“No.”
“No?”
“I owe you one; you went above and beyond, even for you.”
Tanner pointed toward one of the mercenaries from the downed chopper.
“That man has a satellite phone. He said that transportation and medical help are on the way.”
Sara stood and began walking toward her sister, but then she turned around and went back to Tanner.
“There’s one more thing.”
“Yes?”
Sara removed the phony wedding ring from her finger and handed it to him. “I’m leaving you.”
Tanner smiled. “I knew we’d never last.”
“At least we didn’t kill each other.”
“Not for lack of trying,” Tanner said.
Sara nodded, touched him gently on the cheek, then walked away.
308
Goodbye
Sara, Jennifer, and Jake had taken Conrad Burke up on his offer to fly home on his jet, since the plane would be landing at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut, which was just a short drive from the house owned by Sara’s father.
That meant that Tanner would be flying home alone. Sara joined him outside the jet to say a final farewell.
“My sister told me about that kiss you gave her.”
“It was strictly in an effort to save her, although, I will admit that I enjoyed it.”
Sara grinned, and before the silence could become uncomfortable, she asked a question.
“So, what’s next for you?”
“I’ll see if Joe needs my help with the Russians. After that… I’m not sure, and you?”
Sara slowly shook her head. “I have no idea. I’ve burned my bridges with the FBI, New York City holds too many memories and, other than my time with Johnny, it feels like the last year of my life has been a waste.”
“You’ll think of something, Blake; you’re too tough to be down for long.”
They stared at each other. Neither one knowing what to say, because a simple goodbye felt somehow inadequate.
Sara stepped toward him with her hands leaving her sides. For a moment, Tanner thought she might hug him, but after stopping in midstride, she extended her right hand. Tanner reached out and shook it.
“Goodbye, Sara Blake. It’s been… interesting.”
Sara smiled, gave his hand a squeeze before releasing it, and then turned and walked over to Burke’s jet.
Twenty minutes later, Tanner was in the air and headed back to New York City.
309
The Hottest Club In Town
It was just after dark, and inside the Cabaret Strip Club Sophia, Laurel, Merle, and Earl all laughed along with several of Joe’s street soldiers. They were watching Sammy Giacconi pantomime his version of a stripper, as he clung upside down to a pole on stage.
The act was even funnier because Sammy had loosened his long dark hair, and he flung it about in sync with the music that was playing. When he was finished, he left the stage to applause and laughter, as well as the arms of Sophia Verona.
Sophia had hugged Sammy on an impulse, but quickly released him and stepped back.
Sammy smiled. “I don’t think the patrons are allowed to touch the dancers, but I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“And who would we be telling?” Sophia said.
Sammy’s smile left his lips. “I think his name is Tanner.”
Sophia sighed. “Yeah, that’s his name.”
“Has he even called you in all the time he’s been gone?”
“No.”
“I would treat you better than that.”
“Tanner is… different.”
“So I hear, but I want you to know something, I’m not afraid of him.”
“That’s because you don’t know him, but he’d have no reason to hurt you anyway.”
Sammy waggled his eyebrows. “We should give him one.”
Sophia laughed and pointed toward the bar, where Laurel sat drinking coffee. “I’m going to talk to Laurel. Why don’t you work on your act while I’m gone?”
Sammy gestured at the lone one-dollar bill that Merle had tossed on stage as a gag.
“I think I’m retiring; the tips are terrible.”
Outside the club, and across the narrow street in back, Vance lay on his stomach with a sniper rifle at the ready.
He was settled on the roof of a red brick building that was an unused warehouse. His position gave him a clear view of the club’s rear exit, which was in the alley, along with a view of the small windows set high in the walls of the bathrooms.
After raising up a pair of binoculars, he saw that Fedor had also gotten into position on a roof overlooking the club’s front entrance. He too was armed with a high-powered rifle with a scope.
Vance smiled.
It was time.
He made a call, and when it was answered, he said only one word.
“Go!”
Laurel was grinning as Sophia took a seat beside her. “You’re weakening.”
Sophia took a swig from her beer. “Tanner better get back here soon or I’m going to declare him legally dead and move on.”
“You really like Sammy, don’t you?”
“Too much, and he’s so damn young.”
“Speaking as a doctor, it’s a proven fact that men are most virile at his age.”
“Stop it.”
“They also have amazing stamina and recuperative abilities.”
“I don’t like you anymore,” Sophia said, and then both she and Laurel laughed.
Joe was seated behind the desk in the office when the shooting began. By the time he stood, his gun was in his hand and he went racing down the hallway.
“Laurel?”
“I’m okay, Joe,” Laurel said, and Joe was pleased to see that two of his soldiers had moved in front of her to guard her.
One of the other men went to the front door and called out. “Victor? Sal?”
There was no answer, and then the man jumped backwards while looking at the base of the door.
“Gas! Gasoline.”
A moment went by before a whooshing sound was heard, and the gas ignited and began to spread flames.
