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

by Remington Kane

  They had no way of knowing what might be in the water surrounding Adams’ island, such as old shipwrecks, garbage, or unusual coral formations. If Tanner came upon an obstacle and couldn’t avoid a collision with it, his attack on the island could end before he ever stepped on shore.

  Garber proved to be a patient instructor, and he and Tanner continued training well after everyone else had gone to bed. There was a nearly full moon and the Seabobs had lights, but Garber set up several ultra bright work lights and aimed them at the water. They provided just enough visibility underwater for Tanner to keep training.

  He and Garber were still going at it at dawn, but by then, Tanner was highly proficient at handling the underwater sea craft.

  “Oh my God, have you two been out here all night?” Sara asked, as she walked over to them. She was barefoot and wearing denim shorts with a red, sleeveless top.

  “It took all night for me to get the hang of it,” Tanner said. “But thanks to Garber, I’ll be ready to hit the island tonight.”

  “Excellent,” Sara said, and then she followed Tanner and Garber back to the garage, where they sat the Seabobs atop a bench, and stowed away the lights.

  Deke was already up and at work. He told Tanner that he would have both machines refueled and ready to go by nightfall. When Alexa came downstairs a few minutes later, everyone went into the kitchen for breakfast.

  There were no servants at the estate so that they could have their privacy, however, the refrigerator and pantry were fully stocked.

  To the surprise of everyone, Sara volunteered to cook.

  “I thought you grew up in a house full of servants, Blake?” Tanner said.

  “I did, and one of them taught me to cook. I’m no chef, but I do know how to prepare breakfast.”

  “Would you like some help?” Alexa asked.

  Sara stared at her for a moment, but then nodded her head.

  “Sure, help would be nice.”

  ***

  To Tanner’s surprise, Sara and Alexa seemed to get along better as they prepared breakfast. He had gone up to his room for a quick shower and when he returned, he found the women laughing together over something as they made breakfast burritos.

  It pleased Tanner to see them getting along and he hoped that it would continue. As long as they all had to be together, they might as well make the best of it.

  As Alexa placed the food on the table and poured coffee, Sara made short work of the breakfast dishes, and then everyone settled at the table to eat.

  Tanner and Garber were ravenous from the hours they’d spent in the water overnight, and the two of them ate most of the food that the women had prepared. Alexa had worried that they had made too much, but the food disappeared quickly.

  “This food is excellent,” Tanner said between bites.

  “You can thank Alexa,” Sara said. “She taught me a thing or two about using spices and my eggs have never tasted better.”

  “It was a team effort,” Alexa said.

  “I’ll take care of dinner, ladies,” Deke said.

  Alexa smiled at Deke.

  “You can cook?”

  “Oh hell no, I can barely heat up an army MRE, but I’ll buy dinner for everyone while I’m out seeing the sights later.”

  Garber let out a yawn as he stood.

  “I’ll be catching up on my sleep today, but I could go for some really good moussaka for dinner.”

  “You got it,” Deke said, “Any other requests?”

  Everyone else agreed that moussaka sounded good along with gyros and other native Greek dishes.

  After Garber went upstairs, Tanner kissed Alexa and told her he was going to get some sleep as well.

  “While I’m resting, why don’t you go out and see the sights.”

  “You’re welcome to tag along with me, Alexa,” Deke said.

  Alexa considered it for a moment and then agreed to join Deke. Afterwards, she looked over at Sara.

  “Will you be coming along?”

  “I’d love to, but I have to stay here and make a few calls. I want to be certain that Tanner has the latest intel when he makes his move on the island tonight.”

  Alexa looked at Tanner.

  “I wish you could come with us, but I know that you need your rest.”

  “Don’t worry about me, just have a good time,” Tanner said.

  Alexa gave him a kiss and then she and Deke headed out to see the sights, but before leaving the home, they both went up to their rooms. Alexa needed her purse, while Deke wanted to grab his camera.

