Now You See Her

metal detectors, no security.

Zelvas looked toward the men’s room.

All that coffee will be the death of you, the Ghost thought, as Zelvas walked across the marble floor to the bathroom.

A half-comatose porter, mop in hand, was sloshing water on the terminal floor like a zombie tarring a roof. He didn’t see Zelvas coming.

A puddle of brown water came within inches of the big man’s right foot. Zelvas stopped. “You slop any of that scum on my shoes and you’ll be shitting teeth,” he said.

The porter froze. “Sorry. Sorry, sir. Sorry.”

The Ghost watched it all. Another time, another place, and Zelvas might have drowned the man in his own mop water. But tonight, he was on his best behavior.

Zelvas continued toward the bathroom.

The Ghost had watched the traffic in and out of the men’s room for the past half hour. It was currently empty. Moment of truth, the Ghost told himself.

Zelvas got to the doorway, stopped, and turned around sharply.

He made me, the Ghost thought.

Zelvas looked straight at him. Then left, then right.

He’s a pro. He’s just watching his back.

Satisfied he wasn’t being followed, Zelvas entered the bathroom.

The Ghost stood up and surveyed the terminal. The only uniformed cop in the area was busy giving directions to a young couple fifty feet away.

The men’s room had no door—just an L-shaped entryway that allowed the Ghost to walk in and still remain out of sight.

From his vantage point he could see the mirrored wall over the sinks. And there was Zelvas, standing in front of a urinal, his back to the mirror.

The Ghost silently reached under his poncho and removed his equally silent Glock from its holster.

The Ghost had a mantra. Three words he said to himself just before every kill. He waited until he heard Zelvas breathe that first sigh of relief as he began to empty his bladder.

I am invincible, the Ghost said in silence.

Then, in a single fluid motion, he entered the bathroom, silently slid up behind Zelvas, aimed the Glock at the base of his skull, and squeezed the trigger.

And missed.

Some people are harder to kill than others.

Two

WALTER ZELVAS never stepped up to a urinal unless the top flush pipe was made of polished chrome.

It’s not a perfect mirror, but it’s enough. Even in a distorted image, he could see all he needed to see.

Man. Hand. Gun.

Zelvas whirled on the ball of his right foot and dealt a swift knifehand strike to the Ghost’s wrist just as he pulled the trigger.

The bullet went wide, shattering the mirror behind him. Yet its now-webbed surface remained miraculously intact.

Zelvas followed by driving a cinderblock fist into the Ghost’s midsection, sending him crashing through a stall door.

The Glock went skittering across the tile floor.

The Ghost looked up at the enraged colossus who was now reaching for his own gun.

Damn, the Ghost thought. The bastard is still pissing. Glad I wore the poncho.

He rolled under the next stall just as Zelvas’s first bullet drilled a hole through the stained tile where his head had just been.

Zelvas darted to the second stall to get off another shot. Still on his back, the Ghost kicked the stall door with both feet.

It flew off its hinges and hit Zelvas square on, sending him crashing into the sinks. But he held on to his gun.

The Ghost lunged and slammed Zelvas’s gun hand down on the hard porcelain. He was hoping to hear the sound of bone snapping, but all he heard was glass breaking as the mirror behind Zelvas fell to the floor in huge fractured pieces.

Instinctively, the Ghost snatched an eight-inch shard of broken mirror as it fell. Zelvas head-butted him with his full force, and as their skulls collided the Ghost jammed the razor-sharp glass into Zelvas’s bovine neck.

Zelvas let out a violent scream, pushed the Ghost off him, and then made one fatal mistake. He yanked the jagged mirror from his neck.

Blood sprayed like a renegade fire hose. Now I’m really glad I wore the poncho, the Ghost thought.

Zelvas ran screaming from the bloody bathroom, one hand pressed to his spurting neck and the other firing wildly behind him. The Ghost dove to the floor under a hail of ricocheting bullets and raining plaster dust. A few deft rolls, and he managed to retrieve his Glock.

Jumping to his feet, the Ghost sprinted to the doorway to see Zelvas running across the terminal, a steady stream of arterial blood pumping out of him. He would bleed out in a minute, but the Ghost didn’t have time to stick around and confirm the kill. He raised the Glock, aimed, and then…

“Police. Drop it.”

The Ghost turned. A uniformed cop, overweight, out of shape, and fumbling to get his own gun, was running toward him. One squeeze of the trigger, and the cop would be dead.

There’s a cleaner way to handle this, the Ghost thought. The guy with the mop and every passenger within hearing distance of the gunshots had taken off. The bucket of soapy mop water was still there.

The Ghost put his foot on the bucket and kicked, sending it rolling across the terminal floor right at the oncoming cop.

Direct hit.

The fat cop went flying, ass over tin badge, and slid across the slimy wet marble.

But this is New York: one cop meant dozens, and by now a platoon was heading his way.

I don’t kill cops, the Ghost thought, and I’m out of buckets. He reached under his poncho and pulled out two smoke grenades. He yanked the pins and screamed, “Bomb!”

The grenade fuses burst with a terrifying bang, and the sound waves bounced off the terminal’s marble surfaces like so many billiard balls. Within seconds the entire area for a hundred feet was covered with a thick red cloud that had billowed up from the grenade casings.

The chaos that had erupted with the first gunshot kicked into high gear as people who had dived for cover from the bullets now lurched blindly through the bloodred smoke in search of a way out.

Half a dozen cops stumbled through the haze to where they’d last seen the bomb thrower.

But the Ghost was gone.

Disappeared into thin air.