Whatever the man had whispered, it pleased Firman, who turned and pointed at Jennifer, and soon she was being dragged away as well.
“I didn’t do anything! I was only trying to protect my friend.”
Her words were ignored, if they were even understood. Although she couldn’t know it, Jennifer had been marked for death. Death by beheading.
303
Kill And Kill Again
Tanner waited until the guards farthest from the camp came walking along the trail and passed him, before springing into action.
The men were talking to each other about a game of chance and seemed happy to be returning to camp and be done with their workday.
Tanner had gazed down upon the rebel compound from a position not far from the place where Jennifer had stood earlier. He estimated that there were well over a hundred men present between the ones guarding the trail and those in the camp.
He had also taken note of the cage and knew it wouldn’t be easy to free anyone from it, as it was in plain sight, with the cliff wall at its back.
The weave of rope and hodgepodge of camouflage materials overhead interested him, and he determined that it had to be destroyed if Burke’s men were to have any chance at a successful raid. However, that would come later, after he killed his share of the men guarding the trail.
The first man died easily, because the fool had been laughing and talking to the second man, who died only an instant later, as Tanner slashed his blade across their necks, thus, opening their throats, and rendering them speechless at the same time he delivered injuries that would kill them.
He watched them thrash on the ground and die by exsanguination, then he listened carefully in case another rebel had drawn near.
There was no need to hide the bodies from view, because the copious amount of blood spilled would speak of their demise anyway, so Tanner moved on.
There were ten men on patrol along the trail. Tanner found his third man looking alert and ready. Tanner stepped into view, took careful aim and hit the man in the face with a stone. He had been aiming for a spot between the man’s eyes, but the stone smashed the area high atop the man’s forehead and caused him to weave about like a drunk.
Tanner managed to reach him before he recovered, grabbed the rock from the ground, and used it to smash the guard’s face repeatedly.
The struggle made little noise. Unfortunately, the fourth man must have been nearby, because Tanner heard someone running along the trail and coming his way.
After switching the machete to his left hand, Tanner ran toward the sound with his blade up and at the ready. As he and the fourth man met at a bend in the trail, Tanner sliced deep along the ribs of a man holding a rifle and watched him crumple onto the dirt.
He walked back to the man, took away the rifle, and delivered a killing stroke with his blade, ending the man’s cries of pain, which had been gaining in volume.
He was rounding the bend in the trail when he became aware of the footfalls coming up from behind and had just enough time to duck. A blade whooshed over his head. When he looked up, he saw a face so damaged that he marveled its owner still had sight.
It was the third guard, the one he had smashed with the rock. The man was speaking gibberish from a mouth whose teeth were freshly broken.
Tanner tripped him with the rifle barrel, even as the man attempted to swing the machete, then he finished the job of killing the man by thrusting a blade into his heart.
Guards five and six suffered from the belief that, being the guards in the middle, they would have sufficient time to be alerted if there was any trouble along either end of the trail. They sat with their backs against a tree while smoking and sharpening their blades.
Tanner crawled over to them on the side of the tree that was directly behind them, and with a machete in each hand, he reached around and sliced open their throats. One man died almost instantly, as the blade had bitten deep. The other man managed to stand and take several steps before falling face-first. He died after suffering a spasm.
Tanner was hidden behind the same tree when he saw Sara and Garner moving along the edge of the trail while keeping to the shadows. He stepped out, raised his hand to grab their attention and saw that their work had left them as bloody as had his own. He also noticed that Jake looked sickened by the violence.
“If I never have to kill with a blade again, it will be too soon,” Sara said.
“It does get messy, and personal,” Tanner agreed.
After they took a quick stop at a stream to wash off what blood they could, he led them to the view that overlooked the camp.
Sara cried as she took in the cage. “They’re keeping her like an animal.”
Jake pointed up at the web of camouflage. “That’s going to be a problem for the helicopter.”
“I can deal with that,” Tanner said, “and when I do, all hell will break loose.”
When he finished speaking, he dug a fingernail into the skin of his opposite arm and freed the tiny GPS tracker that had been placed there, causing a small trickle of blood to flow. He held the device up.
“Once I destroy this, Burke’s people will be on their way here, so why don’t we make a plan first?”
“Fine,” Sara said. “How will you handle that camouflage tarp above us?”
Tanner removed a lighter and a pack of matches that he had found near the bodies of the two guards that had been smoking.
“I’ll set fire to it, which will cause chaos and alert the troops of trouble.”
“Won’t that endanger Jenny and the other hostages?” Sara said.
“It’s a possibility, which is why we’ll be freeing them when the fire reaches its peak.”
Jake blew out a long breath. “That sounds like suicide.”
“Not for you two, because you’ll be up here with those rifles and killing any guard that gets in the way.”
Sara’s face scrunched up in confusion. “How are you going to start the fire and get down there before it burns out of control?”
“I’ll manage, trust me.”
Sara stared into Tanner’s eyes. “I do trust you; I’m trusting you with my sister’s life.”
