Stalking Horse (A Tanner Novel Book 40) Read online

  After everyone had climbed down into the boat from the pier, Keith released the lines and left them hanging from the railing along with the ladder.

  They were moving along the Hudson when Sammy pointed back at the pier, where the flash of blue and red police lights was visible. He spoke loudly to be heard over the sound of the boat’s two hundred horsepower engine.

  “What about Tanner’s people?”

  “They’re already gone. They left after taking their shots.”

  “And Tanner?”

  Joe smiled. “He’s doing what he does best.”

  In Brooklyn, Tanner slid out from beneath the Hummer that he had just attached a bomb to. In all, there were nine vehicles. Six of them were modified straight trucks that had bench seats installed to transport men. The trucks had received two bombs apiece, to be thorough.

  Henry had helped with the placement of the devices, which had been inside the backpack he wore. The plastic explosive at the heart of the bombs could only be ignited by sending the proper signal to their detonators.

  When Tanner and Henry were done, they returned to the roof that looked down on the front of the building. The man Tanner had killed there was still dead and just as dead as he would ever be. The men he’d been assigned to watch over would soon be joining him in that state.

  The front door of the building across the way opened. Tanner gestured for Henry to step back out of sight. If anyone looked up and saw the outline of two men, they would wonder about it. Seeing no one would have also set off alarm bells, so Tanner pretended to be the sentry. When one of the men below raised a hand up in a wave, Tanner waved back at him then stepped away from the edge. Since there was no longer any need to keep watch, they would expect him to join them on the street and pile into one of the cars or trucks. Tanner would go down to street level, but he had no intention of climbing into one of those vehicles.

  He and Henry reached the street and left the building by a rear exit. They walked around to the side and looked past a corner of the building to find that two of the vehicles had already moved away from the curb and were headed for the next block.

  “They’re not out of signal range, are they?” Henry asked.

  “No, but they are out of luck,” Tanner said. He took out a device that resembled a cellphone but was square. He began inputting numbers into the keypad, before hitting the last digit, he and Henry leaned back behind the safety of the building. The explosions that followed were simultaneous and greater than anticipated due to the fuel in the vehicles’ tanks igniting.

  “The heat,” Henry said, as he closed his eyes and raised his hands to shield his face from the sudden and intense rise in temperature created by the bombs. A mailbox on the corner rattled from the shock wave that tested the steel bolts holding it in place. Windows shattered in all the nearby buildings, sending glass raining down onto the street.

  There were no screams of pain coming from the men inside the vehicles. The force of the explosions had killed them instantly. They had been heading out for a night of slaughter and conquest, only to be obliterated before they could ever begin.

  Tanner clapped Henry on the shoulder. “We’re done here.”

  Numerous popping sounds could be heard as they strode away. It was some of the ammunition going off owing to the heat and flames. They walked several blocks, climbed into a car, then drove toward Manhattan. Henry had said nothing during the first part of the trip. The teen wasn’t a chatterbox, but he was being quieter than usual. After entering a tunnel, Tanner asked him if he had any questions.

  “No questions.”

  “Comments?”

  “We just killed a whole lot of people.”

  “That we did.”

  “And they deserved it, but…”

  “Just say it.”

  “I wonder about all the people they left behind. Some of them must have kids, wives, family. It just seems like, I don’t know… sad maybe? Do you know what I mean?”

  “It is sad. But it’s the life they chose, Henry. They traveled here to start a war with the Giacconi Family. Each man from that warehouse had to know that there was a chance they could die tonight. They were right, and they did. If they wanted to stay safe and not take risks, there are a lot of ways to do that. Most of them require long hours and hard work. It was easier for them to join a gang, or maybe they grew up in that life.”

  “If gang life was all they ever knew then maybe they thought they had no choice.”

  “Even if that’s true, if it was all they ever knew, they still made the choice to stay in the gang. We all make choices, and every choice has a consequence. This time the consequences were final.”

  “They weren’t expecting to run into you. If they were, I wonder if they would have called off the war they were planning.”

  Tanner smiled at that.

  “What’s funny?”

  “They might fear me, but not enough to make it change their minds. I’m one man. And reputation or not, they all keep thinking that I’m only one man, and that I should be easy to kill.”

  “They underestimate you.”

  “Yeah, because they don’t understand who I am. I’m one man, but I have the experience of seven thanks to the Tanners who came before me.”

  “And that gives you a huge edge, right, because of the book of Tanner?”

  “That book is loaded with information that will help you survive and make you deadly, but being an assassin isn’t different than any other profession at its core. It takes training and you first have to have an affinity for the work. If you hate getting wet, you probably shouldn’t be a plumber.”

  “I don’t have a problem with killing men who deserve it. It was just that I started to think about who they left behind.”

  “I understand. I’ve done that too. The thing to realize is that there was no guarantee that we wouldn’t have been the ones killed tonight. Had that happened, I would have left behind a wife and two children of my own. Whose fault would that have been?”

  Henry looked thoughtful for a few moments before saying, “It would have been your fault.”

