“There’s a man headed toward the trailer with us, Luke. He’s got a gun.”
“Why the hell are you bringing him here?”
Soulless moved closer to Luke, and the man shrank away. Soulless grabbed Luke and whispered in his ear. “Ask her how far away they are.”
“Where you at, Vera?”
“We’re coming from the lake; we’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Soulless whispered again. “Tell her you found another man and that you fought him and knocked him out. Have her ask the man with her if it might be a friend of his.”
“Um, Vera, there was this guy here. I uh, I kicked his ass and he passed out. Ask the dude with you if it’s his buddy.”
They could hear Vera talking, then Tanner’s voice came on the line. “Your name is Luke?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the man look like?”
Soulless pointed at his own masked face, then down at the gun on his hip.
“I don’t know. He’s got on a mask,” Luke said. “And he had a gun too.”
“Are you sure he’s unconscious?”
Soulless whispered again, and Luke paraphrased what he’d told him to say.
“Oh yeah, I ah, I hit him with a rock, then dragged him into the RV. I hope he ain’t a friend of yours.”
“I’ll be right there,” Tanner said, and the call ended.
Luke looked at Soulless. “What now?”
There was a hole in the mask where Soulless’s mouth was. Luke saw his lips form into a smile.
“Now I set a trap.”
Up on the ridge overlooking the valley, Tom Curry had found the shooting blind Paul Mills had created in the crevice of the rock wall for his sniper to use. Curry had mistaken it for the lookout position he’d been told would be available for him to view the battle to come. That was on the other side of the valley.
Dana had promised to be there waiting for him but wasn’t. He was not surprised by her absence. He knew details about her thanks to his friend, Sean Sordillo, who had followed Dana all the way back to Chicago. Dana was a shill who had been employed by someone else to set up the battle between Tanner and Soulless. In time, Curry would have that name, and he would make that person wish they had never treated him like a pawn. Dana would pay as well.
Curry had walked in from where he’d left his car, over a mile away. He was lugging a backpack that contained a sleeping bag, food, and water. He also had a pistol, in case there was trouble.
Trouble came to him as he was ducking his head to enter the crevice. Someone of considerable strength had grabbed him by his collar and dragged him away from the entrance. Curry saw a man with an angry face glaring at him. The man looked like a commando and was dressed all in black. There was even black greasepaint streaked across his face, obscuring his features.
“Who the hell are you?” the man asked.
“Are you Soulless? If so, it’s an honor to meet you. I go by the name Soulless Fan #1 on the assassins website.”
The man relaxed. “Oh, you’re one of those assholes who got conned into arranging this. No, I’m not Soulless or Tanner. My group is here to kill both of them.”
“You want to kill them?”
“This is a trap, dumbass.”
“Do you know a woman named Megan? Or maybe you know her as Dana.”
“No, and I’m done wasting time with you. If you want to see what happens, head over there to the other side. They built some sort of lookout there for you guys.”
“Guys?”
“Two of you morons got conned. The other asshole is probably over there now.”
Curry grew angry at the insults. “I am not an asshole or a moron and I wasn’t conned. I did pay good money to watch Tanner and Soulless battle it out, and I won’t let you cheat me out of seeing that.”
The man gave Curry a hard shove that sent him to the ground. He fell beside his backpack. He had removed it before attempting to enter the crevice.
“Was that a threat you son of a bitch? Are you planning to warn them somehow?”
The man removed the gun from the holster on his belt, then freed a sound suppressor from a pouch.
“You were conned, you are an asshole, and you’ve got a big mouth.”
Curry raised his hand up as he pleaded for his life “No! Don’t shoot me. Don’t!”
In the stretch of forest on the other side of the valley, Elliot Lipson was trudging along with a heavy pack on his back. Elliot hadn’t hiked anywhere since he was a teen in the Boy Scouts. The contents of his backpack reflected the Scouts’ motto of “Be Prepared.”
He had food, water, extra pairs of socks, shoelaces, medical supplies, and various over the counter cures for rashes and bee stings.
Elliot had been able to drive his Jeep to within a thousand feet of the valley, then had to walk the last part because of all the fissures in the land caused by the underground fire. If he’d risked getting closer and had gotten a tire trapped in a hole, he’d have to hike to the nearest town, which was about eight miles away.
Simply walking the short distance from his Jeep was wearing him out, and he still had to climb up the hill in order to reach the lookout point. He was panting so loudly that he didn’t hear the woman with the gun approach him until she was practically standing in front of him with her weapon raised and aimed at his face. The woman was Gwen.
“Hey! Don’t point that at me.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Elliot. Who are you?”
“Why are you here?”
“Are you a friend of Megan’s? Megan said she’d meet me here, so we could watch together.”
“Watch what?”
Elliot tried smiling, to win over the woman. “Is that an Irish accent? My grandfather was from Cork.”
Gwen took a step closer to Elliot, and the black hole at the end of the gun seemed twice as large to him.
“Tell me what you’re doing here, and don’t you dare lie to me.”
“I’m here to see what happens between Tanner and Soulless.”
