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

by Remington Kane

  Tanner checked the guard’s weapon, verified that it was loaded, and looked first at Alexa, and then Spenser.

  “Let’s go kill that motherfucker.”

  32

  Let The Right Ones In

  Four men wearing body armor entered the trailer with gas masks on and stun guns at the ready. Alvarado ordered that the captives be taken alive, and so the men carried no lethal weapons.

  The sound of coughing was coming from the first wrapped skid on the right, and it was shaking from the movement within it.

  Once they examined it, they saw how the phony skid of materials opened. After removing the top, they dragged their prisoners out of the truck and into fresh air. The two men and the woman were coughing violently from the teargas, but it was their appearance that startled everyone.

  “They’re Mexican, and not just the woman,” Malena said. “Alonso, what is going on?”

  Martinez looked closely at the image on his screen. The trio were coughing from the gas, yes, but their eyelids drooped as well.

  “I think they’ve been drugged,” Martinez said.

  One of the men outside said something to the man who was in communication with Alvarado, and he relayed it.

  “Jesús says that he knows these people. He said that they work for you.”

  Alvarado ordered that the camera zoom in closer, and when it did so, he cursed.

  “That woman, she works inside the underground vault counting money. Tanner must have kidnapped them when he destroyed the facility yesterday.”

  Malena looked uneasy, and she jumped when her husband gripped her wrist.

  “What is that on the side of your hand?” Alvarado asked her.

  Malena flipped her right hand over and looked. There was something there on the outside of her palm; it was light in color. When she touched it, it felt slippery, and yet powdery at the same time.

  “I think it’s makeup,” Malena said. “I must have gotten it on me when I grabbed the woman earlier.”

  Alvarado stared at her hand, and in a flash of insight he understood what had happened, and how he had been deceived, so monstrously deceived.

  He raised his hands and clamped them to his head as if he were about to pull his hair from its roots.

  “Two men and a woman, and like a fool I brought them inside the compound.”

  “What are you talking about, Alonso?”

  Alvarado ignored Malena’s question and shouted to a guard who was standing nearby. “Open the gates! Do it now, now!”

  The guard said, “Yes sir,” and headed toward the inner gate, as Alvarado poked Martinez hard in the ribs with one of his crutches.

  “Drive us back to the house, hurry!”

  Martinez looked flustered, and barely managed to start the golf cart before the first shot came.

  The bullet struck the guard who had been heading to open the gate. His blood sprayed so violently from the exit wound that some of it splattered Malena’s white silk blouse.

  The cart began moving as more shots rang out, Alvarado turned his head and saw the two guards standing near the gate go down.

  Assuming that the guards sent to bring the prisoners were dead, that meant that he had lost five of them, and there were less than a dozen more inside the compound.

  He had been concerned with keeping Tanner outside the walls, and so had constantly fortified the forces guarding the walls and the gates. Now, if those gates couldn’t be opened, all those men were locked outside and essentially useless.

  Alvarado jerked his head back around as a scream came from the left. He watched, horrified, as a tower guard plummeted to the ground. The wounded man landed with a sickening thud. The impact cracked the man’s head open and exposed his brains. His eyes looked toward Alvarado, eyes that were empty and dead.

  Malena grabbed Alvarado’s arm with an iron grip and spoke in a high voice that was laced with fear.

  “What is happening?”

  “Tanner,” Alvarado answered, “It’s Tanner.”

  After killing the guards outside their cell, Tanner, Spenser, and Alexa headed for the front gate.

  They had to keep it from opening or they would soon find themselves vastly outnumbered. Dante was in the area with his troop of villagers, but unless he received a signal from the young guard, Joaquin, he wouldn’t risk approaching the compound.

  They made it toward the front wall while being surprised at how empty the compound seemed to be. They had seen the hordes of men outside the walls as they were being brought in and were aware that their enemies numbered in the hundreds.

