Her Secret Service (Jane Roe 1), Jason Letts [story reading .txt] 📗

“Pull over when we get to the interior road where we started from,” she said. After another couple of miles of winding road, they returned to the intersection of the loop road and the one leading down to the main cabin. When Jane popped the door open, Diwecki jerked his head in her direction.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll give it a shot. I keep myself in pretty good shape, though it’s always been running,” she said with a smile. She wasn’t nearly dressed properly for endurance exercise, but at least on a bike she figured she wouldn’t have to contend with so much bounce for wearing the wrong bra.

“You’re not qualified…” he said, and Jane shot him a hard look, cutting him off.

“I completed the Criminal Investigator Training Program and 18-week Special Agent Training Course just like you did. I can probably brush up on the required 10-minute medicine and emergency first aid faster than they can whip themselves into shape. Unless you want to get on a bike yourself it seems worth a shot,” she said, adding under her breath as she closed the door, “as long as I can ride fast enough.”

It took a little while for the riders to finish making it around the loop. Evans had in fact decided to turn around partway through. When he coasted back to where they had gathered, Jane told him to get off. Dedan and another guy had recovered enough to do another lap, and Jane wondered if she’d only end up embarrassing herself in front of them. But it was a new challenge and she wasn’t going to back down.

But for this kind of riding, getting going wasn’t as easy as simply sitting on the seat and pushing against the pedals. The task seemed a little more daunting when Evans took off his clipless pedal shoes that would lock her feet onto the bike.

“If you’ve never used these before,” Dedan said, “they allow you to generate force with both feet all the way through your strides, not just when you’re pushing the pedal down. Lock in with one foot, push off and start rolling, then click in the other foot.”

Jane nodded. The flashy yellow and blue shoes were too big, so she tied them extra tight and still wondered if they’d stay on. Helmet on, she adjusted the height of the seat, looked out at the open roadway in front of her, and took a deep breath. It wasn’t like she’d never ridden a bike before, but doing it well enough hadn’t ever meant she’d be on the front lines protecting the president of the United States for a change.

As instructed, she swung one leg over the bike and secured one shoe into the clip, practicing splaying her heel to disengage the shoe. Once she got the hang of it, she felt ready to get going.

“Last one around the loop is a rotten egg,” she said, snapping her right foot into place and preparing to push off with her left.

As she got up on the bike and began balancing, she struggled to get her left shoe snapped onto the clip as her momentum slowed. Just as she’d gotten it the bike teetered over sideways, sending her flat against the hard blacktop.

“Oof!”

Some of the other guys chuckled, but this only made Jane want to get it right and beat them more. She had a scrape around her left ankle and would probably end up with a bruise along her left arm, but she’d had worse. Once she’d gotten back up, she took another sharp look at the clips before making another attempt.

With one foot locked in and then the other, she was able to get going with only a little bit of wobbling, then she immediately had to contend with finding the right gear and keeping herself moving forward. The pace car was on the move and so were the other agents riding with her, but she focused on getting into a comfortable position bent over the frame of the bike with her arms forward and pumping her thighs.

Within a mile she felt like she was able to ride comfortably, and even though she wasn’t going particularly faster than anyone else she got into a rhythm taking the turns and listening to the wheels spin. Like when she ran, riding made it easier for her to think. Other than chuckling to herself over how some of these guys should’ve realized that there was more equipment in the gym than just the weights, as usual her mind was on her work and how she’d need to be riding and keeping the president safe at the same time.

Jane glanced out into the woods here and there, and it seemed immediately apparent how unlikely an attack would come from somebody hiding out between the trees on the minuscule chance the president rode by. No one would know. That was the advantage of not publicizing Morrin’s training rides, and it was the same reason why she figured the smartest way to attack the president would be to never mention it beforehand at all.

But there were always threats and warnings that gave the Secret Service a window to foil any attack on the president. That was because the threats were often more about attracting attention and instilling fear, and it was difficult for them to know how serious any of them were.

They were coming up to that big hill, and Jane looked at the long incline and took a deep breath as she pushed forward.

Since that threat against the president on the internet got some press, it was like people claiming they were going to kill the president started popping up like weeds. The new president’s honeymoon was over, and Nathan Carr and the investigative division were constantly identifying and responding to new threats. The warnings, the psychiatric referrals, and the criminal prosecutions, they were getting all of it in a way that as strange as it might sound was normal.

But as