Tanner- Year Two Read online

  Huge brown eyes grew wider an instant before the skillet struck. The man dropped to his knees while moaning but had the presence of mind to roll away. The skillet struck the floor where his head had been an instant before.

  Undeterred by the miss, Tanner closed in on his victim and delivered a second blow to the crown of the man’s head. That rendered him senseless and Tanner finished him off by using the knife he had taken from Tony. He left the blade protruding from the side of the man’s neck and claimed a butcher knife. The heft of the sharp instrument felt good in Tanner’s hand.

  Five guards down with one to go, and he was certain Ippolito was still unaware of the danger.

  Tanner came across the sixth and final guard in an upstairs bedroom. The man was sleeping, but there was someone in the adjacent bathroom. Through the closed door, Tanner could hear the sound of the shower running.

  The housekeeper, Tanner thought, and recalled that she had been described as an attractive blonde by the failed assassin who had made the notes.

  Of course, there was always the possibility that it was Eli Ippolito in the shower, depending on what the man’s sexual preferences were. Tanner doubted that was true since Ippolito was known to hire hookers. Still, he’d been trained to be thorough and needed to know who was in that shower. When he spotted a bra and feminine underwear lying on the floor beside the bed, along with a discarded skirt and blouse, he was sure it was the housekeeper. The final guard must be the woman’s lover.

  A set of twenty-pound dumbbells were on the floor at the side of the dresser. Tanner picked one up, intending to use it as a weapon.

  Tanner killed the sleeping man as quietly as he could and drifted from the room. He saw no need to kill the woman, although the act might be prudent. While she was not a guard, anyone could pose a threat. However, a Tanner never harmed a perceived innocent. Tanner left Daisy alive and continued his prowl through the home. All that remained was the slaying of his target.

  8

  Escape

  When Tanner was making his assault on the gate, Eli Ippolito had been watching Raul and Daisy make love.

  The meth kingpin had installed a hidden camera in Raul’s room and several more in Daisy’s quarters. Eli Ippolito lusted after Daisy but had never approached her. The only time he had ever spoken to her directly was when she was first hired by Brandt, along with Raul.

  Ippolito had bedded more than a hundred women during his life. The women had all been prostitutes he paid to have sex with him. Until he had lain with his first prostitute at the age of twenty, Ippolito had been a virgin.

  Men feared him and many had died by his hand, but it was Ippolito who felt anxiety when a woman like Daisy looked him in the eye. Early on in life, he’d been rejected by every girl he asked out. Their rebuffs of his advances left him with a feeling of inadequacy.

  Now that he was a man of power and wealth, he assumed that if a woman did agree to spend time with him that she would only be after his money.

  The seemingly heartless hood yearned to be a husband and to have a committed relationship. However, because of his beliefs about women and their motivations, he would never have what he desired most.

  A virtual prisoner in his own desert sanctuary, Ippolito spent his days counting his growing wealth and lusting after a woman half his age. It was a pitiful life, and on the verge of coming to an end.

  After Daisy entered the bathroom to shower, Ippolito turned off his monitor. The view inside Raul’s bedroom disappeared. He was worth a thousand Rauls, and yet, Daisy gave herself to the young hoodlum instead.

  Ippolito got up and walked over to the wet bar in his bedroom suite. After mixing himself a drink, he wandered over to the window to look out. It was another blistering hot day in the desert, and the heat made the scene before him shimmer.

  Is that music? Ippolito asked himself, while tilting his head to listen.

  It was music. It was the sound of heavy metal music drifting from Tanner’s car, which still sat running with its driver’s side door open.

  Ippolito opened his window and felt the heat rush in as the volume of the music increased.

  That’s coming from the front gate.

  Ippolito lowered the window and returned to his monitor. The view inside Raul’s bedroom appeared. Ippolito was about to switch over to view the feed from the front gate when he noticed that something was different.

