“What about the cops in town?” asked another of the mercs.
“This town is a speck on the map so there’s only one cop on duty after eleven at night. Mike and I will handle him, and I’ll take two of you guys along with me.”
Roxana spoke up. “Vic and I checked out the town. That cop stops in at the diner every night around the same time. Right after he leaves, the diner shuts down for the night. They don’t do breakfast and reopen at noon.”
“Good, we’ll use the diner as a base.”
“That won’t work,” Vic said.
“Why not?”
“The diner is owned by the guy who’s the short-order cook. He and his family work the place and have living quarters upstairs. If we break in after they shut down, they’ll hear us.”
Piper smiled. “I still want to use that diner; I’ll handle the cook, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” Vic said. “I’m just glad I’m not that cook. I know what you mean when you say you’ll handle something.”
“Remember,” Piper said, “we have to be in and out before two a.m. because of the highway patrol. They roll through there on their route and usually stop in the police station to bullshit with the cop. If they don’t see the cop and can’t reach him by phone, they’ll get suspicious.”
Justen waved a hand at the board. “Two hours is more than enough time.”
“It’s not two hours; it’s only about one hour. McHugh says one of the guards talks to his wife every night before she goes to bed. If that woman calls and her husband doesn’t answer, she might get worried and phone for help.”
“Ah,” Justen said. “That’s why you want to wait until the last minute to take out the phone lines at the depot.”
“That’s right, and they’re on a separate system anyway. I explained all this at the last meeting, Justen. Weren’t you listening?”
Justen smiled. “You know me, boss, in one ear and out the other.”
“That’s because there’s nothing in-between your ears,” Mike Walsh said, as he punched Justen playfully on the chin.
Everyone laughed but Piper, who tapped the map on the white board with a stiff finger.
“This is going to be the score of a lifetime and we’re all going to get rich. And remember, no witnesses. We don’t need someone giving the cops a description of us.”
“That idea of dressing alike was a good one, Steve,” Roxana said. “Did you get the clothes?”
“Yeah, it’s been handled, along with the motorcycles. You won’t be wearing a vest like the rest of us, Roxana; I didn’t think you’d want your girls hanging out in the breeze. You’ll still have a leather top though, so you’ll fit in.”
Roxana looked down at her ample bosom. “My girls wouldn’t mind a little fresh air, but Vic might get ideas.”
Vic blushed. He’d been staring at Roxana’s chest.
Piper thumped the map again. “If we all do what we have to do, this plan will go smoothly. All right, go get some rest and we’ll meet up back at the motel. We leave at ten.”
The meeting broke up, and as the others left the room, Mike Walsh stayed to talk to his cousin.
“You forgot to mention the other reason we’re going to Delran tonight.”
“I didn’t forget. But grabbing Luna will be easy. I’ll send two of the mercs off to get her once we’ve handled the cop.”
“You’re not going to kill her, you know that, don’t you?”
“Mike, the bitch sold me out and ran off with my kid. She’s dead.”
Walsh shook his head. “You still love her, I can tell, and she’s the only woman I ever saw you give a damn about. When the time comes, you’ll decide to let her live.”
“We’ll see about that,” Piper said. “I’ve never had a problem killing anyone before.”
Mike laughed. “That’s a freakin’ understatement if I ever heard one.”
Piper gripped his cousin’s shoulder as he grinned. “We’re gonna get rich tonight; how’s it feel to know that?”
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be,” Walsh said.
10
Hunted
Daisy had gone to her room to change into fresh clothes when Brandt rushed up to the roof. She heard the boom of the shots he’d taken and wondered if he had killed Raul’s murderer before she could get to him.
As she emerged from her bedroom dressed in jeans, a dark blouse, and boots, Brandt was coming down the stairs with a grin showing.
“You got him?”
“I got him, but I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. I’ll need to head out there and check on his condition.”
“I’ll come with you, and if he’s alive, I want to be the one to kill him.”
Brandt stared at Daisy. “Do you think you could do it?”
Daisy unsheathed a knife with a ten-inch serrated blade. “I’ll gut him and make him suffer.”
“All right then, but first I need to make a call. If the man is still alive, I have some friends who will track him down if he makes it across the desert.”
Brandt used the home’s landline phone to reach Sal and the others. They told him they would get moving.
“How’s the boss man?”
“Dead.”
“There goes our easy gig.”
“Yeah, but there’s a safe here. Once we deal with the bastard who killed Ippolito, we’ll come back here and find a way inside that safe. I’m betting we’ll all have a great severance package.”
“A silver lining,” Sal said, before ending the call.
Brandt found Daisy already outside. She was at the sand rail and looking down at Ippolito’s body. Brandt joined her after pausing at the open underground escape ramp, glanced at his dead boss, then checked to see what damage the sand rail had sustained.
The machine looked to be intact, but then he saw that the battery had taken a round.
“Damn it. I was hoping we could use this to ride out to the boulders.”
Daisy pointed at the battery. “That looks like the one I have in my car.”
