“Can I have a moment, Boss?”
“Yeah, and Bosco, just call me Joe from now on, okay?”
Bosco smiled.
“You got it, Joe.”
Joe excused himself to Rico, and followed Bosco into a room off the kitchen that was used for the storage of paper products, such as napkins, paper towels, and tissues. There was a small butcher-block table in the center of the room, and atop it sat a white box with a bright red ribbon.
Bosco gestured at it.
“It’s a wedding gift... from Tanner.”
Joe walked over and touched the side of the box.
“It’s cold.”
“That’s dry ice, so that the eh, contents, won’t spoil.”
“The contents, huh?” Joe said, as he suspected what lay inside.
When he opened the box, his suspicions were confirmed, as he looked down upon the severed head of Michael Krupin.
Joe broke out in laughter and Bosco joined him.
“You know, Boss, I mean Joe, I’m awful damn glad I’m not Alonso Alvarado.”
Joe closed up the box.
“You and me both, Bosco.”
Joe rejoined his bride and the celebration went on into the night.
CHAPTER 35 - Revelations
As the wedding was taking place, Tanner was driving south through Georgia, as he headed for Mexico and Alvarado.
Plane travel was out, because the cartel would have eyes at every major airport, and if he were identified by someone while onboard a flight, Alvarado could have an army of killers waiting for him whenever he landed.
Tanner had driven on a less direct path than would be normal, as a precaution against anyone looking to cash in on the million-dollar bounty.
When hunger struck, he pulled into the parking lot of a diner. His waitress, a young redhead who had a gang insignia tattooed on her wrist, kept giving him odd looks, and later, she was slow in bringing his food.
Tanner began to wonder if perhaps she had recognized him from one of the flyers going around in the underworld, and if so, was she being slow to delay his departure.
He became convinced of it when she wouldn’t meet his eyes as she finally sat down his plate, and his gut was telling him to leave, to flee.
He left his food untouched on the table and headed for his car. As he unlocked the door, he was chastising himself for being paranoid, that is, until the three men in the pickup truck came roaring into the parking lot and headed for him.
Tanner ran several feet to his left, where a green dumpster sat against the side of the building. After moving around to the rear end of it, he waited for the truck to stop, and for the men to climb out of it.
They did so mere seconds later, and Tanner fired a shot that destroyed the right kneecap of the driver, who had fired a shotgun at him. The metal pellets penetrated one side of the dumpster but didn’t make it through the second side.
One of the other men ran to his right to get a better angle, and Tanner fired a round that entered the man’s ear and exited in a spray of brains and blood. The third man was a fool wielding only a baseball bat. When he saw what had happened to his friends, he dropped the bat and climbed back into the truck.
The driver must have taken the keys when he left it, because after sliding over behind the wheel, the man made a panicked sound before leaping from the truck and sprinting towards the front of the diner.
Tanner let him go. He needed to leave, or else he risked facing the cops.
He walked over to the punk with the shattered knee and picked up his fallen shotgun, which appeared to be a new Mossberg, a Tactical 930.
The man begged Tanner not to kill him. Tanner ignored him, and after tossing the shotgun on the seat, he climbed in his car and left.
As he drove away, he saw the waitress in the rear view mirror. She was sitting on the ground and weeping beside the man he’d shot in the head.
The men had come when she called them and now one was wounded with another dead. Tanner felt no sympathy for them or their stupidity.
He would feel neither mercy nor forgiveness towards anyone who hunted him, and they would all find that million dollars impossible to claim.
He drove only a mile after leaving the diner and stole a car inside the parking lot of a Cineplex, after transferring his few belongings into it.
The Mexican border was growing closer, and by the next day, he would enter the country.
“I’m coming, Alvarado.”
***
In Louisiana, Alexa could feel that she was growing nearer to Tanner.
She had no idea how she would find the man or what she would say to convince him to help her, she only knew what she had known since she was a child, and it was that she had to follow her inner urgings. They had never steered her wrong.
A few minutes later, while stopped for gas, she began to doubt her “little voice” for the first time in years, because she suddenly had the urge, no, the need, the absolute need to head north, and not northeast, a direction Tanner should be coming from, but she felt a great desire to drive west, northwest.
It made not one lick of sense to her rational mind, but she knew from her own experience and the stories of her grandmother that the “little voice” was never wrong.
Alexa filled her tank, got back on the highway, and as soon as the opportunity arose, she headed west, northwest, but only God knew why.
***
At his compound in Mexico, Alonso Alvarado stood by the grave of his son, Juan, and grieved as much as his black heart was able.
Other than those born of physical pain, he hadn’t cried a tear since he was a boy, but he was capable of hate, oh yes, and he was a man who knew how to deal with his enemies.
He pulled the drawings from his pocket and unfolded them. For years, there had been only one, the one depicting the man who had crippled him, but now, now there were three, and along with the first man, he held a portrait of Tanner, and a sketch of Alexa.
Alonso stared down at them and felt the hate rise in his every fiber, a hate that he would someday vent on the three people he despised most in the world.
