Tanner- Year Two

by Remington Kane

  The older guard, who was named Al, grimaced. “I don’t like that. I told you the other night that owls were bad luck. There are people that believe they appear when someone’s about to die.”

  “It’s just a bird, Al,” the younger man said.

  Before the discussion could go any further, the desk phone rang. “This must be Gladys,” Al said. He answered the phone as he always did, stating his name and the name of the company. “This is Al at the Safe & Secure Armored car company. How may I help you?”

  When Al’s posture relaxed and he smiled, McHugh knew he was hearing his wife’s voice.

  “Oh, you fell asleep in front of the TV, huh? I was wondering why you hadn’t called yet.”

  The call lasted for four minutes that felt like an hour to McHugh. When the guard finally told his wife goodnight, McHugh breathed a sigh of relief. He bent over as if he were reaching for something in a bottom drawer of the desk, then slid his hand behind a filing cabinet. He had hidden a gun there days earlier. He was going to disarm the guards, then tape them together and blindfold them. That way, no one had to die.

  When he stood holding the gun in a two-handed grip, only the young guard saw him. Al was looking down at yesterday’s newspaper.

  The guard gawked at him. “What the hell, Keith?”

  McHugh said, “Just stay calm, Jerry, and nobody has to get—”

  The guard was reaching for his weapon, so McHugh fired. The first round caught him in the heart, and he bled little. The older guard, Al, had witnessed the murder; that meant he had to go too.

  Al was nimbler than McHugh ever would have imagined. He threw himself to the floor and avoided the shot aimed at his head. McHugh came around the desk firing and hit Al in the leg. The old man released a howl as he fired back, his round missing wide. McHugh’s second shot struck Al in the stomach. The old man seemed to deflate and the hand holding the gun flopped to the floor.

  As McHugh stood over Al taking aim at his chest, the old man cursed him in Italian, the language he had grown up with before moving to the United States when he was nine.

  “Stronzo! Ti auguro la morte.”

  McHugh didn’t know what name Al called him, but he understood the sentiment, and could decipher two of the words he’d used. La morte meant death.

  “I’m not dying old man, you are.” McHugh fired a round into Al’s heart, earning his share of the money.

  20

  A Gathering Of Fools

  “Holy shit!” Justen said. He was inside the diner and staring down at Bernard’s corpse. After fumbling out his radio, he called Piper and told him what had happened to Bernard and one of the other mercenaries.

  “Check the freezer and see if the diner owner and his family are still in there.”

  Justen did as he said; the only thing in the freezer beside food was Mike Walsh’s body.

  “This is that asshole who was in the diner earlier, and I’ll bet you he has my wife and daughter too.”

  “What about Vic and Roxana?”

  “They might be dead. The man from the diner isn’t working alone. He’s getting help from guys dressed in camouflage uniforms. The merc at the road just radioed in and said he took a shotgun to two of them. If you see any of those assholes, kill them.”

  Justen looked up at the clock above the grill. “It’s almost time to grab the money and go. What do you want me to do?”

  “Meet me at the depot. McHugh said the guard’s wife usually calls in by now. Once she’s done that, McHugh will do his part. I already told the merc to join me there too.”

  “What about the other mercs?”

  “There are no other mercs; they’ve all been killed.”

  “Damn. But maybe Vic and Roxana are at the depot; they’re both tough.”

  “Maybe,” Piper said. And yet, he had a feeling they were dead.

  While Roxana had been killed, Vic was stalking the town looking for vengeance for her murder. He had lost track of Daisy after she’d run off from the depot but had an idea where he might find her.

  Brandt released a groan as he came to. His ribs hurt like hell and his head was throbbing. He made the pain worse when he tried to sit up before realizing where he was. He had only lifted his head a few inches when it struck something solid.

  The collision with Vic’s motorcycle had sent Brandt to the ground, where he’d slid on his back beneath the van he’d been near. He had lain under there unconscious while Daisy fought for her life against Roxana and dodged Vic’s gunfire.

