“I’ll put this to good use.”
“I was never here,” Ivanov said, and headed back to his car.
Joe watched him leave.
“Krupin pissed off the wrong Fed.”
“Do you remember how we met, Joe?”
“You handed me Vincenzo Righettleto’s head in a box.”
“This time, the head will be Krupin’s.”
Tanner walked to a car and drove off, to begin his reign of death.
BALLET OF DEATH
By
REMINGTON KANE
CHAPTER 1 – The problem solver
Ossining, New York 8:31 a.m.
After spending hours watching the secluded house on Rue Lane, Tanner made his move.
The house was of average size, but rundown, with missing shingles and a leaking roof. Its best feature was its location, which was far away from other dwellings. The seclusion was something much prized by the cartel hit team members staying within its walls.
There were four men inside, and two of them were the men who had placed a bomb beneath Sophia Verona’s bed, a bomb that killed her.
Tanner parked in front of the home and stepped out of his car while holding a clipboard, as he pretended to talk on a cellphone.
He was dressed in a cheap suit with a bright red tie, wore glasses, and had his hair combed forward.
A face peaked out of a front window, but Tanner ignored it as he pretended to be engaged in a phone call.
“I know Marge, but what do you want me to do? Pearson says that I have to work this weekend.”
Tanner went around to the other side of the car, where he turned his back on the house as he reached inside the open passenger window, to grab a well-worn sample case. The bag had a strap, and Tanner slung it over his head so that the case rested on his right hip.
Although his back was turned, Tanner could still see the front of the home, because he had previously angled the side view mirror in such a way that he would be able to keep it in sight. At the window, the first man was joined by a second man, and the second man was pointing at him.
As he left the car, Tanner spoke into the phone again.
“Marge? Marge? Can I talk please? Good, now I didn’t say that we wouldn’t go see your mother, it’s just that we can’t do it this weekend.”
Tanner paused at the foot of the steps as if he were listening to someone on the phone. From the corner of his eye, he saw the door open and watched as a man came outside to stare at him. The man had one hand hidden behind his back, and Tanner was certain that the hand held a gun.
“Yes, next weekend, sure... I know, but you know how Pearson is, but listen, I’m with a client now so I’ll see you later... I love you too, bye bye now.”
Tanner lowered the phone with a sigh and smiled up at the man.
“Hey there, sorry to be rude, but that was my wife and you know how that is, if I didn’t answer when she called I’d hear about it for weeks.”
The man was stout and swarthy. He gazed at Tanner with suspicion, as he spoke with a thick Spanish accent.
“Who are you?”
“I’m with Acme Home Renovations, we specialize in beautifying properties.”
“You are a salesman?”
Tanner’s grin was brighter than the sun.
“No sir, I am a problem solver. If you’ll just give me a few minutes I’ll make you glad that you did.”
As Tanner spoke, he pushed a button on the side of the phone.
The man pointed at the car.
“I don’t like salesmen. Get back in your car and leave.”
The phone rang, and after glancing at the screen, Tanner looked up at the man.
“Hey, it’s for you.”
He tossed the “phone” at the man and saw him react with surprise. On reflex, the man reached out and grabbed the phone with his left hand. When the phone rang for the third time, it detonated, obliterating the man’s hand while nearly severing his head.
The second man from the window appeared in the doorway and tried to slam the door shut, but his partner’s corpse was in the way.
Tanner had freed a gun from behind his back. He fired at the man, missing him, but managed to drive him back inside.
Tanner then charged up the porch steps, and as he did so, he removed two fragmentation grenades from the sample bag slung over his shoulder.
The grenades sailed through the open doorway, one landed on the floor and rolled down a hallway, while the other bounced off a sofa, to land at the base of a flight of stairs. By the time the grenades exploded, Tanner was already moving around towards the rear of the home, and it pleased him to hear the second man’s screams of agony.
Tanner had to wait only seconds before the rear door opened, as he was standing with his back pressed against the side of the house.
He could hear the sound of two men whispering in Spanish, and he risked peeking around the corner. One of the men was holding a phone, a real phone, and he was speaking to someone in a hushed, but panicked tone.
It took them several seconds, but the men gathered their courage and ran down the back steps. They were headed for the woods at the rear of the property.
Tanner took careful aim and shot each man in the buttocks. He needed at least one of them to stay alive.
Both of the men let out screams, stumbled, and fell to the ground. One of them had lost his weapon, but the other fired his in panic back at the house. The wild shots shattered two windows on the second floor, while one even went over the house entirely.
Tanner stayed where he was until he saw that the man had run out of rounds, and then he sprinted over to them.
The two Mexicans looked alike and were both tall and skinny. According to the files Ivanov had given him, these were the men known as the specialists. They had been sent by the Alvarado Cartel to kill him, and had killed Sophia instead.
Tanner was about to speak to them in their own language when the one on the right spoke English with a slight accent.
“Don’t kill me!”
“Give me a reason not to.”
