Shane (In the Company of Snipers #24)

Chapter One

Everlee Yeager jacked the steering wheel of her unmarked TEAM SUV hard to her left, squealing tires, and narrowly missing the oncoming delivery truck as her vehicle hit the left shoulder of State Road 522, east of Sperryville, Virginia. Man, that delivery driver’s mouth looked like he’d just said some not very nice words when he’d seen her coming at him in his lane. Oh, well. Surprise, surprise. Emergency vehicle coming through.

“Easy, Ev,” Walker Judge growled over her Bluetooth earpiece. “We want him alive.”

“I’ll sure give it the old college try,” she returned gallantly, careening between two lanes of oncoming traffic, following Webster Finch, the creep who’d killed those two little eight-year-old third graders last week. In a school zone. Everlee hated drug dealers. They thought everyone was expendable but them, the bastards. Well, not today. The dirtbag’s battered yellow sedan was in her sights. Finch wasn’t getting away this time, and if she ‘accidentally’ ran over him in the process of capturing him, well, too bad. One way or the other, his baby-killing, drug-dealing days were over.

“There is no try, Ev,” Walker said extra quietly. Which meant he was getting through to her.

“And now you’re channeling Yoda?” she scoffed.

“Think about what you’re doing. What if you’re the reckless one who kills an innocent today?”

Well, damn. Walker had a way of taking all the fun out of this take-down. But he was right.

Lowering her speed to just above barely legal, Everlee kept to the far-left side of the highway, bouncing along the gravel shoulder while Finch hopped the median and returned to the eastbound lanes. She waited until she had a clear shot, then accelerated and did the same.

By then Finch was ten cars ahead and veering right. That son of a bitch meant to take the last exit into Culpepper. She could intercept him before then. She had to! Drastic times called for drastic measures, right? If she couldn’t take him out before, she’d sure catch him after.

Putting her boot into it, she left the highway in the dust, hopped the irrigation ditch alongside, and sped diagonally across some farmer’s dusty, old field. Thank you, Jesus! No big-eyed cows were in her way. Or fence posts. Just weeds and dirt.

Faster. Faster. Finch was just pulling right at the yield sign, taking it slow, acting like a law-abiding citizen when he was anything but. She set her trajectory to intercept. He hadn’t yet seen her coming through the field at his right. The fool was only watching his rearview mirror. He thought she was behind him. Well, guess again.

“No, no!” she yelled at the semi-trailer that had just lumbered into the slow lane between her and Finch. But wait. That kept her out of Finch’s sight a little while longer. Change of plans. She adapted quickly, hit the gas, cranked her wheel, and aimed for a point of intersection a mile farther south. There he was. Cruising past that eighteen-wheeler on Highway 15 like he owned the whole damned road. Wrong again!

Everlee pushed her SUV for all it could handle. Blinked the sweat out of her eyes. Gritted her teeth. Clenched her jaw and prepared for impact. Contemplated angle. Gawddamnit.

BLAM! Touchdown! Smackdown! Whatever!

She t-boned that yellow POS in the passenger door and caught Finch completely by surprise. Revving her engine, she pushed his ride into the concrete barrier that separated southbound traffic from northbound and ensured both she and he were away from that eighteen-wheeler careening around them.

The trucker’s brakes screamed bloody murder as it passed them. Since Finch hadn’t yet braked or come to a complete stop, they were still moving. Man, that truck driver had skills! Good on him. With a masterful swerve, then another hard brake, he righted his rig without jackknifing or spilling his load. Way to go!

“So there!” she yelled at the baby-killer finally in her sights, even though she knew damned well Finch couldn’t hear her. She had him, dead to rights. He wasn’t going anywhere, and he couldn’t get away. She’d done it! She had this jerk by the short hairs!

Until Finch lifted his arm and pointed a gun at her through his dirty passenger window. Everlee ducked low to her right and sent her SUV into a wicked side drift that once again, slammed the side of her vehicle up against Finch’s sedan. The impact jolted his car. The weapon flew out of his hand. Finch had no choice but to brake. Perfect!

She had a warrant for his arrest, courtesy of The TEAM’s connection with the Virginia Highway Patrol. But if he fired at her, even took one shot, she’d end this son of a bitch and her dashcam would prove it was self-defense.