  Brandt eased himself out from beneath the van and felt his hand touch something hard. It was Vic’s gun, the one he’d lost after flipping over his motorcycle. Brandt sat up with his back against the side of the van as he regained his senses. When he realized the shape lying on the ground near the portable toilet was a body, his first thought was that it was Daisy.

  “Oh no.”

  Brandt got to his feet and felt his right ribs. They weren’t broken, but they sure hurt like hell. When he saw that the woman on the ground had dark hair, relief flowed through him. He then struggled to recall what had happened as his thinking was still fuzzy.

  “Brandt,” a voice whispered, a woman’s voice with a southern lilt. He turned to see Daisy walking through the gate. When she came closer, Brandt noticed she had a bloody lip.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “A man on a motorcycle rammed into you.”

  “The guy on the motorcycle, yeah, I remember now. It sent me flying and I must have ended up under that van over there. That’s where I was when I came to, and look, I found a gun. Why don’t you take it?”

  Daisy took the weapon from him. It was a Colt Commander with a walnut grip. Daisy had never fired one but had practiced with other 1911 models.

  Brandt pointed at Roxana. “Is that your work?”

  “That bitch tried to kill me. I got her first and then the man started firing at me, so I ran off.” Daisy moved her hair aside to show Brandt her left ear. The lobe was so red it almost glowed, and there was a blackened edge to it. “A bullet did that. That’s how close I came to getting killed.”

  Brandt laid a hand on her cheek. “Maybe you should sit the rest of this out. I would hate to see you get hurt.”

  “No way. Not after going through all this. I want some of that money these people are stealing, and I want the guy who killed Raul.”

  “Have you seen Sal?” Brandt asked.

  “No, and Julio and Conleth aren’t here either. I hope they’re okay.”

  “You know who else isn’t here?”

  “Who?”

  “The guards or the cops. Someone inside must have shut off the cameras and is ignoring the noise. If things were normal, the guards would have responded by now.”

  The sound of a motorcycle was heard off in the distance. Brandt and Daisy moved toward the van and hid behind it. The motorcycle stopped outside the gate, and moments later two others joined it.

  Steve Piper had met up with Justen on his way to the depot. He had gotten on the radio and told everyone to assemble outside the gate. When he saw the surviving mercenary was the only one there, he wondered how it was possible he had lost so many people in one night.

  As they moved through the gate, Justen spotted Roxana’s body and they rode over to look at her. Piper shook his head in disgust. The mercenaries were expendable, but he had planned to share the wealth with his crew. Roxana had worked jobs with him for seven years. He had seen her brutalize men bigger than her in bar fights and had never seen her lose. He wondered who had been tough enough to kill Roxana.

  Moving on, they went to the side door that Sal had been looking at earlier. The motorcycle Sal had been using was there with the key still in it. Piper wondered who it belonged to and thought it might be Vic’s bike.

  There was a bell by the door, and when Piper rang it, McHugh opened up moments later.

  “Is everything on your end good, Keith?”

  “Yeah, although I had to kill the guards.”
/>   Piper pointed at Sal’s bike. “Is one of my guys here?”

  “Not that I know of, but someone was shooting outside a few minutes ago.”

  “Damn it. I guess Vic didn’t make it.”

  McHugh looked at Justen and the mercenary. “I thought you had more guys than this.”

  “I did before tonight, but there’s another crew lurking about. Let’s get inside before they show up.”

  Tanner watched as Piper entered the building with two other men. He had not been surprised to see that Piper had a man working on the inside. Whenever he’d read of a similar robbery taking place, there was often an insider involved in the theft.

  He had listened in on the radio chatter between Piper and his people and knew that Brandt’s group had killed a few of Piper’s men, while also suffering losses. When whoever was left of Brandt’s faction showed up, and the gathering of fools was complete, Tanner would make his move.