  Raul still lay facedown atop the bed; however, blood was soaking the sheet beneath his head. There was an object on the bed that hadn’t been there before, something black and made of metal. Ippolito caused the camera to zoom in and was able to discern that the back of Raul’s skull had been caved in. The object on the bed was the twenty-pound dumbbell used to kill him.

  “No!” Ippolito cried, as his fingers flew over the keyboard. He was bringing up the other cameras he had hidden inside the compound. He saw the two dead men in the pool room, the guard in the kitchen, and finally the unmoving forms of Tony and Franco out at the gate.

  Ippolito grabbed his weapon off the table by his bed, then headed to his walk-in closet. He kept a bug-out bag in there that held money; a fake ID; a change of clothing; spare ammo; a cell phone; food; water; a first-aid kit; a hit of cocaine, and a grenade. The fragmentation grenade was to be used when all else failed. The cocaine was merely for pleasure.

  After accessing the hidden staircase that was behind a closet wall, Ippolito was ready to step inside. Right before doing so he’d become aware of movement in his peripheral vision. Turning his head, he saw a guy in a vivid tie-dyed shirt. When the young man swiveled his way and noticed Ippolito, Ippolito was shocked by the intensity of the gaze taking him in.

  Ippolito moved onto the staircase and hit the switch that would cause the wall behind him to slide shut. As he did so, a shot rang out. The slug ricocheted off a metal gun safe and entered Ippolito’s left shoulder. It had either been a poor shot missing wide of its mark or a carefully aimed round calculated to careen into its target.

  Even with his mind afire from the agony of his wound, Ippolito was certain the shot had been intentional. Whoever the man in his bedroom was, he was deadly beyond measure.

  Ippolito wiped away the tears of pain that were blurring his vision and started down the stairs. He had one chance to survive and time was running out.

  After firing the shot at Ippolito, Tanner heard the man yelp with pain and knew his round had taken the intended angle and struck his target. Unfortunately, the bullet hadn’t done enough damage and Ippolito was still on the move; Tanner could hear his footfalls clanging off what sounded like a metal staircase.

  The closet wall had slid back into place. After pounding the side of his fist against it and feeling a solid surface, Tanner was certain he’d never breach it without tools.

  He raced from the room and headed toward the rear staircase. If Ippolito had a way out of the compound as he suspected, he had a short window to locate the man and keep him from escaping.

  Daisy had heard the sound of Tanner’s shot while she was drying herself off.

  “Raul, was that a gunshot?”

  When Raul didn’t answer, Daisy put on the pink robe she kept in Raul’s bathroom and opened the door. She was halfway to the bed when the sight of the blood registered in her mind.

  “Raul!” Daisy went to her lover and touched him. He was still warm but after getting a good look at the damage to his skull, Daisy knew he was dead. She knelt by the bed as tears of anguish wet her face.

  Self-preservation pushed her grief aside and she plucked Raul’s gun off the nightstand, along with her phone. After getting up and locking the door, Daisy phoned Brandt.

  Brandt was already on his way back. After reaching the house where Sal, Julio, Henry, and Conleth lived, he hadn’t stayed very long. He’d realized that he had been too predictable and wanted to change up his routine. By arriving back at the compound after being away for such a short time, his return would be a surprise.

  If the guards were slacking o
ff, he’d catch them in the act. If all was well, he’d recommend to Ippolito that each man would be given extra time off. That second option would mean Brandt would have to fill in for the men during their days off. He’d be happy to do it along with his other duties, as the guards would deserve it.

  His phone rang once, then cut off. Cell service was spotty at best in the desert. When Brandt checked his phone, he was surprised to see Daisy’s name come up. He tried calling her back and the call failed. While grunting in frustration, Brandt put the phone away and drove faster. He was only minutes from the compound and would find out what was going on soon.

  Tanner reached the bottom of the staircase and left the house. If Ippolito had a way to escape, it meant he had to get beyond the walls. Racing outside, Tanner ran past the bodies of Tony and Franco and through the open gate. Ippolito’s hidden staircase had been at the rear of the house, so that was where he would likely emerge.

