BLOG TOUR: Sasha McCoy Freelancer with John Wooden

About John

John Arthur Wooden received a B.S. from Tennessee State University and Master’s from Webster

University. After serving twenty-one years in the U.S. Air Force, John retired as Major and now works as a Project Manager and Technical Writer with a defense contractor. He is a feature writer and columnist with the Perspective magazine in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

During his military career, John traveled the world—from the nation’s capital to Moscow; from Guam to Sicily; from Hawaii to the Philippines. As a young man, John wanted to see the world and now considers the world his stage for many stories of suspense and mystery.

During his junior year in high school, John was tasked to read and complete a book report on Richard Wright’s Native Son. After reading this classic literary piece five times within one month, his love and fascination with books began. Already a fan of comic books, John would branch out and read whatever he could get his hands on. Words and meanings, coupled with his active and creative imagination, forged a twenty-five year burning sensation in his heart—a sensation that didn’t cease burning until he wrote his first book, A Collection of Thoughts, in 2003. However, this was only the beginning. An avid reader of mystery and suspense thrillers, John set a goal to become one of the top mystery/suspense authors in the world.

In 2005, he released his second book, A Moment of Justice, A Lifetime of Vengeance, a novel that introduced the world to FBI Special Agent Kenny “KC” Carson and surprised many with his storytelling abilities. An Eye for a Deadly Eye, released in 2008, is John’s third novel and the second in the Kenny Carson series.

John is the proud father of two children, a son currently serving in the United States Air Force and a daughter who is currently studying at Georgia Southern University.

Contact John:

Website:          http://www.jwooden.com

Facebook:       https://www.facebook.com/pages/John-A-Wooden-Crime-Writer/553967697977135

Twitter:            https://twitter.com/jwooden61

About the Book

Misery. That’s what Sasha McCoy knew as a child. The streets were her first mother. Her birth mother was a coked out junkie who had no ideal which john fathered her daughter. Determined not to be like her mother, she got her hustle on while bouncing from one foster home to the next. That is, until the Queen B named Deana McWhorter rescued her from the streets and put her on a path of salvation.

THE PRESENT

Betrayal. A mission goes wrong. While assigned to take out three terrorists on the most wanted list, other Company operatives are killed. Is Sasha McCoy to blame? Death by ambush. The woman who saved a young girl and claimed her as a daughter is brutally killed in her home. Sadness. Someone must pay for the new misery in Sasha McCoy’s life. Vengeance.Now an assassin for the CIA, Sasha McCoy has a new task—clearing her name and seeking revenge for her mother. Was her last mission sanctioned or unsanctioned? Did her handler at the CIA set her up as a rogue agent? Was her uncle involved in her mother’s death? Are both cases related?

THE WOMAN

Sasha McCoy, Freelancer, will take you on a wild ride inside the mind of a female operative. Raised in a world of pimps, whores and players, she goes from orphan to CIA assassin to a woman out for vengeance and redemption. Classified as a rogue operative, she must now face her weaknesses and demons while simultaneously clearing her name and delivering those who killed Deana McWhorter to justice. The only justice she knows—death.

Purchase the Books:

Amazon.com   http://www.amazon.com/John-A.-Wooden/e/B00D53E5VO/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1373914066&sr=1-1-catcorr

Excerpt

A GOOD DAY FOR KILLING.

I was sure that’s what my horoscope said that morning. If not, that was what it should have said. From my viewpoint, it was a great day for killing, a better day for dying.

Partying late, waking up later. Nice swims, day and night. Damn, I loved this island. Nothing quite like Hawaii, except the beaches in Sicily, the Caribbean, Mexico and a host of other places to which I had traveled.

I wasn’t being disrespectful to Hawaii. I really did love the island. There was nothing like the morning, waking to the rising sun or feeling the drizzle of falling raindrops during monsoon season. Just before dawn on the main island of Oahu was heavenly, and certainly worth living for.

I also loved Hawaii because it seemed as if it was a million miles away from where I was born and raised—the original city of sin, Las Vegas. Always copied, never duplicated.

I sat in my Orange Pineapple taxicab outside the Honolulu airport in the pre-dawn light, waiting on my fare, Abdullah Azizi Mufar, son of a Saudi Arabian oil baron. My employer had arranged with the Orange Pineapple Cab Company that I would be the driver for our special guest. Mufar was an enemy of the United States. He was behind many acts of terrorism throughout the world. He had been connected to at least seven terrorist attacks within the past two years. The last two involved the bombing of American embassies in Peru and North Africa. He’d finally gotten what he wanted—enough national attention to put him on the Top Five hit list. He’d gotten the attention of the U.S. government and the attention of The Company—my employer.

