Barry Eisler - The Last Assassin

Big Liu stood. 'Yamaoto…' he started to say.

'Shut up!' Yamaoto yelled. Then he looked around, too, and seemed for the first time to understand the commotion he was causing. He turned to Kuro and barked something in Japanese. Delilah had a feeling she knew what it was: he wanted to take her somewhere he could control better, where he could get rough and get the information he wanted without frightening the patrons.

She made no move for the knife on her thigh. She was boxed in now and it wouldn't do her any good. When they tried to take her somewhere else, though, there would be an opening, and she was going to cut right through it.

Yamaoto still had her by the wrist. He said to Big Liu, 'Get out of the way.'

Big Liu made no move to comply. He said, 'Bad business you do. This is nice girl. You very rude man.' He called to his associate, who got up and ran over.

More of the patrons and hostesses were getting nervously to their feet. A few had started backing toward the swinging doors. Delilah thought she heard a woman scream from near the front entrance, but the sound was faint and she wasn't sure.

Yamaoto, obviously making an effort to calm himself, said, 'This nice girl is a danger, as you'll see in a moment. Now, if you'll just…'

And then the lights went out.

I followed the path along its right turn and headed straight to the doors, the keycard in my right hand, night-vision goggles in my left, the HK in the thigh rig. I imagined the hostesses were watching me now through the wall camera, trying to figure out, Who's this guy in the suit? Why don't we recognize him? The security guy would be standing by the entrance, his alertness level low as long as the door was closed.

I strode up the stairs, my heart hammering. I moved directly to the magnetic card reader and swiped the card in front of it. There was a clack inside the door as the lock disengaged. I slipped the card into my jacket pocket and took out the HK. I held the gun behind my back as the door swung open.

The security guy was right there, just inside the entrance. He frowned when he saw me – obviously, when the door had opened in the absence of the buzzer, he'd been expecting one of the valets. As I stepped past him he said, 'Oi!' Hey!

I glanced left, absurdly aware of some sort of techno music playing in the background. There, the other security guy. I tracked right. The hostesses were staring open-mouthed, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. There was another guy behind them, a valet, from his appearance, just as Delilah had described in her briefing.

The first security guy said, 'Oi!' again and started coming toward me. Clearly he had misunderstood the nature of the threat. He must have thought he was dealing with a party crasher or something, someone who would be intimidated by a tough-guy stare and a little woofing. Then he noticed my hand behind my back. His eyes widened and he reached inside his jacket.

I brought up the HK and put two rounds in his chest and another in his head. Everything was quiet: just three pfffts, then the sound of his body hitting the floor.

I tracked to the second security guy. His eyes were bugging out and he was groping under his jacket. I dropped him with a single head shot.

I looked around again. The hostesses were frozen, obviously in shock. Likewise the valet.

Then the lights went out. The music stopped. The club was suddenly, eerily silent.

One of the hostesses screamed in the dark. I pulled on the goggles and moved through the swinging doors into the main room.

I didn't know where Delilah was. And I had only two minutes of darkness to find her.

The moment the lights went out, Delilah dropped the halter top and reached under her dress. She slid her fingers into the Hideaway grip, pulled the knife free from its sheath, and slashed Yamaoto across the forearm. The razor-sharp blade parted skin and muscle like water and sliced down to the bone. He howled in the darkness and released her wrist.

She shoved Big Liu hard and he spilled out of the booth and into the bodyguards. She felt Yamaoto grabbing for her and slashed him again. There were shouts and cries of confusion from all over the room now, the sounds of people stumbling into one another and cursing in the dark.

She crouched on the bench and walked to the edge of it, then dropped down. She started edging along the wall.

Then someone grabbed her ankle, and she was falling.

The scene through the green light of the goggles was like something out of a George Romero movie: scores of people stumbling in all directions, expressions fearful, arms splayed in front of them, bumping into one another and crying out in the dark.

I moved to the right, my head swiveling in sync with the front sight of the gun. The near panic in the room was palpable. Things felt one step away from a stampede.

I kept my back to the wall and kept moving to the right, toward the private rooms. That was my best guess for where Delilah had first joined Yamaoto.

I reached the corner of the room and started moving forward. Here and there small flares of light were appearing as the relatively cool-headed took out lighters and turned on cell phones. Come on, come on, I thought. I was running out of time.

I reached the first private room and tried the door. It swung open. Empty.

From somewhere in front of me, I heard a man shout in Japanese, 'The emergency exit is stuck!'

A woman cried out, 'What if there's a fire?'

And that was all it took. Everyone charged, mostly toward the front, but some, disoriented in the dark, went the wrong way and collided with the others. People tripped and fell over one another. The ones on the ground, their faces kicked and fingers stepped on, started screaming, and the screams fed the panic.

I heard Dox in my ear. 'You all right, man? Delilah, can you talk?'

'I'm good, I'm in,' I said, moving. 'Stay put., Cover the entrance.'

'Roger that,' he said. There was nothing from Delilah.

I made it to the second private room. Empty, like the first.

The booths, the booths, I thought. I kept going, as fast as I could while keeping my back to the wall. I knew there were four bodyguards in the room, and I scanned for them constantly, but in the chaos I couldn't spot them.

A man came stumbling toward me, his arms pawing the air in front of him. I shoved him to the side and he spilled to the floor with a wail.

The blocked emergency exit was just ahead, the booths along the wall to its left. I moved closer, still scanning. There, in front of the nearest booth, some kind of pileup on the floor, and…

There were the bodyguards, two of them, guns out, facing the room, looking sightlessly for the threat.

I cut left to the nearest row of seating surrounding the bar, avoiding stumbling, howling patrons, scanning as I moved. I hopped down onto one of the benches, wanting some cover in case anyone trained on my muzzle flashes and returned fire. I braced the gun on top of the back of the bench and put the laser on the first bodyguard's head.

Pffft. The man quivered and sank to the ground.

The flash was reduced by the suppressor. The other guy didn't see it, or if he saw it he didn't know what it meant. And the reduced muzzle report was eclipsed by the shouting all around us. The man stood there, still looking around, probably not even realizing his partner was now dead on the floor.

Pffft. I dropped him, too, another head shot.

I scrambled over to the opposite side of the bench, in case anyone else had tracked my muzzle flashes. There were still two bodyguards in the room, plus Yamaoto, Kuro, Big Liu, and Big Liu's associate.