When the power kicked back on seconds later, Tanner wondered what it meant, but then he heard the rumble of a generator coming from somewhere along the left side of the home.
When the power was out, Taran had moved in closer. With the renewal of their light source, two of the six guards spotted him and alerted their comrades. The warning came too late. Tanner and Taran opened up on the guards. And while the men had been wise enough not to stand too close to each other, they hadn’t spread out much.
Three of the guards went down without being able to fire a shot. The others fired, but their rounds missed by a wide margin. They were more concerned with backing up to take cover than they were about being accurate. It would prove to be the death of them.
Tanner and Taran stood their ground and took aim. Their only concession to the enemy fire was to take the precaution of turning sideways to present a smaller target. Seconds after the lights came back on, all six guards were down. As they moved up the steps and onto the porch, Taran let loose with two mercy rounds into a pair of moaning wounded men, before switching out an empty magazine for a fresh one.
The doorway to the house lay just ahead. There were nine guards down and nine to go, along with an assumed count of eight bodyguards for the bidders.
The bodyguards were all wildcards. They could lack skill or be well-trained and deadly. There was only one way to find out, and that was to enter the house.
One of the bodyguards was a man named Javier Vela. He was with his employer and the other bidders and bodyguards in the home’s large living room. When the lights went out. he removed his weapon and began herding his charge toward the door that led to a hallway. Javier knew where it was by memory. Moments after the lights came back on, he heard the gunfire erupt outside.
Javier wasn’t interested in getting involved in a gun battle. It wasn’t his job. He had hired on to protect his employer, an overweight man in his fifties who had a thing for hot blondes and domination. Javier had been with him before when he’d bought women. They had all been blonde, young, and magnets for bad luck. If they didn’t attract bad luck, they never would have wound up as property of the sadistic bastard he worked for.
His employer wanted sex from the women, but he also liked to torture them. The reason he was looking for a new plaything tonight is because he had killed the last one.
Javier didn’t really care what he did to them. The man paid him well. Enough so, that he would be able to return home to Guatemala and live comfortably for the rest of his life. That wasn’t going to happen if he didn’t get his boss to safety.
His employer spoke in a nasal voice that quivered with fear. “You have to get me out of here, Javier.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
They entered the hallway and saw two men opening a door at the other end. One of them had a bag in his hand. It was a flight bag. The man was the pilot of the helicopter. The other man was his co-pilot.
Javier was familiar to the pilots from earlier trips to the villa in Mexico. They knew the young women they flew away from the auctions were being held against their will and cared no more than he did.
Javier called out to them. “Where are you going?”
“There’s a side exit in the sunroom. We’ll leave that way and make it to the helicopter.”
“We’re coming with you,” Javier said.
Ali had cursed under her breath when the power came back on, but she also realized what the problem was. She could hear the hum of the generator and knew that it was coming from the side of the home she was on. She went back toward the stairs that led up and out and came across a satisfying scene. The women who had been victimized by Emily and Karen had gained a measure of revenge. The two sisters were releasing wretched moans that were brought on by the myriad of injuries that had been inflicted on them.
Ali had heard the term, “snatch you baldheaded,” but never thought that she would see it brought to life. She had now. Karen and Emily had bloody scalps, and fistfuls of their hair littered the floor. The baton had been employed as well, and someone had damn near ripped Emily’s bottom lip off, while Karen was sprawled on her back with a crooked nose and a mouth that had so many broken teeth it looked like it belonged on a Jack-o’-lantern.
Ali noticed that Karen was stretching her hand out for her purse and scooped the handbag off the floor. When she looked inside, she saw the small gun, a Glock 42, that Karen had been reaching for. There was also a phone.
Ali handed the gun and phone to Cara, then bounded up the steps. “If a guard comes through that door, shoot him.”
“I will. But where are you going?”
“I have to kill the lights again. Use that phone as a flashlight once I do.”
“Be careful!”
Ali didn’t answer. She hadn’t heard Cara. She was out the door and headed toward the generator.
Arthur was in his study with the leader of the guards, who was named Martinez. There were several monitors in there connected to the exterior cameras. They were aware that they were being attacked by only two men.
“Send everyone you have at those sons of bitches,” Arthur said. “They’re ruining this auction.”
“Auction? To hell with the auction,” Martinez said. “They’re killing my men.” Martinez got on his radio and gave orders to his remaining people, then went to join them. “We’ll hit them with everything we’ve got,” Martinez said, and left the room.
Arthur went back to watching the monitors. He saw Ali leaving the basement and grunted in frustration. Now the women are escaping. Is anything going to go right tonight?
Arthur’s face screwed up in confusion as he watched another monitor and saw Tanner and Taran pick up the dead body of a guard and move it. What the hell are they up to?
