Rossetti shouted in frustration as Ramone failed to answer his phone.
Ramone had the damn key to the ATV they were to escape in, but then Rossetti remembered the spare key inside the shack, and he relaxed and headed for the closet door.
He had no idea what had caused the explosion that had rocked the house, but he figured that Tanner was behind it.
Rossetti ripped open the closet and gasped at Joy’s body.
He had forgotten that he’d stuck her there, and decided to hide the corpse in the tunnel as he made his escape.
He hit the hidden latch beneath the shelf and pushed against the back wall, which caused the surface to swing outward on spring hinges.
Rossetti felt the coolness of the passage as he gazed into the dark, and thanked God that an old-time thug named Frankie the Fish had built the tunnel.
There was a switch inside, and Rossetti pushed it upwards and turned on the string of incandescent bulbs strung along the top of the passage’s left wall. He then reached back, grabbed Joy by the ankles, and dragged her body inside.
After pulling the door shut, he checked to see if any light showed around its edges. He saw none, assumed it was sealed tight, and then shuffled his corpulent form down the tunnel’s slanting floor, his footsteps echoing off the concrete walls, as he descended beneath the earth.
The Tunnel curved twice, the first time as it neared the area beneath the swimming pool and a second time, to move its trajectory back towards the shack, after passing beneath the bunkhouse. The shack sat atop a small hill, and once Rossetti reached the other end, he had to climb up a ladder.
He made a sound of disgust as he realized he had to holster his gun in order to climb. The act made him defenseless, and he knew if Tanner showed while he was climbing the ladder that he would be a dead man.
As he neared the top, he grinned. Tanner had no way of knowing about the tunnel and so he would soon be safe. There was an ATV outside the shack, and a short drive north through the desert would place him at an airfield, where a plane was waiting.
He’d be in Reno in no time, safe from Tanner and O’Grady, and then he would plan his revenge against both men.
When he was four rungs from the top, he was nearly in total blackness, but knew that the trapdoor was above him. The door was a three-foot square of pine planking and opened on hinges. An old throw rug covered it, with a wooden table positioned above it.
After sliding a bolt and unlocking the trapdoor, Rossetti pushed, saw pale daylight through a gap, and turned his head about, looking for feet and other signs of an ambush. He saw nothing suspicious, but when he pushed harder, the door refused to flip up.
It was the table he realized, one of its legs must be sitting atop the door. Rossetti let the door fall back in place, raised up both hands, and shoved with all his strength. After the table toppled over onto its side, Rossetti lifted the door and it hung open, kept from falling over by a chain.
The big man climbed up into the small room in clumsy fashion, making it first to his knees and then his feet. He was sweating from the short walk and climb, but he removed his gun and looked about.
On one wall were several wooden shelves that held ancient nails and hammers, while in a corner, there leaned nearly a dozen old pickaxes and shovels.
He checked the floor, which was perpetually coated with sand blown in from outside. There were no shoe prints in it, but there was half of one, near the door, and he guessed that Ramone had made it when he reached in to hang the spare ATV key on a nail.
Rossetti plucked the key from the wall, and after poking his head out and looking both ways, he strode outside smiling and made a beeline for the ATV.
***
Tanner heard the sound of wood scraping, followed by a crash, as Rossetti flipped up the trap door in the shack and toppled an old table.
Tanner kept himself flat atop the tarpapered roof and waited for Rossetti to show himself, while wondering how many men would be with him.
Not knowing that Ramone had died in the blast, he was surprised to see Rossetti exit the shack alone, but gratified at last to be on the verge of fulfilling his contract.
Tanner had glanced behind him just seconds ago and verified that no one else was nearby, and so he stood, called Rossetti’s name, and watched the rotund hoodlum stop and turn.
Rossetti’s eyes were darting about in fear, his gun ready, then, finding Tanner perched atop the roof, his eyes grew wide with wonder and he raised his hand to fire.
