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“Wait,” Kashimora pleaded. “It was Han.”
“Han who?”
“Walter Han.”
“Is he Yakuza?”
“No,” Kashimora said. “He’s a Chinese businessman. Very wealthy.”
Kurt pressed, though there was little time to do so. “Why would a businessman hire an assassin?”
“I don’t know.”
Kurt let a little of the rope out.
“I swear it,” Kashimora shouted. “Now give me the pills.”
Flashlights were probing around down below as security members tried to figure out what had gone wrong with the lights. Time for questions had run out. Kurt dropped the pills over the side. “You’ll find them in the arena,” he said, “have a nice trip down.”
With that, he knocked Kashimora’s foot from the railing. The heavy mobster, still entangled in the rope, fell, but slowly, as he was balanced out by Joe’s weight. He hit the ground with a soft thud, freed himself and immediately began looking for the orange pills.
Up above, Kurt and Akiko helped Joe over the railing.
“Thanks for the lift,” Joe said. “Did I see someone else dropping down the other side or am I hallucinating?”
“Just getting rid of some deadweight,” Kurt said.
“Deadweight and our ticket out of here,” Akiko said.
Joe stared at her and blinked. “Akiko? That guy must have hit me harder than I thought.”
“I’ll explain later,” Kurt said. “First, we need to create a distraction. Give me that fire extinguisher.”
Akiko picked up a red-painted tank and handed it over to Kurt. It was a dry-chemical fire extinguisher. Kurt pulled out the cotter pin, compressed the handle and tossed the extinguisher over the edge. It fell in what seemed like slow motion, trailing white vapor and hitting the arena below like a bomb.
“Fire!” Akiko yelled in Japanese. “Fire!”
The flashlights down below converged on the billowing cloud. In the dim glow, it looked like smoke. The nervous crowd erupted into chaos and people began running in every direction.
“Let’s go,” Kurt said.
They moved along the catwalk and climbed through the access door in the far wall. From there, they entered a maintenance tunnel. At a Y-shaped junction, they turned right, found another door and pushed out into the night.
By now, the lights were coming on behind them. People were rushing out every door. Cars were headed for the main gate.
“I don’t suppose you brought a car?” Kurt said to Akiko. “Maybe one of those classic automobiles from Kenzo’s collection?”
“No,” she said. “But we could steal one.”
Kurt looked toward the main gate. There was too much commotion. The security guards were out and the driveway was turning to gridlock.
“Can’t risk it,” Kurt said. “They’ll be looking at every car that leaves the premises. We need to exit without saying our good-byes. Follow me.”
He led them away from the structure and out into the dark of the ornamental garden.
“They may have cameras out here,” Joe said.
“No one left in the security bull pen to watch them,” Kurt replied. “But let’s get to the fence and get over it as soon as possible.”