  Luna was at the empty home where Tanner had taken her and was rummaging through her purse. When she didn’t find what she was looking for, Luna realized she’d left Sofia’s cold medicine behind in the bathroom of the motel room. Sofia began coughing in her sleep, but her fever hadn’t returned. Still, Luna didn’t want Sofia to have a relapse, and the doctor had cautioned that Sofia was to take the medicine until it was gone.

  Despite the risk, Luna loaded a slumbering Sofia into her car seat and headed back toward the motel. She would be in and out of the room in less than a minute. As she started the engine, Sofia coughed in her sleep again.

  I’m doing the right thing, Luna told herself, although she knew she was taking an awful risk.

  McHugh had been busy since killing the guards. He had bags of money stacked four high on a metal cart and had begun loading a second one.

  “We’re behind schedule but we still have time before the highway patrol stops in at the police station. If you guys help me gather the money things will go faster.”

  “Justen will help you, but I’m headed back out. I still need to find Luna and my little girl.”

  McHugh checked his watch. “You’re cutting things close, Steve.”

  “I know, but I have to take one more look for her. It would be a major pain in the ass to track Luna down again.”

  “Okay, and another thing, how do you plan to haul this cash out of here? There’s no way you can move it on those bikes of yours.”

  Piper pointed at the armored car sitting on the warehouse floor. It was the prototype model that McHugh had shown off to Luna.

  “Is that the new armored car you told me about?”

  “That’s it; pretty, isn’t she?”

  “Load the money in there. I can’t think of a better way to get past that other gang that’s lurking about. If they try to rob us while we’re safe and snug in that armored beast, they’ll be out of luck.”

  “The cops won’t be though. They’ll set up road blocks.”

  “First they’ll have to find us. Are there GPS trackers on that thing?”

  “No, not yet. It’s a model unit and not meant to haul cash. We get to look it over for a week and then it gets loaded on a flatbed and shipped off to another company.”

  “Good then. But change the numbers on the doors and the roof while I’m gone; that’s our ride out of here.” Piper turned to the surviving merc and was surprised to realize he remembered his name. He had been the shortest of the men but was thickly built. “Morgan, you’re with me. I need to find my wife.”

  “Where are we going to look?” the mercenary asked.

  “I’m going to try the last place I know she was at, the motel.”

  “Make it quick, Steve,” McHugh said. “There’s always a chance the highway patrol will come to town early.”

  Piper stared hard at McHugh. “You just worry about loading that money and let me take care of me.”

  McHugh smiled weakly, then shrugged. “Sure, I wasn’t trying to order you around or anything.”

  Piper grunted at him, turned on his heel, and headed out to find his ex-wife.

  21

  Rebirth And Ruin

  Luna parked the pickup truck and left the motor running. Sofia’s medicine was sitting atop the bathroom sink in her motel room. She planned to run in, grab it, and be off again, to head back to the empty house.

  She moved past the dead man outside her door and flipped on the light as she entered. Moving into the bathroom she saw the cough syrup and the pill bottle right where she’d left them on the sink. Luna scooped them up, tossed them in her purse, then turned to leave. When she saw Vic standing at the entrance to the room, she knew she’d made a dreadful mistake in returning to the hotel. Vic appeared insane with rage. When he spoke, spittle flew from his lips.

  “You killed Roxana and now I’m going to kill you.”

  Memories triggered in Luna’s mind and she realized she had seen Vic before. He was her ex-husband’s friend.

  “You’re Vic, right?”

  Vic answered by uttering an incoherent sound of rage as he charged toward Luna. He rammed into her while wrapping his hands around her neck. Luna collapsed under his assault and fell to the floor of the bathroom. Vic straddled Luna, while determined to choke the life out of her.

  Tanner had watched Piper leave the depot again. He figured he was going out to look for Luna. Since Tanner assumed she was still hidden away inside the empty house, he wasn’t concerned about her.

