The TANNER Series - Books 13-15 (Tanner Box Set) Page 27

  Gunther walked over and stared with lustful eyes at an Asian woman. She was a rare and exotic beauty who wore a tailored business suit. Her name was Leah Nguyen. She was an executive in charge of account management for the Burke Corporation and held a master’s degree in international business.

  Gunther leered as he ran a hand through Nguyen’s long silky hair.

  “Hey there, China doll, you love me long time and I’ll let you live. You know, sucky, sucky five dollar?”

  Nguyen sent Gunther a look of disgust as she spoke in a thick Brooklyn accent.

  “Get the fuck away from me, you ignorant piece of shit.”

  Gunther was stunned, and enraged. He raised his arm to deliver a backhanded slap, but then stopped, as he heard Garber enter the kitchen and start whistling.

  ***

  With his MP5 set on full auto, Tanner sent a short burst into Granite’s back, knowing that vest or no vest, the rounds would hurt like hell. Shooting the neo-Nazi anywhere else but his back would have risked hitting Lennox, and despite his dislike for the man, Tanner had no reason to wish him dead.

  The burst to Granite’s back was followed by a blast of rounds towards the legs of the other men in the room. Albert went down with a shattered left knee, while two other men took multiple rounds in their thighs.

  Chris possessed the reflexes to sidestep the blast, but as he was taking aim at Tanner, he caught a flash of movement near the desk.

  It was Conrad Burke. He had reclaimed his revolver from atop the desk and had it pointed at Chris’s face. Tanner emptied his gun at Chris’s legs even as Conrad Burke shot the man in the head.

  Tanner began reloading as the body was falling and was pulling back the MP5’s charging handle as Chris’s corpse settled on its back. Tanner looked over at Albert and saw that Albert was reaching for the weapon he’d dropped when his knee was blasted.

  Tanner sent a burst at his head, which obliterated Albert’s features. He then shot the other wounded men as he moved towards the desk, where Granite was struggling with Sloane Lennox for possession of his gun.

  Tanner took out a knife, flicked it open, and shoved the blade in Granite’s side on an upward angle, entering right beneath the hem of the bulletproof vest. That made Granite release the gun. He slid off the desk while screaming in pain, and collapsed to his knees.

  Granite held a hand to his side as he looked back over his shoulder at Tanner. He then spoke through teeth that were gritted in pain.

  “Who are you?”

  Tanner answered Granite by grabbing him by the hair, yanking his head back, and slitting his throat open.

  At the desk, Sloane Lennox gagged at the geyser of blood erupting from Granite. He turned away, saw the mound of hair-covered gore that was Albert’s ruptured head, and vomited.

  Tanner let Granite’s body fall forward and looked over at Burke.

  Burke was telling the women that it was safe to leave the bathroom and that the immediate threat had ended. After the two women emerged, they gazed about at the aftermath of violence with stunned expressions.

  Burke left them and walked up to Tanner.

  “Thank you, but I need your help again. My wife is in the building. I believe she’s down in the cafeteria.”

  Tanner picked up Granite’s gun from the desk and found that the magazine was mostly full.

  “Hand me your revolver and take this. Do you know how to use it?”

  “I served my country as a young man and I’m a lifelong hunter. I’ll figure it out.”

  “Lennox?” Tanner said.

  Sloane Lennox looked up at Tanner. His face wore a sickly green pallor. Tanner had been about to hand him Burke’s revolver so he could defend himself. After looking at Lennox closely, he thought better of it and spoke to Ella, Burke’s executive assistant.

  “Have you ever fired a gun, Ella?”

  “It’s been years, Mr. Tanner, but yes, my father was a cop and he taught me how to use one.”

  Tanner handed her the weapon and then gave her a quick lesson on how to use one of the MP5’s. When Ella nodded her understanding, Tanner told everyone to follow him.

  They walked past the bodies of the guards who had died to protect them, and Tanner saw that Burke looked sick with grief at the loss and carnage.

  Tanner led them to the other end of the hallway and instructed Lennox and the women to move into Lennox’s office. Before shutting and locking the door, Lennox called to Tanner.

