Tanner- Year Two

by Remington Kane

  An hour more of walking and he could make out lights in the distance. There were three sets of them visible, with one brighter than the others. Tanner headed toward a town with less lights. More lights meant more people, more streets, and more opportunities to grab a car and get away. It would also be the place someone would be likely to look for him.

  No matter how many cars there might be, he only needed one. Once he’d acquired it, he would head for a highway and put miles behind him.

  Tanner reached the town near midnight after the desert met up with a paved road. There were no street lights, but the moon was three-quarters full and the sky cloudless. Despite keeping an eye out for movement, Tanner never became aware of the man who was watching him.

  Henry lay beside a cactus and kept Tanner in sight through the lenses of a pair of binoculars. Like Brandt, he was dressed in desert camo. A tall man and muscular, at thirty-seven his face still retained a boyish handsomeness. He was over a mile away and hadn’t spotted Tanner until the hit man was crossing the road. In the old days, he would have considered closing in on Tanner and engaging him in a firefight. The thought of it made his blood run cold.

  “I’m not a coward,” Henry whispered to himself, as he took out his phone to call Brandt.

  Brandt sent Daisy a smile as he listened to Henry tell him where Tanner was. They had stopped at a gas station on the highway for fuel and then stayed there, since it was located inside the largest town and bordered by the desert. With its bright lights and promise of food and water, Brandt figured anyone emerging from a long hike in the desert would be drawn to the gas station like a metal ball bearing to a magnet. Instead, Henry had spotted him miles away.

  “Keep him in sight. I’ll call the guys and we’ll all be there soon.”

  “I’ll keep tracking him,” Henry said.

  “Was he wearing shorts?”

  “No, he had on long pants, but he was carrying that bag you described, and I caught a glimpse of his eyes too. This guy doesn’t look like a pushover.”

  “That’s our man. You keep us updated and we’ll be there soon.”

  “All right. He’s on Main Street right now. The only thing open at this hour is the diner. I think maybe he’s going—” The call ended abruptly.

  “Henry?” Brandt was initially worried Henry had been attacked, then realized the man they were hunting couldn’t have closed in on Henry so quickly. He figured their call had been a victim of the intermittent cell service in the area.

  “Where is the man who killed Raul?” Daisy asked.

  “He’s in Delran,” Brandt said.

  Miles away, Henry looked down at his phone and saw he had lost the signal. There were no bars showing. It wasn’t bad service; the cell tower had been sabotaged by Steve Piper and his crew. Piper allowed himself a short window of time to kidnap his ex-wife, rob the armored car company, and make away with millions.

  Tanner, Brandt, Daisy, and the others were about to throw a monkey wrench into the smooth operation of that plan.

  12

  The Unexpected

  Tanner’s chest injury was bleeding again and required attention. The blood wasn’t visible, but the bandage was wet and needed changing. On the bright side, his injured arm was much better, and he had regained full motion, although it still emitted a dull ache.

  The lights of the diner broadcast the fact it was open, and there were vehicles parked out front as well. Along with a pickup truck that had the diner’s name on it, there was a compact car and four motorcycles.

  Tanner entered the diner to use their bathroom, then changed his mind. Something was going on. Tension was in the air, and the atmosphere within the diner was one of danger.

  There were round tables with red-and-white checkered tablecloths on the left and a counter with eight stools on the right, and behind that was the grill. Along the back wall were three booths.

  Four men sat in the center booth along with a girl. Three of the men were on the left side, with the fourth man and the girl seated across from them. The men were all dressed in leather, vests and pants, while the girl wore pajamas and looked like a college kid. The men all had dark hair, except the one with the girl. The only other people in the diner were the waitress and the cook.

  The waitress was behind the counter and staring down at the floor. She looked as if she’d been frozen in place and had eyes made red from crying. The cook was at the grill, and it smelled as if something were burning on it and had been burning for a while. They both wore expressions of dread.