  “That’s right. It was my choice to help out Joe by taking on his enemies. And if something had gone wrong, or someone had killed me, Sara, Lucas, and Marian would be left behind to deal with life without me.”

  “You’re damn hard to kill, Cody.”

  “Because of the skills I possess and my training, but I can die just like anyone else.”

  Henry smirked. “You’re saying that past performance doesn’t guarantee future returns?”

  “That’s one way to put it. Someday you’ll be a Tanner. Don’t believe that will protect you from the threat of death. The training will help you to deal with most of what’s thrown at you, but there are no guarantees, Henry.”

  “Do you ever fear that you’ll die?”

  “No. I’ll die someday. That’s inevitable. But I won’t worry about it. I should have died when Alvarado shot me point blank in the chest and left me for dead when I was younger than you. In one way or another, I’ve lived with death every day since.”

  “You’re talking about your family, your father, sisters, and your brother?”

  “Yeah. They died and for some reason I lived. Their deaths have stayed with me.”

  “My mom was murdered when I was barely old enough to remember her. That was when I first learned of death. And you’re right, it stays with you, becomes a part of you. Maybe that’s why we’re assassins. We want to control death and not be victimized by it again.”

  Henry saw that Tanner was staring at him. “What?”

  “You’re a deep thinker. That’s a good trait to have.”

  They exited the tunnel and continued their trip. Henry was being dropped off at Tanner’s penthouse apartment while Tanner would continue on to meet up with Pullo and the others at the office building the Giacconi Family owned.

  Cody had come to the city for a vacation, but he also needed to have it known that Tanner was in Manhatt
an. He had been absent for so long that there had been conjecture that he might have taken up residence somewhere else. Such talk was dangerous. If people believed that he was in New York, then they would have no reason to speculate on where he might really be, such as Texas. He had to keep his two lives separate for his family’s safety.

  News of the death of more than a hundred gang members at his hand would spread throughout the criminal class within a day, and his presence in New York City would be known. At the same time, the police would be looking to pin the deaths on Pullo and the Giacconis. If they heard that a hit man named Tanner killed the men, they would scoff at the idea. Across the country, deaths had been attributed to a man named Tanner for more than a hundred years. To most law enforcement officers he was as much a myth as the Loch Ness Monster. Tanner wouldn’t have it any other way.

  2

  Sole Survivor

  In Brooklyn, Manuel Ventura had gazed down in disbelief from the roof of the building where one of the gang’s lookouts had been stationed. Manuel had been sent up to the roof after the man leading the group had gotten no response from the sentry who had been posted there. Manuel found the man dead by Tanner’s hand only seconds before the vehicles carrying his other fellow gangbangers were destroyed by the bombs planted on them. That left Manuel the only survivor of what had been an invading force.

  Manuel was nineteen and had been with the Primeros since he was a boy of eleven. He’d yet to get his face tattooed like many of his friends but did have gang tattoos on both arms and his legs. The men killed by the bombs were his family, his clan. They had been wiped out in less than a second and Manuel knew who was responsible.

  Although there was a rumor that Tanner was no longer in New York City, his name had been mentioned more than once by the gang members. Many had boasted that they would kill the assassin if he dared to oppose them. Such bravado had been a way to disguise the apprehension Tanner bred in his foes.

  Years earlier, Alonso Alvarado had sent a massive force against Tanner. They had all been killed. And everyone knew that history had a way of repeating itself. It had done so tonight.

  Manuel wiped at the first tears he had cried since his mother’s death as he gazed down at the burning trucks he could see in the intersection, and the mangled forms within and around them. Although he couldn’t view the rest of the convoy from his vantage point, he knew those vehicles had been destroyed as well. Smoke was rising up from them and light from their flames was visible.

  When he got himself under control, Manuel took out his phone to call one of the men who had been with Ernesto Enrique. When his friend failed to answer, Manuel was certain that he too was dead, along with Enrique and the other men who had been with him at the pier. Manuel alone had survived.

  After taking pictures of the carnage below, Manuel sent them off to someone in Los Angeles, along with a message that Tanner was in New York and helping out Pullo.

  Manuel left the roof after spotting a series of flashing red lights off in the distance. They were the police and emergency vehicles heading to the scene.

  He was sure that the Primeros’ leadership would retaliate against Tanner and Joe Pullo. What he feared was that they would send more men, hundreds more. After tonight, Manuel doubted that even a thousand men would be enough.

  He reached the street and headed away from the scene as the first police car arrived. When his phone vibrated, letting him know that he had a call, he gazed down at the screen, but he didn’t answer it.

  Everyone was dead! Everyone but him. Manuel tossed the phone away. He wanted to live. If he stayed in New York, he would be killed. That was the truth, and he knew it.

  Manuel took the subway to Manhattan and went to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Once there, he bought a ticket for Florida.

  He had no idea what he would do or how he would live going forward, but by leaving, he knew he had a chance to survive. If that made him a coward, so be it.

  Tanner was death. That lesson had been driven home for him tonight. Manuel wondered how many more of the gang Tanner would kill before it all ended. Whatever the number, he would not be one of them.

