I took a quick walk past the front of the house. Everything looked the same as it had when I’d been here just forty-five minutes earlier. A hit of adrenaline radiated out from my gut. I went down the side street. All clear. I breathed slowly in and out, willing myself to stay calm, stay relaxed.
I hit the remote-control button and watched the door slowly ascend. I saw the car I had glimpsed earlier — a Mercedes, this one a full-sized sedan, black. The other space was empty, some oil and transmission fluid stains in the concrete. Obviously, there were ordinarily two cars parked here, and one of them was out now. My chances of finding Fukumoto alone would never be better. I stepped inside and hit the button again, and while the door descended, I pulled the gloves on, moved up to the wall alongside the door to the house, and got out the knife. I didn’t know where Fukumoto would be inside, or whether he would hear the garage door. But if he came out to investigate, I wanted to be ready.
The garage door closed, and I was suddenly enveloped in darkness. My eyes were used to the bright light outside, and it would take a few minutes for my night vision to kick in. Shit, I hadn’t thought of that. Well, nothing to do but wait. My heart was thudding and I concentrated on breathing slowly, in and out, managing my nervousness the way I had in combat.
There was actually a decent amount of light seeping in along the seams of the garage door, and it didn’t take long before I could make things out. Besides the Mercedes, there wasn’t much. Car wax and other cleaning products on a shelf. Weights, piled up in a corner and looking as though they hadn’t been used in years. Some tools hanging on the wall — screwdrivers, a saw, pliers. A nice-sized claw hammer.
I darted over to the wall, grabbed the hammer, and returned to my position alongside the door. Keeping the knife and the hammer in one hand, I tried the knob with the other, slowly and gently. I was expecting it to be locked, and was prepared to pick it. But I was pleasantly surprised when it turned.
I inhaled and exhaled deeply, then pulled the door open a crack. Snuck a quick peek, then jerked my head away. Fragments of a kitchen. Other than that, nothing. I looked again. No one was there. I opened the door a fraction wider and snuck another quick peek. Again, no one.
I dropped down and opened the door wide, scanning, ready to slam the door and fall back if anyone opened fire. Nothing but a large eat-in kitchen, neat, clean, and empty.
I stuck my head inside for an instant and pulled back. The quick peek revealed a doorway to the left and another straight ahead. A dining room and living room, I guessed.
I stuck my head in a third time, and this time held the position, listening. I thought I heard voices, but from far off and I couldn’t make out what they were saying. People? A radio or television, maybe?
I eased the door closed, crept across the kitchen, and stopped alongside the doorway to what I guessed was the living room. Again, I paused to listen intently. I could hear the voices slightly better from here. They were male, and I was pretty sure they were live, not television or radio, but I still couldn’t make out what they were saying.
I snuck a peek. A staircase to the right; an empty corridor and an open door at the end of it. The voices were coming from there.
I crept down the corridor, my back to one wall, scanning in all directions, planning contingencies, mapping escape routes. There was probably a science to securing a house and I promised myself I would learn it, but in the meantime skills honed in the jungle were translating reasonably well. The carpet was plush and my footsteps were silent. I could hear the voices more clearly now — two of them. It sounded like a management meeting, something about putting a new guy in charge of collections. But I barely processed the words — it was the tone I was keyed on, and the tone I overheard was even, involved, engaged. They were paying attention to each other and their conversation, not to anything outside the room. I held the knife in my left hand and the hammer in my right. I took a step, stopped, listened. Repeat. And again.
When I was ten feet away, one of those steps caused a floorboard to squeak. Loudly.
I froze. The conversation I’d been overhearing stopped. Dead silence. Not another word, not even a “What was that?” or a mild “Did you hear something?”
The decision happened instantaneously, automatically. If there had been anything other than silence, I might have paused to wait them out, to see if there would be an opportunity to get a little closer and gain additional surprise. But that absolute silence — it felt like certainty, like preparation, like hard men reaching for weapons. It felt like if I didn’t move now, I’d cede all the initiative. The only question was attack, or fall back.
I chose attack.
Juiced on adrenaline, I sprinted forward and burst into the room, bellowing a wild kiyai. A drawing room of some kind, and four men, all in suits. Two seated on either side of a coffee table at the far end of the room, two in chairs closer to me. One of the two at the far end I recognized from the file photo as Fukumoto. The other was a similar age and looked like management. The third and fourth looked like security — younger, punch-permed, their jackets tight over muscular physiques. And Muscle One and Muscle Two were already coming to their feet, as I had imagined, and reaching under their jackets.
There’s a reason battle cries are as old as war. Whether Comanche, or rebel yell, or banzai, or whatever, an atavistic primate roar can be tremendously intimidating and disorienting to the enemy. So yelling again like a madman, I launched the hammer at Muscle One, the one to my left. He was spooked by my sudden appearance and my screaming, and too focused on trying to access his weapon even to flinch. The hammer sailed into his face with a tremendous crack of metal on bone. I was already turning and charging at Muscle Two. His eyes were bulging in a sign of near panic and he was back-pedaling directly away from me. About a decade later, a guy named Dennis Tueller in Utah would show that inside twenty-one feet against a knife, trying to get a gun out is typically a losing bet, especially if you’re backing straight up rather than getting off the line. This guy wouldn’t be around for the study. He did manage to get out his pistol, but I slapped my free hand over the muzzle and turned it away, at the same instant plunging the knife into his belly. He shrieked and jerked back and I stabbed him again. And again. He gave up the gun and tried to turn away. I was all the way back in the war now, charging an ambush, a demon, a berserker, a fucking killing machine. Muscle Two collapsed and fetaled up. I pointed the gun at his head and tried to pull the trigger. What the fuck? I looked — a Browning Hi Power, cocked and locked. No wonder Muscle Two hadn’t gotten off a shot, even to the side. I thumbed the safety down and shot him in the head. I strode over to Muscle One. He was splayed on his back, blood flowing from a gash in his forehead. I fired directly into the gash.
Fukumoto and the other guy were on their feet now, but there was no way out of the room except through me, and neither wanted to charge me first. I advanced into the room, the gun up, my teeth clenched, snarling like a werewolf.
Fukumoto raised his hands and screamed, “Nande temae?” What do you want? I shot him in the face and he went down. The other guy braced to try to run past me, but I was already swiveling. The first shot hit him in the neck. He spun away and fell. I moved forward and shot him in the back of his head. I went back to Fukumoto and put another round in his head, too, then did the same for Muscle One and Muscle Two. I paused, panting. The room stank of gun smoke and blood. And shit — someone had lost control of his bowels. For an instant, I didn’t know where I was, the carnage and the smell all dragging me back to the jungle, but my eyes telling me I was in somebody’s goddamn drawing room.