  Sara smiled at Tanner as he rose from the table to head off to sleep.

  “Get plenty of rest, Tanner. You’ll be having a busy night.”

  “If all goes well, Julien Adams will be dead this time tomorrow.”

  “And will you accept another assignment with Burke if one comes up?”

  “Let’s wait and see how this one turns out.”

  “Fair enough,” Sara said, and then she walked out to sit on the home’s rear deck while Tanner climbed the stairs to go to his room.

  The sound of laughter reached Sara’s ears and she walked to the edge of the deck and saw Alexa and Deke climbing into a jeep with an open top. The vehicle came with the house, along with an old Volvo.

  Alexa and Deke were laughing about something and seemed to be getting along very well.

  Sara went back to her seat and stared out at the ceaseless waves crashing upon the shore. On her face was a wide smile.

  CHAPTER 12 – Suicide trumps murder

  Sara finished with work earlier than she thought she would and decided to travel towards the docks to explore Mandraki Harbor. While walking about the shops there, she hoped to get a glimpse of Alexa and Deke together.

  Alexa liked Deke, and anyone could see that it was mutual. Sara hoped that the friendship would grow into something more, and cause Tanner to cut Alexa out of his life. Tanner didn’t need to be distracted by a girlfriend. He needed to keep his mind on his mission and Sara saw Alexa as a threat to that.

  Sara frowned as she thought about Tanner and Alexa’s relationship. They seemed close, very close. That surprised Sara, who at one time had thought that Tanner was a sociopath incapable of having feelings.

  Tanner had been in love with Laurel Ivy. Would he now fall in love with Alexa? Sara didn’t think so, but the last thing Tanner needed was a wife to worry about. That sort of emotional involvement would change the man, make him lose his edge, and possibly get him killed.

  Sara needed Tanner alive and killing. She had brought him into Burke’s government-sanctioned wet works program and he was her responsibility.

  If Tanner did well, Sara would do well too.

  Sara failed to come across Alexa and Deke but did spy another familiar face. It was a man who had been her lover years ago, when she first joined the Bureau. She wondered what he was doing in Greece.

  The man’s name was Cole McManus and he was a CIA agent, or at least he had been years earlier. At the moment, he appeared to be a deck hand on a huge yacht named the Sea Beast, and was polishing a brass railing.

  Sara was about to walk over and talk to him when she saw another man on the boat call to Cole. However, the man didn’t call Cole by his real name.

  “Shamus, when you get done with that, head on over to the fish shop and pick up our order.”

  Sara saw Cole wave in acknowledgment to the man before getting back to work. The fact that Cole was using an alias told her that he was likely working undercover. She moved back into the crowd of shoppers before Cole could spot her.

  The near encounter had her thinking of the past and her years as a federal agent. That life was behind her now. She needed to look forward and concentrate on building a future at Burke.

  She silently wished Cole McManus luck and headed back towards the house, back to Tanner.

  ***

  Tanner awoke in time for dinner and then Garber gave him one more training session with the Seabob. Tanner handled the machi
ne with confidence. When midnight came, everyone climbed aboard the sailboat and headed for the island where Adams was hiding out.

  Garber killed the engine on the boat when they were nearing the island, as Alexa and Deke helped Tanner with his gear. Garber had dropped anchor behind a nearby atoll that was just big enough to shield the boat from the view of anyone on Adams’ island.

  He would be running the boat with lights off when it was time to take Tanner closer, and wore a night vision monocular that was a twin of the one Tanner was equipped with.

  Tanner would don a small tank of air that he would leave beside the Seabob once he reached the island. There was also a set of specialized goggles, and one of Deke’s silenced guns dangled from Tanner’s waist in a water-proof pouch.

  When Deke secured a second smaller pouch onto Tanner, he asked the armorer what it was.

  “It’s insurance,” Deke said, and then went on to explain its purpose to Tanner.

