Jameson (In the Company of Snipers Book 22) Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  In the Company of Snipers

  IN THE COMPANY OF SNIPERS

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Preview of Harley’s story

  About the Author

  Jameson

  IN THE COMPANY OF SNIPERS

  Book 22

  IRISH WINTERS

  COPYRIGHT

  Jameson; In the Company of Snipers, Book 22

  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

  My gorgeous cover model: Francis Brunet

  Interior book design: Bob Houston, eBook Formatting

  Editor: Linda Clarkson, Black Opal Editing and Proofreading

  ISBN Paperback: 978-1-7348097-8-7

  ISBN eBook: 978-1-7348097-9-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020918414

  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.

  Prologue

  Five Years Earlier

  USN SEAL Chief Petty Officer Jameson Tenney stopped firing at the cunning band of ISIL soldiers hidden behind boulders and rocks up ahead. He couldn’t believe what was taking place behind him. Two happy go-lucky boys, maybe six or seven years old, had appeared out of no-damned-where. Giggling and squealing from the bony back of a stout, three-foot-high, miniature donkey, they spurred it across the desert like a couple mischievous cowboys, away from the firefight Jameson was currently waging, and straight into no man’s land, the unforgiving desert.

  Jameson and his six-man SEAL team had been inserted into the southern Iraqi desert Al-Hajarah, at zero-three-thirty hours this morning. Best time of day to do business. Undercover on a moonless night. Easy orders. Locate Professors Murdock and Upton, two United Kingdom geologists taken captive by ISIL extremists, preferably before they were beheaded.

  The good professors had naively come to Iraq to study its harsh, arid topography, specifically the wadis, ravines, and channels that filled with spring runoff. They believed underground rivers ran deep beneath those wadis, sources that could ultimately be tapped to provide drinking water and irrigation for the poorer, more desolate parts of one of the most backward countries in the world. They also thought they were immune to the current political unrest sweeping that part of the planet.

  But after three tours in this godforsaken, ruined land, Jameson knew better. These people didn’t want anything from the rest of the world but for civilization to leave them alone. That old saying: ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,’ didn’t apply here. The more dollars and experts the world’s talking heads poured into this country, the more the tribal leaders, village elders, and villagers hated them for it. ISIL owned them now. It was past time to leave.

  But not yet.

  “You’re shittin’ me,” Ensign Pierce Steed, handle Derby, hissed, his head also cranked around at the unbelievable sight. “What the fuck are they doin’ way out here?”

  “Playing,” Jameson breathed into his helmet’s headset, his throat as dry as the air in this damned country. “They’re just kids. That’s what kids do.”

  “In the middle of a gawddamned war? Now?”

  “Looks like it. I’m going after them.”

  “Damn, LT just called in an airstrike!”

  “Understood. But I’ll be back before the Warthogs show.” With the kids, by hell.

  Warthogs, aka USAF close ground support, the A-10 Thunderbolt attack aircraft.

  “Gawddamn it, Saint. Don’t do it.”

  Saint was the SEAL handle Jameson hadn’t chosen and never wanted. He’d been tagged that because of his choirboy looks and his early promotion, what some guys called a miracle. What others considered a pain in the ass.

  He blew a worried breath between pursed lips now. It was a damned eerie scene. The two little boys were laughing like pranksters, kicking and slapping sad little Eeyore’s sides, making him run on his stiff, stubby legs. The donkey was as tall as he was round. With every smack, puffs of dust lifted off his furry rump and shoulders. The boys bounced, their dirty brown legs spread too wide for them to stay seated much longer. He kept running. They kept laughing. Beyond
them, only sand, rocks, dehydration, and certain death, while all hell broke loose behind them.

  “We know where they came from?” Petty Officer First Class Jase Yeats, handle Shakespeare, cut in. “Shit. How can they not hear those fuckin’ AKs?”

  AK-47s. The dirty, inexpensive, but prolific weapon in every poor Iraqi’s arsenal.

  Jameson had no answers. Only a solution. “Won’t take long. Cover me.”

  “Shit, no!” hissed Derby. “You’ll die.”

  “No, I won’t. I’ll be careful. Stay here.”

  “They’re just kids, damn it!” Shakespeare bellowed. “Someone else’s kids. Not our problem.”

