“What’s that?” Martinez asked.
“Um, the lady, don’t hurt her, okay?”
“Sure kid, whatever you say, but if you don’t make that call, men will be sent to hunt you down and kill you.”
“I’ll call, but first I see the money.”
“You’ll see it,” Martinez said, then the call ended, and he looked over at Alvarado. “Once we have the woman and the old men, Tanner’s fate will be sealed. If you don’t kill him, his companions will trade him to get back their loved ones.”
Alvarado smiled. He could almost smell Tanner’s blood.
Part III
Sleight Of Hand
28
Love Lost, Money Gained
The following morning, the sun rose bright and hot on a new day, and for some it would be their last.
Tanner thought it best for the Tin Horsemen to fly back home before the assault on the compound, but he had thanked them for their help.
“You boys are more useful than I would have thought, but why don’t you give up trying to be tough guys. It doesn’t suit you.”
Scar nodded at that. “I think you’re right, but we did have fun helping Amy.”
Everyone told the boys goodbye, and Amy hugged each of them. When she reached Abrasion, she added a peck on the cheek.
“Have a good flight, Lionel.”
“I will, and Amy?”
“Yes?”
Abrasion sighed. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
The boys left for the airport, and Tanner, Alexa, and Spenser prepared themselves to assault the compound.
Inside an apartment in Mexico City, Dante was holding a gun on a man named Julio. The man was the regular driver of the delivery truck that supplied Alvarado’s compound. Two of Dante’s men held Julio’s wife by her arms, as Dante explained to the young man what he needed him to do.
Julio had looked angry, but that soon morphed into fear, and when he realized that Dante was asking him to cross Alonso Alvarado, he became terrified, and a tear escaped.
“Sir, this man Alvarado, he will kill me; he will kill us all.”
Dante sent Julio a smile that looked much more confident than he felt. “Alonso Alvarado will die. You do everything I ask of you and your wife will be returned to you unharmed. Do you understand? Alvarado can’t save you or your wife, only I can.” Dante gestured to one of his men. “This man will drive you to work. Once you’re in your truck and have left the depot you will meet him at a warehouse where you will take on a pallet. From that point on you will do what you normally do, and that means that you will make it to Alvarado’s compound by noon. Try to run or call the police and you’ll never see your wife again, understood?”
Julio looked like he might vomit, but after swallowing several times, he answered.
“I understand, and I’ll do anything to get my wife back. Do not hurt her.”
Dante looked at one of his men. “Take him to work, and after the truck is loaded, come to the place I told you.”
“This is going to work, isn’t it Dante?” the man asked.
“I would bet my life on it,” Dante said. “And in fact, I have.”
Sometime later, at the Mexico City Airport, Abrasion checked to see if Alvarado had sent the money. He had, and Abrasion made a call.
Martinez answered before the first ring had finished sounding off. “You got your money, now, where are they?”
Abrasion gave him the address of the motel, hung up the phone, and went to get on his flight.
29
Special Delivery
When it was time for Tanner, Spenser, and Alexa to separate from Amy, Rodrigo, and Emilio, all six of them knew that there was a chance they would never see each other again.
Realizing a sad fact and giving in to it were two separate things, and Tanner, Spenser, and Alexa spoke with confidence when they said that they would all reunite.
Tanner stood by as Alexa hugged Rodrigo and Emilio, and Spenser held Amy in a warm embrace, but then it was time to leave, and the three of them left the motel.
With the assault on the compound only hours away, Dante had removed most of the guards. The two men that remained at the motel looked to be asleep, as they sat propped up under a tree with their hats pulled down over their faces, and several beer cans were scattered about.
The men Alvarado sent to grab Amy, Rodrigo, and Emilio, shot the two guards over a dozen times each with silenced weapons, and then strolled past the bodies.
When they broke down the door where the sound of a TV was playing, they saw the frightened woman and two old men, and smiled, for they had just earned the bonus they’d been promised.
When Alvarado, a man who once loved to talk in chess phrases, learned that he had Spenser and Alexa’s loved ones, he said three words.
“Checkmate grows near.”
Dante’s man stood beside the truck driver, Julio, as they watched the phony pallet being loaded onto the tractor-trailer. At Dante’s orders, his men had removed six wrapped skids that had been stacked high with cases of bottled water, fruit juice, and beer. The discarded pallets sat at the left side of the warehouse.
Julio’s eyes had widened in surprise when he saw the two men and the beautiful woman climb inside the hidden opening of the wrapped skid of hollow cartons, and once again, he wondered what madness he had been dragged into.
When the stowaways were on the truck and the back door sealed, Julio climbed into his cab and headed for the compound, a religious man, he prayed as he never had before.
30
So Far, So Good
“Get on your knees,” Alvarado said, as he glared at Amy, Rodrigo, and Emilio, who had their hands cuffed behind their backs.
The guards pressed down on their shoulders and forced them to do what was commanded. Emilio, his blindness hidden behind dark glasses, nearly fell forward, but he steadied himself and went down to his knees.
