“Vernon, Mirella was in the hotel. Do you think I would kill my own daughter?”
“Don’t even try it, Magyar. It was too much of a coincidence that Tanner appeared right after your men left me. As for Mirella, her appearance there was a surprise to me as well.”
“All right, you want Tanner’s body, and what about the money?”
“Bring both, I’ll call you later and tell you where to meet.”
“No, let’s settle it now, Vernon. I want Mirella back home as soon as possible.”
“I said later, Magyar. I need to think.”
Vernon ended the call, turned off the phone, and placed it in his pocket. After finding a bottle of rum in a cabinet and cola in the refrigerator, he made a drink and took more pain reliever. He opened the laptop and tried again to gain access to his account. By the time Mirella appeared looking fresh and clean he had thirty more failed attempts.
Mirella grabbed a pile of take-out menus from a drawer.
“What do you want, Cal?”
“A better memory,” Vernon grumbled.
37
Not Your Average Hood
Hugo led five men through the front entrance of the warehouse while another five entered through the rear. The metal doors at the entrances squealed as they opened them. If anyone left the building the doors would give them away.
In any event, Hugo left a man outside in case Tanner tried climbing out a window. Hugo also had a man nail the windows shut. If Tanner attempted to leave that way, he would have to break a glass pane to exit, and the man outside would be alerted and come running.
The men each wore bullet-proof vests, carried ultra-bright tactical flashlights, and there was an impressive display of weaponry between them. The warehouse was over ten-thousand square feet and contained many places that offered concealment, including the dozens of empty crates that littered the building, along with the roof.
Magyar’s men searched methodically as they were on the lookout for trip wires or electric eyes that might trigger something lethal. They explored for hours until they were certain that they had missed nothing and gone over everything three or four times.
As they left the building after dark, Hugo looked out at the street and wondered where the man he had left out front had gone. He was about to call out for the man when he saw him wave from where he stood beneath a street lamp smoking a cigarette.
“Join us over here, Carlos.”
Despite the meticulous search Hugo wasn’t satisfied that Tanner wasn’t still inside the warehouse. They gathered near their cars, which were parked in front of the warehouse. Some of the men were tired, some were hungry, and all of them were frustrated. Magyar had promised a reward to the man who killed Tanner. It grated on the men to think he may have slipped away.
The two assassins that found the vehicle Tanner had been driving assured Hugo that they would have seen Tanner had he left the building.
“You said the hood of his car was warm, how warm?”
“Hot,” said Albert. He was a young guy, muscular, with longish dark hair. “He must have just gotten here before we did.”
Hugo looked around at the near-empty landscape where garbage had been dumped among weeds.
“Even if he slipped past you one of us should have seen him while we were driving here, that is, if he left on foot.”
“He didn’t slip past us. Hans and I know what we’re doing.”
“Calm down,” Hugo said. “I was just thinking out loud. Here’s what I really believe. I think Tanner is still inside somewhere. He’s had time to make a hiding place in there and now he’s putting it to good use. It will be dark soon, so he’s probably hoping that will help him get away.”
Albert slapped the palm of his hand against the hood of a car.
“We searched that damn place every way we could. Where the hell could he be hiding?”
Albert got his answer a moment later. The men were startled by a scraping sound behind them and turned their heads to see the hood on the abandoned car pop open sideways. Standing where an engine would normally be was Tanner. The car’s hood and fender had been reinforced with thick steel and the hood modified to open sideways. An insert fell from the center of the hood and revealed a firing port.
Tanner was holding a shotgun, a Fostech Origin 12 with a 30-round magazine and Salvo silencer attached. He began firing and his first shot blew a hole in Albert’s left leg. That was followed by over twenty more rounds as Tanner nearly emptied the attached drum.
Hugo managed to return fire along with two other men. They watched as their rounds pinged off the thick steel beneath the hood’s grimy outer surface. Tanner fired a shot that hit a lower edge of Hugo’s vest and the big man went to the ground while dropping his weapon.
With five shells left and Magyar’s men all down, Tanner bent his knees and jumped from the engine compartment. Upon landing, he winced, as his insides still ached from the effects of the blast. As he stalked toward Magyar’s men with the shotgun held at hip level, Tanner saw movement in only three of them. The rest were either dead or dying.
Hugo had survived, although gravely wounded. He tried sitting up and Tanner shot him in the face. The other men who’d been moving each let out moans at the sight. Tanner finished them off with a cold dispassion.
Magyar’s reputation as an elite trainer of assassins had been attributed to the fact that he had mentored Lars Gruber. Gruber had been special, and Tanner now thought it was despite Magyar, not because of him.
The twelve men he had just killed had committed wholesale slaughter at the chateau in Tarn, France. To call what they did assassination was an insult to Tanner, who considered himself a consummate professional assassin. Magyar’s best men were dead, leaving the man unprotected, and he would soon follow them into the grave.
Magyar’s thoughts had become so preoccupied by Cal Vernon’s threat to kill his daughter that he’d forgotten about Tanner. When he remembered Vernon’s demand to see Tanner’s body, Magyar called Hugo to tell him about it.