Tanner blasted Rossetti with the shotgun and Rossetti’s gun flew away, along with the fingers on his right hand.
Rossetti squirmed in the dirt, wailing in agony, but let out a yelp of terror, as Tanner jumped to the ground.
“Tanner... listen, we can... we can still come to an, an understanding, you, ya know?”
Tanner simply shook his head.
Rossetti looked around for help, but he was alone, and when he gazed back up at Tanner, there was a look of acceptance in his eyes.
Tanner placed the shotgun against Rossetti’s chest.
“It was inevitable.”
The shotgun boomed, Rossetti died, and the contract was fulfilled.
CHAPTER 42 - You never know when you’ll need an umbrella
After insuring that help was on the way in the form of more agents, along with fire and medical personnel, Garner had run towards the burning house.
When Tanner fired the shot that shredded Rossetti’s hand, Garner had spotted the muzzle flash through the swirl of smoke and wondered why it had appeared above ground level and far from the house.
That was when he remembered the binoculars were hanging around his neck and he raised them up and saw Tanner’s back, from the waist up, just visible above the roof of the bunkhouse.
“Shit!”
He tried calling Sara, but she wasn’t answering her phone and he prayed that she was all right.
As he rounded the side of the bunkhouse, he heard the second blast, and moved up the hill in silence.
***
Sara stepped over yet another dead ranch hand and fired at the man who was responsible for the body, a young punk with a mullet and enough gold chains to open a pawnshop.
The man fell to the floor, blood spurting from a wound in his thigh, and Sara realized that the slug had hit him in the femoral artery. The man began screaming in agony, and as she drew near, he begged Sara for help.
She kicked his gun out of reach and continued towards Rossetti’s office, knowing the punk would bleed out in minutes.
She didn’t care. She didn’t care who lived or who died, as her only concern was to find Tanner and end him.
She was carrying an assault rifle, a Heckler & Koch MP5, along with her everyday weapon, a Glock 21 SF, which she used to blow apart the lock on Rossetti’s door.
She entered low, and after verifying the main room was empty, she shut the office door as best she could and propped a chair beneath the doorknob. The smoke from the fire hadn’t traveled far back into the home yet, where the office was, and she wanted to keep it out as long as possible, while also making it difficult to enter.
The bathroom was empty and she could see into the closet, but there was blood on the floor near the desk and splattered on the wall beside it, and she feared that Tanner had killed Rossetti and moved on. However, no sooner did she have the thought than she dismissed it.
It would take more than one man to move Rossetti’s corpse, and why would Tanner even bother. She gave the stain a closer look and realized that it was already drying, and that whoever had been hurt, had been injured before the fighting began.
The blood trailed off in a thin, intermittent streak that led into the closet, and she approached it with caution, although there appeared to be no room to hide.
Nothing, just office supplies, umbrellas, and an overcoat,
She was about to search elsewhere when she spotted more blood in a corner and noticed the strands of red hair sticking out from the bottom of the back wall.
What the hell?
She pressed her left hand against the back wall and felt it give just a bit.
“Is someone in there?”
With no answer, she plucked one of the umbrellas from its stand and used the metal tip of it to poke a hole in the wall. When the hole was big enough, she looked through with one eye and saw a row of lights dangling along a concrete wall, while a look downward revealed a pair of shapely legs.
“Hello? Hey! Wake up! Can you hear me?”
There was no answer, and Sara tore at the wall savagely, first with the umbrella, and then with the base of a heavy floor lamp taken from the office.
When the aperture was large enough, Sara squeezed through, and cursed as she saw Joy’s battered corpse.
“Rossetti, you son of a bitch,” she mumbled, but then she heard the faint, echoing sound of a shotgun blast, followed by barely audible wails of pain. “Tanner?”
Sara sprinted down the tunnel, headed for Tanner and aching for revenge, as her heart grew cold as stone.
CHAPTER 43 - She did warn him
Tanner was turning from Rossetti’s corpse when he saw something glinting near the body.
