The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart

by Remington Kane

  The woman smiled back at him, then she pointed up at the roof of a three-story apartment building.

  The building was behind the sound barrier and nearly half a mile away, but Enrique could see that something up there was reflecting the sun. When he looked back at the woman, he saw that she had decreased her speed dramatically, while her car’s turn signal indicated that she intended to take the next exit.

  Enrique was about to tell the driver to follow her, but a high caliber rifle round put a hole in his chest the size of a baseball, and he died without ever knowing it.

  The bodyguards both fumbled at the window controls, but two more shots ended their efforts, and the limo moved smoothly down the highway.

  Up front, its driver sang along to a tune on the radio, oblivious to the fact that he was suddenly in control of a hearse.

  Tanner was waiting for Alexa near the off-ramp. After she abandoned the stolen jeep, she walked over in a pair of six-inch heels and climbed into the car Tanner was driving.

  “Spenser called; he made the shots,” Tanner said.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t do it. I think you’re a better shot than he is.”

  “I wanted to be close to you in case there was trouble.”

  “That’s sweet, but all I had to do was wear this dress, and I feel like such a slut in it.”

  “Hold on to that dress, we may need it again.”

  “Really? You think this trick will work twice?”

  “No, but you can wear it when we’re alone.”

  Alexa laughed. “I’ll do that, and what will you be wearing?”

  Tanner ran a hand along her naked thigh.

  “I’ll be wearing a smile.”

  23

  Truckin’

  Alvarado was growing impatient again, as the search for Alexa’s loved ones seem to be taking too long. When he asked one of his sources why they couldn’t trace her family by searching computer records, he learned that it was suspected her name might be an alias.

  No one her approximate age with the name Alexa Lucia was listed with CURP, which was an acronym for Clave Única de Registro de Población. CURP was the agency that issued citizen ID numbers.

  Alvarado told the man to find a source inside the Federal Electoral Institute, which issued voter ID cards, because it was almost impossible to live in Mexico without possessing one. Other than voting, the card was used to open bank accounts, and most merchants asked for it when they sold beer.

  “That may take time, sir?”

  “I know, but there are other ways of tracking down her family, and I have men getting closer to them as we speak.”

  After setting his phone down, Alvarado received another call, and he learned about the death of Enrique De Jesús.

  “Tanner, you son of a bitch,” Alvarado whispered, and he had to fight the desire to send men to Mexico City to search for Tanner. When the urge passed, he smiled.

  Let the bastard and his friends do all the damage they want. Alvarado told himself. He would not split up the force he had at the compound.

  Tanner was smart, he did have to give the man that much credit. If he hadn’t been warned about the fact that he would be stowed away in a shipping container, the man might have made it inside the compound.

  Martinez had given Alvarado the notes the strike team had gathered concerning Tanner’s tactics, and the depth of the man’s cleverness was impressive. Still, no amount of guile would help Tanner once he was captured. In the meantime, Alvarado wondered what new damage Tanner would inflict upon his business, and he tried to think of where he would strike next.

  When the answer came to Alvarado, he felt sick inside, but then dismissed it entirely. There was no possible way that Tanner could know about the facility he was thinking of. Besides, he already had enough security guarding the place to hold off an army.

  The facility was not only disguised, but also underground, which made it infinitely more difficult to breach. It was so secure that Alvarado had designated it as a backup refuge in the event that his compound had fallen.

  It was located only eight miles away from where Alvarado sat. There were no drugs there, but rather a stockpile of cash, which was just waiting to be laundered or used to buy weapons. The bills were mostly American dollars, but there were also pesos, and their combined value was currently over fifty million.

  Alvarado reached for his phone, changed his mind, reached for it again, picked it up, and then placed it back on the desk. Tanner wasn’t interested in money. He was in Mexico to seek revenge.

  Alvarado spun his chair around and gazed out the patio door. After closing his eyes, he fantasized once more about the atrocious acts of violence he would inflict on Tanner and Spenser. The very thought of it made him shiver with pleasure.

  As he lay flat on a sand dune, Tanner used a pair of binoculars as he attempted to look at Alvarado’s compound, but due to the aperture of the terrain, all he could make out was the top of a wall and the flagpole beyond it.

  Behind him was an old structure made of corrugated metal, and to the left of the building and up a hill was a narrow road that saw little traffic.

  There were Spanish words handwritten across the front and sides of the building in large letters that when translated read, Ramos Pool Cleaning Service.

  Tanner had watched one of the business’s ratty white vans return and drive into the building. Except for the fact that it rode low to the ground and seemed wider than a normal van, he never would have suspected the vehicle was armored and transporting cash.

  “How did you discover this place, Alexa?” Spenser asked. He was lying on her right, while Tanner was on her left.

  The three of them were wearing camouflage outfits like the one Alexa wore the night she breached Alvarado’s compound, but in the bright light of an afternoon sun, they were still easy to pick out. The facility they were looking at had both cameras and motion detectors. If they drew too close, their presence would be known.

