The TANNER Series - Books 10 -12 (Tanner Box Set Book 4)

by Remington Kane

“My guess is that he has cameras strung up around the property.”

  “This is like a chess match. So what’s your next move?”

  “For now, we’ll just wait and see what develops; as the saying goes, only fools rush in.”

  “Steve, you’ve got to get this bastard. You know what it will mean for all of us if you fail.”

  “Alvarado would really kill you?”

  “If he didn’t, that wife of his would, she’s as scary as he is.”

  “Don’t worry, Martinez, Tanner’s good, but we’re better.”

  “I hear you, and I have complete faith in you. Call me when you have him.”

  Bennett ended the call and saw that his men were all looking around, as if Tanner were lurking in the bushes.

  “Chill guys. Wherever Tanner is, he’s waiting for us to show at the house, and once we do, we’ll have him.”

  “How do you figure that?” Simms asked.

  “I’ll walk in there with you and Wilson after Hakeem gets into position with a sniper rifle. We’ll wait for Tanner to show himself, and once he does, while thinking that he has the upper hand, Hakeem will surprise him with a bullet to the head. He can’t hide from a night scope.”

  Hakeem laughed.

  “We used that same trick in Iraq three times, yeah, it should work, but Steve, what about the woman he’s with?”

  “What about her? She’ll die just like Tanner.”

  “Martinez said that she made it inside Alvarado’s compound on her own. Maybe we shouldn’t underestimate her.”

  “We won’t, but what can she do to us?”

  Wilson held aloft the drawing of Alexa.

  “If she’s as hot as this picture, I can think of a few things I’d like her to do to me.”

  The men all laughed along with Wilson, and they were completely unaware that Tanner was watching them.

  CHAPTER 29 – I see you

  Bennett was right when he guessed that Tanner had cameras strung up around the home’s property, but Tanner and Alexa had also placed outdoor cameras up in trees and attached to light poles in the surrounding area.

  There were nearly thirty cameras in use, although two of them weren’t operating properly. Tanner and Alexa had worked into the early morning hours in the pouring rain while getting everything done, and now it was paying off.

  The cameras even had night-vision capability. Tanner Six had suggested the idea, but Alexa had shown Tanner how to install them.

  A trained thief, Alexa knew about surveillance equipment. She had connected the cameras wirelessly to a trio of laptops, and now the rear of her van looked like a small security office.

  Tanner had zoomed in on Bennett and Wilson, who were seated in the front of the vehicle, and he had marked them as likely candidates for the men hunting him for Alvarado, but when Wilson held aloft the drawing of Alexa, he knew that they were the ones.

  “That’s them?” Alexa said.

  “I think it’s a safe bet,” Tanner said. “They’re the only ones staying back, and I think they’re just waiting to see what develops.”

  “How do you want to handle this?” Alexa asked. “It looks like there are four men in that truck.”

  “We’ll wait along with them, and when they finally make their move; we’ll make ours. Alvarado hired them, but I want to know who they really work for.”

  “Waiting for them to make the first move, is that your whole plan, or do you have something specific in mind?”

  Tanner reached over to grab his drag bag from the floor. A “drag bag” is the term snipers coined for a tactical rifle case. Tanner opened the case and removed his weapon, a Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle.

  “This is all the plan I’ll need.”

  ***

  While sitting across from Alvarado in the cartel leader’s office, Martinez told Alvarado that Tanner was believed to be wounded and hiding inside a house. Alvarado gave him a skeptical look.

  “Who wounded him?”

  “That’s unknown, but he was ID’d, and that means that he’s still in the same area as my team. It’s just a matter of time until they get him.”

  Alvarado sighed.

  “One of my men, Rico Nazario, he thinks that Tanner is a devil. I agree with him, and if your men are as good as you think they are, they’ll stay out of that house. Tanner recently used gas to kill over a hundred men inside a building.”

  Martinez leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs. It was a move that he hoped would look confident, although, he was growing nervous. He had thought Tanner would be dead already.