  As he sprinted along the wall at the side of the house, Tanner heard a rumbling sound and thought he felt a slight vibration beneath his feet. After rounding the final corner, he saw that a thick piece of sheet metal had lifted up from the desert floor to reveal an opening beneath it.

  He was too far away to look inside but could see a dark corner and hear the rumble of an engine. The opening was a ramp, one on which Eli Ippolito was riding up in a sand rail. A sand rail was a type of dune buggy with a lightweight aluminum frame that had no doors, windows, body panels or fenders. Ippolito’s getaway vehicle weighed in at just over a thousand pounds. After leaving the ramp it hit the sand and accelerated away. Tanner brought up his weapon in a two-handed grip, bent his knees slightly, and took aim.

  Brandt slid his car to a hard stop beside the vehicle Tanner had used to deliver the pizza in. The pizza boxes lay on the ground along with Tony and Franco.

  Brandt knew in an instant what had happened and that whoever had delivered the pies was the shooter. He resisted the urge to kick Franco in the head as he passed him. The stupidity of compromising the gate’s security for a pizza was just the sort of thing he had been hoping to catch them doing. Someone else had spotted the flaw first and used it to get inside the compound.

  After entering the house in a crouch, Brandt was headed toward the stairs to check on Ippolito. When Daisy stepped out from around a corner, he nearly shot her.

  “Damn, girl! Why aren’t you hiding?”

  Daisy was crying but looked enraged as well. “Raul is dead; whoever did that will pay.” Daisy was still wearing her robe and was carrying Raul’s Beretta. Brandt knew she could shoot. He’d seen Raul teaching her once and Daisy had been a good shot.

  “Stay close to me and don’t fire unless—” The sound of multiple gunshots made Brandt stop talking in mid-sentence. “That came from outside, toward the back. Maybe some of the other men are still alive.”

  Brandt ran toward the kitchen with Daisy following. Once there, they found the guard Tanner had killed earlier and saw the blade embedded in his neck. Brandt and Daisy stepped over the blood and headed for the rear door.

  After firing several rounds, Tanner saw the sand rail slow as it bounced atop the rough terrain. When he was close enough, he spotted the fresh blood and knew at least one of his rounds had found flesh.

  Eli Ippolito fell out of the vehicle sideways with a gun in his right hand. His face was a mess. A round had struck him in the cheek, shattered teeth, and tore away his nose on the way out. Blood was leaking down his shirtfront and he was wailing in a low moan of agony.

  He attempted to bring up his gun to fire when he spotted Tanner. Before that could happen, Tanner sent a round into his forehead. That ended the meth kingpin’s life and fulfilled the contract.

  Sand exploded into the air a dozen yards behind Tanner as a shot rang out. When he turned around, he saw a tall man standing beside a woman in a pink robe. They were too far away to make out their faces; however, Tanner assumed he was looking at Brandt, along with the woman who had been inside the shower.

  Tanner didn’t bother returning fire. His gun was as out of range as Brandt’s. He plucked the bag Ippolito had sitting on a seat in the sand rail.

  Ippolito had been fleeing into the desert; the bag undoubtably contained water and other supplies Tanner could use. Looking over his shoulder, Tanner saw Brandt turn and run back into the house. That was not good. He expected the man to give chase. If Brandt was headed inside, it was for a reason, like getting his hands on a weapon with more range. Russo’s tale about the men killed by a sniper returned to Tanner’s mind. He wondered if Brandt had been that sniper.

  Tanner took off running in the shifting sand as fast as he could to put distance between himself and the compound.

  Brandt rushed into the room where the monitors were and freed a sniper rifle from the wall brackets holding it. It was an ArmaLite AR-50 with a range of over 2,600 yards. The gun was loaded, and the optics attached. If he hurried, he might have a chance to kill the intruder. Rather than rushing outside, Brandt went up the stairs.

  Daisy called to him. “Where are you going?”

  “To the roof!”