Joe grabbed Laurel’s hand. “Everybody head to the back door in the office. Mike, you take point, and Sophia, are you armed?”
“Damn right,” Sophia said, and her hand left her purse holding a gun.
The new office door was designed to close automatically and was constructed using ballistic glass that was mirrored on the hallway side. However, Joe and the others didn’t have to see through it to know that the office was on fire. Intense heat was emanating from beyond the door and they could hear the crackle of flames, as smoke leaked out around the seams of the doorframe.
One of Joe’s men spoke up, as he ran back toward the bar. “We can leave through the blacked-out windows up front.”
The man was carrying a sawed-off shotgun. He fired it low at the glass set at the left of the doors. The glass shattered, and a gust of wind sent flames licking in at the club’s interior. The man with the shotgun had his sleeve catch fire, but one of the other men quickly smothered the flames with his suit coat.
“We’re trapped!” Merle said.
Joe swiveled his head around, while desperately trying to think of a way out, and wondered if for once in his life, Merle was right.
310
Hello And Goodbye
Outside the club, the four young men who had killed the guards and started the fire drove off with their part in the slaughter completed. Vance stood and stared down at the club.
The building was surrounded by flames that were high enough to lick at the bathroom windowpanes. Vance felt certain that his plan had been successful and that no one would escape.
He took out his phone and called Fedor. “Is there a chance of anyone making it out of the front?”
Fedor laughed. “Not a chance. The smoke will probably kill them before the flames do.”
“You’re absolut
ely certain no one will make it out that way?”
“Da, the fire is too intense. Anyone inside that building is dead.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.”
Vance dropped the phone and raised up the rifle. He sighted through the night vision scope at a spot in the center of Fedor’s forehead, then fired. On the other side of the club, Fedor collapsed atop the roof he was standing on, and Vance laughed to celebrate the ending of a second obstacle.
Once he was certain that Pullo was dead, Vance planned to return to Michael Krupin and execute the young leader of the Russian mob, then take his place. He was through with being Robert Vance the lackey. Soon, it would be Rurik Varanov’s time to lead.
The smoke inside the club was thickening, and everyone ducked down to suck in the diminishing usable air.
Merle and Earl were huddled around their sister, Laurel, as if their bodies could protect her from the growing flames. The mood among those present was moving swiftly toward panic.
When Sammy snapped his fingers, everyone but Joe jumped at the sound, but they all wondered about the smile spreading across Sammy’s face.
“There’s a tunnel! Uncle Joe, there’s a tunnel. Granddad showed it to me years ago when he used to own the building and it was a funeral home.”
“A tunnel?” Joe said, but then his eyes lit up as well. “Right. This place used to be a speakeasy back in the 1920s, but Sammy, where is it?”
Sammy ran toward the rear of the building while bent over to avoid the smoke and went down the hallway that ran alongside the kitchen.
“This way!”
There was a supply closet positioned between the bathrooms. When Sammy opened it, it was found to be filled with toilet paper, hand towels, and cleaning supplies. The items were stacked upon a gray metal shelf, while two snow shovels, a spade for digging, and a broom were hanging from hooks on the right wall.
“There are steps under the floor here,” Sammy said.
He tossed out everything he could grab and cursed when he saw that the shelving was bolted to the rear wall. He tugged at it and the metal only creaked.
One of Joe’s bodyguards moved beside Sammy. “We got this, kid. Bosco, give me a hand.”
Sammy stepped out and one of the other big men squeezed into the small space beside his friend. They ripped the shelving away from the wall with ease.
Once they had stepped back outside with the rack of shelves, Sammy got down on his knees in the doorway. He reached in and pulled up a piece of stained and dirty carpet to reveal a wooden door set in the floorboards, with a recessed brass ring as a handle. The club was filling with acrid black smoke. When Sammy pulled up on the door and released the musty air from below, it smelled sweet compared to the air above it.
“Where does it go?” Laurel asked, and Sammy answered her.
“It goes under the street and up inside that old warehouse over there. But listen, it’s just wide enough to walk single file and the other side is covered over with a hardwood floor, we’ll have to break through.”
Joe grabbed the metal spade from off its hook and handed it to the largest of his men.
“Big Ralphie, once we get over there use this on the wood, and everybody turn on your phones, we’ll use them as flashlights.”
Big Ralphie went down the narrow stone steps first, then Joe took Laurel by the hand and helped her to step down, next went Sophia, and then Joe, followed by the rest of them.
Earl was the last man into the tunnel. He reached up and brought the door down to keep out the smoke, which had grown so thick that only three feet of space separated it from the floor.
The tunnel was surprisingly deep, about a hundred feet long, smelled of dirt, and was littered with debris from its crumbling brick walls and ceiling.
The narrowness of the passage engendered claustrophobic feelings and Big Ralphie’s wide shoulders became wedged in twice before he made it to the other side and started up the second set of moss-covered stone steps.
