He normally would have minded his own business, but Ethan had been seen by the gang. Once they discovered that someone had broken in, they might think he was involved. It was better to let the police find the goods and deal with the crooks.
Movement on the monitors caught Tanner’s eye as he was walking past them on his way out.
Several men were entering the building through the front door, maybe as many as ten. Tanner couldn’t be certain they were all armed, but at least two of them held rifles.
He leapt off the edge of the loading dock and moved up the winding concrete ramp with the shotgun he had taken leading the way.
The squeal of tires reached his ears as two pickup trucks parked at the top of the ramp, where the dumpster entrance sat half open. Those sounds were followed by the opening and closing of the vehicles’ doors, and a shouted command.
“Jake, Reno, you two stay here. If the bastard shows himself, shoot him.”
Then came the sound of footsteps as a group ran toward Tanner along the ramp. He turned to head back inside and make his way up to the sales floor, where there had to be numerous exits.
He was headed for the dock again when loud voices drifted down from the stairs located near the security office, the voices were accompanied by the distinct sound of a shotgun being racked.
When he turned and looked along the sloping concrete dock, Tanner saw the shadows of six men playing along the wall and growing larger, they too were holding guns.
He was trapped, outnumbered, and out-gunned.
Tanner looked around at his surroundings while remaining calm.
He was a Tanner. The seventh Tanner, and he had trained for and survived dangerous situations in the past.
The men headed toward him were angry and filled with the desire to kill, but Tanner knew something that they didn’t.
Many, if not all of them were going to die.
“There he is!” cried a deep male voice from behind him.
Tanner raised the shotgun and fired.
26
Future’s Past
THE OUTSKIRTS OF CHICAGO, JULY 1951
Michael Waller, Tanner 2, drove along a road he hadn’t been on for nearly a decade. During his absence, several new homes had gone up in the area. However, he was pleased to see that the house he was headed to still sat alone amid its own acreage.
Waller was driving a red Cadillac convertible, A Series 62, and its whitewall tires gleamed in the sun.
The house looked the same as he remembered it, but the gravel driveway was paved and bordered by colorful wildflowers.
There was a car in the driveway that he’d never seen before, a huge black Buick. Like his own vehicle, it was a convertible.
Waller walked up the front steps of the porch, but as he raised his hand to ring the doorbell, he sensed that someone had come up behind him. Someone he hadn’t heard at all.
“Hello, lad.”
Waller smiled even as he turned around, and there stood Keane O’Connell.
The sixty-seven-year-old O’Connell’s hair was stark white but had lost none of its thickness. His friend seemed smaller to Waller than he remembered, but he still looked fit. O’Connell’s casual gray slacks and blue corduroy shirt had streaks of fresh soil on them, and he held a pair of gardening gloves in his left hand.
The two men shook hands, then shared a quick hug. As they were separating, Eloise stepped out onto the porch. Waller thought she looked as beautiful as ever, although there were lines about her eyes and silver streaks in her hair. But then, none of them was getting any younger.
Waller joined them for dinner and decided to stay the night as well, after Eloise insisted that he not drive back to Detroit in the dark.
Michael Waller had moved to Detroit in 1942, and as it had been in Chicago, the name Tanner was legendary among those in the Detroit underworld, legendary, respected, and feared.
After eating a large breakfast, O’Connell led Waller outside to look at his flower and vegetable garden. Over the years, he had become quite the horticulturist.
Eloise kissed Waller goodbye, as she was headed off to her volunteer job at the library. She made Waller promise to bring his lady friend along the next time he visited. Waller was living with a woman who had become widowed during World War Two.
He told O’Connell and Eloise that he had plans to marry her.
Earlier that morning, O’Connell had set a large book on the patio table. The book had hundreds of pages, most of which were blank. Eloise had brought it home from the library. The book was leather-bound, but had no title or other markings, and its pages were blank.
It had been in a shipment of dictionaries and was obviously sent out in error from the printer. Eloise asked if she could have it, then gave it to O’Connell.
“Why give it to me?” O’Connell had asked her.
“You’ve led an interesting life. You should write your memoirs.”
O’Connell had chuckled at that.
“They wouldn’t be memoirs. In the hands of the law, they’d be a confession.”
Still, the idea had been planted. During the previous winter, with his garden dormant, Keane O’Connell began writing in the book. When he had finished months later, he had written down not only a memoir about his life, but had also penned his philosophy, along with strategies and tricks he had developed while acting as Tanner.
As they sat by the garden under the patio umbrella, Michael Waller scanned the book with fascinated eyes. When he was done, he sat the fledgling tome upon the table and looked over at O’Connell.
“Eloise was right to suggest you write this. I think I’ll do the same someday.”
O’Connell pointed at the book.
“I’ve barely made a dent in those pages. You could begin penning your story where mine ends.”
Waller stared at the book, then nodded in agreement at the idea. After taking a sip of the iced tea they were enjoying, Waller gave O’Connell some news.