Brandt smiled at her. “That might work. That old Volkswagen Beetle of yours is an air-cooled engine just like this one. We’ll switch the batteries if we need to, but there’s a chance the man I shot is already dead. Even if he survived, in this heat, he’ll be screwed.”
Daisy began running toward the boulders in the distance. “Let’s find him and kill him.”
Brandt stared after her with an admiring gaze. Daisy had more iron in her than he’d ever imagined. He caught up to her and ran by her side, then corrected himself and placed a dozen feet between them. If the assassin had survived it made no sense to make it easy for him to pick them off by running alongside each other. Brandt was certain he’d hit the man and was expecting to find him dead.
Brandt’s rifle round struck the heel of Tanner’s right boot and removed a chunk of the lightweight material the boot’s sole was made from. The energy of the round had been enough to spin him like a top.
His back ached from the impact with the boulder, but he maintained full movement and didn’t think his spine was injured. The same could not be said for his left arm. It hung limply and only twitched when he attempted to move it. There was pain radiating from just below the shoulder that was enough to make his eyes water, and he had a gash across his upper right chest that was bleeding freely.
Tanner struggled to his feet and was happy to find he hadn’t injured a leg. He then looked about for his gun, which had fallen from its holster. The gun was nowhere to be found; Tanner guessed it was up on the rock he had slid off. He was able to find Ippolito’s bug-out bag.
Opening the bag, Tanner was pleased to see a first-aid kit, and better yet, a gun, which was a loaded Glock. When he came across the grenade, he smiled, thinking how that might come in handy. The cocaine he had no use for but the hundred thousand in cash was a welcome find, as were the food and water. A hundred K was what he was being paid for the hit. Ippolito had just doubled Tanner’s fee.
/> There was clothing in the bag as well; a pair of jeans and a shirt that were too big, while the boots were too small.
Brandt was coming for him; Tanner was certain of that, and he would still have the rifle. A look at the sky told him it would be dark within an hour. If he could stay alive that long, he’d have a chance to slip away into the night.
With the agony in his arm lessening, Tanner tried to move it again. This time it bent at the elbow slightly, but it hurt like hell to do so. Perhaps with time he’d regain full movement.
Brandt and Daisy reached the spot where Tanner had fallen. There was blood on the sand, although not enough in Brandt’s estimation. He’d been hoping to find a body lying in a pool of red, and now knew he had a desperate and wounded armed man to hunt down.
He handed Daisy the rifle and filled his hand with a pistol. Given the close quarters between the boulders, the pistol was the better weapon.
Daisy pointed down and whispered to Brandt. “He’ll be easy to follow in this sand.”
Brandt nodded. The assassin left behind a trail; it was simply a matter of tracking him down and finishing him off. He leaned over and spoke to Daisy in a low voice.
“Get back about ten feet and drop down if he fires at us. If you see a shot, take it, but make sure you don’t hit me.”
Daisy nodded her understanding and they moved on, following the tracks Tanner left behind.
They were near the end of the field of boulders when Brandt saw a sight that made him smile. The assassin was down, having succumbed to his wound. A pair of denim-clad legs ending in boots were visible at the base of a boulder the size of a car. The blood trail was leading that way, with the blood glistening red in the shaft of light being thrown across the landscape by the descending sun.
Brandt looked back over his shoulder and spoke to Daisy.
“It’s okay. Our man is down; my shot must have done some serious damage.”
Brandt strode forward with his gun hanging limply at his side, with Daisy following. He was about to move around the boulder to get a better look at his kill when Daisy asked a question.
“Wasn’t he wearing shorts?”
Brandt realized she was right. The man had been wearing shorts, not jeans. He began backpedaling while bringing the gun up and Tanner popped out from behind a boulder on his right and fired at him.
Brandt released a cry of pain as a round tore across his right shoulder. A second round struck his gun and sent it flying from his hand.
Daisy fired the rifle while holding it at waist level. The AR-50 weighed thirty-four pounds and the recoil sent Daisy stumbling backwards in the shifting sand. Her round splintered the boulder near Tanner and sent chips of rock into his eyes, blinding him momentarily. Tanner fired off a round at Daisy although he could no longer see her. His shot shattered the front lens on the rifle’s optics.
With his vision compromised, Tanner took cover behind the boulder where he’d been hidden from sight. Brandt was checking his shoulder wound when Daisy lumbered past him with the rifle in her hands.
“I’ll kill him!” she shouted.
Brandt called after her. “The rifle is empty.”
Daisy slid to a stop, then turned to look at him. “Do you have more bullets?”
“They’re cartridges, and yes, I have more, but I’ll never be able to fire with this shoulder.”
“Then I’ll do it.”
“Can you even lift that up high enough to take a decent shot?”
Daisy managed it, then realized the optics had been destroyed.
“The telescope is broken, but I can still fire.”
