He found the phone almost immediately, where it had landed in the sand. When he saw the streak of blood on it, he felt his world slipping away. This feeling wasn’t caused by the possible loss of his daughter, but rather by the fear of losing his job.
Preston rode away from the house, away from his comrades, while racking his brain over what to do next.
Tanner had made it around to the rear of the house but was hidden from view behind the ridge. When the motor home blew, he was surprised by the force of the explosion, but knew that after viewing the carnage, Rossetti would be heading for his tunnel.
Tanner was outside the tunnel’s exit, where Dwight Sorrell had said it would be, inside a decrepit wooden shack with a missing door. The shack sat yards away from an old stone well and there was an ATV parked nearby, an All-Terrain Vehicle. That told Tanner that Rossetti had planned to flee all along.
Inside the house, something boomed loudly. Tanner listened and heard several different weapons firing at once, as outside smoke rose skyward from the fire at the side of the home.
After tossing the Mossberg atop the roof of the shack, Tanner pulled himself up onto the structure. When he stood, he could just see over the bunkhouse and pool to the rear of the home.
The sun was setting, and night was on its way.
Tanner lay flat atop the roof, grabbed the shotgun, and waited for Rossetti to exit the tunnel. Night was coming, but for Rossetti, there would be no dawn.
41
Inevitable
Inside his office, Rossetti shouted in frustration as Ramone failed to answer his phone.
Ramone had the damn key to the ATV they were to escape in, but then Rossetti remembered the spare key inside the shack. He relaxed and headed for the closet door.
He had no idea what had caused the explosion that had rocked the house, but he figured that Tanner was behind it.
Rossetti ripped open the closet and gasped at Joy’s body. He’d forgotten he had stuck her there. He decided he would hide the corpse in the tunnel as he made his escape.
He hit the hidden latch beneath a shelf and pushed against the back wall, which caused the surface to swing outward on spring hinges.
Rossetti felt the coolness of the passage as he gazed into the dark, and thanked God that an old-time thug named Frankie the Fish had built the tunnel.
There was a switch inside. Rossetti pushed it upwards and turned on the string of incandescent bulbs strung along the top of the passage’s left wall. He then reached back, grabbed Joy by the ankles, and dragged her body inside.
After shutting the door, he checked to see if any light showed around its edges. He saw none, assumed it was sealed tight, then shuffled his corpulent form down the tunnel’s slanting floor. His footsteps echoed off the concrete walls as he descended beneath the earth.
The tunnel curved twice, the first time as it neared the area of the swimming pool, and a second time to move its trajectory back toward the shack, after passing beneath the bunkhouse. The shack sat atop a small hill. Once Rossetti reached the other end, he had to climb up a ladder.
At the foot of the ladder, Rossetti made a sound of disgust as he realized he had to holster his gun to climb. The act rendered him defenseless. If Tanner showed up while he was on the ladder, Rossetti knew he’d be a dead man.
As he neared the top, he grinned. Tanner had no way of knowing about the tunnel, so Rossetti figured he would soon be out of Tanner’s reach. There was an ATV outside the shack, and a short drive north through the desert would place him at an airfield, where a plane was waiting.
He’d be in Reno in no time, safe from Tanner and O’Grady. Once he was settled there, he would plan his revenge against both men.
When he was four rungs from the top, he was nearly in total blackness, but knew that the trapdoor was above him. The door was a three-foot square of pine planking and opened on hinges. An old throw rug covered it, with a wooden table positioned above it.
After sliding a bolt and unlocking the trapdoor, Rossetti pushed, saw pale daylight through a gap, and turned his head about looking for feet and other signs of an ambush. He saw nothing suspicious, but when he pushed harder, the door refused to flip up.
It was the table he realized, one of its legs must be sitting atop the door. Rossetti let the door fall back in place, raised up both hands, and shoved with all his strength. After the table toppled over onto its side, Rossetti lifted the door and it hung open, kept from falling over by a chain.
The big man clambered up into the small room in clumsy fashion, making it first to his knees and then his feet. He was sweating from the short walk and climb, but he breathed a sigh of relief as he removed his gun and looked about.
On one wall were several wooden shelves that held ancient nails and hammers, while in a corner, there leaned nearly a dozen old pickaxes and shovels.
He checked the floor, which was perpetually coated with sand blown in from outside. There were no shoe prints in the sand, but there was half of one near the door. Rossetti guessed that Ramone had made it when he reached in to hang the spare ATV key on a nail.
Rossetti plucked the key from the wall. After poking his head out and looking both ways, he strode outside with a smile on his lips and made a beeline for the ATV.
Tanner heard wood scraping, followed by a crash, as Rossetti flipped up the trapdoor in the shack and toppled an old table.
Tanner kept himself flat atop the tar papered roof and waited for Rossetti to show himself, while wondering how many men would be with him.
Not knowing that Ramone had died in the blast, Tanner was surprised to see Rossetti exit the shack alone, but gratified at last to be on the verge of fulfilling his contract.
Tanner had glanced behind him just seconds ago and verified that no one else was nearby, so he stood, called Rossetti’s name, and watched the rotund hoodlum stop and turn.
