Yatsenko spun around and yelled at the man.
“We know the cars are fucked. It’s why I sent Marco out to get the four-wheeler from the shed, but now we’ll have to go on foot.”
“No Kyril,” Yates said. “We need to stay inside, whoever is up on that hill could whack us with ease if we stepped outside. Our best bet is to wait him out and hope he comes to us. We also have no idea how many are out there.”
The eight young women that Yatsenko had brought along on the trip were all huddled together in a rear corner of the room, while listening to them discuss strategies. After hearing Yates and Yatsenko go back and forth endlessly over what their next move should be, one of them, a tall blonde, spoke up in a small voice.
“Just call the cops, please?”
Yates and Yatsenko looked at the girl and then at each other. Calling the cops for anything was not in their DNA and had never occurred to them.
Yates spoke first, and did so with a shrug.
“Yeah, what the hell, let’s call the cops, they might finally be good for something.”
Yatsenko took out his phone and dialed 911. After explaining the situation to an excited female police dispatcher, he was told to stay on the line and that a team of officers was on the way. Yatsenko thanked the woman, and then chuckled to himself, as for the first time in his life, he hoped that the cops would come quickly to his location.
***
Tanner had reached the car while nearly out of breath from running so hard. He then grabbed a duffel bag from the trunk.
Before leaving the vehicle and running towards the lake house, he looked around for a sign that Sara and Henry were near, but saw no one.
Assuming that Sara was still locating Henry, Tanner rushed towards the lake house by heading for the front gate. When he was in the trees across the road from it, he donned the body armor carried in the duffle bag.
Aside from the armor, he also had a Kevlar helmet and a ballistic face shield. With everything on, he resembled a black-clad storm trooper, and when he hefted the M249 light machine gun up, he looked like walking death, which is what he was.
Once the 200 round magazine was attached, Tanner pulled back the charging handle and headed across the private road to the gates at the entrance to Yatsenko’s driveway.
A short burst from the machine gun took care of the gate lock, and Tanner moved towards the house as fast as he could, given the fact that he was carrying an extra 50 plus pounds of weight between the body armor and the M249.
He needed to get in, kill Yatsenko, and then make his retreat back to the car before the police arrived.
As he neared the front door, he heard the murmur of Yatsenko’s men mixed with crying from one of the women. From the sound of things, the women were rushing upstairs while Yatsenko’s men prepared to take him out. Tanner hoped that Yatsenko was the type to fight with his men, but he doubted it, and assumed that the women had been summoned to the man’s side to act as a living shield.
Beneath the ballistic mask, Tanner smirked.
If Yatsenko was counting on Tanner being squeamish about killing women, he had made a bad bet. If any of the women attempted to thwart him, they would die along with the men.
Tanner headed through the home’s open doorway with the gun up and firing, and the battle had begun.
CHAPTER 20 – A pain in the neck
Yatsenko had been inside the lake house’s small office near the kitchen with Yates, as the two of them watched the cameras, and witnessed Tanner blow apart the lock on the driveway gates.
Yates pointed at the screen.
“It’s just one guy, but fuck me, look at that damn gun.”
“Yes,” Yatsenko said. “And the bastard is also wearing body armor. Do you think the men can kill him?”
Yates sighed.
“We outnumber him, but all we’ve got are a few AR’s and some Glocks.”
Yatsenko grabbed Yates by the arm.
“Get me out of this and I’ll give you control of the prostitution and protection trade; they’ll be yours to run any way you see fit.”
A smile grew on Yates’ face, but when he looked down at the camera and saw Tanner kick open the iron gates, the grin faded.
“Our best bet is to get you the hell out of here without being seen.”
Yates told Yatsenko to follow him and the two men went out to the living room where everyone was gathered.
“Listen up! There’s a guy in full body armor headed our way. I’ll give fifty G’s to the man who caps him.”
As the men prepared to meet Tanner, Yates began herding the women up the stairs, and told Yatsenko to follow along.
“I thought I would be leaving through the rear door?”
“We have to assume that there’s another man out there, maybe more than one. No, I have a better idea, although I don’t think you’ll like it.”
“If it keeps me safe, I’ll like it.”
Yates grinned.
“Remember that you said that, now hurry up, we don’t have much time.”
***
Kessler crept among the trees with Henry’s M1 Garand at the ready.
As he moved along, he thought back to when he was firing at Henry, hoping to scare the boy to death. But, Henry had shown no fear, just shock at what was happening, and despite his young age, the boy had looked at him with pure hate.
Henry might only be a boy, but Kessler had come to the conclusion that it was either him or Henry. Hell, with as much hate as the kid had shown towards him, Kessler figured that he was lucky Henry hadn’t burnt down his trailer some night.
Kessler stopped moving at the thought of a fire, and an evil grin spread across his face.
A fire would not only take care of Henry, but the rest of his annoying family as well, like that grandmother of his.
Kessler gave a slight nod of his head and began moving through the trees again. If he couldn’t get rid of Henry by shooting him, he’d use fire to do it.
“Henry! Where are you, you little bastard? I just want to give you back your gun.”
Yeah, one bullet at a time, Kessler thought. One bullet at a time.
