Sammy shot him in the other knee and Fenner howled in agony as the knife fell from his hand. Fenner was going nowhere on his own, so Sammy got back in his vehicle and went in pursuit of Julie.
He found her out on the avenue. She was leaning over the front of a police car and getting cuffed. To be arrested that quickly meant the police believed she had killed Ricky and had been busy looking for her. Sammy’s first impulse was to go to Julie’s aid, but he couldn’t.
He was carrying an unregistered gun that could be linked to the wounded man in the church parking lot. The only reason he was in Louisiana was to commit murder and retrieve mob money.
Julie being associated with someone named Giacconi could do more harm than good, and the law might possibly believe that she had taken a contract to kill Ricky for the Giacconis.
Sammy drove back the way he’d come, where Fenner’s screams of pain were gaining the attention of the nearby homeowners, some of whom were standing on their porches and looking around.
Fenner was out of their line of sight where he lay, as he was blocked from their view by a row of hedges. Still, more cops would be called to deal with him as well.
Minutes later, Sammy abandoned the car in a mall parking lot after wiping it down. Ricky was dead, the money was lost, and now, Sammy had become involved in a separate mess.
He had no idea how he could help Julie Ryan, but he’d be damned if he wouldn’t try.
Kevin was breathing through his mouth in short shallow breaths.
He had never been so scared in his life, not even the first time he robbed a bank.
His best friend, Juan, was dead. Dead! And Professor Seagate was bleeding atop the floor. The man who had shot them was pointing his gun at him. Kevin knew the man would kill him.
He was taking the backpack off, as Zade had ordered him to do, when the car crashed open the barn doors.
Zade was hit on the back of the head by the left section of the doors and knocked to the ground, dazed. The car stopped just inside the barn. For a moment, all Kevin could make out of the driver was a hand clutching a knife. The blade punctured the airbags blocking his view, and a woman appeared. After spotting him, she was gesturing for him to get in the car.
It was his sister, Alicia, but no, not Alicia, but Alicia’s friend, a woman named Sara Blake.
Sara had been coming up the driveway when she heard the shots fired at Seagate and Juan.
After that, her only thought had been to get Kevin to safety. Without changing her speed, she headed for the barn doors, then braked at the last moment, as she hoped to ram the doors open, but not smash them to pieces. The impact jolted her, as did the deployment of the airbags, yet both had been expected.
After deflating the airbags, Sara looked around. There was a man lying on the floor to her left, with a gun just out of reach of his hand. On the floor beside him was a dead boy who looked as young as Kevin, while a wounded man writhed in agony just a few feet in front of her car.
The man was Professor Seagate. Sara recognized him from his photo on the college’s website. Seagate had been shot at least once in the chest. There were two other boys standing near Kevin. One of them had dark hair, while the other was skinny and blond. The blond appeared to have wet himself, as a stain covered the front of his pants.
Sara gestured for Kevin to get in the car. When Kevin didn’t move, from either shock or fear, Sara leaned across and opened the passenger door.
“Get in!”
Kevin moved toward her, as did Gabriel and Roland. To her left, Zade sat up and rubbed his temples as he tried to clear his head.
Kevin folded down the passenger seat and climbed into the rear, Gabriel followed, and as Roland was getting in, Zade picked up his gun.
Sara fired through the open window and missed hitting Zade by an inch. Zade, realizing he had no cover, rolled behind a barn door, but not before he got off a wild shot that went high. Roland, who was nervous at the best of times, shrieked and bolted outside.
Sara let him go, fired three shots at the wooden door Zade had disappeared behind, and put her car in reverse. Sara was grateful that the car continued to run after her airbag deployed. Had the collision with the barn door caused major damage to the vehicle, her engine might have stopped running, as a safety precaution. If that had happened, she would have had to engage in a firefight inside the barn with Kevin at risk.
Zade reappeared as Sara was turning the car around in a skidding turn to head toward the road. The shots they’d exchanged had all missed, and Sara and the boys drove away.
Zade let out a scream of frustration as Sara’s car sped around a curve in the gravel driveway, spitting up stones as it went.
Everything was a damn mess now that the woman drove off with those boys, and the one named Kevin still had the money. Zade rushed to his car to go in pursuit, but hesitated after opening the door. Professor Seagate was still alive.
Zade took two steps back towards the barn, but then he returned to the car. No one had heard the shots or the car crashing the doors open. In the shape Seagate was in, he would die before he got help. The important thing was to catch up to the woman and the boys.
The woman! Zade had seen her somewhere before. He was certain of it, but where?
Vega! He had seen a picture of the woman on Vega’s phone the night before. She was Kevin Kincaid’s sister and she owned a flower shop, no, wait, a dance studio. But which dance studio?
Zade rushed back into the barn and checked Juan’s body for the phone. After removing it from a back pocket, Zade went through the photos until he found the photo of Juan with Kevin and Alicia. They were standing in front of Alicia’s dance studio and smiling.
“Village Dance & Ballet Academy,” Zade said, as behind him, Seagate moaned in agony.
Zade glared down at the professor, saw that the man was dying, and laughed.
