“But we kill people for a living, how much heart does that take?”
The old man smiled again, even as his eyes began to close from exhaustion, exhaustion caused by the disease that was killing him.
“There will come a day when you’ll either have to follow your heart or your head, and you’ll choose your heart and risk everything for a cause. Not money, but a cause, a just cause. Mere killers run from insurmountable odds, but Tanners, we overcome them.”
“Because we’re the best?”
“No, because we have heart, and where others run from a fight, we win. That makes us the best.”
Tanner left the Parker Ranch and headed for Mexico.
It was time for Martillo to die.
221
Matchmaker, Matchmaker
With the ranch safe once more, Tanner no longer had to babysit Romina, who was now riding to and from school with her boyfriend, Chaz Willis. With it being a Saturday, the two kids were off somewhere with friends.
Tanner was planning to leave the ranch soon but stayed on a few days longer to regain his strength after being shot. Doc had removed his stitches the night before and declared that the bullet wound was healing nicely.
Things seemed settled at the ranch, so Tanner was surprised when, while out on a run, he spotted Chuck Willis parked on the side of the road. The man was staring out at a meadow on the Reyes property, where Maria was riding her horse. His car window was down, and when Willis raised his hands and took aim, Tanner ran toward him while reaching for the gun at the small of his back.
However, when he got a good look at what Willis was holding, he relaxed, then shook his head in dismay.
“Just ask the woman out already,” Tanner said. His sudden appearance startled Willis so much that he dropped the camera he was holding.
“Mr. Tanner, um, hello.”
“Do you spy on women often, Willis?”
“No, but I saw her riding and I… Hell, Tanner, I like the woman, and she’s so beautiful I can barely speak when I’m around her.”
“You’re giving me a lift back to the ranch, then you and Maria are going to talk.”
Willis gave him a pained expression. “The woman hates me.”
Tanner opened the passenger door. “She doesn’t hate you, and anyway, there’s something she needs to say to you. Now get moving. I want to be there when she returns from her ride.”
Doc took the horse’s reins from Maria as she dismounted, then she walked toward Chuck Willis with her hand extended.
“Mr. Willis, welcome to my ranch.”
Willis appeared startled by her civil greeting. When he took her hand, Maria held his hand in both of hers and offered an apology for the way she acted at their last meeting.
Tanner suggested that they move things inside, and soon they were having coffee in the living room.
“A biker gang?” Willis said.
“Yes and… I’m sad to have to admit it, but my son was responsible for most of what went on, the things I blamed you for, and again, I apologize.”
“Willis has a new offer for you, Maria,” Tanner said.
Maria’s demeanor grew colder, as she stared at Willis. “I won’t sell at any price.”
“Tell her, Willis,” Tanner said.
“Oh, yes, I no longer want to buy your land, but I would like to lease its use for one month every year, not all of it, just the southern pasture.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I’m building on the last of my land, the property that used to be the McKay Ranch, but for the past several years I’ve let the town use it each October for the Fall Fair. I was hoping that you’d be kind enough to let me lease your land, so that the fair can be held here instead.”
Maria looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking.
“No, I won’t lease it to you, but I will let the town use it for free. I love the Fall Fair.”
Willis smiled. “Excellent, the mayor will be happy with that arrangement. I’ll tell her to give you a call.”
“Mr. Willis?”
“Please, call me Chuck.”
“All right, Chuck, would you like to come by for dinner tonight? Your son will be here, and I think as neighbors that we should get to know each other better.”
Willis said nothing for a moment, but then nodded emphatically. “I would love to have dinner with you, Mrs. Reyes.”
“Call me, Maria.”
Willis smiled. “I’ll do that, Maria.”
Tanner stood. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”
He entered the hallway and found Javier walking toward him. “What’s up, Javier?”
The kid shrugged. While at the police station, and at Maria’s insistence, he had confessed to staging the accidents around the ranch.
Luckily for him, none of the employees who had been hurt were pressing charges, but he still faced a charge of criminal mischief.
“My lawyer thinks I’ll be sentenced to three months of community service.”
“I’ll be sure to litter the next time I drive on the highway, so you’ll have something to pick up.”
“Funny, Tanner. I’ll also be going to school in the fall. Mom said it was either that or join the army.”
“A free college education? Things could be worse.”
“Yeah.”
Javier went into the kitchen, while Tanner headed to the apartment above the barn, where he showered and changed into jeans and a plain white T-shirt.
Afterwards, he settled down to read, but found himself too restless to concentrate. He left the apartment with a sigh, to begin walking toward the graves of the Parker family.
222
“I’m Death!”
MATAMOROS, MEXICO, OCTOBER 1997
Tanner had been in Mexico for over three weeks when he decided to make his move on Martillo.
He had originally planned to kill Martillo at the bar the man owned and frequented on Avenida Marte R. Gómez. He decided against it, after learning through surveillance that the cops Martillo had on the take worked out of a building a block away from the bar.