Amy was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, while both Rodrigo and Emilio wore dark suits with white shirts and no ties.
Like many older men, their clothes appeared to be too big for them, something that often happened when age began to wrinkle the flesh and muscle mass diminished. It caused both men to look soft beneath the loose garments.
Malena stood beside her husband and glared at the captives before her, as a triumphant smile sat on her lips.
Amy was staring up at her, while Emilio, blinded, stared straight ahead, and Rodrigo kept his head bowed with his gray-streaked hair hanging down and obscuring his eyes. They were in the courtyard, near the fountain, and the hot sun beat upon them as midday approached.
Alvarado was on his crutches, but he bent over as far as he could and spoke in a voice filled with hate.
“I know all about Tanner’s pathetic plan to infiltrate my compound, and I will use the three of you as a weapon against him.”
Amy stared up at Alvarado as a tear rolled down her right cheek. Malena saw in her gaze a look of defiance mixed with hate. She walked over to Amy and wrapped a hand around her throat.
“You are the lover of the man who crippled my husband, yes? Then know this, the pain your man caused mine is but a fraction of the agony your man will experience. And someday, I’ll come for you as well, just for the hell of it.”
Amy said nothing, but the look of defiance faded. It wasn’t replaced by fear as Malena had hoped it would be, but rather by concern.
Malena released her, and Alvarado shouted an order to the guards.
“Lock them up!”
As Amy, Rodrigo, and Emilio were being herded away by the guards, Alvarado checked his watch.
“The truck will be here soon.”
Malena kissed her husband on the lips. “We will have vengeance.”
Although most infractions of the rules within the compound carried a sentence of death, there were a few minor regulations that when broken only resulted in incarceration for a few days.
Those sentences were served in a cell that had a dirt flo
or two meters square along with a ceiling that was just over six-feet high. The place smelled of feces, urine, and vomit, and underscoring it all was the faint scent of death.
The cell was located near the barracks, and the sun beat down on its metal roof all day. The guards jammed Amy, Rodrigo, and Emilio into the tight space, even as one of them copped a feel of Amy’s ass.
When the door slammed shut, the cell became nearly devoid of light, but there was a crack in one of the brick walls, and a thin sliver of daylight illuminated Amy’s face.
She smiled as she looked at Rodrigo. “Spenser’s plan is working.”
31
Turning Tables
Julio, the young truck driver, was sweating buckets. If not for the love he felt for his wife, he would have abandoned the truck on the side of the road and run off through the desert.
The worst part was that he felt responsible for what was happening. He knew who Alvarado was, knew that the man was a merciless drug lord, a Narco kingpin, but he had volunteered to make the deliveries to the compound every Friday because it paid extra.
There wasn’t enough money in the world to replace his sweet wife. If he got out of this mess alive, he promised himself that he would never let money sway his decisions again.
When the compound came into view, he felt his stomach flip at the sight of it. Also, something had happened recently that had caused them to change the configuration of the entry gate. There were also hordes of men camped outside the walls, and as far as Julio could tell, they all held weapons of one kind or another.
Julio thought the man named Dante must be insane to think that two men and a woman could overcome the odds, but he could plainly see the plan. They hoped to get inside the compound, where there were far fewer men, and then they would strike. It was a wiser move than facing the multitude outside the walls, but there must still be a dozen or more men in the compound, and first, one had to get through both the outer and inner gates.
Inside the compound, another young man was sweating from nervousness. It was Joaquin, Dante’s friend. He had been busy since learning that an attack was coming and had gained two new allies among Alvarado’s men.
Both men were from the local towns and were enraged by the murder of the prostitutes who had been present on the night that Alexa had breached the compound. They were not alone in their feelings, as an undercurrent of hate for Alvarado had been spawned by that heartless act, but the two men were the only ones that Joaquin was willing to trust.
When the attack began, Joaquin and the other two men would be ready to give aid, and if successful, he would signal Dante.
Joaquin heard a shout. One of the tower guards had spotted a vehicle approaching, and the vehicle was a truck.
It’s time, Joaquin thought, and then he kissed the silver cross that hung from his neck and prepared himself to kill.
Alvarado and Malena watched the truck approach. They were seated in the rear of a large golf cart that was parked near the inner gate. They couldn’t see anything outside the walls with the naked eye, but they were each looking at a computer tablet that was receiving a feed from the cameras outside the front gates.
Martinez had driven the golf cart, and he too was watching on a tablet from behind the wheel.
“Finally,” he said, hopeful that in mere hours he would be free to leave the compound.
The truck slowed as it approached the first gate leading into the compound, the outer gate, then slowed even faster, as a pickup truck drove in front of it and forced it to stop a dozen yards from the gate.
The man inside the pickup fired several rounds into the front tires of the delivery truck, while also perforating its radiator.
In the truck, Julio dived to the floor of the cab, as his heart beat wildly.
