Harvey stood up from the table.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I gotta take a leak.”
“If you run off I’ll find you, and you won’t like it when I do.”
“Chill, man. I’ll be right back. Order me some of that zucchini.”
Harvey walked off toward the bathroom and Tanner watched him until he disappeared from sight down a narrow hallway where the restrooms were.
* * *
When Harvey came out of the bathroom a minute later, he saw a beautiful blonde standing outside the ladies’ room. With her was an equally hot redhead. The women smiled at him, then the redhead asked him a question.
“How’s the nightlife around here?”
Harvey smiled back at her. “There’s a great nightclub over in Chandler.”
The redhead moved closer, then she put her arms around his neck. Harvey was grinning until he felt the needle going in.
“What the hell?”
“Don’t fight it,” the redhead said, while backing away from him.
Harvey did fight it, but the drug put him out in seconds. The blonde and the redhead had draped Harvey’s arms over their shoulders and grabbed him around the waist to keep him up.
“Damn, he’s heavy for a skinny guy,” the redhead said.
They dragged Harvey toward a door at the rear. Once there, the blonde kicked it twice, and it opened up. On the other side was an alley and a smiling busboy with his hand held out. The blonde gave him a hundred dollars and he went back inside after wishing them good luck.
A van was parked in the alley with its side door sitting open. The women dumped Harvey inside then slammed the door on him. There was no need to restrain him. The drug coursing through Harvey’s system would keep him out for hours. That was more than enough time to hand him over to the cops and collect the five-thousand-dollar bounty he was worth.
As the two women were about to open their doors and drive away, a car pulled into the alleyway with its high beams on.
“Shit!” the redhead said, as she covered her eyes.
The blonde, who was also having trouble seeing, called out. “Hey! Move that car.”
A voice answered from beyond the lights.
“I can’t let you take Harvey, ladies. I need him.”
The two women looked at each other, then the redhead spoke.
“We’re licensed private detectives and bounty hunters. This man is in our custody.”
The lights of the car went off and Tanner walked toward them. As he got closer, the women began laughing, and the blonde walked out to greet him.
Her name was Kayla Farnsworth, and her sister was named Zoe. They were old friends of Tanner’s and the granddaughters of Tanner Five.
Kayla greeted him with a kiss on the cheek. “Hello, Xavier, oh, excuse me, I meant to say Tanner.”
Tanner smiled back at her. “It’s been a long time.”
“He’s still ours,” Zoe called. “We captured Harvey Kenton… and we could use the money.”
“Let’s go somewhere and talk, ladies. I have a better deal for you than Harvey.”
Kayla stared at Tanner, then nodded. “Let’s hear what the man has to say, Zoe.”
“All right,” Zoe said, “but he’s paying for the drinks.”
“It will be my pleasure,” Tanner said.
7
Threat Liquidation
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, OCTOBER 2001
Spenser had spoken to a man at a petrol station who knew Vince Ryker and didn’t like him. Rather than helping Spenser to pinpoint Ryker’s location, the man expanded his search area.
“I had a mate who knew Ryker when he lived in Japan. If you’re looking for him, you might try Tokyo. As far as I know, Ryker only stayed in Sydney for short periods.”
Spenser thanked the man for the information after obtaining the name of the friend who also knew Ryker. That second man told Spenser that Ryker had recently been spending time in northern Indonesia. Spenser had been aware of that already, since the men Ryker attacked with had spoken a dialect from that region.
But Ryker had to have made a home somewhere. If it wasn’t in Sydney, Spenser would travel to wherever it was. Nothing else was more important than ending Ryker’s threat. Not only was the man too dangerous to leave alive, but he couldn’t be allowed to continue calling himself Tanner.
Spenser’s run-in with the gang members named the Outbackers had brought that fact home to him in a huge way. How many other individuals or groups were under the impression that Ryker represented the Tanner legacy? There was no way to know the damage Ryker had inflicted on the name. Like a cancer, he had to be eradicated.
On his third week in Sydney, Spenser came across a barmaid who once dated Ryker. Her name was Candace, and unlike most people, she had liked Ryker a great deal. Spenser talked to her over drinks at a bar while using a phony name.
“You’re a friend of Vince’s from back in the states?”
“Vince and I go way back, but we lost touch.”
“I don’t know where he is, but I did run across that son of his a few weeks ago.”
Spenser smiled as if he were remembering the boy fondly.
“Oh, I haven’t seen him since he was a little guy. I’m not even sure I remember his name.”
“It’s Damon, and he’s all grown up, or practically so. I would guess he’s left secondary school by now, which is what you Americans call high school.”
“I’d love to see him again. Where did you run into him?”
“In Canberra, which is where I used to work. Vince spent some time there last year. I saw Damon in a fast food restaurant on Bunda Street.”
“What’s the boy like? Is he anything like Vince?”
Candace had rolled her eyes. “Damon worships his father, and he looks like a younger version of him, but he’ll never be like him.”
“Why not?”
Candace tapped the side of her head. “Damon isn’t very bright, and he’s got a temper he can’t control. I remember hearing that he beat up a tourist over a minor traffic incident.”