“It’s not a telescope it’s a—screw it!” Brandt made it to his feet. Tanner’s round had torn open the outer portion of his right shoulder, and he had trouble lifting his arm. He moved past Daisy and crept around the boulder. The “legs” he had seen earlier were a pair of Ippolito’s jeans filled with sand that had a pair of tan boots pressed against their cuffs. If Daisy hadn’t remembered that the assassin had been wearing shorts, he’d be dead.
More cautious steps took them beyond the field of boulders, where they saw Tanner’s running form in the distance. He was about half a mile away and moving well.
With his shoulder bleeding and his movement compromised, Brandt showed her how to work the bolt-action on the rifle. Once a round was loaded, Daisy brought the rifle to her shoulder and fired at Tanner.
Brandt knew the odds of her hitting her target were practically nil. He figured, What the hell? It was better than doing nothing.
Daisy missed wide, then corrected her aim, and by the fourth shot she sent up a plume of sand a mere foot from Tanner.
“Give me another bullet.”
“I wish I could, but that was the last one.”
“No! He can’t get away.”
“He won’t, I have some friends who will track him down. Let’s head back to the compound.”
Daisy stared after Tanner with bloodlust in her eyes. “Two more bullets, maybe three, and I would have hit him.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Brandt said.
Tanner ran on, welcoming the growing darkness. He’d make a stop at one of the caches of supplies he’d hidden in preparation for the hit, then find his way into a town and get transportation out of the area. With Brandt handled and the contract fulfilled, he figured the worst was behind him. He didn’t know it yet, but his troubles were just beginning.
11
Tracked
Daisy cleaned and bandaged Brandt’s shoulder wound, which was minor despite the pain it caused; the slug had merely split his skin.
Afterward, the two of them dragged Tony’s and Franco’s bodies behind the gate and locked it. Ippolito’s corpse was next. Brandt tugged his dead boss’s body down onto the ramp Ippolito had used for the sand rail.
“Did you know about this tunnel and that dune buggy?” Daisy asked Brandt.
“No, but it makes sense he would have a way out of here in case something went wrong.”
“What did go wrong? How did that man get in here?”
“Franco and Tony broke the rules and opened the gate without having backup stand by. Whoever our assassin is, he made them think he was harmless. They got sloppy and everyone paid for it.”
Daisy’s jaw clenched. “That damn pizza. They ordered it every time you left the compound, and now Raul is dead.”
Brandt decided to eat before they ventured out in search of Tanner. He also changed out of his bloody clothes and put on a set of DCUs, a desert camouflage uniform. Daisy placed ice in a foam cooler, then filled it with sandwiches, water, and fruit. If their search for the man who killed Raul lasted beyond the night, she wanted to be able to keep moving without having to stop for food. They knew they had time. Tanner’s journey across the desert would take hours. By the time he made it to the other side, they would have driven there and be waiting for him.
They left the compound, climbed into Brandt’s car, and drove off to continue the hunt.
Daisy asked Brandt about Sal, Henry, Julio, and Conleth.
“These friends of yours, they’re the ones who handled the man who was planning to come in over the wall?”
“That’s right. There are four of them and only three towns that our guy can reach by walking. They’ll watch to see who wanders out of the desert, then we’ll all move in and trap him.”
“What if they miss him?”
“It’s not likely, two of the places are small towns, and the other isn’t exactly a city. At midnight or later, with everyone else sleeping, our boy will stick out like a sore thumb.”
Daisy nodded. “He’ll be bloody too. I remember his chest looked bloody, and his eyes, did you see his eyes?”
Brandt chuckled. “All I saw was his gun. What about his eyes?”
“They were… unique and penetrating.”
“We’ll close those eyes permanently the next time we see him.”
Daisy touched the handle of her knife. “I may cut them out of his head
first.”
“What about the gun you had?”
“I forgot to bring it, but I have my knife, and I’ll use it too.”
“Hey, Daisy?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry about Raul.”
“Thank you, Brandt.”
Tanner reached his supplies and gulped down half the water he had hidden away. The wound to his chest, which he’d acquired in his tumble off the boulder, was small but deep and had continued to bleed. He used his first-aid supplies to replace the bandage he’d made from Ippolito’s stash. This time he was able to wrap gauze around the wound as well, which applied pressure and stopped the bleeding. He knew the wound needed stitches and would have to be seen to properly, but the gauze and the bandage would have to suffice for a while.
The pain in his left arm had lessened considerably and he was able to bend it at the elbow again. It was still weak; he figured that there had been trauma to a nerve.
After eating something and being hydrated he felt better and was back on the move again. Tanner expected Brandt to keep looking for him, but the man had lost his advantage and it would be surprising if he chose to go to the same spot where Tanner would leave the desert. Even if Brandt and the blonde woman split up, the odds were low he’d be seen by one of them.
The words, Prepare for the worst, floated through Tanner’s mind. The voice uttering them belonged to his mentor, Spenser.
Tanner smiled. Spenser had been right, so he would assume Brandt had a way to find him, and that the man might even have recruited help to do so.
Tanner still had the grenade he’d found in Ippolito’s bag. If he faced off against superior odds, it would ensure he’d be able to whittle them down.
Tanner- Year Two Page 5
