The ballet is a perfect place to kill someone. The refined elegance of a show distracts audience members, transports them to far-off palaces, deserts, winters, and they are completely unaware of their surroundings. I loved dressing up for it and fitting in. If you play your part you fade into the background… unless of course you find yourself in a lead role.

My knife, perhaps more than myself, would play the true lead role. I wouldn’t last as long as either the blade or the results of my heroic deed. I eyed my target. She was delicately featured—a deceptive biological fact. Her slight form cloaked her obsession with brutalizing her political adversaries until they were driven to hire women like me to do what words could not.

The show was nearing the end. Colorful dancers whirled across the stage. I made my move. I looked at my watch several times in quick succession over the next three minutes. I then stood, walked to the exit with my head down and a cell phone out by my side—an over-committed businesswoman making an early exit to attend to an important call. I played my part with the flavor of past experience.

I ducked into the hallway, silent and vacant, then snuck up to the box where my target was sitting with her security guards. It took all my craft to edge in during the rapturous applause. The knife suddenly went home as I struck from the shadows. Timed perfectly, the lights came up as I slipped back out, momentarily blinding the guards. They roared into action, but it was too late. I was already tucked behind a door. The crowd flowed out and I disappeared among them. Just another woman on the phone after the ballet. Just another dancer following the choreography.