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  To Kill A Killer

  A TANNER NOVEL - BOOK 16

  Remington Kane

  Contents

  Introduction

  Join My Inner Circle

  Prologue

  1. Damn Delectable

  2. Angel Of Mercy

  3. Demon Of Death

  4. What’s In A Name?

  5. What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks

  6. La Casa Di Papá

  7. A Deal For A Kill

  8. Like Father, Like Son

  9. Walk Like A Man

  10. Bummer

  11. Rite Of Passage

  12. The Fifth Man

  13. No Room Is Safe Enough

  14. Why Do They Always Assume It’s Luck?

  15. You Want Me To Shoot What?

  16. Pull The Trigger And Watch Them Die

  17. A Night Out On The Town

  18. The Morning After The Night Before

  19. Carlo Scallato

  20. What’s With All The Hotties?

  21. If At First You Don’t Succeed…

  22. Something Is Rotten In Genoa

  23. Welcome Back To The World

  24. The Ghost

  25. Follow The Bouncing Thug

  26. Follow The Bouncing Thug – Part 2

  27. Tick Tock

  28. I Knew It!

  29. Breaking And Entering

  30. Look Behind You

  31. Shoot Me Now!

  32. The First One To Die Wins

  33. It’s Time To Pay Up

  34. Pet Cop Gets A New Leash

  35. Overkill Means They’re Dead, Right?

  36. You Can’t Fix Stupid

  37. Greatly Exaggerated

  38. Hail The Conquering Hero

  39. Catch And Release

  40. In The Wind

  41. Beyond Personal

  42. There Can Be Only One

  Epilogue

  TANNER RETURNS!

  Afterword

  Join My Inner Circle

  Bibliography

  Make Contact

  Introduction

  The two greatest assassins in the world collide and only one can survive.

  Tanner's quest to hunt down the legendary assassin Maurice Scallato turns into an adventure across Europe.

  With Sara Blake at his side and the mysterious Jacques Durand lending assistance, Tanner tracks Scallato even as Scallato plots to kill him.

  To kill Scallato, Tanner must first survive Scallato, and Maurice Scallato is as ruthless a man as Tanner has ever faced.

  Although Tanner's mind is on death, his heart beats to a different drum, as he and Sara Blake grow closer.

  It's a battle of the two greatest assassins in the world, and in the end, only one can walk away.

  Has Tanner met his match, or will he take the art of assassination to a whole new level?

  Join My Inner Circle

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  I COME FAIRLY, TO KILL HIM HONESTLY

  Beaumont and Fletcher – The Little French Lawyer

  Prologue

  NEW MEXICO, DECEMBER 1997

  Cody Parker listened with rapt attention to every word his mentor, Tanner, said to him. Cody was believed to have died during a massacre committed by members of a drug cartel. To avoid discovery, he was going by the name of Xavier Zane. Only Spenser knew his true name.

  An exceptional marksman with rifles and handguns, Cody was having difficulty mastering the longbow.

  Cody stood in a field wearing a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off, his arms and shoulders were lean and muscular, but weary from the hours of practice he’d already put in. However, Cody was resolute in his goal to be a marksman with the bow.

  He was one of two protégés that Tanner had taken on. A boy named Romeo was the other apprentice in the art of assassination. Romeo was standing five yards to Cody’s left and was firing at a similar target and doing far better at it. Despite the innate rivalry that existed between the two teens, Cody thought of Romeo as a friend.

  But friendship aside, Cody was determined to prove himself worthy of someday wearing the appellation of Tanner; toward that goal he sought to be the best of the best.

  The current Tanner, a man named Spenser Hawke, smiled at his student’s enthusiasm, then sought to temper it with wisdom.

  “Never try to be the best of the best, Cody; try to be the best you that you can be. If that turns out to exceed everyone else, then so much the better.”

  “But someone has to be the best, Spenser. Like you, you’re the best.”

  “I like to think so, but we’re all only as good as we can be. Maybe there’s someone out there who is better than I am.”

  Cody shook his head.

  “You’re a Tanner. From everything you’ve told me, the tradition of Tanner gives you an advantage that others don’t have. You know the things that the other Tanner’s knew and tons of tricks and all those different languages, you must be the best.”

  “Yeah, I know a lot, but so do others. There’s a family in Europe named Scallato, they’re Sicilians and they’ve been assassins for generations. They must also be passing down their knowledge and tactics.”

  “Did you ever meet one of them?”

  “I did. His name was Carlo and we were both after the same target. Carlo was about sixty, and he told me that his oldest son was an assassin as well. The Scallato’s had been in the assassination business before the first Tanner ever held a gun.

  “So, they’ve been around a long time, but are they any good?”

