Steve Mendez met them at an old abandoned train yard. He wrinkled his nose in disgust when he looked in on Kushnir but laughed when he saw the gifts Tanner had brought him.
“The victims will be damn glad to get their wallets and jewelry back. These bastards even took people’s wedding rings.”
Tanner held up the rare bill. “I’m not an expert in the law, but since this was used for money laundering shouldn’t you be able to confiscate it?”
“It’s possible.”
“This thing is valuable, Steve. If sold at auction, I’m betting your department would clear over a million dollars. That would help Clay when he becomes chief and will ease your budget worries when you become mayor.”
“Holy crap, Cody. You’re right. I never thought of that. This disaster is starting to look like a blessing, thanks to you.”
“Did anyone pick up Sparks in Laredo yet?”
“Yeah, and I’m waiting on the ballistic results.”
“Kushnir’s rifle is on the floor of the cab. You’ll find the magazine in the glove box.”
“What would you have done if you were pulled over by a cop on the way back here?”
Tanner smiled. “I would have told him that I worked for you as a deputy.”
“Hell, I wish you did. The crime rate would be zero.”
“Yeah, but you’d have to triple the size of the morgue.”
Tanner joined Henry in the pickup truck. They were headed back to the ranch.
“Any idea where we might find the last guy?” Henry asked. “I owe that bastard for almost running me down. And the son of a bitch was actually trying to kill that little girl.”
“His name is Gage Kline. And no, I don’t know where to find him yet. Amelie said that he once mentioned that he was from Chicago. It’s possible he ran back there to hide.”
“I hope not. I’d love to get my hands on him.”
“Maybe we’ll find out something while were in the desert tomorrow.”
“I’m looking forward to that. I want to see what preparations you make to deal with what will be a massive attack.”
“That reminds me. I want you to stop in town today and buy fishhooks and fishing line. We’ll need them in the desert.”
“Fishhooks? In the desert?”
“They’re part of the preparations we’re making.”
Henry laughed. “I can’t wait to see what that’s all about.”
Henry was to be dropped off first before Cody returned home. When they arrived at the house Henry shared with his grandmother, Henry found that he had a visitor. It was twelve-year-old Chrissy Kyle. The girl had ridden her bike for miles to come see Henry.
Cody watched from the window of his truck as the little girl walked over to Henry as he got out. Chrissy had been talking to Henry’s grandmother, Laura. She had stopped by to thank Henry for saving her and she had a gift for him.
“A pair of fuzzy dice?” Henry said.
Chrissy pointed at Henry’s 1980 Z28 Camaro. “They’re for your car. Aren’t classic cars supposed to have them?”
Henry looked down at the girl and smiled. She had her red hair tied back in pigtails and looked adorable.
“Thank you, Chrissy. I’ll hang them from the mirror.”
“Cool.”
Henry looked over at her bike. It was a pink three-speed. “How far did you ride to get here?”
“We live on Sycamore Street, in that new development.”
“What? That’s got to be about twelve miles from here. Why didn’t you ask someone to give you a ride?”
Chrissy looked down. “Daddy wouldn’t have brought me here. I don’t think he likes you.”
Henry started to say that the feeling was mutual, but instead he asked Chrissy how her wrist was doing.
“I’m all better, well, almost.”
“Let me give you a ride home. I’ll put your bike in my trunk and you can hang the dice on the mirror.”
Chrissy shook her head. “If Daddy saw me getting out of your car, he’d go bananas.”
“Then I’ll drop you off a couple of blocks from your home, but I’m not letting you ride all that way back to your house. It’s too far.”
Chrissy smiled. “Thank you, Henry.”
Henry drove off a few minutes later with Chrissy sitting beside him. The pair of red fuzzy dice were hanging from the rearview mirror.
Laura called to Cody. “That little girl has such a crush on him.”
Cody nodded. “That’s for sure.” He told Laura goodbye and drove to the ranch house. As he did so, he wondered what Cipher would throw at him next.
17
Vulture Bait
The leader of the Diablo’s Doubles was named Hombre. Hombre had been burned in a fire during a run-in his gang had several years ago with Jake Caliber the fifth. Hombre had been left bald, scarred horribly from the burns, and speaking with a raspy voice.
Hombre and a dozen other men had faced off against a lone Jake Caliber and were defeated, with most of them killed. Now, he was preparing to go up against Tanner. The man had not learned a simple lesson—superior numbers do not guarantee a victory.
Tanner and Henry were in the Chihuahuan Desert, about an hour’s drive from El Paso, Texas. Weber had come through for Tanner by contacting an acquaintance he knew was connected to Cipher. He had asked the friend for help and told him that he was hiding out in the desert. The location he mentioned was the spot where Tanner and Henry had been busy laying traps. The first one was crude but effective, the second was designed to be used against a foe that numbered many.
Now that he had recovered the rare bill and helped Mendez, Tanner had turned his focus on finding and killing the people who had been trying to kill him. While that included the people behind Cipher, he didn’t expect to find them. According to everything he had learned about them, Cipher’s members were untouchable because they were anonymous. He didn’t intend to spend time searching for them, a task that might take years to accomplish.