  “Thank you. You saved my life.”

  Tanner replied with a nod. His mind was elsewhere. When he was in Burke’s office he had looked out the window and spotted the arrow jutting from the head of Darlene Klein.

  That meant that Alexa had joined the fight. He flew down the stairs with Burke following, as an uncharacteristic sense of dread came over him.

  CHAPTER 28 – Very cleaver

  In the cafeteria, Gunther craned his neck to look past the man guarding the doors that led into the kitchen. Someone had just entered and was whistling loudly, and Gunther wondered what sort of idiot would do that. Also, what happened to the guards in the hall?

  He gestured for the other three men with him to follow, as another Nazi continued to stand guard at the other set of doors.

  Gunther and the other men then stood in the open doorway and stared in at the whistling man. He was unarmed, and was busy pouring himself a glass of milk.

  “Hey, dipshit!” Gunther called, and the sound of his voice made the man stop whistling.

  As the man turned and looked at them, he held the glass of milk up high.

  “Here’s to your health, lads.”

  After toasting them, the man dropped the glass and dived beneath a metal table used for food preparation. As he slid beneath it, the outer doors burst open and Alexa fired her weapon with Garber’s men at her side. They were all crouched low and firing straight ahead.

  ***

  After Garber dived under the table, he shouted.

  “Shoot their legs! Shoot their legs!”

  His people did so, hitting most of the men, but not Gunther, who had thrown himself backwards to land on his ass.

  The remaining men crumpled in the doorway, as one of their shots pinged off the stainless steel of the huge refrigerator, while another shot hit one of Garber’s men. It was the White man, and he had taken a round on his outer thigh. The impact and pain collapsed his leg and sent him to the floor, where he crawled back into the hallway to assess his wound.

  Garber crawled as well. He shimmied on his stomach across the floor to grab his man’s fallen weapon. Once he had it, he stood, and took aim at the man guarding the opposite door. He missed, switched the gun over to full auto, and his last round caught the man in the throat, killing him.

  The Nazis collapsed in a heap in the doorway were either dead or dying, as their legs were shredded, and two had also suffered groin wounds.

  Garber retrieved one of the other weapons to finish the men off, and that was when he heard Gunther’s shouted threat.

  “If anyone comes through that door I’ll kill the hostages!”

  ***

  Deke had pushed Mrs. Burke behind him and down to the floor when the shooting began, then watched as the Nazis were surprised and blasted with a brutal barrage of gunfire.

  At first, Deke had thought that the big blond man with the swastika on his forehead had been hit. He then realized that Gunther had fallen backwards deliberately to avoid being shot.

  When the man guarding the opposite door went down in a hail of gunfire, Deke watched as Gunther sat up, spun around on one knee, and turned his gun on the group of Blacks in the corner. As the shooting ended, Gunther shouted his threat.

  Afterwards, there were whispers coming from the back room, it was followed by movement. To Deke’s surprise, Alexa appeared in the doorway, just beyond the defeated forms of Gunther’s men. She was unarmed, and held her hands up in surrender.

  Deke still gripped the meat cleaver, and he readied himself to throw it.
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  ***

  Alexa tried to keep her eyes locked on Gunther, while standing with her knees slightly bent, in case she had to dive back into the kitchen. She was attempting to buy time to let Garber and his men make their way around to the other entrance.

  When she noticed Deke, she saw the worry in his eyes, but felt immense relief to see that he was unharmed.

  Gunther looked at her and laughed, as he made it to his feet.

  “Hello there, Señorita, what’s your game?”

  “Let these people go and you won’t be harmed.”

  Gunther’s eyes narrowed, and then he tried to look around Alexa.

  “Where did your friends go? They’re circling around to the other door, aren’t they?”

  “You can’t escape,” Alexa said. “There’s no point in—”

  Gunther was a blur as he swung the gun towards Alexa. His finger was pressing on the trigger when he caught movement to his right and moved the gun that way.

  It was Deke. He had repositioned himself into a throwing stance to fling the cleaver. He let it fly just as Gunther sent a burst from the MP5 his way.

