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Psycho?
    To this question, he fell asleep, waking only
upon touching down.
    This time Ann did not meet him; he had
forbidden it, concerned that their mutual enemies might target them
together. Better that he use his skills to make his stealthy way
alone.
    Pulling on a reflective vest and a ball cap,
he held some cheap red ear protectors under his arm as he exited
the plane. Instead of walking up the ramp, he spoke a quiet word in
the ear of the short Asian man guarding the small emergency
stairway at the jetway’s articulated corner. The worker handed him
an airport badge.
    Spooky walked through the “authorized
personnel” door, clipped on the badge and slipped on the headgear
as he descended the steps. Sauntering across the tarmac, he was now
indistinguishable from the dozens of ground crew that scurried here
and there, conducting the airport’s business.
    Sticking to the secure pathways, he
eventually exited the terminal in front, and took off the badge,
vest and ear guards, shoving them under his arm. He ditched them in
a nearby dustbin when the cab dropped him off at a corner near one
of Direct Action’s clandestine offices.
    Glancing around, he had a feeling of
something out of place – perhaps of someone observing him closely.
Smoothly he adjusted his cap in a nearby storefront window, using
it as a mirror. It allowed him to spot a set of observers in a car
just pulled up across the street.
    Must have made me after all, and followed me
from the airport.
    Turning to his right, he stutter-stepped,
then performed a rear-march without pausing as he saw two more men
coming down the sidewalk, hands beneath their coats. The about-turn
gained him nothing, however, as two more came from that direction.
A quick spin spotted at least a dozen more closing in.
    He thought he might be able to disable
several and get away, but the guns they undoubtedly carried would
cause chaos in the streets. While he did not care terribly about
innocent death, he loathed the idea of making the evening news, and
cameras looked down upon them from high on the walls. For someone
who lived his life in the shadows, there had to be a better
way.
    Hurrying into the store, a popular coffee
shop, he slipped through the press of patrons and out the back,
into the alley. As he stepped out the door, he saw the eyes of a
strangely built man with a hoodie gaze at him from a metal
face.
    Then he felt a noose settle over his
head.
    Surprise did not stop him from reacting
instantly as the loop closed with machine speed. Reaching up as it
began to jerk skyward, he tightened his hands to keep his head from
being ripped right off his shoulders, and then jackknifed his body
to reach upward with his feet to grasp the cable like a circus
acrobat.
    Now looking up vertically along the line, he
saw a man holding a winch control lever, gazing down at him with
grim purpose from an opened window. Bereft of weapons, Spooky had
only one choice.
    Upside-down, he climbed like a gymnast with
his hands alone. Nano-infused power allowed him to gain at least
three meters, but the cable’s circle around his neck did not loosen
enough to release him.
    As he approached the winch and man, he saw
only one chance to survive in literally one piece. Making a loop
with the available slack, he grasped it with one hand like a cowboy
with a lasso, and as his feet reached the upper window frame, he
dropped the circle over the man’s head.
    Now his attacker had a dilemma. Continue
taking up the cable, and the winch would pull his own head off
first. Or, stop the winch and try to free himself.
    He chose the latter, the only rational
decision for a human being.
    As the man struggled with the noose around
his neck, Spooky arched his body into the window to place his feet
on the floor, then he kicked his assailant in the gut as hard as he
could. He could feel organs rupture as his curled-back toes dug
deep, tearing skin and ripping muscle.
    Spooky’s triumph was short-lived, however, as
bullets