Duke turned to face her and smiled.
“Right now, I’d say he’s cruising at about 40,000 ft.”
***
Inside the private jet, Tanner, his own eyelids heavy from lack of sleep, stared across the aisle at Sara’s slumbering form.
As young as she was, she had already lost two lovers and now there was a good chance that she would lose her sister as well.
He believed her when she said that she no longer hated him and assumed that her passion for revenge had died along with Johnny Rossetti.
He kept staring at her and asked himself again why he hadn’t killed her, and the only answer he could come up with, was that he respected her.
She had bested him, pure and simple, despite the method employed and he was only still alive because she had decided not to end his life.
He would find her sister, free her from her captors and then consider the slate clean between them.
Tanner drifted off to the first sleep he’d had in nearly forty-eight hours, as the jet he rode in drew ever nearer to danger and possibly the greatest challenge of his life.
CHAPTER 5 - In the jungle, the mighty jungle
In the jungle region of Guambi, Jennifer Blake looked up at the noon sun and thought that she would pass out if they didn’t stop to rest.
She was one of six hostages being held by a group of nearly three dozen men, most of whom were armed only with machetes, or goloks, as the locals called them, and they had already proven that they would use them, because when they started out, there were two more hostages.
The men had been a couple on vacation at the resort in Telunas, a gay couple named Philip and Lawrence, who were well educated, and both Australians in their thirties.
When the so-called freedom fighters realized that they were homosexuals, they had beaten them mercilessly before hacking them to death with the machetes.
It was the most horrific and inhumane sight that Jennifer had ever witnessed and it made her vomit what little food she had in her stomach.
The brutality had sickened and dispirited her fellow remaining hostages as well, for it had shown them that their lives could end at any moment, ransom demands or not.
Philip and Lawrence had been successful businessmen and their lawyer, or solicitor, would have gathered the ransom money and paid for their release within a day or two.
However, their captors found the men’s obvious love for each other an affront to their religious beliefs, and forfeited the ransom for the opportunity to “cleanse the world of them” and would simply increase their ransom demands for the remaining hostages.
Besides Jennifer, there was a young woman named Melissa Burke, who was only eighteen and the daughter of Conrad Burke, whose mercenaries were bested earlier that day.
Burke’s men had been expected and had walked right into a trap near a stream, where nets were dropped upon them and then set ablaze. The men fought back by emptying their guns in all directions but they couldn’t fight the flames and soon succumbed to the fire.
Jennifer had hugged the ground along with the other hostages when the fighting began and wondered if any of them would survive the rescue attempt.
When the conflict ended, they were all herded away through the jungle as fast as they could move, which wasn’t very fast, because they were paired off and lashed together at the ankles.
Jennifer was bound to Melissa with a piece of coarse rope, while the other four hostages were likewise tied together.
There was a married couple from Florida named George and Reba Hough, who had been on their honeymoon in Telunas, when they were kidnapped while shopping at the marketplace in Guambi.
The final two hostages were both men, a man of Asian heritage with the improbable name of Juan Rio, who was also a native-born Brit and reverted to a Cockney accent when agitated. While the other man was a pediatrician, Dr. Bill Washburn, who was black and a Canadian citizen,
Juan Rio was an engineer, who had been working in the area, but both Melissa and Dr. Washburn had accompanied Jennifer to the country as volunteer workers for the charity she ran and she felt responsible for their safety, even though none of what was transpiring was her fault.
The leader of their captors was named Firman and he was a very thin man with wiry limbs and lots of dark hair, a beard, and bushy eyebrows.
His religious zeal seemed evident, but Jennifer knew that some of the men serving beneath him were more interested in the money the ransoms would bring and had hopes of somehow getting their hands on it.
Dr. Washburn was an army veteran, who had served in East Timor during the turn of the century and he had learned enough of the area’s local languages to understand snatches of conversation between the men guarding them.
They were being marched towards the group’s main camp, where they would likely be placed in a pit until their ransoms were paid.
From one of those conversations, Washburn learned that at least two of the men believed that they should keep the money for themselves and not pass it along to fuel their cause of a separate nation.
Firman raised a thin arm in the air and gave the signal to rest, as they came upon one of the many streams that ran through the jungle.
Jennifer and her companions all sighed with relief and then they lowered their faces to the water and drank as well as they could by using one hand to brace themselves, while the other was cupped and brought water to their lips.
When they were done, they all stepped into the stream to cool off and bathe, while assuming that the break would be a brief one, since they had lost time the day before, when they had to seek shelter from an afternoon storm.
The men removed their shirts, but the women had to wash while keeping their clothes on. Firman grew angry over any exposure of their bodies and, at a previous stop, he had given the order that Mrs. Hough be beaten for removing her blouse, when she tried to make it easier to clean herself.
When Mr. Hough charged at the man who had struck his wife, he received his own beating and both husband and wife bore bruises.
Most of the rebels were young and the youngest of the separatists, a boy who appeared to be no more than sixteen, was named Prendy.