  There was a tattoo on the cook’s arm, near his shoulder, which was visible because of the sleeveless white tee he wore. The colors were faded on the tattoo, but Tanner recognized it as a Marine Corps insignia.

  One of the men in the booth spoke to Tanner, the blond one. It was Steve Piper. Piper was wearing an amused grin.

  “What are you looking at, slick?”

  Before Tanner could reply, headlights shone across the diner’s windows. They were the headlights of a police car.

  Tanner moved over to the counter and slid onto a stool as he wondered what he had walked into. Piper watched him, then spoke to the cook.

  “You remember what I said, Jarhead? If you want your daughter to live, you’ll do what I asked.”

  The cook nodded wildly. “Just don’t hurt our daughter.”

  “That’s up to you,” Piper said. One of his hands was beneath the table; he brought it into view for a moment and revealed the knife he was holding. “Try to get cute, and I’ll slice this bitch open.”

  The waitress made a muffled cry as fresh tears formed in her eyes.

  The door opened and the cop stepped in. He was a rangy man in his fifties with gray hair, gray eyes, and a gray uniform. Like Tanner, he sensed the tension immediately. His eyes took in the men and the girl in the booth, found Tanner, then shifted to take in the waitress and the cook.

  “Toby, Millie, what’s going on here?”

  Fresh tears flowed from the waitress’s eyes and rolled down her cheek. At the grill, the cook looked away and wouldn’t meet the cop’s eyes.

  The lawman released a sigh, then issued an order to Tanner.

  “I want you off that stool. Take a seat in one of the other booths where I’ll have you in front of me.”

  “I’m not part of whatever is going on here,” Tanner said.

  “Mister, I’ll figure you out later. Right now, I want you to do what I said.”

  Tanner rose from the stool and moved slowly to the back. He passed the center booth with the men in it, to take the one on the right, across from the end of the counter. Piper turned his head around and smirked at him.

  “Wrong place, wrong time, buddy,” Piper said.

  Tanner remained silent, settled in the booth, and kept his hands in sight atop the table, so he didn’t make the cop nervous. The officer moved past the waitress and stood a few feet away from Piper and his men. The girl beside Piper was crying like her mother, while her breathing was a series of gasps.

  The cop spoke to the girl. “Are you all right, Mandy?”

  Mandy shook her head no.

  “I want you to slide out of that booth and go get behind the grill, okay honey?”

  Piper had his arm around Mandy’s shoulders. When she tried to move, he held her in place.

  “She’d rather stay with me. Isn’t that right, sweet thing?”

  Mandy remained silent.

  The cop was done playing and took out his gun, which he pointed at Piper.

  “You let that girl go, mister, or there’s going to be trouble.”

  “The girl stays with me,” Piper said, as beneath the table, he pressed the tip of the blade against her abdomen. Mandy gasped loudly, then she sucked in air against the pain. He had cut deep enough to draw blood; it began dripping on the floor beneath the table, and the cop noticed it.

  “What have you got, a knife under there? Mister, I swear, if you hurt that girl again, I’ll blow your damn head off.”

&nbs
p; “The next cut will slice her wide open,” Piper said.

  The cop appeared as if he were unsure of what to do next as his eyes went from Piper to the other men in the booth. Those men all had their hands in view as Tanner did. Finally, after wetting his lips several times, the cop lowered his gun and used his other hand to take a phone off his utility belt. It was time to call for backup. Given the size of the town and the late hour, that meant he’d have to roust someone from their bed.

  Before the cop could make the call, the waitress rushed forward, as the cook moved from behind the grill. The woman shrieked in anguish as she smashed a carafe of hot coffee against the back of the cop’s head, scalding him. The officer screamed, dropped the phone, and swatted her away. As the waitress stumbled backward to fall on her ass, her husband, the cook, moved in on the cop. A meat cleaver came down on the wrist connected to the hand holding the gun. It damn near severed the hand from the cop’s body.

