The Project 02 - The Lance

a pistol, set it down again.
    "You serious about him?"
    Selena picked up one of her targets. Round holes in the black.
    "He's still in love with Megan," she said.

CHAPTER FIVE

    Back in her rooms at the Mayflower, Selena dressed in a yellow sport bra and workout pants. She put on a light over shirt to cover her holster and a pair of running shoes. Rule one at the Project: never go anywhere without your gun. Time to go for a run, go to the gym, clear her mind.
    She exited the building and headed for DuPont Circle. She didn't see the blond man across the street taking pictures of her with a telephoto lens. She ran along the busy streets, dodging traffic, feet pounding on the pavement, the sweat building, waiting for the burn. She ran, circled back, slowed, came to the gym. She went inside.
    The place was cool with air conditioning. Filters tried to take away the odors of testosterone and sweat. The A/C couldn't quite pull it off. There was a faint, sour smell of deodorant and mildew in the air. She walked over to a heavy stationary punching bag. She paused in front of the bag, closed her eyes and centered herself, as she'd been taught. She opened her eyes and began hitting it, quick jabs, picking up speed until her arms were pistons, quick blurs of motion. Like a striking cobra. Or whatever snake was so fast, the motion blurred and you were down before you knew what had happened.
    She began throwing side kicks, leg straight out, heel extended, balanced so the full strength of her body traveled down the bone and into the bag. The heavy bag rocked and shuddered with each blow.
    She thought about Nick. She loved his hard, scarred body, the way he took her. But he never relaxed, even after they'd made love. He always acted like he expected something to jump out at him. He never stopped watching, observing. His gray eyes were always moving. He never sat with his back to a door or window. He always walked away from walls. He always carried a pistol.
    She did too, now. She felt the hard shape moving against her hip.
    Damn him. The fury of her kicks increased. She forced herself to slow down, to focus. Being with Nick was like being with two or three different people. He was moody as hell. He got headaches and sometimes he had a far away look in his eyes like no one was home. Relationship, as in a real relationship with a woman, was like a foreign concept to him. At least as far as she was concerned.
    Then there were those nightmares. She'd asked him about them. He dreamed about Afghanistan, where a child threw a grenade that almost killed him.
    He dreamed about things that hadn't happened yet. It was something passed down in his genes. Sometimes the dreams came true, although not always the way he thought they would. It was weird, beyond weird, spooky.
    He dreamed of his dead fiancée. Sometimes when they were in bed she felt like there was a third person in there with them. Megan. All Selena really knew about her was her name.
    Thirty minutes later she was back in her rooms. She stripped off her sweat stained clothes and headed for the shower. She stood under the stream and let the hot water run down. She held her face under the shower and ran her fingers through her the hair while the water beat on her breasts.
    She stepped out of the shower and toweled herself off. She stood naked and considered her body. Five ten, a taut hundred and forty pounds. She wasn't into the anorexic thing. She worked hard to keep herself in shape. It let her do things that made life interesting, like sky diving and scuba, her martial arts.
    She looked in the mirror, touched her face, the high cheekbones, brushed a wisp of hair away from her forehead. She turned on the dryer and thought about the Project while she mussed her hair.
    Before she'd met Harker, she'd consulted with NSA and worked the academic circuit. She was a world class expert on ancient and oriental languages. She was more than accomplished in martial arts. She was rich. She could jump out of airplanes and hit the center of a pistol target from fifty yards. She could run m ost men into the ground. She could do most anything she wanted to. And she had been bored.
    Before the Project, life had been predictable. A lecture. A consulting assignment. A translation. Then she'd met Nick and Elizabeth Harker and found herself caught up in a world where people tried to kill her.
    Now she was part of the team. Now she carried a Glock .40 mm in a fast draw holster instead of a pen. She was