They were ID tags, but also more than that. They contained an RFID chip, a Radio-Frequency Identification transponder, like the type used on animals to locate or identify them.
Tanner gave a little laugh. He wasn’t the only one using technology. There must be an RFID reader on the property, or perhaps several, and they were being used to distinguish friendlies from the unfriendly.
Tanner took the tag off the passenger and hung it from his neck. If anyone aimed a reader at him, he would register. Once he showed proof of belonging, he wouldn’t be questioned, or so he hoped.
Tanner climbed atop the car, then went over the fence and landed on the other side. He took out the remote that controlled the drone and sent it airborne, where it would hover high above the property in a circling pattern.
Once the drone was up with its camera running, Tanner memorized a route that would help him avoid anyone until he made it to the front of the house. There was always the chance that he’d be spotted by a sniper, but if so, they would identify his tag and disregard him as an enemy.
Upon reaching the area at the side of the huge home, Tanner saw that many of the men were swarthy looking, while some had face tattoos like the men who’d attack him on the highway. It appeared that Moss Murphy had aligned himself with one of the gangs seeking to move in on what the Italian and Irish mobs had controlled for so long.
Perhaps Liam Murphy had made connections within a Los Angeles gang while going to college in the area. However they had come together, they were united against the Giacconi Family.
As he moved closer to the house, a man looked down at his phone while pointing it his way. The man was looking for an RFID chip. Once the chip was confirmed, the man stepped closer. He had a lazy left eye and was staring at Tanner as if he suspected something was wrong about him, despite the confirmation of an RFID chip.
When he spoke, he revealed a strong Hispanic accent.
“You got a cigarette?”
Tanner wondered if the man’s question was a code phrase to be answered in a certain way, or if he just wanted a smoke.
“Sorry, no cigarettes.”
“How come I don’t remember seeing you earlier at the meeting inside the house?”
“I’ve been out on patrol most of the night,” Tanner said, “and I don’t remember seeing you either.”
Tanner pressed a button on the remote, and the night sky lit up in a blaze of rotating color. It was time to distract.
His wary companion forgot all about him as he gazed up in wonder. Lit up the way it was, the damn thing really did look like the classic idea of a UFO.
Tanner pressed a second button and a humming sound began. It was loud enough that he could feel the vibration on his skin, like a tingling sensation. The machine was hovering about thirty feet up. Tanner raised his AR-15 and let loose with an entire magazine. The rounds were blanks, all part of the show.
He pointed up and shouted.
“See that? The damn thing has a force field around it.”
His companion nodded in agreement and continued to stare at the lights in wonder. He had been eyeing Tanner with suspicion, but by attacking the weird object in the sky, Tanner had deflected the man’s misgivings.
As he reloaded with live ammo, Tanner looked around and saw everyone gazing up at the “Flying Saucer”, while others had left their positions to draw closer to the area beneath it. Tanner slipped off toward the rear of the property, as several men came out of the house. Among them was a man who wasn’t buying it.
“It’s a distraction you idiots, not a fucking space ship!”
There was an accented voice that carried a tone of disagreement, although Tanner couldn’t make out all the words over the humming sound of the drone.
He moved behind a metal dumpster that was itself behind a cinderblock wall, and readied his remote.
Gunfire erupted. One gun at first, then several more as they shot at the UFO. The humming ceased, to be replaced by shouts of triumph and the crash of the drone. Then came silence.
Someone shouted excitedly in Spanish.
“Aliens, look at that thing. It’s an alien!”
Tanner smirked, apparently, the dummies were exposed amid the wreckage. A figure ran by, heard but not seen, followed by another. Two of the snipers, or maybe some of the foot patrol from the perimeter, whichever, were being drawn in towards the downed craft.
A voice shouted above the others. It was the same voice of reason that had claimed the UFO a fake.
“Stop staring at that pile of shit and look alert! This is a trick. Can’t you see that? Now spread out or go back to your positions.”
“Too late for that,” Tanner said, as he pushed twice on the only red button on the remote. He had distracted the men and deflected any suspicion off himself.
It was time to destroy.
The night filled with light once more as a brilliant flash appeared. It was accompanied by a tremendous blast of plastic explosives. The drone contained military-grade C-4 packed with ball bearings.
Anyone who’d been standing near the downed drone was dead, and possibly shredded, while the columns at the front of the house collapsed into the circular driveway, crushing an ornate water fountain.
Debris pelted the wall Tanner was behind as the ground beneath him trembled. One of the ball bearings made it through the block wall and rang the side of the dumpster like a gong. Tanner’s ears ached from the noise, but the ringing stopped by the time he entered the home from the rear.
He found no one on the lower floor, but then saw several men standing amid the debris at what had been the front of the house. They were either disoriented from the blast or marveling at the level of destruction.
Tanner cut all but one of them down before they knew what was happening, while the last man went down while running.
Several of the men were still alive, but had suffered serious wounds. Whether they lived or died, Tanner didn’t care. They were out of the fight, and his real target was to be found somewhere else inside the home.