  The cleaver hit Gunther right in the center of the swastika on his forehead. It had made for a handy bulls-eye. Gunther toppled onto his ass as he let go of the machine gun. Afterwards, he collapsed on his back with his eyes crossing, as they each looked at a side of the stainless steel blade embedded between them.

  Across the cafeteria, Deke fell backwards, as three distinct splotches of blood blossomed across his chest in an upward pattern.

  Alexa screamed, as did several other women. She climbed over the dead and dying men in the northern doorway and ran to Deke, as a loud crash erupted at the other doors.

  Garber made it into the room and, with the help of his men, he shoved the table aside. Garber winced when he saw Alexa crying over Deke’s bloody form.

  And after spotting the meat cleaver protruding from Gunther’s head, Garber waved his arms and shouted to the people inside to run and hide. He had no idea whether the threat had ended, but thought that it made no sense for everyone to stay put and find out.

  The hostages just stared at him for a moment, and then they all rushed the door as one.

  Garber and his men barely got out of the way in time, as the crowd pushed through the doorway in a flood of humanity.

  ***

  Tanner heard the sound of a firefight as he and Burke exited the stairwell in the lobby.

  More murdered security guards littered the floor and outnumbered the dead neo-Nazis by a wide margin.

  Behind him, Burke took in the scene, moaned, wiped at tears, and whispered a short prayer. Then, the two of them headed for the cafeteria.

  The shooting had stopped, but was punctuated by a short burst from an MP5. That was followed by screams, including one that Tanner was certain had come from Alexa.

  Rounding the final corner, Tanner saw Garber. Garber and two other men were forcing open the doors to the cafeteria.

  Tanner reached the doors just as Garber and his men were driven backwards by a horde of panicked Burke employees.

  He grabbed Garber and shouted into his face.

  “Where’s Alexa?”

  “She’s good, Tanner, but Deke was wounded. It looks bad for him.”

  Tanner and Burke attempted to push their way into the cafeteria, but the surge of the fleeing crowd was making it impossible.

  Then, he saw her, saw Alexa cradling Deke’s bloody body in her arms. And given the look of distress on her tear-stained face, he knew that she felt more than friendship towards the man.

  Movement on the left caught Tanner’s attention and he stared in incomprehension at first, at what he was seeing.

  It was Gunther. He had made it to his feet with the meat cleaver still stuck in his head. The dim glow of the emergency lighting glinted off the blade’s metal surface, and the light’s red tint made Gunther appear demonic.

  Gunther seemed drunk as he staggered about, with blood running down his face.

  As Tanner tried to push and shove his way into the cafeteria, Gunther bent over, picked up his fallen gun, and pointed it at Alexa.

  CHAPTER 29 – Nooo!

  “Miss? Miss, please, let me have a look at him. I’m a doctor,” Sharon Burke said.

  The doctor was attempting to ease a distraught Alexa away from Deke, so that she could examine him.

  Alexa stared into the doctor’s eyes.

  “Is he dead?”

  “No dear, there’s a faint pulse in his wrist. But he needs to—Oh my God.”

  Dr. Burke had just spotted Gunther as he stood, Alexa was turning to look when she saw Tanner coming through the door, or attempting to do so, but he was hampered by the rush of bodies shoving to escape.

  His gaze was locked on something behind her, and when she looked, her teary eyes saw Gunther taking aim at her. There was a knife tucked inside her boot, but Deke was lying across her legs. Alexa knew she’d never free it in time to save herself.

  ***

  Tanner raised his MP5 up above the heads of the surging crowd. The sight of the weapon panicked them further, and he was shoved backwards. He still had Gunther in sight, and was about to pull the trigger, when a tall, heavyset woman appeared in front of him blubbering, and blocked his view of Gunther.

  Tanner head-butted her in the face, which dropped her out of his line of fire, but even as she fell, he heard the blast of gunfire come from the cafeteria.

  “Nooo!” Tanner cried out. He stepped over the fallen woman, shoved aside two men, and entered the room to find a bloody scene.