“We shall have revenge, Juan, this I swear.”
Alvarado’s special chair had been carried from the home and placed by the grave. He lowered himself into it and stared blankly at the tombstone.
After more than a minute had passed, Alonso jerked his head up suddenly.
He remembered!
He finally remembered where he had seen Tanner before; he took out the flyer showing Tanner’s face and stared at it in stark amazement.
“It is him, but it’s not possible... he’s dead.”
Alonso kept studying Tanner’s face, and the longer he did so, the more certain he was of his identity.
“You won’t escape me this time. This time I will see you dead for certain.”
***
Tanner left his stolen car in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant where he finally had a meal. After walking a block south to a car rental agency, he rented a vehicle under a phony name and continued on south.
He had only driven a few miles when he pulled to the side of the road. He had meant to check for messages while he ate and had forgotten to do so.
Once the laptop was connected to the Internet, he checked for new messages inside an email account.
There was one message. It was from Tamir Ivanov.
Tanner,
My friend in the DEA finally located pictures of Alonso Alvarado. They were found among things that Alvarado had left in the basement of a bar he used to own in Matamoras, Mexico.
I’ve included them as attachments, and I pray that this letter finds you in good health.
Happy hunting,
T.I.
Tanner opened the attachments, looked at the photos, and felt the world turn upside down.
The man in the photos could not be Alonso Alvarado, because the man in the photos was dead, long dead. He wrote back and told Ivanov of his error, and he was just about to
shut down the laptop when he received a reply.
Tanner,
There’s no mistake. The man in those photos is Alonso Alvarado. If you think he’s dead, you’re wrong.
There’s something else too, Alvarado used to go by a nickname. My friend says that he’ll get back to me when he learns what it was.
Best of luck,
T.I.
Tanner stared at the photos in wonder.
Could the bastard still be alive somehow?
He needed answers, and only one man could give them to him. He had to see his mentor, Tanner Six, because he already knew the nickname of the man in Ivanov’s photos.
His name was Martillo, and he was the man who had killed his family.
Tanner got back on the road, but this time he was headed west, northwest, to see the man he loved like a father, Tanner Six.
BONUS!
THE FIRST FOUR CHAPTERS
OF
MORE DANGEROUS THAN MAN – TANNER BOOK 10
By
REMINGTON KANE
CHAPTER 1 – Surprise!
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA
Tanner realized he was being followed after he left the drive-thru lane of a fast food restaurant.
One of the cars in line behind him pulled out without getting their food, and the unusual behavior caught Tanner’s attention.
Whoever was driving wasn’t a complete idiot, because he allowed several cars to come between them, so that he wasn’t driving directly behind Tanner.
There were two men in the car, and from the brief glimpse Tanner got of them as they passed beneath a street light, they appeared to be about his age.
They were likely just two more punks looking to cash in on the million-dollar bounty that Alonso Alvarado had placed on his head.
Tanner drove in a pattern that left no doubt he was being followed, and then he headed straight for his motel. When he got there, he parked in front of his room, Room 4, and entered just as the two men parked several spaces away.
He made certain to look in their direction, so that they could get a good look at him.
If they thought they had made a mistake and followed the wrong man they might leave, and Tanner didn’t want them to leave, because he needed information.
***
The two men following Tanner were named Derrick and Bobby. They were locals, and Bobby had spotted Tanner while stopped at a traffic light.
Derrick was the more aggressive of the two and a former boxer. His nose and ears spoke of his losses in the ring, but he retained the good looks he was born with.
Bobby was a follower, skinny as a reed, and had thinning blond hair. He had been a fair basketball player in high school, but when he failed to get a college scholarship, he joined the army, and that’s where he and Derrick met.
After parking in the motel lot, Derrick took another look at the drawing of Tanner’s face.
“Yeah, I wasn’t sure until he looked this way, but there can’t be two guys with eyes like his.”
Bobby checked to see if his gun was loaded for the third time since spotting Tanner, and while he did that, Derrick pumped a shell into his shotgun and told Bobby how they would do it.
“You go around back and make sure he doesn’t sneak out, I think the bathrooms here have a small window in them.”
“You’ve stayed here?”
Derrick smiled as he cut off the car’s engine.
“That waitress at Elmo’s Bar, you know the one with the long legs? I nailed her here about a year ago.”
“Get out of here! You slept with Mindy?”
“Yeah, but just once, she said it was her way of paying her husband back for something or other.”
“Damn Derrick, that girl’s hot.”
“Yeah, but she sucked in bed. But nevermind that, you go head around back, wait a full minute, and then you’ll hear me kick the door in. If this Tanner dude tries to leave through the bathroom window, he’s yours, and if he don’t, he’s mine.”
“All right,” Bobby said, and then he took in several deep breaths. “I haven’t killed anyone since we were in the army, you know? But that was in wartime and it didn’t count.”
“What do you mean killing in a war don’t count?”
Bobby raised his eyes skyward.
“I’m talking about God, Derrick. Killing is wrong.”