  Pullo had made a change to his office building that had cost him a small fortune in bribes to accomplish. And those bribes had been accompanied by threats that would be carried out.

  He’d had a tunnel constructed that allowed him to have a hidden entrance into the building. To reach it, you had to enter the pizza parlor that was eight doors down on the corner. The restaurant never closed and was owned by the Giacconis. Tanner entered. He was still wearing the hood and had put on sunglasses. Despite the fact that it was after one in the morning, there were people at two tables eating pizza.

  When the skinny man behind the counter noticed him, he asked Tanner what he wanted.

  Tanner leaned in and recited an eight-character alpha-numeric combination. The man nodded at him and spoke to the beefy guy who was kneading dough.

  “Watch the counter, will ya, Mikey?”

  Mikey answered with a “Yeah,” while eyeing Tanner.

  Tanner followed the skinny guy down a short corridor, past the locked door on a restroom, and watched as he knocked on a door marked office.

  A voice answered the knock. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Gary. You have a visitor.”

  Tanner heard the sound of an electronic bolt unlatch as the door was unlocked. Gary motioned for Tanner to enter and stepped aside, to turn and head back to the counter. The man in the office was wearing a gun in a holster and had been reading a book, which he laid atop a desk. He was someone that Tanner had met before. He was a young man with longish dark hair who had a cigarette hanging from his lips. His name was Carlo. The last time Tanner had seen him, Pullo had Carlo guarding a guy who had been taking hits online while pretending to be him. Tanner had rectified that situation.

  On the wall behind Carlo was a gun safe. It was sitting open, and Tanner could see rifles, shotguns, and plenty of ammunition for both.

  Tanner took off the shades and lowered the hood. “What’s up, Carlo?”

  “Hey, Tanner. I was wondering who was behind the dark glasses,” Carlo said, as he pointed at a monitor that showed four distinct camera angles inside the pizza parlor.

  “I wear the glasses because I’m shy,” Tanner said.

  “I hear you. I see we’re both working late tonight.”

  “I often do. Are you the guardian of the tunnel?”

  “I’m one of them. It’s easy work and I get all the pizza I want.”

  “It sounds like a good deal.”

  “Let me send you on your way,” Carlo said. There was a keypad on the desk. After Carlo typed on it for a moment, a section of wall slid sideways while barely making a sound. It revealed a small elevator. “There are only two buttons, up and down. Take that down and you’ll find yourself in a tunnel that’s lit up. Go as far as you can, and you’ll see a door with a buzzer. Someone is always watching the camera, but I’ll call and tell them you’re on the way.”

  “Thanks, Carlo.”

  “It’s why I’m here.”

  The elevator ride was a swift one. When the doors opened, Tanner saw the promised lit corridor. The hallway curved twice before he came in sight of the other elevator doors. Before Tanner could ring the buzzer, the doors slid open to reveal Pullo’s smiling face.

  “I feel like a smuggler,” Tanner told him.

  “If you had tried coming in the front or back doors of this place some damn Fed would have taken your picture.”

  “They keep an eye on you, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, and they’ll be my alibi for tonight. They watched me come in here early this evening, and as far as they know, I never left. This tunnel was worth every penny it cost me. It will also come in handy if I’m ever attacked here again.”

  The elevator was larger than the one that led up to the pizza parlor. As he stepped on it, Tanner asked Joe how things had gone at the pier.

  “Your boy Romeo is s
omething else, and so is that cousin of yours.”

  “I was glad to hear that Elke was in the city. She’s been an assassin about as long as I’ve been alive. I’m sure that sneaking up on someone is something she’s done many times before.”

  “I was expecting a sniper to be on the ship, but there was a guy in a broken-down van on the overpass with a scoped rifle. He didn’t fool Romeo.”

  “Are he and Elke here?”

  “Just Romeo. We’ve been hanging out in the conference room with him while waiting for you.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Me, Sammy, and Rico. Finn left early, so he can run things in the morning, and I told Conti to take off and get some sleep too.”

  “What about Tyrese?”

  “We split up after getting off the boat. But I’ll tell you, Tanner, he’s one hell of a partner. The man does what he says he’ll do and keeps his gang in line. If he was Italian, I’d make him an underboss.”

  The elevator stopped moving and the doors opened to reveal the inside of a supply closet. There was a space between stacks of copy paper that was wide enough to walk through in single file. Pullo stepped off first with Tanner following. After the elevator doors closed behind him, Tanner looked back to see that they had blended into the wall. The closet led to an empty office, then to a carpeted corridor. As they passed a window, Tanner saw that they were on the third floor of the office building.

  “That Italian thing gets in the way sometimes, doesn’t it?” Tanner said.

  Pullo considered the question, then nodded. “I’m not as strict with it as old Sam Giacconi had been. If I was, Finn and Rico wouldn’t be here.”

  “But they’ll never be made members either, right?”

  “It’s not allowed. They’re considered ‘associates.’”

  “That’s a problem your enemies don’t have. The Primeros have gotten so huge because they accept anyone no matter their race, and also women. If they continue to get bigger while you stay the same, you’ll never beat them in the long run.”