Walker (In the Company of Snipers Book 21) Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  In the Company of Snipers

  IN THE COMPANY OF SNIPERS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Thank you for reading Walker’s story!

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  About the Author

  WALKER

  IN THE COMPANY OF SNIPERS

  Book 21

  IRISH WINTERS

  COPYRIGHT

  Walker; In the Company of Snipers, Book 21

  Copyright ©2020 by Irish Winters

  All rights reserved

  First Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, dialogues, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Cover design: Kelli Ann Morgan, Inspire Creative Services

  Cover image: Paul Henry Serres Photography, www.paulhenryserres.com

  Interior book design: Bob Houston eBook Formatting

  Editor: Linda Clarkson, Black Opal Editing and Proofreading

  ISBN Paperback: 978-1-7348097-6-3

  ISBN eBook: 978-1-7348097-7-0

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020913407

  In the Company of Snipers

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  For more information about all my books, visit IrishWinters.com.

  IN THE COMPANY OF SNIPERS

  This series revolves around former Marine scout sniper, Alex Stewart, and his covert surveillance company, The TEAM, home-based out of Alexandria, Virginia. An obsessive patriot and workaholic, he created the company to give former military snipers like him, a chance at returning to civilian life with a decent job, security, and a future.

  This is not a serial with each book ending at a cliffhanger. In the Company of Snipers is a collection of passionate love stories involving strong women and men who are tough enough to take on the world alone. Each is a stand-alone read, complete in itself.

  Spoiler alert: Every story contains adult scenes including sexual situations (some explicit), language, and violence. I don’t write sweet romance, so be forewarned.

  Book 1, ALEX, reveals how The TEAM came to be, as well as how Alex met Kelsey, how they fell in love and fought all odds to stay together. Each of the following books is a complete romance in itself, where, in the course of an active TEAM operation, one agent comes face to face with his or her demons. The men and women I write about are all patriots and warriors, dealing with what they’ve lived through or mistakes they’ve made.

  It’s my hope that you will come to realize along with my heroes...

  Love changes everything.

  Chapter One

  The instant he stepped onto the lonesome beach, Walker dropped to his knees, emotionally spent, but damned thankful to be out of the ocean and back in the land of the free. That honored moniker might not apply to him any longer, since he wasn’t exactly free. But this country was still the land of his birth, and to the day he died, he’d be proud to be an American. Still was. Every other time he’d arrived in the States, he’d thanked his lucky stars. Why should this time be any different? No other country on Earth had what America had. Liberty. The pursuit of individual happiness. Inalienable rights. The Constitution he’d fought and damned near died several times for.

  Weary to his bones, he peeled his diving mask off. The ten ton gear bag on his shoulder hit the beach next. He leaned forward, pressed his dry, cracked lips to the damp, fragrant sands of freedom, and whispered the word that was more precious than most: “Home.”

  He held that position on this lonely stretch of beach in the Florida Keys, his eyes closed and his forehead resting on the spot he’d kissed, a silent homage to the Spirit of Liberty and the men and women who’d died for her. Ah, the sweet, sweet smell of US soil. Nothing like it in the world. Dog-tired, he succumbed to the tender emotion of being alive and free. A tear wound its way out of his eye and disappeared into the same sand.

  God, he loved America. Too bad she didn’t love him back.

  With that depressing reminder of who he was, Walker rolled to his butt, and contemplated spending the night where he’d landed. Why not? The beach looked deserted, and by hell, he’d earned a reprieve. But that wasn’t the way this world worked. Only a fool would sleep in the open, and Walker wasn’t that kind of stupid. A lone man was an easy target for riffraff, drunks, seagulls, and the occasional alligator these islands were known for. Besides, the last forty-eight hours had been hell, and he was spent at every level. He needed a decent meal, then two days of sleep.

  Reaching into the large, sodden, yet waterproof bag at his side, he tore into one of the smaller black plastic bags inside and lifted two protein bars and a bottled water up and out. He hated the bars. They were dry, tasteless, and stuck between his teeth, but he was shaking so hard from his long hours of exertion, there was no choice. His blood sugar had to be flatlined; the jitters had already begun. His gut needed something in it right damned now.

  Tired to his core, he stuffed one bar after the other into his mouth, between gulps of just enough water to keep the dense, highly-nutritional mass moving. After the last gulp and swallow, he followed the routine with a couple mints from the tin he’d kept with the bars. At last, the sharp taste of curiously strong cinnamon burst over his tongue. Its powerful, vaporous scent hit his airways. Sometimes the litt
lest things in life made all the other crap bearable, if not worthwhile. Like these little sugar nuggets. They were made in America, too. He popped a couple more to get the taste of the sea and those bars out of his mouth.

