CHAPTER 7 – Memories of Sophia
Several miles outside Mt Pleasant, New York
While he was at the house in Ossining, Manuel had told Tanner about the landing strip the cartel had used to fly them in. It was one of the key pieces of information Tanner needed, and he planned to profit from the knowledge.
He had located the strip atop a hill in the center of secluded acreage, and was busy at work preparing for the arrival of Alvarado’s men. That Alvarado would send more men, Tanner had no doubt. He had not only killed the man’s troops, but had threatened his only son.
More men would come, and when they did, they would die.
His vehicle was hidden beneath brush at the foot of the hill and he had marked a path back to it. He doubted anyone would be in pursuit when it came time to leave, but he prepared for pursuit anyway.
Better to be safe than dead.
Tanner was moving down the hill while weaving fishing line among the bushes and small trees that grew upon the slanted land. The fishing line was so thin that it was nearly invisible, and anyone not following the same path as Tanner would become tangled in it.
As he worked, his thoughts turned to Sophia, and he drifted into a memory of her.
***
Sophia opened her front door, saw Tanner, and crossed her arms over her chest.
Tanner pointed to his right cheek.
“If you’re planning on slapping me, hit me on this side, the left is getting a little tender.”
“Are you going by Romeo these days, or Tanner?”
“It’s Tanner, now should I stay or go?”
Sophia grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him towards her.
“Get your ass in here.”
Tanner smiled as they came together, but after sharing a kiss, Sophia held him at arm’s length and studied him.
“You’ve been with someone else since the last time I saw you.”
“Yes,” Tanner said, and was once again amazed at the perception of women. Sophia knew he had been with someone, not guessed it, and he wondered what sort of sixth sense was at work.
She tilted her head.
“You son of a bitch, there was more than one, wasn’t there?”
“Uh-huh,”
“How many?”
He sighed.
“Three, and one was an old friend that I don’t expect to see again.”
“What about the other two, are you still seeing them?”
“No, their names were Amber and Brittany, and if I had to guess, they’re in Philly right now opening a hair salon.”
Sophia scowled.
“Amber and Brittany? How old were they, sixteen?”
“They were young, but not that young.”
Sophia moved closer.
“I don’t need a commitment, but I’m not looking for a one-night stand either.”
“I get that,” Tanner said.
“What’s the longest you’ve ever been with one woman?”
Tanner looked lost in memory for a moment, but then answered.
“A little over two years.”
“When was this?”
“Some time ago.”
“So you can be with just one girl then?”
Tanner took Sophia in his arms.
“The right girl, yes,”
Sophia stared into his eyes as a huge grin spread across her face.
“The way I see it, you’ll be too weak to even think about other women.”
They had kissed again, and then headed to her bedroom.
***
The engine sound from a pickup truck stirred Tanner from his memories, and he quickly finished stringing the fishing line.
The sound had come from the top of the hill, and when Tanner returned and looked out past a row of wild bushes, he saw two men removing a generator from the bed of the pickup, an old white Ford, an F150.
They added two strings of lights to a set of extension cords, filled the generator with fuel and fired it up, to light the runway.
With the test done, the men shut down the generator and settled into a pair of folding chairs with a six-pack of beer.
The routine looked like old hat to the two men, and probably was, since the landing strip was used regularly as a drop point for illegal drugs.
Tanner smiled. The plane would be coming soon, that was good, as he had been prepared to wait for as long as a day.
However, when one of the men answered a phone call, Tanner eavesdropped and learned that they were expecting not one, but two planeloads of cartel hitters.
He went silently back to his car and eased the trunk open, to stare down at the RPG-7.
He’d procured the shoulder-launched, rocket-propelled grenade weapon through Duke.
He had only one missile because he hadn’t thought he would need more than that. It would destroy one jet. The men on the second plane would have to be dealt with the hard way.
Tanner removed his canteen from his belt, sipped at his water, and prepared himself for wholesale slaughter.
CHAPTER 8 – The report
Forty-four thousand feet above New Jersey, Rico Nazario was in a bad mood, as he gazed out at the darkening sky.
Rico was tall and handsome with bronze skin and dark wavy hair. He looked like a former athlete, but had been a part of one gang or another since he was six-years-old.
The veteran member of the Alvarado Cartel felt like his time was being wasted, and couldn’t believe that he and his team were being sent so far to kill just one man.
He’d been assured that the mess in Vera Cruz would be his last field assignment, and was promised that he would be moved up to manage Mexico City, now that Juan Alvarado was expanding into New York.
That was the problem with doing your job better than anyone else, it made you the go-to guy whenever a crisis popped up. Rico was sick of the streets, tired of killing, and just wanted to sit back and run things.
If not for Juan Alvarado, Rico would be next in line for the throne.
Juan Alvarado, Rico sneered as he thought about the young man.
The punk strutted around as if he were a king, but without his last name, he would be just another no-name hood.
His father, Alonso Alvarado, now there was a man, and he had come up from the slums just as Rico would do years later, and the two of them shared a rapport because of it.
