The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart

by Remington Kane

  When Tyler crested a hill, he saw a pickup truck facing a massive fallen tree, which had blocked the road on the other side of the stream, but knew he’d never reach it before the driver turned the vehicle around and went back the way they came.

  That was all right, because he could scramble down the hill in time to ambush the next person that happened along. Once he had a car, he’d be home free.

  Then he realized that the driver had left the vehicle. She was turned sideways and staring upstream, as if she were looking for something. When she turned her head his way for a moment, Tyler saw that it was Sara, and he wondered if she was looking for him.

  Whatever her reason, she was just what the doctor ordered. He would not only gain a chance to get away, but also have an opportunity for revenge. He just had to figure out how to get across the stream, and as the tree seemed to be his only option, he would clamber across its branches, while being careful not to let her see him.

  He reached the tree and began making his way across the tangle of limbs, even as the sound of several voices carried to him. It was the police, or maybe the FBI. They were closing in behind him.

  Tyler was halfway across when he saw Sara dart for cover behind a tree. He wondered what she was doing, but then he saw the bright orange raft that had come around a bend in the stream, with Tanner riding in front.

  Tyler smiled. Christmas was coming early this year.

  186

  “Yeah, Like I’m Gonna Fall For That.”

  Tanner saw the massive tree looming ahead and steered the raft toward the shore, where an old tree stump was sticking out of the water, with its bottom half and roots submerged.

  The impact was rougher than he expected, but he kept his balance and lashed the raft to the stump by using rope he’d bought at the sporting goods store.

  He was still carrying Chief McCoy’s gun, which was tucked in his belt. He had attired himself in better rainwear, along with water-resistant boots.

  He tested the boots’ ability to keep his feet dry as he made his way ashore, with plans to walk along the road until he reached a town.

  He planned to move fast, as what little light there was during the gray day began to dim as night approached, and the temperature was dropping.

  Once he was out of the water, Tanner spotted the blue pickup truck parked in front of the fallen tree and wondered where its driver had gone to. As he looked about, his hand slipped beneath the jacket to grip the gun.

  Tanner had come ashore farther downstream than Sara had expected. She had to scramble through the trees to get closer.

  When she got a good look at him, his condition annoyed her, because he looked as if the day hadn’t been trying at all, but then she remembered that he had taken shelter at Amber and Brittany’s apartment.

  When she was speaking with the girls, she caught the impression that the two young ladies genuinely liked Tanner, who they knew as Romeo. The idea of someone liking Tanner, much less, sleeping with him, was an alien concept to her. Then again, when she divorced herself from her personal history with the man, she had to admit, grudgingly, that he was handsome, and as Carol Patton, Amy’s mother phrased it, “He just has that look, like he was in shape.”

  Sara smiled. Tanner would leave behind a good-looking corpse.

  When Tyler saw Sara move farther away, he knew his luck had changed for the better.

  He had been moving along the fallen tree at a slow pace, partly due to his damaged left hand, but mostly so as not to alert Sara to his presence, but once she rushed toward the spot where Tanner was docking, he could make better time and have little fear of being noticed.

  The woman’s focus was on Tanner. Tyler briefly wondered why she hated the man enough to kill him, but then pushed the thought from his mind.

  Most people didn’t need a reason to kill, they just wanted an excuse, and whatever hers was, he would let it play out. He’d let Sara ambush and kill Tanner. Afterward, he would kill her and drive off in the truck.

  He reached the midpoint of the tree and watched the water rush along beneath him. He was still several feet from where the branches ended and after that he would have to climb up onto the tree and walk along its wide trunk, making himself visible.

  He looked over at Sara and Tanner. Sara was facing away from the tree, but Tanner would see him for sure if he advanced any farther along its trunk.

  Tyler steadied himself atop a thick branch, extended his arms across the trunk, and took aim at Sara to gauge the distance between them.

  He guessed she was about fifty yards away. His gun was a weapon he had used for years and knew well, a Colt Anaconda with an 8-inch barrel.

  He was accurate with the weapon to about seventy yards and he was confident that he could hit Sara where she was, even with the trees obscuring part of his view, but he would wait until she came out in the open again, just to be sure.

  Tanner didn’t like seeing the pickup truck just sitting there like that, with no one near it. He scanned the area carefully with his eyes, but saw nothing; that is, until he glimpsed steel where none should be, found the hand that gripped it, and followed along its accompanying arm until he viewed Tyler in profile.

  He nearly pulled out his own gun, until he realized that the man wasn’t pointing the weapon in his direction, but rather toward the trees.

  He followed Tyler’s line of sight, and when he turned back to look at the trees again, he saw Sara approaching him with her gun up and ready to shoot.

  Tyler kept his gun trained on Sara, as he watched her approach Tanner with her gun arm extended.

  “Shoot him, woman,” Tyler mumbled, then watched as Sara began talking to Tanner instead.

  He let out a long sigh.