  After lowering himself over the side with the Seabob, Tanner sent Alexa a wink and headed towards the island. He would be traveling most of the way there while fifty feet below the surface and traveling at a speed of five miles an hour.

  As Garber moved the boat around to the pick-up location, Alexa turned from looking down into the dark water and stared at Sara.

  “What happens if he’s captured?”

  “He won’t be,” Sara said.

  Alexa smiled and nodded to herself.

  “Of course, he’s a Tanner. He’ll survive no matter what.”

  “A Tanner, as in there are more than one?”

  “He’s the seventh Tanner; I thought that you knew that?”

  “I was aware that there had been others who took the name; I wasn’t aware that it was a legacy type of thing.”

  “Tanner is the best killer in the world because he was trained by the best killer in the world and has the accumulated knowledge of all the Tanners who came before him.”

  Sara settled into a deck chair and gestured for Alexa to take the one beside her.

  “Tell me about the Tanners. It will help to keep you from worrying about him.”

  Alexa was staring at the lights of the island, but then settled beside Sara.

  “From what I understand, the first Tanner took the name in 1921. It seems he had been a soldier in World War I and...”

  As Alexa told Sara about the legend of The Tanners, Sara listened with rapt attention.

  ***

  Meanwhile, Tanner realized that he was growing closer to the island’s shoreline and cut the power on the Seabob.

  When he was close enough to stand neck deep in the waves, he saw that he had hit the position he was going for, thanks to the illuminated compass that Deke had secured to the Seabob. Tanner was a hundred feet away from the guard tower on the far left, while the house loomed up beyond the tower. Tanner would head for the house once he took out the tower guard.

  The guard was either an amateur or a fool because the man was smoking, and after moving closer, Tanner aimed his silenced gun to a spot three inches above the glow of the man’s cigarette.

  The gun’s near silence impressed Tanner once more as he fired two rounds into the guard’s skull. The man’s head jerked backwards before he crumpled and fell onto the floor of the guard tower.

  The word, tower, was an overstatement as the stand was more the height of a lifeguard station than a traditional guard tower. Still, the structure contained a searchlight and a siren. Tanner disabled both pieces of equipment after making certain that the guard was dead.

  He also removed the man’s radio and cell phone, which he tossed back into the waves, not far from the spot on the shore where he’d left the Seabob.

  With the first guard handled, Tanner headed towards the house and approached it from the side. His plan was to stay undetected for as long as possible. Thanks to the mole in Adams’ organization, Tanner knew that Adams was a night owl and would stay up until early in the morning, while sleeping away the day. That meant that the man would be awake and moving about, so catching him asleep was unlikely.

  Tanner took a position among the foliage near the edge of the patio and stared in at a sun room. The room was empty, but Tanner observed a servant walking by in the adjacent hallway. The man was carrying a tray with a bottle and a glass on it.

  The servant was young and looked Indian. Tanner wouldn’t kill the servants unless he had to. In his experience, anyone not in the line of fire would run at the first sight of a gun anyway.

  The guards wouldn’t run though, and Tanner would kill them. A dead guard was one less threat to face on the way back to the shore after the hit was completed.

  The lock on the patio door offered little resistance and had no alarm to disable. Tanner was soon inside the home. He left the sun room and walked along the route that the servant had taken, hoping that it would lead him to Adams.

  There was no sign of the servant or of anyone else on the ground floor, while the door leading to a small rear section of the house was locked. Tanner suspected that it was a room used by the guards. It was in a corner of the home and had a slot for a keycard.

  Tanner had already passed Adams’ empty office while exploring the home and assumed that the man was on an upper floor. The home had an elevator, but it also required a keycard.

  When Tanner came to a staircase, he saw that there was a camera pointed at it. He knew that if he attempted to disable it he would alert the guards anyway, and so he ignored it and boldly rushed up the stairs.