“Don’t tell this bastard anything, Manuel,” said the other man. He spoke through teeth gritted in pain from the wound he’d suffered.
Tanner shot him in the head. The remaining man, the one named Manuel let out a scream, and then he cursed Tanner with a string of Spanish profanity.
Tanner placed the gun against his head.
“Tell me what I want to know or I’ll kill you right now.”
“You’ll kill me anyway... just like you killed my cousin.”
Tanner removed a knife.
“No, I’ll just make you wish you were dead.”
Tanner moved the knife towards the man’s right eye.
“I’ll talk! Goddamn it I’ll talk.”
Tanner pulled the man to his feet.
“Who did you call?”
“Juan Alvarado.”
“He’s the son, correct, the son of Alonso Alvarado?”
“Yes, and he won’t come here himself; he’ll send men.”
“Where can I find Juan Alvarado? Is he in New York City?”
“I think so, but I don’t know where he is, I swear, and I’m answering your questions, please let me live.”
“You and your cousin killed a friend of mine.”
The man’s legs gave out and he sank to his knees and cried.
“I just do what they tell me, oh God, I don’t want to die.”
Tanner jerked the man’s head up by pulling his hair.
“How much time is left until help arrives?”
It took Manuel a moment to compose himself, but soon he answered.
“They are all in New York City.”
Tanner nodded, that was good; it meant he still had time.
“Tell me everything I want to know and I’ll let you live.”
“You’re lying. You said I killed your friend.”
“Look at me,” Tanner said, and Manuel met his eyes.
“I will
let you live, but you have to answer every question.”
Manuel saw that Tanner was telling the truth. He nodded his head wildly.
“I’ll tell you anything. I want to live.”
Tanner leaned closer.
“Tell me about Alonso Alvarado, and I mean everything you know.”
CHAPTER 2 – A man of his word
Ossining, New York 9:49 a.m.
Roberto Simone stepped on a pair of broken eyeglasses that were laying next to a clipboard at the foot of the porch steps.
After walking up the steps, he looked down at the body lying in the doorway and grimaced with disgust.
Something had blown the man’s left hand off and had taken most of his head with it.
Roberto had been born in San Diego, but after his parents divorced, his mother moved back to Mexico with Roberto and his sister when he was eleven.
He became a Mexico City cop after college, but was lured into the drug business while still a rookie. He stayed a cop for ten years, but grew tired of the charade and took a position as one of Juan Alvarado’s bodyguards.
When the call came in from the home in Ossining, Alvarado sent Roberto to check it out. The only call they had received said that it was one man attacking them, and Roberto knew that it likely meant that Tanner had paid the home a visit.
How Tanner knew where to find the home was another matter, and one that needed looking into.
He had heard the rumors that Tanner was a killing machine and assumed it was all bullshit. Tanner was a man like any other man, and that meant that he could be killed.
Roberto and his men had faced other men with vaunted reputations and those men were all dead. Tanner would join them when they caught up to the man.
Roberto turned and signaled to two of the three men with him, telling them to go around to the rear. The men took his meaning and headed towards the back while keeping space between them, and as they were doing that, the third man moved closer to Roberto and whispered.
“I hear something. It sounds like someone moaning.”
Roberto listened, and then nodded in agreement.
“I hear it too; someone must have lived through the attack, and it’s coming from deeper inside the house. When we go in, I’ll take the left and you take the right.”
They entered with their guns up and ready, and found a second corpse. The man had been caught by the blast from a grenade. He was lying in a puddle of congealing blood with the lower portion of his right leg blown off.
The moaning was coming from the kitchen.
It was Manuel.
He was lying on the floor near the stove.
Tanner had kept his word and let the man live, of course, he had never defined the term “living.”
Manuel had no eyes, was deafened, and Tanner had removed his tongue. The injury to his spine might be treated by medical science, but for now, the man’s back was broken.
Tanner had told Manuel that he would leave him alive; he never said he would enjoy it.
The other two men entered the kitchen from the rear of the home and gasped at the horror of Manuel’s condition.
“Madre de Dios, why would someone do this to Manuel?” one of the men asked.
Roberto leaned down closer to Manuel. Manuel was shirtless, and there were words carved on his torso. Roberto read them.
“It’s hard to tell with all the blood, but I think it says, ‘This is for Sophia Verona!’”
The man who had entered with Roberto pointed over at the body slumped in the corner. There was brain matter and drying blood down the front of its shirt, and its head hung down.
“Who is that?”
Roberto shrugged.
“Manuel’s cousin, I guess. We found Pedro and Savion up front.”
One of the other men shook his head.
“That’s not Manuel’s cousin. Hector is out in the yard.”
And as Roberto looked back at the mystery corpse, he saw it bring up a gun and fire.
***
Tanner emptied his weapon before any of the men could return fire.
He had killed two of the men outright, but Roberto and one of the men who had entered from the rear still lived.
Both of them were severely wounded, but Roberto was able to reach for a weapon. He had just closed his hand around it when Tanner walked over and kicked him in the face.