  They peeked around the corner of the compound’s large garage, where a line of tall white propane tanks was lined up against the side of the building.

  The gate was ahead and to their left, and near it was Alvarado, seated inside a golf cart and looking down at a tablet computer.

  “That man driving the cart, he looks like the photo of Martinez that Burke sent us. We need to keep him alive if we can,” Tanner said.

  Alvarado suddenly appeared as if he had been hit with an electric shock, and then he reached up and grabbed his head. When Tanner saw the look of stunned realization lighting the man’s face, he knew what had just happened.

  “He’s figured it out. Alvarado knows we’re here.”

  “Kill that guard he’s talking to,” Alexa said. “I’ll claim his weapon and go after Alvarado while you and Spenser secure the gates.”

  Alexa only had one of the small blades as a weapon, but she had planned all along to seize the gun of the next guard they killed.

  When Tanner fired and killed the man walking away from Alvarado, she rushed from concealment and went to claim the man’s weapon. Tanner watched her sprint toward the golf cart as Martinez put the machine in motion, then he and Spenser ran toward the inside gate.

  The dead guard wore a clip-on holster; Alexa ripped it off his belt and began running after the golf cart, as behind her, she heard the screams of two more dying guards.

  A flash of metal caught her attention from above and she brought the gun up and fired. Her hurried shot nearly missed the guard in the watch tower, but she hit him on the side of his head, just above the ear. After dropping his rifle, the man stumbled forward, flipped over the waist high railing, and plummeted to the ground.

  On the night she had infiltrated the compound, Alvarado’s late brother-in-law, Carlos Ayala, had told her that Alvarado had a safe room in his office, and that it was hidden behind the bathroom wall. Alexa ran as fast as she was able. Alvarado could not be allowed to find shelter, even temporary shelter.

  She had waited most of her life to kill him and she would not be delayed in enjoying that pleasure, not when she was so close to delivering retribution. Alexa ran on, and the golf cart being driven by Martinez grew ever closer to the house.

  Tanner was about to shoot a guard who was trying to unlock the inner gate, when he saw the man go down from a head wound. The fatal shot had come from above, and when he looked up, he saw Joaquin waving at him from a guard tower. The body of a dead guard was slumped over the railing beside Joaquin, and there was a knife sticking from its back.

  Joaquin pointed at his head, and Tanner saw that he was wearing a makeshift headband. It was a strip torn from a white sheet and tied around his head.

  When Joaquin held up three fingers, Tanner understood that Joaquin was telling him that there were three of them working against Alvarado inside the compound, and that they could be identified by the white headbands.

  Tanner signaled that he understood and then shouted the knowledge to Spenser, who was hunkered down behind a jeep and having a firefight with a guard in another tower. That guard soon left the fight, as one of Joaquin’s fellow bandana wearers climbed up into the tower and shot him.

  Spenser called over to Tanner. “Go help Alexa!” When Tanner didn’t move, Spenser saw the conflict in his eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

  Tanner headed for the house. Behind him, Spenser checked his weapon and saw that he
was down to only one bullet.

  Two guards rounded the corner of the garage with their weapons up. When they spotted Spenser, they took aim at him.

  Spenser fired first. He had aimed for one of the propane tanks that were lined up against the wall. The tank punctured at eye level and sent out a spray of cold gas that temporarily blinded the men.

  Spenser dropped flat and scrambled beneath the jeep, then kept going until he reached the body of a fallen guard. The man’s gun held eight rounds, and Spenser was back in the fight.

  Martinez brought the golf cart to a hard stop at the front steps of the house.

  Malena had placed a foot on the ground when she spotted Alexa running toward them. Alexa was still far away, but she was coming on fast. “That bitch escaped, Alonso, and so has one of the old men. He’s running up behind her and… I’ve never seen an old man move so fast.”

  “He’s wearing a disguise, they all were, and like an idiot I brought them inside the gates.”