That was when he realized how much time had passed since he’d last spoken to Hugo. A sense of dread came over Magyar when Hugo failed to answer his phone. He turned on the television which was on the wall opposite his desk.
As he watched the local news he tried calling some of the other men who had been with Hugo. No one answered, and Magyar knew. He knew. When the news reporter appeared outside a warehouse with the words, TWELVE SHOT DEAD IN GANG WAR on the screen, Magyar let out an audible moan of despair. Hugo and his other men were dead, Tanner was alive, and a man he tried to kill had his daughter.
Magyar rushed about his home and checked the locks on his windows and doors, then sat in his office holding a shotgun. He could run and hide but that wouldn’t help Mirella. No, he had to kill Tanner himself.
A few minutes later it occurred to Magyar that Tanner might not be coming for him, that he might be gunning for Cal Vernon instead. If so, Mirella could be killed by a stray bullet, or by Vernon seeking revenge.
Magyar set the shotgun on the desk and took out a phone from his top drawer. When it rang six times he was worried it wouldn’t be answered. Then, he heard a voice, Tanner’s voice.
“Your men are dead, Magyar, and you’re next.”
“Tanner.”
“What?”
“I… I need your help.”
38
Pain And Joy
Mirella sat on the side of the bed while watching Cal Vernon pace back and forth. The bedroom in her girlfriend’s Antwerp apartment was small, so Vernon’s long gait only allowed him four paces before he had to turn around again.
“Cal?”
“What?”
“That man you were with at the hotel. You said his name was Tanner?”
“Yes.”
“Who was he?”
“It doesn’t matter; he’s dead now.”
“Dead?”
Vernon stopped pacing and looked down at her.
“What business do
you think your father is in?”
“My father is a security expert.”
“And what about all those goons he has around him?”
“Goons?”
“Hoodlums, gangster types,”
“You mean the security guards?”
“They’re not guards, Mirella, they’re assassins, and they work for your father.”
“That’s not true,” Mirella said, but there was no conviction behind her words and she wouldn’t meet Vernon’s eyes.
“Ah, you already knew, didn’t you?”
“I know you’re not really a businessman. If you were you wouldn’t have needed Hugo and the others to guard you.”
“Your father knows about us.”
“No, he doesn’t. He thinks I’m in England.”
“He found out I was screwing you and withdrew his men, so Tanner could get to me.”
“Father really knows?”
“Yeah, I guess your disguise didn’t fool anyone.”
Mirella hopped off the bed.
“I have to go home and talk to my father.”
“Don’t bother. I’m going to tell him to come here.”
“Why?”
“I want him to bring me something.”
“What, money?”
“That, and something else.”
Mirella cocked her head.
“Why would Father give you money?”
Vernon opened his mouth to lie, then changed his mind.
“I told your father that I would kill you if he didn’t pay me.”
“Kill me?”
“That’s right.”
Mirella stared at Vernon. When she saw no humor in his expression she darted toward the doorway. She had been hoping to make it out of the apartment, but she never made it more than a few feet. Vernon grabbed her by the hair and yanked her backwards. Mirella yelped in pain before losing her balance and tumbling onto the bed.
She kicked at Vernon as he closed in and caught him on the chin. Vernon, whose head was still aching, felt the pain in his skull flare up. He hit Mirella in the face with several hard blows before he got ahold of himself and backed away from the bed.
“Mirella?”
She didn’t move, and blood flowed from a nose that was broken in two places. Mirella’s eyes were closed and the skin around them reddened from the impacts the flesh had taken. There was also a cut under the left one. Vernon guessed she’d have a pair of blackened eyes by morning. That is, if he hadn’t killed her.
“Mirella?”
Vernon shook her and found her to be limp. She was breathing… at least, he thought she was. He bent over to listen to her chest, then straightened, as bending over made his head hurt even more.
The hell with her. Vernon thought. He had already proven to Magyar that he had her. Since calling Magyar, Vernon had tried to think of a way he could meet with the man while not risking himself. He had come to the conclusion that Magyar needed him alive until he had Mirella back. Still, the meeting would be risky. If he could only remember the right sequence for the password, then he wouldn’t need Magyar at all.
There was another option as well. Nearly two hundred thousand dollars was in an account he had access to, although he had never touched a dime of it. Vernon considered breaking that rule just once, then put the idea out of his mind.
He went online once again and tried to get to the money he had obtained from the auction. As he struggled to recall the right password, the pain in his head all but blinded him.
Magyar had surprised Tanner by agreeing to meet with him under any conditions he wanted. The man had to know he would kill him, even if he was willing to hear him out.
He found Magyar where he told him to be. The older man was standing on a street corner dressed in jeans and a plain white T-shirt with a front pocket. Tanner phoned him.
“Start walking, when you get to the corner make a right.”
“I’m alone, Tanner.”
“We’ll see.”