Rossetti’s eyes were darting about in fear, his gun ready, then finding Tanner perched atop the roof, his eyes grew wide with wonder and he raised his hand to fire.
Tanner blasted Rossetti with the shotgun and Rossetti’s weapon flew away, along with the fingers on his right hand.
Rossetti squirmed in the dirt while wailing in agony, that was followed by a yelp of terror, as Tanner jumped to the ground.
“Tanner… listen, we can… we can still come to an, an understanding, you, ya know?”
Tanner simply shook his head.
Rossetti looked around for help, but he was alone. When he gazed back up at Tanner, there was a look of acceptance in his eyes.
Tanner placed the shotgun against Rossetti’s chest.
“It was inevitable.”
The shotgun boomed, Rossetti died, and the contract was fulfilled.
42
You Never Know When You’ll Need An Umbrella
After insuring that help was on the way in the form of more agents, along with fire and medical personnel, Garner had sprinted toward the burning house.
When Tanner fired the shot that shredded Rossetti’s hand, Garner had spotted the muzzle flash through the swirl of smoke and wondered why it had appeared above ground level and far from the house.
That was when he remembered the binoculars were hanging around his neck. He raised them up and saw Tanner’s back from the waist up, just visible above the roof of the bunkhouse.
“Shit!”
Garner tried calling Sara, but she wasn’t answering her phone, and he prayed that she was all right.
As he rounded the side of the bunkhouse, he heard the second blast, and moved up the hill in silence.
Sara stepped over yet another dead ranch hand and fired at the man who was responsible for the body, a young punk with a mullet and enough gold chains to open a pawnshop.
The punk fell to the floor, blood spurting from a wound in his thigh like the bullet had struck oil. Sara realized the slug had hit him in the femoral artery. The man began screaming in agony, and as she drew nearer, he begged Sara for help.
She kicked his gun out of reach and continued toward Rossetti’s office, knowing the punk would bleed out in minutes.
She didn’t care. She didn’t care who lived or who died. Her only concern was to find Tanner and end him.
She was carrying an assault rifle, a Heckler & Koch MP5, along with her everyday weapon, a Glock 21 SF, which she used to blow apart the lock on Rossetti’s office door.
She entered low, and after verifying the main room was empty, she shut the office door as best she could, then propped a chair beneath the doorknob. The smoke from the fire hadn’t traveled far back into the home yet, where the office was, and she wanted to keep it out for as long as possible, while also making it difficult to enter.
The bathroom was empty, and Sara could see into the closet, but there was blood on the floor near the desk and splattered on the wall beside it. Sara feared that Tanner had killed Rossetti and moved on. However, no sooner did she have the thought she dismissed it.
It would take more than one man to move Rossetti’s corpse, and why would Tanner even bother. She gave the stain a closer look and realized that it was already drying. Whoever had been hurt, had been injured before the fighting began.
The blood trailed off in a thin, intermittent streak that led into the closet. Sara approached it with caution, although there appeared to be no room to hide.
Nothing, just office supplies, umbrellas, and an overcoat.
She was about to search elsewhere when she spotted more blood in a corner and noticed strands of red hair sticking out from the bottom of the back wall.
What the hell?
She pressed her left hand against the wall and felt it give just a bit. “Is someone in there?”
With no answer, she plucked one of the umbrellas from its stand and used the metal tip of it to poke a hole in the wall. When the hole was big enough, she looked through with one eye and saw a row of lights dangling along a concrete wall, while a look downward revealed a pair of shapely legs.
“Hello? Hey! Wake up! Can you hear me?”
There was no answer again. Sara tore at the wall savagely, first with the umbrella, and then with the base of a heavy floor lamp taken from the office.
When the aperture was large enough, Sara squeezed through, then cursed as she saw Joy’s battered corpse.
“Rossetti, you son of a bitch,” she mumbled. Then she heard the faint, echoing sound of a shotgun blast, followed by barely audible wails of pain. “Tanner?”
Sara dashed along the tunnel headed for Tanner while aching for revenge, as her heart grew cold as a stone.
43
She Did Warn Him
Tanner was turning from Rossetti’s corpse when he saw something glinting near the body.
It was a key reflecting in the last rays of daylight, and Tanner realized it was meant for Rossetti’s getaway vehicle, the ATV.
He bent over to retrieve it, and as his fingers gripped it a voice boomed behind him, the voice of Special Agent Jake Garner.
“FBI! Drop your weapon and place your hands over your head.”
Tanner straightened slowly, while still holding the Mossberg in one hand and palming the ignition key in the other. His hands were gloved, as they always were when making a hit.
“I said, drop it!”
Tanner weighed his options and decided it was best to appear cooperative, a posture that might lure the lawman closer while it was still just the two of them. He tossed the shotgun atop Rossetti’s body and raised his hands.
Tanner was expecting to hear Garner tell him to get on the ground. Instead, he watched as Garner tossed a set of handcuffs toward him, to land at his feet.
“Put one end on your wrist and then attach the other end to the well.”
Tanner turned his head and stared at the well.