But now, once again, Rico was being sent in to save Juan’s ass, and all because the punk couldn’t handle one man.
Rico smiled. It wasn’t all bad. He liked New York City, loved the variety and seemingly endless number of women and restaurants. He would kill Tanner within a couple of days and then take some time off to enjoy Manhattan, and possibly even take in a Broadway show.
Despite his upbringing in the streets, Rico had acquired an education and earned a degree in finance, knowledge he used to handle his own financial affairs. Along with his native Spanish, he also spoke English and French.
He sighed in annoyance and clicked opened the new file on his laptop.
Even The Alvarado Cartel had nerds working for them, and the office gnomes had cobbled together a case file on the man known as Tanner. The cover page warned that the material was a mixture of fact and conjecture, but stated that it gave an accurate view of the man and his abilities.
Rico began reading. By the time he reached the second page of the report, he realized that he might have underestimated the situation.
When he arrived at the part where the recently deceased Robert Vance had stated that Tanner single-handedly killed twenty men, he sat up straighter and called over to the man seated across the aisle from him.
“Mateo, have you read the report on Tanner?”
Mateo shook his head, which caused the black mop he called hair to fly in all directions. He was a short man with a shorter temper, and he had killed both young and old since he was a boy. If you pointed him at someone, he killed them.
“Read it, Mateo; this Tanner may be for real.”
&
nbsp; Mateo gestured around the cabin.
“There are sixteen of us, and sixteen more on the first plane, I think we got it, Rico. Tanner don’t stand a chance.”
“Read the report, and make sure the other men do too.”
“Shit man, half of them can’t read, but they can shoot, and they all want that reward, the 50K in American dollars.”
“Right,” Rico said.
He turned off his computer, checked his watch, and saw that they should be on the ground in fifteen minutes.
He tried to put his mind on other things, but the report kept coming back to him. If Tanner was as good as the report made him appear, things could go bad quickly.
Rico tightened his seat belt and tried to think about the nightlife of New York City.
He only hoped that he would live long enough to enjoy it.
CHAPTER 9 – Old friends and new enemies
San Antonio, Texas
Laurel grabbed her suitcase off the baggage carousel inside Terminal B.
When she looked up, she saw an old man holding a sign aloft with her name written on it.
It was the name she had been born with, Laurel Carter.
The old man looked her way, and she smiled nervously and nodded.
The man had deep wrinkles around his blue eyes, sported a full head of white hair, and was tanned from being outdoors.
As Laurel walked towards him, he was joined by a middle-aged woman and a teenage girl. The girl smiled at her while speaking to her mother.
“I told you she would be beautiful.”
Laurel gave a nervous laugh and offered her hand to the woman.
“I’m Laurel Carter, and thank you for taking me in for a few days.”
The woman smiled brilliantly.
“I’m Maria Reyes, this is my daughter, Romina, and the gentleman’s name is Doc.”
“It’s nice to meet you all.”
“Any friend of Tanner’s is a friend of ours,” Maria said, and the four of them headed for the Reyes Ranch, the former Parker Ranch and boyhood home of Cody Parker.
***
When the bus drove up the hill and parked beside the pickup truck, Tanner wondered just how many men were coming to kill him. However many it was, they needed a bus to drive them all into the city.
After receiving another call, the first two men started up the generator and powered the lights. It wasn’t dark yet, but night was coming, and Tanner assumed that the planes were as well.
He killed the driver of the bus first, a fat man with bad acne scars. The man had been sitting in one of the folding chairs and draining the last can of beer, when Tanner came up from behind and slit his throat.
The man fell from the chair while gagging, to thrash on the ground, but his death went unnoticed by the other two men, as the sound of it was drowned out by the throbbing noise of the generator.
They also had their backs turned as they looked up and towards the south, and so when Tanner emptied both barrels of a sawed-off shotgun into them, surprise mixed with pain on their faces. Two more blasts ended their lives, and then Tanner went to work disabling the vehicles.
By the time the first jet appeared, he had the rocket launcher ready to fire, but held off until the jet touched down. Tanner cocked the rocket launcher, pulled the trigger, and the grenade took off.
It reached the Gulfstream jet in less than a second and blew it to pieces, large pieces, one of which destroyed the generator, while another chunk headed his way. Tanner dropped the rocket launcher and dove to the ground.
The chunk of flaming debris sailed over his head and hit the dirt behind him. When he stood and looked at it, he saw that it was actually two bodies still strapped into their row of seats, and the entire thing was ablaze like a torch.
The main section of the jet had rolled down the west bank of the hill and into a stand of trees. From that same direction, there came the sound of a man screaming.
Tanner found the poor devil still smoldering with burns over most of his body, and he ended his suffering with a mercy round to the head.
Afterwards, the world grew quiet, except for the crackling of the numerous fires. That peace was short-lived, as the second jet appeared in the sky and flew over his head at less than two-hundred feet.