“I was told Vince had a daughter too. Is she around?”
“The girl doesn’t live in Australia, and I never met her either. Vince adores her though. He said she was his pride and joy, but all fathers say that.”
* * *
The next day, Spenser was in Canberra, which was about a three-hour drive south of Sydney. He spoke with dozens of people, but no one had ever heard of Damon Ryker. A look through the area’s high school yearbooks was a waste of time as well.
Australia was a huge country, and although Ryker was a foreigner and more memorable to the natives, Spenser knew he could search for a year and not find the man. It didn’t matter. Ryker was his target and so he would follow any lead and turn over as many rocks as it took. Vince Ryker had to die, no matter how long it took. Spenser was determined to kill him.
In desperation, Spenser camped out in front of the fast food restaurant where Candace said she had run into Damon. Candace said that Damon resembled his father, so Spenser eyed every young man who entered the restaurant and scrutinized their features.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, he spotted Damon Ryker. The boy, who was about eighteen or nineteen, did look like his father, and even wore a beard, which accentuated the resemblance. Candace had gone on to say that Damon was a pudgy boy, but Spenser didn’t think so. Damon wasn’t muscular like his father, but neither was he fat. He did have a soft look about him though, as if he hadn’t quite reached maturity yet.
The kid had pulled up in a white Toyota Hilux, a pickup truck. While he was inside the restaurant, Spenser placed a magnetic tracking device on the vehicle. Damon emerged with a bag of fast food while sucking on a milkshake. If Damon had lost weight recently, it appeared he wasn’t going to keep it off.
Spenser was driving a newer pickup that he had paid cash for. He followed Damon from the restaurant, with the hope that he would lead him to his father.
*
* *
Damon wound up at a nearby apartment complex. Spenser checked the mailboxes in the lobby and saw a box with the name D. RYKER on it.
The boy was only inside for a short time before he came back out and drove away. Spenser wondered if some of the food Damon bought had been for his father.
Spenser had seriously wounded Ryker back in Utah with a knife injury to the neck and a rifle slug in the left leg. Maybe Ryker was bedridden and recuperating in his son’s apartment. A check of the tracker on Damon’s vehicle showed that he was headed north.
The tracker had a range of only a few miles. If Spenser delayed, he might lose Damon. Then again, perhaps the boy had already led him to his father.
Spenser decided to check out the apartment and take the risk of losing contact with Damon. If Ryker were inside, his quest would be over.
Wounded or not, Vince Ryker had been trained as a Tanner. Spenser entered the dwelling as quietly as possible after checking for tripwires or other traps. It was silent inside, except for the ticking of a clock. After a search, Spenser determined that there was no one at home.
The disappointment hit Spenser with the force of a physical blow. He had been hoping to wrap things up and rejoin his boys in Indonesia. He had spoken to Cody and Romeo several times by phone, and they had been excited by the training they were receiving from Maz.
Spenser smiled. He missed Cody and Romeo. The three of them had been together for years. They were on the verge of becoming partners once the boys’ training was completed, and he had plans to travel the world with them as they plied their deadly trade.
The best time of Spenser’s life had been the year he’d spent traveling with his mentor, Tanner Five. He wanted his own protégés to have that experience. That couldn’t happen with the threat of Vince Ryker looming over them.
Spenser gave the apartment a quick but thorough search before leaving. Once back in his truck, he headed north. The tracking device he’d placed on Damon’s vehicle wasn’t sending a signal to its counterpart because it was out of range. By driving in the same direction Damon had gone, Spenser hoped to pick up the signal again.
He was thinking he had lost the young man when a beeping sound proved he was wrong. He had caught up to Damon and was within three miles of his location. Spenser sped up and found the truck parked at the pumps of a petrol station. While there, he filled his own tank.
Damon never noticed him, and Spenser continued to follow. An hour before dusk, Damon turned right onto a dirt road that wasn’t on the map Spenser had with him. When he reached the spot a minute after Damon, Spenser saw the No Trespassing signs.
The area they were in was undeveloped and sat near the edge of a national forest. Before proceeding closer, Spenser checked for cameras. When he saw none, he drove onto the property in a low gear.
After weaving along the narrow road for over two miles, Spenser heard a familiar sound. Someone was firing a rifle.
He tucked the pickup among high bushes that hid it from view and continued on foot. When he determined that the sound of the shots was coming from the other side of a small hill, Spenser climbed up while keeping low.
Damon Ryker was shooting at a man-sized target that had been cut out of thick sheet metal. If a round struck it, there would be a resounding ring produced. Damon made that sound, but only with about two out of every six shots.
Vince Ryker was reputed to be deadly with a rifle. That skill had not been passed down to his son. Even when Damon managed to hit the cut-out, the shots barely struck the edge of it, and the boy was only standing fifty feet away. Off in the distance sat two trailers. Upon seeing them, Spenser realized where he was. Ryker had made this his training camp, similar to the one Spenser maintained in Baja California.
If Ryker hoped to train Damon to be his successor, he had his work cut out for him. The boy was a horrible shot. Spenser moved closer to Damon without being observed, waited until the boy emptied the rifle, then spoke to him.
