Tanner nodded.
“I sure do, and it comes in handy sometime.”
They drove along with the CD playing, as they both repeated the new language they were learning. Once the CD played through, Tanner shut it off and the car grew quiet, as Romeo had fallen asleep in the back.
“Tanner.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you, without you... I don’t know what I’d do.”
“You’ll make it, Cody; you’re as tough as they come.”
And as the town of Stark, Texas fell farther and farther behind him, Cody Parker headed towards his future.
CHAPTER 40 - Rabid bitch
After scouting out the area on foot and watching the house for hours, Tanner felt it safe to drive onto the property.
He was back at the farm in Ridge Creek, Pennsylvania, where he had to check on things and thank someone for helping out.
Edwin “Buck” Seevers opened the door before Tanner could knock, and gestured for him to come inside.
“Tanner, imagined how surprised I was when that guy Tim called and mentioned your name. I thought he was a Vegas cop at first.”
“Thanks for coming. I needed someone to play a part and I immediately thought of you.”
“No problem, and everything went smoothly. I pretended to be the horrified property owner and now the Feds and the State Police have moved on, but keep an eye out for that new police chief, she’s a sharp one.”
***
The interior of the farmhouse had been cleaned of all traces of violence, and a new refrigerator sat where the old one had been.
Instead of placing the farm up for sale again, Madison suggested to Tim that he should donate it to a worthy charity, many of which could put the land and home to good use, and they were in the process of choosing one.
Tanner spoke to Buck as the actor started his rental.
“Where to now, back to LA?”
Buck made a face of disgust.
“I spent years wanting to go there and found out that I hated it. Besides, I’m more of a theater guy. I’m going to New York and try to get a part in an off-Broadway play, and after that, who knows.”
“I wish you luck.”
A sense of sadness came over Buck and he looked up at Tanner and sighed.
“I heard what happened to those kids, Cindy and Billy. It made me sick to my stomach.”
Tanner just nodded in agreement.
“There’s something you should know, Tanner. I ran into a buddy of mine who left Colorado after O’Grady was killed. He said that O’Grady’s daughter is on the warpath to find whoever killed her father. I remember Arianna O’Grady and that’s one mean bitch. Watch your back.”
“Why do you assume that it was me who killed O’Grady?”
Buck smiled.
“I heard it was a professional hit, and for some reason you came to mind.”
“If I ever find myself in Colorado again I’ll be extra careful, but if O’Grady’s daughter wants me dead, she’s going to have to get in line.”
Buck placed the car in gear.
“It’s off to fame and fortune I go.”
Tanner watched the car drive away and then prepared to leave as well.
***
In the back of his mind, Tanner wondered if Sara Blake would still be in Ridge Creek, on the off chance that he would return.
And so when the attack came and she charged at him from the bushes, he was ready.
He shot her in the chest twice, and still she almost managed to reach him.
It was the dog, Madison’s dog, and it was out of its mind with rabies.
Tanner grimaced as he watched the animal die, but knew that he had only put it out of its misery.
It had lost considerable weight during the short time he was gone, and he reasoned that the disease must have taken root since the last time he saw her, or perhaps even earlier.
There were still tools in the barn, and so he wrapped her in a blanket and buried her near the line of trees at the rear of the farmhouse.
Her tombstone was a simple one since the dog had never had a name, and so Tanner marked the spot with a cross made from white fence pickets.
With the grim task completed, he walked to his car, left the farm for the last time, and headed for New York City.
There was another rabid bitch that had to be put down, and her name was Sara Blake.
WAR
By
REMINGTON KANE
CHAPTER 1 - It begins!
12:14 a.m.
Tanner lay on his stomach atop a Midtown Manhattan roof and sighted in on the back of Sara Blake’s head.
He was over half a mile away from Sara’s apartment and peering through the riflescope of a Barrett 98B sniper rifle, while he lay concealed from sight beneath the base of a large pigeon coop.
It was one of three shooting positions that he had scouted out in the days since his return to New York City, and he had made careful plans for both his assassination of Sara Blake and his escape from the scene, whether he be successful or not.
He had underestimated the woman once and it almost cost him his life, he would not make that mistake again, and was prepared.
Sara was seated on the sofa inside her living room with the drapes drawn shut. However, Tanner had taken note that whenever the central air system cycled on, it did so with an exuberant rush of air, which stirred the drapes and caused them to separate as much as a quarter inch, a quarter inch gap that happened to line up with Sara’s accustomed position on her sofa.
Tanner had been lying inside the shooting blind for over five hours. He was hot; he was sweaty, thirsty, and quite sick of smelling bird shit.
Still, he was waiting for the perfect shot, for that ideal confluence of events when Sara would be seated in the right spot, at the exact moment the central air kicked on, and when the gap between the drapes was at its widest, to allow viewing.
And one more factor needed to be present—confirmation. He wanted to see her profile at the very least, to confirm that he was killing the right woman.