  “They’re excellent, Cody, and they’re responsible for several seemingly impossible hits that have gone down over the years in Europe.”

  “Who got to the target first, you or that guy Carlo Scallato?”

  Spenser smiled.

  “I did, and I won a friendly bet we made too.”

  “So, they’re like our competition or something?”

  Spenser considered the question, then nodded.

  “They could be, and if the day ever came that we went head to head against each other, our best better be better than theirs, or there will be no more Tanner’s.”

  Cody’s young face became set into a look of determination as he raised the longbow again, to take aim at the target.

  “Make that your last shot and we’ll pick things up again tomorrow,” Spenser said. “It’s time for dinner and Romeo wants to check out that new burger joint.”

  “Let me keep going a little longer. I’ll grab something to eat later.”

  Spenser looked at his young charge with eyes that reflected pride.

  “You’re determined to get good at this?”

  “Better than good, much better.”

  “Romeo!” Spenser called. “It’s just you and me for dinner. Xavier is going to keep practicing.”

  Romeo walked over. He had shoulder-length blond hair and the look of a surfer.

  “Xavier, dude, the waitresses at the restaurant we’re going to wear like these short-shorts and tight tank tops, come with us, dude.”

  “Bring me back a burger, okay?” Cody said.

  Romeo grinned at him.

  “Dude, I’ll bring you back a blonde if I can.”

  All three of them laughed, then Spenser and Romeo piled in a jeep to head into town. As he drove, Spenser watched Cody Parker via the rear-view mirror. The teen fired off another arrow at the target and came within an inch of hitting the bulls-eye.

  Romeo had been turned around in his seat, watching. When he turned back toward Spenser, he was smiling.

  “He won’t be happy un
til he hits the bulls-eye every time, and I bet he does it someday.”

  “I think you’re right,” Spenser said, and once more a sense of pride swelled in his breast.

  Catania, Sicily, December 1997

  Bernardo Scallato lay on his stomach atop a roof and took aim at his target, a man named Raffaele.

  Raffaele’s murder would be the seventh hit of the young assassin’s career. As his father’s natural successor in the long line of assassins within the Scallato family, Bernardo had been trained well.

  Although Bernardo’s younger brother, Maurice, was better than he was in all aspects of killing, Maurice was the younger brother, and so Bernardo would carry out all hits, while Maurice acted as a backup shooter and a lookout.

  The target, Raffaele, had been discovered to be in contact with the authorities. Bernardo’s employer didn’t know what type of cop Raffaele had been selling him out to, but he was convinced that the man was cooperating with authorities to bring down his drug empire.

  Bernardo was certain of it as well, because he had just watched Raffaele pass an envelope to an authority type who had the look of a federal agent. They were standing in an alley in a desolate part of the city. The buildings around them were all empty and slated for the wrecking ball. As they talked, the setting sun began casting shadows. They thought no one was watching them, but they were wrong, dead wrong. Despite the heat it would bring, Bernardo planned to kill both the snitch and the cop.

  Bernardo knew it would intensify the search for him, the killing of a cop, but he hated cops of any stripe.

  Pressure on the trigger of Bernardo’s rifle ended Raffaele’s life, as a slug blew his heart to pieces. The federal agent gaped at Raffaele, and as the body settled atop the debris on the alley floor, the agent turned to flee.

  Bernardo fired a shot that caught the agent in the right leg. It was a bad wound, and Bernardo placed another like it in the other leg.

  Taking the time to make the agent suffer wasn’t the best play, but Bernardo despised authority in all its forms, and the federal cop was a handy target.

  A voice came from behind Bernardo, startling him.

  “See, this is one reason why I’m better than you.”

  Bernardo, who had been lying on his stomach, swung the rifle around as he flipped over and took aim where the voice had come from. No one was there.

  “You don’t recognize my voice, Bernardo?”

  Bernardo jerked his head to the left and saw his younger brother leaning against a wall and smirking at him. Maurice Scallato had dark good looks and had just turned twenty. He had been training with his father and older brother to learn the art of assassination since he was a boy and was without doubt Bernardo’s better.

  Bernardo’s face grew flush with anger. Maurice was his little brother and needed to be reminded of his place. Had Bernardo looked closer at Maurice, he would have seen that his brother was keeping one hand out of sight.

  “Maurice, what are you doing here? I told you to be on watch at the end of the street.”

  Maurice Scallato walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down at the wounded agent. The agent appeared to be in agony and was bleeding copious amounts of blood from the leg wounds. There was a revolver in one hand and a radio in the other. The agent must have thought the shots came from the roof at the rear of the alley, because wide and fearful eyes were locked on it. The agent shouted into the radio to summon backup, but Maurice knew that help wouldn’t arrive for several minutes. That gave him plenty of time to do what he came there to do.