Martinez had ordered all the remaining guards to meet at the rear of the house. They were going to assemble there and then circle around to confront Tanner and Taran in force. The strategy was designed to take advantage of the bodyguards protecting the bidders. If the men attacking them tried to get inside through the front door, the bodyguards would stop them. They would also help to gun them down once Martinez and his men joined the fray.
At the front of the house, Tanner had his back pressed against a wall as he reached over and tried the knob on the front door. It turned easily and the door opened up, allowing a gap of about two feet. No noise came from inside. It was possible that everyone had moved out of the foyer and living room areas. Tanner spoke to Taran.
“We go in on three. I’ll take the right and you go left. One…. Two…”
Inside the house, the seven remaining bodyguards had come together and formulated a plan to deal with the attackers threatening their employers. They were aware that there were only two men and were agreed on how to deal with them.
The bodyguards were crouched along a staircase waiting to pounce on anyone who tried to enter the house. Three of them held their breath with anticipation when the door swung inward, but the other four had come close to firing at nothing. They were jumpy and eager to end the threat against them. When Tanner spoke and began his countdown, all of the men rose out of their crouches and took aim at the entrance. Their fingers were on their triggers and their nerves were on edge.
“…Three!”
Two forms hurtled through the doorway. They were met by a barrage of gunfire and shouts of triumph from the bodyguards who were intent on killing them. The bloody forms lay facedown on the marble floor of the entranceway, their blood spreading out in a widening puddle.
The bodyguards laughed and congratulated each other for stopping the attack as they walked off the stairs and gathered around the slain men. One of them spat on a body, but another man looked confused and asked a question.
“Where are their guns?”
“Right here,” Tanner said, as he appeared in the doorway standing beside Taran and began firing. The men the bodyguards “killed” had been two of Arthur’s guards that had already died outside the home. Tanner
and Taran had tossed them into the foyer at the conclusion of his countdown as a ruse to lure any potential hidden defenders into revealing themselves by shooting at the corpses.
The plan had worked better than Tanner had hoped, because he hadn’t expected the bodyguards to team up.
Of the seven bodyguards, five had had the good sense to reload after emptying their magazines into the bodies tossed through the door. Of those five, only one managed to get off a shot that hit its target. After killing three of the men, thanks to the element of surprise, Taran took a round to the chest that staggered him and caused him to grunt in pain. Fortunately, the bulletproof vest he wore had absorbed most of the impact.
Several of the bodyguards wore vests as well. Tanner and Taran had assumed as much and went for head shots. Six seconds after Tanner had fired his first shot the last man went down.
Tanner shifted his gaze to Taran. “Are you okay?”
“I am. Thanks to the vest you gave me.”
They moved into the foyer and Taran pointed down at the men they killed. “There are only seven men here. One of the bodyguards must have gone elsewhere.”
Javier led the way to the helicopter with his employer and the pilots following behind him. The landing pad was only about eight hundred feet from the house and the short walk had his employer panting. The man was overweight, but Javier understood that it was fear that was shortening his breath. The evil bastard was scared of dying. Once Javier got him out of this mess, he’d expect to receive a bonus.
“What’s that over there in the driveway?” the pilot asked, as they neared the landing pad.
Javier looked in that direction and could see the outline of a van. The vehicle had backed up along the driveway. Its rear doors were sitting open and there was something on the ground behind it. Javier brought his gun up as he realized what that something was. It was a man. A large man. He was lying on his stomach and looking through the scope of a rifle that appeared to be mounted on a tripod.
Javier took aim at the figure, which was about a hundred feet away. Before he could pull the trigger, the rifle spat fire. Javier was hit in the center of his chest. The .50 BMG round passed through him, hit the co-pilot in the neck, and kept going until it buried itself inside a bur oak tree.
Javier was dead before he collapsed to the ground. The co-pilot fell beside him losing blood by the pint. The pilot gave his chopper a look of longing before deciding that he’d be better off hiding somewhere than to risk being killed trying to take off. He joined Javier’s employer in running back toward the house.
“That was a hell of a shot,” Maxwell told Bo. “You got two for one.”
Bo grinned. “And the others will think twice before trying to get away in that chopper again. Did you activate the cell phone jammer?”
“It’s working. I hope Ali is all right. It worries me that the power came back on.”
“It could be a generator like the one out here powering the lights around the landing pad. If that’s the problem, Ali will take care of it.”
Ali’s bare feet were freezing as she headed toward the hum of the generator near the house. She’d almost been caught when Martinez and his men had rounded a corner on their way to confront Tanner and Taran. Ali had detected the sounds of their approach and ducked behind a hedge just in time.
A loud spate of gunfire could be heard coming from inside the house. Martinez and his men stopped walking and cocked their heads to listen. The gunfire had ceased, and a cheer had risen up in its place.
Hearing that made Ali feel sick, for she believed that it meant Tanner and Taran might have been killed. More gunfire followed, accompanied by screams of pain.
Ali grinned. Dead men didn’t fire back.
