Soldiers seemed to be everywhere in their gray uniforms, to comfort fears and keep the tourists’ dollars flowing in Telunas, which really was a beautiful place.
The resort was painted in blue, green, and pink pastel colors. It was beautifully landscaped and offered over a mile of white sand beach with turquoise water and an awesome view of sunrise each morning.
After hanging around the hotel bar, Tanner had uncovered a piece of news that the resort management was trying to keep under wraps. An American staying at the hotel had gone missing, but was assumed to be lost, rather than kidnapped. At least that was the story being offered.
Sara had been upset by the news that another American had gone missing, surprised when informed that the man was an FBI agent, but outright flabbergasted when she heard the man’s name.
“Jake Garner? Are you certain?”
“Yes,” Tanner said. “That’s what the bartender said. Wasn’t he your partner, the one you shot?”
“He and Jenny are dating, and I accused him of using her as a way to get back at me. I thought he would break her heart, but if he’s here, then… he must actually love her, to risk his life this way. My God, have I ever been right about anything?”
“You think he’s out there trying to rescue her?”
“Yes, Jake is much too smart to get lost. He’s either out searching for Jennifer… or he’s been captured too.”
“Maybe we can contact him, or even call him if he’s carrying his cell phone and is near a cell tower, but I’ve heard that the typhoon that passed through the area recently destroyed many of them.”
“I still have his number on my phone. I’ll try calling when we go back to the room.”
“There’s one more thing. The army is placing troops at the border between Telunas and Guambi. That will make it more difficult for us to leave the country.”
“That’s an understatement, but we have to find a way around it.”
“First, we’ll need weapons; do you have the money and the directions to where the meeting will take place?”
“Yes, and it shouldn’t take us long to get there.”
“I want to make a stop at the hotel gift shop.”
Sara looked surprised. “The gift shop, why? Are you buying something for Romeo and Nadya?”
Tanner smiled. “Not exactly.”
While there were army troops keeping people away from the Guambi border, no one spotted Tanner and Sara as they left the resort grounds and moved farther down the shoreline, where a huge sign written in over twenty languages warned that leaving the resort area was not a good idea.
Sara walked along at his side empty-handed, but Tanner carried a white cardboard carton under one arm that was about the size of a hat box. It was sealed on the top and bottom with a wide strip of clear tape.
As they came around a curve in the shoreline, they saw the other face of Telunas, as miles of shacks, shanties, and downright hovels went on for as far as the eye could see, with only a short line of homes in the distance that looked new.
The people wore little clothing and what they owned was faded and tattered. Young children ran about naked and there was smoke rising in the air from numerous cook fires.
“This is horrible,” Sara whispered.
“As bad as it is, it was worse before the resort was built.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“Yes, I passed through a long time ago, but there were no houses at all then and no chance to make a real living. Still, like every other business, I’m sure the resort doesn’t pay their people any more than they need to.”
Three men walked toward them from the shacks. All three were shirtless, looked tough, and long-handled goloks hung in sheaths fastened around their waists by rope.
Tanner sighed as he realized they weren’t carrying anything. “This was a waste of time; they don’t have any weapons.”
“Maybe they’re in the waistbands of their pants, behind their backs.”
“Possibly, but not likely.”
Sara looked at the box Tanner carried. “It’s a good thing you came prepared.”
“Yes, and be ready.”
As the men reached them, the one in the middle, the smallest of the three, spoke to them in English with a strong Dutch accent, while pointing at the box Tanner carried.
“You bring money, good.”
“Where are the weapons?” Sara asked.
The man laughed at her and spoke to Tanner. “You let woman speak for you?”
“She’s not my woman; I’m working for her.”
The man swiveled his head to take in his companions and saw that they were laughing as hard as he was. He then called Tanner a name that would roughly translate to the English word, wimp.
Tanner waited until the laughter died down and then spoke.
“Give us the weapons and we’ll give you the money.”
“Why is money in a box?”
“It’s for the weapons, we’ll need something to carry it all in. We’re buying four handguns and two boxes of ammo, no?”
The man’s smiled widened. He slid out his machete as he and the other two men drew closer.
“No, give me box.”
“You’re robbing us?” Tanner said, and his tone was one of incredulity.
The punk called him a name that insulted not only his intelligence but also his manhood and grabbed the box. After shaking it and hearing paper rustling, he sat it atop the sand, then knelt and tore the box open.
When the multi-colored balloon flew up into the air, all three men followed its ascent with their eyes. That gave Tanner and Sara the opportunity they needed to strike.
While Tanner kicked the kneeling man hard in the mouth with his booted foot, Sara connected with the crotch of a second man.
The third man had his machete free and was raising it to strike when Tanner dropped to the sand and rolled into him, which caused the man to fall face forward.
By the time he hit the sand, Sara had gathered up the machete that belonged to the group’s leader and was holding the blade against the throat of the man she had kicked in the balls.