Inside the compound, Alvarado spoke to two of the three guards who were standing near him.
“Bring the hostages here.”
Both men answered with a single nod and headed toward the cell.
“Why do you want them?” Malena asked.
“I don’t see how Tanner could possibly make it past the gates, but if he does, I’ll use the hostages to bargain with. If nothing else, they’ll make a handy shield.”
On the monitor, the guard from the pickup truck approached the big rig and, after ripping open the door, he screamed at the driver to get out of the cab. Julio complied, and the guard shoved him toward a second guard who had just arrived at the truck with two other men.
One of the men held a thermal imager, while the other held an augmented directional microphone. As the two aimed their instruments at the truck, a group of nearly two dozen men approached the truck’s rear.
They were all armed and wearing heavy body armor and bullet resistant helmets, and each looked as if they were expecting the truck to be filled with live tigers.
The man with the thermal imager appeared stymied by what he was seeing, and he reported that because the inside temperature of the truck was so high due to the day’s heat, that he couldn’t distinguish any forms from the ambient air.
However, the second man, the man with the microphone confirmed that he was hearing three heartbeats.
“They’re calm, all three of them,” said the man. “A nice steady rhythm.”
Alvarado heard the man’s words and made a face. “The devil doesn’t feel fear, but I’m sure he feels pain, use the gas.”
On screen, two men forced open the rear doors of the trailer while another man lobbed tear gas inside. After the doors were shut again, the man with the directional microphone spoke.
“Their heartrates have risen, and I can hear coughing.”
Alvarado gave the order to enter the trailer and drag them out.
The two guards sent to get Amy, Rodrigo, and Emilio didn’t even bother to take out their guns before opening the door on the cell. Their captives were an unarmed woman and two old men, one of which was blind, and all three of them had their hands cuffed behind their backs.
Once the door opened, their captive’s eyes blinked at the sudden light, that is, those eyes that could still see.
“Come out,” said one of the guards.
Amy went first. As she came even with the guards, Emilio refused to budge and began cursing at them. He was joined by Rodrigo.
As they were getting the guards attention, Amy slipped behind the men, and in a flash of movement, she jammed a thin round blade into each man’s back, while aiming for their kidneys.
Both guards cried out in agony. One man took a swing at Amy, who ducked beneath it, as the other man put his hand on his weapon. Before he could slide the gun from its holster, Rodrigo grabbed his wrist, and at the same time, he drove the palm of his hand at the man’s face on an upward angle, breaking the guard’s nose.
Amy still held the short thin knives. She sliced a line across the man’s throat and ended the movement by jamming one of the blades into his Adam’s apple. The guard collapsed to his knees with both hands to his throat, and Rodrigo took his weapon.
While that was going on, Emilio was on the ground with the other guard, and he had the man in a choke hold. With one hand, the man was clawing at the sleeve of Emilio’s suit jacket in an attempt to break the hold, while with his other hand, he tried to free his weapon from the holster, but Emilio had a leg wrapped around the man’s waist, preventing him from grabbing the gun.
After an audible, SNAP! the man went limp, and Emilio flung him aside. When he stood, he looked down at the other guard just in time to see him take his last breath, as he lay on the ground with a gashed and bloody throat.
Emilio took hold of something that was hanging around his neck, beneath his shirt. After lowering his head and removing the dark glasses, he slid an eye patch up into place.
Emilio was actually Spenser. He was wearing makeup along with stipple latex to make his face and hands look wrinkled and darker, while his hair and beard were dyed white. Rodrigo, who was Tanner, was similarly made up.
Amy was Alexa, and whil
e she hadn’t any need to look older, she wore makeup on her arms, face, neck, and hands, to pass as Caucasian. A pair of blue contact lenses completed her look.
The real Amy, a former professional makeup artist, had practiced on getting their disguises just right while they were still in Wyoming. She was able to apply the makeup in a matter of hours before leaving with Rodrigo and Emilio to a secure location that morning.
Expecting to be taken hostage, Tanner, Spenser, and Alexa had hidden handcuff keys on themselves. They used the one from inside the hollow heel of Alexa’s shoe to get free of the cuffs.
The two thin blades were from “Emilio’s” dark eyeglasses. They were clipped to the inside of the glasses’ frame, along the arms.
The blades were the length of the arms, while the curved earpieces were the small handles. Although they were only a few inches long, the knives were rigid and razor sharp.
The men killed at the motel, and who were believed to be guards, had actually been two of Alvarado’s own people. They were survivors from the raid on the underground vault. Dante had drugged the men and placed them beneath the tree.
Abrasion’s seeming betrayal was also part of Spenser’s plan. Dante had originally been chosen to play the part of the betrayer. However, Spenser later realized the opportunity for gain from the charade and thought that the Tin Horsemen should profit for all the help they had given, and Abrasion had played the part well.
Alvarado was a man who liked to use his enemies’ loved ones as weapons against them. Spenser turned that sick trait back against him. It would soon be the man’s downfall.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 147