  Jameson turned a stark stare to his Navy SEAL buddy. Shakespeare was scared, that’s why he was ready to turn his back on the latest macabre twist to a day that had already gone horribly wrong. Jameson understood. He was scared, too. The A-10 was late, and ammo was running low. But someone had to save those boys from themselves. If Navy SEALs wouldn’t, who would?

  Shortly after they’d arrived, the SEAL team had easily located Murdock and Upton. Everything went down like clockwork. The infil. The swift, quiet elimination of the eleven hostiles holding Murdock and Upton. The acquisition of both professors. As well as the quick stabilization of Professor Murdock’s knife wounds, both superficial.

  But exfil went sideways. The second Commander Boyington ordered, “Go time,” more ISIL tough guys appeared out of nowhere. Thirty-plus more. All armed to the teeth and now pounding the hell out of the mudbrick wall the SEALs and their rescued professors had taken cover behind. Even that leftover of a previously bombed-out building couldn’t explain where those boys had come from. Seemed AF drone intel had proven wrong again.

  Jameson rolled his shoulders, loosening his muscles and nerves, readying his body for a quick sprint through the loose sand from here to there. Once he snagged those two little guys off that donkey’s back, Eeyore would be on his own. Jameson was only saving the kids, who, now that he had time to think, might be deaf. There were more maimed, blind, and deaf children in this country than anywhere else he’d been. All these boys wanted was to be free to run and play again. What child didn’t?

  “Damn it, Saint,” Derby groused. “You can’t go out there alone.”

  “Chief Boyington’s going to have our heads for this, but… shit!” Shakespeare muttered. “Shit, shit, shit! I’m going with you. Let’s get it done, damn it.”

  Jameson shrugged his fifty-pound pack off his shoulders and to his feet, praying the upgraded tactical gear his parents had sent last month did its job today. His nostrils flared at the acrid stench combat always brought with it. The hard, lean, spring-loaded muscles in his calves, thighs, and buttocks bunched, as he powered away from safety and into trouble. Zigzagging, he aimed for Eeyore, but ended up scaring the little thing. Jameson ran fast; the donkey ran faster. Hot lead hissed around them as they ran, smacking up clods of sand and dirt, spraying confetti death while his SEAL team returned fire. God bless ’em.

  Eeyore’s running made sense. He, at least, knew how to save his life. Pounding across that sand like a son of a bitch, Jameson closed in on the escape artist, and, with one gloved hand, grabbed the boy nearest Eeyore’s head. Hard on his ass, Shakespeare grabbed the other. While they rolled to the ground with their rescues, Eeyore kept going, and that was okay.

  Gibberish poured out of both boys’ mouths. Total shrieking gibberish. These kids weren’t just deaf. Their skinny chests and empty bellies were laced with explosives, and this was a gawddamned trap. No son of a bitchin’ kidding.

  Jameson looked at Shakespeare.

  His best buddy had the same wide-eyed, ‘we’re fucked’ shock in his eyes. “You’re shittin’ me. We risked our lives for these little assholes?”

  “No, we risked our lives for two kids.” Jameson jerked his chin at the ISIL bastards firing from across the wadi. “Those are the assholes.”

  Without thinking, he ripped the shirt off the panicked kid in his arm. Simple twine, a cell phone, and a small brick of C4. Which meant some asshat right now was dialing this phone’s number. What did he have to lose? Jameson tugged his Leatherman Super Tool out of his vest and deftly ran a gloved hand between the boy’s heaving chest and the explosive. Automatically, he told the kid to hold still, not like that helped a damned thing. The frightened kid didn’t understand. He kept spewing gibberish. The clock kept ticking.

  Jameson snipped the damned wires, and—thank God!—nothing happened.

  Shakespeare did the same. Like two fuckin’ idiots, they shoved off the sand with the terrified boys in their arms and beat feet back to their team, dodging a hail of gunfire, with Boyington screaming ‘what the fuck?’ in their headsets all the way. Yeah, they had a butt-reaming coming, but Jameson flat didn’t care. He’d done his duty today. And he’d do it again. God and country, man. But God and kids always came first.

  That brick wall sure felt good and solid when he slammed his ass against it, though.

  “For fuck’s sake!” Derby growled. “Why didn’t you save the donkey?”

  Breathing hard, Jameson licked his lips, a profanity laced answer on the tip of his tongue for the man who hadn’t the balls to save anyone. By then, Chief Boyington was running toward them, his face a contorted, red mask of rage, his jaws jacking, and Hell flashing in those fierce black eyes. Satan couldn’t have looked meaner.