Tanner assumed that they would fly on to land somewhere else, but as he headed back to his car, he saw that the jet was returning.
Someone on board had guts and wanted to spill his.
“Come on down, you bastard,” Tanner whispered, and then he headed for the trail while hoping that his precautions would prove to be enough.
***
Rico had spotted the lone figure on the ground as the jet whizzed over the scene of the crash.
Tanner!
The pilot was gaining altitude and Rico assumed that they were heading somewhere else to land. He rushed to the cockpit door and found it locked. After Rico pounded on it, the co-pilot opened the door.
“Turn this plane around now!”
The pilot shook his head without even bothering to look back at Rico.
“The other jet was downed by a rocket. I won’t risk going back.”
Rico leaned over and spoke softly into the pilot’s ear.
“We may die from a rocket, but if you don’t turn this plane around and land I promise that I will kill you.”
That made the pilot swivel his head. Rico locked eyes with the man, and then heard him speak to the co-pilot.
“Jorge, prepare to land. We’re going back.”
***
Tanner watched the second jet land, and when it turned to come back towards him, he looked down the hill. In his mind, he went over the meandering trail he had created, a trail that was the only safe way down.
He had to assume that there were more than a dozen men on board the jet, and if he hoped to survive, he had to lead them into his trap.
When the jet came to a hard stop, the door popped open and the stairway descended, and before Tanner had made it even halfway down the hill, he heard the rowdy voices of his pursuers.
***
Mateo had been ready to lead the charge after Tanner, but Rico grabbed his arm and held him back.
“What the hell are you doing? He’s right there.”
“I know, but I also think that he has a way out of here. I memorized the terrain as we flew over and there’s a dirt road down there.” Rico pointed behind them and began moving that way. “The road leads south, if we go this way we can ambush him as he drives by.”
Mateo looked at the hoard of men disappearing down the hill.
“What if they get him first?”
“They won’t. This devil is tricky. Now come, we have to hurry.”
***
Tanner made it to the car as his first pursuer became entangled in the fishing line.
The rest soon followed, and the ultra-thin, but strong, filament cut into them. Three men kept coming; all three had knives, and had used their blades to cut themselves free.
Still, parts of the fishing line had wrapped itself around them and they had trampled through the surrounding weeds. That would prove to be their undoing.
Tanner grabbed a lighter from the front seat of the car. It was the long-handled type used to light barbeque grills.
Prior to stringing up the fishing line, Tanner had soaked the thin wire in a mixture of gasoline and soap, which when combined properly make for a poor man’s napalm. He then spread the remaining fluid in strategic spots along the hill.
A single line of flame appeared, rushed up the slope, and then ignited the wire and spread to a dozen different areas. The men with the knives suddenly found their pants and shoes aflame, while the other men caught and trapped by the wire were now being burned alive.
When the gas drenched weeds caught fire, all of the men were screaming. The men who had cut themselves free were shucking off their flaming clothes, and Tanner grimaced as he watched sections of their skin come off with the fabric.
If the three men
had somewhere to go where they could escape the blaze they might have lived, but fire was all around them, and they would soon burn to death like the others. The trap had worked so well that not a single shot had been fired at Tanner.
It made him wary. Fate was seldom so kind. However, it had all been due to his preparedness, something that was key when one faced superior odds.
He turned his back on the carnage and got behind the wheel. The smoke from the crash would bring the nearby authorities, and he needed to get out of sight.
As the screams of the dying filled his ears, Tanner drove away and headed towards the road that led back to the highway.
***
Rico and Mateo looked at each other in dismay as they heard the horrific screams coming from their comrades. The sounds were faint as they drifted from the other side of the hill, but the agony imbued in them was unmistakable.
“What the hell?” Mateo said.
“The man’s a devil, this Tanner, but he won’t get away this time.”
They reached the road and Rico rushed towards a point where it bent around a curve.
“Here! This is a blind spot. When we hear his vehicle coming we’ll blast it with everything we have.”
Mateo looked around and nodded in agreement. There were trees near the road that they could use for cover, and the curve would take away Tanner’s line of sight.
The two of them had just crouched behind a tree when they heard the approaching sound of a car engine.
“He’ll have to slow to take that curve, Mateo. He’ll be an easy kill.”
Mateo smiled and rested his shotgun atop a small branch, and the sound of the engine grew louder.
CHAPTER 10 – Baby talk
Joe was greeted by FBI Agent Tamir Ivanov and two doctors as he approached Sammy Giacconi’s hospital room.
Six men surrounded Joe, they were his bodyguards, but he told them to stay back as he spoke to Ivanov and the doctors.
“He’s awake?”
“Yeah, Pullo,” Ivanov said, and then the doctors filled Joe in on Sammy’s condition.
Sammy had been told that he had an accident, but little else. He didn’t know that Sophia was gone, and Joe told the doctors that he would deliver the news.
Once the doctor’s had left, Ivanov and Joe spoke alone.
The TANNER Series - Books 7-9 (Tanner Box Set Book 3) Page 28