“I’ll leave you two to talk.”
He entered the hallway and found Javier walking towards him.
“What’s up, Javier?”
The kid shrugged. While at the police station, and at Maria’s insistence, he had confessed to staging the accidents around the ranch,
Luckily, for him, none of the employees who had been hurt were pressing charges, but he still faced a charge of criminal mischief.
“My lawyer thinks I’ll be sentenced to three months of community service.”
“I’ll be sure to litter the next time I drive on the highway, so you’ll have something to pick up.”
“Funny, Tanner, but I’ll also be going to school in the fall. Mom said it was either that or join the army.”
“A free college education? Things could be worse.”
“Yeah,”
Javier went into the kitchen, while Tanner headed to the apartment above the barn, where he showered and changed into jeans and a plain white T-shirt.
Afterwards, he settled down to read, but found himself too restless to concentrate. He left the apartment with a sigh, to begin walking towards the graves of the Parker family.
CHAPTER 34 - “I’m Death.”
Matamoros, Mexico, October 1997
Tanner had been in Mexico for over three weeks when he decided to make his move on Martillo.
He had originally planned to kill Martillo at the bar the man owned and frequented on Avenida Marte R. Gómez. He decided against it, after learning through surveillance that the cops Martillo had on the take worked out of a building a block away from the bar.
That meant that he might have to face armed police officers when he made his escape, and the odds could be over a dozen to one and turn him into a cop killer.
Tanner wanted it to be cleaner than that and so he decided to hit Martillo at his villa, which was well guarded, but also secluded.
The two-story home was beautiful, with a large pool, well-tended garden and a six-car garage, where Martillo kept his collection of classic cars, including a 1931 Rolls Royce Phantom.
There was a cobblestone path that circumnavigated the home, with adjacent paths that led to the gate, the garage, and a small structure that housed a backup generator.
The villa sat at the top of a hill that was accessible by one long winding road and the view from the gate shack looked out over it. Any car coming up would be seen from miles away and the trip along the steep switchback road took minutes to complete.
The rear of the compound faced a mile of dense vegetation with thorny plants, followed by a nearly perpendicular drop down to a rock-strewn river.
The home was surrounded by a wall on all sides, but the security was flawed, because the trees at the rear of the property had been allowed to grow too tall, and their branches hung above the walls.
That was where Tanner perched himself and did surveillance, after climbing up from the river and traversing the prickly field.
By the fifth time he’d made the trip back and forth, and up and down to the villa, he had the route and its intricacies mapped out in his mind, and could climb the cliff and navigate through the field quickly. That would be a huge advantage when it came time to escape, that is, if he lived through the attack.
He spent weeks watching the place off and on, marking down the number of guards, their shifts and the times they patrolled.
Martillo had at least ten men with him almost all the time, but only two of them, his lieutenants, or as he referred to them, his Caballeros, or Knights, lived on the property with him. They had their own rooms, which were the size of many apartments.
The Knights’ schedules predominantly mirrored that of Martillo’s, but one of the men had a woman that he visited in a neighboring town once a week, during her husband’s weekly card game.
His absence meant that, not counting Martillo, there would be nine men to deal with instead of ten when he was gone.
That took place on Saturday night, which was also the night that Martillo would indulge himself with a whore or two. And while their leader was otherwise occupied, the guards seemed much more lax, and Tanner had even seen the gate guard leave his post so that he could bullshit with the other men in the villa.
That left only one of Martillo’s Knights roaming about the home on Saturday night, and as far as Tanner could tell, the man did nothing but work, on what looked like a computer, as he could see the reflection of the screen’s glow on the lens of the man’s glasses.
He surmised that the man handled Martillo’s records and money, while the other Knight was in charge of distribution. If so, it was no wonder he kept them close to him.
With Saturday night deemed to be the best time to strike, Tanner waited patiently for the next one to arrive and when it came, he slipped over the villa’s outer wall like a ghost dressed in black.
He carried a MAC-10 that had belonged to his mentor, the fifth Tanner. It had a two-stage suppressor, shot .45 ACP rounds and was as deadly as the Heckler & Koch MP5’s that Martillo’s men had used to slaughter the Parkers and McKay.
Tanner killed his first man with a silent blast, as the guard rounded the corner of the home. The man’s eyes widened in surprise, but only after the bullets struck, because he had failed to notice Tanner hiding in the shadows.
Because the guards patrolled the grounds in a crisscrossing fashion, Tanner knew he had to kill the guard coming from the other direction, and thanks to his surveillance, he knew that the man would reach his position in just over a minute.
Tanner used some of that time to drag the first man’s body off the cobblestone path, and then moved back into the shadows to wait once more.
The second sentry arrived forty-three seconds later, but they felt closer to forty-three minutes to Tanner, who sent another blast from his gun at the guard as he walked nearer to his position.
Two of the bullets hit the man in the chest, near his heart, while the third round passed beneath his armpit and shattered a window behind him.
The noise of the falling glass sounded like thunder, and Tanner knew that the time for stealth had ended, because a light came on in a window.
