At first, Tanner thought that Joaquin had arrived with someone else other than Dante, but when the figure below spoke in the deep voice Tanner remembered, he realized that Dante had changed.
Cardoso had been a large man in his mid-forties when Tanner knew him years ago, but he hadn’t been overweight. Dante was fifty pounds heavier and there was a bald spot on the crown of his head.
Dante was turned in his seat and asking Joaquin if he saw Tanner coming down the street. Joaquin was at the doors of the church and peeking outside.
“All I see are a few people heading to work.”
“I’m surprised he’s late,” Dante said.
Tanner walked down the main aisle toward the pew Dante was seated in.
“I’m not late. I just decided not to use the front door.”
Dante spun around. When he saw that Tanner’s hands were empty, he smiled.
“I see you are as sneaky as ever, Tanner.”
“It’s a survival mechanism.”
Dante was looking beyond Tanner. “I was hoping you would bring Alexa with you.”
“She’s not a part of this; she leads a different life now.”
“Is she happy?”
“Yes.”
“Good, she deserves it more than most.”
“How are you, Dante?”
Dante patted his belly. “The good life has been too good, but I can’t help but eat so much. I have a chef who can make cardboard mouthwatering.”
“Have you told anyone else that I’m in Mexico?”
“No one, and I’m eager to hear about this plan of yours. I was hasty to start a war with Kagan Andreas. He has the ability to destroy my pipeline and will try his best to kill me.”
“So why did you start trouble?”
Dante sighed. “I grew ambitious. I should have been happy with what I’ve got. I have my own cartel. Before this I was taking crumbs off Damián Sandoval’s table.”
“Did you really expect to take over an operation as large as Kagan’s?”
“No. But I don’t need to; I only need to get him out of the way, so I can use it. You’re not the only one who has a plan, Tanner. If Kagan were dead, my plan could work, and I’d have half of the profits from his drug pipeline.”
“Explain that.”
“Do you know of Kagan’s man, Vasquez?”
“Yes. The DEA file contained facts about his background.”
“Then you’re aware that his wife and children were murdered by a rival of her father?”
“Yeah, Jorge Molina.”
“I have Molina. One of my people spotted him living under a new name in Brazil. I’m betting that Vasquez will want to get his hands on him.”
“You think Vasquez will betray Kagan in exchange for Molina?”
“He might, but I’m not counting on that. Kagan was small-time until he met Vasquez. Vasquez is the real brains behind Kagan’s operation. Once Kagan is eliminated, I want to make a deal with Vasquez by offering him a chance to gain vengeance on the man who murdered his wife.”
“That could work once Kagan is dead.”
Joaquin had joined them. He sighed. “We came close to killing the bastard two days ago at an airfield but failed.”
An alarm went off in Tanner’s head. Henry and Jax had been with Kagan at that time.
“Do you know if Kagan lost any people?”
“Four of his men died,” Dante said.
“Was anyone else injured, perhaps a young American?”
“No,” Joaquin said.
“Kagan has two boys with him. I’m here to get those boys and take them back to America. They can’t be harmed no matter what.”
“Understood,” Dante said. “The same is true of Vasquez. Now, Tanner, what is this plan of yours?”
“We need to make Kagan nervous. You say he could defeat you easily; we have to make him believe that he’s underestimated you.”
“How?”
“With my help. The DEA and the other authorities they work with are excellent at gathering information. I have that information and will use it to hit Kagan where it hurts. He’ll think it’s you behind it and be forced to put out fires all day. In the meantime, you’ll be gathering an army to storm that fortress of his near Mexico City. Then, tomorrow morning we attack.”
“An army?” Dante said. “I have hundreds of people but even so we would be slaughtered before we ever breached the walls. I’d also risk leaving my own fortress unprotected. And you want to do this tomorrow?”
“Yes, tomorrow. And hundreds won’t do. We need the man to be panicked. I want you to show up with at least a thousand men, more if possible.”
Dante and Joaquin looked at each other, then Dante asked the obvious question.
“How am I going to recruit a thousand men in one day?”
Tanner smiled. “Invite them to a party.”
21
What Matters Most
Angel Pérez rose late in the morning and studied the perfect form of the redheaded woman in bed beside him. She’d cost him the equivalent of two thousand U.S. dollars and had been worth every cent. He hadn’t even needed to take a little blue pill once he’d seen her. That was rare for Angel, who at fifty-seven was past his prime.
The escort went home after a shower and was pleased by the tip Angel had given her. After showering, Angel dressed, read the newspaper, then left his apartment to head to a meeting at Kagan’s palace. Angel never made it there. He was shot in the heart and the head as he was walking from the front door of his apartment building to the limo waiting for him at the curb. The shots that killed him had been taken from the rooftop of a building that was half a block away.
Angel Pérez was Kagan’s main liaison between himself and the leaders of the cartels who used his pipeline. He had the trust of many men who seldom trusted and would be a difficult man for Kagan to replace.
