Henry smiled. “Check your phone.”
Tanner did as suggested and saw that Henry had placed the spy camera that had been used at the Carrawells in the parking garage. It was aimed at the car the woman had been driving
“That was good work noticing that she had changed the license plates, and also paying attention to the hotel’s cameras. Are they fixed or are they the type that swivel?”
“They weren’t moving but looked like they could be made to do so remotely. Why? Do you want to disable them?”
“I might take that route later if she leaves the hotel and comes back. For now, we’ll follow her and see where she leads.”
With the possibility that he might have to abduct two people. Tanner prepared for it. He and Henry spread out plastic on the floor of the rear area of the van, cut lengths of rope for bindings, and took out ski masks to put over their guests’ heads. When worn backwards, they made for good hoods.
“What do we do with them once we have them?” Henry asked.
“I have an idea of where we might take them. There are several empty warehouses on Military Highway. Once we get them inside one, no one will hear them if they scream.”
“This would be some sick shit if we weren’t doing it for a good reason,” Henry said.
“It’s still sick, but necessary. Being an assassin, and in particular, a Tanner, will involve you doing some unpleasant things at times. Just keep in mind that you’ll be doing them to some very unpleasant people.”
“I get that. If you weren’t who you are, I’d be dead right now, and Grandma along with me. You took care of that scumbag that killed my mother before he could kill me too. Brock Kessler was a nasty piece of work who thought he could get away with anything… until he met you. I want to be that person for someone else someday if I can. In the meantime, I’ll take contracts and get paid to kill other scumbags. I can do some sick shit if it serves a good purpose. I don’t have a problem with that at all.”
The spy camera registered movement thirty-six minutes later and activated. The woman appeared on screen looking distinctly different than she had earlier. The wig was gone. Her natural eye color was brown, as was her hair, which only reached to her shoulders. She was wearing a pair of designer jeans along with a modest top and a blue leather jacket.
She was not alone. The man with her was bearded and matched the face in the sketch that Chief Harding had done.
Henry consulted the sketch. “That’s him. Big nose and all.”
“He tortured Gonzales and came away empty. Then the woman took her turn at The Carrawells. They’re looking for the same people that we are. What I want to know is why?”
“That means you’ll have to ask them. When do you want to do the grab?”
“We’ll follow them and see where they go. If they don’t meet with anyone, then we’ll take them when they return here.”
The man and the woman drove out of their parking space. Seconds later they emerged from the garage and onto the street. A man and a woman, that’s what they were, and not a couple. They didn’t give off that vibe. They were working together but not involved. That was for the best. Emotional involvement might breed a stubborn refusal to answer any questions if Tanner were forced to torture them for information.
The interrogators had dinner at a restaurant on Highway 77. That was how Tanner thought about them, as interrogators, although it was still a possibility that they were both assassins like himself.
Tanner and Henry watched them from the parking lot by using the camera and a pair of binoculars.
No one joined the pair, nor did they receive any phone calls. Tanner gave Henry another job to do.
“Grab a cab and head back to the hotel. I want you to wait until I call before you disable the hotel’s cameras. If you do it too soon, they may send someone down to investigate at the wrong time.”
“Okay. Any advice on the best way to do it?”
“Were they wireless cameras?”
Henry thought about it then shook his head as he smiled. “They’re both plugged into electrical outlets that are up high like the cameras. I guess I can just shimmy up the round columns they’re on and pull the plugs when I have to.”
“That’s good. Hotel security will think it was a prank as long as there’s no damage involved. So it doesn’t look as if that one area was targeted, yank others loose in different locations too.”
Tanner handed Henry money for a cab then watched as the boy headed toward the parking lot of a shopping center that was across the highway. There were taxis there coming and going as they dropped off and picked up passengers from a nightclub.
He went back to observing the man and the woman. They spoke little while eating. Both of them had watchful eyes and paid attention to their surroundings. He would have to be careful in how he went about grabbing them. They wouldn’t get inside the van unless they had no choice but to do so.
Tanner found himself getting hungry as he watched his subjects eat. The man had a steak and the woman some sort of pasta dish that might have been stuffed shells. She skipped dessert and had only coffee while the man indulged in a bowl of ice cream. Neither one of them were big drinkers. During their meal, the man had drunk beer while the woman sipped on wine.
Tanner waited to watch them return to their car before heading back to the hotel. It would be best if he beat them back there. If they had plans to go somewhere else, he could always turn around and follow them by using the tracker.
Within minutes it became apparent that they were headed back to the hotel as he thought they might, given the late hour. With the Carrawell brothers having been a dead-end, they might not know what next move to make. Tanner hoped that wasn’t true, he needed to get a lead on the people who had robbed the festival. The more time that passed, the less likely it was that he would find them and get the money back in time to help Mendez.
He called Henry when he was nearly back at the hotel and told him the plan they would use to grab up the interrogators. Henry sounded pleased by the strategy and said he was ready to disable the cameras whenever Tanner gave him the word.