  The officer screamed again, as the gun hit the floor, then the cleaver was implanted in his skull, at the center of his forehead. The lawman made a jerky motion, as if he were doing a jig, before dropping to the floor of the diner, where he continued to twitch madly. The convulsions ended as he went rigid, and the officer lay dead.

  The cook shouted at Piper. “I did what you asked! I killed him! Please, please, don’t hurt Mandy.”

  Piper removed his arm from the girl’s shoulders and gave her a shove. Mandy rushed to her mother and helped her from the floor. When the waitress raised the pajama top to study the wound on her daughter’s stomach, she sighed with relief to see that it wasn’t very deep.

  Tanner had been momentarily mesmerized by the turn of events and shocked by the cook’s actions. He recovered, pulled out his gun, and took aim at the other booth. One of the men there had also drawn a weapon. He took precedence over the others and Tanner shot him twice.

  Piper had turned around to speak to Tanner and had spotted the gun. He ducked down and the two rounds hit one of the men seated across from him.

  Tanner propelled himself out of the booth, slid across the floor and found concealment behind the counter. He found something else—a body. It was the fresh corpse of a teenage boy, also in pajamas. He’d been gutted by a knife. Given the teen’s resemblance to the girl, Tanner guessed he was her brother. It was no wonder the waitress and the cook had been willing to kill the cop; Piper had already proven to the couple he wasn’t bluffing.

  Tanner scrambled to his feet while keeping low, moved past the grill, and went out the back door and into the night.

  13

  Complications

  The man Tanner shot was Mike Walsh, Steve Piper’s best friend and cousin. One of Tanner’s rounds hit Walsh’s left arm, the second slug went into his chest and collapsed a lung. Red bubbles of blood seeped from the wound. Walsh was dying.

  While his other two men chased after Tanner, Piper had moved across the booth to check the damage. One look at the chest wound and he knew his cousin was dying. Piper shouted at the cook. The man and what remained of his family had been ordered by Piper to settle in the booth Tanner had been sitting in. The cop’s blood had sprayed the cook and his white shirt was now scarlet.

  “Where’s the hospital in this town?”

  The cook answered while staring at the gun Piper held. “There is no hospital here. The nearest one is a half hour away.”

  Walsh tried to speak, and blood dripped from his lips. A moment later, he arched his back, made a gurgled sound of pain, then went limp, as his heart stopped. A fragment from the slug in his chest had damaged his aortic artery.

  “No! Damn it,” Piper said. “Mike, don’t you die. Don’t you die!”

  The diner became silent, save for the sound of the large refrigerator’s humming motor. Piper didn’t cry over his loss, instead, he pounded the table with a fist as his face grew red from rage. Soon after, the large room went nearly silent, as everyone in it grieved the loss of a loved one. The teen girl was weeping softly as her mother held her and patted her hair.

  When one of Piper’s men returned, he left his cousin’s side and slid from the booth. It was Bernard.

  “Did you get that bastard?”

  “No, but we got on the radio and told the others about him. As soon as he pokes his head up, he’s ours.”

  “I want him dead. Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you, and hey, man, I’m sorry about Mike.”

  Piper took a radio off his belt, activated it, and gave orders for two of his other men to come to the diner. Before the death of his cousin, he’d had a core of six people in his group, counting himself, and including one woman, Roxana. There were also the five mercenaries who’d signed up for the heist.

  Piper figured killing the cop on the night shift would be no problem, but if the state police joined the party, the mercenaries would come in handy and could make the difference between escape or capture.

  After giving his dead cousin a last look, Piper moved toward the counter, as he headed for the screen door in the kitchen area. The leather pants he wore squeaked as he moved. When he looked over at the cook and his family, he made a sound of disgust.

  “Get these people out of my sight.”

  “What do you want to do with them?” Bernard asked.

  “Lock them in the freezer.”