  Gunther was dead, his head blown to pieces, while in the opposite doorway stood Sara, with wisps of smoke still drifting upwards from the barrel of her gun.

  Tanner looked at her as he released a sigh.

  “I owe you, Blake.”

  Sara sent him a smile, and then she joined him by Alexa’s side, where Sharon Burke was tearing away at Deke’s shirt to examine his wounds.

  “Oh no,” Sara whispered, as she took in the damage to Deke’s chest.

  “He likely has a collapsed lung and is losing blood rapidly,” the doctor said, then she gazed up at her husband as she took his hand.

  “The helicopter pad out in the parking lot, Conrad. We need to get a medical airlift team here for him as soon as possible.”

  “The police are on their way,” Sara said. “But the road leading to the driveway is blocked by a fallen cell phone tower.”

  “Why can’t they just come in from the other direction?” Tanner asked.

  “The small bridge down there washed out last winter,” Sara said. “I had to leave my car and come in on foot.”

  Tanner gripped Alexa under her arm and helped her to stand. After kissing her, he held her face between his hands and stared into her eyes.

  “We have to leave. We can’t be here when the cops come.”

  “No, I want to stay with Deke. He might die.”

  Sara spoke up.

  “I understand why you have to leave, but Alexa could stay.”

  The sound of a siren erupted outside. As the sound grew closer, Tanner could tell that it was a motorcycle approaching. The cop riding it must have maneuvered around the fallen cell phone tower by going off-road.

  Tanner kissed Alexa again.

  “I’ll be at the shack by the lake.”

  Alexa hugged him, and when she released him, Tanner headed for the rear of the kitchen.

  He exited out the back entrance, stepped over Darlene’s body, and headed for the jeep left parked in the woods.

  CHAPTER 30 – Sara

  Alexa didn’t join Tanner at the lakeside shack until the sun was going down. Tanner had placed a battery-powered lantern on the picnic table, and had been searching his phone for news of the assault on the Burke campus.

  Alexa wasn’t alone; Sara had driven her there. Tanner saw that Alexa had changed into a borrowed T-shirt and out of the blouse she had been wearing, the one stained by Deke Mercer�
�s blood.

  “How’s Deke doing?” Tanner asked, after Alexa kissed him in greeting.

  “He’s alive, and should recover, but he does have a collapsed lung,” Alexa said.

  “And how are you doing,” Tanner asked her.

  Alexa laid her head on his shoulder.

  “I just want to go home, but I also want to visit Deke once he’s doing better.”

  “I understand that,” Tanner said.

  Alexa turned and gave Sara a heartfelt hug.

  “You saved my life today and I won’t forget that. Please come and visit us in Killburry soon.”

  Sara hugged her back.

  “I’ll do that. I’ve been curious about your house. The thought of seeing Tanner domesticated amuses me.”

  As the two women separated, Sara caught Tanner’s eye.

  “Can we talk? I have news about Scallato.”

  “I’ll be sitting in the jeep,” Alexa said. “I’m so tired that I think I’ll sleep on the ride back home.”

  “This won’t take long,” Sara said, as she sat across from Tanner at the picnic table.

  “What about Scallato?” Tanner said.

  “Did you hear about the survivor of the recent earthquake in California?”

  “The one that was nearly killed during a landslide? Yeah, Alexa and I saw that on the news the other day. What about it?”

  “That man was Maurice Scallato. His blood samples were tested at a medical lab and an NSA computer flagged it as a perfect match for the blood Scallato leaves as a signature.”

  “I never saw his face,” Tanner said. “He was so filthy and injured in the video shown on the news that I would never recognize him.”

  “Neither would I, but there was video showing his ear. Jacques Durand called and said that the computer claimed the man was a match. Scallato left the hospital on his own, or so they assume, but he was still weak from the effects of extreme dehydration.”

  “Could he have been helped?”

  “No, the hospital cameras captured him leaving. He stole clothes and a wallet out of a doctor’s locker. He also wore a surgical mask, but the people who treated him will be working with a sketch artist. Once they come up with a likeness, I’ll send it to you.”