The guard who filled in at night after the housekeeper left, looked outside, saw the body on the path, and screamed out that there was an intruder.
Tanner sent six shots at the window and the man’s shouts of alarm ceased.
Not counting Martillo and his knight, there were still five guards left and a call would go out for more to rush to the villa.
Tanner knew from watching the place that this meant he had ten minutes at best before reinforcements showed, a good portion of that time would be spent by the men driving up the winding hill and opening the gates.
Tanner left the shadows, strode across the path, and shot the lock on a side door to pieces. He would enter Martillo’s home the way Martillo invaded the Parkers’ ranch, and he wouldn’t stop killing until either he or Martillo was dead.
***
One more guard died without even knowing it, as Tanner shot the man in the head from behind the door the man had just opened.
The sound of the body hitting the floor was louder than the shot Tanner had fired, and so he doubted that the killing had been overheard.
Up the stairs, a door opened, followed by the appearance of Martillo’s Knight accountant. He was a man of about forty with the trim, long-muscled build of a swimmer, and he was wearing rimless glasses that made his eyes look huge.
The fool had his arms full as he carried his computer and he nearly tripped on the cord as he was rushing down the stairs.
It wasn’t until he reached the landing that he noticed the body. After gasping in surprise, he spotted Tanner and froze like a statue, with only his eyes moving in frantic patterns behind the eyeglasses.
Footsteps came from beyond the open doorway and a man called out the first guard’s name, as he spotted the body lying inside.
After entering, the man looked up at the frozen accountant, and so Tanne
r used the distraction to cut him down with six shots before reloading.
The fool with the computer made for great bait, and Tanner wouldn’t have minded if he stayed there longer, but the man let out a yell and tried to go back up the flight of stairs he came down.
Tanner held the gun’s long silencer, to use it like a foregrip, as he aimed upward and sent three rounds at the accountant. They passed through the computer and sent the man sliding to the floor, where his face lay buried in a corner.
That left Martillo and three guards to go, as the clock ticked away and reinforcements converged.
Tanner headed up the steps, past the captured Knight, and was running up the second flight of stairs when a spray of gunfire nearly cut him down, as the three remaining guards chased after him.
The hallway of the second floor was wide enough to drive a car down, and there were several doors on either side, with a pair of ornate doors at the hallway’s end, Martillo’s bedroom.
Tanner kicked open one of the doors, entered the dark room in a crouch, and lay on the floor, in the shadows, just beyond the reach of the light spilling in from the hall.
The guards followed behind, and within seconds, they were gathered outside the doorway.
Tanner shielded his gun with his body to avoid any muzzle flash being seen, and fired one shot towards the three windows the room had, hoping to make the guards think he was attempting to escape that way.
It worked, and two of the guards filled the doorway with guns blazing at chest-level towards the opposite wall, where the windows were.
Tanner fired upwards from his position on the floor and the two men grunted and fell backwards, and before the other guard could catch his bearings, Tanner stood and charged the hallway.
He and the guard exchanged two shots before hitting each other.
Tanner’s shot had ripped through the man’s throat, while the guard’s shot had caught him on the right side, just below the Kevlar vest he wore, and he could feel the warm blood leaking onto his hip as he fell to his knees.
He moaned, as the pain was intense, but the shot had only dug a groove in his flesh and had caused no real damage.
He stood and sent more shots into the men at his feet, because two of them, although gravely wounded, were still moving. After reloading, Tanner went to kill Martillo.
***
As he expected, the man was using the woman with him as a shield.
Martillo stood with a machine pistol in his right hand while his left held the woman by her hair. She was a voluptuous beauty still in her teens, and was trembling from fear.
Both of them were naked, and facing the double doors that led to the hallway. Martillo had no idea that Tanner was behind them on the balcony.
After killing the last of the guards, Tanner had climbed out the shattered windows of the room he just left, and inched along the stone border that encircled the home, and which had decorative patterns carved upon its face.
It took him more than two valuable minutes to traverse the thirty feet that separated the room from the balcony, but the stone shelf he inched along was only six inches wide and a misstep would have resulted in a fall, and possibly broken bones, to be followed by death.
Martillo had given up on shouting for his men and was demanding that someone speak to him, while insisting that an agreement could be reach.
He was trying to stall until his fresh troops arrived, but time was something he’d run out of.
Tanner sent an angled shot through the patio doors that struck Martillo in the flesh of his left buttock and the man released the hooker and instinctively felt for the wound.
“Drop the gun or die,” Tanner said in Spanish, and Martillo turned and looked at him with hope in his eyes.
“I’ll drop it, see?” Martillo said, and then he tossed the gun onto the bed.
Tanner shouted for the girl to leave. She gathered up her clothes and fumbled at the locked door while whimpering. Once she had it open, she ran off as fast as she could, down the hall, and past the bodies of the dead guards.
Martillo limped over to lean on the footboard, while gesturing with his head at the fleeing girl.
“That was some good tail; you should have taken a turn.”