  “My men are aware of Tanner’s tactics. They’ve been fully briefed, and they won’t act until they’re sure it’s the right move.”

  Alvarado looked out through the patio doors.

  “I should put more men on the perimeter,” he muttered.

  “Sir, Tanner will never make it this far, trust me.”

  Alvarado stared at Martinez for several seconds.

  “How many men are still inside the compound?”

  “A little over sixty at any given time, why?”

  “Send half of them outside and extend the perimeter guard.”

  “That’s really unnecessary.”

  “Just do it, as you said earlier, if Tanner can’t make it to the wall, he won’t make it over the wall.”

  Martinez rose to his feet.

  “I’ll take care of that right away.”

  After Martinez left the room, Alvarado stared off into space.

  “He’s coming here, I can feel it.”

  CHAPTER 30 - Trust

  By nightfall, over a dozen men and women had been inside the home looking for Tanner.

  They had torn up floorboards, knocked holes in walls, and demolished several pieces of furniture.

  When it became apparent that the home wasn’t booby-trapped, Bennett made a call and told Scar, Bruise, Wound, and Abrasion to go check out the house. They did so, and when they finished, Bennett gave them directions to his location.

  Hakeem and Simms looked over Bennett’s shoulder as he scrolled through Scar’s phone.

  They were looking at pictures Scar had taken inside the home, and were equally as interested in the photo of the huge bloodstain Tanner had left outside, near the car he had stolen.

  “If that’s real and Tanner is out there somewhere wounded, he’s lost a lot of blood,” Hakeem said.

  “It’s not real,” Bennett said. “It was just bait.”

  Scar yawned.

  “We’re heading back to our motel if you don’t need us anymore.”

  “Yeah, you boys do that, but one more thing, was the house empty when you left?”

  “Oh yeah, and it’s too dark to see where you’re going in there because somebody tore apart the wall where the circuit breakers were. They thought Tanner might be hiding behind there, and Wound almost fell into one of the holes that were made in the floors.”

  Wilson spoke up.

  “Hey, tell me something, when did you guys come up with these nicknames of yours, Scar, Wound, Bruise, and... what’s the other guy’s name, Contusion?”

  “It’s Abrasion,” Abrasion said. “We made the names up in the third grade and they just stuck.”

  “Third grade, huh? That explains a lot,” Wilson said, and Scar and the other Tin Horsemen rode away.

  Bennett watched them go, and then he spoke to his men.

  “All right boys; let’s get to work.”

  ***

  At the van, Alexa pointed at the monitor where Bennett and his men were on camera.

  “They’re on the move.”

  Tanner checked the other cameras and saw no sign of Scar and his followers.

  “It looks like the bikers have left the area.”

  “If these men are as elite as you think they are, I’m surprised that they would be working with those four fools.”

  “I’m sure they were just using them.”

  They followed the progress of Bennett’s truck, which was rollin
g along slowly with its lights off. When it stopped, it was a hundred yards from the house, and Bennett and his men climbed out. The camera in that area was acting up, and Alexa couldn’t get it to switch to night-vision.

  “Damn it, all I see are four shapes,” she said.

  Tanner pointed at the screen.

  “Yeah, but look at the silhouette on that one. It looks like I won’t be the only one with a rifle, and you can bet that his night-vision scope will work better than our camera.”

  Alexa grabbed a black hoodie and put it on.

  “I’ll go after him and eliminate the threat.”

  “That’s dangerous, Alexa. What if he sees you first?”

  “I’m not a Tanner, but I’ve been killing Alvarado’s men for months, and most of that killing was done in the dark, guerilla-style. I’ll kill that man before he even knows he’s dead. Trust me.”

  “If you don’t kill him, he’ll try to kill me when I confront the others.”

  “I’m not the type of woman that needs saving, Tanner, and when I say I’ll do something I’ll do it. I’ll kill that man.”

  Tanner looked away from Alexa and stared at the monitor. Bennett, Simms, and Wilson were back in the pickup and driving towards the house, while Hakeem was on foot and carrying his rifle.