Through the scope, Tanner saw the flutter of the drapes as a gap appeared, through which he could spy Sara’s skull, the dark hair luminescent beneath the ceiling lights inside her apartment.
The head turned just as the gap was closing and Tanner saw the left side of her face.
He fired and the .338 Lapua Magnum Cartridge round left the barrel of the rifle at more than double the speed of sound and entered Sara’s apartment.
However, the window didn’t shatter, despite the wispy spider web of cracks that emanated outward from where the supersonic round entered.
Tanner sighed.
This was one tough woman to kill.
He knew from the failure of the window to shatter that it must be made of ballistic glass, and given that, it meant that the view seen through the material was likely altered to be a distorted one.
Sara Blake wasn’t sitting where she had appeared to be, but rather, up to a foot to the right or the left.
Tanner smiled grudgingly.
The woman was good.
The drapes on the apartment window flew open and, in the light of a setting sun, Tanner saw a man wearing a bulletproof vest place an instrument to the glass directly over the hole his round had made.
He then saw the red beam of a laser, and knew that the device was designed to pinpoint where the shot had originated.
Tanner sighed again.
It was time to move.
He crawled out from under the pigeon coop and used the scope on the rifle to look across at Sara’s building. The man with the laser tracker, an older man with a crooked nose, was speaking into a two-way radio and undoubtedly relaying Tanner’s position to troops in the area.
They would come and take over the building as they attempted to hunt him down. That meant that the guard in the lobby would be knocked out, killed, or detained, and that Tanner would have to leave by the alley exit.
That was fine, because
he had planned for such a contingency.
How many and of what breed were the troops, Tanner didn’t know, but he had decided ahead of time to use non-lethal force to aid in his escape.
The men coming for him could be paid mercenaries, but might as easily be cops or Feds. In any event, they were coming, and from what Tanner now knew of Sara Blake, he expected the woman to send an army after him.
Let them come, Tanner thought. He was ready.
Tanner was dressed in lightweight body armor and carried two Glocks with magazines packed with rubber bullets.
The bullets were ones that he had fashioned himself and each round held two spheres of hard rubber. The rounds would sting and, at their worst, break a bone, but anyone struck by them should live.
Tanner had no desire to kill a cop and if his adversaries were mercenaries instead, he also didn’t want to kill them and give birth to an official investigation.
His goal was to escape, so that he could make another attempt at Sara, who was the true threat to him, and who he was impressed by, despite the risk she represented.
Tanner entered the stairway that led down from the roof and paused to secure a helmet on his head. It too was armored, although a round of any significance would pierce it with scant difficulty.
Over the body armor, Tanner wore a harness, such as the type used by mountain climbers, and as he headed down the stairs with a gun held in his right hand, there was a length of climbing rope draped over one shoulder. He also wore a tactical belt that had large pouches located at its sides.
Tanner proceeded down while moving swiftly, but paused at every other landing to listen.
When he was on the 17th floor of the 40-story building he heard the sound of footsteps slapping against the concrete stairs, as what sounded like a dozen men came running up the steps.
Tanner peeked over the railing and saw that his count had been off. There were sixteen of them, all armed and they were advancing in four groups of four, while leaving a gap of half a flight of stairs between them.
As they drew closer, Tanner saw that there were no insignias on their clothes and only a few bulletproof vests, and so he surmised that they were mercenaries.
That meant that Sara hadn’t gone to the authorities. Tanner knew then that she wanted him dead, not captured, and if captured, he would be tortured.
The sound of running feet came from above as well, as more men entered the stairwell from an upper floor, after riding the elevator to the top. From the sound of them, their force was as great as the men advancing from below.
Tanner smiled. It seemed that Sara wasn’t underestimating him either.
When he was ready, Tanner removed an item from a side pants pocket.
It was a remote control detonator.
As both groups of men closed in on his position, Tanner flipped down and activated the night vision optics attached to the helmet, pressed down on a button, and inside the electrical control box that operated the building’s lights, a small charge went off, destroying the circuit breakers and plunging the entire building into darkness.
***
Inside her apartment, Sara cursed as she watched the lights go out in a building three blocks away.
“He was prepared.”
A man walked over to stand beside her. His name was Duke, he had a beefy build, salt & pepper hair cropped short, and a nose made crooked by virtue of having been broken many times.
“They’ll get him, Sara. He’s walked into the trap, literally taken his best shot, and now it’s our turn. I’ve got three dozen trained men over there all loaded for bear. Tanner doesn’t stand a chance.”
The short bark of a laugh came from the sofa, where Johnny Rossetti was drinking a beer.
Duke turned and stared at him.
“Is something funny, Rossetti?”
“Not really, it’s just that Tanner has escaped certain death so many times that I would never count him out, and I’ve already learned the hard way not to attack him.”
Sara walked over and stood before Johnny.
“You’ve just given up? Is that why you wouldn’t add your men to Duke’s?”
Johnny reached out and took her hand.
“Of course I haven’t given up, but I know Tanner now, I thought he was Romeo, but I still know the man, and I’m hoping to find a peaceful solution to this.”