***
Sara and Henry stopped in their tracks as Kessler’s words carried to them.
The man’s voice was coming from directly ahead of them and that was the path Sara needed to take to get back to the car.
She leaned down and whispered in Henry’s ear.
“Is there another path that will take us out to the dry riverbed?”
Henry nodded.
“We could just cut through the trees, and this isn’t really a path, it’s just that a lot of hunters used this way in during the fall and the grass don’t grow back anymore.”
“All right then, we’ll cut through the trees, but be very quiet.”
“Why? You’ve got a gun.”
“Yes, but Kessler has your rifle, which is a more powerful weapon than my handgun.”
“What about Agent X?”
Sara let out a sigh.
“Agent X is on a mission.”
***
Tanner delivered mortal wounds to three of Yatsenko’s men even as he passed through the door, as a burst of gunfire echoed through the house and the M249 spit out a dozen or more spent cartridges.
The men’s screams were loud, but barely heard by Tanner, who wore ear protection and was searching their faces, while hoping he had gotten lucky and killed the small Ukrainian.
Tanner had his back turned to the stairs, as he advanced into the home while firing at a group of men in the kitchen. The men were using the kitchen island as cover, after they had first wrenched off the granite countertops and stacked them in front of the structure, to act as shielding.
Tanner’s machine gun was shattering the granite to pieces when a man jumped from a closet that was concealed beneath the stairs and fired a shotgun blast at Tanner’s back.
The pain was instant and excruciating, despite the fact that the pellets struck his armor. Tanner
collapsed onto the floor as his knees grew weak from the wave of pain washing over him, and he wondered if the brutal impact of the rounds had broken his ribs.
More gunshots hit him in the chest, as the men from the kitchen stood up from behind the counter and tried to take advantage of his weakened condition. The bullets were pinpricks of hell that blossomed into agony, but the plates in the type II body armor kept the rounds from penetrating.
Tanner groaned beneath the face plate while simultaneously pulling the trigger on a machine gun that suddenly felt like it weighed a metric ton. He moved it right and left. Dozens of rounds were spit out, and destroyed the knees and thighs of the men in the kitchen.
While that was happening, the man from the closet moved in at Tanner’s rear while taking aim at the exposed flesh beneath the rim of the helmet.
Tanner turned his head an instant before the man fired his weapon and a fresh blast of pellets ricocheted off the face shield. The buckshot pitted the face shield with numerous divots while causing Tanner’s head to twist around as if he’d been kicked by a horse. The impact was brutal and Tanner lost his grip on the machine gun.
Tanner went with the momentum caused by the blast and rolled away, to barely avoid receiving a second round. Tanner kept rolling, and as he did, he removed a Taurus Judge from the drop leg holster he wore. The Taurus was a monster of a revolver that could fire either .45 Colt cartridges or .410 shells. Tanner had loaded his with .410 shotgun shells.
The man firing at him smiled when he saw that Tanner had lost possession of the machine gun, and he dropped his shotgun and bent over to reach for the superior weapon. As the man brought it off the floor, Tanner ripped off the scarred face shield and called out to him.
“Hey!”
The man looked over at Tanner just in time to see him fire the Taurus, and then he was tumbling backwards to the floor with a huge hole through his head where his nose had been. The Taurus was loaded with 000 buckshot and a single blast from the beastly revolver was enough to stop anyone.
Tanner rose from the floor, but not without great effort, as his neck was on fire from the wrenching it took, which was caused by the impact to the face shield. He had to hold his head on an angle to the left to lessen the agony. Meanwhile, his back, chest, and even his legs were also screaming in pain.
After a quick check to see if he was bleeding or had broken any bones, he found that no rounds had penetrated. A chorus of moans came from the kitchen where most of Yatsenko’s men lay bleeding and broken from a score of leg wounds.
After retrieving it, Tanner sent a quick blast from the machine gun their way and the room went quiet.
The only sounds in the house were coming from upstairs, where several of the women were crying, while one was muttering the Lord’s prayer.
The prayer ceased when they heard Tanner coming up the steps and the crying turned into whimpers of fear.
Tanner paused on the landing, judged the sounds to be coming from a room on the right, and rushed up the wooden steps as best as he could, ready to deliver more death.
CHAPTER 21 – Attract and repel
Alexa looked confused when Deke drove into the parking lot of a shopping center and parked near a mega-sized drugstore, but he explained to her that he needed a change of clothing in case they were pulled over for any reason.
“It will also give you a chance to buy some painkiller. I know that your head must be throbbing.”
“It is, but will they have clothes in there too?”
“All I need is a sweatshirt and some jeans or sweatpants, and they should carry that in my size.”
Deke handed her some money, and while she was gone, he climbed into the back seat. Once she returned, Deke changed clothes quickly, and then he left the car and dumped his old clothes in a trash receptacle.
When he was back behind the wheel, Alexa handed him a bottle of orange juice. She had gotten one for herself as well, and drank some of it while downing three pills.
After gulping down his juice, Deke started the engine and soon they were back on the highway.
“When you were in the military, you weren’t just another Marine, were you, Deke?” Alexa said.