  Night was coming on fast. Sunlight had faded over the turquoise ocean, turning it gray, and each wave was now tipped with orange-ish pink foam, as if kissing the sun goodbye.

  It’d been two damned long days of hard swimming. Thankfully, he’d made it. This hundred-mile swim had begun north of Havana, Cuba. Unseen, he’d prepared as much as he could for his journey to Florida. But the ocean had grown more dangerous since the last time he’d made this swim. Walker hadn’t expected the hundred-mile channel between here and there to be rife with so many swarms of poisonous box jellyfish, Mother Earth’s signal that her oceans had become polluted and too warm. The pesky, curious, cold-blooded whitetip sharks were another unexpected surprise. Damned things would as soon bite a man’s foot off, as nibble or taste his phalanges. Walker would know. His dive fins now had deep, serrated toothmarks from those few encounters.

  He’d been lucky he hadn’t set off a feeding frenzy.

  Saltwater was the only constant in this long-distance swim. It never changed, and, as usual, it had seeped into his tightly fitting mask, under his wetsuit, too. Not only was he dead-assed tired, but his skin was dry and burned from too long, too personal contact with the corrosive powers of ocean water. He needed a bar of soap and plenty of clear, running water. A shower’d be nice. Top that off with a thick coat of petroleum jelly he meant to slather everywhere—if he could find a jar.

  But first...

  Walker stashed his empty wrappers and bottle back into his bag, then kicked out of his fins and pulled off his dive boots. Into his waterproof rucksack they went, on top of his garbage, his prized modified, bolt-action SOCOM MK-13 rifle, two pistols, his knife, and what was left of his ammo. And, oh yeah, he’d almost forgotten that hypo of Special K from his last close escape. That he kept in a tiny sealed pocket in his bag. One could never be too careful.

  He’d packaged everything separately in zippered waterproof pouches designed specifically for underwater black ops. Explosives. Blow-out kits. Just enough protein bars to get by. Bottled water. Important stuff like that. Made expressly for SEALs, the bags could handle almost everything. Best of all, they kept every drop of saltwater out.

  Unzipping his suit from neck to hip, he peeled it slowly and methodically over and off his shoulders, then pulled both arms free of their skin-tight sleeves, and folded the suit over his legs. Undressing always hurt in intimate, excruciating ways. Though he knew better, it always felt as if the suit took every last body hair and the topmost layers of epidermis with it. To work, neoprene had to lie flat against a man’s body. And Walker’s suit was the best. It had almost become part of him. Hence the pain of separation.

  He had no SCUBA gear, comm link, or rebreather. This swim had been entirely unscripted, and he’d been unprepared when it began. But that was what guys on the run did. They improvised.

  Climbing to his feet, he stepped out of his suit, then rolled the top and bottoms together, avoiding getting more sand in them. Methodically, he stowed the suit with the rest of his gear. At last down to his swim trunks, he unzipped another waterproof bag, pulled out one more bottled water, and rinsed his mask. The mask went alone into a dry, soft cloth bag to protect its lens, then back into yet another protective bag. SEALs always took care of their gear. Even former SEALs.

  He’d no sooner zipped his bag, when the tiny hairs on the back of his neck prickled to attention. This beach was too open. He wasn’t alone. Time to go.

  “You’re dripping on my sand,” a lazy feminine voice drawled from somewhere within the shaded trees ahead.

  His head snapped on target. There she was. A lone woman. Behind that screen of tall beach grass. Leaned back in an Adirondack chair beneath a gnarly eucalyptus, itself shaded by the lofty pine on its westward side. Which explained why he hadn’t spotted her until now. But where had she come from? Had she been there all along? Why was she here?

  There weren’t any other lights on this tiny island. Yet she wore dark glasses. Day tripper maybe? Or someone sent to take him in? Damn it. She’d been there the whole time, watching him come ashore and undress. Hell, watching everything. His demeanor. His current lack of weaponry. Hell, even where he’d stowed his knife. At least he hadn’t peed on the beach.

  Walker cocked his head, striving to see the stranger better in the diminishing light of day. Her two long, bare legs were crossed, hardly visible from where he stood. One white woven sandal slapped the heel of an extended foot, taunting him. Daring him. But those legs…

  She had to be in a swimsuit to be showing that much leg. Walker licked his chapped lips, pissed that his mind had already gone—there. Up those legs. Between those legs. Hopefully, wishfully, to sweet, sweet heaven. It’d been a long time since he’d been with a real woman. The last one, a wannabe USN wife, a frog hog whose name he refused to remember, didn’t count. Barflies were the same the world over. Shallow. Selfish. Nameless. Users, like him.