  “He just broke off from the others and is headed this way. Go kill him.”

  Alexa smiled, gave Tanner a soulful kiss, and left the van with a knife gripped in her right hand.

  “Take a gun with you,” Tanner said.

  Alexa called back to him over her shoulder.

  “I’m better with a blade.”

  Tanner watched her from the rear doors of the van as she disappeared into the night.

  He trusted Alexa, and now he would find out just how good she was.

  Tanner closed the doors, started the van, and headed towards the house.

  CHAPTER 31 – It’s a blast

  Hakeem took position at the right side of the old shed that looked as if it would fall over if a hard breeze came along.

  The ground there was slightly elevated from the land the house sat on, and so Hakeem settled onto his belly atop the grass, and then extended his rifle’s fold-down bipod for extra stability.

  He had been in position for nearly a minute when he saw Bennett, Simms, and Wilson enter the moonlit area in front of the house.

  He used the night-vision scope to search for Tanner, but still didn’t spot him until he appeared at the edge of the trees. When he saw that Tanner had a rifle as well, he tensed up, and then became even more nervous when he suddenly realized that he was no longer alone.

  ***

  After Alexa had left that morning, Tanner had cleared a path through the trees by removing dead leaves and anything else that would crunch underfoot. He used that path to move towards the house in a crouch, and to his surprise, Bennett was talking to him.

  Actually, Bennett was looking up at the old rusted flagpole in the yard as he spoke, because he had spotted one of the cameras perched up there.

  “My name is Bennett, Tanner, and if you’re half the man I think you are, you’ll show yourself. As you can see, there’s three of us, but our guns are holstered. I’m actually here to offer you a deal from Alonso Alvarado. He says if you give him the woman, he’ll take the price off your head. The bitch killed his friend and so he wants her more than he wants you.”

  Only silence answered Bennett’s lies. He looked over at Simms, and Simms shrugged.

  “I guess he’s not here.”

  “Wrong,” Tanner said, as he stepped out of the trees to the left of the house. He was holding the long sniper rifle in both hands. It was pointed towards the men, but held at waist level.

  Bennett smiled at him, and as Tanner watched, all three men moved slowly to their right, until they were several feet from where they had been standing.

  Tanner smiled back at Bennett, as he caught the repeated flash of reflected moonlight coming from the area by the shed.

  If Bennett’s man were the professional that Tanner assumed he’d be, he wouldn’t be broadcasting his position that way.

  It was Alexa. He was certain of it. It was her way of signaling that she had made her kill.

  “You moved to the right to get out of the line of fire, which would mean that your man with the rifle is out by that old shed in the field.”

  The smile left Bennett’s face and he turned his head to glance towards the shed, before looking back at Tanner.

  “If you know about Hakeem... then why did you show yourself?”

  “Because Hakeem is dead,” Tanner said. “The woman killed him.”

  “Bullshit!” Bennett said, and he raised a fist in the air to signal Hakeem to fire.

  The first round passed only inches from Tanner’s head. He actually saw it. It was a mangled piece of metal that tumbled end over end.

  The round had entered Simms’s back, took a wicked ricochet off two ribs, and exited below his breastbone with most of its force spent.

  Before Bennett knew what was happening, Wilson was down as well, as the second round all but decapitated him.

  Bennett dove for cover, but Tanner brought his rifle up and took a shot without aiming through the scope. He hit Bennett while the man was still in mid-air.

  Bennett slammed into the ground like a loose sack of grain. Tanner’s round had hit home and had entered Bennett’s chest near its center.

  Tanner walked over and stared down at him.

  “Who do you really work for?”

  Bennett didn’t answer; he rolled over onto his stomach and spit up blood. That’s when Tanner saw that his shot had exited out of Bennett’s back and left a ragged hole. The man was done for.

  Bennett moaned, but his hands were busy beneath him, and Tanner wondered if the man had a hidden weapon.

