“I have to go now.”
“I… at least let me drive you someplace.”
“I’ll be fine.”
He left the bedroom and walked down the stairs with Sophia following. At the front door, she gazed at him with exasperation showing on her face.
“Whoever you are, you’re a bastard, do you know that?”
“It has been pointed out to me from time to time.”
Sophia hugged him and gave him a long, soulful kiss. When it ended, Tanner opened the door.
“Goodbye, Sophia.”
“You’re welcome here anytime, mystery man, but be careful out there and watch your back. Remember, Frank Richards wants us both dead.”
“That won’t be a problem soon.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m going to kill him tomorrow.”
Tanner gave Sophia one last look, then he walked out into the night without so much as a backward glance.
143
Security By Tanner
SUNDAY 7:34 a.m.
Al Trent was staring at Gary.
They were sitting on opposite sides of a booth in a diner that was two miles away from Tim’s farm, which the locals called Forgotten Farm.
The diner was nearly empty but would fill shortly with those seeking sustenance for the body before seeking it for the soul, in the church down the block.
Besides Trent and Gary, there were six other patrons in the diner. There were two couples, a trucker whose rig was parked across the street, and an old man who looked as if he had been hatched atop the stool he perched upon.
Trent and Gary had awakened to heavy rain and the forecast was for more to come, as a huge storm system approached from the Ohio Valley Region.
They also woke to discover that the van had a flat tire and found that the spare was missing. Fortunately, for them, there was a gas station across the road from the motel.
Gary limped the van over there and the two of them waited for the place to open.
Their plan to make an early assault on the farm had been pushed back and caused Trent to become nervous.
“Could you please finish your breakfast? This is already a later start than we had planned on.”
“Relax Trent, they’re not going anywhere. It’s early on a Sunday morning and raining like hell out there.”
“They could still leave.”
“Maybe, but not for good. If we get there and they’re gone, we’ll just break in and wait, and if they’re there… we do what we do.”
Trent pushed his glasses up farther on his nose before taking a sip of his coffee.
The diner they were in was quaint and old. It had been in operation since the 1940s and was a converted train car. Its exterior was covered in aluminum, which shined even in the rain, while inside, the chrome counter glowed in the glare of fluorescent lighting. The linoleum tiled floor was worn down from the tread of endless feet, but the place was clean, smelled of good food, and the elderly waitress served it to you with a genuine smile.
“You do understand you’re not to hurt them, especially Madison. Rough Jackson up all you want, but we do need him to transfer certain data to me.”
Gary stared at him. “I know what to do. Richards gave me clear instructions.”
“All right then, let’s go.”
Back in Manhattan, on Wall Street, Tanner was keeping watch on the overhead door that led to the loading dock of the building hosting the Conglomerate’s meeting.
After leaving Sophia’s home, he traveled back to Manhattan by train and made his way to an underground parking garage, where he kept a stash of weapons, clothing, and a fake ID.
He had made worthless the phony ID he’d been using as Romeo when he had to set the car on fire. The IDs he had were of excellent quality and hadn’t come cheaply from the source he previously used, but Tim had assured him that he would fill that need in the future, and for free.
His battle with the Conglomerate was a drain on resources, but he had hoped by proving his skill at killing, that in the future, he could raise his price and recoup any financial losses.
However, Tanner was dead, or so everyone believed, and he had begun to think he should just stay dead, move on, and create another identity in another locale.
He had gambled against heavy odds that Tim would somehow break the encryption of the Conglomerate’s files, and it seemed he lost that bet.
He didn’t blame Tim for the failure, because the man had told him from the beginning that what he wanted was impossible. Still, he had hoped to do it and gain leverage over Richards and his ilk.
Richards had to die, he was just too damn dangerous to let live, even if he was Madison’s father. If not, in time, Richards would come after not only Tim again, but also Romeo and Sophia.
Tanner had reached the underground parking garage after midnight and found the attendant asleep in the booth.
After easing by the man and avoiding the need to explain why he was there, he made his way to the rear of the facility, where he retrieved a hidden key behind a loose brick. He used the key to open the back doors of a gray panel van.
The windows were heavily tinted, while the windshield was covered with a cardboard sunshade, which blocked a view of the vehicle’s interior. The sunshade was taped tightly to the front window and reinforced beneath by black plastic.
Tanner climbed in through the rear, closed and locked the doors, then put on a light.
The interior of the van held guns, ammo, clothing, medical supplies, equipment, and even food and water.
It was one of three such weapon and supply caches he had hidden about the city, and they were used to rearm and restock. In a pinch, he would also sleep in them, though not well, because of the restraints of space.
After choosing what he thought he would need to assault the Conglomerate’s meeting, he climbed up front, settled into the driver’s seat, and went to sleep, only to awaken four hours later when the two alarms he had set went off.