“I’ll find her, and I’ll get her to safety, but while I’m doing that you two will be on your own.”
“I told you before we started that getting Jenny to safety was your only job; Jake and I will take care of ourselves.”
“Fine, but for this to work, you both have to be good shots with a rifle. Are you?”
“I’m better than decent, given the range,” Sara said. “And if I’m not mistaken, Jake has won contests.”
Jake shook his head. “I came in second two years in a row, but yes, I can shoot.”
“What about the bad hand?”
“It hurts like hell, but it’s good enough to grip the rifle.”
“All right, and make every shot count, there’s not much ammo.”
Tanner placed the GPS chip on the ground and smashed it with a rock. He looked up. “The countdown has begun.”
304
Geronimo!
Many of the tall trees in the area had few branches on the lower section of their trunks. Tanner climbed up one of them by using two machetes as if they were claws, and then moved over to where a corner of the huge camouflage net was fastened with thick rope.
His hands were on fire with pain, as the web of flesh on one had been previously wounded by gunfire, while the other had a chunk removed from its palm by the descending blade of a machete, just a day earlier.
No stranger to pain, Tanner pushed it aside and put his mind to the task at hand, freeing Jennifer Blake.
Tanner wasn’t certain of just what it was that Burke had planned but assumed that the man would send as large a force as he could gather to wipe out the rebels. What that would cost the man in terms of new government scrutiny and more hearings concerning his company was anyone’s guess. Burke wanted his daughter back as much as Sara wanted her sister returned safely. And
even in a third-world nation like Guambi, Burke had the connections and resources to get it done.
After giving up on cutting through the many ropes that secured the canopy, Tanner sliced at two of the pieces used, and after shaking them and seeing how long the ropes were, he looked down through a small hole he’d made and estimated the distance to the ground.
An idea occurred to him at that point, one that made him smile. Tanner hoped he wouldn’t make a fool of himself when he put it into action, or worse, get himself killed by breaking his neck.
However, he had been a long-range shooter for most of his life and had a keen eye for estimating distances. He was confident he could guess the distance to the ground within a meter.
Tanner crawled out into the center of the tarp while dragging the ropes behind him. When he reached the middle, he broke open the lighter, spilling its flammable fluid atop dry leaves. He then used the book of matches to light it.
The liquid immediately caught fire, the leaves burned, and Tanner waited for his chance to play Tarzan.
Down below on the lip of the cliff overlooking the camp, Sara and Jake lay on their stomachs and gazed down at the sudden flurry of activity taking place.
“What do you think is going on, could they know we’re here?” Sara asked.
Jake shook his head. “No, if that were the case, they’d be staring up here. No, it’s not us, but something has everyone down there excited.”
Sara looked up at the canopy and noticed that there was a black spot at its center, and as she kept looking, she caught the glow of embers.
“Look! He’s done it. Tanner has started the fire.”
“Good, but that thing is a massive patchwork and may take a while to burn.”
Down below, someone let out a cry of joy. When she looked, Sara saw a small figure being dragged from a tent. The figure was male, but not very big, and he was brought out to the rear of the compound with his hands tied behind him, and then forced to his knees.
An instant later, Sara spotted another figure being dragged toward the first, and as soon as she spotted the cropped blonde hair, she knew.
“Jenny, oh my God, that’s Jenny.”
Jake leaned farther over the rim of the cliff as if another few inches would help him see her better, but he didn’t need to see her face clearly, for like Sara, he knew.
Jennifer also had her hands tied behind her back and was driven down to her knees by two rough hands. Moments later, Firman appeared, and as he sharpened a long Katana-style sword, his intent became clear.
“Oh… oh good God, they’re going to execute her,” Sara said, and both she and Jake knew that the odds had just risen against Jennifer ever seeing another day.
Tanner had moved away from the fire at the center of the canopy and had cut another hole to see through. When he spotted Sara’s sister being readied for execution, he knew that Burke’s men might not reach the area in time to stop it. He also realized the plan he had made with Sara and Jake was now obsolete.
After removing his boots and securing the ropes around his ankles, Tanner hacked at the hole until it was large enough to fit through.
He found himself coughing violently as the wind shifted and blew the smoke of the fire his way, while also feeding it and causing it to grow. Tanner readied himself, while hoping that Sara and Jake wouldn’t act too soon, then he prepared to leap literally into the fray.
Sara was lining up her shot on Firman when Jake pressed a hand on the barrel of her rifle.
“Don’t fire unless there’s no other choice. With these rifles, at this distance, we could just as easily hit Jennifer as the man with the sword.”
Sara groaned in frustration. “You’re right, but we’ll soon have to take that risk. Look, he’s moving up behind them.”
Jake pulled at his hair. “Where are those men of Burke’s?”
Down below, Firman began speaking as he paced behind Prendy and Jennifer. His fiery speech was a sermon about the evil of promiscuity, the lasciviousness of western women, and the dire consequences of giving in to the appetites of the flesh.
