Sentosa Cove, Singapore

A stiff bow was the way Gregory greeted all of his countrymen. However with Masiki he was never formal until now. She would suspect something between them had changed and that was what he intended to communicate. He smiled the second he saw her eyes.

Masiki trembled under a sleeveless dress with red and yellow horizontal stripes. It might have been the air conditioning. She was prone to chills. Or maybe she knew what was coming. In Japanese he said, “You must be cold.” He pulled a navy yacht club blazer out of a closet and gently draped it across her shoulders. He almost rested his hands on each of her shoulders to comfort her, but remembered who he was, and pulled his hands away. 

Any language other than Japanese carried no meaning to Masiki. In English, he said, “It’s time for me to tie up loose ends.” 

“Shi ha rikai shite i masen?” Masiki asked.

“Of course, you don’t understand but you know too much about me.” Then in Japanese he said, “Masiki, you have served me well for three years.” His eyes darted to the left and up as he paused. Then his lips pulled apart exposing his bright white teeth and he continued his attention toward his guest. “Ah, no, it has been four years! When I found you, you were scared and alone with no future. I took you in,” he laughed and added, “It’s fitting. You never did like water travel. Here we are, back on my beautiful yacht. Remember when we picked it up in New Zealand? Two months of cruising, fishing, entertaining. You only liked the parties.” And switching back to English he said, “Oh, well, the parties are over.

“Your act at Bella’s apartment was brilliant. I owe you a debt of gratitude once again. You and Mathew did a perfect job. It’s your combined action that got her to run to her mother. I’m so sorry you had to deal with Mathew’s moral shortcomings. But again, you dealt with that with the expertise I admire and the loyalty I will always appreciate. Would you like a drink?” She was still shaking, and she looked concerned. “It might be just the thing to warm you from the inside.”

He poured some warm sake into a Western-sized tumbler and handed it to her. 

She sipped it and seemed to relax. With her head bowed down, looking to the floor, she said, “I am loyal. You saved me from a fate worse than death. I owe you my life.” Then she looked up at him and a smile erupted across her face. “It’s been a long time since we’ve partied.” Her eyes widened as her jaw relaxed, exposing the slight gap between her top front teeth and she offered a seductive pose. “It’s been too long.” 

“No. I’m afraid not. Things didn’t work out as planned on the seastead. It should have been a straightforward job. They don’t even have police there. At least Amber did the honorable thing and died in her failure. Your relative, Rieko, however, is costing me. The security of the private court system is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Killing her before her testimony is turning out to be difficult.”

Gregory closed the short distance and punched her in the chest. He grabbed the blazer and let her body fall out from under it. She was moaning but not enough to justify a second punch. He owed her one last experience. 

The sliding door opened easily and seeing the two game chairs made his mind run wild with possibilities, but he settled on the memories of countless big game fish being wrestled onboard. The shades were down around the fighting cockpit of the hundred and twenty-foot oversized sportsfisherman. Gregory centered his thoughts on the task at hand and dragged Masiki across the threshold onto the teak deck. There was no fight in her and he sensed how little she was as her feet dragged, unresponsive. With one hand he lifted the lid of the fish locker and with the other attached to the back of her dress, he spun her body into it and walked away. 

When Gregory returned with a Sujihiki knife, he was surprised to see she had reacquired her senses and tried to raise her body up on the smooth bottom of the deep locker. Without a word, he reached down into the locker, drew the nine-inch blade across her neck, and watched the blood spill into the drain. He tossed the knife overboard and released the lid. There was enough light to carefully inspect his hands and clothes. A satisfied smile emerged, and he said, “Not a drop.”