Martillo’s mood was light, because he took from the fact that he was still alive that he was going to remain so, but the assumption was false. Tanner’s plans for him did not include his staying alive, but of dying a fitting death.
A glint above the headboard caught Tanner’s eye. He made a huffing sound as he realized what he was looking at.
It was a gold-plated hammer, with the word, Martillo, engraved upon its face in cursive script. It wasn’t a claw hammer, such as the type commonly used, but more like a two-pound sledge with a foot-long handle. Tanner sent a blast from the gun in its direction and shattered the glass case it sat in.
“You like that, eh?” Martillo said.
“I do,” Tanner said. “Now let’s see how you like it.”
He charged at Martillo and smashed the hammer across his face and before the drug lord could spit out his broken teeth, Tanner went to work on the man’s kneecaps.
By the time Tanner had finished, Martillo had two broken knees, and elbows to match.
The Hammer had been hammered, and judging by the moans coming from him, he had not enjoyed it.
Tanner got down on one knee and spoke to Martillo.
“I left you alive so that you could enjoy the rest of the show. I’m going to burn this place down around you.”
Martillo gazed up at Tanner with eyes full of hate, as he mumbled out words past bloody, jagged stumps that used to be teeth, set in a jaw that canted to the left.
“Who... are... you?”
“I’m death,” Tanner said, and then he rushed from the room as Martillo struggled in vain to stand, or even crawl.
***
Tanner rocketed down the stairs, and it wasn’t until he reached the bottom that he realized the body of the accountant wasn’t on the landing.
He went back up and saw that the damaged computer was sitting in a puddle of blood, but that the man himself had escaped.
There was no time to search for him and he was of little consequence, so Tanner went about applying the finishing touches.
Before gathering the materials he needed, he took in the view of the twisting road that led to the villa. He saw the headlights of three cars. Two of the cars were at the bottom and still a few minutes away, while the first one was farther along and would arrive sooner, but still had to deal with rolling back the locked gates and gaining entrance.
Tanner was intending to head towards a shed on the side of the house, where he knew the groundskeeper kept gasoline for the lawnmower, but as soon as he stepped out onto the patio, he saw something just as good by the red brick grill.
A minute later, he had squirted a liter of lighter fluid throughout the house and up the stairs.
After setting a rolled newspaper on fire, he heard the squeal of brakes, followed by the sound of car doors opening and closing outside.
He waited until the first of the fresh guards stepped through the doorway, and when a man appeared holding an assault rifle, he dropped the flaming newspaper, which set the home ablaze, and drove the man back outside with his pant leg on fire.
Tanner ran back to the bedroom, where Martillo still lay moaning on the floor. He then emptied the last few drops of the lighter fluid onto the bed and set it aflame.
“Burn in hell, Martillo!”
Martillo wasn’t listening; his gaze was concentrated upon the flaming bed and the smoke filling the room.
Tanner turned his back on him, sprinted onto the balcony, and leapt out into the night, to fall into the pool below.
When he arose from beneath the water, he found the air thick with smoke, as flames lit the villa with an eerie glow.
Tanner made it to the back wall, scrambled over it with some difficulty, thanks to the wound on his side, and disappeared into the night,
only pausing once to look back at the glow of flames caused by his handiwork.
He whispered, “That was for you, Cody,” and then he faded like a shadow at dawn.
CHAPTER 35 - “Say my name.”
At the Reyes Ranch, Tonya joined Tanner at the small cemetery that held the remains of the Parkers.
Tonya was wearing a blue dress, and her tanned legs were shapely, while just a touch of cleavage showed up top.
“I come here at least once a year, usually on the twins’ birthday, and I still miss Jill and Jessie very much.”
Tanner turned and looked at her, saw in her eyes that she knew, that she remembered, and felt the strange sense of relief that the kinship of that knowledge gave him.
“You three were more like sisters than friends,” he said.
Tonya took his hand.
“I remembered you the first time I saw you, but it had been a lot of years and, for obvious reasons, my mind rejected the feelings and thoughts I had. I spent the last few days trying to recall the name of the man who had been staying here at the time of the murders, and I finally did last night. His name was Tanner.”
“Yes.”
Tonya pointed down at the grave before them, the grave of Cody Parker, and then she turned and took his face in her hands.
“How is it possible that you’re standing here?”
“It was Tanner, the other Tanner, he saved me.”
“And you’re really, you’re...”
“Say it.”
“You’re Cody Parker.”
Tanner nodded.
“Yes, I’m Cody Parker.”
CHAPTER 36 - Apprentice
The Parker Ranch, Stark, Texas, September 1997
Cody was shot in the chest by Martillo before he could fire again and he collapsed onto his back with a groan, and realized that he was dying.
Martillo walked over, pressed the tip of the silencer against Cody’s forehead, and said five words.
“You fought like a king.”
An instant later, Martillo pulled the trigger, but the shot went into the dirt beside Cody’s head, as Martillo was tackled to the ground by the boy, Pablo.
The TANNER Series - Books 4-6 (Tanner Box Set Book 2) Page 23