  Tanner pushed him onto his back and saw that Bennett was smiling. He then noticed the grenade pin in Bennett’s hand, as moonlight shone on it.

  Tanner dived behind a nearby oak tree just as the grenade went off.

  The pain was instant, agonizing, and it was coming from his left calf. When Tanner looked down, he saw something sticking out of his pant leg that looked like a giant splinter.

  “Tanner!” Alexa called.

  She was running across the field while carrying Hakeem’s sniper rifle. When she came to what was left of Steve Bennett, she had to pause to fight back the bile threatening to rise up, but when she spotted Tanner behind the tree, she set down the rifle and ran to him.

  Tanner was sitting up and carefully tearing away the fabric around his calf, and when the wound was revealed, he saw that it was part of the tree embedded in the muscle of his lower left leg, with the bark side facing down.

  When he placed his hand on the dagger-like chunk of wood, Alexa stopped him from pulling it free.

  “Don’t! Not here, we’ll remove it in the van where I can treat the wound, but can you walk?”

  Tanner stood and found that he limped, but the leg held his weight.

  After wincing from the pain, he sent Alexa a smile.

  “That was damn fine shooting, but I thought you said you were better with blades.”

  “I am better with blades, but I’m also a good shot. Now lean on me and tell me where you left the van.”

  “It’s through the trees on the left and parked near the stream.”

  They traveled back to the van slowly along the same path Tanner had taken on his way in. Tanner told Alexa to stand still before they left the cover of the trees, and then he listened for any sounds that shouldn’t be there.

  There were none that he could discern, only the sound of the fast-flowing stream and the soft sound of traffic drifting in from the highway in the distance.

  Tanner nodded at Alexa, and they crossed over to the van. She had just opened the sliding side door for Tanner when both of them froze.

  Ariana stood up from where she had been ducked out of sight in front of the van, even as Brick approached
Tanner from behind, as the big man had been concealed by the rear of the vehicle.

  Tanner saw the threat posed by Ariana, while Alexa had spotted Brick. Tanner was bringing his gun up to shoot Ariana when Brick grabbed him from behind, and as Alexa cocked her arm back to toss a knife at Brick, Ariana placed her gun against the back of Alexa’s head.

  “I’m Ariana O’Grady, Tanner, and tonight you’re going to die.”

  CHAPTER 32 – Tanner, my Tanner

  One instant Tanner was bringing the rifle up to shoot Ariana, and the next thing he knew his arms were pinned to his sides and his feet were leaving the ground.

  He could only see Brick’s massive arms as they began squeezing the life out of him, and he felt the rifle fall from his hands, which were pinned to his sides.

  Alexa stood in front of him while holding a knife in a throwing position, but Ariana had a gun pressed to her head. Tanner struggled to break the grip holding him and found that it was useless.

  Whoever it was that had him, also had twice his strength, and if he didn’t do something soon, the man would likely crush the life from him.

  Tanner kicked at the man, but his feet were finding only thigh. The man had his hip turned so that Tanner’s feet wouldn’t find his vulnerable crotch.

  Tanner moved his head forward and then slammed it backwards, hoping to break the man’s nose, but instead, his skull collided with Brick’s massive chin, and Tanner was stunned from the impact, while the man holding him hadn’t even grunted.

  When the pain in his right ribs began, it cleared Tanner’s head.

  Brick was squeezing so hard that Tanner’s elbow was pressing into his ribs and he felt as if a rib on the right was about to break from the pressure.

  And as the air was crushed from his lungs, Tanner knew he had to do something or die.

  ***

  Alexa stood frozen like a statue as she watched Tanner struggle in Brick’s arms.

  After Tanner tried the head-butt that failed, she saw that it left him stunned, but then a look of intense pain crossed his face. Alexa moved her hand back farther in preparation to throw her knife at Brick’s face, but the woman behind her, the one she could only see peripherally, pressed her weapon harder into the back of Alexa’s head, and then called out encouragement to her giant partner.