He exited the garage just after shift change and waved to the new attendant, who gazed back at him with a puzzled look.
Tanner was dressed as a security guard. He wore black slacks and black shoes, along with a white, long-sleeved dress shirt. Over the shirt was a black jacket with the word, SECURITY written in white on the back, and he had a matching cap to go with it.
There was a belt around his waist that held a radio, along with handcuffs and a collapsible baton.
Tanner had also coated his fingertips with a clear adhesive, so that while he engaged in the activities he had planned for the day, he would leave behind no prints, but only bodies.
He rode the subway to within blocks of Laurel Ivy’s apartment and walked the rest of the way, with the intention of seeing her.
He was going to let her know he was alive and that by the end of the day he would be leaving New York City, and starting a new life elsewhere.
He had no expectations, other than that she would never reveal his secret to anyone. If she wanted to accompany him when he left, that would be fine, and if she chose to stay, so be it. He was irked by the fact that he had never been able to erase her from his mind, even in the years they were apart.
Although he knew on some level that what he felt for her must be love, he was untrusting of the emotion because it made men fools, and although he knew himself to be many things, he did not list fool among them.
He spotted it from half a block away but wanted to make certain that it was the same one, and it was. It was Joe Pullo’s black Hummer. It was parked outside Laurel’s townhouse, covered in morning dew, indicating that it had sat there all night.
Tanner gazed at it for several seconds and then he walked away.
If Laurel and Pullo were together, then they were together, and he would remain a dead man.
Tanner walked back to the subway and caught a train to the Wall Street area, where he continued on foot toward the Partners Building, where the meeting was to take place. Once he drew near, he looke
d for surveillance, but saw only the cameras, which were aimed at the building’s entrances.
The street was virtually empty early on a Sunday morning. Tanner settled outside the doorway of a brokerage firm, where he appeared as a guard standing watch.
And he was standing watch, but it was on the building across the street and two doors down. When the limo appeared with a carload of bodyguards following it, he spotted it right away.
Frank Richards had arrived.
144
Shut Your Mouth
Johnny and Sara kissed once more as he stood in the doorway of her apartment, about to leave.
They had spent the night together, and he was the first man she had been with since losing Brian Ames.
As for Johnny, he’d had little more than one-night stands since the last time he was serious about a woman, which was over a year ago. The two of them wondered silently how serious the other was about their new relationship.
“Will I see you tonight?” Sara asked.
“If you’ll have me, my head bouncer can run the club while I’m gone, or better yet, Joe Pullo.”
“Pullo? He was in Brooklyn, wasn’t he? At the sight of that pile of bodies Tanner left behind.”
“Yeah, why, you don’t like him?”
“I have little opinion; I will say that he didn’t get rough with me like that animal that tried to rape me.”
“Joe is a pro, unlike Vince.”
“About Vince, is there a chance that I’ll be running into him while I’m seeing you?”
“After what he did to you?”
Sara studied Johnny’s face as she asked her next question. “Did you have him killed?”
Johnny laughed. “No, there’s no money in that. I put him to work in one of our chop shops dismantling cars for chump change, but I’ll whack him if you want me to.”
Sara shook her head. “If I wanted him dead, I’d do it myself.”
Johnny grinned. “We are a pair, you and I, aren’t we?”
“Are we?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
They kissed once more before Johnny left to meet Pullo at the nursing home. Sara’s building allowed each tenant two parking spaces in the basement parking area. Johnny had left his car in Sara’s second space.
Johnny had just unlocked his car when he sensed movement from behind and turned to see Vance coming at him with a weapon held up in his right hand. A moment later, and the prongs of a stun gun bit into his right shoulder and he collapsed beside the car.
Within seconds, Vance had his wrists and ankles bound with zip ties and had gagged his mouth with duct tape.
Johnny attempted to struggle, but his muscles were affected by the charge of electricity and he was easily handled.
After opening a rear door, Vance dragged Johnny up and onto the back seat with an ease that told Johnny that the man was stronger than he appeared to be.
Vance slapped him on the face. “Be a good boy, Rossetti, and relax, it will all be over in a few hours.”
Then the door slammed, the car started, and Vance drove toward the meeting, where Richards waited to spring his trap in a bid to gain more power.
After looking for Johnny’s car in the nursing home parking lot and not seeing it, Joe Pullo tried calling him, but had to leave a voicemail.
Pullo walked toward Sam Giacconi’s room, while dreading what he would find, and said a prayer that the old man would at least recognize him. He nodded to the nurse, who was at her station and occupied with a phone call, then he pushed back the partially open door of Sam Giacconi’s room and found the old mafia don looking alert, dressed in a suit, and sitting up in his wheelchair.
“Joey boy, what say we go kick some Conglomerate ass?”
Joe smiled, then laughed out loud. The old man might be a candle in a windstorm, but his flame had yet to go out.