Laurel began to walk up the steps, but Joe reached past Sophia and held her back.
“Big Ralphie’s going to need some room to swing that spade.”
He was right, as the huge man stood hunched over six steps from the top and repeatedly swung the tip of the shovel at the wood blocking their exit.
It took over a dozen good whacks before a hole appeared between two boards, and six more before the gap widened a few inches. That was when the wooden handle of the spade broke and rendered it useless.
Big Ralphie appeared to Joe as if he were about to cry, as he took in the broken tool, but then anger lit his round face. After practically lying down atop the steps, Big Ralphie managed to turn himself around until he was facing the others. After climbing up the steps backwards and hunched over, he pressed his wide back against the floorboards and strained to stand up. The big man’s face looked scarlet in the light from Laurel’s phone, as he pushed with all he had. When the wood broke, it was like the shattering of a window, and Big Ralphie stood triumphant, with his smiling face above floor level.
They had emerged into a basement. Less than a minute later, everyone had scrambled up a flight of wooden stairs and into the vacant warehouse, where they were grinning at each other in relief.
A metal gate could be viewed through the glass of the front door, making that exit unfeasible. Everyone stared across the street at the flaming building they had just escaped from and realized how lucky they were to be alive.
Joe led everyone to the rear, and with one mighty kick, Big Ralphie opened a small door. The group piled out into the trash-strewn parking lot under the light of a full moon.
Joe smiled at Sammy. “Way to go, kid. We’d be toast if not for you.”
Sophia spun Sammy around, leaned against him, and raised her head to kiss him. “My hero.”
Sammy took her in his arms, but the kiss lasted just a second, as everyone looked up at the man standing halfway down the metal fire escape. The man was laughing, had a long rifle slung over his back, and was pointing an AR-15 at them.
“Vance,” Pullo spat out.
Vance pointed at them. “Everyone take out the guns nice and slow and place them at your feet.”
The men complied, and as they did so, Sophia eased her hand inside her purse.
Vance clucked his tongue at her. “Sophia Verona, it’s so nice to finally meet you. Now drop the purse or I’ll blow your head off.”
Sophia let go of the purse and it hit the ground between her and Sammy just as a shot went off. For an instant, Sophia thought her gun had somehow fired from its impact with the pavement. That thought fled from her mind as Vance let out a cry of pain, bent over in agony, and tumbled off the fire escape.
That’s when the figure in black appeared. He was holding a gun at arm’s length and walked over to stand above Vance. Vance stared up at the man who’d shot him and knew he was about to die.
“Hello, Vance. I was wondering who fired that shot from the rooftop.”
“Tanner? But I heard you were—”
“Goodbye, Vance.”
The shot that followed was nearly drowned out by the blaring sounds coming from two arriving fire trucks. Tanner holstered his gun as he walked over to join the group, noticed the sparkle of Laurel’s engagement ring, and then looked at Sophia, who was still in Sammy’s arms.
He sighed. “Whenever I go on vacation everything changes.”
Sophia went to him, and as they kissed, Sammy hung his head.
“Tanner?”
“Yeah, Joe?”
“Are you ready to get back to work, buddy?”
Tanner gazed over at Vance’s corpse.
“I’ve already started.”
BOOK 8
TWO FOR THE KILL – A TANNER NOVEL – BOOK 8
Tanner and Sammy go on a quest for revenge.
311
Bones
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
Tanner fired three silenced shots at the punk playing video games and watched him tumbl
e off the side of the bed and onto the floor.
The man’s two companions were in the living room at the end of the hall. They were oblivious to their friend’s death, because one of them was asleep with the aid of whiskey, and the other had his eyes closed while wearing headphones.
The man who was asleep died without ever waking, as Tanner jammed a knife past his ribs and into his heart. The eyes stayed closed, although the man shuddered, and seconds later, the body voided its bowels and bladder. The stench reached the man wearing the headphones. He whipped them off and looked about the room.
The man with the knife wound to the heart looked to be asleep, and what little blood seeped from the wound blended in with the maroon shirt he wore.
“Hey Yuri, wake up. Did you shit yourself? How much did you drink?”
“He can’t hear you; he’s dead.”
The words came from behind, and as they were spoken, the man felt the tip of a silencer press against the back of his head. The silencer was hot from its recent use; the punk felt the heat even though it was touching his hair. He was young like the others but wore a good suit.
“What do you want, money?”
“I want to know where Michael Krupin is,” Tanner said.
“I don’t know where he is. I swear.”
“Too bad for you.”
“Wait! I don’t know where the boss is, but I know where a guy named Bohdan Volkov can be found.”
“Why would I care about him?”
“You work for Joe Pullo?”
“I work for myself. Are you saying that Joe Pullo would care about this man, Volkov?”
“Hell yeah, my uncle says Pullo hates him.”
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Anton.”
“You’ve just made yourself useful, Anton.”
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 99