“No, I was given special training, both in the Marines and after I left the Corps.”
“Exactly how many men did you kill today?”
Deke didn’t answer, and Alexa reached over and laid a hand on his arm.
“I’m not judging you. If not for you, I might be dead right now. I owe you my life, and I thank you for taking care of me.”
“I do care for you, Alexa, and I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”
They drove on for over a mile before Deke spoke again.
“Nine, I killed nine men back there.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s impressive, even Tanner-like,” Alexa said.
“Maybe, but I’ll leave the killing for Tanner. Like you, I just want to settle down and find some peace.”
“We do have a lot in common, don’t we?”
“Yes we do,” Deke said.
They grew silent, and when it became uncomfortable, Alexa reached over and turned on the radio. Music filled the car, but it couldn’t drown out the thoughts racing through her mind.
***
Sara had to stop herself from cursing out loud as Kessler appeared in front of her and Henry again.
It was almost as if the man knew that she and Henry were headed towards the dry riverbed and was determined to keep them away from it. Upon their arrival into the area earlier with Alexa and Deke, she and Tanner had driven onto the makeshift road after entering it from the other side of the nearby highway, and it occurred to her that she didn’t know where the other end of the road led to.
Sara leaned down and whispered to Henry.
“Can you reach your house from that road?”
“Um-hmm, my house and two others that are closer to the center of town, but almost nobody uses it anymore but the hunters. It gets real muddy when it rains, and there’s a lot of rocks too.”
“I don’t know these woods. Is there a route we can take to circle around through the trees and reach the road farther towards the highway?”
Henry answered her while staring at Kessler, who was visible through the trees.
“Yeah, there’s a way, and I know the woods better than anyone.”
“Good honey, you lead and I’ll follow you, but stay quiet.”
Henry kept glaring at Kessler. He was so angry that the man had his rifle, and it filled him with rage every time he thought about the fact that the man had murdered his mother and gotten away with it.
He released Sara’s hand and rushed towards Kessler, who had his back turned to them.
Sara called to Henry in an urgent whisper, but dared not speak any louder or else she ran the risk of Kessler hearing her.
She followed along behind Henry with her gun raised and ready, and watched as the boy paused to grab up a thick branch. When Henry was a dozen feet from Kessler, the man heard his approach and turned.
Henry was running with the branch and shoved an end of it against Kessler’s midsection, causing the man to let out air while grunting in pain. Before Kessler could react, Henry jabbed him with the branch again, this time in the left kidney. Kessler let out a howl of agony and Henry dropped the branch and grabbed his rifle from Kessler’s hands.
Kessler was still trying to cope with the pain while regaining his breath, when Henry pointed the rifle at his chest. Kessler’s face paled with fear, and as he looked into Henry’s eyes, he knew that the boy would pull the trigger.
“No!” Sara shouted, as she grabbed the barrel of the rifle and twisted it away from Henry.
“He killed my mother!” Henry shouted.
“That may be, but I won’t let you kill him. You’re a boy, Henry, not a man, and killing another human being is not something you need to do. Let the law handle Kessler. I can testify that I saw him shooting at you.”
> “It was self-defense,” Kessler said, between gasps, as his breath returned to normal.
Sara glared at him.
“Self-defense against a child?”
“Hell yeah, when it’s a child with a gun. That’s his rifle, lady, not mine, and this is not the first time that the little bastard has tried to hurt me. That psycho kid should be locked up.”
Sara thought about what Kessler was saying. Henry’s grandmother had told her and Tanner that Henry had attacked Kessler with a knife once already, and that it was on record. If the police learned that Henry had threatened to shoot the man, Henry might be in more trouble than Kessler, even with her statement that she had seen Kessler shooting at Henry. That is, if she even made a statement. She was in the woods as part of a plot to assassinate Kyril Yatsenko, talking with the police could cause her and Tanner a load of trouble.
Sara shouldered the rifle and pointed it at Kessler.
“Get out of here. If I ever hear that you’ve been bothering Henry again, I’ll kill you.”
Kessler raised his hands up and began walking backwards along the dirt road.
“Easy, I’m going, but that boy there better stay the hell away from me.”
Kessler lowered his hands and began walking up a grassy hill. When he reached the top, he sent Henry the finger and then disappeared, as he walked down the other side of the hill.
“Where does that lead to, Henry?”
“His beat-up old trailer is that way. I guess he’s going home.”
Sara took Henry’s hand again and began walking towards her car. As she walked along, her thoughts turned to Tanner, and she hoped to find him waiting for her by the car. When the car came into view, she felt a sense of dread when she saw that he was absent.
“Where’s Agent X?” Henry asked. “I thought you said that he would meet us at the car.”
“He’ll be here, honey. Nothing stops Agent X.”
Henry smiled up at her.
“You like him, don’t you?”
“I... yes, I guess that I do, but let that be our little secret, okay?”
“Okay,” Henry said, as a sound reached his sensitive ears. Someone was running towards them along an old deer trail. He released Sara’s hand and spun around, expecting to find Kessler trying to sneak up on them.
The TANNER Series - Books 13-15 (Tanner Box Set) Page 10