  “I came across it when I was first scouting the compound. I always came at night and thought it strange that there was activity going on here at all hours. Then, when I was in the city, I spotted one of the vans drive into a building I knew housed a drug operation. That’s when I realized that the pool trucks were really armored and ferrying cash.”

  Spenser pointed to a group of poles near the front of the building. “It looks like you were right about their reliance on the cameras. I can also make out several vents leading into the ground. That building is nothing but a prop for what’s going on beneath it.”

  Tanner stared at the structure with an intense gaze as he spoke his thoughts aloud. “We should call Dante for help with this one since we have no idea how many men are down there.”

  Alexa called his name, breaking his concentration. “Tanner.”

  “Yes?”

  “I would love to break in there and steal that money too, but take it from the daughter of a thief, sometimes it’s easier to get inside a place than it is to get out. If we were discovered in there and they sealed it shut, they could take their time hunting us down. We would also need a large vehicle to haul all the money away.”

  Tanner smiled at her. “You were raised by a thief, but I was mentored by a killer.”

  Alexa’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means my concern isn’t with the money, but the men who are guarding it.”

  “You have a plan,” Spenser said. “What is it, Cody?”

  “It’s from the book, and the idea came from Tanner Three. Do you remember how he killed the man hiding in the caves?”

  Spenser recalled the tale and smiled.

  “What’s this about a cave?” Alexa asked, and Spenser explained.

  “Tanner Three once took a contract on a guy who had gone up into the hills to hide. The man had lived there as a boy and knew his way around the caves that were in the area. They weren’t deep caves or very big, but they were all connected. If you didn’t know your way
around inside them, it could take some time to find a way out. Tanner Three pretended to be making a delivery, but the man grew wary of him and rushed into a cave.”

  Alexa looked over at Tanner. “So, how did he kill the man?”

  “He had arrived in a truck hauling kerosene and came upon the target while the man was chopping wood. After the man entered the caves, Tanner Three used the axe on the truck to chop a hole in the tank. Once the kerosene had leaked out and run down into the cave, he set it on fire. He later found the target leaning against a tree and struggling to breathe; the man had avoided the fire, but not the fumes.”

  Alexa considered the story, but then shook her head. “That underground chamber isn’t a cave system, and I would be surprised if it wasn’t airtight. Even if we flooded the building with gasoline it might not leak down below.”

  Tanner pointed at the nest of cameras. “What do you think would be the response if they saw a carload of men follow one of their vans onto the property?”

  “They would send up a force to deal with it.”

  “Right, and to come up, they would need to create an opening, an opening that would allow the gas to enter the chamber.”

  Alexa gazed over at the building and smiled. “Let’s do it.”

  24

  Burn Baby, Burn

  The gym owner that Sylvia had told the Federales to see owned a small chain of health clubs. Once she saw the federal credentials, she told them everything she knew about Alexa.

  “I first met her at my newest club in San Juan Del Rio. She would work out there whenever she visited her father for more than a day or two.”

  “Her father lives in San Juan Del Rio?”

  “Yes, but I never met him. I just dropped her off there when her car wouldn’t start.”

  “Do you remember the address?”

  “No, but you can’t miss it. It’s right at the top of a hill, and I can give you directions.”

  Tanner jumped from the cab of a semi-trailer that held over six thousand gallons of gasoline. They had called Dante and told him they needed assistance. When they revealed what they had planned, Dante told them they were mad to even consider burning up that much cash. He then agreed to help, with the understanding that any money salvaged would be his alone.

  Tanner said yes, and then told Dante what they needed and how they would do it.

  The assault on the underground compound was ready to begin after Dante arrived with the fuel truck, four men he could trust, and two police officers that he owned.

  They had staged an accident between the fuel truck and one of two pickups they were using, and the “accident” blocked the road just past the entry to the building’s parking lot.

  That was followed by the appearance of the cops, and while they exited their patrol car and pretended to investigate the accident, more of Dante’s men arrived in a second pickup truck.

  The second pickup was driving along behind one of the pool service vans. When it followed the van into the parking lot, an overhead door on the building rolled up to let the van inside, even as two men with rifles emerged from the building.

  The pickup drove to the edge of the property where its riders exited the vehicle while brandishing their own weapons. That was when Tanner started the truck and steered it toward the building.

  The truck was rolling along at a sedate nine miles an hour when Tanner made his leap, but it quickly picked up speed as it left the highway and rolled down the sandy hill at the side of the corrugated building.

  At one point, the truck rammed into a sand dune and Tanner thought it might come to a stop. But no, the hill was steep enough, and the truck heavy enough to ensure forward momentum.

  However, hitting the dune had altered the truck’s direction, and it soon became apparent that it would miss the building altogether.