“Die, fucker! Suffer for framing my brother.”
Zade ran from the barn with Juan’s phone in his hand and headed for the city.
At the same moment Zade was taking Juan’s phone from his back pocket, Kevin had been ending a call he made anonymously.
“They’re sending a cop with the ambulance, Sara. I hope Zade doesn’t shoot at them.”
“He won’t be there. He’ll be chasing after us. I only hope your professor survives long enough to receive their help.”
Sara rounded a curve in the road and there was Roland. He was running as fast as when he’d left the barn in a mad dash for safety.
Sara slowed until she was even with him, and Kevin called his friend’s name.
“Roland! It’s okay. Hop in.”
Roland slowed, stopped, and after a look inside to make certain it was safe to do so, he got in the car.
Sara had the car moving again, as she realized how far Roland had run in a short time.
“You’re Roland?”
He answered breathlessly.
“Yes.”
“Do you run track, Roland?”
“No.”
“Consider taking it up. I think you’re a natural.”
24
A Case Of Mistaken Identity
Tanner arrived in Boston and found a spot near the waterfront where he could park the flatbed.
It was a shipping and receiving area for a plumbing supply company that had closed for the day. The luncheonette on the corner was still open, and Tanner bought a turkey sandwich and an iced tea.
After eating, he sat inside the cab of the truck and went over the satellite images of Moss Murphy’s estate one more time. Murphy had the lavish home built when he had designs on fitting in with the upper crust of Boston society. However, the upper crust knew a thug when they saw one, no matter how rich the thug had become.
The wrought-iron gates surrounding the home were high, but decorative, the grounds full of rolling hills, not land mines, while the house itself had wide windows without bars.
Getting inside the house to kill Murphy would be a thing of ease. Tanner j
ust had to navigate his way past upwards of fifty armed men.
The faux UFO in the crate would help with that, among other surprises Tanner had planned.
When he was satisfied that he had done everything to prepare for his attack on the home. Tanner leaned back and closed his eyes. His plan would work best at night, which was well over an hour away.
He set his watch to wake him in forty-five minutes. A short nap would revitalize him after the long drive and the food. As he was falling asleep, he wondered how Sara’s day was turning out. She had told Tanner that she was going to follow around a college kid all day, and maybe visit the lake property. That was good. She deserved a quiet day.
While Sara had driven fast, Zade had driven faster, while also using his phone to get the dance studio’s address. He made it to Alicia’s studio soon after Sara had.
His grin was wide as he spotted her car double-parked with the flashers going, and he pulled in front of her vehicle.
Zade pressed his face against the windows of the dance studio and saw Kevin Kincaid and his sister hugging inside as Gabriel and Roland stood nearby. The backpack with the money in it was on the floor, leaning against a mirror.
Zade bit the inside of his cheek as he prepared to walk inside the studio and murder four people. He couldn’t use the gun for anything but intimidation. Not in the city, where a passing cop could hear the shots and arrest him before he could get away. The thing to do was to have them tie each other up, then he could kill them quietly, maybe with a knife, or by strangling them.
Zade stared in at Alicia, still thinking he was looking at Sara, and a thought occurred to him. Alicia was dressed in a red leotard and white ballet slippers. Had the woman firing at him been wearing a leotard? Perhaps it had been concealed by her jacket.
When movement in the glass showed him a woman’s reflection, Zade blinked in confusion, as he saw Sara coming up behind him. He then stiffened as he felt Sara press her gun against his left side.
Turning his head to look at her, he asked, “You’re a twin?”
“I’m an ex-FBI agent who has killed in and out of the line of duty. If you so much as twitch, I’ll put you down.”
Zade’s eyes moved about in all directions as he sought to come up with a way out.
“The dead kid, Juan, he wanted to share the money. We could still do that?”
“No deal.”
“Think about it. If we work together your boy in there never does a day in prison.”
“He just gets to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life, because sooner or later, you’ll come for him.”
“Same goes for you, bitch. Either we make a deal or someday I’ll find your ass, then you’ll be the one put down.”
Sara sighed.
“I believe you.”
Sara removed the gun from Zade’s ribs and pointed it downward, while aiming.
She fired, hitting Zade on the inside of his right leg and creating havoc with his femoral artery. As his leg buckled, Zade leaned against the window and grabbed Sara’s gun, gripping the weapon’s warm barrel as he tried to wrest it away from her. When that failed, he staggered backwards.
As he freed his gun, his legs gave out before he could take aim. He fell sideways against the glass window of the studio once more, before sliding down to the pavement.
Passersby were startled by the shooting and most ducked behind cars, as inside the dance studio, Alicia, Kevin, Gabriel, and Roland turned toward the window with startled faces.
Sara kicked the gun out of Zade’s hand before leaning down towards him. He was sitting in a puddle of his own blood and breathing rapidly.
“I don’t take well to threats. Goodbye, Mr. Zade.”
Zade raised a hand, but it dropped just as quickly.
A vehicle with government plates braked near the curb. Sara placed her gun on the ground and extended her hands to show that they were empty. When she saw who was in the car, she smiled and lowered her arms.
