The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart

by Remington Kane

  421

  It’s A Blast

  Hakeem took position at the right side of the old shed that looked as if it would fall over if a hard breeze came along.

  The ground there was slightly elevated from the land the house sat on, so Hakeem settled onto his belly on the grass, then extended his rifle’s fold-down bipod for extra stability. He had been in position for nearly a minute when he saw Bennett, Simms, and Wilson enter the moonlit area in front of the house.

  He used the night vision scope to search for Tanner, but still didn’t spot him until he appeared at the edge of the trees. When he saw that Tanner had a rifle as well, he tensed up. He then became even more nervous when he realized he was no longer alone.

  After Alexa had left that morning, Tanner had cleared a path through the trees by removing dead leaves and anything else that would crunch underfoot. He used that path to move toward the house in a crouch. To his surprise, Bennett was talking to him. Actually, Bennett was looking up at the old, rusted flagpole in the yard as he spoke, because he had spotted one of the cameras perched up there.

  “My name is Bennett, Tanner. If you’re half the man I think you are, you’ll show yourself. As you can see, there’s three of us, but our guns are holstered. I’m here to offer you a deal from Alonso Alvarado. He says if you give him the woman, he’ll take the price off your head. The bitch killed his friend and so he wants her more than he wants you.”

  Only silence answered Bennett’s lies. He looked over at Simms, and Simms shrugged.

  “I guess he’s not here.”

  “Wrong,” Tanner said, as he stepped out of the trees to the left of the house. He was holding the long sniper rifle in both hands. It was pointed toward the men but held at waist level.

  Bennett smiled at him, and as Tanner watched, all three men moved slowly to their right, until they were several feet from where they had been standing.

  Tanner smiled back at Bennett, as he caught the repeated flash of reflected moonlight coming from the area by the shed.

  If Bennett’s man were the professional that Tanner assumed he’d be, he wouldn’t be broadcasting his position that way. It was Alexa. He was certain of it. It was her way of signaling that she had made her kill.

  “You moved to the right to get out of the line of fire, which would mean that your man with the rifle is out by that old shed in the field.”

  The smile left Bennett’s face and he turned his head to glance toward the shed, before looking back at Tanner.

  “If you know about Hakeem… then why did you show yourself?”

  “Because Hakeem is dead,” Tanner said. “The woman killed him.”

  “Bullshit!” Bennett said, and he raised a fist in the air to signal Hakeem to fire.

  The first round passed only inches from Tanner’s head. He actually saw it. It was a mangled piece of metal that tumbled end over end.

  The round had entered Simms’ back, took a wicked ricochet off two ribs, and exited below Simms’ breastbone with most of its force spent.

  Before Bennett knew what was happening, Wilson was down as well, as the second round all but decapitated him.

  Bennett dove for cover, but Tanner brought his rifle up and took a shot without aiming through the scope. He hit Bennett while the man was still in midair. Bennett slammed into the ground like a loose sack of grain. Tanner’s round had hit home and had entered Bennett’s chest near its center.

  Tanner walked over and stared down at him. “Who do you really work for?”

  Bennett didn’t answer; he rolled over onto his stomach and spat up blood. That’s when Tanner saw that his shot had exited out of Bennett’s back and left a ragged hole. The man was done for.

  Bennett moaned, but his hands were busy beneath him, and Tanner wondered if the man had a hidden weapon. Tanner pushed him onto his back and saw that Bennett was smiling. He then noticed the grenade pin in Bennett’s hand, as moonlight shone on it.

  Tanner dived behind a nearby oak tree just as the grenade went off.

  The pain was instant, agonizing, and it was coming from his left calf. When Tanner looked down, he saw something sticking out of his pant leg that looked like a giant splinter.

  “Tanner!” Alexa called.

  She was running across the field while carrying Hakeem’s sniper rifle. When she came to what was left of Steve Bennett, she had to pause to fight back the bile threatening to rise in her throat. When she spotted Tanner behind the tree, she set down the rifle and ran to him.

  Tanner was sitting up and carefully tearing away the fabric around his calf. When the wound was revealed, he saw that it was part of the tree embedded in the muscle of his lower left leg, with the bark side facing down. When he placed his hand on the dagger-like chunk of wood, Alexa stopped him from pulling it free.

  “Don’t! Not here. We’ll remove it in the van where I can treat the wound, but can you walk?”

  Tanner stood and found that he limped, but the leg held his weight.

  After wincing from the pain, he sent Alexa a smile. “That was damn fine shooting, but I thought you said you were better with blades.”

  “I am better with blades, but I’m also a good shot. Now lean on me and tell me where you left the van.”

  “It’s through the trees on the left and parked near the stream.”

  They traveled back to the van slowly along the same path Tanner had taken on his way in. Tanner told Alexa to stand still before they left the cover of the trees, then he listened for any sounds that shouldn’t be there.

  There were none that he could discern, only the sound of the fast-flowing stream and the soft sound of traffic drifting in from the highway in the distance. Tanner nodded at Alexa, and they crossed over to the van. She had just opened the sliding side door for Tanner when both of them froze.

