Stalking Horse (A Tanner Novel Book 40) Read online

  STALKING HORSE

  A TANNER NOVEL - BOOK 40

  Remington Kane

  Contents

  Introduction

  Join My Inner Circle

  Acknowledgments

  1. A New York State Of Mind

  2. Sole Survivor

  3. A Man Of Respect

  4. The Stranger

  5. Sicario

  6. Morelos

  7. Cojones

  8. Ambush

  9. New Plan

  10. Wolves In Sheep’s Clothing

  11. Game Over

  12. Training

  13. Trap Set

  14. Breaking The Bad News

  15. Now You Don’t See Me, Now You Do

  16. Suspicion

  17. Mission Accomplished

  18. Exposed

  19. Snitches Get Stitches

  20. Leap Of Faith

  21. The Name

  22. Enemies Abound

  TANNER RETURNS!

  Afterword

  Join My Inner Circle

  Coming Soon

  Bibliography

  Make Contact

  Introduction

  STALKING HORSE – A TANNER NOVEL – BOOK 40

  An unseen enemy seeks Tanner’s death

  Join My Inner Circle

  REMINGTON KANE’S INNER CIRCLE

  GET FREE BOOKS & SHORT STORIES, INCLUDING THE TANNER NOVEL SLAY BELLS and THE TAKEN! ALPHABET SERIES.

  Acknowledgments

  I write for you.

  —Remington Kane

  1

  A New York State Of Mind

  SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN, MIDNIGHT

  As Tanner snaked out his left arm to clamp a hand over the mouth of a lookout, he saw the man stiffen at the last instant. The lookout’s awareness of his presence had come too late to do him any good. Tanner muffled any sound he might make with one hand, while the other shoved a knife between the man’s ribs repeatedly.

  Stifled cries of agony turned into a soft moan as the sentry’s knees gave out and his struggles lessened. Tanner lowered him to the surface of the roof they were standing on, then he gestured for his companion to draw closer.

  Henry Knight emerged from the shadows. He was carrying a scoped rifle and wearing a black backpack. Like Tanner, a ski mask covered most of his face and he was dressed in dark colors.

  After taking in the sight of the dying sentry at his feet, Henry removed the set of night vision binoculars the man had hanging around his neck. There was no sense in letting them go to waste and he was pleased to see that they were as good as the binoculars Tanner was using.

  They were on the roof of a building that looked down at the rear of an old crumbling warehouse at Bush Terminal. Inside the warehouse were over a hundred men armed with rifles and wearing bulletproof vests. The men were an invasion force and the territory they sought to take over was the city of New York, or at least, they aimed to control the city’s criminal activities in order to enrich themselves. The group currently enjoying the profit to be had from such endeavors was the Giacconi Family.

  Tanner laid a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “I want you to stay here while I take care of the lookout at the front of the building.” He pointed at the walkie-talkie attached to the belt of the man he had stabbed. The man had died a second before. “If someone tries to contact this lookout, call me and let me know. If not, I’ll send you a text when it’s safe to come down and join me.”

  “Why can’t I come with you now?”

  “If there’s trouble, I’ll need you up here to cover my back with the rifle.”

  “Oh, okay. And what if the men inside the warehouse come out before we’re ready?”

  “If that happens, we’ll kill as many as we can before we’re forced to take off. That will still change their plans. They think no one knows that they’re here. If they get shot at, they’ll have to assume that Joe is onto them.”

  “They’re sneaky. They called a meeting with Mr. Pullo to discuss peace while gearing up a small army to go to war with his people.”

  “And they’ll try to kill Joe at that meeting.”

  “I wish we could be there too.”

  Tanner smiled. “There are people there who will handle things just fine.”

  WEST HARLEM PIERS

  Joe Pullo, head of the Giacconi Crime Family, walked along a pier as he headed for a meeting with Salvadoran gang member Ernesto Enrique. Enrique was one of his gang’s most trusted men. The gang called themselves Primero Siempre. It translated into First Always in English, but the gang members were often referred to as simply Primeros.

  Other mob families had lost territory to the gang in over a dozen states and their membership had grown every year. Ernesto Enrique had been given the task of taking over New York by his superior in the gang, a man named Juan-Carlos.

  Across the Hudson River was the borough of Edgewater, New Jersey, while the sounds of steady traffic came from the elevated section of the Henry Hudson Parkway at Pullo’s back. A van had broken down on the roadway; its yellow hazard lights blinked in a steady rhythm.

  Ernesto Enrique was forty-eight. His jet-black hair had just a few streaks of white running through it, but the contrast was stark and noticeable. The hair was long and tied back. It made Enrique’s dead eyes stand out. They were eyes that struck fear into most men. They held not a trace of human warmth or mercy.

  Enrique had five other gang members with him. They all had tattoos on their faces, as did most of the younger members of the Primeros. Joe had men as well. They were Sammy Giacconi, Rico Nazario, Finn Kelly, Adamo Conti, and Tyrese Vann. Tyrese was the leader of a black street gang called the Boulevard Bloods. The Bloods and the Giacconi Family were in business together. Aside from that, Tyrese and Joe Pullo were friends.

