A Click Away

A CLICK AWAY BOOK 1 IN DAN RADFORD THRILLER SERIES WES ALLEN Copyright © 2023 by Wes Allen All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For Allison. Your encouragement is deeply appreciated. FREE PREQUEL If you have not read the Kurt Harm Thriller Series, you can start with a FREE copy of the series prequel … just sign up here. Get My Free Copy of “The Village” CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 A Kind Request Just Saying … Free Prequel 1 I hadn’t been out here since the beginning of fall. A lot changed in a few months in the Rocky Mountains. I pushed my F-150 hard up the backside of a secluded mountain known only by locals. The thick tire chains stopped me from speeding. Fresh powder began to fall from the dark gray sky. The temperatures were in the single digits. Just the way I planned it. The drive up to this unincorporated area just outside Vail was a two-hour hike from my house, with the final leg up the mountain taking half of that time. The dirt road was covered with pine needles and a quickly thickening coat of snow. It was wide enough for my truck to squeeze through, but it left no wiggle room. If I took my eyes off the road for a second, I’d be in the local paper’s obituary section. The police scanner was set on low, but I still managed to pick up on local activity. I turned it up a little louder. Something about a bear in an elderly woman’s yard. Nothing that concerned me. I turned the radio off and parked the car to the side of the dirt road. I had to walk the final three hundred yards up to the peak. I stepped out and slipped on my head-to-toe fatigues. My face burned as the wind howled at these higher elevations. I jumped in a narrow ditch and low-crawled up to the mountaintop. Down in the valley, there was a swath of snow-covered pine trees, a few massive boulders, a swollen river, and a paved road with very few people driving on it. It was that road that would be the center of my attention today. I dug into position, as my targets would be pulling up at any moment. I’d always been blessed with genuine, committed friendships, but you could only have one best friend. That honor was reserved for my Barrett MRAD. It had never left my side since we first met ten years ago. The bolt-action sniper rifle was a highly accurate long-range weapon. I’d fired other rifles, but nothing came close to the bond I immediately developed with this weapon. Precision was critically important, and my MRAD certainly had it, but comfort and familiarity were the deciding factors when I chose it over the others. I lay in the prone position and held my rifle in the area the targets would be passing through. Although my weapon had the range of nearly one mile, my current targets were only going to be a little over one thousand feet from where I was lying. The wind was picking up and blowing hard to the northeast. Reaching into my upper left pocket, I pulled out a Kestrel weather meter, adjusted accordingly, and waited for my targets to arrive. Controlling your respirations, adjusting appropriately, and accounting for the elements were all part of a sniper’s job. The better you performed those tasks, the more accurate you’d be. More importantly, the more consistent you’d be. I grew up in the higher elevations of western Colorado. My mother died when I was five years old. I had no siblings. My father was a rancher, and a man of few words. When he walked in the door, I’d be lucky to hear him say hello. If he made eye contact with me, it meant I was in trouble. So on the rare occasion that he invited me to hunt with him, I never missed the chance. It was our bonding time. If I hadn’t hunted with him, then I would never have known the man. As time went on, we did a lot of hunting. My old man often said I was a “natural shot.” I wasn’t sure about that, but it made him proud of me, and that was what I was looking for. I took my eye off the scope and scanned the valley. From the corner of my left eye, I saw movement. I looked back through the scope and slowed my breathing down, concentrating on the slow-moving silver Volvo making its way across the lonely road. I never wanted to know exactly when the weapon would fire. Trigger control was an absolute if you were a sniper. I made a habit of shooting between heartbeats. I pulled back, and the first shot went right through the open rear window, nailing the man in the right temple. The second shot hit the exact same position of the woman sitting next to him. The driver screeched to a halt. I quickly folded up my MRAD and took off running down the mountain back to my truck. The dirt road had iced enough that my chains didn’t help much, and I fishtailed down the slope. By the time I made it down to the valley