“Everlee…” Walker said quietly. He had a way of not saying much, but her quietly spoken name over the earpiece inside her head was enough. Damn it.

With that one word, he’d expertly corrected her extraordinary sense of what some would call vigilante justice while, at the same time, he’d punched a hole in her overinflated ego and ended her plan for ending Finch. Instead of shooting him like the animal he was, she slammed her brakes and, within seconds, blasted out of the passenger side door of her still-rolling vehicle and ran straight for the grill of his POS sedan.

“Drop it, Finch!” she bellowed, her Sig Sauer P-210 on target—namely, the middle of his ugly face. “It’s over. Hands where I can see them. Now!” Her heart hammered in her chest as if Thor were in there playing with his lightning and thunderbolts. The punch of adrenaline in her system was off the charts, but this was why she loved her new job. The thrill! The takedown! This, right here!

By then, her VHP companion escort, Trooper Ralph McKay, rolled to a stop in front of Finch’s sedan, further trapping him. Slapping his VHP Smokey Bear hat onto his head, McKay scrambled out of his cruiser and ran to her side.

“You heard Agent Yeager, Finch!” he bellowed, his service revolver aimed at Finch and backing Everlee up like she knew he would. “Drop the weapon and put your hands on the steering wheel. Keep ’em where I can see them.” Dropping his volume, McKay asked out of the side of his mouth, “That is what you told him, right Ev?”

“Yup, sure did.” McKay was a good foot taller than Everlee, so she didn’t mind that he’d said, ‘where I can see them,’ instead of ‘where we can see them’. They’d worked together often enough. She knew he always had her back.

Instead of following orders, Finch tipped forward. No hands were in sight as his forehead hit the top of the steering wheel. His long, straggly hair draped like a curtain over his face, covering his cheeks and muttonchop sideburns. His hands were nowhere in sight. Not good.

Like the aggressor he now was, Officer McKay took a man-sized step forward. Everlee two-stepped with him. She and McKay were two parts of the same force of law. Finch didn’t stand a chance. Not today. Not until an ugly vibe lifted the tiny hairs up on the back of Everlee’s neck, and she knew, she just knew Finch wouldn’t go easy.

“Don’t do it! Finch! No!” she yelled, then screamed, “Gun!” Because sure as hell, Finch did it.

But she was too late. Finch’s arm had already snapped up. He had another pistol aimed at McKay’s bigger body mass. The son of a bitch fired. Once. He got off a shot but he jerked his weapon at the very last moment and missed McKay. Didn’t miss Everlee, though. The impact struck her chest with what felt like the power of a freight train. She jerked backward, every last breath in her lungs squeezed out. She was a limp ragdoll with its strings in that asshole’s fist. She went down on her back, wheezing, “Damn you, Finch!”

Which was good for McKay. It got her out of his way, but the sudden slam of her body onto the highway hurt like a bitch. Shit! If she didn’t have bad luck, she wouldn’t have any. Finch had taken her out of the game. One minute she was in her zone, triumphant! A winner! The next, she was a shooting vic with a pounding migraine from bouncing her head on asphalt. Not only out of the game, she had a bullet stuck in her chest. WTF!

“Not fair!” she wheezed, because, hey, even one bullet messed up a girl’s day, and yeah, breathing really hurt.

Thunder erupted as Officer McKay returned fire. Two shots—she counted. But no answering volley. Good. McKay hadn’t been hit, but she was willing to bet her paycheck that Finch had. And yeah, her.

Jiminy Christmas! She could hear Alex. He already thought she was a hazard to herself and his TEAM. What would he say now? Man, she had the worst luck of all TEAM agents.

“Officer involved shooting!” McKay yelled into the radio Velcroed to his vest shoulder. “TEAM agent down! Mile marker sixty-nine on Highway 15. Request EMT and TEAM support, STAT!”

Great. Just freaking great. No doubt Walker was already on his way. He knew I’d mess up.

“Not… down, down… R-R-Ralph,” Everlee wheezed, her lungs spasming back into working order, but her heart pounding so hard, it felt like there wasn’t enough room in her chest for both organs to do their thing at the same time. “Bullet hit my… my vest. Not my h-head.” No, I did that all by myself when I fell on my ass.

McKay rolled his big, hazel-green eyes at her like he thought that was the stupidest comeback ever, which it might’ve been. But there was down, and then there was way, way dowwwwwn, as in kicking up daisies six feet under down.