  Malena gasped. “You mean that old man is actually Tanner… oh my God.”

  Alvarado grabbed Martinez’ arm as the man tried to leave the golf cart. “Drive around to the side of the house where my office is; we’ll enter through the patio doors. I have a safe room there.”

  Malena turned around on her seat to stare at Alexa and shouted a warning. “She’s getting closer and so is Tanner!”

  Alvarado kept a small gun in his pocket, a .32 Seecamp. He took it out and aimed at Alexa. He had only a slim chance of hitting her, given how far away she was, but he hoped to slow her down. He fired all five shots that the small pistol held.

  Three of them fell short, the fourth went wide, and the final round struck Alexa. It hit her on the left, just below the ribs and caused the white T-shirt to blossom red.

  To Alvarado’s dismay, Alexa merely slowed for a moment as a look of pain crossed her disguised features, but she never stopped running. He dropped the gun and slammed his palm against Martinez’s back.

  “Go, go!”

  The cart took off, and once again, they put distance between themselves and Alexa. When they reached the patio, Martinez had to help Malena get Alvarado to the sliding door. The door was constructed with bullet-resistant glass and would only open once Alvarado’s thumbprint was verified. They practically carried Alvarado to the door and held him up; there was no time for him to hobble along on his crutches.

  The biometric lock recognized his thumbprint and clicked open. Malena slid the heavy door aside with her left hand as she struggled to hold her husband up with her right.

  When Malena looked back, she saw Alexa, and then Tanner, rounding the corner of the house, and she cried out in fear.

  Malena, her husband, and Martinez, all tried to squeeze through the opening at the same time. It was a tight fit, but they finally forced their way inside, where Martinez stumbled, taking Alvarado and Malena with him down to the floor.

  The door was designed to slide shut on its own, and once closed, it would lock automatically.

  Alvarado, Malena, and Martinez laid on the floor and stared back at the patio door as it slid to the right along its track. To each of them it felt as if the door were barely moving.

  Alexa could be seen beyond the glass. She was running and firing her gun at the same time as she drew closer. Her rounds missed the narrowing gap of open space between the door and its frame, and instead, they ricocheted off the bullet-resistant glass. When her weapon was empty, Alexa collapsed on the ground against the golf cart, while both exhausted and bloody from the chase.

  Then, Tanner appeared, still in his guise of an old and gray-haired man but moving with the grace of a panther. When he was still more than thirty feet from the door, Tanner launched himself into the air. He landed hard on the outer edge of the patio, slid across its white tiled floor, and jammed his gun hand between the patio door and its frame, which kept the door from closing.

  Alvarado stared down the barrel of the gun pointed at his face, then, he locked eyes with Tanner, saw the intense glare of hatred within them, and understood that he would soon be dead.

  33

  The End Of The Beginning

  Joaquin signaled Dante by raising a sheet up the flagpole, and the white linen billowed in the hot desert air, where it could be seen for miles.

  With that done, Joaquin climbed up into one of the guard towers, where he used a loudhailer to talk to the men gathered outside the walls.

  “The Alvarado cartel is over,” Joaquin began, and although he was young, he was well liked, and the men listened.

  Tanner turned from the patio door and walked back to stand beside Spenser, who was standing next to Alexa. They had all removed their makeup, but Tanner’s hair was still dyed with streaks of gray, while Spenser’s hair and beard were white.

  Alexa’s gunshot wound, although bloody, was not serious. Alvarado’s bullet had sliced open her skin but hadn’t hit muscle or bone. Tanner had bandaged the horizontal wound with layers of gauze to stop the bleeding, and although she felt the effects of the blood loss, Alexa was well.

  As she stared at Alvarado, Alexa held a long carving knife she’d taken from the kitchen, and there was a look of triumph on her face.

  Alvarado was seated several feet in front of his desk with his wrists handcuffed to his special chair. Seated beside him was Malena, while Martinez was in another room, where he sat alone in a corner.