  Ariana rose from where she had been ducked out of sight in front of the van, even as Brick approached Tanner from behind. The big man had been concealed by the rear of the vehicle.

  Tanner saw the threat posed by Ariana, while Alexa had spotted Brick. Tanner was bringing his gun up to shoot Ariana when Brick grabbed him from behind, and as Alexa cocked her arm back to toss a knife at Brick, Ariana placed her gun against the back of Alexa’s head.

  “I’m Ariana O’Grady, Tanner, and tonight you’re going to die.”

  422

  Tanner, My Tanner

  One instant Tanner was bringing the rifle up to shoot Ariana, and the next thing he knew his arms were pinned to his sides and his feet were leaving the ground.

  He could only see Brick’s massive arms as they began squeezing the life out of him, and he felt the rifle fall from his hands, which were pinned to his sides.

  Alexa stood in front of him while holding a knife in a throwing position, but Ariana had a gun pressed to her head. Tanner struggled to break the grip holding him and found that it was useless. Whoever it was that had him, also had twice his strength. If he didn’t do something soon, the man would likely crush the life from him.

  Tanner kicked at the man, but his feet were finding only thigh. The man had his hip turned so that Tanner’s feet wouldn’t find his vulnerable crotch.

  Tanner moved his head forward and then slammed it backwards, hoping to break the man’s nose. Instead, his skull collided with Brick’s massive chin. Tanner was stunned from the impact, while the man holding him hadn’t even grunted.

  When the pain in his right ribs began, it cleared Tanner’s head. Brick was squeezing so hard that Tanner’s elbow was pressing into his ribs, and he felt as if a rib on the right was about to break from the pressure.

  And as the air was crushed from his lungs, Tanner knew he had to do something or die.

  Alexa stood frozen like a statue as she watched Tanner struggle in Brick’s arms.

  After Tanner tried the head butt that failed, she saw that it left him stunned, but then a look of intense pain crossed his face. Alexa moved her hand back farther in preparation to throw her knife at Brick’s face, but
the woman behind her, the one she could only see peripherally, pressed her weapon harder into the back of Alexa’s head. She then called out encouragement to her giant partner.

  “That’s it, Brick; crush the life out of the murderous bastard. Kill Tanner!”

  Tanner stretched his neck forward while also bending his left leg upward. When it was close enough, he bit down hard on the shank of wood still stuck in his leg and yanked it free.

  The pain in his leg was blinding and competed with the agony in his ribs, but Tanner stayed conscious, reared his head back, then jerked it to the left. The bloody pointed tip of the wood tore into Brick’s neck.

  Brick’s grip disappeared, and Tanner fell to the ground.

  Alexa heard Ariana whisper the word, “No,” as they both watched Tanner free the jagged splinter from his own leg and use it to spear Brick’s throat.

  Knowing that Ariana was distracted, Alexa ducked her head, then spun around and grabbed Ariana’s gun arm, while trying to get a better grip on the knife in her own hand. She had been holding the knife by its tip in preparation to throw it, but she needed to get a grip on its handle.

  Ariana saw what Alexa was doing and grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the knife. The women struggled for a second, then they stumbled backwards into Brick.

  Alexa managed to free her hand after the impact. She slashed out at Ariana and cut her face from right to left, ripping her open from lip to brow, even as Ariana and Brick tripped over Tanner, who was still down on one knee.

  The slashed and bleeding pair tumbled down the short hill leading to the stream and splashed into it only an instant apart. Ariana let out a scream as Brick bellowed, then the current carried them swiftly out of sight.

  Tanner grabbed his rifle from where it had fallen and used it like a crutch to help him stand, as Alexa came to him.

  “How badly are you hurt?”

  “He nearly broke a rib, but I think my leg is the bigger problem right now.”

  Alexa looked down at Tanner’s leg and saw that it was bleeding freely.

  The side door on the van was still sitting open, and she helped him inside. After handing him something to press against the wound, she climbed behind the wheel.

  “I’ll drive us somewhere else and then treat that leg, or do you think you need a doctor?”

  “You do it. If you can’t stop the bleeding, we’ll try an emergency room.”

  Alexa drove the van back behind the bowling alley, then went to work treating the wound. She had to clean the wound twice before stitching it closed, but she got the bleeding to stop.

  “You’ve had medical training?” Tanner asked.

  “No, but when you’ve trained with edged weapons as much as I have you learn to treat cuts.”

  Regardless of that, Alexa could do nothing about Tanner’s ribs. After checking to make certain that none had broken, she handed him a bottle of painkiller.

  Tanner read the label and frowned. “These will make me drowsy.”

  “Yes, but they’ll also kill the pain. Take them. I’ll drive us to the cabin and keep an eye out for any more trouble.”

  Tanner relented and took the pills. He would likely sleep anyway during the drive to the cabin, because he had barely slept the night before.

  “Tanner?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You tensed up right before that woman and her pet giant attacked us. Why was that, did you sense them at the last moment the way I did?”

  Tanner grinned. “No, Alexa, but I did smell Ariana’s perfume.”

  “Oh.”

  “I guess that sixth sense of yours comes in handy, hmm?”

  Alexa smiled. “It helped me to find you.”