That meant he might have to face armed police officers when he made his escape, and the odds could be over a dozen to one and turn him into a cop killer.
Tanner wanted it to be cleaner than that, so he decided to hit Martillo at his villa, which was well guarded, but also secluded. The two-story home was beautiful, with a large pool, well-tended garden, and a six-car garage. It was where Martillo kept his collection of classic cars, including a 1931 Rolls Royce Phantom.
There was a cobblestone path that circumnavigated the home, with adjacent paths that led to the gate, the garage, and a small structure that housed a backup generator.
The villa sat at the top of a hill that was accessible by one long winding road and the view from the gate shack looked out over it. Any car coming up would be seen from miles away and the trip along the steep switchback road took minutes to complete.
The rear of the compound faced a mile of dense vegetation with thorny plants, followed by a nearly perpendicular drop down to a rock-strewn river.
The home was surrounded by a wall on all sides, but the security was flawed, because the trees at the rear of the property had been allowed to grow too tall, and their branches hung above the walls. That was where Tanner perched himself and did surveillance, after climbing up from the river and traversing the prickly field.
By the fifth time he’d made the trip back and forth, and up and down to the villa, he had the route and its intricacies mapped out in his mind and could climb the cliff and navigate through the field quickly. That would be a huge advantage when it came time to escape, that is, if he lived through the attack.
He spent weeks watching the place off and on, marking down the number of guards, their shifts and the times they patrolled.
Martillo had at least ten men with him almost all the time, but only two of them, his lieutenants, or as he referred to them, his Caballeros, or Knights, lived on th
e property with him. They had their own rooms, which were the size of many apartments.
The Knights’ schedules predominantly mirrored that of Martillo’s, but one of the men had a woman that he visited in a neighboring town once a week, during her husband’s weekly card game.
His absence meant that, not counting Martillo, there would be nine men to deal with instead of ten when he was gone.
That took place on Saturday night, which was also the night that Martillo would indulge himself with a whore or two, despite being a married man. And while their leader was otherwise occupied, the guards seemed much more lax while performing their duties. Tanner had even seen the gate guard leave his post so that he could bullshit with the other men in the villa.
That left only one of Martillo’s Knights roaming about the home on Saturday night. As far as Tanner could tell, the man did nothing but work on what looked like a computer, as he could see the reflection of the screen’s glow on the lens of the man’s glasses.
He surmised that the man handled Martillo’s records and money, while the other Knight oversaw distribution. If so, it was no wonder he kept them close to him.
With Saturday night deemed to be the best time to strike, Tanner waited patiently for the next one to arrive. When it came, he slipped over the villa’s outer wall like a ghost dressed in black.
He carried a MAC-10 that had belonged to his mentor, the fifth Tanner. It had a two-stage suppressor, shot .45 ACP rounds and was as deadly as the Heckler & Koch MP5s that Martillo’s men had used to slaughter the Parkers and McKay.
Tanner killed his first man with a silent blast, as the guard rounded the corner of the home. The man’s eyes widened in surprise, but only after the bullets struck, as he had failed to notice Tanner hiding in the shadows.
Because the guards patrolled the grounds in a crisscrossing fashion, Tanner knew he had to kill the guard coming from the other direction. Thanks to his surveillance, he knew that the man would reach his position in just over a minute.
Tanner used some of that time to drag the first man’s body off the cobblestone path, then moved back into the shadows to wait once more.
The second sentry arrived forty-three seconds later, but they felt closer to forty-three minutes to Tanner. He sent another blast from his gun at the guard as he walked nearer to his position. Two of the bullets hit the man in the chest, near his heart, while the third round passed beneath his armpit and shattered a window behind him.
The noise of the falling glass sounded like thunder and Tanner knew that the time for stealth had ended, because a light came on in a window.
The guard who filled in at night after the housekeeper left looked outside, saw the body on the path, and screamed out that there was an intruder. Tanner sent six shots at the window and the man’s shouts of alarm ceased.
Not counting Martillo and his knight there were still five guards left and a call would go out for more to rush to the villa. Tanner knew from watching the place that this meant he had ten minutes at best before reinforcements showed. A good portion of that time would be spent by the men driving up the winding hill and opening the gates.
Tanner left the shadows, strode across the path, and shot the lock on a side door to pieces. He would enter Martillo’s home the way Martillo invaded the Parker ranch, and he wouldn’t stop killing until either he or Martillo was dead.
One more guard died without even knowing it, as Tanner shot the man in the head from behind the door the man had just opened.
The sound of the body hitting the floor was louder than the shot Tanner had fired. Still, he doubted that the killing had been overheard.
Up the stairs a door opened, followed by the appearance of Martillo’s Knight accountant. He was a man of about forty with the trim, long-muscled build of a swimmer. He was wearing rimless glasses that made his eyes look huge.
The fool had his arms full as he carried his computer, and he nearly tripped on the cord as he was rushing down the stairs.
