Page 12 of ELITE Protection
“Are you familiar with the Olympic winter sport, biathlon?”
She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms, staring at him for a long minute. She gave him a wicked smile. “So now I’m going to be tested not only for my cross-country endurance, but also for my rifle skills. Care to place a wager on who shoots better?”
“I’m pretty deadly at fifty yards,” he warned.
She leaned in. “I’m still lethal at fifteen hundred yards.” She glanced around and lowered her voice. “I have over one hundred confirmed ISIS kills. How many bad guys have you killed?”
No way. She was pulling his leg. He knew several SEALs who had double-digit confirmed kills, and everyone in the world knew Chris Kyle had over 160 confirmed kills, but Hannah? The small-framed woman sitting across the table from him didn’t look like the cool warrior persona of a sniper. She looked like the daughter of American doctors who enjoyed a good life of skiing at high-end resorts.
He didn’t know whether to believe her or not. One thing was sure, he’d know how well she shot soon enough.
Hannah had insisted they stop by the house so she could pick up her weapons. Isaac got his own and checked in with Guardian Security. Her family was safe; their personal protection was checking in every four hours. The operations center hadn’t noticed any unusual activity around the slope-side house. Feeling confident, they headed toward the training course for the Winter Olympics biathlon.
Luckily, they were the only car in the parking lot.
After the third shooting station, Isaac was beginning to believe Hannah had told him the truth. The woman could shoot. No matter the position, her bullets hit bullseyes. Some snipers he’d known shut out the whole world around them and focused only on the target in the crosshairs. Hannah seemed extremely aware of everything around her as she took aim and released bullets downrange.
The woman was fucking amazing.
Isaac was no sniper, but he had always shot expert. He’d practically been raised with a gun in his hand. His father had taken him hunting since he was old enough to walk. He’d spent hours shooting soda cans off fence posts with the .22 his father had given him for his eighth birthday. A pang of sadness bounced off his heart. That had been the year his mother had died. Two years later, his father didn’t have time for him anymore. He’d been too busy trying to keep his new wife happy.
“Isaac, you’re up.” Hannah’s voice broke through the rough path down memory lane. Thank God.
He kneeled and positioned the rifle to his shoulder. He wasn’t using the .22 long rifle the competition mandated, but instead, he had chosen his M4 a wounded veteran had built for him. Checking the slight wind, he moved the crosshairs a fraction to the left.
Bam.
He’d shot just to the left of center on the first of the five targets. He was dead center by the fifth.
Glancing over at Hannah’s, her first one was a little tiny bit high and to the right, but each one after that was perfect.
Instead of his normal competitive streak rearing its ugly head, Isaac was proud of her. He wanted to go over and sling his arm around her shoulders and tell her how pleased he was, honored even to be shooting was someone of her caliber.
Instead, he simply told her, “Good job.” He stood. “It’s about a kilometer to the next one.”Good job. That’s the kind of thing you say to your dog.He certainly wasn’t scoring any points with her. But, in truth, he didn’t need to score points with Hannah. This wasn’t a date, and she wasn’t his girlfriend, nor could she ever be. This was work. She was the job. He was simply testing the skills of the woman in the stretchy pants that hugged that perfect ass and those long powerful legs.
Isaac slung his gun onto his back and stretched his stride to catch up with Hannah who was already twenty feet in front. He glanced around the shooting area, relatively sure they hadn’t been followed at all that day. They’d been making decisions spontaneously so it wasn’t as though anyone could get ahead of them and set up an ambush.
After hours of fighting temperatures in the low twenties, pushing their bodies to stay vertical while skiing downhill, then competing in their own mini-biathlon, Isaac was ready to call it a day. Hannah had performed far beyond his expectations. She was incredible. Strong. Focused. Yet pleasantly feminine. He had no doubt she would be able to handle a few hours of backcountry tomorrow.
Taking out his phone, Isaac suggested, “Let’s get some burgers and fries to go. Would you be okay with watching a movie tonight?”
Hannah yawned. “That sounds absolutely perfect. I don’t feel like dealing with people right now.” She leaned on her polls and gazed up at the surrounding mountain peaks. “I love it out here. It’s so beautiful and quiet.”
She held Isaac’s gaze. “Thank you for bringing me here. I was fine as long as it was just you and me on the slopes.” She shuddered. “But when we got down to the lodge, I got too anxious. There were way too many people. I didn’t like the way it made me feel.”
Neither did Isaac. Alone on the biathlon course with Hannah made for a perfect afternoon. He called a small grill located in the village and placed their order. It was a few blocks out of the way, but worth the trip according to his local friends. They weren’t wrong.
He and Hannah had entered the house through the lower-level equipment room and put their gear away, wiping everything dry before properly stowing it. In silence, they had wolfed down the burgers at the dining table before Hannah announced she was taking a shower.
Isaac took the opportunity to call the Operations Center at his office. “Anything to report?”
“We had a year-old dark green Jeep Cherokee make three passes very slowly,” the technician on duty reported concisely. “We ran the plates and they checked out okay. It’s a rental from the Bozeman airport. A couple of men from Chicago hitting the slopes for a few days.”
“Contact me if they cruise by again.”
“Will do. Ops Center out.”
Erring on the safe side, Isaac rechecked every door and every window.