Prendy had taken a liking to the petite and beautiful, raven-haired Melissa and as she and Jennifer stepped from the water, he handed her a piece of durian, a fruit that was native to the area.
Melissa thanked him with a smile and Prendy nodded shyly and moved away. Melissa then handed half of the fruit to Jennifer.
“Thank you, honey,” Jennifer said, as she eyed Prendy.
Jennifer ate the small piece of fruit quickly, for although she loved the sweet taste and crisp texture, she found the fruit’s odor unpleasant.
“Don’t trust that boy, Melissa.”
“Prendy? He’s not like the others and he has a crush on me.”
“Just be careful.”
Melissa sat next to Jennifer on the grass.
“Do you think we’ll be rescued soon?”
“I don’t know, but I’m certain that both our families are busy making arrangements to pay our ransoms.”
George and Reba both lay on their backs beside them, while Juan and Dr. Washburn sat across from them, and Juan asked Melissa what Prendy had given her to eat.
When she told him, he nodded and smiled.
“That’s good; you ladies eat as much as you can. All this bloody marching through the jungle can leave a person knackered. But Melissa, you watch that little bastard, he can’t be trusted any more than the rest of these arseholes.”
“Yes Dad,” Melissa said and Jennifer and the others laughed.
Juan Rio was the father of four teenage girls and he had been looking out for Melissa since their ordeal began.
“I’m not your bleeding dad, but I know a thing or two about the world, young lady and that boy isn’t giving you something for nothing, believe it.”
“He won’t... try anything. It’s against their beliefs, right?”
The others
said nothing and Melissa suddenly looked worried.
CHAPTER 6 - Extremist makeover
Firman, the leader of the men holding Jennifer hostage, rose up from his prayer rug and sat on a straw mat beneath the shade of a tall tree.
As he turned his head to the left, his eyes fell upon the western hostages as they rested near the stream, and a glare of distaste lit his features as he took in Jennifer’s long blond hair blowing in the breeze.
He then gazed about at his men and saw that many of them were eyeing Jennifer and Melissa.
One in particular, the boy named Prendy, was eyeing the young girl as if he were a starving man and she was his only food.
After rising up, Firman called over four of the men who he knew were fervent in their religious beliefs and as driven to rid their country of infidels as he was.
Once he reached the hostages, he studied Reba Hough, deemed her mouse brown hair to be short enough, and instructed the men who had been guarding the hostages to drag her and the males away.
That left Jennifer and Melissa alone, and Melissa clung to Jennifer like a toddler clinging to its mother.
Firman barked orders at the four men he had arrived with and they pulled the women apart, as they each grabbed an arm and held them still.
As Jennifer and Melissa stood on their knees before Firman, he very slowly and dramatically removed his machete from its scabbard.
Jennifer was the first victim of the blade, as Firman yanked at her hair while hacking away like a madman.
When he was done with her, her hair was no longer than any of the men’s and she had suffered several superficial cuts across her scalp.
Juan Rio called Firman a slew of names and although the leader of the rebels didn’t understand the Brit’s words, he understood their meaning and with just a look in that direction, one of the guards smashed the flat of his machete across the back of Juan’s head, which stunned the small man into silence.
Then, Firman went to work on Melissa and she too was shorn of her locks and humiliated.
As the two women lay at his feet crying, Firman had to keep himself from hacking away at them.
As despicable as the creatures were, they would bring in a rich bounty from their families and then he and his brothers would be able to arm themselves with more than mere machetes.
He spat upon the women as a way to vent his hatred, barked out the order for his men to be ready to move in ten minutes, and strode back to settle upon his mat, while whispering the words of a prayer he learned as a child.
CHAPTER 7 - At last
Tanner had been awake for an hour when Sara stirred and opened her eyes, and when she looked over and spotted him, she startled, and he saw a look of fear expressed for a moment before she became fully awake.
She sent him a weak smile.
“I have to get used to being near you.”
“Without wanting to kill me, you mean?” Tanner said.
“Or fear being killed by you,” she said.
They sat in silence for twenty minutes, until Sara broke it.
“My sister was like a second mother to me as I was growing up and I love her more than anything.”
“She’s older than you?”
“Yes, by six years and she’s always been the wiser of us and the most kind.” Sara stared at Tanner. “Do you have siblings?”
“They’re dead.”
“They must have died young.”
Tanner nodded and Sara saw that it was not a subject he was willing to talk about.
“The last time I spoke to my sister I called her a liar, because she told me that Brian once made a pass at her. I couldn’t accept that she was telling the truth then, but I see that I was idealizing him. I loved him, still love him, but he had his faults and... his actions were partly to blame for his death. Had he never gotten involved with Richards, you two would have never crossed paths.”
Surprise registered on Tanner’s face and when Sara saw it, she curled her lips in a smile.
“Yes, I actually said that.”
“Then, I’ll say this, I’m sorry that things went the way they did, although, if I hadn’t killed him, someone else would have.”