Joaquin smiled at Tanner as the assassin climbed beside him in the Mercedes Joaquin was driving.
“I heard the shots from here.”
“That’s one down,” Tanner said. “Let’s head to the next spot.”
Six minutes after Angel Pérez was killed, his bodyguard was on the phone with a lawyer named Ricardo Ortega. Ortega was also an accountant and an expert in international finance and money laundering. The bodyguard had been instructed to phone Ortega if he ever observed anything unusual happening that concerned Pérez. The bodyguard wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he was pretty sure that Pérez getting a chunk of his head blown off qualified as unusual.
When the call came in, Ortega was in his office and had been about to meet with a client who owned a chain of more than sixty fast food franchises. When his personal assistant said that a man named Manuel was calling on behalf of Angel Pérez, Ortega told her to appease the waiting client with another cup of the insanely expensive coffee they brewed and to hold all other calls.
The coffee was Kopi Luwak. It came from Indonesia, and its beans were roasted after being eaten, digested, and expelled from the bowels of a viverrid called the Palm Civet, which is also known as the Toddy Cat. The animals eat only the best coffee cherries. While in their digestive tract, the coffee cherries undergo a fermentation process that gives them a distinctive flavor that can’t be reproduced. After the beans are expelled from the animals’ bowels, they’re cleaned, roasted, and prepared. Coffee connoisseurs say that the brew is without parallel, and Ortega’s clients agreed. He had never tasted it himself, not after learning how it was made.
Ortega had just enough time to be told of Angel Pérez’s fate when his own arrived for him at supersonic speed in the form of three 180 grain rifle rounds. The slugs entered the office through the window behind him and tore through Ortega’s body, killing him, before becoming lodged in his metal desk.
When the client entered the office with Ortega’s assistant and viewed the blood and tissue damage, the insanely expensive coffee he’d drunk was expelled onto the wool carpet, which had also cost an arm a
nd a leg.
Tanner descended from a second rooftop and headed toward another target. Kagan Andreas was going to have a bad day.
Kagan had been having a bad day since the moment he’d woken up. He had opened his eyes thinking of Laura, and the fact that she was still alive. The woman he’d had in Stark who had been going by the name of Mrs. Kent was under arrest and awaiting arraignment on an assault charge and attempted murder. In the meantime, Laura was being protected by the authorities. It meant that Kagan would have to wait to have his revenge against her.
He thought of Cody Parker. It was Parker’s fault that Laura was still alive, as well as Chris Monte. Had Parker not interfered, Kagan would have made certain Laura was dead and then killed Monte. Now, they were both alive and another of his people was in jail.
Kagan had sat up in bed and sighed. When enough time passed, he would send people north to kill Laura. Cody Parker would die too, for being a nuisance.
Kagan reached back and slapped the buttocks of the woman beside him in bed and told her to leave the room. He usually wanted sex upon rising but wasn’t in the mood. The young woman dressed quickly and fled his bedroom suite. Kagan was certain he had slept with her at least twice before and made a mental note to have fresh girls brought in soon. The ones that were there now would be shipped off to other clients in another country. They were like human cattle. When they reached a certain age or failed to please, they were sent to destinations one step removed from hell, such as brothels where they would be used up to thirty times a day. At that point, most of them killed themselves.
None of that concerned Kagan. Empathy was not one of his strong suits. He showered, dressed in black chinos and a black polo shirt, to match his mood, and began his day as he usually did by taking breakfast out on his patio.
Since he had little appetite, he only had coffee and decided to start his business day earlier than usual. As he was leaving the table, Henry appeared looking sullen, while Jax sent him a grand smile and thanked him for sending a girl to his room.
“You can have one every night if you want. And Henry, have you grown tired of Faye yet?”
“No. I still want Faye.”
“All right, but remember, you can have any of the girls.”
“I know.”
“I’ll talk to you later at lunchtime. Until then, keep yourselves entertained.”
“I could come with you,” Jax said. “I want to learn the business.”
Kagan smiled at him. “Keep Henry company. You’ll get your chance to prove what you can do soon enough.”
Kagan left and Jax sulked. “I guess we could play some more pool, or how about basketball?”
Henry shrugged. “Why not?”
After breakfast, they went to the basketball court. Jax tried to talk their guards into playing too but the men declined while smiling. Henry could just imagine Kagan’s reaction if he came upon the guards and saw them dribbling a basketball instead of keeping watch. The guards could envision that too and stood on the sidelines.
Jax had a height advantage on Henry and was fast but he missed the basket often. Henry beat him twice by being consistent and hitting three-point shots from as far as mid-court. He had excellent aim as a marksman, and it carried over to basketball.
They had both decided to do something else when the guards’ phones buzzed. They read the texts they had received with grim faces. There was a flurry of activity throughout the compound and Henry wondered if Tanner was the reason for it and if he had gotten inside somehow.
A few minutes later he assumed that something else was going on. Over at the motor pool several vehicles were having gear tossed inside them and dozens of men were headed that way on foot while running.