When he stopped and stared at the crowd, most of the men gathered believed he was doing so solely for dramatic effect, but then Firman shifted his feet, raised the sword high, and brought it down against the side of Prendy’s neck.
Blood sprayed a dozen feet and the boy’s head, now just barely attached, lolled over to settle upon the right shoulder, even as the body was falling forward. Firman reversed the sword’s trajectory and sliced between the shoulder and the neck, an act that severed Prendy’s head from his body and sent it tumbling off to the side.
Jennifer let out screams of pure terror as she tried to make it to her feet. She was pressed back down upon her knees by two of Firman’s men.
Both Sara and Jake had been frozen by the barbarity of the act and numbed with apprehension, but after giving himself a shake, Jake raised his rifle and aimed through the iron sights.
“We’ve just run out of options; I’ll have to take a chance on hitting her.”
“Look!” Sara pointed upward, and when Jake followed her gaze, he saw Tanner’s head and shoulders emerge from a hole in the canopy.
“What is Tanner doing? Is he getting ready to jump?”
“No, that would be suicide,” Sara said, then watched as the fire at the middle of the tarp suddenly expanded, and hot ash began to rain down. When she looked back at the camp, she saw that the men below had taken notice and that many were pointing up.
That’s when Tanner jumped out of the hole headfirst and fell over eighty feet. The ropes holding him came to a violent stop, leaving his head less than two feet above the ground, before recoiling. It placed him in the midst of where Jennifer knelt on her knees.
While still upside down and swinging, Tanner took a hack at Firman with one of the two machetes he wielded. The religious fanatic ducked so quickly that he fell backwards and landed on his bony ass, while losing his grip on the sword.
Tanner’s blade missed Firman, but bit deep into the venerable white head of the holy one, Gus Soe, who had been standing beside Firman. The blade became lodged inside Gus Soe’s holy brain, and sent him to his holy heaven, where he would doubtlessly have to learn the ways and customs of the dead.
Tanner raised his upper body as if he were performing an upside-down sit-up, took a mighty swing at the complex knot that secured the two ropes to his ankles, and cut himself loose. After turning over in midair, he landed on his feet amid a hundred armed men.
Firman, along with the two men who were guarding Jennifer, backed away with her, then disappeared beyond the crowd.
Tanner reached down and grabbed up the bloody sword that had killed Prendy. As the rebels closed in upon him, Tanner turned in a circle, his intense eyes ablaze as he spoke to the men in their own language.
“Who dies first?”
305
Change Of Plans?
Vance tried to look as if he were taking the news in stride, while also noticing the pleasure Fedor took from delivering it.
The meeting at the Cabaret Strip Club was cancelled and it was Fedor’s belief that the reason for the cancellation was because one of the men who attended the last meeting had vanished.
Fedor crossed his legs as he sat on the love seat in Michael Krupin’s office, and there was a self-satisfied grin on his face.
“It was stupid of you to kill that man for information when you could have simply bribed one of his soldiers and learned the same things he told you. But now, now Pullo is suspicious and has wisely changed his plans.”
“I don’t answer to you, Fedor, and there’s any number of reasons why Pullo might have postponed the meeting.”
Fedor grinned. “You screwed up yet again, admit it, Rurik.”
“Fuck you.”
Krupin rose from behind his desk and then took a seat on a corner of it. “Can you fix this? Pullo still needs to die.”
Vance sent him a reassuring smile. “Of course, I can fix it. The me
eting was just the best of all possible outcomes, but Pullo is still using that club as his office, just as Rossetti did. I’ll just use the same plan and soon he’ll be history.”
Krupin paced about as he thought things over. When he stopped in mid-stride, he pointed at Vance.
“Stick with the plan, but we’ll wait a couple of more days. If there’s no meeting, then put it into action. And I still want you to take Fedor with you as backup.”
Vance nodded in agreement. “Of course, I’ll still need another man who is good with a rifle.”
“Not good,” Fedor said. “I am the best.”
Vance shrugged. “That’s even better. The club has two exits, while I stand watch over the alley exit, you’ll be watching the front, and if by some miracle someone escapes the trap, we shoot them dead.”
Fedor grinned. “It sounds like fun.”
“Is everything ready? And have you picked out the other men you’ll use?” Krupin asked.
“The men are ready; their part in it shouldn’t take much more than a minute.”
“Who are you using?”
Fedor answered. “It is my Nephew Anton and his boys; they are all good men.”
Krupin sighed. “I guess I can look forward to that Fed showing up again.”
“No doubt, but you’ll have an airtight alibi and there will be no way to trace it back to us.”
“Still, I hate that Fed.”
“I just hope he brings that little Italian сука with him,” Fedor said. “I like looking at her. And what do you think, is he doing her, his own partner?”
Krupin spun around and smiled at Fedor. “You’ve just given me an idea, but one thing at a time, and first, you two will kill Pullo.”
Vance patted the holster beneath his jacket. “He’s as good as dead.”
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 97