Chapter 1

Mission Failure

A/N: Hello people. This story was started due to two reviewers who read and liked my Cougar oneshot. They were the push I needed to get this started, thank them!

"Do you have your mark?"

"Yeah…I have it."

"Fire when ready."

That was the problem, she wasn't ready. As a sniper it was her job to shoot whatever target she was given. No questions, no unwanted answers. But she was different. As she liked to put it, she had a heart, and she was no one's puppet.

Through anyone else's scope it would seem that her targets were the "Losers", a threat to the country and the group at the top of her employer's list of those who must die.

"You were told to fire when ready."

The voice coming through the COM in her ear was annoyed with her. It was just another heartless drone relaying orders. She sighed, her hazel eyes still watching her…targets. "I'm not ready."

"If you don't get ready in thirty seconds the team is going in."

The team was another alternate for when a sniper failed. It was messier, sending in a group of soldiers to handle the kill, but with more guns, it was flawless.

Thirty seconds was all she needed to make her decision.

Cougar felt something, and usually when he did, he was right. It was movement, and not the movement of the five adults in the room with him, or even the young child playing next to him. It was something else.

"Mrs. Pooch, dinner was great!"

Pooch's wife smiled at the compliment while her husband smacked Jensen on the head for the hundredth time that evening, "What did I tell you earlier? That's not her name!"

Jensen leaned back in his seat, "Pooch, you really shouldn't use violence in front of Baby Pooch. It's bad parenting."

Clay laughed as the young blond was smacked once again. Aisha rolled her eyes and stood to join the other woman in the kitchen. He glanced over at Cougar who was sitting with the baby but did a double take when he noticed how still the sniper was sitting. Then he felt it too, but by the time he could do anything, it was too late.

She picked them off as fast as she could, the team that is. From the beginning something felt off to her. The file just didn't seem to read like the story she had heard so many times.

They supposedly died in the helicopter that exploded in Bolivia, but now there was a hit out and they were fugitives? It didn't add up, if they were hiding after faking their death, they wouldn't have come back. And her employer, of course the rule of no questions and answers came into mind but everything was so mysterious.

If there was a hit out for these guys, why was it from someone who wasn't government affiliated?

"Shit." She cursed as she missed one. She was so pissed off about being lied to that she was losing concentration. A shot that didn't come from her gun ended the madness and she knew it was time for her to leave.

"What the hell is going on? We've lost contact with the team!"

She popped her gum before she cleaned up, pulling a small pistol from her hip, "I'm no one's fucking puppet."

"Where are you? What's happening?"

Yanking open the doors of the van, she pointed her gun at the tech and driver.

Pooch tried to comfort his wife and child as Aisha and Jensen checked the other rooms in the house. Clay turned to Cougar who had his brows knitted together in frustration, "Sniper fire took them out."

Cougar nodded, he knew what that meant, and he needed to check it out. As he walked onto the suburban street he was surprised that no one had stirred, but he was upset about the van parked a few houses down.

He was careful in his approach, taking wide steps and constantly looking over his shoulder. The door was wide open, he noticed, and there was a single person inside, as he stepped closer he saw that it was a woman.

From what he could see from the back she had skin like his, possibly a little lighter and dark chocolate, almost black, hair that reached to just between her shoulder blades. She turned around when he was a foot away and threw her gun at his feet.

"Cougar right?"

The man ignored her and quickly surveyed the van, noting the two dead men and finally looked at her. Her hazel eyes made him start a little then he nodded. She got on one knee and hung her head, a sign of surrender. "I was sent to kill your team. I wish I could tell you who my employer is, but I don't know."

"I have an idea." Clay stepped into the van and Cougar looked at him, "It's Max."

Jensen was confused. Of course Max was back, that didn't come as much of a surprise, but now there was this woman knocked out on the couch in Pooch's living room. He had asked what happened to her when Cougar walked in with her in his arms.

He had explained briefly that Clay simply hit her…sure he did.

Pooch was pacing, having a hard time wrapping his mind around what was happening. They knew where he lived, but then again, they always had. "He knows everything about us." He looked at his friends, "What are we gonna do? I don't have anywhere safe to send my family."

Clay lit a cigarette, "Yes you do. Find the farthest living relative and send them there."

"That won't make a difference!"

"Yes it will." The groggy voice made Aisha pull her gun and point it at the other woman. She looked at it indifferently, "Killing me won't help you. But you're free too."

Aisha cocked the gun and smirked, "Fine with me."

"No." Clay grabbed her hand. "I wanna hear this."

"I don't know who this Max person is. But I do know that he's going through the government to get rid of you guys. Killing an innocent woman and child. That will trigger a red flag."

Clay turned to Pooch, "Tell Jolene to start packing." He then turned back to the woman on the couch, "Start talking."

She sighed deeply, "My codename is Cat, my real name is Chelsea Commons, and I'm with the CIA. Three days ago I was sent to watch and watch only. Then I was ordered to kill. Like I said before, I don't know who my employer is but obviously you do."

"Why tell us your real name?" Pooch questioned.

She smiled, "People say the CIA cant be trusted because no one knows who we are, in a sense we don't exist. You know my name, so now I exist."

Jensen was typing away at his computer, "You know, the CIA is so week security wise. It's like cracking an egg."

Cougar rolled his eyes but watched over the blonde's shoulder anyway. The woman's file was laid out on the screen before them like a blue print of her CIA life. Her name was correct; at least she wasn't lying so far. She was twenty-six, hometown was Washington D.C. and she was skilled in sniper fire and infiltration as far as her file said.

"Uh oh."

Clay stalked over to the two, "Uh oh, I don't want to hear uh oh."

"It says here that her latest mission was a failure. I'm guessing this one."

Pooch walked back into the room, massaging his temples, "Like we don't already know that."

"It also says that she is to be terminated. Top of the list, right next to us."

Chelsea looked up at Clay, "Still don't trust me?"