“Is that how you justify what you do?”
“No, Blake, I don’t need to justify what I do. I kill for money, for those who can’t or won’t do their own killing and I consider it work like any other profession.”
“But you could do other things, Tanner; you’re certainly intelligent enough, why kill for money?”
“We all do what we’re driven to do, and I’m the best at what I do, not many people can say that.”
“And you enjoy it, the violence, the killing?”
“I’m not a sadist, nor does it sexually arouse me, but I’ve a natural proclivity for the work, and yes, I do enjoy it. It’s often challenging, even demanding, and what you’ve asked me to do is the greatest challenge yet.”
“I haven’t hired you to kill anyone.”
“Haven’t you? Or do you really believe that we can free your sister without taking a single life? You may not know their names, but there are men alive right now in Guambi who will be dead when we leave there and they’ll be dead because you’ve hired me to kill them, even if you are only paying me with my life and not money.”
Sara thought that over, saw the truth of it and even took it one step further.
“Some of those men may have women who love them and I’m bringing you there to kill them, which will cause those women grief... the same as your killing of Brian caused me grief.”
“If that bothers you, we can turn the plane around and go back to New York.”
Sara shook her head.
“No, kill as many as you need to, but I want my sister free and safe.”
“And Frank Richards wanted to stay free and safe when he asked me to kill Brian Ames. I’m a tool, Blake. A gun for hire, and now I’m working for you.”
They were silent again, but Sara soon shattered it by voicing an observation.
“It’s a shitty world where a man can make a career of killing other men for money.”
Tanner smiled.
“At last, we finally agree on something.”
CHAPTER 8 - Girl Talk
Laurel lit up in a huge grin as Sophia delivered the news.
Joe had been getting ready to go to Sam Giacconi’s care facility when Sophia called and he asked her to come by Laurel’s townhouse. She told them her news over coffee taken at the kitchen table.
Tanner was alive.
“This guy Duke says that Tanner and Blake made a new deal. She lets him live and he saves her sister from the rebels in Guambi.”
Joe scratched his chin as he digested the news.
“That sounds like it could take a while. He could probably search that jungle for weeks and never find her.”
Sophia smiled.
“This is Tanner we’re talking about, he’ll find her.”
Laurel let out a deep breath.
“This is such a relief; I was so afraid that he had sacrificed himself to save me, but Sara must have come to her senses.”
“That bitch doesn’t have any sense,” Sophia said. “She just needs Tanner’s help more than she needs to see him dead, but no matter the reason, it means he’ll be coming back someday.”
“I hope it’s soon,” Joe said, and there was such despondency in his voice that it caused Sophia to look at him carefully.
“Something else has happened, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah, Sam Giacconi died.”
“Oh, Joe, I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks, but now it means that I have two funerals to plan, for two Dons, and God, I miss both of them more than you know.”
Sophia smiled.
“When Johnny and I first started going out he was intimidated by you, and then he told me a couple of weeks ago that you were his best friend.”
Pullo looked startled.
“He said I intimidated him, why?”
“You had a rep as a hard ass, still do and Sam was always praising you. Johnny looked up to you and wanted to be like you.”
“Hell, he surpassed me and he was twice as smart as I’ll ever be.”
Laurel leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“Don’t underestimate yourself, Johnny didn’t, and it was why he made you his advisor.”
Sophia shook her head sadly.
“We lose a lot of good people too soon in this life.”
Joe nodded in agreement, while fearing that there would be more losses in the coming days.
When he offered to walk Sophia out, she declined, while saying that she wanted to stay and visit with Laurel.
“A visit?” Joe asked.
“Yeah, girl talk, you know?”
Joe looked at Laurel.
“Is that alright with you?”
Laurel smiled at Sophia.
“Yes, I think we should get to know each other better.”
Joe left after giving Laurel a kiss goodbye and Laurel asked Sophia to follow her back into the kitchen, where they settled at the table over more coffee, along with chocolate croissants.
Sophia, not one to beat around the bush, came right to the point.
“Tanner was willing to sacrifice himself for you and I know you’ve got the hots for him, so tell me, what’s going to happen when he comes back?”
Laurel sipped her coffee before answering, and after placing her cup down atop the table, she leaned back in her seat and stared across at Sophia.
“I love Tanner and have since the moment I first laid eyes on him, and at the time, I cheated on my husband to be with him, but that was then and I’m a different person now.”
“So you’re saying that you don’t want him?”
“I love him, but I can’t have him and I’m not sure any woman can, because I think there’s just something in Tanner that won’t allow him to be intimate. He fears love, you should understand that if you’re serious about him, but I also think that he has feelings for you.”
“Why do you say he has feelings for me?”
Laurel gave a little shrug.
“I’ve seen you two together and I hope it works out for you, I really do, but I’m with Joe now and although I’ll always love him, Tanner and I will never be together again.”
The TANNER Series - Books 7-9 (Tanner Box Set Book 3) Page 3