“Do it now,” Tanner said. “They’re right behind me.”
The man and the woman were named Raúl and Felicia. Those were not their real names but the ones they’d been using for the last several years. Tanner was correct when he called them interrogators. They had both been trained by separate South American governments to “question” enemies of the state. That questioning invariably consisted of torture. Regime changes in their respective countries had led Raúl and Felicia to search for greener pastures. They both wound up working for a Columbian drug cartel where they were paired together. The cartel went to war with a rival and its leader was killed. Raúl and Felicia decided then that it was time to start working for themselves.
They complemented each other and being able to travel together as a couple helped them avoid the scrutiny they might have faced if they were alone. It also helped to ease the sense of loneliness each one suffered. Neither had family and their circumstances made living a normal life impossible.
Tanner had been correct when he sensed that there was nothing sexual going on between the two. The fact was that neither Raúl nor Felicia ever had sex, and they detested being touched. Both had been abused sexually as children. The experiences had left them with no desire for intimate physical contact. It was something else they had in common although they never discussed it.
By traveling with Raúl, Felicia was seen as being off limits to men who might have approached her if she were alone. Raúl had benefitted from her presence when he was picked up by the police. One of the people he had tortured had been discovered too soon and Raúl was still in the vicinity. Felicia had been preparing to torture someone else nearby and saw what was happening from the window of a third-floor apartment. She rendered her victim unconscious and hurried down to street-level. She pretended to be Raúl’s distraught wife and asked the policemen what the problem was.
H
er cover and supposed reason for being in the area was that they had come to shop at the nearby outlet center. When Felicia ran up to the cops, she was carrying three bags with the well-known names of stores that were located in the outlet center. Both she and Raúl spoke English well although they did have accents.
The policemen immediately rejected Raúl as the man they’d been looking for. They couldn’t imagine that a man who could inflict the torture they’d seen would also be traveling around with a beautiful woman. Felicia’s intervention had saved Raúl. He had been carrying a shopping bag of his own and the police had been seconds away from checking its contents. Inside that bag, beneath a pair of new sweaters, there had been a rolled-up sheet of bloody plastic and the knives Raúl used in his work.
With the policemen gone, Raúl joined Felicia on her assignment and kept watch while she did her job. They extracted the information they’d been after, killed the poor devil they got it from, and went on their way.
Their current assignment was turning out to be a difficult one. They had been at work for days with no results to show for it. Things were about to get magnitudes worse for them.
Raúl and Felicia looked up when the black van came coasting to a stop near the designated parking spot the hotel granted to guests that stayed in their suites. The two had grown up in environments where danger was the norm and were always on alert to threats. The appearance of the van aroused their suspicion.
One look at the driver and they both relaxed. He was a young man still in his teens wearing a bright smile. He sent them a wave and asked a question.
“Are you guys here for the convention too?”
Felicia was about to answer when she saw something in his eyes. Although he was a boy, there was knowledge and experience in those eyes. She made her living disarming people with various ruses so she could get close enough to them to take them by surprise. Her greatest asset was the fact that she was an attractive woman. A teenager would also share such an advantage. Behind his innocent face could lurk a predator.
Felicia was about to slip her right hand into her purse for her gun when she heard a sound behind her. An instant later she was groaning in pain from an electric shock administered by the barbs of a Taser. At that same moment, Raúl was getting a taste of the same.
While Henry distracted them, Tanner had come up behind Raúl and Felicia while holding two Tasers. He’d been meaning to hit them both in their backs, but his left-handed aim had been a little low and the weapon’s twin barbs embedded themselves into Felicia’s shapely buttocks. The result was indistinguishable, and she fell to the floor of the garage while shouting from the pain inflicted.
Henry was out of the van and on Felicia before she could recover. Her wrists were secured, then her ankles, before a gag was shoved into her mouth. At that point she was regaining control of her muscles and it took some effort to slip a hood over her head.
Raúl was similarly handled by Tanner. Although a greater physical threat, he was slower to recover from the shock than Felicia. He was also heavier. After lifting Felicia into the van, Henry helped Tanner load the bucking Raúl inside next to her. Lengths of rope that were tied to the side of the van were placed over their hooded heads and secured around their throats. The ropes tightened during their attempts to get their bound feet beneath them and threatened to cut off their air. That calmed them down.
Tanner looked at them as he backed the van up to make a turn. “That’s right. Just relax and you’ll be able to breathe. When we get to where we’re going, that’s when we’ll talk.”
Raúl mumbled something that was unintelligible thanks to the gag. It was likely a threat that meant nothing. After that, the drive passed in silence. Tanner headed toward the area where several warehouses were for lease. Their cavernous interiors could swallow up screams and there would be no neighbors or passing pedestrians to cause concern. The interrogators were about to get a taste of their own medicine. It was time to get some answers.