  “You couldn’t help yourself, could you Bernardo? You had to make the cop suffer. Me, I would have blown the cop’s brains out and been headed home by now.”

  Bernardo rose from his prone position and pointed at Maurice.

  “I run things, not you, Maurice. The sooner you get that in your head the better off you’ll be.”

  Maurice smirked as he brought up a gun and took aim at Bernardo.

  “I think I’ll put something in your head instead.”

  The slug entered precisely halfway between Bernardo’s astonished eyes and he toppled backwards off the roof.

  As the body landed just yards away from the wounded agent, there was a cry of fright as the agent’s head jerked up. The wounded cop fired off a string of panicked shots that either went wide or chipped the side of the building. Once the gun was empty, the cop attempted to crawl away.

  Progress was slow, and Maurice Scallato made it down to street level as sirens could be heard faintly in the distance. Maurice removed a thin metal ring from his brother’s right hand and smiled as he slid the band onto his own finger. The ring held a special significance for the Scallato’s and had been passed down through the generations. After flipping the wounded agent over to frisk for more weapons. Maurice studied the credentials he found, they signified the agent as a member of Interpol. He then placed his gun against a temple drenched with the sweat of fear.

  “You can die, or we can make a deal.”

  When the agent spoke, Maurice was surprised that he heard an accent.

  “I want to live! I want to live!”

  “And you will if you remain useful to me.”

  Maurice glanced over at his brother’s body, then back at the agent.

  “I need the name of one of your fellow agents. My father will want blood for my brother’s death.”

  The agent wore a mask of gritted teeth and clenched eyes from the agony of the leg wounds. When the wave of pain subsided, there was shock and uneasiness showing in the eyes.

  “You want me to sell-out a friend?”

  “Why so surprised? I just killed my brother to better my own situation, but, I never said they had to be a friend.”

  Those words placed a flicker of glee in the agent’s eyes.

  “Lance Robear, he’s a son of a bitch and he stole my last promotion from me.”

  Maurice laughed.

  “You and I will work well together. We’re both willing to do what it takes to thrive in this world.”

  The sirens were much louder as Maurice began walking away, but he heard the agent call out and turned to look back.

  The agent’s eyes were tearing up from pain but retained enough clarity to look at the dead man, Raffaele, then over at the body of Bernardo, finally, the watery eyes gazed into the eyes of Maurice.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Maurice Scallato. I am the greatest assassin in the world.”

  1

  Damn Delectable

  NINETEEN YEARS LATER, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  While sitting in a hotel lobby, Tanner felt his heart rate increase as Sara Blake came into his line of vision, and what a vision she was. She had been making his heart beat faster for a long time, although, on more than one occasion, it had been fueled by adrenaline and the will to survive.

  They had been enemies who had sought to kill each other and who had come damn close on both ends. She had triumphed over him, had brought him to his knees and had him where she’d wanted him, beaten and at her mercy. In typical female fashion, she had used love to conquer him.

  Not love for her, oh no, but love nonetheless, and he had sacrificed himself to save another. But it had been a pyrrhic victory for Sara, for the gaining of it had cost her not only a lover, but also her sense of honor. That’s when fate stepped in and offered them both a way to put the past behind them, and to save the lives of innocents. During that adventure, a respect grew between them, and even, amazingly enough, the faint beginnings of a friendship.

  But then, they parted, with a new peace in place, only to reunite months later over business concerns.

  The friendship blossomed, the respect deepened, and hearts once cold as ice were on a slow simmer. They were friends, true friends, and if Tanner were to be honest with himself, he wanted more from Sara Blake, and not just sex.

  Sara walked toward him wearing a black skirt with a simple yellow blouse. Tanner knew she had grabbed the clothes off a rack in
the boutique of the hotel lobby. Maybe a dozen women had bought the same outfit that week alone, but Sara’s curves and the contours of her body made the look her own.

  Her blue eyes found him, and she smiled. A year earlier, the sight of him would have produced a sneer. But she was smiling a genuine smile, and now the heart that was beating faster threatened to melt from the rise in temperature he felt.

  She was one damn delectable woman and she had begun to haunt his dreams.

  Tanner wanted her, there was no denying that, and unless he was as deluded as a February flower, that smile was telling him Sara wanted him too.

  The smile widened as she reached him, and he realized he’d been staring at her legs.

  “Good morning, Tanner, have you checked out?”

  “Yes, what about you?”

  “I’m good, and I just came from putting my bags in the car.”

  “Fine, then let’s get to this meeting.”

  They stared at each other for a moment, then Sara headed for the side exit that led to the parking lot. Tanner was mesmerized by the sway of her hips, the way her calves flexed, and the bounce of her long, luxurious raven hair.