  Enrique’s gang and the Bloods had exchanged gunfire at a recent drug buy involving over a million dollars of cocaine. Each side had lost men and business would soon suffer if the rift wasn’t mended. Pullo had been waiting for something like that to happen. The Primeros had a reputation for starting trouble in order to test a rival’s defenses. Given the fact that Enrique’s gang was international and outnumbered them by a vast margin, Pullo understood that there had to be a proper response.

  Enrique knew that the Bloods were connected to the Giacconi Family, so he had decided to come at the Giacconis indirectly by starting trouble with the Bloods. As expected, Pullo made contact and suggested that they meet and work things out. Losing the gang’s supply of cocaine would cost the Giacconis millions. It was in Pullo’s best interest to make peace.

  Pullo’s group joined Enrique’s gathering near a row of benches. Mist from the water had frozen and left a sheen of ice on the wooden seats but had yet to turn the ground slick. Both groups took in the men standing opposite of them. Everyone was armed and everyone knew it.

  It was winter in the city and a cold breeze was blowing in off the Hudson River. Joe and his men had opted to wear jackets that wouldn’t impede their ability to draw their weapons from the holsters they wore on their hips. Tyrese had done the same, along with Enrique and most of his men. That was not true of the two men flanking Enrique. Their coats were long and a bit larger than needed. Instead of being fastened with buttons, the men held the two sides together with their hands. Joe was certain that there were rifles or shotguns hidden beneath those coats. If trouble broke out, they would be the first men to die.

  Enrique sent Pullo a smile that would look right at home on a mannequin. The mannequin would probably have better teeth, as Enrique’s teeth were yellowed and crooked. He spoke English with a strong Spanish accent.

  “Are you here to play the part of p
eacemaker, Pullo?”

  “I want peace, yeah. If we fight each other it only costs us money.”

  Enrique turned his dead-eyed gaze on Tyrese. The leader of the Boulevard Bloods matched his stare.

  “I knew you would drag Pullo into this, Vann. A real man would have fought his own battles.”

  “Pullo is my partner. When you tried to shake me down for more money, you were messing with him too. But Pullo is right, going to war is expensive. I want to settle our problem and get back to making money.”

  “War is expensive if you lose,” Enrique said. “But if you win, you can make more money than ever.”

  “Do you really want to go to war?” Pullo asked.

  Enrique ignored the question and asked one of his own. “Where is Tanner? I was told that you and the assassin are friends.”

  “Tanner is around.”

  “That’s not what I heard. People say that he’s no longer in New York City. That means he can’t interfere in our business.”

  “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but Tanner is in the city.”

  “I don’t believe you. And without him to do your killing, the Giacconi Family is weak.”

  After speaking, Enrique gave two quick consecutive curt nods of his head. It was the signal for his sniper to kill Pullo and Tyrese.

  Back in Brooklyn, Tanner was watching the man who was stationed as a lookout at the front of the warehouse. Like the other sentry, he was positioned on a roof and had a view of the street. He differed from the other lookout in that he was more aware of his surroundings and kept his head moving left to right. Sneaking up on him would not be an option.

  Using a silenced weapon might work, but if the man tumbled over the edge of the roof his body would make a racket when it impacted with one of the vehicles parked below. If that happened, the group inside the warehouse would be alerted and come outside.

  Tanner moved to a position along the brick structure that housed the stairs leading to the roof. From where he was, he could see the sentry from the man’s right side, while being able to duck back behind concealment.

  After bringing out a knife, Tanner flung it hard. The blade embedded itself into the body of an air-conditioning unit that was near the center of the roof. The clanging sound of the knife hitting the sheet metal caused the sentry to jump, spin around, and shoulder his rifle. When his eyes detected no threat, he used a hand to bring up the night vision binoculars that were hanging around his neck. Seeing the handle of the blade protruding from the air conditioning unit, he was still unable to make out what it was, and so crept forward to get a better look. When he was ten feet from the edge of the roof and no longer in danger of falling off the side, Tanner sent a single suppressed round his way. The bullet struck the man in the head and killed him.

  Tanner grabbed up the sentry’s rifle and binoculars, along with the knife he’d thrown, then took the stairs to get off the roof. On the way down he sent a text to Henry, who met him near the line of vehicles parked across the street from the warehouse.

  “Let me have the backpack,” Tanner said in a whisper. Henry slid the bag off his shoulders and handed the explosives to his mentor.

  On the West Harlem Piers, Ernesto Enrique was perplexed by the lack of a response from the sniper he had in position. It was the driver of the disabled van up on the parkway overpass. The side door on the van was open. That was as it should be. The van was being used as a shooting blind.