6
Talk Or Die
The air inside the vacant warehouse was cooler than the air outside, and there was the lingering scent of machine oil left behind by the commercial property’s last tenant. They had been producers of small to medium-sized engines, such as those used in power tools and lawn mowers. They were now across the Rio Grande in Mexico.
Tanner and Henry had carried Raúl and Felicia inside the building one at a time and placed them on the concrete floor in the center of the voluminous space. They remained bound with their gags in place but with the hoods removed. Raúl’s eyes revealed the rage he was feeling, but Felicia had remained calm.
Raúl’s handgun and stiletto were in the van along with Felicia’s gun, which was found inside her purse. She had also carried a small blade. Henry had missed it during his pat down of her. He had neglected to check her crotch area. Tanner had caught that error and used the back of his hand to feel around down there. He’d felt something too firm to be flesh and plunged his hand into the front of her jeans. Felicia’s expression had been hidden beneath the hood she’d worn but she had stiffened at the contact and released a whimper.
When Tanner’s hand reappeared a moment later, it was holding a piece of tape that had a handcuff key and a razor blade stuck to it. The sharp edge of the blade was sheathed inside a thin piece of plastic. Tanner pocketed the items while speaking close to Felicia’s ear. “Nice try.”
“I’m sorry I missed that,” Henry said. He was embarrassed that his reluctance to touch a woman in such a sensitive area had allowed her to stay armed with a potentially lethal weapon.
Tanner brushed it off with a wave of his hand. “You’re here to learn. Now, you’ve done just that.”
Tanner spoke to the interrogators as one professional to another.
“You two are well aware of the pain I can inflict upon you to make you talk. If you know anything, I’ll get it out of you, but you won’t like it one bit, and I’ll have gotten bloody and will need to change my clothes. Instead of that, why don’t you tell me everything you know. If you do that, I’ll let you live, and we can go our separate ways.”
After speaking, Tanner nodded at Henry. Henry removed the gag on Felicia as Tanner released the one on Raúl.
Raúl began talking the instant he was able. “You’ll kill us no matter what happens here.”
“No. I’ll only kill you if you refuse to talk to me or if I’m certain that you’re lying to me. I know what and who the two of you are. I also know that what you do to those you question isn’t personal. This isn’t personal for me either. I want information. I don’t need to take your lives unless I have to.”
Raúl looked over at Felicia, then back at Tanner. “If you harm her, I will kill you.”
Tanner raised an eyebrow as those words were spoken. There was passion in the man’s voice. It seemed that there was something between them after all. He looked over at the woman and saw confusion in her eyes. Raúl’s emotional display had surprised her. Raúl’s affection was one-sided.
Tanner sighed. “I won’t have to hurt either of you if you start talking. You can begin by telling me your names.”
The woman spoke, revealing a light Spanish accent. “I am Felicia and he is Raúl. What is your name?”
“My name doesn’t matter,” Tanner said. He didn’t need the word getting out that he was in Texas. If that happened often enough, someone might realize that he lived in the state, and not in New York City, where he had been most active.
“Who do you work for?” Tanner asked Felicia.
“We do not know the client’s name. Everything is handled over the internet. We get a flat fee and if we’re successful, we’re paid more.”
“I saw the end of your… discussion, with the Carrawell brothers. You’re looking for the heist crew that robbed the Fall Festival in Stark, Texas. I’m looking for them too. I know my reasons, what are yours?”
“Don’t tell him a damn thing, Felicia,” Raúl said.
“You should want her to te
ll me. I wasn’t lying when I said that I would let you live if you told me what you know. The opposite is true if you don’t tell me.”
Raúl cursed at Tanner and issued an order. “Release her now and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Tanner ignored him and spoke to Felicia again. “Why are you looking for the heist crew?”
“They stole something valuable that was to be passed on to someone else. The item is an old and rare piece of United States currency, a thousand-dollar bill from 1880. We were told that it’s valued at nearly two million dollars.”
Tanner gave her answer some thought before asking, “Does this involve money laundering?”
Felicia nodded. “I wasn’t told that but it’s what I believe. It’s been done with old stamps, artwork, diamonds, and antique coins. The rare bill would work just as well.”
Tanner stared at her. He believed she was telling the truth.
“How did the two heist crews learn about the bill?”
“I do not know about the people we seek, but Alden Carrawell told me that he was tipped off by the man the currency was stolen from. He is a dealer in old stamps and coins who had a booth at the festival. Carrawell, his brother, and two others were to pay him twenty percent of the bill’s value after they found a buyer. Instead, the other group robbed him. When the Carrawells arrived, they saw that the other thieves had struck first and they fought.”
“What’s the name of this dealer in old stamps?”
“Alex Tinsley. He has a shop in a town nearby named Culver.”
“I guess he would have been your next target, hmm?”
Felicia hesitated just an instant before nodding. Tanner wondered about her delay in answering but pressed on with his questions.
“Who was Tinsley supposed to pass the bill on to if there had been no robbery?”
To Serve And Protect (A Tanner Novel Book 39) Page 5