Gwen lowered her arm. Now the gun was aimed at Elliot’s stomach. “How do you know about that?”
“I hired him. I’m the one who offered him the contract.”
“Offered who the contract?”
Elliot stared at her. There was talk that Soulless had been seen in Mexico traveling with a woman. As far as Elliot knew, Tanner worked alone. He smiled at Gwen and hoped that he guessed right.
“I’m the guy on the forum. Soulless Fan #1. I hired Soulless to kill Tanner.”
Gwen lowered her arm, and the gun was pointed at the ground. Elliot breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been close to wetting himself.
Tanner reached the trailer with the little girl, Haley, following close behind him, and her mother and brother trailing. He had told Vera to stay back until he could check things out, but she’d continued to follow him anyway.
There was no sign of Luke. Haley suggested that he was probably in the RV, “Cooking the medicine he makes.”
Tanner turned and looked back at Vera. “Medicine, hmm?”
“Are you a policeman?” Vera asked.
Tanner gestured at the motor home. “I don’t care what you do. It would be smart if you didn’t involve your kids.”
A look of shame came over Vera and she hung her head.
Haley headed toward the trailer. “Luke is probably inside. I’ll get him.”
As she was reaching out to open the motor home’s door, Tanner spotted shoe prints in the dirt. There were two sets leading into the RV. One appeared to have been made by someone wearing sneakers, the other set from hiking boots. Luke had claimed to have rendered someone unconscious before placing them in the RV. If true, there would be drag marks, not boot prints.
Tanner saw Haley open the door. Light filtering through the trees glinted off a swinging metallic wire that was attached to the other side of the doorknob. At the end of that wire was an object. It looked similar to the pins used i
n some grenades.
Tanner grabbed Haley by wrapping an arm around her waist. He yanked her backwards and up off her feet, to then turn his back to the motor home.
“Move! Now! Get behind a tree,” Tanner shouted, as he ran with Haley in his arms.
Soulless had rigged the motor home to blow up with the use of one of Gwen’s hand grenades. The grenade had a five second fuse if you weren’t using the attached timer. By itself, it would have been deadly, combined with the chemicals inside the meth lab, the blast was devastating.
Soulless and Luke had been walking toward Gwen’s location when the explosion went off. Soulless turned and looked skyward at the plume of smoke that was filled with pieces of the flaming motor home. He wondered if Tanner had just died.
Luke made a sound of disgust. “Fuck, there goes my lab.”
“And your loving family too,” Soulless said.
“Vera wasn’t all that, and the kids were brats, but it will take me a long time to get another lab going.”
“Be glad you’re alive,” Soulless said. “If I weren’t wearing this mask, I would have killed you already.”
“Who are you, dude?”
Soulless looked at the expanding plume of black smoke and was sure that Tanner was dead.
“I’m Soulless. The greatest assassin in the world.”
Paul Mills and his men had seen the smoke as well from where they were gathered, while waiting for a sign that Tanner and Soulless were in the area. They’d certainly gotten one. The men wore black, carried rifles and sidearms, and had on bulletproof vests.
“That’s our cue,” Mills said. Four men piled into a pickup truck. It would be their job to block the only road into the valley with a fallen tree and to keep anyone from leaving that way. The pickup truck was stolen and would be abandoned when they were done. If they came under fire, it could be used as cover.
Mills and the rest of the men climbed into a pair of helicopters. They would be dropped off on the valley floor and go on the hunt for Tanner and Soulless, or the survivor, if that blast had claimed one of them already.
“Let’s do it!” Mills said, and the choppers rose toward the clouds.
One of Mills’ men was already in place. It was the sniper Tom Curry had stumbled across. When the motor home exploded, he turned his head and grinned.
“It’s time for me to get to work.”
Curry, still on the ground at the man’s feet, took advantage of the distraction. He knew he’d never get to the weapon inside his pack in time, nor could he run far enough to avoid a bullet in the back, so he decided to fight. He rose up and swung his backpack at the sniper. It struck the man, slamming against his arm. The gun he’d been holding hit the ground eight feet away. Curry dived for the weapon, fell short, and stretched out a hand, intending to snatch up the gun.
Before he could grab it, he felt a boot come down hard on his back. When he turned his head, he saw that the sniper was removing a foot-long knife from a sheath on his belt.
“I’ve had enough of you,” the sniper said, and raised the blade high. As he was bringing the knife down to strike, Curry heard a sound like a clap, and saw the sniper’s head snap back, and a red hole appear in his forehead. The boot left his back as the man toppled over, and a different, younger man walked out of the trees. He was holding a gun with a silencer attached.
Curry reached for the sniper’s gun again but stopped as the bearded young man issued a warning. “Touch it, and you’re dead too.”
Curry rolled over and sat up. “Who are you?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Henry said.
Tanner checked Haley for injuries and saw that the little girl was fine, if shaken up. When he looked over at Vera and Brett, he saw blood.