“I’m thinking of retiring after I’ve married. I’ve also become friends with a young man who would make an excellent Tanner.”
O’Connell raised his eyebrows in surprise at both statements.
“Are you retiring because of your coming marriage?”
“Partly, but I’m not a young man anymore, Keane. I’ll be fifty next year.”
“Fifty?” O’Connell whispered in surprise.
It seemed like only a few years ago that he’d met Waller, the fearless lad who had lied about his age so that he could go to war and find adventure.
Waller lifted the book from the table, to flip through it once more. It was the book that would become known as The Book of Tanner.
O’Connell took off his reading glasses and put them back in their leather case. Then, he asked a question.
“This fellow you’ve befriended, what’s he like?”
“He’s as brave and foolish as we were at his age, but smart too, and like myself, he went to war young, then saw action in the Pacific during World War Two.”
“Was he a sniper?”
“No, but I’ve been training him and he’s a hell of a marksman. I’ve taught him the tricks you taught me, and a few others I developed on my own. Like myself, he’ll abide by the code you developed.”
“What about the transition from one Tanner to the next, how will you handle that?”
“He’s a Cajun and wants to go back home. He’ll be working in the New Orleans area.”
“A third Tanner,” O’Connell said. “It makes me wonder if there will be a fourth someday.”
“And then a fifth, perhaps a sixth?” Waller said. “And with each man gaining the experience and guidance of the Tanners who came before him. If that ever happened, imagine what such a man would be like.”
O’Connell did imagine it, and he smiled at the thought.
“Such a man would be unbeatable, no matter the odds he faced.”
27
Unbeatable
With groups of armed men clo
sing in on him from each end of the underground loading dock, Tanner raised his shotgun and fired.
He wasn’t firing at the men headed toward him. He was destroying their source of light.
Tanner sent three blasts into the storage batteries and the solar inverter, then dived to the floor.
Darkness enveloped the space he was in, then was interrupted by bright flashes as the men expended rounds.
They were firing at the spot where Tanner had been standing, and so missed him.
Tanner fired the last two shells in the shotgun toward the flashes he’d seen. Screams of pain erupted, but Tanner barely heard them as he released the shotgun and rolled to where he recalled the truck was.
The men on the ramp had made it all the way down to the dock and were greeted by panicked fire from their comrades who were standing by the security office.
“Don’t shoot! We’ll hit each other.”
Tanner recognized the voice that had uttered those words. It was Reverend Smith.
“Use your phones like a flashlight,” another voice said.
As the men began activating their phones, Tanner moved silently toward the group that had come down the ramp. Like himself, they wore ski masks or bandanas. They had no desire to have their faces filmed inside a warehouse of stolen goods and had yet to determine who had broken into their lair.
Tanner stood among them with his phone held out in front of him, just as they were doing, blending in.
Three wounded men were on the floor. One was gritting his teeth from the pain in his right arm, which had been wounded by shotgun pellets, another man moaned while lying flat on his back, and the third man looked crumpled and dead.
“Shit! Who got killed?” said a voice on Tanner’s right.
One of the men bent down with his phone, turned the man over, and lifted a ski mask.
“It’s Maury. The son of a bitch killed Maury.”
The Reverend spoke up again, but Tanner still couldn’t make him out. He was just a shadow behind the bright screen of his phone.
“Form groups of two and search the dock. He must be hiding here somewhere.”
“Maybe we killed him already,” another man said. He was a large man, tall and wide, and he held a rifle with a thirty-round magazine.
Tanner eased toward him while removing his knife and saw the man’s phone screen fade to darkness. It was a cheap phone and the screen had already timed-out once before. “We need flashlights,” the big man said.
“Use the App on your phone,” a voice said.
“I don’t have a fucking App,” the big man growled.
While the men had been talking, Tanner had put away his phone. He stepped behind the big man, gripped the back of his shirt, then thrust his blade into the base of the giant’s spine.
Spenser had arrived at Andrea’s home at the same time Tanner was inspecting the truck full of stolen goods. When Romeo told him where Tanner had gone, and why, Spenser smiled.
“That boy attracts trouble,” Spenser said, but after looking around he had a question for Andrea. “Where’s Ethan?”
Ethan used Spenser’s arrival at the house as an opportunity to sneak out the back door. He knew Tanner was at the store looking around, and he wanted in on the excitement.
The truck he’d seen earlier had just vanished, and the mystery had been on Ethan’s mind all day. When Tanner figured out how it was done, he wanted to be there to see it.
Ethan walked out from among a group of trees and the store came into view. There were cars and trucks parked near the front entrance, which meant that Tanner may have been caught sneaking around. Ethan stayed to the shadows along the border of the parking lot and made his way around to the rear.
Two more trucks were there, along with two men wearing masks standing by the dumpster. Ethan smiled when he saw that there was a hidden entrance sitting ajar.
That was where the truck had gone earlier, and he was sure that Tanner had found the opening.
Ethan moved toward the entrance by walking on an angle that kept him hidden from sight behind the pickup trucks.