“Shit,” she hissed at herself. “Breathe, Yeager. Just… Christ! Breathe!”

Easier said than done. The force of any shot to the chest was a rib-busting powerful jolt of super-charged kinetic energy. Just what she didn’t need, another OTJ injury. If this run of bad luck didn’t end soon, Alex would fire her for sure.

While McKay jerked Finch’s passenger door open, secured his weapons and checked for vital signs, Everlee focused on trying to catch a full breath. She needed to be on her feet before Walker or the medics arrived. But the dynamics of any gunshot created enough muscular trauma to a body, even a body with a tactical vest, to stall quick recovery.

Too bad people didn’t take a hit and just bounce back up like make-believe heroes in Hollywood action films. Uh-uh. Even with Kevlar tactical vests the same rule applied. For every action, there was a guaranteed reaction. And a bullet in the chest was nothing to laugh at. Mainly because she still couldn’t catch enough air to get her right lung to inflate so she could laugh properly at Finch’s demise like she’d planned to.

Alex made sure his men and women were protected by something better than Kevlar. Whatever it was, Everlee was glad for it now. She blew out a hiss and studied the robin’s egg blue Virginia sky overhead. Might as well. She wasn’t going anywhere. The sun was still mostly in the east, making the blue even bluer instead of washed out like it would be later in the day. It was a beautiful summer morning. But she had to go and get shot. Damn it!

The EMTs were Johnny-on-the-spot and arrived before she could pull herself up into hey-I’m-okay, leave-me-alone-land. As if they would. Not these guys.

“Humor me,” EMT Rich Slavich, another Virginia buddy she’d made since she’d left Seattle, instructed. “You know the drill. When you take one to the chest, tactical vest or not, you come with us. Mr. Stewart’s orders. Stop whining like a spoiled brat.”

“Not whining.” Damn it, she whimpered even when she tried to sound tough. “Just want to finish what I started, you jerk.”

Everlee curled her fingers into a fist and gave his bulky biceps the weakest knuckle smack ever. No way she’d hurt Rich. The guy was built like a bull, his biceps thick and tight inside that short-sleeved shirt.

Like the good sport he was, he played along, rolled with the punch, even had the nerve to wince as if she’d hurt him. “Anyone ever tell you that you hit like a girl, Yeager?”

“I am a girl, moron. Anyone ever tell you most women are tougher than most guys?”

“Yeah, yeah. How’s that working for you?”

She strained to suck in a decent breath. “Honestly, that hit hurt a little, Rich. But only a little. I’m okay. Honest.”

Rich nodded, patronizing her even as he slipped the cold end of his stethoscope down her TEAM polo and placed it over her breastbone. He cocked his head to listen and reverted into the highly-trained first responder he was. Until then, she hadn’t noticed he’d unbuttoned her shirt. She tried not to notice how warm the tips of his fingers were on her skin. How his Adam’s apple bobbed when those manly fingers grazed the pillowy tops of her breasts. He was a good-looking guy, but he was married. All the good guys were.

“Hey, watch it, Romeo. That thing’s c-c-cold and…” Her heart skipped a beat, as in, it really jumped inside her chest. Kinda like it wanted out. Or it was playing hopscotch.

“You felt that, didn’t you?” Rich asked, his baby blue eyes flashing to hers.

“Yeah. I did. What was it?”

“A minor palpitation. Nothing to worry about unless it keeps happening or it gets out of control. I’ll pass that detail along to the ER doc so he or she can take a listen.”

“Do you have to?” The big jerk was smiling. “Stop patronizing me, damn it!”

Rich grinned. “Wouldn’t think of it. Just taking care of my best girl.”

“How many best girls do you have, anyway?”

He had the nerve to shrug those huge shoulders, which made his shirt tighten across his chest even more. His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Guess you’ll never know, will you?”

“Damned straight because I don’t care,” she shot back at him, pissed that he and his buddy were now wrapping her in a blanket, then strapping her onto their gurney, and trundling her off to the rear gate of their ride. Like she was an accident victim. Which she was not! The urge hit her to yell at the nosy rubber-necking drivers passing the scene, to tell them she was the good guy there, to stop gawking! That because of her, Virginia’s children were safe again. Well, safer. That she wasn’t really hurt.

