Home   |   Sailing    |   Excerpts    |   Books    |   Stories    |   Reviews    |   About Jan    |   Interview    |   Dedication    |   Contact


Excerpt One   |   Excerpt Two    |   Excerpt Three    |   Excerpt Four    |   Excerpt Five


Killing was a rush. It was great to be paid to do what he loved.
He slowly closed the gap on the road between the vehicle he drove, a sturdy Dodge Ram pick-up truck and the one ahead of him, a flashy, silver Mercedes Benz.
The car held a man and a woman in the front seat and he had seen them strap a child into a safety seat in the back. He'd been following them since theyd left their home in Cherry Creek. Now that they had all reached this totally deserted spot on the Continental Divide pass, away from the overly populated I-70; his whole plan fell into place. Ad-libbing was his strong suit.
They couldn't have made it any easier for him. The driver had unknowingly colluded in making his assignment easier simply by choosing this route; they hadn't passed or seen another car for over a half an hour. He could not have picked a better place himself, for what he needed to do.
Loveland Pass was hardly ever used, except in the summer and early autumn. It was a treacherous road, as soon as the weather became undependable, no one
used it in the winter; not even when the road was clear and the sky was blue, like it was today.
The man in the luxury sedan was distracted as he drove, apparently in an animated discussion with his wife. She was reaching over the back-seat, probably consoling their kid. Neither of them even glanced at the truck gaining on them. This would be too easy. He began to gradually increase his speed to pass them. At his right thigh, warm in his palm was his gun.
He pulled even with the car and for a split second, the driver glanced over and they made direct eye contact; and in that one instant, before the trigger was expertly squeezed, he had known what this was about and had foreseen with horror, what was about to happen to him.
The dead-on bullet entered his right eye socket and exited his skull, taking most of his brain matter with it. With a simple easing up on the gas pedal and a considered bump of the assassin's right front bumper; he launched the victim's car over the ledge.
He slowed, backed up a little and parked on the edge of the road, directly above where the other vehicle had landed forty feet below. It had bounced and rolled several times, turning it into a twisted mangled chunk of silver metal, which no longer resembled its sleek predecessor.
Placing a second perfectly placed bullet into the gas tank, he guaranteed the vehicles explosion. He enjoyed his handy work far below him. His aim had been exact. He stood and appreciated the beauty erupting below. Flames licked upward with orange and blue tipped crackles and red-fired spits of disdain. The scrub-brush and ground covers burst spontaneously into yellow and white balls of combustion. Dry and dead in the winter, all the vegetation surrounding the car conspired to obliterate any trace of the inhabitants.
This hadn't been as hands on, as he might have preferred, but it had been effective. He'd met the criteria of the assignment perfectly.