Once he dealt with Cipher’s lackey, Logan Fortunato, and whatever fools they sent out into the desert to kill him, then he too would disappear and become anonymous again. He, Joe Pullo, and Jake Caliber won their first encounter with Cipher. He intended to win this one as well. After that, Cipher could live with the defeat and forget about him or they could be stupid and actively try to harm him. He hadn’t been out to cause them trouble but had run afoul of them while minding his own business. If they wanted to make that personal, then so be it.
Cipher had resources but so did he. If Cipher had left a trail somewhere that could be followed back to them, Tim Jackson would find it. Tanner was sick and tired of having to defend himself against large criminal organizations. He didn’t give a damn what they did as long as they left him and his alone. By operating in Stark, even in such a limited and transitory manner, they had involved him. If they were as smart as he’d been told, they would see that they had nothing to gain by angering him and back off. He intended to send that message by destroying the next kill squad they sent at him. There would be swift death delivered with no shred of mercy.
Tanner had parked an old travel trailer near an abandoned salt mine. There was a single road with a cracked surface that led in and out of the area. Creosote bushes dotted the landscape and other than the trailer there was only one other structure that was about three hundred yards away. The miners had left behind a concrete building whose roof had collapsed a long time ago.
Tanner and Henry were in that building. They had been waiting for hours for something to happen. Prior to that, they had spent time preparing for an attack.
Fortunato would have assumed that Boss and his people were dead and might have even seen mention of it in the news. He would know that meant that Tanner had Weber and that they might still be together. Thanks to the deception that Weber birthed, Fortunato would think that he knew Weber’s new location. He would be sending people to kill Tanner and abduct Weber.
“How many do you think this F
ortunato will send after you?” Henry asked.
“Likely a dozen or more, but it won’t matter if they send a hundred.”
“Are you angry?”
Tanner looked at him, then sighed. “I’m tired of this. I became Tanner so that I could take contracts and make money by doing the world a favor and ridding it of a few scumbags. I never wanted to become the target of every group of fools who saw me as a way to build their reps.”
Henry shrugged. “It’s unavoidable.”
“What is?”
“Becoming a target. You’re the seventh Tanner. You’ve got the experience of Spenser and the other Tanners to call on, and Cody, you’re just an undeniable badass. It would be amazing if you weren’t a target for every jerk looking to build a name or prove something.”
“You’re saying that this had to happen?”
“Yeah. Each Tanner was better than the one before them. Over time, someone like you was bound to come along and be so much better than everyone else. You’ve told me about the Scallatos, about Maurice Scallato, and how he, his father, and several generations before them were all trained as assassins. Maurice Scallato was their Tanner Seven. He was not only gifted at being an assassin, but he had been trained to be so. Maybe he felt the same way you did. Maybe that’s why he went around killing other assassins who he felt were a threat to taking his title as greatest assassin of all time. It could be that he felt it was kill or be killed.”
“Do you really believe that?”
Henry smiled. “No. I’ve read Jacques Durand’s book. Scallato was just an asshole. And he bit off more than he could chew when he went after you.”
Tanner smiled back at him, as his anger faded. The smiled dimmed as he realized something.
“This could be your life someday too, do you understand that? As a Tanner, you’ll always be a target for somebody.”
Henry shrugged. “Let them come. If I’m even half as good as you then they won’t stand a chance.”
“I’m serious, Henry. You might have to prove yourself over and over just like I do. Think about that and know that I won’t blame you if you decide to quit being trained by me.”
Henry looked at his mentor with a solemn expression. “Cody, all I’ve ever wanted is to be just like you. You’re the best man I know, and I’ll pay any price to make you proud of me. I know I told Crash that I’m a long way from being named Tanner Eight, and I sure as hell am, but… I want it bad, man. I want to be a Tanner so much that I can taste it.”
“I know that feeling.”
They went back to watching the horizon for signs of movement. It was eighty-three degrees and heat was rising off the desert floor. Off to the west, a group of turkey vultures were circling. If they were in search of carrion, they would soon have a plentiful supply.
Henry’s young ears detected the sound an instant before Tanner registered it. Motorcycles.
Hombre was eager to go up against Tanner. He knew that if the Diablo’s Doubles killed the hit man that he would have guys fighting each other to join the motorcycle club. He liked being the leader and all, but things hadn’t been the same since the old leader of the club, Bronco, had been killed by Jake Caliber. If he could double, or better yet, triple the club’s members, he might take a trip to New York City with them all and hunt down that bastard Caliber.
Hombre had led a hard life. Not once had it occurred to him that most of his troubles were his own fault. The problem was a common one. Hombre was stupid. That stupidity was about to land him in the worst trouble of his life.
“Hombre,” Tanner said. He had recognized the club leader after viewing him through the binoculars.
“You know one of those guys?”
“Their leader is someone I’ve seen before. His luck has just run out.”
“They’re headed straight for the trailer,” Henry said, then he watched through his own pair of binoculars for what he knew was about to happen.
