“Oh, too bad, I was going to ask you if you’d have dinner with me tonight.”
“I might have,” Alexa said. “But I should keep moving.”
“To find the man you asked about?”
“Yes.”
“It’s really important to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
The clerk handed her back her credit card. After a moment’s hesitation, he shrugged and gave Alexa more information.
“He checked in under the name of Clay Drake, and I saw him driving a black Ford, a newer model.”
Alexa gestured for the man to lean forward, when he did so; she kissed him on the cheek.
“Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome, and if you pass through here again, come find me and we’ll have that dinner.”
“I will.”
Alexa left the office and headed for her van. If Tanner had come this far west then he wasn’t headed south anymore, which meant she was on the right track. She mentally chastised herself for ever doubting her instincts. When she got back on the highway, she continued to head northwest, toward Oklahoma.
395
Rag Doll
In Georgia, Ariana O’Grady was in the parking lot of a diner, talking to the waitress who had spotted Tanner days earlier.
The woman had called in her brother and his friends to come and attack Tanner, in hopes of claiming the bounty on his head. Tanner had killed the woman’s brother and seriously wounded one of her friends.
Ariana had expected that the woman would want to help her find Tanner, but the waitress, a young redheaded woman named Violet, had only one thing on her mind.
“I’ll tell you what you want to know if you pay me ten grand.”
Ariana blinked in surprise. She was twenty-seven, with dark hair, a fair figure, and a pretty face, but was usually scowling about one thing or another.
She and her late father, Hank O’Grady, had had their differences of opinion over the years, but she loved her father. When Tanner killed him, she began hunting the hit man to exact revenge.
In truth, Ariana wasn’t after Tanner because she was convinced he had killed her father, but more because it gave her something to do. Before Tanner, there had been her involvement in the war on drugs, prior to that, she championed environmental causes, and while still in college, she attempted to “Save the Whales!”
Ariana hadn’t really cared about any of the causes, but they kept her occupied and gave her a reason to get up in the morning. They had also helped her annoy her late father, an activity she enjoyed greatly when she was younger.
Ariana was one of those people who have never wanted for anything materially, and because of it, because of the ease of her life, she felt empty inside and needed something external to fill the void. Tanner was that something at the moment. Chasing after the man was a lot more fun than marching for hours while holding a picket sign.
“Violet, Tanner killed your brother and you want money to help find him?”
“I’m not an idiot, lady. The dude is worth a million dollars. All I want is ten grand for helping you to get him.”
Ariana was sitting in the passenger seat of Violet’s old car, as Violet was on her break. She turned from Violet and looked up at her companion, a man who went by the name Brick.
Brick actually looked like a brick. He was possibly seven feet tall and nearly as thick as he was wide, even his coloring brought to mind a brick, in that, he was a full-blooded American Indian, a Comanche. He stood by Violet’s subcompact car instead of sitting, because his thick frame was too big to fit inside.
Ariana had previously employed four men to help her as she searched for Tanner; the four were mercenaries who came highly recommended. While at a bar in Manhattan, one of the men made a pass at the woman Brick was with at the time, Brick took offense, the other three men joined the fight, and when it was over, only Brick was left standing.
Upon learning this when she went to bail her men out, Ariana left them to rot and bailed out Brick instead.
“Do you believe this stupid bitch, Brick? Tanner kills her brother and all she can think about is money.”
Brick gave a nod; he rarely talked.
“Who are you calling a stupid bitch?” Violet said. “And you’re damn right I want money. I need it to bury my brother. And you got money, hell yeah you do, shit, that Gucci purse of yours cost thousands by itself.”
Ariana leaned closer to Violet. “Tell me what I want to know now, or you will be one sorry piece of white trash.”
Violet reached across Ariana and opened the passenger door. “Get out of my car!”
Ariana looked at Violet with a set of cold eyes, but she rose from the car and walked toward her own vehicle, a black Lexus LX.
“We’re leaving, Brick.”
Brick followed her; his long raven hair was loose and hung halfway down his broad back.
“Don’t come back either,” Violet said.
Later that night, Violet stepped out the back door while carrying two trash bags, as she headed for the dumpster at the side of the diner. She never made it there. Two large hands took hold of her and lifted her off the ground.
Brick was holding Violet aloft as if she were a child. One hand was clamped over her mouth and the other was around her neck.
Violet began to panic, but when a sharp pain ran down her spine, she stopped her struggling, fearing that she would hurt herself. She was scared, and wondered if she were about to be raped, but when she saw Ariana come walking toward her from the parking lot with a smug look lighting her face, rage flashed in Violet’s eyes.
“Are you ready to talk now?” Ariana asked.
Brick moved his hand away from Violet’s mouth and Violet used the opportunity to spit in Ariana’s face.
“Fuck you, lady, you and your Indian ape. I ain’t never telling you shit for free. And after this, I want fifty-thousand.”
Ariana wiped the spittle from her cheek as she stared at Violet in amazement. She thought the girl would be terrified, but no, she was too stupid to be scared. And more than that, she would report the incident to the police.
“Shut her up, Brick.”