Martinez and his men moved on and Ali stood and went in the other direction. No matter what, she was going to shut off that generator.
Tanner and Taran were in the center of the large living room. There were seven unarmed men huddled together in a corner of the room. They were the bidders. They, and others like them, made the abduction of young women a profitable business. Tanner had to fight against the urge to gun them all down.
“Someone’s coming,” Taran whispered. Tanner had heard sounds as well and spun toward them. It was Martinez and his men. They were beyond the open double doors of the entrance to the living room, and yet, were keeping out of sight.
Martinez called out. “We’ve got you outnumbered. If you throw down your weapons, you won’t be killed.”
“And if you start taking wild shots in here, you’ll hit one of the bidders,” Tanner said. After speaking, he and Taran moved several yards to the left, so that Martinez couldn’t pinpoint their location from his voice.
“We can outwait you if needed,” Martinez said. “In the meantime, we’ll call in reinforcements.”
The first part of Martinez’s statement was true. They could attempt to outwait them and attack after they had grown weary from lack of sleep. But they couldn’t summon reinforcements. Tanner checked his phone and found that he had no bars. Maxwell and Bo had done their part and activated the signal jammer.
“You can’t win this!” Martinez shouted. And that’s when Ali flipped the cut-off switch on the generator and killed the lights again.
Tanner and Taran donned the night vision goggles and went to work. The first to die was a guard who was holding a shotgun. The rest of the men heard his shout of pain and knew that someone had been hit by the suppressed shot. The sparse light filtering in through windows was only enough to make out shapes.
Tanner and Taran had moved through the doorway while firing. Their enemy, unable to see well, panicked and began shooting at any perceived threat. Martinez was wounded in the leg by one of his own men. Two other guards fired at each other, with one getting hit in the head, and the other in the arm.
Thanks to the darkness caused by Ali, the night vision and the flash suppressors on their weapons gave Tanner and Taran an immense advantage.
Martinez and the last of the guards were dead, the abducted women were safe, and the bidders trapped with no way to escape.
Tanner asked Taran to keep watch over the hostages, as he went to track down Arthur Collins.
18
Mission Accomplished
Michael and Kate were delayed in reaching Lafayette due to an overturned truck. The dump truck had blocked two lanes of traffic on the I-10.
Kate had received a text from Celeste telling her that she had arrived at the hotel and stated the room number. Later on, during their drive, Kate had attempted to contact Ira and Celeste to tell them about the travel delay but neither had answered their phones. That had only escalated Michael and Kate’s anxiety and given rise to the fear that Lasser had them.
Lasser did have them. That fear became a certainty when they entered the hotel room in Lafayette and found a note on the bed beside a cell phone.
The note gave them a number to call and a time to do so—midnight.
They sat together on the side of the bed. Kate dialed the number immediately, but no one answered, and a recorded voice claimed that the voice mailbox was full.
“It’s Lasser,” Michael said. “Vince is trying to torture us by making us wait.”
“Maybe we should involve the police.”
“And tell them what? That we believe a man we haven’t seen or heard from in decades has taken our grown children? They would ask us how we knew that and all we could do is tell them about all the fatal accidents that we think Vince is responsible for. We’d also have to explain why it is that Vince hates us so much. And what if Vince is watching us? If he sees us talking to the cops, he might do… something drastic.”
“You mean he’ll kill Ira and Celeste.”
“I didn’t say that. I don’t even want to think that.”
Kate took out her phone. “I’m going to try calling the kids again.”
She received no answer at either number and released a moan. “Oh Michael, this is all our fault. It’s karmic payb
ack for all the dirty things we’ve done over the years.”
“It is not. This is all Vince Lasser’s doing. And if that sick bastard hurts my kids, I swear I’ll kill him.”
Kate reached into her purse and took out a gun.
“Where did you get that?” Michael asked.
“From Tanner. He said we might need it.”
“I wish he was here now. He’d know exactly how to handle this.”
“He’s in Texas with Maxwell and the others. I hope everything is going well there.”
Tanner had found Arthur hiding in the dark inside his office with a shotgun. With the power off and no cell signal, the cameras were no good and he couldn’t use his phone.
When Tanner told him to come out unarmed, Arthur had blasted a hole in the door. Tanner answered his fire with a single shot that wounded Arthur in the arm and made him drop the shotgun. The wound was bad and had broken a bone in the arm. It was far less than the sex slaver deserved, but he had information about his other bidders that could lead to more women being located and rescued. So, for now, he lived.
Ali had returned to the basement. She was handed one of the white coveralls to wear instead of the negligee. The women had put them back on in her absence. Two of them had also taken Karen and Emily’s shoes.
Karen and Emily were in no shape to object. They had been bound and gagged with material from a negligee. They looked frightful with their plucked heads and bloody and battered faces. Ali had thought there was a better than even chance that she would have returned to find that the women had been killed.
Sins of the Father and Mother (A Tanner Novel Book 42) Page 15