“Hello, Damon.”
The kid spun around so fast that he nearly fell.
“Who the hell are you?” Damon said, in an Australian accent.
“I’m an old acquaintance of your father, Vince.”
Damon squinted at him. “You’re an American. I heard there was an American in Sydney looking for my father.”
“That’s me.”
The boy’s soft features twisted with hate. “You’re not a friend of his. I know who you are, you’re that phony Tanner that shot him.” Damon charged at Spenser with the empty rifle raised like a club. “You killed my father!”
Spenser dodged the young man and tripped him. Damon went down hard and landed on rocky soil. When he flipped over in preparation to sit up, Spenser pointed a gun at his face.
“Are you saying your father is dead?”
Damon looked up at him with wet eyes.
“He died in Los Angeles from an infection he got from a leg wound. One of his old friends tried to help him, but the infection had reached his heart. I didn’t know anything about it until my sister called me. She said a man named Spenser Hawke shot our father.”
Damon made a clumsy lunge, as he tried to grab Spenser’s leg. Spenser stepped aside, and Damon made it to his feet.
“Calm down, kid,” Spenser said, but Damon ignored him and charged again. Damon’s forward motion came to a sudden stop when Spenser sent a hard kick against his jaw. Damon collapsed onto his back as he was rendered senseless.
Spenser looked down at the boy and sighed. He aimed his gun at Damon’s chest. The smart move would be to kill the kid, to avoid the possibility of him someday making an attempt on his life. That was what Spenser’s head was telling him, but he didn’t want to kill Damon if he didn’t have to.
After patting Damon down for other weapons, Spenser left him and checked out the trailers he’d seen. One was empty of any belongings, but the other held a few items of clothing that might belong to Damon.
By the time Spenser returned to the firing range, Damon was sitting up and moving his jaw back and forth. Spenser squatted down across from him and snapped his fingers to get his attention.
“Listen to me. My name is Spenser Hawke, but I’m also Tanner, the real Tanner. Your father was not, nor, could he ever claim to have been, a Tanner. If you have any plans to follow in his footsteps, forget it.”
Damon stared at him from a face scarlet with rage. When he spoke, Spenser heard the pure hatred in his voice.
“I’ll kill you someday, you bastard.”
“Try it and you’ll die. Now, the friend in Los Angeles that told you your father was dead, what’s his name?”
“Go to hell!”
“I could torture the name out of you.”
“No, you couldn’t, because all the man said was that his name was Joe.”
Spenser stood. “This is over, kid. Move on with your life and forget all about me.”
The hate in Damon’s gaze grew hotter.
“On my father’s sacred soul, I’ll kill you, you and those phony apprentices of yours.”
Spenser got a pained expression on his face. As he looked into the eyes of the young man seated on the ground. He knew Damon meant what he was saying, and that he posed a threat. A peril which also extended to Cody and Romeo.
Damon barely had time to widen his eyes in shock before Spenser shot him in the forehead. The boy collapsed onto his back and his brains leaked into the ground. Spenser stared down at Damon and cursed Vince Ryker. Yes, he killed the boy, but Ryker was to blame as well.
When Spenser left the area, Damon was buried in an unmarked grave, and the trailers of Ryker’s training camp were sending black smoke into a dark Australian sky.
8
Like Old Times
ARIZONA, AUGUST 2018
Tanner was seated in a booth inside a bar with Kayla and Zoe. Outside in the women’s van, Harvey slumbered in a drug-induced sleep, as the three of them decided his fate.
“What’s this deal you have for us?” Zoe sa
id.
“Harvey is worth five-thousand dollars to you. I’ll double that to ten grand if you let me have him.”
“Why do you want him?” Kayla asked. “He can’t be a target. If he were, he’d be… handled.”
“He’s leading me to a pair of targets,” Tanner said, and went on to explain about Russell and Tonya.
“We heard about those two,” Kayla said. “I also know that there’s a twenty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to their capture.”
“True, but you would never collect it, because they’ll soon be dead.”
Kayla and Zoe straightened in their seats. They knew who Tanner was and what he did for a living, what their grandfather had also done for a living. It was still unusual to hear someone speak of murder so casually.
“From what I hear, killing those two will be doing the world a favor, but we’ll still be giving up the twenty-thousand they’re worth,” Kayla said.
Tanner nodded. “All right, I’ll give you twenty-thousand, but for that much money you’re going to babysit Harvey for me.”
“What happens when you don’t need him anymore?” Zoe asked.
“I told him I would let him go, and I will. If you two want to track him down again after that, be my guest.”
Kayla sent a look her sister’s way. A moment later, Zoe grabbed her purse and headed toward the ladies’ room. When they were alone, Kayla reached across the table and took Tanner’s hand.
“I’ve been hearing a lot about you these past few years. You’ve become a mythic figure on the streets.”
“That was all the result of my fighting to stay alive. I seem to attract groups that want to kill me.”
“Like that Mexican cartel?”
“Yes, but there was a personal score to settle there, between me and the cartel leader.”
Kayla smiled. “And it’s a story you won’t tell me, right?”
“I wouldn’t want to bore you.”
Young Guns Box Set Page 4