Brick’s hand went over Violet’s mouth again.
Ariana stared at Brick with eyes full of indecision. “The dumb bitch will report this as an assault… I don’t know what to do.”
“Pay,” Brick said.
Ariana sneered at Violet. “I wouldn’t give this thing a dime if she were starving.”
Brick smiled without showing his teeth, then he moved his giant hand up higher on Violet’s face until he was covering her nose along with her mouth, and thus, cutting off her air supply.
Ariana opened her mouth in surprise, then watched in fascination as Violet struggled in Brick’s grip. The struggle to breathe became frantic, and when Violet tried to swing a leg backwards to kick Brick in the balls, something in her neck snapped audibly, and she went limp.
Brick held Violet off the ground easily while using only one hand, the hand that was around her neck.
Ariana saw Violet’s head flop over to the left. When she searched the woman’s eyes, she saw only a blank stare looking back at her.
She pointed and laughed. “Holy crap. The dumb bitch broke her own neck.”
Brick opened his hand wide and Violet’s body fell to the ground, where it lay beside the bags of garbage she had brought outside with her.
Ariana stared down at Violet. Violet’s red hair was arranged in twin ponytails and her freckled face had a button nose.
“When I was a kid, I had a rag doll that looked just like her.”
“Me too,” Brick said.
Ariana looked up at him with her head tilted slightly, not sure if he was joking or not. She then shrugged.
“We’ll find Tanner some other way.”
Brick grunted in agreement, then they were back in Ariana’s SUV and leaving the scene.
396
Survival
Like Arian
a O’Grady, Alonso Alvarado also believed that the violence in Georgia was committed by Tanner. It appeared that Tanner was headed in his direction.
Alvarado was finished with underestimating Tanner. That ended when he realized Tanner was Cody Parker. He had shot an already seriously wounded Cody Parker square in the chest and left him lying on the ground bleeding to death.
On top of all that, the boy was alone and just feet away from his burning house. How Parker survived Alvarado had no idea. He assumed it meant Parker had been helped by someone, in the same way he himself had been saved by his brother-in-law, the recently murdered Carlos Ayala.
As Alvarado thought of the past, he recalled the night he had been attacked, and remembered how his brother-in-law had risked his own life to save him.
MATAMOROS, MEXICO, OCTOBER 1997
After regaining consciousness, Carlos Ayala rolled over onto his back and felt the edge of his damaged computer dig into his shoulder, but that was not the only source of his pain.
He had bashed his forehead on a stair after having been shot by the intruder dressed in black, and there was a wound on his left side from a bullet. The round had ricocheted off an internal metal component of the computer monitor he had been carrying. Had the shot gone straight through, he would be dead.
Carlos sat up on the landing that led to the second floor. He moaned from both the pain in his side and the sight of his damaged computer. There was also a distressing amount of blood.
The sound of a single shot came from upstairs and Carlos’ breath caught in his throat. He wondered if the intruder had just killed his friend and brother-in-law, Alonso Alvarado.
Carlos made it to his feet with a great effort and looked down on the dead guards lying together near the open door that led out to the courtyard.
He could leave through that door and find a safe place to hide until the intruder left, but although he wasn’t a brave man, neither was he an abject coward.
Carlos went up the stairs as quickly as he could. His head hurt and his side was burning where the bullet had sliced him open, but fear helped to fight the pain, and he knew he had to aid Alonso if he were able.
The sight of three more dead guards lying outside an open bedroom doorway made Carlos’ gasp, but then he heard the voices coming from beyond the closed doors of Alonso’s room at the end of the hall. Although both voices were speaking Spanish, Carlos detected an American accent in the intruder’s voice.
Carlos was standing in the hall and gazing down at the dead guards when he heard a sound come from the doors leading to Alonso’s bedroom. They were being opened; if he didn’t hide, the American would know he still lived.
Carlos ducked into the open bedroom doorway just as the left-hand door leading to Alonso’s room opened. A few seconds later, he watched as a naked woman ran by, crying, and with her clothes in her arms. It was the whore Alonso had been with, apparently, the American had let her live.
The girl flew down the stairs as the voices resumed inside Alonso’s bedroom. There would be more men coming, Carlos had called for them himself, but they would need time to get there. Alonso was trying to buy that time, Carlos realized, as he heard Alonso talking to the assassin casually.
While that was happening, Carlos reached over to the bed and grabbed a pillow. He then slid the pillowcase off and held it to his bleeding side, to put pressure on the wound.
Things must have become violent suddenly, because Carlos heard Alonso screaming in pain as the sounds of a struggle reached him where he hid in the darkness.
Then, the American was speaking again, but Carlos couldn’t make out the words. He then smiled as he heard Alonso, and although the voice sounded weak and strained, he was alive to speak.
Seconds later, the American rushed past the doorway and headed down the stairs.
Carlos had just stepped back into the hall to go to Alonso when he heard the American change course and come back up the steps.
He must have realized that Carlos’ was missing. Carlos looked down at one of the guard’s fallen weapons and told his hand to reach for it, to pick it up and kill the American. He could not do it. He wasn’t a fighter; he was a thinker, an accountant, a man of numbers.
