Free The Sniper and the Wolf by Scott McEwen, Thomas Koloniar

Shit! My primo Migue will kill a guy for fifty bucks!”
    He gave her a look, keeping an eye on the road. “This dude we’re goin’ after, he’d turn your cousin Migue into a fucking piñata. Now get those jeans off and slide over here. That coke’s makin’ me horny as fuck.”
    “ I’m making you horny.” She started to undo her pants, then stopped. “Half the money is mine, right?”
    “Yeah, it’s half yours. Now get over here and straddle this thing, baby. You’re killin’ me with those eyes!”
    She laughed and wriggled out of the jeans. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
    He laughed with her as she climbed aboard. “You ain’t foolin’ nobody.” He had to look around her to keep from going off the road as she got into position. “What you like are dead presidents.”
    She grabbed his chin as she slid onto him, looking into his eyes. “That’s right, and you’d better not fucking rip me off!”
    He clipped the curb, and the Jeep bounced back into the lane. “Don’t worry,” he chuckled, one hand on the wheel holding the cigarette, the other gripping her ass. “I don’t want your puto cousin trackin’ me down.”

12
    HOUSTON,
Texas
    Twenty-nine-year-old Jason Ryder was not a Medal of Honor recipient, though he had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for bravery during the Afghan War. He was lean and wiry at 145 pounds and stood no taller than five foot six. He was fast on his feet and even faster with a gun. Ryder was also a man with a severe case of post-traumatic stress, and since returning home from the war, he had been virtually ignored by the Veterans Administration. “Backlogged” was the official term they used.
    It hadn’t taken Ryder long to give up on the VA, turning to a private military company (PMC) named Obsidian Optio, where he took a job leading offshore security details. The work was boring and tedious, and it made his nerves hum with anxiety. When he wasn’t working, he spent his time drinking and smoking pot, sliding ever deeper into the hole of PTSD until he finally began to consider suicide. It was during a detail in Brazil that Ryder had first met Ken Peterson of the CIA.
    Peterson was very coy at first, feeding Ryder’s anger at being brushed aside by the VA. He said there were factions within the US government working to change things from the inside out, but key people were standing in the way. It didn’t take more than three hours over beers for Peterson to have Ryder talked into accepting a private contractor’srole with the agency.
    “Sure, it’s against our legal charter,” Peterson said, “but the agency’s been turned upside down since the nuke attacks last year.” He went on to exaggerate further the severity of a genuine administrative problem. “Nobody really knows who’s in charge of anything, and nobody can get anything done according to policy. So we’re operating outside official parameters to keep the ship afloat, fighting a holding action against the old guard back in Langley while Washington decides how it wants us to function in the age of ‘nuclear terror.’ ” He smirked. “Hell, the president can’t even get Congress to confirm a new director. It’d be laughable if it wasn’t so damn tragic.”
    Ryder now sat in George Bush Intercontinental Airport, waiting impatiently to catch an early-morning flight to Washington, where he would assassinate Bob Pope, one of the traitors Peterson claimed was standing in the way of a safer, stronger America.
    What Ryder did not know—nor did Peterson or Tim Hagen—was that Pope was the director of a newly formed top-secret Special Mission Unit of the CIA called the Anti-Terrorism Response Unit (ATRU). Though the ATRU was similar in concept to other SMUs such as SEAL Team VI and Delta Force, it was much smaller. It did not operate under the auspices of the Special Activities Division. In fact, the ATRU was not even officially part of the CIA. It answered directly to the