  The cook opened his mouth to protest that they would freeze to death, then thought better of it after looking at Piper’s face. Anger had replaced the smug expression and the cook feared he and his family would be killed outright if he said a word.

  Piper stepped outside and was pleased to see two mercenaries show up on motorcycles. Everyone in the group had a motorcycle and were wearing black leather. The clothing and the bikes had been stolen for the operation. Piper planned to steal over a hundred million dollars. He wanted to do it in style.

  The rear of the diner had three dumpsters, two were green and meant for trash, while the third was orange and held recyclable material. Just left of the back door was an old wooden carport with a saggy roof.

  The mercs cut off their engines and walked over to Piper, who issued orders. They were to go to the motel where his wife and daughter were and bring them to him. He gave them the address of the house where he would be.

  “One more thing, don’t leave any witnesses behind. You got me?”

  The larger of the two men laughed. “I’d kill everyone in town for a share of that money we’re stealing.”

  “Rough up my wife if you have to but don’t hurt my kid; if she has a scratch, I’ll take it out on you.”

  “It’s cool,” said the other man, “but we can’t bring them back on these bikes.”

  “I’ve thought of that,” Piper said. He tossed over a set of keys that belonged to the pickup truck out front. It was the vehicle used by the cook and had the diner’s name on it.

  The smaller man caught the keys and asked a question. “Is your woman going to give us a lot of trouble, Piper?”

  “Luna will make a fuss all right, but she’s not stupid. Once she sees the guns, she’ll do what you say. And remember, she’s in Room 12.”

  “Why did she run out on you?”

  Piper glared at the man. “You ask too many damn questions.”

  The merc held his hands up. “Sorry, just nosey is all.”

  “Get going. And bring Luna and my kid to Maple Lane, number 31. It’s the last house on the block.”

  The mercenaries walked around to the front where the pickup was, as Piper stepped back inside the diner. A few moments passed, then a figure slid off the side of the carport and dropped to the ground. It was Tanner. He had heard every word spoken by Piper and knew that Luna Grant and her daughter were about to be abducted.

  He took out his phone and saw there was no signal. Piper was likely the cause of that, and he guessed that the landlines would be disabled as well. One of the mercs had mentioned a robbery, so there was more than a kidnapping at stake, and a teenage boy and a cop had already been murdered
.

  Tanner walked over to the motorcycles and was glad to see they both still had the keys in them. It would be a simple thing to slip out of town on a bike. Once he did so, he could find a phone or get a cell signal and alert the authorities. Of course, by then, it could be too late for Luna Grant and her daughter.

  Tanner hopped on the bike while sighing. Things had just become more complicated. As he heard the pickup truck rumble to life out front, Tanner pushed the motorcycle away from the rear door of the diner. When he was out on a side street where the sound might not carry, he started the engine on the bike. Moments later, he was following the mercenaries.

  He would keep them from abducting Luna and her daughter, then he would stick around and take care of Piper as well. Robbery was one thing, while terrorizing a town and slaughtering innocents was another.

  As his injury continued to soak the bandage on his chest, Tanner rode toward another violent confrontation.

  14

  A Change Of Plans

  With the use of his binoculars, Henry had watched Tanner enter the diner. Conleth had been farther down the highway keeping watch for Tanner, as Henry had been doing. He hadn’t spotted Tanner but had seen Piper’s arrival.

  When he joined Henry, Conleth filled him in on what he had observed across town. They were standing in the shadows of a gas station that was closed for the night.

  “A motorcycle gang?” Henry said.

  “That’s what they looked like to me, and they’re armed.”

  “How many were there?”

  “I counted eleven, including one I think is a woman. They dropped off a guy with a shotgun near the entrance to the highway. Then I saw him and another man lift up a barrier and drag it across the on-ramp. They were making it look like the entrance to the highway was closed. I bet they’ll do the same thing on the other end of town.”