  Tanner had run into a field of boulders. While they would block any shots, he would also run the risk of being pinned down among them if Brandt was skilled with a rifle. If he also called in help, Tanner might find himself trapped in the desert. He decided his best chance was to keep gaining distance. He clambered up onto a low boulder and began leaping from one to another. As he moved along, the boulders grew in size and height.

  The ping of a fired round struck a foot away from Tanner as the boom of the first rifle shot echoed across the desert. Tanner moved faster, risking injury if he fell, but hoping to avoid a bullet to the back. A second shot whizzed past his left ear and was followed by another that hit the spot where his right foot landed an instant later. Up ahead, the boulders were farther apart. Tanner kept moving at full speed, although he wasn’t certain he could bridge the gulf. Leaping into the air, he gauged the distance again and deemed he was going to make it to the other boulder—that was when the bullet hit home.

  The force of the round twisted him in mid-leap, and he struck the other boulder by landing on his back. Intense pain radiated throughout Tanner’s body. He felt himself sliding off the boulder but was unable to stop the momentum. He tumbled down into the sand eighteen feet below. Tanner lay there, unmoving, as agony enveloped him and consciousness threatened to flee.

  9

  The Heist

  Steve Piper brushed back his sandy-blond hair as he stood before a white board with a map taped to it.

  He was in office space that rented by the hour and included a conference table. The round table seated eight and there were ten others in the room. Half of them were part of Piper’s regular crew, while the other five were mercenaries. Like the office space, Piper had rented the five men for his current heist.

  It was to be the biggest of his career and one he’d been planning for nearly a year. Keith McHugh was the lynchpin that made the plan possible. Without a man inside the armored car depot to pave the way for them, Piper and his people would never gain access to the money.

  McHugh’s estimate of nearly a hundred and thirty million was more than Piper had hoped for and would be enough cash to allow him to retire in grand style. Although he would give shares of the loot to the core members of his gang, the mercenaries would never see a dime. Piper planned to kill them.

  He looked about the room. Mike Walsh, his best friend and cousin was leaning against a wall. Walsh resembled Piper and had his good looks, but his hair was dark, and he was shorter than Piper. Standing beside Mike was Justen Elias. At twenty-one, Justen was the youngest of the group, had a pair of sleepy eyes and always seemed to be in his own world. Despite his lackadaisical manner, he would do anything asked of him, provided he was paid well.

  Seated at the table with the five mercs were Vic, Roxana, and Bernard. Bernard, who had bushy eyebrows, had been with Piper since meeting him in a Las Vegas jail cel
l fifteen years earlier. He was the perfect accomplice and did whatever was needed. Vic was the oldest of the group at fifty-two and was getting thin on top. Despite his age, he was fit and ran regularly. He was in love with Roxana, the only woman in the gang. Roxana was half his age, loved to fight with her fists, and a lesbian. Vic knew of her sexual orientation but lusted after her anyway. He stood a better chance of getting one of the mercs into bed. Roxana didn’t want to sleep with him, nor did she give a damn about him. She was as self-centered as they came and cared only about herself.

  As for the mercenaries, they were five of a kind. They were big men with brutish faces and limited brain power. If it weren’t for the fact that one of them was black, another Hispanic, one short, and another very tall, Piper wouldn’t have known who was who. As things stood, his cousin Mike had to remind him of their names before he addressed them individually.

  Piper pointed at the map as he began the meeting.

  “This is it, guys. Tonight we head into the town of Delran and take over the armored car depot.” Piper gestured toward the mercs. “We’ll place one of you guys at each of the two roads into town. You have to make sure that no one leaves. We’ll be taking out the cell phone tower and the landlines, so no one will be able to alert the cops.”

  “How rough should we get?” asked one of the mercenaries. He was the tallest of the men and had a gold tooth in front.

  “Shoot out their tires and the radiators, but you don’t let anybody leave that town once we’re in it. In a small town like this on a weeknight, there shouldn’t be many people moving about that late. Once their rides are disabled push them off onto the side of the road and herd the people back into town. If they see your faces or give you any shit, waste them.”