It was made of stone at its base, but there was rusted metal embedded into it and sitting over the hole like a trellis.
He figured it was likely the part that once held a rope and bucket. Once he was secured to it, he could kiss his freedom goodbye.
Garner took a step closer and aimed his gun at Tanner’s face. “Do it or die, your choice.”
Tanner stared into Garner’s eyes and saw that the man was serious. Always the pragmatist, Tanner bent over and picked up the cuffs. “Whatever you say, Officer.”
Scrambling sounds came from the shack, causing Garner to jerk his head around to look inside.
Seeing his chance, Tanner rushed forward only to freeze as Garner spun back around and jammed the barrel of the gun against Tanner’s stomach.
“Back up!”
Tanner did so with a sigh, then watched as a dark-haired woman exited the shack, with FBI credentials hanging from a chain around her neck.
Tanner knew he had seen her beautiful face before, but he couldn’t recall the context in which he’d last seen it. When he searched her eyes, he was surprised by the intense glare of hatred burning within them.
Garner stared at Sara with a confused look on his face.
“Were you in that shack all this time?”
Sara answered him while glowering at Tanner.
“There’s a tunnel that leads to Rossetti’s office.”
“Oh, well, as you can see, I have a gift for you.”
“Take a walk, Jake. Tanner is mine.”
“Calm down, Sara. We have him. We’ve caught him. Don’t endanger your career for this piece of shit.”
Sara took her eyes off Tanner as she spoke to her partner.
“Leave, Garner. Leave and don’t look back.”
Garner turned his head to look at her and Tanner moved right, closer to the ATV. Sara caught the movement and raised her gun.
Garner pushed her arm down with one hand while shouting at Tanner.
“Goddamn it, Tanner. Get down on the ground now or I swear we’ll both shoot you.”
Tanner was near enough to the ATV to touch it, but knew he’d be shot if he moved any closer.
He got down on his knees, stared at Sara, and asked a question.
“Who are you?”
“Special Agent Blake, I’m Sara Blake.”
“Why do you hate me?”
“Because you killed Brian. Brian Ames.”
Tanner recalled the name and remembered why Sara looked familiar. She had been Ames’s lover. He had seen them together as he followed Ames and learned his routine.
Ames had been an accountant and money washer for the New York branch of the Conglomerate, but he had turned snitch.
Tanner had killed him, painless and quick, while Ames sat waiting at a table at an outdoor cafe in New York City. He had fired a single shot behind Ames’s right ear with a silenced gun.
The bullet was of low caliber and, after entering Ames’s skull, it ricocheted inside his head, lacking the force to cause an exit wound.
The slug shredded Brian Ames’s brain, causing his death, while the slight noise of the shot was swallowed up by the sounds of the city street.
The fact that he had been hit in daylight in the middle of Manhattan was to ensure that Ames’s death would be newsworthy, to discourage anyone else in the Conglomerate who might be thinking of talking.
Frank Richards had ordered that hit as well, along with the instructions to make it public.
Tanner cocked his head as understanding dawned. “You were the one Ames was waiting for that day, weren’t you?”
“I found him, you son of a bitch. I walked up to the table and—” Sara paused, while attempting to compose herself, even as tears ran down her cheeks. When she spoke again, her voice was at a higher pitch and forced through a throat grown tight with emotion.
“His eyes were open, open and staring, and I remember smiling and thinking that he was daydreaming, but… when I leaned over and kissed him… oh God, his lips, his lips were already cold.”
Tanner said nothing, because there was nothing to say. If he told her he was sorry, it would be a lie. He was not sorry. Killing Brian Ames was a bit of business to him, nothing
more and nothing less. As a grown man, Ames surely knew if his superiors discovered his betrayal that he would be dealt with in the manner he was.
Tanner gazed at Sara. Behind the hatred and the pain, he glimpsed something else, guilt. The woman felt guilty, and he knew then that it was Sara who had turned Ames and got him to talk.
Sara took a deep breath, wiped at her eyes, and raised her gun once more.
“No!” Garner said.
“Leave, Garner. Leave me alone with this man and let me do what I came here to do.”
Garner placed a hand on her arm again. “Sara, I won’t let you do this.”
“Goddamn it! I said leave. Don’t make me tell you again.”
Garner moved in front of her, blocking her shot.
Sara lowered her head and glared at him through hooded eyes.
“Get the fuck out of my way.”
“No partner, I’m not going to let you—”
The first two bullets caught Garner in the vest, just as Sara intended, but as he reacted and turned away, the third bullet cut through a seam and blood flowed from the wound in his side.
Garner fell to the dirt, his gun slipping from his hand, and Sara kicked it aside, as her eyes flicked between Garner and Tanner.
Garner raised a hand, said “Why?” in a weak voice, then his eyes closed, and he stopped moving.
Sara winced at the sight of Garner’s bloody wound, but when she locked her eyes on Tanner, she smiled.
“He’s my partner and I kind of like him, so you can just imagine what I’m going to do to you.”
44
Fat People Are Handy To Have Around
Sara stared at Tanner across the body of his latest target, Albert Rossetti and that of her partner, Jake Garner.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 13