One Hundred Years Of Tanner Read online

  ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF TANNER

  Book 19 of the TANNER Series

  Remington Kane

  Contents

  Join My Inner Circle

  Introduction

  Foreword

  1. Greetings & Salutations

  2. Keane O’connell

  3. Opportunity Arises

  4. Work More Suited For A Man

  5. Business To Settle

  6. I’m Tanner

  7. Frank Recti

  8. Old Dog, Old Tricks

  9. One Tough Mick

  10. Busted By The Law

  11. Stone Cold

  12. The Great War

  13. Back In The Game

  14. A Hit Man’s Paradise

  15. Drake Diamond Movie Fest

  16. Tanner 1 – 1923 – 1938

  17. Old Friend, Old Enemy

  18. The Disappearing Truck Trick

  19. What Sort Of Man Be Ye?

  20. A Man Like None Other

  21. Trench Warfare

  22. Smoke And Mirrors

  23. The Rules Of Tanner

  24. The Changing Of The Guard

  25. More Than Curiosity

  26. Future’s Past

  27. Unbeatable

  28. It Wouldn’t Be A Party Without Them

  29. Homage

  TANNER RETURNS!

  Afterword

  Introduction

  Join My Inner Circle

  Bibliography

  Make Contact

  Join My Inner Circle

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  Introduction

  During a visit to see Spenser in Wyoming, Tanner and Spenser discuss the first Tanner.

  And after Spenser is contacted by a client, Tanner and Romeo tag along to lend a hand.

  Foreword

  THIS IS NOT A WORK OF HISTORICAL FACT

  THIS IS A RECORD OF HISTORICAL FICTION

  1

  Greetings & Salutations

  CODY, WYOMING – PRESENT DAY

  Sara smiled as she watched Tanner greet his mentor, Spenser Hawke, with a heartfelt hug.

  He had grown more relaxed since they’d left the airport and she realized that for Tanner, Wyoming was home.

  Spenser was handsome, and younger than Sara had expected him to be. He was maybe a hair taller than Tanner and just as fit. His one good eye studied her as he sent Sara a smile in greeting, and when he released Tanner from their hug, he extended a hand toward her.

  “My name is Spenser. It’s good to meet you, Sara. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Sara sighed.

  “I assume that not all of it was good.”

  “No, not in the earlier discussions concerning you, but I can’t wait to get to know you better. Anyone that can give Cody here a run for his money must be an interesting person.”

  “As is anyone who has been a Tanner,” Sara said. “And it’s a pleasure to meet you too.”

  Spenser’s fiancée, Amy, was standing by and taking in the scene. There was a smile on her lips, but Sara saw that Amy was scrutinizing her.

  She understood why. Amy had only known Tanner with Alexa, and Amy and Alexa had become friends, seeing Tanner with another woman had to be an adjustment, especially a woman who had tried to kill Tanner on more than one occasion.

  “My name is Amy.”

  Sara shook Amy’s extended hand.

  “Sara Blake, it’s nice to meet you.”

  A voice shouted from the top of the staircase.

  “Bro!”

  It was Romeo. He and his family had traveled to Wyoming from their home in Indonesia. He was dressed in jeans and a black sleeveless T-shirt, which displayed the many tattoos on his arms. Instead of walking down the stairs, Romeo slid down the banister, landed in a graceful crouch, then all but tackled Tanner as he embraced him in a bear hug.

  Two more figures appeared at the top of the stairs, and when Sara saw the smaller of the two, an involuntary sound of, “Ooohh,” escaped her lips.

  Romeo’s wife, Nadya, came down the stairs holding their infant daughter, Florentina. Florentina looked like a little angel wrapped inside her pink cotton gown. She had Nadya’s dark hair and amber eyes combined with Romeo’s light skin.

  As Sara moved past Romeo, she greeted him with a peck on the cheek while giving his hand a squeeze. She kissed Nadya as well, then looked down in wonder at the baby.

  “She’s so beautiful,” Sara said.

  “Would you like to hold her?” Nadya asked.

  Sara grinned, said “Yes,” and as she held the infant in her arms, her face seemed to glow. Little Florentina gazed up with a smile as Sara spoke to her in baby talk.

  Romeo nudged Tanner in the ribs.

  “Uh oh, Bro, Sara’s getting the mommy fever.”

  Sara turned and smiled at Romeo.

  “I do want children someday, but not now.”

  Tanner and Sara settled in their room, showered, then joined everyone else, who was seated outside on the patio, where Spenser was manning the grill.

  As Sara spoke to Spenser, Amy asked Tanner about Alexa.

  “I really thought you two would last,” Amy said.

  “I did too, but it turned out that Alexa and I saw the future differently.”

  “You didn’t want to get married, have children?”