The house had twenty-foot ceilings and a dramatic sweeping staircase made of marble. Debris from the partially collapsed roof littered the first few steps. Tanner jumped over it, crouched, and ran up the stairs while hugging the ornate and golden metal railing.
No one fired, and he reached the landing to begin searching the rooms. As he opened one door, a window exploded and a round caught him in the chest, just below the top of his vest. The pain was epic. Tanner dragged himself away from the opening and looked for movement through watering eyes.
A sniper. One of the snipers was in the trees at the south side of the home. Tanner had opened the door while leaning over. The man must have taken his shot, while aiming at Tanner’s head.
Tanner understood that if he’d not been trained to keep moving, constantly moving and bobbing, during a search, and had stayed still after opening the door, his head would have been blown off.
Tanner recovered enough to roll past the doorway and, with greater caution, he finished searching the floor.
Moss Murphy was nowhere to be found, nor was Liam, and there was still a sniper to take care of. Tanner found the access to the roof in the form of a pulldown ladder in a hallway.
He opened the hatch after darkening the hall so no light would spill out, and after climbing up, he crawled to the edge of the roof.
A series of red & blue lights could be intermittently glimpsed in the distance through the trees, as the police and emergency services headed toward the scene.
Tanner lay still and watched the area at the rear of the house. While it was possible that the sniper had stayed in position where he was, on the south side of the home, Tanner thought he would move toward the rear.
He would assume that Tanner would bolt from the property before the arrival of the authorities, and a smart man would head out the back, where there were no roads. A small town was six miles away in that direction. Once there, a car could be stolen or a place could be found to hide out.<
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As the sounds of sirens split the night, Tanner spotted the sniper. The shooter was a lighter man-shaped shadow against the darker shapes of the tree branches. Tanner took aim with the AR-15 and sent several rounds at the man.
A loud grunt was followed by a scream as the man fell to the ground. After reentering the house, Tanner shed his jacket to reveal the dark-blue uniform shirt of a cop. Once he turned the reversible jacket inside out, it too was dark-blue and had a phony badge on it.
A cap from beneath the shirt helped the look, along with a metal nametag and clip-on tie taken from a pocket. Finally, Tanner connected a police shoulder mic to his jacket, with the dangling cord hidden away down a sleeve.
His belt was missing all the standard police gear, but his silhouette read cop, and it would be enough to get him off the property at night. Outside the house was chaos, as the dead were many, and often in pieces. What wounded there were, were vocal, with most screaming.
One man, who’d only been slashed across the face by flying debris, was claiming that the aliens had attacked them and that someone needed to, “Alert the fucking Air Force.”
Tanner slipped into the trees and a short while later five police cars came onto the property. Then came the ambulances, followed by the fire department, but by then, the fires had all burned themselves out.
Tanner left the trees and moved among the chaos. After watching the cops who arrived in a sixth vehicle disappear into the house, Tanner climbed in the cruiser they had left running.
The cop at the front gate just waved him on through while arguing with the driver of a news van who sought entrance onto the property.
Rounding a curve on the road, Tanner saw two more cops looking over his flatbed truck. He gave a little toot of his horn as he sent them a wave and kept driving.
When he was ten miles from the house, he stole a car from a movie theater parking lot after discarding the cop look and police cruiser. While sitting in a bar and nursing a beer, he pondered his next move.
Moss Murphy owned a restaurant in the heart of Boston. Perhaps he thought that being around so many people would protect him. If so, he was mistaken. Tanner went online and found out what he could about the eatery.
It looked like it was going to be a long night of killing.
26
You Drive
Sammy acquired a second car from the same source that had supplied the first vehicle. He was using it now as he wove up and down the rainy streets of Metairie, Louisiana, in a search pattern.
Along with the car, he’d asked for and received information.
The cops had found the money Ricky had stolen. It was stashed inside his trailer, so that was gone forever.
Julie was being held over for arraignment and would face murder charges connected with Ricky Valente’s death. Julie’s stalker was named Victor Fenner. Fenner was in the hospital after being found shot twice. He was claiming he was the victim of an attempted carjacking, but Julie had placed suspicion on him.
However, Fenner was a solid citizen with no record, while Julie was an ex-con. Sammy was the only one who might be able to help Julie, but the cops wouldn’t take his word for anything, not when his last name was Giacconi.
To his surprise, Sammy felt bad about Julie’s predicament and wished he could help, but the best he could do was to pay for her lawyer when the time came to go to trial. Why he would do that much he had no idea.
The woman was good-looking, sexy even, but he didn’t think it was that. The women who worked at Johnny R’s were just as beautiful, and a few of them had made it clear that they liked him. Sammy had ignored the attention and kept his mind on work.
Whatever it was about Julie, it had him out late roaming the streets during a rain storm. When at last he’d found what, or rather whom, he’d been looking for, Sammy realized that was only half the battle.
It was Missy, Julie’s runaway dog, who was pressed against the base of a palm tree. The hound was soaked to the skin and shivering either from the rain, fear, or a combination of both. To aid in his success, Sammy had stopped at a convenience store, where he’d bought dry dog food.