When the footsteps resumed, Carlos realized with a sense of great joy that they were receding and going downstairs, not back up to where he stood terrified, wounded, and unarmed.
He rushed down the hall with the pillowcase clamped to his side and found Alonso lying on his bedroom floor, broken and bleeding.
“Oh my God, Alonso, what did that devil do to you?”
Alonso could barely speak through his broken jaw and his elbows and knees had been shattered by blows. Carlos marveled that the man was still conscious given the pain he must be experiencing, but Alonso Alvarado had always been tougher than most men.
“Help… me… to… stand…” Alonso mumbled.
Carlos got down on the floor. He had just slid an arm beneath Alonso’s back when they both heard the footsteps on the stairs. When the footsteps halted, Alonso told Carlos to hide, Carlos did so, by crawling under the bed, an act that made his wound scream. Seconds later, the American ran back into the room.
The man was doing something with a metal can that was making it squeak. Carlos recognized the sound, and his eyes grew large with horror. It was the sound a can of lighter fluid made when you squeezed it. Carlos wondered if the American madman was about to set Alonso on fire.
That was when the man shouted Alonso’s nickname while wishing him a hideous fate. The words were spoken with such vehemence and hatred that it made Carlos shiver.
“Burn in hell, Martillo!”
Carlos shut his eyes. He couldn’t bear to see his friend burn to death. However, when he heard no screams, he opened his eyes and saw that Alonso looked the same.
An instant later, he realized it was the bed above himself that had been set ablaze, and the room was already filling with smoke.
Fearing he would burn as well, Carlos scrambled out from beneath the bed, as he did so, he saw the American sprint onto the balcony and leap out into the night, to fall into the pool below.
Alonso Alvarado looked afraid for the first time that Carlos could ever recall, and he stared up at him with pleading eyes.
“Don’t… leave… me…”
Carlos bit back his fear and reached out to help Alonso. “We are family; of course I won’t leave you.”
Carlos managed to drag Alonso onto the balcony. By the time he shut the doors on the room, the bedroom was fully ablaze, and smoke rushed from it through a shattered pane of glass in one of the balcony doors.
With strength he hadn’t known he possessed, Carlos lifted Alonso up and into his arms. After that, he stepped on a patio chair. The pain in his side increased so dramatically that he nearly passed out, but he kept going and stepped up upon the marble balustrade. After closing his eyes, he leapt as far as he could and landed in the pool.
Both he and Alonso were lying at the bottom of the pool when their men pulled them out of it. After receiving CPR, Alonso was revived. Carlos crawled over to him, and Alonso thanked him silently with his eyes.
The ambulance came just after the fire trucks arrived, and Alonso was loaded aboard. But before climbing on himself, Carlos spoke to Alonso’s chief man, who had just returned from a night in town.
“Has the intruder been caught?”
“No, but we will keep looking.”
“Call Hector Mercoto and tell him that Alonso has been gravely wounded, as the head of the cartel he will want to know immediately.”
“I’ve already called Hector, and he will be here very soon.”
“Good, and you have things under control here?”
Damián Sandoval smiled at Carlos. “Do not worry; I will take care of everything.”
Carlos left the estate inside the ambulance, not knowing that he would never step on its grounds again.
In a brazen act that became a legend, Damián Sandoval used the opportunity of t
he attack on Alonso Alvarado to stage a coup. When Hector Mercoto arrived to see the damage for himself, Sandoval killed the man, and the Mercoto Cartel became the Sandoval Cartel.
Thus, when Alonso Alvarado awakened from his multiple surgeries, he had been not only a gravely injured man and a near cripple, but also a man without power.
397
A Guarantee
Alvarado settled into his special chair as Robert Martinez from Hexalcorp was led into his office by one of the guards.
Martinez was fifty-two, an American, an ex-Marine, and a man who would do anything that he thought would further his rise up Hexalcorp’s ladder. He oversaw the expansion of the company’s business, and in the three years he had held the position, he had nearly doubled Hexalcorp’s client base.
He did this by offering Hexalcorp’s considerable corporate muscle to anyone who could pay. Most of that new business came from criminals and despots around the world. Hexalcorp’s leadership turned a blind eye toward the practice, but Martinez had been warned that all transactions had to be sanitized by being filtered through dummy corporations and third parties.
As long as Hexalcorp appeared spotless, Martinez was given a free hand. It was because of him that Hexalcorp was closing in on replacing the leader in their field.
The leader was Burke, the Burke Corporation, which held the name of its founder, Conrad Burke, a man who, unbeknownst to Martinez and Alvarado, was an acquaintance of the assassin they now hunted, Tanner.
Malena Alvarado was seated near her husband; she eyed Martinez with an intense gaze. Both she and her husband looked angry and had recently suffered the loss of their son, and also Malena’s brother. Martinez knew that if he could deliver Tanner to them, he would have a client for life.
“What is the status of your search for Tanner?” Alvarado asked, as Martinez sat across from him.
“I have a team in Texas just waiting to get a location on Tanner. If the man sticks his head up, they’ll chop it off.”
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 125