  But this mystery gal had attitude. “Your sand? I don’t see any No Trespassing signs.”

  Slap, slap, slap went that lazy sandal. “Well, bless my heart, you’re a nosy son of a bitch, aren’t you?” She stabbed those dark glasses up higher on her nose. “Like I said, my sand. You’re on it. You got a name?”

  Yeah, one you’ll never know. He noticed she’d used her middle finger salute when she’d repositioned her sunglasses. And that sweet bless my heart line? It might sound endearing, but that finger was the old ‘fuck you’ salute if he’d ever seen one.

  Instead of bowing to her demand, he offered his SEAL handle. “Hotrod. You?”

  The evening had grown darker, the last of the day’s sunlight fading the western sky from sultry Piña Colada oranges and pinks to purpling grays and ash. Midnight shadows scuttled across the tiny island, like crabs searching for safe places to hide, where gulls couldn’t get them.

  Of all the places in all the Keys to come ashore…

  Reminded him of Bogart’s famous line: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world….”

  It was time to leave, even if it meant sloshing back into the surf, disappearing again, this time without wearing his wetsuit or mask. That was what he did best. Do without. Run for his life. Stick to the backroads, swamps, and alleys. Walker had places to be, other places to visit where no one knew his face or thought they knew the details of his alleged crimes. Armchair quarterbacks all of them. Bastards. Braggarts and opinionated has-beens.

  And yet…

  This was no ordinary woman sparring with him. Lifting his bag, he shouldered it, and like the SEAL he was and would forever be, Walker Judge walked straight into trouble.

  Chapter Two

  “Damn,” Persia hissed under her breath. “This guy’s got balls.”

  Definitely not her type, though. He wasn’t dark-haired nor slim nor debonair like the fictitious James Bond. More muscled than lean. But unshaven. She liked her men clean, no scruff.

  When this guy had first come ashore, she’d thought his hair was dark brown, but now that it had dried, it was sandy brown and too short. Military short. Overall, the guy was basically nondescript. Plain. The kind of man women looked through when they passed on the street.

  Except for that tightly muscled body. Like an idiot, her heart pounded a zippy salsa beat watching the way his hips rolled with every step he took toward her. The guy had nerve. Her breath hitched. He wasn’t walking as much as stalking. There was danger in every step that brought him closer. Lethality vibrated between them. She could sense it, like a repressed bow wave, it surged ahead of him. Should she run?

  Her instincts screamed, Yes! He’s dangerous. Run, run. Run! Before it’s too late!

  She bantered back, Never. You know better. Send me to hell, and I’ll come up swinging. I don’t back down, and I don’t back u
p.

  But, but, but…

  But nothing. I’m staying. This is my beach. Get a grip.

  As she talked to herself, Persia’s fingers curled over the ends of her armrests. Whoever he was, this guy was no wimp. He was packing, and she didn’t mean handguns, although the bag he’d slung over his shoulder looked heavy enough to hold more than a change of clothes and dive gear. There were weapons in there. She could smell them.

  Every last inch of her visitor was washboard hard and solid. A scant dusting of hairs darkened his bare chest, and the rare blond or golden ones glistened in the last rays of sunlight through the trees. But I’ll bet he’s dark blond where it counts. Hmmm…

  She’d already seen enough of him, aka the magnificent, carved rectus abdominus muscles that comprised his unusual eight-pack instead of a measly six. That alone had started her drooling. More impressive were the finely-crafted external obliques, the much-touted V ordinary men never acquired throughout their sedentary, fast-food, drive-through lives. She licked her lips. The level of hard core-muscles rippling in her direction meant this guy either spent endless vain hours in a gym—which she doubted—or he was disciplined as hell. Focused.

  There were no islands south of hers and no boats on the horizon that she could see. This guy had obviously just swum from Cuba. Which meant he was either an Olympic swimmer, an idiot, or an operator, as in Army Ranger, Air Force Special Warfare Pararescue, or SEAL. There were few men who could’ve accomplished a long-distance swim like that. Fewer who would’ve survived the rough, shark-infested ocean.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked again, her instincts on high alert even as she maintained her cool, calm, I’m-the-bitch-of-this-beach demeanor. Cue the sandal slap. He was the trespasser, not her.

  “Already told you, ma’am. Hotrod.”

  Ma’am, huh? Definitely former military. “That’s just a handle. Really.”

  “You first.”

  She gave him her chin. “Agent Persia Coltrane. I’d say it was nice to meet you, but I’m not nice.” Take warning, tough guy. I might look like a harmless runaway housewife, but I can take you down, and if you make me do that, I’ll make you suffer.