The gun slipped from Roberto’s hand and Tanner picked it up and shot the other survivor twice in the back of the head.
Manuel moaned louder from his place on the floor, but Tanner ignored him and went to Roberto. He reached into the man’s pockets and removed his car keys, wallet, and phone. After looking through the phone, he found a number for Juan Alvarado.
Roberto stared up at him, and after he managed to push aside his pain, he spoke.
“You’re Tanner?”
“Yeah,”
“They were right about you... you are good.”
“Good enough,” Tanner said, as he shot Roberto in the face.
He then dialed the number for Juan Alvarado.
“Roberto, what’s going on there?”
The voice sounded younger than Tanner thought it would.
“This is Tanner, Alvarado. I’m coming for you.”
There was silence, but then Alvarado spoke.
“You’re nothing, Tanner. You’re just one man. I’ll send an army after you, a fucking army. Do you hear me?”
“I’m coming. Tell your father. Once I kill you and Krupin, he’s next.”
Juan Alvarado’s laughter was pure amusement.
“You’re really insane, aren’t you? You don’t stand a chance, and that bastard Pullo will die too, count on it.”
“I’m coming, Alvarado.”
Tanner ended the call, but then dialed 9-1-1.
When the operator answered, he fired a shot into the wall and then laid the phone near Manuel.
Help would come, Manuel would live, and he will have kept his word.
Tanner went up the back staircase to the home’s bathroom, stripped naked, and washed away his disgusting disguise of blood and brains. He had removed a fresh set of clothes from the car he arrived in before pushing it down a hill and into a nearby pond, and so, after cleaning up, he changed, and walked outside to Roberto’s car.
Manuel’s moaning was loud enough to carry through the open doorway and be heard outside, but Tanner felt no pity for the man. He and his cousin had killed Sophia, and so the bastard couldn’t suffer enough.
Tanner climbed behind the wheel of Roberto’s car, a rented Range Rover, and headed back to New York City.
His day of death dealing was just beginning.
CHAPTER 3 – Rings a bell
MEXICO, several miles outside the city of Acatlán de Osorio
Alonso Alvarado put down his phone after talking to his son, Juan.
Juan had just informed him about Tanner’s rampage on the home in Ossining, while also relaying Tanner’s threat to kill them both.
Alvarado was in his office at the desert compound that Michael Krupin had visited. His crutches were leaning against the wall, while he sat in a special chair behind his desk. The chair alleviated the pain of his damaged joints and had a laptop attached on a small table.
Alvarado swiveled the laptop into position in front of him and stared at a photo of Tanner. It was the mugshot taken by Mexican authorities, and Alvarado found the face familiar.
When his wife, Malena, walked in, she leaned on the back of the chair and gazed down at the photo on the laptop screen.
“The man is handsome, but those eyes are filled with danger.”
“Does he look familiar to you, Malena?”
“No, why, do you know him?”
Alvarado scratched at his nose, and then shook his head.
“I don’t know, but there’s something familiar about that face.”
“Who is he?”
“Tanner.”
“The assassin? I thought he’d be dead by now. Didn�
�t you send Manuel and Hector to kill him?”
“The fools killed his woman instead, and today Tanner killed Hector and seriously wounded Manuel. He also murdered Roberto and his team.”
“Oh no,” Malena said. She cared nothing for Manuel and Hector, but Roberto had been one of her many lovers.
Malena had been with scores of men during her marriage to Alvarado, but still considered herself faithful, because she never slept with the same man more than once. Her husband knew nothing about her assignations.
Despite her odd view on monogamy, Malena went to great pains to keep her affairs a secret, and every staff member in the house knew better than to cross her.
“This Tanner,” Alvarado said. “He threatened Juan, and for that alone I will see him dead.”
Malena moved around to the front of the chair to stare down at her husband.
“Bring Juan home now. It is too dangerous for him to stay in New York.”
“Our son is a man, and a man does not run from other men. I’ll send a jet to New York with enough of our people to handle Tanner.”
“How many men?”
“The jet can seat sixteen.”
“Then send two jets, make sure that our son is protected.”
Alvarado sighed.
“It’s overkill, but I’ll do it.”
“How soon can they be there?”
“They’ll be on the ground in New York by tonight, at the private airfield we use for drug shipments.”
Malena seemed appeased by the doubling of forces. She kissed her husband on the cheek, and as she was leaving the office, she called back over her shoulder.
“This man Tanner, could he somehow have something to do with what’s been happening in Mexico City?”
“No. Whoever is killing our men there must be working for someone else.”
Malena turned in the doorway.
“Sandoval?”
“No, that traitorous pig wouldn’t dare attack me.”
“Let me know when Tanner is dead. I’ll rest easier then.”
“You worry too much; he’s one man.”
Malena left, and Alvarado picked up his phone to order the deployment of his men. While speaking to the man who would manage the operation, he kept staring at Tanner’s picture.
The TANNER Series - Books 7-9 (Tanner Box Set Book 3) Page 26