“Hell, Bobby, the price on the dude’s head is a million bucks, that’s worth a little sin.”
“Right, okay, I’ll head around back.”
Bobby left the car with his gun tucked against his leg, and ran right, to head around to the rear of the L-shaped building. After gathering his courage, Derrick left the car and went over to stand outside Tanner’s door.
When what felt like a minute had passed, Derrick was readying himself to kick in the door, but then he caught sight of Bobby, who was running back towards him.
When Bobby reached him, Derrick pulled him aside and whispered.
“Why aren’t you watching the window?”
Bobby grinned before he whispered back at Derrick.
“I don’t need to watch it. There’s a window in the bathroom, yeah, but it’s up high and a single piece of glass, stained glass too. There’s no way he can get out of there quickly, and if he tries, we’ll just shoot him.”
“All right, good, good, I feel better about both of us going in anyway. Now, I’ll kick the door in on three, one, two, three!”
Derrick laid a work boot hard against the doorjamb and the cheap motel room lock broke free, causing the door to fly open and bounce off the wall to the side of it.
They saw no one.
Derrick leaned down with the shotgun at the ready and looked under the bed. While he was doing that, Bobby checked the room’s only closet and found it empty of all but a few clothes hangers.
When they were certain that there were no other places to hide, Derrick pointed at the bathroom door, which was sitting ajar and showed a dark room beyond.
“We know you’re in there, dude,” Derrick called out, but there was no answer.
The two men crept towards the bathroom with their guns at the ready, as both sets of eyes were locked on the slight opening between the bathroom door and the jamb, searching for any movement.
Derrick whispered to Bobby while never taking his eyes from the door.
“I’m gonna push the door open, when I do, reach around inside and hit the light switch.”
Bobby whispered back at him. “It sounds good, but be ready.”
Derrick stood to the left side of the door, as Bobby moved over to the right.
After silently counting down from three, Derrick shoved the bathroom door open with the end of his shotgun, while at the same time, Bobby reached inside and flicked the light on.
When nothing happened other than the light coming on, Derrick moved into the bathroom while keeping his finger ready on the shotgun’s trigger.
The bathroom was empty.
Derrick and Bobby looked at the empty shower stall, and then up at the intact stain glass window above the toilet. There was no other way out of the room, and yet, Tanner wasn’t there.
When Tanner cleared his throat, it caused both men to jerk their heads around.
Tanner was holding a pair of Tasers. He fired them simultaneously, striking both Derrick and Bobby in the face with the electrified prongs. He then watched them fall to the bathroom’s tiled floor and twitch from the shock they each received.
Within minutes, he had them gagged and bound and was backing their vehicle up to the motel room door.
After throwing a blanket over Derrick, he carried him outside and dumped the man into the trunk of his own car, he then repeated the procedure with Bobby, got behind the wheel of Derrick’s car, and went looking for a secluded spot.
Tanner needed information, and before they died, Derrick and Bobby would tell him what he needed to know.
CHAPTER 2 – Job openings
Inside the remains of a burnt hulk that was onc
e a home, Tanner removed Derrick’s gag.
Derrick worked his mouth a little, wet his lips, and then asked a question that had been driving him crazy.
“Where the hell were you hiding in that room?”
Tanner ignored him while he removed Bobby’s gag.
“How did you two find me?”
“We just spotted you,” Bobby said. “And it surprised me; they say that you’re supposed to be in Texas or Mexico.”
“Who else knows I’m here?”
“Just us,” Bobby said.
“You said that they think I’m in Texas or Mexico, who’s ‘they?’”
“Don’t answer him, Bobby. Don’t tell him shit,” Derrick said.
Tanner reached back, grabbed the shotgun, and then pointed it at Derrick.
“Interrupt again and I’ll kill you.”
“It was on the website! Don’t shoot! It was on the website,” Derrick said.
“What website?”
“At Chemzonic,” Bobby said, “It’s where we work. It’s a chemical plant, and there was an alert for you in the secure area of the website.”
“My picture was on an official company website?”
“It’s a special website that we’re not supposed to know about, but the head of security does. I saw him punch in the code once, and so I go on there to take a look every now and then. It didn’t do me any good; most of what’s on there is encoded. But they had that drawing of you and a one followed by six zeros, so I didn’t need to decode what that meant.”
“Was it all encoded?”
“Mostly, but under your picture it said something like, se busca vivo o muerto. Consuela in the cafeteria told me that it translated into, ‘wanted dead or alive’ and that it mentioned a reward, so we figured you were worth a million dollars.”
Tanner went quiet as he thought things over.
The company where Derrick and Bobby worked, Chemzonic, must be linked to the Alvarado Cartel somehow, and in fact, it made perfect sense. The Alvarado Cartel was one of the biggest suppliers of meth. Meth needs precursor chemicals to be manufactured, and what could be better than owning your own chemical plant?
Tanner reached behind him and grabbed an iPad from a duffle bag.
The TANNER Series - Books 7-9 (Tanner Box Set Book 3) Page 38