Shit. A shiny black TEAM SUV pulled up alongside the EMT’s wagon. Walker Judge had arrived, and Everlee hissed at the injustice of her accidental takedown. He’d report every last detail back to Alex. Didn’t it figure? And Jiminy Christmas! He’d brought his buddy Brimley Scott along for the ride, wasn’t that just peachy?

Short answer, no!

“Aren’t you supposed to be in China or Thailand, Singapore or somewhere else?” Everlee bit out before Walker opened his mouth.

Brimley tipped his head as he strode by and went to talk with McKay. He was a kindly older gentleman with a thick, gray, street-sweeper mustache on his top lip. Usually, he’d have a white, Labrador-sized mutt trotting at his side, but he must’ve left Rover behind in the newly built TEAM kennels. Which was too bad. Everlee could really use a wet, furry kiss and a puppy hug. Her eyes were watering.

Walker had picked up Brimley and Rover on his wild-assed adventure in the Azores a while back. Unjustly targeted by his USN command, Walker had been falsely accused of a lot of shit before Alex intervened and ultimately, tracked down the real mastermind behind the false accusations made by the Navy. Despite his trials by some seriously shitty Navy politics, Walker was one of the steadiest snipers on Alex’s payroll. He was everyone’s friend, and he had the damnedest way of getting people to share things they’d ordinarily not talk about. He alone knew about Everlee’s biggest past mistake—her one and only marriage—and she intended to keep it that way.

Walker grinned that calm, cocky grin of his and walked up to the back of the EMT’s wagon, his gunslinger swagger down pat. Damn, she loved working with a sexy bunch of alpha males, but this one in particular was a pleasure to watch. The way his hips rolled with each step. The way he scraped his thumb nail along his jaw, like he was wondering what on Earth to do with her. He almost made getting hit worth it.

“Ev,” he said quietly once he came to a standstill. “You okay, kid?”

Her head bobbed. “Yeah, but my v-v-vest’s got a big old d-d-dent in it.” And I still can’t catch my breath. No need telling Walker that. He’d figure it out.

Everlee was used to working with mostly men. She’d been Air Force, stationed out of Anchorage, Alaska, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Major Command PACAF, as in Pacific Air Force, home of the 673 rd Air Base Wing. Not only that, she’d been an officer, a lieutenant, not just A1C, airman first class. She’d been LT Everlee Yeager, Chief of Security Forces. She might not be a SEAL or a sniper like Walker and the rest of the guys, but she gave every last one of them a run for their money at the shooting range on certification days, by hell. Ask Ember Dennison. She was in charge of weapons certification. She knew.

By then, Brimley had helped Ralph drape a large camouflage-gray tarp over Finch’s sedan, hiding the death scene from John Q. Public, as well as the local news helicopter now hovering overhead. Brimley and McKay were on their way to her to witness her defeat.

“What’d he hit you with?” Walker asked.

“A thirty-eight.” Trooper Ralph McKay stretched a hand out to Walker. The men acknowledged each other in one of those arm-gripping handshakes guys did. “She’s lucky she was wearing a vest.”

Walker’s lips pursed into a whistle. “Damn, that’s a big round, Ev.”

“Yeah, but really, the ER, guys? I was just there,” Everlee complained, still working an angle to not have to ride anywhere with Rich and his buddy.

McKay’s brows lifted to the brim of his Smokey Bear cover. “You were? Why?”

“She fell up the front stairs at work.” Walker’s fist flattened against his smirking lips. The jerk was trying not to laugh but sure didn’t mind telling McKay that Ev had, “Sprained the hell out of her ankle. This is, err, was, her first day back on active duty.”

“And if you make me go to the ER, Alex will sideline me again.” Everlee crossed her arms over her chest, which did not hurt at all! Much. “This is a waste of time, guys. I don’t need the ER. Not for one little tap.”

“Better safe than sorry, little lady,” Brimley told her in that gruff, grandfatherly way he had. If anyone else had called her little lady, she’d have ripped their heads off for being sexist. But Brim was from a different generation, like Murphy Finnegan, her boss at the Seattle TEAM office. Neither were truly sexist. They just were who they were. She respected them for their service and their kind, gentlemanly ways.

“See you at the ER, Ev,” Walker replied.

Rich closed the rear gate, ending further discussion—or argument.

Officer McKay smacked the roof and waved Everlee goodbye.

Men!