It was a key, reflecting in the last rays of daylight, and Tanner realized it was meant for Rossetti’s getaway vehicle, the ATV.
He bent over to retrieve it, and as his fingers gripped it, a voice boomed behind him, the voice of Special Agent Jake Garner.
“FBI! Drop your weapon and place your hands over your head.”
Tanner straightened slowly, while still holding the Mossberg in one hand and palming the ignition key in the other. His hands were gloved, as they always were when making a hit.
“I said, drop it!”
Tanner weighed his options and decided it was best to appear cooperative, a posture that might lure the lawman closer while it was still just the two of them. He tossed the shotgun atop Rossetti’s body and raised his hands.
Tanner was expecting to hear Garner tell him to get on the ground, but instead, he watched as Garner tossed a set of handcuffs towards him, to land at his feet.
“Put one end on your wrist and then attach the other end to the well.”
Tanner turned his head and stared at the well.
It was made of stone at its base, but there was rusted metal embedded into it and sitting over the hole like a trellis.
He figured it was likely the part that once held a rope and bucket; he also realized that once he was secured to it he could kiss his freedom goodbye.
Garner took a step closer and aimed his gun at Tanner’s face.
“Do it or die, your choice.”
Tanner stared into Garner’s eyes and saw that the man was serious.
Always the pragmatist, Tanner bent over and picked up the cuffs.
“Whatever you say, Officer,”
Scrambling sounds came from the shack, causing Garner to jerk his head around to look inside.
Seeing his chance, Tanner rushed forward, only to freeze, as Garner spun back around and jammed the barrel of the gun into his stomach.
“Back up!”
Tanner did so with a sigh and watched as a dark-haired woman exited the shack, with FBI credentials hanging from a chain around her neck.
Tanner knew her face, but couldn’t recall the context in which he’d last seen it, and when he searched her eyes, he was surprised by the intense glare of hatred he saw there.
Garner stared at Sara with a confused look on his face.
“Were you in that shack all this time?”
“No, there’s a tunnel that leads to Rossetti’s office.”
“Oh, well, as you can see, I have a gift for you.”
“Take a walk, Jake. Tanner is mine.”
“Calm down, Sara. We have him. We’ve caught him. Don’t endanger your career for this piece of shit.”
“Leave Garner, leave and don’t look back.”
Garner turned his head to look at her and Tanner moved right, closer to the ATV. Sara caught the movement and raised her gun.
Garner pushed her arm down with one hand while shouting at Tanner.
“Goddamn it, Tanner. Get down on the ground now or I swear we’ll both shoot you.”
Tanner was close enough to the ATV to touch it, but also knew he’d be shot if he moved any closer.
He got down on his knees, stared at Sara, and asked a question.
“Who are you?”
“Special Agent Sara Blake, I’m Sara Blake.”
“Why do you hate me?”
“Because you killed Brian, Brian Ames,”
Tanner recalled the name and remembered why Sara looked familiar. She had been Ames’ lover, and he had seen them together as he followed Ames and learned his routine.
Ames had been an accountant and money washer for the New York branch of The Conglomerate, but had turned snitch.
Tanner had killed him, painless and quick, while Ames sat waiting at a table at an outdoor cafe in New York City. He had fired a single shot behind Ames’ right ear with a silenced gun.
The bullet was of low caliber and, after entering Ames’ skull, it ricocheted inside his head, lacking the force to cause an exit wound.
The slug shredded Ames’ brain, causing his death, while the slight noise of the shot was swallowed up by the sounds of the city street.
The fact that he had been hit in daylight in the middle of Manhattan was to ensure that Ames’ death would be newsworthy, and would discourage anyone else in The Conglomerate who might be thinking of talking.
Frank Richards had ordered that hit as well, along with the instructions to make it public.
Tanner cocked his head, as understanding dawned.
“You were the one he was waiting for that day, weren’t you?”