  He reached the second floor just as the servant he had spotted earlier came out of a room with an empty serving tray. Tanner came up on the man in a rush just as an alarm sounded.

  An elbow to the throat dropped the servant to the carpeted floor of the hallway, and then Tanner shot the lock on the door the servant had just passed through. He entered the room just in time to see Adams climb out of a bed that contained a blond woman who was half his age. The woman was naked, while Adams was wearing a pair of boxers.

  Adams turned and sprinted towards a door at the rear of the room. Tanner had the man in his sights and was about to kill him when the blonde screamed out a cry of fury and rushed towards Tanner.

  The naked young woman was beautiful, but she had a look of desperation in her eyes and was blocking Tanner’s view of Adams.

  Tanner pointed the gun at the woman’s face, expecting her to turn or cower in fear, but instead she kept coming and collided into him and nearly knocked him over. When Tanner went to push her away with his gun arm, the woman gripped the silencer and pressed it against her head.

  The act shocked Tanner, but he was even more surprised when the girl tried to wedge a finger against the trigger. She was trying to kill herself while also protecting Adams. Meanwhile, Adams had made it through the door and bolted it shut from the other side. Tanner had only caught a brief glimpse of the interior but thought that the room was a vault or a safe room.

  Tanner overcame his shock and broke free of the woman, as the sound of heavy feet pounding on the stairs could be heard.

  Tanner let out a loud curse as he decided to abort this attempt at killing Adams and placed his attention on escaping. He slapped the blonde senseless, lowered her onto the floor a few feet in front of the door and spread her legs wide.

  With its broken lock, the door offered the guards no resistance and four of them flooded into the room.

  As they caught sight of the naked blonde with her thighs spread, all four men froze and stared at the area between her legs.

  They stared for only an instant, but that instant was enough and Tanner emptied a magazine into the men’s backs and sides from where he was concealed at the side of a dresser.

  Although fatally wounded, two of the guards returned fire before falling to the floor. Their shots passed through the oak wood of the dresser as if it weren’t there. One of their shots hit home and caught Tanner on the side of his left forearm as he was reloading.

  Tanner was bringing up the gun to
fire again when the blond regained her senses and reached for one of the guards fallen weapons. He thought he would have to kill her as well, but the woman placed the gun against her chest and pulled the trigger.

  Despite hearing voices coming from the foot of the steps, Tanner took the time to talk to the girl as she lay dying. He saw that she was in her mid-teens, but that her make-up made her look older.

  “Why did you kill yourself?”

  The wounded girl answered him in English that had a strong Slavic accent.

  “My family will be taken care of now, and I’ll be free... free...”

  Tanner laid her flat atop the carpet as her eyes closed. He then sent several shots out into the hallway as he hoped to buy time for his escape.

  The bedroom contained a balcony. Tanner, in a burst of adrenaline and urgent desire, dragged the mattress off the bed, onto the balcony, and flipped it over the waist high marble railing.

  He was standing atop that railing preparing to jump when a guard fired from the doorway and shot him in the back, striking him just beneath his right shoulder.

  Tanner was clad in a wetsuit that had lightweight body armor incorporated into it. The armor did its job and kept the slug from entering Tanner’s back.

  However, he still felt as if he’d been hit with a sledgehammer. The impact of the shot had knocked him off balance, and he found himself falling headfirst towards the mattress sixteen feet below.

  Tanner managed to turn in midair but not quickly enough to land on his feet. After hitting the mattress while falling on his butt, he stood, stumbled, rolled, and slammed into the side of the home while hitting his head.

  A sudden darkness swam behind his eyes and threatened to swallow him, Tanner fought it, knowing that if he gave in to the blackness he might never see light again.

  And as he fought to remain conscious, Adams’ remaining guards were closing in on his position.

  The hit had gone wrong, Adams was alive, and now it was just a struggle to stay alive. Tanner fought off the darkness, pulled himself upright, and looked about for a way to survive.

  CHAPTER 13 – Round one