A convoy of three black SUVs with government license plates sped along the Garden State Parkway on their way to exhume bodies and evidence.
Mario sat beside his lawyer in the rear of the lead vehicle, as FBI Agents Jake Garner and Michelle Geary sat up front, with Garner driving.
Geary turned in her seat and spoke to Mario. “You’d better not be fucking with us, Petrocelli, or I’ll have your daughter inside a cell at Rikers by tonight.”
Mario looked at her with a calm expression. “You’ll get your bodies and then my daughter is free of everything, that’s our deal and I’ll keep it.”
The lawyer, Kearns, spoke up. “I don’t like this deal and I advised my client against it. My dislike stems from the fact that there’s nothing to stop you from involving my client’s daughter a second time. And just so you know, Agent Geary, if my client is tried in a court of law, I will see to it that the judge knows how you comported yourself.”
“Kearns?” Geary said.
“Yes?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Geary turned back around in her seat as Kearns sputtered in indignation. When she looked at Garner, she saw that he was lost in thought.
“Hey partner, what’s up?”
Garner snapped out of his daydream and realized he didn’t remember driving the last ten miles.
“I’m good. I just didn’t sleep much.”
“What was her name?”
“It wasn’t that.”
“Listen, if you ever need to talk, you know, give me a call. I’m not completely insensitive.”
“Thanks, I’ll remember, and the same goes for you.”
They drove along in silence for nearly a mile before Geary spoke again.
“I uh, I looked into your past. Call it curiosity about a new partner.”
Garner’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“What happened, what you went through… it’s a miracle you’re still sane. I think if anything like that ever happened to me when I was young, it would have destroyed me.”
“Michelle.”
“Yes?”
“If you want to remain partners you’ll never mention my past again. What took place happened a long time ago and I’ve moved on. Period. End of story.”
“I can understand that and it’s just a shame that—”
“Shut up!”
Geary looked at Garner and saw that his breathing had increased, and his face had reddened from anger.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, just drop it.”
Kearns called out from the back seat. “Is there a problem?”
“No,” Geary said.
“Would it be possible to stop for coffee?”
“Shut your mouth, Kearns,” Geary said, and the caravan rolled on.
145
Death Is A Catered Affair
Minutes after Frank Richards’ arrival, Tanner saw what he had been waiting for, as a white van approached from his right and headed for the entrance to the building.
The words, EXECUTIVE CATERING SERVICES were written across the side of the van in script, and Tanner could see three people sitting on a rear bench seat, all of whom were dressed in white.
He intercepted the van, looking very official, and with a smile of greeting. The driver slowed, put down his window, and looked at Tanner with a question in his eyes.
“Good morning,” Tanner said. “I take it you’re here to cater the meeting of Partners Inc.?”
Partners Inc. was the Conglomerate’s cover name for the meeting, a fact Tanner had learned from the sheet of paper that Madison had reconstructed, after removing it from a shredder.
The driver smiled back at Tanner. He was blond with green eyes, very handsome, and Tanner thought he was probably an actor waiting for his big break. The man looked like the rest of the people in the van. He was dressed in a white shirt with black slacks and shoes, was young, and willing to rise early on a Sunday morning to make a living. His name was George, or at least that was written on his name tag,
George pointed across the street where the roll-up do
or was. “We go in there, right? I think I was here once before.”
Tanner nodded. “Yes, sir, just pull up and hit the button. They’ll either buzz you in or send someone down to meet you.”
Tanner was hoping they would just be buzzed in. If not, his entry into the building could be more difficult. He made a point of looking at the trio in the back. “Why so few of you?”
“We were told to set up and leave, but there’s a huge selection of food back there.”
“It smells great. Well, you guys take care.”
George thanked him and drove over to the door. A few seconds later, Tanner could hear him speak into the intercom and say the name of his company. Seconds after that, the door began to rise.
Tanner had been walking toward the opening with haste, but not looking rushed. He reached it just as the van was about to drive in. He walked alongside the van as it rolled in and entered the gloomy interior of the loading dock, hoping that the van blocked his entrance from view of the camera.
George and his fellow workers noticed him, but paid him little attention, and Tanner entered a bathroom next to the receiving office, which sat dark and unoccupied.
He had been wearing Romeo’s mirrored sunglasses to hide his intense eyes. He took them off, removed the cap and jacket, and shoved the clothing inside the empty garbage can, along with the utility belt that held the radio and baton. The handcuffs, he placed in a side pocket.
He looked at himself in the mirror and saw what he wanted others to see, another one of the catering crew. The van he had slept in had several different outfits he could wear as role camouflage and along with the guard uniform, this was the look he had chosen to infiltrate the building and kill Richards.
The cuff of one shirtsleeve was tinged pink, but it wasn’t obvious. It was caused by blood from a hit he had performed a year earlier, and the stain hadn’t fully come out.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 44