  Stupid bitch, she could have killed him by now, but no, she wants to talk instead. The hell with it, I’ll kill her and then take him out too. He’ll never make it to those trees before I blast him. I’d rather kill him myself anyway.

  Tyler lined up the gun’s sights on the center of Sara’s back and prepared to fire.

  “There’s a gun pointed at your back, Blake. It’s that bank robber, Tyler.”

  Sara had been all set to shoot Tanner, but she couldn’t resist answering him.

  “That’s pathetic, truly pathetic, especially coming from a man known for his deviousness. That’s the best you can come up with? ‘Look behind you.’”

  Tanner smiled. He had been hoping to get her to turn so that he could shoot her, but Tyler killing her would work too.

  “Goodbye, Blake.”

  Sara took a step closer. “No, it’s me saying goodbye to you.”

  The blast that followed was loud and echoed off the surrounding hills, but it undoubtedly came from behind Sara. She jerked her head around while crouching down.

  She saw nothing at first glance, but she did hear something splash into the water from beyond the fallen tree. As the swift current carried that something away, she saw that it was the body of a man.

  She turned back to look at Tanner and saw him taking aim at her, only to hear another loud blast, followed by the sight of the ground at Tanner’s feet exploding upward, as a hurried shot went low.

  Tanner sprinted for the trees, and when Sara tried to shoot him, he fired an underhanded shot at her, even while running. By either skill or luck, the shot came close to hitting her. It passed within inches of her face, and she felt the air being compressed near her eye.

  Two more booming shots missed Tanner as he zigzagged toward the trees. Before another attempt could be made, Tanner ran past the roots of the fallen tree, across the railroad tracks, and began running deep into the pines.

  Sara squinted as she covered her eyes with her hand to keep out the rain. Across the stream and up atop the crest of the hill, she saw her benefactor.

  It was Agent Cooper. He was sporting a rifle with a scope. Sara knew if he hadn’t been there, she would have been killed by either Tanner or the man who had been at her back, and who she knew must have been Tyler Gra
y.

  Sara raised her hand in thanks, then rushed off in pursuit of Tanner.

  187

  The Evening Commute

  Tyler had been set to pull the trigger on Sara when he felt an agonizing jolt course through his body and realized that he was falling into the rushing current.

  He swallowed some of the water, and the sudden coldness of it sent his teeth to chattering as he rushed downstream and around the bend, only to come to a jarring stop, as the backpack snagged on something.

  Tyler just hung there, twenty feet from shore, and recognized that he was at the top of a small tree, which the rising water had swallowed.

  That’s when the shock wore off and the pain became localized on his left side. When he placed his good hand there, he felt tattered flesh and the sharp edge of a broken rib.

  The backpack, which had been speared by a branch, ripped open. Tyler could feel it grow lighter as its contents spilled out and the bundles of cash bobbed to the surface, then drifted away in the powerful flow.

  “All for nothing,” Tyler whispered between spasms of agony, and knew that he was dying.

  Before another minute passed, he was dead.

  The current continued to batter him, and his limp form slipped free of the branch. The rushing water carried his body away downstream, leaving behind no marker of where most of the pack’s contents had settled.

  Tanner assumed he had been fired upon by the Feds, after they had taken out Tyler. He could hear Sara coming through the woods behind him and had to admire her tenacity, but then he heard a more troubling sound, and she was pushed into the back of his mind.

  It was the sound of several voices, faint but audible and growing closer, from higher up in the hills. He then heard yet another sound, a train whistle.

  There was a train approaching. If he could reach the tracks and make it across before his pursuers did, perhaps the train would delay them long enough for him to gain some distance.

  Tanner changed direction and headed back toward the water, beyond where the tree had fallen, to cross the tracks that ran alongside the road.

  Sara saw Tanner turn right and head back down toward the road. She ran diagonally to catch up to him.

  She knew from her earlier pursuit that he was much faster than she was. When she heard the train approaching, she realized what he hoped to do.

  One train had passed her earlier, as she began her journey along the road and was stopped for a red light. The train pulled a long line of freight cars behind it, and after the light turned green, she had passed the train easily as it lumbered along.

  If this was that same long train and Tanner made it across the tracks, she would have to wait a while for it to pass. That meant that Tanner could make it to the next town or find a trail through the woods on the other side, then be out of sight before she could follow.

  Cooper and his men would be on the other side as well, but they would have to come down the hill to intercept Tanner. From what she’d seen of it, Sara knew it was a steeper and more dangerous journey than the hills on her side.

  Sara ran harder, despite her fatigue, despite the slick and muddy ground, but it was clear that luck was with Tanner, and judging by the sound of the train, he would make it across the tracks in time. The question was, would she?

  Sara stopped running, dropped into a shooter’s stance, and let loose with the Glock.

  The bullet felt like the sting of a bee, as it whipped across the outer thigh of Tanner’s right leg, and he heard several more rounds impact with the trees around him.

  Not seeing anything wide enough to hide behind, Tanner dived to the ground, then slid along its wet surface for several more feet.