I continued to chill in my borrowed taxi, snacking on fresh pineapples from one of the plantations on the island. As I waited, thoughts of my time on the island in the past and during this visit drifted through my head.

Driving, touring and exploring the island of Oahu brought me a certain peace, a serenity I never found in the continental United States.

The first place I visited every time I set foot on the island was the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial. A solemn site for many, it gave me a sense of pride. I proudly served my country, and just the thought of what those who had perished did to make it possible for me and others to serve the country filled me with pride and gratitude.

Sometimes I wondered about the eleven hundred plus sailors who’d lost their lives on that dreaded day in December of 1941. I could feel their spirit and soul whenever I visited the site. I thought about their families and hoped the wives and children they would never see again or the grandchildren or great grandchildren they would never meet visited the memorial every now and then to pay homage to the sailors’ sacrifices.

While here I also made my rounds to the six military installations on Oahu. And if I was fortunate enough to be in Hawaii on a Wednesday or Saturday, I always made it a point to visit the flea market held in Aloha Stadium—the home of the NFL Pro Bowl.

As thoughts of the things I’d done here before floated through my mind, I realized I wanted to spend some leisure time in Oahu after this mission. It was a mindless thought on my part. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. Even if I didn’t have another mission after this one, spending time in the city after the mission was frowned upon at the CIA, especially if that city was a small island called Paradise.

My phone rang, bringing me back to reality. It was my handler.

Codename: Cobra Blue.

I’d never liked my middleman. He was a parasite from the first day I met him. His beet red face gave him the appearance of permanent sunburn, he was short and a hamburger away from being pudgy. His hair was thinning up top, and his face always sported a five-day growth of beard. If his purpose was to throw off the bad guys by looking like something someone discarded, he was doing a great job of it.

Cobra Blue was calling from inside the Honolulu airport. Every blue moon, he supervised a mission in country. Meaning, he stepped away from his office in San Francisco and stepped out where the rubber met the road.

This time the road was in Hawaii, so he definitely wanted to be on the frontlines for this mission. The man was responsible for at least three other field officers that I knew of and I wondered if he was a pain in the ass to them as well.

He informed me the target was on his way out.

Mufar had briefed his partners in crime in Honolulu that he would be arriving in two days. We intercepted the call and coerced his small contingent of bad players into dealing with us. Of course, the coercion included killing three members of their group before the other two would cooperate.

Sometimes, we must do what we must do. I laughed at my own silliness. Death wasn’t funny to me, but destroying our nation’s enemies made me feel good inside.

I spotted the ambitious Abdullah Azizi Mufar as he exited the terminal. I could see why he fit in well in American culture. He was smooth shaven with a chestnut brown complexion, a neatly trimmed thick, black mustache and a combination curly and nappy mini-Afro. The only thing that distinguished him as a Middle Easterner was his mustache, but a casual glance at his appearance made him look more like an African-American man with a thick mustache.

I pulled up slowly by the curbside and parked. The man recognized the cab and its number. He had also been given my basic identity: Dodgers baseball cap, light brown complexion, short hair. Nothing extravagant, just blending in with the other cabbies.

He immediately jumped in with only a small carry-on bag in his possession. It was strange, but Azizi Mufar didn’t believe in traveling with an entourage. He believed in blending in and what better way to stay low key than flying on a commercial airliner by yourself.

He didn’t speak. I knew where I was supposed to drop him off. That was  if I was his real scheduled driver.

As soon as I turned onto the main drag departing the airport I looked in my rearview mirror and saw my passenger looking out the window. He started to yawn and I immediately surveyed my surroundings for other vehicles and pedestrians, then lifted my SIG Sauer P6 from the side of my seat and surprised my passenger with a point-blank shot to the head. The hollow point round exited his head and cracked the back windshield.

I pulled off the main drag at the next turn fifty feet away before anyone noticed the bullet hole or the brain matter splattered over the back windshield. I parked the cab in a back alley not far from the airport. I had been there before. Cobra Blue had already arranged for someone to pick up the car, clean it up, wipe it down and return it to the cab company. The bullet hole in the windshield could easily be explained away by our clean-up guy. Besides blood and brains, the clean up would be easy. I didn’t believe in leaving a mess. Because of the gloves I wore, no fingerprints or hair follicles would be trace back to me. And our guys were the best at cleaning up a mess, including ensuring no traces of Azizi Mufar were in the cab.

Mufar had pressing business in Honolulu. He had plans to meet with two other terrorist leaders—Jin Con Chen of North Korea and retired Army Brigadier General MacLean Baxter, U.S. born, and Army bred and raised.

My job was simple. Eliminate all three before the planned meeting. One down, two to go. Number two would certainly be easier.

Or so I thought.

The sunrise was so beautiful this time of morning. Damn, I loved Hawaii.