22 December—4:15 p.m. (Mountain Time)
Denver, Colorado
Layla cranked her head around and glimpsed the chair lift that had brought her to the top of Ridge. She pulled her goggles over her eyes and smiled at her friend. “Do you always do what you’re told?” She drove her ski poles into the snow and pushed off, propelling her body down the slope.
Abigail glanced at the chair lift and saw the two men who had been shadowing both her and Layla the entire day. The men had their ski poles in one hand, while holding onto the chair lift with the other, preparing to jump off and coast away before the next group of skiers disembarked. Abigail was hesitant to ditch the men, but her fear of being labeled a ‘chicken’ superseded her reluctance. She spotted Layla, her outline getting smaller by the second. Abigail dug her poles into the snow and leaned forward, gaining momentum as fast as she could.
Picking up speed, Abigail felt her heart beating faster. Closing the distance between her and her friend, she could feel her pulse pounding in her head. Her stomach was in knots. Her muscles convulsed. She had never done anything like this before. What’s dad going to do? She drew up behind Layla and watched her friend slow before taking a hard left turn and zipping between two trees, past a boundary sign. Abigail twisted her hips to the left and followed.
Gliding down a narrow path, trees on either side of them, the girls made a sharp right and headed down a virgin trail, closed to skiers. The snow was fluffy and flew into the air as Layla and Abigail’s skis floated across the surface. Abigail was reveling in the cushion of powder beneath her skis. She followed Layla around a curve in the trail. Taking the curve, Abigail stole a quick look over her left shoulder and saw two tiny specks of color; the ski jackets of the two men who had been with the girls all day. A long way back, the men disappeared from sight, when she went deeper into the curve. Whipping her head around, she saw Layla had stopped, and was staring at a person sprawled on the trail. Abigail slowed before pulling alongside her friend and performing a hockey stop, her parallel skis digging in and throwing snow ahead of the girls. She placed her goggles on her forehead. Her cheeks were bright red. Visible puffs of air shot out from her mouth, while she tried to catch her breath. “What happened?”
Layla shrugged. “I don’t know. I came around the bend and saw him at the last moment. If I hadn’t seen him, I’d have taken a nasty spill.”
“Is he all right?”
“He hasn’t moved, since I first saw him.”
Abigail used her ski poles to loosen the bindings of her skis before sticking the poles in the snow. Stepping out of her skis, she approached the man. He was lying on his left side, facing away from her. He had one ski attached to his boot, but the other ski and his poles were further down the trail. She could see he had taken a hard fall. She knelt behind him. “Sir, are you okay?” The man did not respond. She put her hands on his right arm and gently shook him. “Can you hear me, sir?” She heard him groan and mumble under his breath. She leaned closer. “I didn’t hear you, sir. What did you say?” Abigail’s left ear was alongside the man’s right cheek. She strained to hear his broken voice. Closing her eyes to help her ears focus on his words, she never saw the man roll onto his back. She felt a gloved hand slip between her body and right arm and clamp onto her upper arm. She jerked her upper body away, but his grip held her close. She sensed a slight prick on the right side of her neck. Seconds later, her vision dimmed and the world around her was reduced to a small, dark circle. Before she lost consciousness, Abigail heard a muffled scream from behind her. Layla.
...
Thirty seconds earlier…
Dressed in white and hidden among the trees, the man watched the two girls whoosh past his position. A few moments later, further up the trail, he saw the two men who were following the girls. The men were approximately seventy-five meters away. The one in the lead was ten to fifteen meters ahead of his partner. They were skiing as fast as they could, trying to catch the girls.
The man closed his left eye and put his right eye to the scope of the rifle. He was careful to leave enough room, so the rifle’s recoil did not send the scope backward into his eye. He centered the crosshairs of the scope on the second skier’s head and breathed deeply, releasing half the air. His right index finger hovered in front of the trigger of the rifle, while he tracked his prey. He touched the trigger and applied steady rearward pressure, until the weapon jumped backward into his shoulder. The rifle’s sound suppressor made the rapport of the twenty-two magnum cartridge barely audible. He saw his target go down into a twisted mass of arms and legs, rolling and flopping head over heels down the trail.
The man swung the rifle and lined up the other skier, who was oblivious to his partner’s demise. Repeating the procedure, the man dropped the second skier. Instead of bouncing and flopping, the skier fell onto his back and slid down the trail, stopping twenty meters away.
The sniper stood and emerged from his hiding place. Ascending the hill, he came up to the first felled skier. Raising the rifle to his shoulder, he put the muzzle almost against the man’s head and pressed the trigger twice. He ran up the hill and shot the other man in the head two times before performing a three hundred and sixty-degree scan around his position. Once he was satisfied no one had seen anything, he spun around and hurried down the hill.