“Looks like some shit is going down somewhere,” Jax said.
They watched as men climbed into the rear of one of the Jeep-like vehicles and took seats along three rows. It looked like one of the squad vehicles they used in the army, except it wasn’t armored. Six vehicles headed for the gate. In total, they carried over thirty armed men.
Maybe it does have something to do with Cody, Henry thought. If so, at least some of those guards just rode off to their deaths.
Henry was right to suspect that Tanner was nearby. He’d been killing key figures related to Kagan’s organization at such a rapid pace that by the time the man became aware of one death, two more had occurred. The information that made it possible for Tanner to make such surgical strikes at Kagan’s major players came from the DEA file Mendez had given him. It gave Tanner an immense advantage.
Joaquin assisted Tanner by doing the driving and keeping watch for a response by Kagan. They were nearing their sixth target when one of the vehicles Henry had seen leaving the compound sped past Joaquin’s Mercedes.
The vehicle entered the driveway of the villa Tanner had been headed to and he told Joaquin to keep driving.
“It looks like Kagan has figured out he’s under attack.”
“Should we head back to the village?” Joaquin asked.
Tanner pointed out the windshield. “Find a place to park up on that hill where that billboard is, and I’ll use binoculars to spy on them.”
Joaquin headed for the hill. There was a paved area where a building had once sat and a sign saying that new homes would soon be built there.
Tanner watched as three guards dressed in olive drab entered the home of his next target. Three more stayed outside. They also wore olive green clothing.
“You’re not going down there are you?” Joaquin asked.
“No, but those men just became our new targets.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They’ll need to be replaced if they plan to guard the man they’re protecting 24/7. When that shift change happens, we’ll follow them and see where they go. I doubt they’ll head all the way back to Kagan’s fortress.”
“You’ll still be outnumbered.”
“Those men will be relaxed and feel safe after getting off duty. The last thing they’ll expect is to be attacked while they’re on their own turf.”
“It sounds like this will take all day.”
“It will.”
Joaquin took out his phone. “I have to call my wife.”
Tanner opened the door. “I’ll give you some privacy.” He stepped away from the vehicle and out of Joaquin’s view to make his own call home. Sara answered on the sixth ring and sounded out of breath.
“Why are you breathing hard?”
“I was playing with Lucas outside and had to grab my phone from where I left it on the patio. How are you?”
“I’m good.”
“And Henry?”
“Not yet, but I’m hoping to see him tomorrow.”
“You work fast. Just be careful.”
“Steve told me about Mrs. Kent. I guess we need a new housekeeper.”
“I would say so.”
“I spoke with Laura before leaving. She knew I was going to look for Henry.”
“She suspects something?”
“She must by now. It was odd the way we showed up after years when Henry made his plea on television last year.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked me to bring Henry home.”
“It sounds like we’ll have to explain things to her. I think she’ll take it well. She likes you and she trust you.”
“I’ll deal with that when I get back. Are there any new problems there?”
“No, but Lucas misses you, and so do I.”
“I miss you too. Put Lucas on the line.”
Tanner spoke to Lucas and then to Sara again. When he rejoined Joaquin, he saw that the young man’s mood had changed.
“Is something wrong?”
“It’s nothing. I usually read to my daughters and I won’t make it home in time.”
“That’s not nothing. It’s one of the few things that matter.”
Joaquin looked at him and nodded. “That’s the truth.”
The two men kept
watch over the house and waited, while wishing they could be home with their families.
22
The Lesson
After watching the guards leave the compound, Henry and Jax decided to head to the theater room to watch a movie. Henry was tired of being around Jax, whom he’d never liked. Jax talked too much and had brooded after losing at basketball.
Around one p.m., Henry’s guard received a text and told Henry that his father wanted him and Jax back on the balcony for lunch.
They found Kagan drinking whiskey and smoking a cigarette. He did not appear to be in a good mood. Vasquez and Faye were with him and the blonde woman was shadowing Faye again.
Henry overheard a conversation Kagan and Vasquez were having in Spanish. it concerned their plans to strike back at someone name Dante Cardoso.
Cardoso, or someone working for him had killed people who were important to Kagan’s operation. Henry got the impression that Cardoso was the man who had tried to kill his father. Kagan had decided to hire an assassin to kill Dante instead of sending his own people after him. They didn’t mention Tanner again, but they did consider hiring someone else whose name Henry had heard. Cody had mentioned him, a man named Taran.
Jax spoke up then. He was grinning as he delivered a piece of news to Kagan.
“Henry can speak Spanish too. Did you know that, Kagan?”
Kagan and Vasquez stopped talking and stared at Henry.
“No, I was unaware of that fact,” Kagan said in English, while glaring at Henry.
“Yeah, my girlfriend told me that. She’s half-Mex and speaks Spanish.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you spoke Spanish, Henry?”
Henry shrugged. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
“It does. It means you’ve been listening in to our conversations.”
“Yeah, and I wouldn’t be here to do that if you hadn’t kidnapped me.”
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