  “I can see that happening someday, but Alexa also wanted me to stop being Tanner. I don’t want to stop being Tanner.”

  Amy looked over her shoulder at Sara.

  “And this Sara, she’s all right with that?”

  An amused look came over Tanner as he answered.

  “Sara Blake knows me better than almost anyone, so yes, she understands me and is okay with what I do.”

  “Did she really try to kill you, Cody?”

  “Several times, and I tried to kill her as well.”

  Amy looked over at Sara again.

  “She must be tougher than she looks.”

  “You don’t know the half,” Tanner said.

  At the grill, Sara and Spenser talked about Tanner.

  “Tanner said he owes you his life, Spenser.”

  “It’s true. I only wish I could have saved his family as well.”

  “He’s less intense around you and Romeo, and that’s because Tanner thinks of you two as his family.”

  Spenser studied Sara.

  “Do you ever call him Cody, or only Tanner?”

  “I’ve never called him Cody, but I do call him Thomas when necessary, which is the alias he’s living under in New York City, Thomas Myers.”

  Spenser laughed.

  “I’ve used so many aliases over the years that I can’t even remember them all. And for a long time, Cody went by the name of Xavier, which is the name Nadya likes to call him.”

  “Why does she still call him by that name?”

  Spenser shrugged.

  “That was the name he was using when they met. She was just a child, but then, Cody and Romeo were only a few years older than she was.”

  Sara looked over and saw that Tanner and Amy were talking with Romeo and Nadya.

  “Tanner and Romeo once worked together, I mean, as hit men?”

  Spenser nodded.

  “I had trained them as well as I could, and they were both young and ready to prove themselves.”

  “Prove themselves to you, to see which of them would be the next Tanner?”

  “Not really. Romeo knew early on that Cody was better than he was, and that he wanted to be a Tanner more than anything. On the other hand, Romeo was just after adventure, and they sure did get p
lenty of that.”

  “How long did they work together?”

  “Several years, and then I lost my eye and… a new Tanner was born, Tanner Seven.”

  “When I was with the F.B.I., my superiors thought the Tanner legend was just a myth. They admitted that there were assassins using the name Tanner, but they thought that you were all unrelated, and just using the name to gain a reputation. I even believed that was the case after tracking Tanner for more than a year.”

  “No, there have only been seven of us, and as a matter of fact, we’ve been around a hundred years.”

  “The first Tanner, what was he like?” Sara asked.

  Spenser smiled as he flipped a burger.

  “I never met him. Just how old do you think I am?”

  Sara laughed.

  “Tanner said that there were records you kept.”

  “It’s called The Book of Tanner, and yes, our history is recorded in it.”

  “All one hundred years?”

  “Yes, but Cody still has to add to it. His victory over Maurice Scallato will be a highlight to the book.”

  “The first Tanner, was Tanner his surname, and why did he become a hit man?”

  “Ah, now that’s quite a story,” Spenser said.

  2

  Keane O’connell

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, NOVEMBER 1916

  Davin O’Connell breathed, in a series of gasps, as the illness that was taking his life ate at his vitality.

  Seated at bedside was Davin’s older brother, Keane O’Connell, who attempted to give his brother whatever comfort he could during his last days.

  They were in the basement of a rooming house, and the dust-covered discards of past tenants were stacked all around them.

  Above them, the other tenants went about their business. Because it was a Sunday, many were at home, but during the week, most of the men worked down at the docks.

  Keane paid their landlord extra to use the basement for a makeshift hospital room, with the condition that none of the other tenants would encounter Davin, who was contagious. There was a toilet and a sink in a corner, but you had to run a bucket of water down the toilet to get rid of the waste, since the water tank had been broken and never replaced.

  The previous owner of the building once had plans to turn the basement into an apartment, but he had never followed through on them.

  Davin hated hospitals and had begged Keane not to place him in one of the wards where he would die as a number on a chart. Keane had agreed but shocked his brother by remaining at his side.

  The red-headed Davin was dying of consumption, also known as tuberculosis. He’d been coughing up blood, and both Davin and Keane knew that the disease had progressed rapidly over the past weeks.

  “Leave me down here alone, Keane,” Davin had begged, but Keane waved away his brother’s concerns. In truth, he didn’t care if he contracted the disease or not.

  Keane O’Connell was thirty-two. His wife had died back in Ireland after giving birth to their only child, a son, while the baby died three days later.

  Davin was the last member of Keane’s family. Once he passed away, Keane would be alone in a strange country. He had only made plans to move to America at his wife’s request. She had wanted their child to be raised there.

  As his only living kin, Davin had decided to join his brother in the new world and made arrangements for passage on a ship.

  At the time, they had no idea that they would take the voyage in part as a way to flee painful memories.