  It did so, but by less than three feet. After slamming into and then climbing onto a set of concrete benches which were near the metal poles that held the nest of cameras, the truck tipped, wobbled, and then crashed onto its side. Ironically, it fell onto a fire hydrant, which punched a hole in the side of the tank. The hydrant was one of two, with the second one located at the rear of the property.

  They were fed from a line of water tanks that were positioned along the parts of the desert that had a higher elevation, such as the few buttes in the area. When combined, the tanks formed a water main that could be tapped at the hydrants.

  The Alvarado compound had more hydrants behind its walls that employed the system, and at one time, Alexa had considered using the water as a way to poison Alvarado and his men.

  She soon abandoned that idea when she discovered that the water was also used by the surrounding ranches in the area. The water was needed primarily for irrigation and not for drinking, and Alvarado shipped in bottled water for himself and his people.

  Gasoline soon flowed from the wreck, and because of the grading of the parking lot, it all flowed directly toward the building.

  A dozen more men appeared from the building, most of them had shotguns, but two of them were carrying M60 machine guns. Tanner, Alexa, and Spenser began cutting the men down with their long-range rifles, even as Dante and his group fired on them from behind their two pickups.

  The cops that had arrived with Dante were the only ones not involved in the firefight. They took cover behind their patrol car, which was above the property and parked on the road.

  It was the cops’ responsibility to keep an eye out for any approaching traffic on the quiet road and, in particular, any vehicles coming from the direction of Alvarado’s desert compound.

  When a stray spark from the engine of the truck ignited the fuel, it also set ablaze the surviving men who had come out of the building, even as the fire entered the chamber below.

  The remaining group of Alvarado’s people who were still underground must have spent time attempting to douse the flames, because it took several minutes for the first one to come out. The man climbed up from a stairway. The entrance had been hidden beneath the sand thirty meters from the building. As soon as he was on the surface, he ran off at a sprint toward Alvarado’s compound while shouting into a cell phone.

  Tanner raised his rifle, but then decided to let the man live. If the crew down below hadn’t already contacted Alvarado, then the fleeing man could tell Alvarado all about the raid on his cash depot. Either way, it was too late to do anything about it now.

  The second man to emerge held a gun in his hand, but he was choking on the fumes from the fire in the chamber. When Dante told him to drop the weapon, the man did so, then he reached back to help one of his fellow workers climb out, a woman.

  A great black plume soon filled the sky. It was fed by the burning of a fortune in ill-gotten gain.

  Two of Dante’s men had braved the building and made it out with the pool service van they had followed onto the property. It held nearly a million in bundled cash; the bills were held together by rubber bands.

  Dante rewarded his men by tossing several packets to each of them, and even the cops, who had stayed out of the action, drifted over to wet their beaks.

  Dante stared inside the van at the pile of cash that was left and said that he knew just how to spend it so that it would do the most good. He would use it to recruit more men from the villages.

  Tanner looked at his watch. “It’s almost time to rendezvous with Amy and Alexa’s father. Why don’t we tell Dante the rest of our plan now?”

  Dante had been standing nearby. He turned and looked at Tanner.

  “What’s this you’re talking about?”

  They told him, while leaving out the most important part, but Dante understood that they trusted him about as much as he trusted them. Still, for now, their goals were in alignment, and Dante told them he would do as they asked.

  “Just remember,” Tanner said. “That delivery truck has to reach the compound at its scheduled time, twelve noon, and the crate has to be on it.”

  “I’ll take care of it,
” Dante said. “But these changes you’re making, I don’t see how they will help you kill Alvarado.”

  Alexa told him that it would all make sense in the end and Dante shrugged. He knew he was in so deep that he had to see things through. Within twenty-four hours he would either be in control of Alvarado’s cartel or be hunted for betraying his boss, Damián Sandoval.

  Eight of Alvarado’s people survived the firefight and the smoke, not counting the man who had run off. They were six men and two women.

  Tanner walked over to them. They were down on their knees and had their hands secured behind their backs.

  Tanner pointed at the ones on the left. “These three will do.”

  25

  Trapped

  Amy was sitting on the steps of Rodrigo’s home and wishing for the man and his companion to appear. She had the rental parked in front of the house and facing the nearby cross street, so that they could drive away as soon as possible once Rodrigo showed.

  Scar, Bruise, Wound, and Abrasion were down along different sections of the hill keeping watch. If they saw anyone in a vehicle who looked shady, they would give Amy a call. Few cars came or went up the hill, as it was the middle of a workday, but each time one approached, Amy felt dread. By two o’clock, Amy had begun to pace in front of the house. When her phone rang, and she saw that it was Scar, she was certain that he was going to tell her to run and hide among the trees.

  “Yes?”

  “I think they’re finally here,” Scar said.

  Seconds later, Amy let out a great sigh of relief as she watched the red pickup truck crest the hill and then pull into the driveway. When Emilio stepped out of it, she recognized him immediately.

  “Mr. Lucia, my name is Amy. Your daughter Alexa sent me to take you somewhere safe.”