Sara ripped her hand away.
“There won’t be peace until he’s dead.”
Johnny sighed.
“Baby, if you don’t make peace with this man he’ll kill you, and I think you know that.”
This time it was Duke’s turn to laugh.
“My men have Tanner trapped inside that building. The only way he’s coming out of there is feet first.”
Johnny shrugged.
“I sent my best men against him and he went through them like a hot knife through butter, including Lars Gruber. You don’t beat Tanner; you survive him. The man has no weaknesses.”
Johnny’s words stirred something in Sara and she sat beside him on the sofa.
“Didn’t you say that Joe Pullo and Tanner were friends?”
“More like friendly, but what’s your point?”
“What you said was wrong, Tanner must have a weakness, everyone does. Where is Pullo, I want to speak to him?”
“Joe’s busy tonight, but I’m expecting him to call soon, you can talk to him then.”
“All right and maybe it won’t matter. Like Duke said, his mercenaries have Tanner trapped.”
Johnny nodded, but if he had to place a bet, his money would be on Tanner.
***
Inside the stairwell, Duke’s mercenaries were temporarily confused by the sudden darkness, and while there were emergency lights, Tanner had disabled most of them ahead of time.
However, their confusion changed to shock and fear as Tanner opened fire on them.
His guns were not only silenced but also had inhibitors to reduce the muzzle flash of the weapons, and so they had no idea where the shots were coming from.
Tanner pushed through the four groups as his shots caused chaos and was past the sixteen startled men before someone had the sense to turn on a flashlight.
The men were so rattled that Tanner heard them fire on their compatriots, who were converging on them from the upper floors.
“Goddamn it, don’t fire, it’s us,” said a male voice.
Another deep voice answered the first.
“Where’s Tanner?”
“You didn’t get him?”
“No. Shit, he got by us.”
When both sets of men were two flights behind him, Tanner leaned down and secured a hook to one of the gray iron balusters set in the stairway railing.
The hook was attached to the rope he carried and he prepared to lower himself over the side. He would make his way down to the bottom by using the narrow space between the stair banisters.
It would be much faster than walking and would leave the crowd on the stairs far behind.
Tanner went over the railing, while being careful to keep his legs straight and his toes pointed downward. The gap of space between the flights of steps was little more than a foot wide and if he wasn’t careful, he could injure himself on their metal railings.
He had traveled ten floors when the beam from a flashlight found him and someone jerked the rope.
Tanner’s back slammed into the angled edge of the concrete steps and the pain made him gasp. He ignored it, kicked off a railing, and dropped atop the opposite set of stairs, just as the men above began firing.
Bullets ricocheted wildly throughout the stairwell, but only a few made it as far as the floor he was on, the fifth floor, without hitting something on the way down and being deflected harmlessly.
Tanner waited it out by keeping his head down, and only one round hit him on the side of the vest, but lacked force because it was a ricochet that had pinged off the railing.
When the shooting ceased, the sound of boots on stairs resu
med, as the persistent and single-minded group came barreling down the steps in pursuit.
Tanner stood and extracted two objects from the pouches on the tactical belt he wore. The objects looked like giant firecrackers, but were black and had no fuse. However, they did have a timer. After pausing to take a guess on just how soon his pursuers would reach his position, he set the timer on one of the objects and tossed it into a corner of the landing above him. The second object he left on the landing of the floor below and timed it to go off seven seconds after the first one.
The objects were homemade bombs, packed with nails, but were non-lethal, in that the nails they were stuffed with were only a quarter of an inch long and the chemical-based charge had been calculated to penetrate, but not deeply embed the objects. Still, anyone in their path upon detonation would wish they were anywhere else.
Tanner’s decision not to kill the men didn’t mean that he had no intention of not hurting them. They needed to know that there was a price for hunting him, and a price usually paid in death would be paid for in pain instead.
Tanner headed downward as the men neared the twin charges. He was on the second floor landing when the first blast went off, and from the sound of the screams, his timing had been perfect.
The first blast caught the men at the rear of the posse as they rounded the staircase, and it shredded the backs of their legs, causing the men to fall down and collide into their comrades in front of them.
One man suffered a broken kneecap, another a broken leg, and three more broke either an arm or a wrist, while the men unlucky enough to be the recipients of the nails each had dozens of puncture wounds in their legs, backs, and buttocks.
“Move, move, move!” one of the men shouted, fearful, and rightfully so, about a second charge going off.
Only two of the men attempted to help their wounded comrades, and they would be rewarded for their good deed by being the only two left unscathed, while the rest of their fellows fled down the stairs, just in time to greet the second blast.
More bones were broken, more legs cut and embedded by nails and one particularly unlucky man lost an eye, but all the men on the stairs shared one trait, they had learned the folly of attacking a man like Tanner. They were also aware that Tanner had chosen to spare them and that the blasts could have been lethal.
The TANNER Series - Books 4-6 (Tanner Box Set Book 2) Page 25