“I found him you son of a bitch. I walked up to the table and—”
Sara paused, attempting to compose herself, even as tears ran down her cheeks. When she spoke again, her voice was at a higher pitch and forced through a throat grown tight with emotion.
“His eyes were open, open and staring, and I remember smiling and thinking that he was daydreaming, but... when I leaned over and kissed him... oh God, his lips, his lips were already cold.”
Tanner said nothing, because there was nothing to say. If he told her he was sorry, it would be a lie.
He was not sorry. Killing Brian Ames was a bit of business to him, nothing more and nothing less, and as a grown man, Ames surely knew that if his superiors discovered his betrayal that he would be dealt with in the manner he was.
Tanner gazed at Sara and behind the hatred and the pain, he glimpsed something else, guilt. The woman felt guilty, and he knew then that it was Sara who had turned Ames and got him to talk.
Sara took a deep breath, wiped at her eyes, and raised her gun once more.
“No!” Garner said.
“Leave, Garner, leave me with this man and let me do what I came here to do.”
Garner placed a hand on her arm again.
“Sara, I won’t let you do this.”
“God damn it. I said leave and don’t make me tell you again.”
Garner moved in front of her, blocking her shot.
Sara lowered her head and glared at him through hooded eyes.
“Get the fuck out of my way.”
“No partner, I’m not going to let you—”
The first two bullets caught Garner in the vest, just as Sara intended, but as he reacted and turned away, the third bullet cut through a seam and blood flowed from the wound in his side.
Garner fell to the dirt, his gun slipping from his hand, and Sara kicked it aside, as her eyes flicked between Garner and Tanner.
Garner raised a hand, said, “Why?” in a weak voice, as his eyes closed and he stopped moving.
Sara winced at the sight of Garner’s bloody wound, but then she locked her eyes on Tanner and smiled.
“He’s my partner and I kind of like him, so you can just imagine what I’m going to do to you.�
��
CHAPTER 44 - Fat people are handy to have around
Sara stared at Tanner across the body of his latest target, Albert Rossetti and that of her partner, Jake Garner.
Rossetti was Tanner’s handiwork, but Garner lay dying because of Sara.
“You don’t feel any regret at all over murdering Brian, do you?” Sara asked.
“No.”
“What was Brian’s life worth to you? What did they pay you?”
“I charged ten thousand, had he been aware that he was targeted and gone into hiding, I would have charged much more.”
“I should have placed him under protection, but we were certain no one knew he was willing to talk.”
“I’m told they had cameras in his apartment, in the bedroom,” Tanner said.
It was a lie, but he hoped that the thought of being filmed unknowingly while making love would distract her. And while they talked, he oh so slowly shifted his weight, taking pressure off his knees and transferring it to the balls of his feet, as he prepared to leap at Sara.
“Video? They filmed us?”
“Yes, but I never saw it. I only required a photo of Ames.”
Sara appeared stricken and her face scrunched up as if she were about to cry, but then she emitted a low chuckle, as she smiled at Tanner.
“Nice try, Tanner, and come on, leap at me, maybe you’ll make it before I put one in your face.”
Tanner scowled at her. She had been toying with him. He had thought himself seconds away from being shot to death, but her smile made him wonder if she was planning to take him somewhere to be tortured.
“What’s your next move?” Tanner asked, as the sound of sirens carried on the wind.
“We’re going to stay here until I’m certain my partner gets medical attention and then I’ll arrest you and place you in a car.”
“Never to be seen again,” Tanner said and Sara nodded.
“Fasten those cuffs behind your back. Refuse and I’ll fire a shot into your shoulder.”
Tanner gazed around, searching for a way out and finding none. To the south, near the front of the home, was a red haze, above which, smoke billowed into an ever-darkening sky.
Tanner placed one end of the cuffs around his left wrist and clamped it shut, locking it in place.
The TANNER Series - Books 1-3 (Tanner Box Set) Page 12