  Tanner had told Martinez to sit there until he said otherwise, and Martinez wisely obeyed.

  “My name is Alexa Cazares,” Alexa said as she glared down at Alvarado. “And I was there when you killed my family.”

  Alvarado’s eyes grew large with amazement, but then he nodded in understanding.

  “You are the one who made the screams I heard coming from the house.”

  “Yes, I was seven-years-old, and I watched as you and your men destroyed my world.”

  Alvarado cocked his head, as curiosity overrode the trepidation he was feeling. “How did you survive?”

  “I was saved by a man who is a thousand times better than you are, and after saving me, he raised me as his daughter.”

  Alvarado looked at Tanner as a sneer twisted his face. “And you, Cody Parker, how did you survive?”

  Tanner placed a hand on Spenser’s shoulder. “He saved me, and we’re here now because of his plan.”

  “I knew you couldn’t resist using innocents as pawns,” Spenser said, “I also realized you would consider a young woman and two old men no threat to you.”

  Alvarado went to reach for his wife’s hand but was stopped by the handcuff on his wrist.

  “Let my wife live. She has harmed no one.”

  Alexa laughed without a trace of humor. “Do you think we don’t know what this bitch is, the things she’s done? She also threatened to torture me earlier. How did she put it? ‘Just for the hell of it.’ No Alvarado, you will find no mercy here.”

  Malena sprang from her chair while screaming and lunged at Alexa, with hands that were bent like claws.

  Alexa stood her ground and made an arc with the knife.

  Malena stumbled backwards, missed the chair, and fell to the floor with her hands to her throat. Blood began seeping between her fingers and Alvarado fought against the cuffs while shouting his wife’s name.

  In a voice that sounded as cold as the grave, Alexa spoke to him. “Now you know what it feels like to see a loved one die.”

  Alvarado’s face was twisted in a rictus of pain and helplessness as he watched his wife perish. Malena’s final act was to reach a bloody hand toward Alvarado, but then her arm fell to the carpet, and after a wheeze escaped her, she lay still.

  Alvarado turned his eyes from his wife’s body and cursed Alexa as he thrashed about in the chair. When he finally wound down, his wrists were bleeding from the friction of the cuffs.

  Alvarado slumped in his seat from both exhaustion and resignation of his fate.

  Alexa walked over and stood before Alvarado with the knife ai
med at his heart, and then she looked back at Tanner.

  “Come here and place your hand atop mine, Cody.”

  Tanner did so, and realized that Alexa had never used his true name before.

  They held the knife together and stared down at the man who had altered their lives, and who, in many ways, was responsible for what they were and who they had become.

  “This is for my family,” Alexa said, “and especially my sweet abuela, my grandmother.”

  “And for my family as well,” Tanner said.

  Alexa locked eyes with Tanner, and then they plunged the knife deep into Alvarado’s chest.

  Alonso Alvarado straightened in his chair as he raised his head and stared at them with a look of defiance, but then he seemed to wilt, as his punctured heart stopped beating. Tanner saw the light leave his eyes, before they closed forever.

  Alexa released the blade that was still embedded deep in Alvarado, and then she fell into Tanner’s arms, while crying.

  Spenser drifted from the room, leaving the two of them alone, and went in search of a phone to call Amy.

  34

  A New Day

  Joaquin’s speech won over the hearts of some men, but a group formed to attempt to breach the gates. They failed miserably, and two men were injured when they rammed a small cargo truck against the stout outer gate.

  When several other men managed to secure a rope to one of the rear guard towers, they made it over the wall. They had been seen by the cameras as they worked, and Tanner greeted their arrival with death.

  Tanner was beginning to wonder if Damián Sandoval had become aware that Dante was planning to take Alvarado’s place and had killed him, because six hours passed after Joaquin had raised the sheet aloft on the flagpole, and Dante had yet to show.