As we walked through the lobby, I hoped that the undercover agents wouldn’t be as obvious to the killer as they were to me. The janitor emptying a quarter-filled trash can. The extra barman, who did nothing but wipe the counter and polish glasses. The couple lingering in a T-intersection, talking but never looking at each other. Still, if the killer did “make” them, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. He might realize he didn’t have a chance.

Next, Jack and I scoped out all the potential blind spots—places we’d pick for a hit. We started with the bathrooms. The moment I walked in, I knew it was covered, by an agent playing washroom attendant, pumping lotion onto a matron’s hands and apologizing when the squirt dribbled onto her shoe instead. Oh, the joys of undercover work.

Despite the on-duty agent, I gave the bathroom a once-over, seeing it with a hitman’s eye. No closets, no windows, the dividers too low to crawl under, the stalls too small to hide in. By the time I finished using the toilet, I was satisfied enough to strike this “blind spot” off my list.

I scrubbed my hands, my mind fully aware of my surroundings yet skipping forward, planning my next move.

He was here. My target. In this very building.

I was on the trail, his scent in the wind. The real thing. Out there. Waiting for me.

And while maybe that should have had me as puppy-dog excited as Jack seemed to think I was, I felt calm. Perfect control, the kind I’d never felt off the shooting range. Everything in focus. Sharp focus—smelling the soap on my hands, hearing the squeak of shoes on the linoleum, seeing the flash of red as the woman beside me painted on fresh lipstick.

I looked at myself in the mirror. No signs of stress—no beading sweat, no parted lips, breathing hard. Just a woman enjoying her evening out and looking forward to the pleasure yet to come.

I turned to the agent at the door, passed her a smile and a tip, and walked out.

Grace

Grace

In the movies, things were always so much more dramatic. Put this scene in some Hollywood blockbuster, and there would be a deviously elaborate solution to the challenge he faced, maybe explosives hidden inside a seat, rigged to detonate when the soprano hit her first C. In real life, sometimes even the most difficult situations had solutions that were almost laughably simple.