  Motion followed in the wake of sound, as Tanner spotted two figures rounding a corner of the building. He melded with the shadows and waited to see who had come to call.

  Brandt and Daisy had also watched Piper’s departure. The man obviously didn’t have the money yet, so they made no move to stop him.

  Brandt felt sick to his stomach when he and Daisy came upon Sal’s body. With Conleth and Julio still absent, he presumed they were dead as well.

  Daisy laid a comforting hand on his arm. “There’s still a chance they’re alive.”

  “Maybe, but they should have handled the guys guarding the road and arrived here by now.”

  “They knew the risks they were taking, Brandt; we all did.”

  “I have to get this money now no matter what. Those guys aren’t dying for nothing.”

  “We’ll get it,” Daisy said. “And we’ll kill the rest of these bastards in leather.”

  Brandt nodded, then looked around. “Let’s keep circling the building; there’s got to be a way to get inside.”

  Tanner watched as Brandt and Daisy moved on. He’d been about to kill them when Daisy voiced their intention to murder Piper and his people. He’d give them a chance to do so, then eliminate the survivors. Looking down at himself, he saw that the cut on his chest had begun to seep blood again. For a minor injury it certainly was annoying, but it would have to wait. When Piper returned, things would heat up, and he intended to be the sole survivor of the chaos.

  At the motel, Luna managed to knee Vic in the groin. The resulting pain made Vic loosen his grip and Luna shoved him off her. She turned over onto her knees as she prepared to stand and run away. Vic grabbed her right ankle and she fell once more. Luna kicked back at him with her left foot and caught Vic in the mouth. He snarled like an animal, flipped her onto her back, and straddled her again.

  Vic’s hands wrapped around Luna’s neck a second time and she looked up to see the fury burning in his eyes.

  “You killed Roxana!”

  If she could have spoken, Luna would have stated her innocence. She couldn’t talk, nor could she breathe. Vic was strangling her to death.

  As her vision became spotty Luna felt Vic’s hands leave her throat; that was followed by the removal of Vic’s weight upon her. As she coughed and wheezed between gulps of air, she saw that Vic was engaged in a struggle.

  There was a man fighting Vic. He was younger than Vic but older than Luna. After trading punches with Vic, he was forced to jump back, as Vic had freed a knife from a sheath on his belt. The man also had a knife, which he br
ought out. Luna watched them slash at each other while she recovered from her strangling.

  Vic made an unwise thrust while attempting to plunge his blade into the man’s chest. His opponent blocked the move with an arm while jamming his own knife under Vic’s arm. Vic grunted as blood flowed from the wound, where his axillary artery had been severed. That wound alone would have killed him, but it was followed by a thrust between Vic’s ribs.

  Vic’s right knee gave out and he toppled sideways, bounced off a corner of the bed, and fell onto his face. Within seconds he was lying in blood, and soon, he stopped moving.

  Luna looked up at the man who saved her and saw an odd expression on his face—it was surprise. He stared down at the bloody blade in his hand as if it held a revelation.

  “Thank you for saving me,” Luna said, in a voice that was hoarse.

  The man snapped out of his shocked state and turned his head to look at her. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll be okay, and you?”

  Henry grinned. “I feel like my old self again.”

  A cry pierced the night, the whine of a child. It was Sofia. She had woken up outside in the pickup truck.

  “That’s my little girl,” Luna said.

  Henry was reaching down to help her to stand when the shot was fired. Blood from Henry’s head wound hit Luna’s cheek and she leapt up and wiped it away. Henry had taken her place on the floor and lay still.

  Luna was about to turn him over to check on him when Steve Piper entered the room holding the gun he had used to shoot Henry. Piper was smiling at her, but the smile disappeared when he saw Vic’s body.

  Luna sprinted past Piper then came to a sliding stop outside. The mercenary, Morgan, was holding a wailing Sofia in one arm and gripped a shotgun in his opposite hand.