  After nodding twice in quick succession to give the signal to shoot, Enrique had stepped back so that he was between the two large men who flanked him, just in case the sniper’s aim was off. When nothing happened, he leaned forward slightly to look past one of the massive men wearing the long coats. Enrique squinted. He could make out the outline of a prone man holding an object inside the van. When there was the glint of reflected light, he understood that he was looking at the scope of the shooter’s rifle. So why hadn’t the fool shot Pullo dead? He nodded twice again, this time putting more emphasis into the movements

  Tyrese laughed. “Do you have a nervous tic, Enrique, or are you trying to signal someone?”

  Enrique bared his yellow teeth in a grimace as he took out his phone from a side pocket on his jacket. He kept his gaze on the men standing across from him as he made a call. When it was answered, he screamed into the phone while speaking Spanish. “Kill them now!”

  The voice that answered was not the gruff, accented speech of his Colombian shooter. Instead, it was a distinctive American voice. It was the voice of Romeo.

  “Dude, your guy is dead. If you don’t want to join him, you’d better be cool.”

  Enrique lowered the phone and peeked around his man to stare at the van again, aware that the scoped rifle was now aimed his way.

  “This meeting isn’t working out the way you thought it would, hmm, Enrique?” Pullo said.

  Enrique ignored him and made another call. There was a ship docked nearby, and on that ship was a second shooter. When the phone was answered, Enrique received another shock as a female voice answered. The woman sounded mature and spoke English with a German accent. Her name was Elke Gant.

  “Your man is dead,” Elke told Enrique, and then she ended the call.

  Enrique lowered the phone, then stuffed it in his pocket. When he saw the pleased expressions on the men opposite him, he took in the faces of his own men. They were wearing looks that revealed their concern.

  After cursing in Spanish, Enrique wore a smile of his own. “You think I’m beaten because you killed my snipers, Pullo?”

  “No. I think you’re beaten because I now have snipers.”

  “I still have the upper hand.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “I have more than a hundred men about to strike at your people. After that, they’ll head to Harlem. You’ll be getting calls soon when they begin their work. Unless I’m allowed to leave here, I won’t call them back. You may kill me, yes, but your people will die too.”

  “You’re talking about the warehouse in Brooklyn?” Pullo asked, revealing that he knew where the men were staging their attack.

  Enrique’s dead eyes widened in surprise. If Pullo knew about the attack he had planned, that meant he no longer had an advantage. Enrique glanced right, then left, and saw that his men were looking at him for guidance. He nodded again. This time it was a single nod, and as he made it, he went for his gun.

  The men flanking Enrique let their coats flap open to reveal the Mossberg shotguns they had. They were model 590Ms with double-stack magazines attached. The impressive weapons were hanging on leather slings. The men were proficient at bringing the weapons up with a smooth motion but were shot before they could fire them. Rico and Finn killed the man on the left as Sammy, Conti, and Tyrese took the guy on the right. There were head shots as well as wounds to their torsos in case they had on vests.

  Enrique’s other three men never got the chance to raise their weapons, Romeo killed one as Elke killed another, then they combined to slay the third. As for Enrique, Pullo had shot him in the knees.

  Tears of pain had moistened Enrique’s eyes. It lent them a bit of life that they normally didn’t have. The owner of the eyes was screaming from the agony inflicted on him.

  Pullo kept him alive long enough to see if he had any other threats to make. Perhaps the men at the warehouse in Brooklyn weren’t the only ace up Enrique’s sleeve. He had to wait more than a minute for Enrique to cease his shouts of anguish. To his surprise, Enrique spoke first.

  “Not… over.”

  “Yeah, it is. Those hundred men you were talking about. They’ll soon be dead too.”

  Enrique moaned as he gritted his teeth, then spoke again.

  “We are… many thousands.”

  “The Primeros you mean? I know that. But when you and a hundred men wind up in the morgue, they’ll think twice about trying this again.”

  Enrique shook his head and spoke between gasps of pain. “They’ll come… unless I…
I tell them not to.”

  “You’re saying I need to keep you alive?”

  “Yes… I can help you.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” Pullo said. He took aim at a spot between Enrique’s dead eyes and made them truly dead.

  Tyrese walked over to stand beside Pullo and look down at Enrique’s body. He was holding the two shotguns that Enrique’s men had. They were fine weapons, and it would be a shame to leave them behind.

  “Enrique was right about his gang making another play like this someday.”

  “Yeah,” Pullo said. “And they’ve been taking territory all over the country for years now.”

  “It’s because they’re so damn big. We’re lucky they didn’t send a thousand men against us. And they might do that next time.”

  Joe spoke as he walked over to the railing and removed a flashlight from his pocket. “We’ll have a meeting about that soon. Right now, let’s get out of here.” Pullo turned the flashlight on and off three times.

  Moments later, there were lights headed toward them. As they came closer, the sound of an engine could be heard, a boat engine.

  The boat, a Stingray 212SC, drifted up beside the pier after the pilot cut its engine. Joe and Tyrese tied off the lines and caught the end of a rope ladder that had been tossed up to them by the boat’s huge pilot. His name was Keith. He was Tyrese’s right-hand man.