Vera had been able to shove Brett behind a tree in time but not herself. A piece of debris had struck her in the left shoulder while the force wave from the blast had sent her sprawling. Haley ran over to her mother. Tanner could tell the girl was yelling, but he couldn’t hear her. All he heard was the ringing in his ears that was caused by the blast. He assumed it was the same for the others.
Around them, the foliage and ground cover were catching fire from the flaming debris. It hadn’t rained in the area in weeks and things were dry.
“We have to get moving,” Tanner said, and he was able to make out the final syllable he’d uttered, as the ringing subsided. He had to get Vera and the children to cover somewhere, then hunt down Soulless. If he had doubts about the man being in the area before, the blast had obliterated them along with the motor home.
Vera made it to her feet and her injury was minor, and she had already plucked the piece of metal from her shoulder that had caused the wound. Tanner handed her a sterile wipe from a pack worn at the back of his belt, along with a bandage.
“Treat that while we’re on the move. You three have to get to cover.”
Vera gazed back at the spot where what remained of the RV was burning. “Do you think Luke was in there when it blew up?”
“I doubt it,” Tanner said, and pointed down at a pair of impressions in the dirt. There were the same sneaker and boot prints he’d seen near the motor home. They were headed toward the clearing inside the valley.
“Luke knew that there was a bomb in there?” Vera asked.
Tanner ignored the question and pointed in the opposite direction the prints had been headed. “Take your children and go that way. If you see anyone else, hide.” He thought about giving Vera a gun to protect herself but decided not to. She might shoot at anything that moved, including any hikers that could be in the area.
Tanner watched them walk away, with Haley waving goodbye, then he turned and went looking for Soulless.
Elliot stared up at the rising smoke with his mouth hanging open. The explosion had been earsplitting, and he thought he’d felt the ground shake a little. Gwen was grinning at him.
“I think Soulless might have killed Tanner already, thanks to one of my grenades.”
They kept watching the smoke, the widening cloud, and Elliot wondered if Tanner really was dead. He doubted it. He would never believe that Soulless could defeat Tanner, no matter how many bombs he threw at him.
“What’s that sound?” Gwen said. She turned and looked the other way, while shielding her eyes from the sun.
“Those are helicopters,” Elliot said. “There are two of them.”
Henry saw the choppers and cursed as he could imagine how many men they held. He had already secured Curry to a tree with the use of plastic handcuffs. But before he could get the man’s story the helicopters appeared.
Tanner had brought Henry along to help in case it was a trap. There was no longer any doubt about that. He sent a quick text to Tanner.
Are you all right?
The reply came back in seconds. I’m good. Those helicopters are trouble. Take cover.
Henry looked at the case the man in black had been carrying and recognized it for what it was. He was going to do more than take cover. He was going to make up for the near fiasco he’d had in South Carolina. Henry opened the case and began assembling the sniper rifle.
Soulless and Luke stopped walking and stared up at the helicopters, one blue, one red. When the helicopters slowed, there was no doubt that they were intending to land inside the clearing of the valley.
“Do you have any idea who they are?” Soulless asked Luke. There was no answer. When he turned to look at the man, he saw Luke’s thin form weaving through the trees as he ran away from him. Soulless raised his gun, then lowered it. Luke wasn’t worth the bullet.
Tanner was on the run. He was sprinting through the trees on the side of the valley where the rock wall was located. His plan was to circle around behind the helicopters.
He was working under the assumption that the men in the aircraft would want to head toward the smoke and the site of the explosion. If he guessed wrong, then the men would head right for him. Even if that happened, he’d have time to engage them before they c
ould climb up the hill and reach Henry. He had faith in Henry, but the teen hadn’t the experience or the training to deal with an overwhelming force.
It was possible the men on the helicopters meant no harm, but it seemed doubtful. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to set a trap. The men on the choppers were there to see that the trap worked.
The aircraft landed. Tanner stopped running and turned to stare through the gaps in the trees. He caught sight of black-clad figures holding rifles. As expected, the men moved across the weedy clearing and headed toward the scene of the explosion. They knew enough to spread out, seemed disciplined, and moved with silent efficiency. They were a force of sixteen armed and experienced combatants out on the hunt for only two men.
The two men were Tanner and Soulless. Tanner didn’t know how well Soulless might acquit himself in a battle against superior odds, but he had promised himself as a boy that he would someday be so deadly that no force would ever best him, no matter their numbers.
Tanner followed the men, stalked them, and was determined to see every last one of them dead.
After seeing the helicopters, Gwen had come to the conclusion that their best bet was to flee the valley and live to fight another day. She was sure Soulless would have the same thought and meet her at their vehicle.
Elliot followed Gwen as she hiked toward the road where she and Soulless had left their vehicle. It wasn’t really on the road but hidden a short distance away in the trees. As they grew near to the dirt road, they heard the whine of a motor.
“What the hell is that?” Gwen said.
Elliot cocked his head. He’d heard that sound before, and recently. As they drew closer to it, he recognized it as the same sound he’d heard when he’d hired some men to clear several trees in his backyard. He had plans to put in a Japanese garden with a koi pond.
Soulless (A Tanner Novel Book 43) Page 17