Tanner hadn’t wanted the fishing line and fishhooks to go fishing. They were to be used as the first of the traps that Tanner and Henry had laid for any would-be attackers.
Hombre and the other members of the motorcycle club slowed as they neared the travel trailer, then began circling it from fifty feet out. Not one of the men wore a helmet, as it wasn’t mandatory in Texas.
Hombre had arrived with twenty-one other men. He felt confident that Tanner and the man named Weber had probably ducked inside the trailer when they heard them coming. Someone was in there for sure. There was a car parked nearby, and a folding chair and table were set up outside by the steps. There were two bottles of beer on the table, indicating that there was more than one person inside.
Hombre stopped his bike and cut off the engine, then he made a slicing gesture at his throat that told his followers to cut their engines too. When it was quiet, Hombre sent a blast from a shotgun into the front of the trailer. Buckshot shattered a window and blew holes in the curtain that had been behind it.
“Hey in there, come on out or we’ll come on in there and drag your asses out.”
There was no answer, but the faint sound of a radio could be heard playing from inside.
“All right, we’ll do things the hard way.” Hombre started up his motorcycle and his men did the same as they took out their weapons.
Clothes hung on a line, as if to dry in the sun. It was not the only line that had been hung.
As Hombre rode closer to the trailer, he opened his mouth to shout something to the man beside him. As he did so, he felt something sharp cut his tongue and felt a tug at his upper lip. Still more pain erupted along his face and throat, even as he saw the other man’s right cheek rip open. Cries of pain were all around him. At the same time, three of the men lost control of their bikes and caused accidents. One of the men who had fallen off his ride had some sort of hook jammed in an eye. His scream was loud enough to overcome the sound of the engines.
“Fishing hooks! The damn things are everywhere,” one of the other bikers said as he pulled one from the crook of his elbow and a another from his scalp.
Tanner and Henry had run super thin fishing line from the trailer to several of the nearby cane cholla trees and also tied the ends to some of the hardier scrub brush. The hooks themselves were difficult to see until you were right up on them. Since Hombre and his men had been riding their bikes instead of walking, they ran into the hooks’ sharp ends at greater speed. The trap had been meant to annoy, confuse, and cause minor injuries. Tanner had originally intended to add a series of traps that would maim and whittle down any force arrayed against him. When the odds were more manageable, then he would have opened up with a sniper rifle and picked off those that remained. However, the more he thought about Cipher’s attempts to kill him, the madder he became. Henry had been right. Tanner was angry, and he was all out of patience.
Hombre fought his way through the hooks and made it to the door of the trailer. His shotgun made short work of the lock and he swung open the door. There was no one inside that he could see. What he did see were a stack of what looked like bricks of clay. They were on the floor. Sitting atop the stack was some sort of electronic device with a glowing red light. Hombre figured out that the clay wasn’t really clay at the same time the red light turned green. One tenth of a second after that and Hombre was all but vaporized by the detonation of plastic explosives.
“Holy shit!” Henry said. He had watched the trailer explode and devastate anything within a hundred feet of it. Secondary explosions occurred when the trailer’s propane tanks blew up, along with the motorcycles’ gas tanks. Sections of the trailer were flung into the air along with body parts. The Diablo’s Doubles Motorcycle Club had just ceased to exist.
When the dust that had been stirred up had settled, Henry looked through the binoculars. What he saw was a scene from a nightmare.
“That should send a message to Cipher,” Henry said in a voice that was almost a whisper.
“We’re not done yet.”
“Oh, rig
ht.”
There was a second bomb in the old car. It had been flipped over onto its roof by the shock wave of the first blast and had no window glass left. The second bomb was inside its trunk. Tanner hit a button on the detonator he had and activated the second bomb before the turkey vultures had swooped in for a meal. He had nothing against the birds, who were just doing what they had been designed to do.
Tanner hadn’t known what sort of force or in what numbers they would have been thrown at him. Hombre and his twenty-one leather-clad imbeciles could have turned out to be even more men than that. The pair of detonations had been set-up to devastate a hundred or more.
Tanner dropped the detonator and used his boot to grind it into the sand. “Let’s go.”
They left the ruins of the old concrete building and walked over a hill. Their vehicle, a pickup truck rented under an alias, had been camouflaged to blend in with the landscape and go undetected during a search of the area. Hombre had never bothered to look for it. He led his men toward the trailer without any consideration that things weren’t what they looked like.
Once they had the truck uncovered, Henry settled in the passenger seat.
“I know there were a lot more men this time and that we were prepared for them, but that seemed too easy.”
“It was.”
“Why?”
“Fortunato may have underestimated me again or he might have been trying to make me think a certain way.”
“You mean like make you overconfident?”
“Yeah… maybe.”
Tanner started the truck. There were backpacks, sleeping bags, and other camping gear in the rear. If they were stopped, they could claim that they had been hiking in the desert. Once they were back in range of the cell phone towers, Tanner’s phone alerted him that he had a text. It was from Tim Jackson, and it supplied Tanner with the home address of the man calling himself Logan Fortunato, Guy Hutchinson.
To Serve And Protect (A Tanner Novel Book 39) Page 14