As the man who had fallen got back up, Tanner tossed sand into his face and blinded him, then wrested his machete away. The leader rose as well, and his mouth was covered in blood.
After mumbling curses at them from lips that hurt more than his wounded pride, the man and his companions followed Sara’s orders and trudged back toward the shantytown, minus their machetes.
Tanner plucked the bundles of cash that were laying loose inside the box and handed them to Sara. Afterward, the two of them walked away without the guns they needed.
“We’ll have to come up with a plan that doesn’t involve weapons,” Tanner said.
Sara turned her head and smiled at him. “That trick with the balloon, did you learn that at hit man school?”
“Why, they don’t teach that at Quantico?”
Sara laughed as Tanner smiled, and they walked the rest of the way back to the resort in companionable silence.
287
Call Me Sara
“I have an idea,” Tanner said, as he and Sara sat at a table inside the hotel’s bar.
“What’s your idea?”
“Instead of going to the rebels, why not let them come to us?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we’ll play the part of the rich American couple and let everyone know we have money. It’ll be like sending up a flare to the rebels. Once they kidnap us, we’ll eventually wind up at their camp.”
Sara smiled. “And Jenny will be there too, but we’ll still be hostages.”
“And I’ll still be me, and being me, I’ll find a way to get us free.”
“I don’t know; it won’t be easy.”
“No, it never is, but we could wander the jungle for weeks and never find that camp. This way, we’ll be taken right to it. You brought me here because I’m good at surviving long odds and I don’t intend to die here, but it
’s your decision.”
Sara considered things for a moment and made a comment. “Even if the rebels come for us, they’ll have the same problem that we have. They’ll have to get past the soldiers guarding the border.”
“They’ll find a way. This is their turf, their people, and then there’s always the option of a well-placed bribe. In a region this poor, corruption is a certainty if you know the right people.”
“All right then, what do we do?”
Tanner smiled. “We act like a couple of rich assholes. In other words, just be yourself.”
Sara scowled. “Just because I come from money doesn’t mean that I’m a—”
She stopped talking when she realized Tanner had been teasing her, and then she laughed.
“Tanner?”
“Yes, Blake?”
“Call me Sara; after all, we are married.”
“Whatever you say.”
“And don’t you have a name, a real name?”
“I did at one time, but now, I’m just Tanner.”
Sara’s face darkened. “Tanner, the killer.”
“Yes, and the men who took your sister will be making my acquaintance very soon.”
“I hope you kill them all.”
Tanner smirked at her.
“What?” Sara said.
“I think you’re getting your fire back. That’s good, you’ll need it.”
“I still feel empty inside, and I miss Johnny more than I would have imagined. What do you think is happening in New York? Is Pullo capable of running the Giacconi Family?”
Tanner grinned. “Joe is more intelligent than he lets on. Vance and the Russians are probably licking their wounds by now.”
Michael Krupin was one angry young man. The twenty-three-year-old was used to getting his way and suffering a massive setback was not an event he coped well with.
Vance, who was known to Krupin as Rurik Varanov, watched the young man as he paced about the room and occasionally stopped to hurl something at the door. It occurred to Vance that Krupin wasn’t fit to lead, and that the situation would have to be remedied soon.
There was another man in the room. He was nearing sixty and his hair had begun to gray, but he still had a young man’s build and a military bearing. His name was Fedor, and he didn’t bother to hide his disdain for Vance.
“Michael, I warned you that listening to this fool was a bad idea. Maybe now you’ll take heed of what I say the way your father did.”
Krupin pointed at Fedor. “I don’t want to hear ‘I told you so.’” Krupin paced back and forth once more and then spoke to Vance. “Eighty-two! Eighty-two men dead, over a hundred wounded, and you can bet that they’ll try to trace them directly back to me. The Feds are getting involved. Did you know that? And they say they can’t tie any of it to the Giacconi Family.”
“I underestimated Pullo. I admit that, Michael, but I promise you that I won’t do it again.”
Krupin walked over to where Vance sat and screamed down at him.
“We had one huge advantage over them; we had more men, but not after today. God, this has made me look like nothing but a fool. You have to fix this, Rurik, and you have to fix this soon.”
Vance stood suddenly, which caused Krupin to step backwards so quickly that he nearly fell. Standing to his left, Fedor placed his hand on the gun in his holster.
“I will fix this, Michael.”
“How?”
“I’ll kill Joe Pullo and then I’ll work my way through their ranks until there’s nothing left of the Giacconi Family but memories.”
Krupin straightened his tie and calmed himself. “I think I like your plan.”
Vance smiled. “I knew you would, and I’ll start on it right now.”
Vance left the office and Krupin settled behind his desk.
“Fedor.”
“Yes, Michael?”
“If Rurik fails to kill Pullo, I want you to kill Rurik.”
“Fine, but it would be better if I killed him in any event, no?”