  Keane and Davin had left Ireland after being involved in what was being called the Easter Rising.

  The Irish Republicans fought to establish an independent Ireland while the United Kingdom was preoccupied with fighting in the First World War. The British responded with immense force and the fighting in Dublin lasted only six days before the rising was suppressed.

  Keane and Davin had fought hard in street battles, but it was the elder brother Keane who revealed a penchant for killing.

  During those six days, Keane O’Connell had killed so many men that he’d lost count of them, and his only regret was that he hadn’t killed more.

  Keane was an educated man and had worked as a history teacher. He enjoyed reading about history and never tired of learning, but he was passionate about his former homeland and had fought in vain to achieve its independence.

  Davin chuckled at a memory, but it triggered a coughing spell. He turned his head away from his brother, as he attempted to shield him from his infectious breath.

  Keane didn’t care whether he caught the disease or not, for once Davin was gone, he’d have no reason to live.

  “What made you laugh?” Keane asked. His Irish accent was lyrical.

  Davin’s voice carried the same tone but was rougher because of his disease.

  “I was thinking of you. You’re a gentle man, Brother, but Lordy, how you killed when the fighting was on. If we’d had more like you, we’d have won the rebellion.”

  “We both fought well. If not for the artillery they used against us, we’d have had a fine chance at victory.”

  “So many of our fellows were arrested and executed. I never thought we’d be allowed to sail here,” Davin said.

  “We were fortunate that we had made our plans to leave before the rebellion and blessed that no one gave up our names to the British.”

  “You should join the army when the money runs out. The Americans aren’t in the war and have no reason to join the fighting.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Keane said. “But we still have enough to last us for months.”

  Keane and Davin had come across a group of British soldiers who’d been looting a Dublin bank after an artillery shell had collapsed its roof and a wall that contained the safe. Most of the money burned in the resulting fire, but after killing the soldiers, the two brothers had left the scene with an unexpected supply of cash, and it was enough so that Keane could tend to his brother without needing to work.

  Although they had a good sum of money, they had traveled in steerage, as most of the other immigrants did.

  The thin gruel served aboard ship disgusted Keane. When he arrived in America, he vowed never to eat oatmeal again.

  Davin coughed violently, and for nearly a minute. When he removed the cloth he’d held against Davin’s mouth, it was covered in blood.

  Keane closed his eyes against the sting of tears. His little brother was dying, and there was every reason to believe that he too would succumb to the disease.

  “One good thing about dying,” Davin said in a raspy voice. “I’ll soon be with those who went before me.”

  Keane nodded, although he had no clue what to expect after death. He assumed it would be no different than life, in that you never knew what lay in store for you.

  He reached out, gripped his brother’s clammy hand, and held on to it, as a tear leaked and ran down his cheek.

  3

  Opportunity Arises

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, MARCH 1917

  Keane O’Connell watched from the workshop floor as four young hoodlums crowded around his boss, Sid Hershel.

  The office in the middle of the factory had glass windows on three sides, but they were so dirty that they could scarcely be seen through. However, someone had cleaned a circle of glass for a view of the workshop, and it was through this clear spot of window that Keane gazed upon the scene in the office.

  Davin had died in December, and Keane had buried him in a proper Catholic cemetery. It had taken a good chunk of his remaining money and he had to find work by late-February.

  The fact that he had not followed Davin into the grave surprised O’Connell, but he had never developed so much as a cough.

  He had always been a hardy soul, but consumption had claimed so many that he thought it amazing he had not contracted the illness.

  He was doing manual labor and being paid slave wages but had been unable to find a job as a teacher. The work was hard, conditions poor, and he was oft
en called by the racial slurs of Mick or Paddy.

  Unlike his freckled brother who’d had red hair and a light complexion, O’Connell had dark hair, but his Irish accent gave away his roots every time.

  Slow to anger over petty concerns and needing a job, O’Connell let the slurs roll off his back. Laying hands upon him was another matter, and he had beaten two men in a bar brawl a week earlier, after one of them had pushed him.

  In his place of work, he was a lone Irishman, as most of the other workers were Italian, along with a few Germans. His fellow workers left him alone and he returned the favor.

  Inside the office, one of the punks shoved O’Connell’s boss backwards. Sid Hershel maintained his balance, but not his dignity, and tears wet his bearded cheeks.

  Another of the punks punched Hershel in the stomach, then shouted at him.

  “This time tomorrow… or else, you hear?”

  The punk’s accent was pure Cockney, which made O’Connell dislike him immediately.

  Along one wall of the office was a rack of brown leather jackets. They were a new product that Hershel was developing, as he hoped to get a lucrative contract with the military. The English punk started handing them out to his companions while also taking one for himself.