After having Magyar walk several more blocks while turning left and right, Tanner drove up to him and slid down the passenger window.
“Get in.”
Magyar complied, and Tanner drove north.
“I know you’ll kill me, Tanner, before you do, please help me get my daughter away from Vernon.”
“Aren’t you afraid I might kill her, just to watch you suffer?”
“No, because I saw you earlier rushing that injured child to safety. The man who did that wouldn’t be cruel enough to kill my innocent daughter.”
“I’ll help you get your daughter back, but Vernon is mine. I need him alive until I get information out of him.”
“I don’t care about Vernon; I only want my daughter to be safe.”
“Do you have any idea where she is?”
“I thought she was in Liverpool with her mother. I called a few of her friends and they haven’t seen her since last night, at a party.”
“Where was the party?”
“At the apartment of one of her friends, a girl named Annabelle. Someone told me that she’s on holiday in Greece.”
“Does Annabelle live alone?”
“I have no idea.”
“Maybe your daughter went there with Vernon.”
“Why wouldn’t he check-in to a hotel?”
“I have his wallet, phone, and passport. He left the hotel with nothing.”
“I have no idea where Annabelle lives. I’ll have to call around to Mirella’s other—” Magyar’s phone rang. “It’s Vernon. He’s using the same mobile he used before.” Magyar answered and said, “Let me speak to my daughter.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m out driving. I just picked up the body.”
“Tanner’s dead?”
“He killed Hugo and most of my men, but yes, he’s dead.”
“And what about the money?”
“I have it.”
“Good, drive to Antwerp. At this hour it should take you about forty-five minutes. I’ll call you back then.”
“Where in Antwerp?”
The call ended, and Magyar stared at the phone.
“He didn’t let me talk to her. I don’t like that.”
“He’s making you sweat. It means nothing,” Tanner said, and no, he didn’t like it either.
Forty minutes later, Vernon walked into the bedroom and checked on Mirella again. She appeared to be unchanged from the other times he looked in on her and he came to the conclusion that he had killed her. Vernon shut the bedroom door and looked up at a wall clock to get the time. It was close enough and he called Magyar again. He gave him the name of the street the apartment was on along with instructions on what to do when he arrived there.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes, I’m to leave the car and walk across the street and enter the park, but when will you let Mirella go?”
“She’ll be with me until I get in your car, then I’ll let her run to you. What about my phone?”
“Tanner was carrying two of them; I suppose one is yours. I placed them in the center console of my car, along with your wallet, passport, and the other items he had.”
“Good, and the money?”
“It’s in the trunk, along with Tanner. Tanner is wrapped in black plastic, even so, the odor is not pleasant.”
“It will smell like perfume to me. That bastard has screwed up my plans. I’ll be lucky if the CIA doesn’t catch up to me.”
“Let me talk to my daughter.”
“You’ll see her soon.”
Vernon put the phone away and grabbed up the laptop. He thought about wiping the apartment down to eliminate his prints, and laughed. A single murder was the least of his crimes, and besides, he needed to get downstairs before Magyar arrived.
As he was closing the door to the apartment, he sent a wistful look toward the bedroom. Vernon felt no sorrow over having harmed Mirella, he was just regretful that he hadn’t slept with her at least one more time. He closed the door
and headed for the elevator. When the doors opened, a figure leapt at him.
It was a drunk coming home from a bar. The man slurred an apology in Dutch before staggering to the apartment across the hall from Annabelle’s place. Vernon stepped on the elevator, which smelled of whisky, and pressed the button for the ground floor.
Where is he? Vernon thought. He was standing behind a tall bush in front of the apartment building and watching the cars go by. When one began slowing as it neared, Vernon took out his phone and dialed as the car double-parked.
“Are you here yet?”
“I think so.”
“Blink your lights.” The lights on the car went off, then back on. “Good, now leave the car running and walk across the road to the park.”
“Not until I see my daughter.”
“Play games with me, Magyar, and you’ll be identifying her in the morgue. Leave the car and head into the park.”
“If you’ve hurt her, I’ll kill you.”
“The park, Magyar, now.”
Vernon saw the driver’s side door open, and watched as Magyar looked around before heading across the road to the park. The man seemed odd to him, but then he realized he had never seen Magyar wear anything other than a suit. In the T-shirt and jeans, the man looked younger.
When Magyar was on the other side of the road and entering the park, Vernon moved toward the car. At least, he’d tried to, however, something or someone had hold of his collar. He let out a cry of fright and jerked his head around to find Tanner shoving a gun against his ribs.
“Now,” Tanner said. “Where were we?”
Vernon’s face screwed up in confusion.
“You and Magyar are working together? The man tried to kill you?”
“Where’s his daughter? Did you kill her?”
The flicker of guilt in Vernon’s eyes gave Tanner his answer. Then, the two of them looked out at the road where Magyar was running back across and nearly got struck by a taxi. Tanner first thought that Magyar was charging over to get his hands on Vernon, then he followed the man’s gaze.
The Spy Game (A Tanner Novel Book 21) Page 21