Krupin gave that some thought. Vance had been a friend of his father and he had known the man since he was a boy, known him and liked him. When he didn’t answer Fedor’s question, Fedor spoke again.
“Michael?”
“Yes, kill him.”
Outside the office, Vance removed his ear from the door and slipped away down the stairs soundlessly, as a look of hatred tainted his face.
288
Weapons Of Mass Proportion
As Tanner and Sara passed the front desk on the way to their room, the clerk informed them that the hotel manager wanted to see them in his office.
The subject of the meeting was described as “A minor problem with their accommodations,” but after entering the room and being confronted with guns, Tanner realized the problem they faced was a major one.
Two men held weapons on them while a third sat behind the hotel manager’s desk. He was not the hotel manager; his name was Conrad Burke. Burke was around sixty, looked fit and had intense brown eyes. Those eyes studied both of them with suspicion and curiosity.
Tanner and Sara recognized Burke from his recent televised visits to give testimony before the United States Congress about charges leveled against his company, which was one of the largest multinationals in the world, and bore his name, Burke.
Burke gestured for his men to bring them forward and soon they were seated in two chairs in front of the desk, but only after a pat down.
Sara had found the search for weapons invasive, as one of the men fondled her.
“Those are my breasts, not weapons,” Sara said, and the lecherous guard just smiled at her.
The other man had detected the bandage on Tanner’s left side. He tore open his shirt to inspect it, saw what it was, and grunted.
Once settled in his seat, Tanner spoke. “What do you want, Burke?”
“I want to know who you two really are.”
Tanner looked over at Sara. This was her operation, but he saw no reason to hide their identities or intent from the father of one of the hostages, and the man could prove useful.
Sara sent Tanner a nod and then revealed the truth to Burke. When she was finished speaking, Burke tapped a few times at a tablet computer, before looking down at it and then up at Sara.
“Yes, I see the strong resemblance between you and the other Miss Blake.” He then looked over at Tanner, who was wincing in pain while rubbing a hand over his bandaged wound. “She said your name was Tanner, but what’s your first name?”
“It’s just one name.”
Burke studied him through squinted eyes. “My father once hired a man named Tanner to handle a problem for him, but that was over thirty years ago, and I happen to know that man is dead. So what does that make you, Tanner number six?”
Tanner held back his surprise at Burke’s knowledge and answered the question.
“I’m the seventh Tanner.”
Burke made a face. “You don’t deserve the name. The other Tanner never would have been taken and controlled so easily.”
“You’re probably right,” Tanner said, and launched himself atop the desk while freeing a slim blade he kept hidden in the folds of the bandage.
The weapon had a ring on one end that slipped over a finger and an inch-long blade with a razor-like edge. It was flexible but sharp, and Tanner laid it against Conrad Burke’s throat as he wrapped an arm around the man’s neck.
Sara was as surprised as everyone else in the room, but when she saw that the guards were bringing up their guns, she grabbed the bottom of her seat, lifted it up and placed a chair leg back down atop the instep of the man who had fondled her.
The man howled in agony as he instinctively dropped his weapon and grabbed for the chair, but Sara had already left it, to dive to the floor and retrieve the fallen gun.
The other guard had his weapon trained on Tanner, but Sara was pointing his partner’s gun up at him and the man knew that no matter what happened, if violence came, he woul
d die.
“Tell your man to drop his gun, Burke,” Tanner said.
Burke was swallowing hard but had otherwise stayed calm. “Wilson, holster your weapon.”
Wilson did as commanded, but he kept a wary eye on Sara, who was rising to her feet. Meanwhile, the other guard had taken Sara’s vacated seat and was removing his shoe to check on his damaged foot.
“Mr. Tanner?” Burke said.
“What?”
“I apologize for doubting your abilities and I do believe that we all want the same thing, yes? We want to see the hostages freed?”
Tanner slid off the desk and stood. “We should work together, and I have an idea how we can do that.”
“I’m listening,” Burke said.
“You have resources we don’t. Can you get your hands on a small GPS tracking device, something that can be embedded beneath the skin?”
“I could have such a device here in hours.”
Sara spoke to Tanner. “You want him to be able to track our movements so he can send help when we reach the rebel camp?”
“Yes, of course that assumes we’ll be taken as hostages like the others were.”
Burke nodded. “It’s a good idea, and if it works, I’ll send in more men to back you up. But, tell me something, Tanner. Without that help, what exactly were you planning to do against what must be over a hundred men?”
“I was going to do my best, Burke. Up until now, it’s always been enough.”
Burke laughed. “You’re a cocky bastard. I like that. And you Miss Sara Blake, you are one brave woman to risk yourself this way.”
“Not brave, desperate. I have to get my sister back.”
“We will. By working together, we’ll get her and Melissa back safely.”
They made plans to meet again, and as they turned to leave, Tanner looked down at the man sitting in the chair, whose foot Sara had damaged, and who was also the man who had fondled her in the guise of checking for weapons.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 92