  After crawling behind the base of a tree, he checked the wound and saw that the slug had barely broken through the skin. When he looked back through the trees, he saw Sara moving toward him, but she also hit the ground just as he returned fire.

  Seeing his chance, he got to his feet and headed for the tracks, but then cursed as he saw how narrow his chances of crossing in time had become.

  He ran as fast as he was capable and made it to the tracks an instant too late, as the lumbering train appeared in front of him.

  He ran alongside it, hoping to hop aboard, but the freight train was towing fifty or sixty cars behind it. All the cars were of the type called a hopper, which mostly held gravel or coal that had been poured into their open tops for transport.

  There were no doors or handles to grab onto and pull oneself onboard, just walls of steel. Tanner considered the ladders attached to their rears, but although slow for a vehicle, the train was still going faster than he could run. He’d never be able grab the rungs without dislocating a shoulder. Or he might lose his balance and risk being crushed beneath the wheels.

  Still, he kept running. Despite the train, he still needed to get distance between himself and his pursuers. As the road curved once again, he saw another way to cross the tracks.

  There was a pedestrian bridge up ahead, with steps on both sides and a covered walkway that sat above the tracks, the road, and the water.

  Tanner glanced back and saw that he had left Sara behind. He climbed the stairs and was three quarters across the walkway when he saw Cooper and his men headed his way.

  A quick mental calculation told him that he’d never make it past them. He headed back the way he came, determined to kill Sara Blake and escape.

  As she thought she had lost him for good, Sara watched Tanner turn and run back across the bridge.

  She was near the foot of the steps and, after readying her gun, she took position behind a tree and waited for Tanner to take the first shot.

  Tanner had only two rounds left in the chief’s gun he carried. He fired the first round as he came off the stairs.

  The shot took a chunk out of the tree Sara was hiding behind and she stepped out to return fire.

  An instant before Tanner let loose his last shot, which he had centered on her chest, Sara dropped flat, fired, and rolled away. Both of their hurried shots missed their targets, and when Tanner saw that the slide on Sara’s gun was locked open, he realized that he wasn’t the only one whose gun was empty.

  He turned his head and saw that Cooper’s men had just reached the bottom of the hill on the other side, while the men he heard earlier could be seen in the woods above him.

  There was time, not much, but enough to inflict a fatal twist of the neck. Tanner approached Sara where she still lay on the ground with the intention of breaking her neck.

  When he was ten feet away, he stopped. She was smiling. Smiling and reaching into her jacket pocket.

  “You’re not the only one who’s tricky, Tanner.”

  He saw it then, saw what she had done. She had chambered a round before removing the clip from the gun, so that when she fired, it would appear as if she were empty.

  Tanner attempted to twist out of the way of her shot.

  He was unsuccessful.

  The bullet struck him in the chest, just beneath the left collarbone.

  There was no exit wound, and as he fell to one knee from the shock of impact, Tanner wondered if the bullet had pierced a lung.

  Precious seconds ticked by as Tanner fought to overcome the pain and get moving, but the wound was agonizing, and he had to gather himself together before moving on.

  When he raised his head, he saw that Sara was standing and gazing down at him.

  “Nicely played, Blake,” he said. His pain-filled voice was nearly drowned out by the train thundering along behind him.

  Tanner thought that Sara would shoot again, to finish him off, but the expected second shot didn’t come. When he looked at Sara’s gun, the slide was locked open once more, and this time it was truly empty.

  Sara had a look on her face that was a mixture of triumph and disappointment. She was pleased to have outsmarted Tanner, but sad that her shot hadn’t killed him.

  Tanner regained his wits, and as he looked about, Sara glimpsed the animal cunning
in his eyes as he weighed his options.

  Sara could see only one option, and in his wounded state, it would do nothing more than delay his capture by a few minutes at the most. He could run off toward the woods again and hope by some miracle that he slipped through, which he wouldn’t, because there was no time left. The men and women of the search teams were already descending the hill and closing in.

  And yet, Tanner did run, but the direction he chose baffled Sara.

  Tanner sprang to his feet, moaned from the pain of his wound, then ran back toward the stairs of the pedestrian bridge, shedding the thick jacket as he did so.

  Sara cocked her head, as a confused look came upon her.

  He can’t possibly escape that way; Cooper and his agents are already climbing up the opposite side.

  And it was true, while one agent, a young man in a blue rain slicker, had already reached the covered walkway and was running toward Tanner with his gun gripped in his hand.

  That’s when Sara saw the method behind Tanner’s seeming madness, as she watched him climb onto the metal railing of the stairway.

  Tanner balanced precariously upon the slick surface, as his eyes scanned the train passing below. The young agent was almost close enough to grab Tanner when the hit man bent his knees and leapt sideways into the air, while twisting in such a way as to fall backwards. Tanner fell inside one of the open train cars, which was a hopper filled with sand.

  Sara stood wide-eyed and with her mouth agape as she stared at the departing train. And despite her hatred for the man, his desperate move had impressed her. Had his jump been off in any aspect, he could have easily been killed or mangled.