FBI Agent Jake Garner left his vehicle with another agent and rushed to Sara.
“Are you all right?”
“I am, what about Professor Seagate, did he make it?”
Jake shook his head, then asked a question.
“Is this one of the bank robbers you called me about?”
“No, and it’s a complicated story, there are people inside the dance studio you’ll want to talk with.”
The agent who’d accompanied Jake had been calling for an ambulance. When the call was done, he checked for a pulse on Zade.
“Shit,” the man said. “I should have ordered a meat wagon. He’s dead.”
“What happened here, Sara?”
“We struggled over my gun and it went off.”
“The weapon on the ground over there, that’s his?”
“Yes, and you’ll find his prints on my gun.”
A police car arrived. After Garner explained the situation, the cops took over the scene.
Jake placed a hand on Sara’s arm.
“It’s going to be a long evening of reports and interviews.”
“One of the bank robbers is a college student named Kevin Kincaid. I’ll appreciate anything you can do for him.”
Garner let out a low whistle through his teeth.
“That’s easier said than done.”
“I know.”
Hours later, Sara watched Alicia kiss her brother goodbye. Kevin was being transferred from FBI headquarters to the Manhattan Detention Complex, where he would await arraignment on several charges.
Sara was facing no charges in the death of Luis Zade. A tourist had snapped a photo of Zade grabbing Sara’s gun and gave a statement that the “Big man was harassing the woman before the shooting, by standing very close to her.”
Witness testimony can be unreliable. That doesn’t make it bad in all cases.
Sara felt as if she had failed Alicia. Her old friend had come to her for help and now her brother would likely serve years in prison.
Alicia walked toward Sara. She had red eyes from crying and was clutching a tissue moist with tears. To Sara’s surprise, Alicia gripped her in a fierce hug.
“Thank you, Sara. If not for you my brother would be dead. Kevin said that man Zade was about to shoot him when you appeared.”
“You’re welcome, Alicia, but I feel horrible that Kevin has to do time.”
“He deserves it, despite his motives, and I’m so furious at Professor Seagate for using Kevin the way he did. If that man wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him myself.”
“What did Agent Garner say about Kevin’s chances of getting a break because of their motives? After all, they never kept the money.”
“No, but they used it to frame people. Anyway, Agent Garner said he’ll do what he can to help Kevin and the others get in front of the right judge.”
“Jake is a good man.”
“He’s the one Jennifer married, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“He’s very handsome, and I appreciate his help. Please pass my gratitude along to him.”
“I will.”
They walked outside together and Alicia hailed a taxi. Sara would have to do so as well. Her car was impounded, as part of the investigation.
Before climbing inside the cab, Alicia thanked Sara again and kissed her on the cheek.
“Are you taking a taxi uptown or is your new man picking you up?”
“I’ll be taking a taxi too.”
“I want to meet this new guy of yours. Thomas is his name, right?”
“Thomas Myers,” Sara said, using Tanner’s alias.
“What sort of work does he do?”
“You might say that he’s a high-level trouble shooter.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t come to pick you up, after the trying day you’ve had.”
Sara smiled.
“He’s in the Boston area, on business.”
25
Distract, Deflect, Destroy
The UFO was not much mor
e than a large drone with sophisticated light and sound systems.
With the lights off, it made an excellent reconnaissance tool, since it was equipped with a night vision camera and thermal imaging.
While still outside the estate, Tanner took a few minutes to fly the craft over the area to get a look at what he would face.
There were perimeter patrols along the fence, both on foot and in vehicles. One of the vehicle patrols was headed his way.
Over two dozen men were outside the home. They were gathered in small groups, with here and there a single man, likely a sniper. Tanner counted four of them. While some of the men wore suits, most were dressed in jeans, along with a jacket for the chill in the air. Tanner wore dark-blue slacks, while his reversible jacket was turned to display its gray color. The jacket also held many rounds of spare ammo, and a flash bang grenade.
A thermal scan of the home disclosed the presence of more men, perhaps as many as ten.
Tanner brought the modified drone down to rest on a knoll, grabbed up a sniper rifle with a sound suppressor, then lowered himself to the ground.
The perimeter patrol came around a curve in the road. They were creeping along while keeping an eye out for anything unusual. After spotting the flatbed truck, the man in the passenger seat raised a phone up as if to dial. Tanner shot him, then the driver. Their car rolled on, lost speed, although it had been going slow in the first place, and came to rest against a tree.
Tanner ran to the vehicle and maneuvered the dead driver into the back seat. The man in the passenger seat, although dead, was still sitting upright, as he was held in place by his seatbelt. Tanner kicked the shattered windshield out of its frame, backed the car away from the tree, and continued the route the patrol would have taken.
After covering a short distance, Tanner drove the car off the road and parked it next to the wrought-iron fence. He was about to leave the vehicle to climb over the fence when he spotted the tag hanging around his passenger’s neck by a silver chain, which glittered in the moonlight. When he looked in the rear seat at the driver’s body, he saw a similar tag hanging off his belt.
Manhattan Hit Man (A Tanner Novel Book 18) Page 14