  Jameson passed the boy in his arms off to the Air Force PJ, the medic who’d dropped into this nightmare with them. He’d come to treat the geologists. Guess he was earning his paycheck today. He already had hold of the kid Shakespeare rescued.

  When Boyington ground to a full stop, his square head turned, staring into the desert.

  Jameson did a double-take. His LT was watching Eeyore. The scared donkey was now running back to the mudbrick wall. Only he’d taken a circuitous route, dodging ISIL gunfire. It was almost funny how his stiff legs propelled him forward with all the grace of, well, an ass. He looked like he was hopping.

  Jameson took a step forward. “Come on,” he urged the frightened little guy. “Run faster, damn it. Run!” Too late he realized the ISIL fighters weren’t aiming at Eeyore, only near him. They were herding him. “Fall back!” Jameson bellowed as—

  BOOM! The poor little donkey disappeared into dust and smoke.

  Then BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! The scared little guy had triggered a daisy-chained line of explosives that were headed straight for the wall and the SEALs. There was no time to run or think. Only duck, cover, and—

  BA-BA-BOOM! The world condensed into a slo-mo firestorm of raw fury. Wicked unleashed energy. A crippling wave of intense heat slammed into Jameson. His arms and feet extended straight ahead of him. Pounding kinetic energy blasted him backward into the wall. He hit hard. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. But he’d be okay. His tactical vest and helmet were intact. No shrapnel hit him. No pain in his extremities. No pain anywhere. Halleluiah! He’d just survived a gawddamned daisy-chain of improvised explosives. His ears were ringing, but that was no big deal.

  As fast as it hit him, the blast wind let go. He collapsed like a scarecrow in the middle of a Nebraska cornfield when the stick got pulled out of its ass. His heart pounded like a mother. Overheated ash and dust swirled around him. Over his team and his buddies. Into his eyes and nose. His ears. His face. God, the pain in his head was screaming. Possible concussion. He was going to have one helluva headache. Again, no big deal. He could live with that. What SEAL hadn’t had one? Or two?

  He slapped his gloved hands to the ground beside him, searching for the men who’d been standing with him. Had Shakespeare survived? Had Derby and those poor little boys? The Air Force PJ? Boyington? Where was everyone?

  The oddest slivers of tumbling, falling stars rained down. They were everywhere. It was almost pretty the way they mingled with the clouds of swirling, inky black ribbons in his eyes, so dark they sucked the light from those stars.

  It was
Sunday. Mom always fixed a big Sunday dinner. He wished he were there. Not here.

  Jameson woke to muffled sounds of anxious, harried people working around him. Stringent antiseptic smells filled his nose. Voices talked, using big, important, medical terms that made no sense. His aching head still hurt. He must’ve been taken to the nearest FOB, forward operating base. Probably because he’d blacked out. No big deal. They’d give him a quick physical check, then send him back to Boyington for a butt chewing. Jameson couldn’t wait.

  He cocked his head, listening. A door had closed and the noise ceased. Someone had separated him from the busyness of what sounded like an emergency room, where injured guys and gals were triaged, patched up, then sent home or back to work. Like any hard-assed Navy SEAL, he wanted to get back to work. The quicker, the better.

  But the room was too dark, and for some reason, that darkness scared the shit out of him. He wiggled his toes and fingers, stiffened his legs and arms, then slapped his palms to his chest and gut, searching for injuries he didn’t find, determined to prove he was still fit for duty. Great. All present and accounted for, still in working order. Really great. Nothing even hurt, well, except for his neck. It was pretty stiff, and a headache still pounded behind his eyes. But that was nothing. If all he ended up with was a concussion, no worries. He’d had more than his share of those. Concussions were part of the job.

  A gentle but big, solid hand settled on his shoulder.

  Jameson turned to face the person he couldn’t see, blinking like crazy because it was that kind of dark in his room. He wiped a quick hand over his face to make sure no blankets covered his head. What the hell?

  “How you doing, Jameson?”

  Oh. Lieutenant Boyington. “LT. Hey! I’m good,” he replied earnestly. “Ready to get back to work. Sure dark in here. Mind turning a light on? Are we in the middle of another sandstorm or something? A black-out?”

  “Or something...”