  Tanner fell asleep on an air mattress an hour after taking the medicine, and Alexa drove while occasionally looking back at him in wonder.

  A Tanner, no, my Tanner.

  There had been an instant while Brick was attempting to crush the life from Tanner that Alexa had believed he would do it, that he would kill Tanner, and that the woman at her back pressing a gun against her head would pull the trigger and kill her.

  But then, Alexa had looked at Tanner’s face. She glimpsed pain there, but no panic or even a trace of fear. Tanner then turned the tables by never giving up and using his mind to find a way to win. That was the legend she had heard growing up.

  Rodrigo had always spoken of his Tanner, Tanner Five, as if he were more than a man, and she had thrilled when he told her stories about the things he had seen the man do. Those stories had inspired her in her quest to kill Alonso Alvarado, although deep in her heart, she knew there lurked doubt that she would ever be able to do it.

  Alvarado lived in a virtual fortress, was protected by a personal army, and had the wealth and resources to survive any attack and vanquish any foe.

  Alexa grinned. Almost any foe.

  Alvarado would not survive this Tanner, her Tanner, and together she and Tanner would have their revenge.

  She gazed back at Tanner’s sleeping form once more while stopped at a traffic light. He was injured, but he would heal soon, then they would travel to Mexico and kill Alvarado. And after that?

  Alexa smiled. After that would come pleasure, there would be peace, and perhaps, just perhaps, there might be love.

  Alexa drove on into the night toward the cabin. For the first time in many months, her thoughts were about something other than gaining revenge.

  423

  Two

  Amy breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the shower turn on.

  She had spent the last few hours covertly looking around the cabin for the drawing of Alexa she’d had earlier. After she couldn’t find it anywhere, she realized she must have left it inside the other cabin.

  She thought about telling Spenser about her mistake, but he was wary enough about bringing her along. If she admitted to leaving the flyer behind after they searched the cabin, he might insist that she head back to Wyoming.

  She chastised herself again for having been so careless, and as Spenser took his shower, she snuck out the front door and headed over to the cabin Alexa had rented. Amy knew she had to hurry, because Tanner and Alexa could come at any time, and Spenser wouldn’t be in the shower forever.

  She entered the cabin through the unlocked rear door and used her phone like a flashlight to look around. She had been searching for over a minute and was becoming frustrated when she remembered where she must have left the flyer. Amy entered the bedroom, opened the closet door, and jumped when the closet light came on automatically.

  Alexa stopped the van out on the road and was blocking the lane that led to the three cabins. She had seen a light come on in their cabin and knew that someone was lurking around inside. Alexa cut off the headlights, moved the van very slowly, and reached for a knife.

  Amy smiled as she spotted the flyer sitting on the closet shelf. She had laid it there when she went through the duffel bag that Alexa had left on the closet floor, then had forgotten to take it with her.

  She closed the door, and then once again, she used her phone to navigate the darkness. She left by the back door, moved toward the front of her own cabin, and saw Alexa’s van.

  Amy panicked and ran for her front door as Alexa slammed on her brakes.

  Alexa threw the van in park and called out, “Tanner, wake up!” She didn’t wait to see if he’d heard her, she had her eyes on Amy.

  Amy was inside her own cabin and closing the door when Alexa smashed into it, causing Amy to scream as she fell backwards.

  Alexa was on her in an instant, and Amy struggled until Alexa placed a knife to her throat while holding her from behind. She was about to ask her who else was in the cabin when a bearded man wearing only an eye patch and a towel came from a room down the short hallway.

  Other than the eye patch and the towel, Alexa noticed two other things about the man. He was in superb condition, and he was holding a gun and pointing it right at her.

  The man had just walked past the op
en doorway when Tanner appeared. Alexa felt Amy inhale to speak, to warn the one-eyed man, and she clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her words.

  Spenser had just dried himself off and was wrapping a towel around his waist when he heard Amy scream. He scooped his gun off the bedside table and found that Alexa and Amy were on the floor in the living room, and that Alexa was threatening Amy with a knife.

  When Amy opened her mouth to speak, Alexa clamped a hand over her lips, but then Amy’s eyes grew large with alarm as she stared at something behind him.

  Spenser realized that Amy was trying to warn him. This thought was instantly confirmed when Amy kicked her foot out to change the angle on the flat-screen TV, and with his good eye, Spenser saw Tanner reflected in its blank surface.

  Alexa watched Tanner enter the room and wondered just how drowsy the pain pills had made him. He was limping into the cabin but had kept his gun in the holster on his belt. She was about to shout to him to defend himself, but she was too late, and the man with the eye patch turned toward him swiftly. However, even as the man did so, he lowered his gun. Then, to Alexa’s shock, Tanner and the man shook hands warmly amid huge grins.

  Tanner raised up a hand and spoke to Alexa. “Let her go. She’s on our side.”

  Alexa blinked rapidly. “What?”

  “It’s all right, Alexa; they’re friends.”

  Alexa released Amy and the two women got to their feet. Spenser took Amy by the hand and pulled her over to be near him.

  “What happened, Amy?”

  Amy pointed to the drawing of Alexa. It had fallen to the floor while they had struggled.