel protective, want to take care of you.'

She nodded. 'Okay.'

'Now, assuming you can get in, and I think you can, the things we're most interested in at this point are ways of ingress and egress, whether doors open in or out, presence of emergency lighting systems…'

'I know how to case a room.'

Whatever tensions we were dealing with personally, I wasn't going to let them cause us to go about this half-assed.

'I know you do,' I said. 'But can we go through this anyway? It'll help me feel sure I'm not missing anything.'

She caught the reference to the conversation we'd had on the way from the airport and knew I was being diplomatic to the point of sarcasm. But she also knew I was right. She nodded and said nothing.

I unfolded the floor plans and spread them out on the bed. 'Here's the club,' I said. 'Familiarize yourself with the layout. We need to confirm that these plans are current and otherwise accurate, and to know all the relevant aspects of the local terrain that don't show up here in two dimensions.'

She gave me a slow nod that said, I'm not stupid, you know.

'I'm not talking down to you,' I said, trying to rein in my frustration. 'I know you know all this. But it's better to say it out loud and not to assume. You know that, too.'

Dox said, 'He does it to me all the time, too. He's a repressed man, and I've come to realize that micro-management is one of his few ways of expressing affection. Once you realize that, you'll actually start to like it. I know I do.'

Delilah closed her eyes and laughed. I supposed I should have been grateful to Dox for managing the tension in the room, but it was irritating to see them getting along like old friends while I could hardly find anything to say to her that didn't provoke an angry response.

'Start with the entrance,' I said. 'How do you get in? Do the doors open freely, or does someone need to buzz you in from inside? Is there a camera out front? Security? All I could see when I reconnoitered was a pair of valets.'

I pointed to the plans. 'Now we go inside. This space inside the front entrance – I would guess there's a hostess or hostesses waiting there, probably to check coats and lead customers into the club itself. There might also be security. Maybe an additional set of doors. And here, this small room opposite the entrance doors. Probably a back office. It would be good to know what and who is in there.'

'Got it.'

'Now this big space,' I said. 'Presumably it's the main room. I'm guessing tables, booths… Is it cluttered? Spacious? Are there clear fields of fire? If there are obstructions, I want to know where.'

'Okay.'

'These rooms here, off the main room,' I said, pointing to the plans again, 'my guess is that they're for private meetings, like the one Yamaoto is hosting tomorrow night. One is bigger than the other, but we don't know how much of an entourage he's going to have, so I don't know which he's likely to use, if he uses one at all. And this room here, probably a kitchen.'

She looked at the plans. 'No kitchen entrance?'

'Not according to the plans.'

'Where do they take the garbage out?'

'I don't know. My guess is, they take it out the front after hours. But I'll check out the exterior and grounds to make sure.'

She nodded.

I pointed to another area. 'There are two emergency exits – here off the main room, and here in the basement. The exterior basement stairs lead to the same side of the building where the front entrance is located, so Dox can cover both the main entrance and the basement emergency exit simultaneously. But the main room exit goes out the other side of the building. We're going to need to find a way to close it off to make sure anyone who gets past me has to cross Dox's field of fire on the way out. Anything you can tell us about the exit doors would be useful.'

'Okay.'

'Now this staircase leads down to the basement level, which is restrooms, a utility room, and again that emergency exit. See if you can use a bathroom break to get into the utility room. My source tells me that code for this building requires emergency lighting run off a backup generator. I need to know what they're using and whether you can disable it tomorrow night. And regardless, look around for stand-alone battery-operated units, especially in stairwells and above doorways. If they're already required by the building code to have a generator system, I doubt they'd go to the expense of installing stand-alone units, too, but we have to know.'

'Okay.'

'The final thing is cameras. They probably don't have any overt ones, except again possibly one monitoring the front entrance. The place is supposed to be the ultimate in discretion, and obvious security cameras inside would spoil the ambience. But they might have some less obvious ones. Here's something that will help you spot them if they do.'

I took out the custom-made, pocket-sized bug detector Harry had made for me before he died, and handed it to Delilah. 'Here. It picks up the horizontal oscillator frequency radiated by video cameras. It's not exactly a divining rod, but it'll give you an idea.'

Delilah hefted it in her hand and looked at it approvingly. 'Nice.'

'I'd like it back, if possible. It's one of a kind. And it has sentimental value.'

Dox started to break out into the grin. 'You? Sentimental?'

I looked at him, thinking of Harry. 'Is there a problem?' I asked.

The grin retreated. 'No problem.'

I looked at Delilah, then Dox. 'Questions? Comments?'

Delilah said, 'So Plan A is for Dox to drop Yamaoto as he leaves his car and enters the club. The rest of this is all Plan B.'

'That's right. But Plan A is nothing to count on here. You've seen the street the club is on. There aren't many places we can position Dox for a shot at the front entrance. There's no parking on the street, so we can't set him up in the van. There's a building site near Aoyama-dori that might work, but even then the angle is such that he'll only have a second to make the shot. Yamaoto travels in an armored Mercedes, and he'll probably have a phalanx of bodyguards. Unless he lingers for a few moments outside the entrance, we won't be able to get to him until he's inside.'

'Yeah,' Dox said. 'Plan B is the new Plan A.'

'Makes sense,' Delilah said.

'You manage to get a phone?' I asked.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a clamshell model in screaming yellow.

'Well, that ought to do,' I said. 'Did you figure out…'

'I changed the interface to English,' she said. 'It's fine.'

I nodded. 'Are you armed?'

She smiled. 'What do you think?'

I looked her over. She wasn't wearing much, but if she was carrying, I couldn't see it.

'Not that I can tell,' I said.

Her smile widened. She dropped her right hand, hooked her thumb under the edge of the dress, and reached up along her inner thigh. An instant later her hand reappeared, her fingers curled into a fist. A wicked-looking two-inch blade protruded like a talon from between her first and second knuckles.

'Goddamn,' Dox said. 'What is that pretty little thing?'

'FS Hideaway,' Delilah said. She opened her hand, slid the knife from around her first two fingers, and handed it hilt first to Dox.

'Yeah, I've been reading about these, but haven't gotten my own yet,' he said. He tried to slip it on, but the grip was too small to fit over his fingers. 'You like it?'