Although she seemed to remember him, Missy was reluctant to jump in Sammy’s car until he shook the bag of kibble. Once he had her, he snuck her into his motel room and dried her off, then placed a blanket on the floor for her to lay on.
“What am I going to do with you if Julie goes to prison?”
Missy cocked her head, but had no answer to offer, and neither did Sammy.
In New York City, Sara sat out on the balcony of the hotel suite she’d taken with Tanner and thought about her future.
She was not the type to lay around for very long doing nothing, while she also enjoyed work that offered challenges. The FBI had fit that bill, but it also served-up mind-numbing periods where nothing happened, and then there was the drudgery of filling out official reports.
Working with Tanner had been the best job of her life, and while she loved him, neither of them wanted to work together on a regular basis.
She needed her own arena to work in, one where she could excel, and yes, help people. Alicia was right. She had saved Kevin’s life, along with Gabriel’s, and the jittery Roland.
Killing Luis Zade hadn’t bothered her at all. The son of a bitch had been willing to murder anyone who got between him and the bank money, and would have come after her if she’d let him live.
There was that offer from Jacques Durand, but it required her to live abroad most of the time. Not only would that entail long absences from Tanner, but from New York City as well.
After Johnny Rossetti died, Sara thought she might never live in New York City ever again, but being back, she realized how wrong she’d been. She loved the city, and so did Tanner. It was their home.
When the idea struck her, it did so as she was dozing off to sleep with her feet up on the coffee table. Her bare feet hit the floor as she rose from her chair and paced along the railing of the balcony. After finding no flaw with the idea, she decided she would go ahead with it.
Sara Blake, Private Investigator, yes, she liked the way that sounded. With her future path set, she left the balcony, crawled under the covers, and fell into a contented sleep.
Tanner rolled by Moss Murphy’s seafood restaurant and saw that it was closed and looked dark inside. However, he spotted a car in the back corner of the parking lot with its interior brightly lit.
A second pass by the restaurant gave the impression of one occupant inside the vehicle. It was a male and he was seated in the driver’s seat. Tanner ditched his stolen car several blocks from the restaurant and went to sniff out the trap.
Over an hour later, Tanner was convinced that there was no trap and wondered what the man was up to. The man in the car was Finn Kelly, and he appeared to be reading a book about boat building. Perhaps he had plans to sail back to Ireland.
Tanner approached the open window of the driver’s side door and was gratified to see Finn Kelly tense as he spoke to him.
“What game are you playing here?”
Finn turned and smiled at Tanner.
“You’re as good as they say. I can’t remember the last time someone snuck up on me.”
“Answer my question.”
“I’m here to see that no more of my friends die while trying to stop you. I’ve heard reports of the devastation you caused at the house.”
“If you want to kill me, Kelly, you’re using an odd method to get there.”
“I want to end this war, Tanner, not your life. I’m here to make a peace offering to Mr. Pullo.”
“Moss Murphy sent you?”
The Irish lilt was strong in Kelly’s next words and the gray eyes crinkled.
“Oh no, Mr. Moss Murphy did not send me on this errand, and I’ll wager by now he wants me dead.”
“Get to the bottom line.”
“To do that, I’ll have to open the trunk.”
“Fine, step out of the car… but slowly.”
Finn Kelly did as Tanner said and moved with deliberate intent. When he used the key to open the trunk, Tanner stood behind him. Once the trunk was sitting wide open, so were Tanner’s eyes.
Liam Murphy lay inside the trunk bound, gagged, and unconscious.
“I spiked the little pisser’s drink. He’ll sleep all the way to New York City.”
Tanner slammed the trunk, removed the keys from the lock, then handed them to Kelly.
“You drive.”
27
Never Arrive Empty-Handed
During the trip back to New York City, Tanner listened as Finn Kelly explained how the Boston mob was drawn into starting a war with the Giacconi Family.
“Liam back there in the trunk thinks he’s a modern day Lucky Luciano, only instead of uniting the Irish, Jewish, and Italian mobs, he was going to unite everyone. While he was in school in California he became friendly with a gang leader named Vincente Chavez. Chavez heads a street gang called the AK’s, as in AK-47’s. They have over a thousand members. Liam convinced Chavez that he could take down the Giacconi family and move his own people in there along with the AK’s.”
“His own people? What people?”
Finn smiled.
“Yeah, see, the kid thinks he runs things and his father lets him get away with it.”
“You mean he sanctions it. Delusions of grandeur or not, these robberies and attacks wouldn’t happen without Moss Murphy’s say so.”
“True, but that came later. In the beginning, it was just Liam and a few punks like that Sean O’Doyle. I began to suspect something was up and asked around, but Moss wasn’t sure what was happening until you were attacked on the highway and O’Doyle’s body was found with those gang members.”
“That was when Liam brought his father into the loop?”
Manhattan Hit Man (A Tanner Novel Book 18) Page 15