He nearly cried out when the sound of shotgun blasts drifted out of the opening. That was followed by the sound of more shots from different guns, and then there was silence.
“Tanner?” Ethan whispered, and wondered if the man had been shot for trespassing.
His body began to shake from fear and he turned to head back the way he’d come. He was so rattled that he wasn’t paying attention, and his foot kicked an empty soda can.
The men at the door spotted him running away, and one of them gave chase. He was a youthful figure with long legs, and he was eating up the ground between himself and Ethan.
Tears ran down Ethan’s face as he raced toward home, and the sound of the footfalls behind him grew louder and louder.
The man whose spine Tanner had severed let out a high-pitched scream and dropped to his knees.
Tanner released the knife and gained possession of the rifle. He thumbed off the safety and fired at the men closest to him.
Panic erupted, phones were fumbled, then dropped, and men fired in his direction. Tanner had taken cover behind the man he had knifed and felt two rounds strike the man’s thick body.
“Damn it. Stop firing!” a voice cried out, the voice of the phony reverend. Tanner eased the rifle around the body of the man he was propping up and fired several rounds toward the voice.
A shout of pain erupted, followed by the sound of running feet. The men were retreating toward the stairs.
Tanner let loose another burst and again heard screams of pain. Another round hit the man he was holding, and the man’s head slumped forward until his chin rested on his massive chest.
He released his grip on the man and crawled along the base of the wall. Concrete rained down on him as scattered shots hit the wall of the ramp.
When Tanner was certain he had moved around a curve and out of range, he stood and listened. He heard moans, curses, cries of agony, and sobs of sorrow.
What he didn’t hear was the sound of footfalls approaching from the surface. The men guarding the exit had stayed in place.
Tanner headed up the ramp, bathed in darkness, and ready to kill once more.
“Stop running, you little shit, or I’ll shoot your ass.”
Ethan looked back and saw that the man with the gun was reaching out to grab him.
A finger grazed his shoulder. It was followed by a hand, and the hand grabbed onto his collar.
Ethan tried to twist free and only managed to trip himself up. He fell forward, his palms scraping the rough surface of the parking lot and sending a jolt of stinging pain through both hands.
Terror erased the pain as Ethan flipped over onto his back and started slapping and kicking at the man, who had bent over to grab him.
When his hand touched the ski mask the man wore, he gripped it and yanked it off the man’s head.
The man beneath the mask was young and had his blond hair in a buzz cut.
“I didn’t do anything!” Ethan said, as tears rolled down his cheeks.
The man lifted Ethan, until the boy was on his knees.
“You’ve seen my face. That’s bad enough, kid.”
The man smiled as he took out a knife with a razor-sharp edge. He was pulling on Ethan’s hair, forcing his head back to expose his throat, and that’s when a shot rang out from the shadows.
The sick smile left the man’s face.
Ethan fell to the ground along with the punk and watched as a spreading circle of red darkened the man’s white shirt, where his heart would be.
The boy cried out in fright as a hand grabbed his arm to help him up. It was Romeo, wearing a bandana and a cap. Ethan understood that Romeo had just saved his life.
“That was a close call, little dude.”
Spenser came up behind Romeo and tousled Ethan’s hair. He was wearing a balaclava, his one good eye visible in the open slit of the fabric.
“Take him home to his
mother,” Spenser said.
“I’ll be back in a flash,” Romeo told him. He picked up a still tearful Ethan and carried him off toward home, while running.
Tanner heard a faint echo of Romeo’s shot when he was nearing the exit and wondered what it meant. He eased along the curving wall of the ramp while staying low, knowing that someone could be lying in wait around the next curve.
He played it patient, listening and waiting, then, he heard a voice from outside.
“Drop your weapon.”
Spenser, Tanner thought, as he recognized the voice of his mentor.
Whoever Spenser was speaking to didn’t heed his advice, because his words were followed by gunfire.
“Spenser, it’s me,” Tanner said, as he walked up the ramp and outside. After greeting each other and learning about Ethan, Tanner explained the situation.
“Judging by all the vehicles, I’d say that there were fifteen to twenty men involved. How many are left down there,” Spenser asked.
“Half a dozen at most,” Tanner said. “There was a lot of friendly fire going on once they panicked.”
A car appeared. It was rocketing across the parking lot with its headlights off while weaving around the dormant light poles. Someone had covered the license plates with strips of duct tape.
As the vehicle neared, the dome light flashed on, then off, and they saw that Romeo was the driver.
The car braked to a hard stop beside them.
“Get in. Andrea got nervous and called the cops when she heard the shooting.”
Spenser and Tanner climbed inside the car, with Tanner in the rear and his rifle held steady atop the rolled down window.
“Ethan told me about a way out of the lot that’s on the south side,” Romeo said. “There used to be a wooden fence blocking the street, but the fence fell down.”
Tanner saw movement, as the glass doors of the store began opening. He fired off a string of shots and the doors shattered, as Romeo rocketed past the entrance.
One Hundred Years Of Tanner Page 13