It wasn’t until he reached the landing that he noticed the body. After gasping in surprise, he spotted Tanner and froze like a statue, with only his eyes moving in frantic patterns behind the eyeglasses.
Footsteps came from beyond the open front doorway and a man called out the first guard’s name, as he spotted the body lying inside.
After entering, the man looked up at the frozen accountant, so Tanner used the distraction to cut him down with six shots before reloading.
The fool with the computer made for great bait. Tanner wouldn’t have minded if he stayed there longer, but the man let out a yell and tried to go back up the flight of stairs he’d come down.
Tanner’s gloved hand held the gun’s long silencer like a foregrip, as he aimed upward and sent three rounds at the accountant. They passed through the computer and sent the man sliding to the floor, where his face lay buried in a corner of the landing. That left Martillo and three guards to go, as the clock ticked away, and reinforcements converged.
Tanner headed up the steps, past the captured Knight, and was running up the second flight of stairs when a spray of gunfire nearly cut him down. The three remaining guards had appeared and were chasing after him.
The hallway of the second floor was wide enough to drive a car down, and there were several doors on either side. A pair of ornate doors were at the hallway’s end. They led into Martillo’s bedroom.
Tanner kicked open one of the doors on his left, entered the dark room in a crouch, and lay on the floor in the shadows just beyond the reach of the light spilling in from the hallway.
The guards followed behind, and within seconds, they were gathered outside the doorway. Tanner shielded his gun with his body to avoid any muzzle flash being seen and fired one shot toward the three windows the room had. He was hoping to make the guards think he was attempting to escape that way.
It worked. Two of the guards filled the doorway with guns blazing at chest level toward the opposite wall, where the windows were.
Tanner fired upwards from his position on the floor and the two men grunted and fell backwards, and before the other guard could catch his bearings, Tanner stood and charged the hallway. He and the guard exchanged two shots before hitting each other.
Tanner’s shot had ripped through the man’s throat, while the guard’s shot had caught him on the right side, just below the Kevlar vest he wore. Tanner could feel the warm blood leaking onto his hip as he fell to his knees.
He moaned, as the pain was intense, but the shot had only dug a groove in his flesh and had caused no real damage. He stood and sent more shots into the men at his feet, because two of them, although gravely wounded, were still moving. After reloading, Tanner went to kill Martillo.
As he expected, the man was using the woman with him as a shield.
Martillo stood with a machine pistol in his right hand while his left held the woman by her hair. She was a voluptuous beauty still in her teens and was trembling from fear.
Both Martillo and the woman were naked and facing the double doors that led to the hallway. Martillo had no idea that Tanner was behind them on the balcony.
After killing the last of the guards, Tanner had climbed out the shattered windows of the room he’d just left. He then inched along the stone border that encircled the home, and which had decorative patterns carved upon its face.
It took him more than two valuable minutes to traverse the thirty feet that separated the room from the balcony, but the stone shelf he inched along was only six inches wide. A misstep would have resulted in a fall, and possibly broken bones, to be followed by death.
Martillo had given up on shouting for his men and was demanding that someone speak to him, while insisting that an agreement could be reached. He was trying to stall until his fresh troops arrived, but time was something he’d run out of.
Tanner sent an angled shot through the patio doors that struck Martillo in the flesh of his left buttock. The man released the hooker and instinctively felt for the wound.
“Drop the gun or die,” Tanner said in Spanish, and Martillo turned and looked at him with hope in his eyes.
“I’ll drop it, see?” Martillo said, then he tossed the gun onto the bed.
Tanner shouted for the girl to leave. She gathered up her clothes and fumbled at the locked door while whimpering. Once she had it open, she ran off as fast as she could, down the hall, and past the bodies of the dead guards.
Martillo limped over to lean on the footboard, while gesturing with his head at the fleeing girl.
“That was some good tail; you should have taken a turn.”
Martillo’s mood was light, because he took from the fact that he was still alive that he was going to remain so, but the assumption was false. Tanner’s plans for him did not include his staying alive, but of dying a fitting death.
A glint above the headboard caught Tanner’s eye. He made a huffing sound as he realized what he was looking at.
It was a gold-plated hammer with the word Martillo, engraved upon its face in cursive script. It wasn’t a claw hammer, such as the type commonly used, but more like a two-pound sledge with a foot-long handle. Tanner sent a blast from the gun in its direction and shattered the glass case it sat in.
Martillo watched Tanner examine the hammer. “You like that, eh?”
“I do,” Tanner said. “Now, let’s see how you like it.”
He charged at Martillo and smashed the hammer across his face. And before the drug lord could spit out his broken teeth, Tanner went to work on the man’s kneecaps.
By the time Tanner had finished, Martillo had two broken knees and elbows to match. The bones were more than broken, they had been crushed.
The Hammer had been hammered, and judging by the moans coming from him, he had not enjoyed it.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 70