Killing Sanford (Gary Cannon Book 1) Read online

  Gary was nervous, his stomach was turning, and he had to keep reminding himself to breathe. As they drove Gary found himself watching the ditches, looking at the deep narrow ditches, staring at the water thinking only of his parents. He wondered if his parents were alive when they hit the water, were they conscious. He hoped they were not.

  He too was drowning, but in his thoughts, he felt trapped, how could he continue, how would he be able to move forward? He was so scared, he was alone and he was in a car being chauffeured to a lawyer’s office to have his father’s will read to him.

  He entered Finch’s office, it was quite a magnificent building, the chairs in the front room were wood and leather, the plump secretary in her green blazer was pleasant and Gary could tell that she felt sympathy for him and knew why he was in the office.

  Gary only had to wait for a few minutes and a door to the left of the secretary opened and Finch motioned for him to come into the room. In the room, which looked to be a small library, there was a large wooden table. Eight wooden chairs around it. The walls were adorned with books, high back chairs in each of the corners. The ceilings were high and there was an ominous echo with even the slightest noise.

  Gary did not notice at first but there was a man in one of the corner chairs. He was a very plain man, dressed nicely but plain, Gary felt as if the man were looking through him.

  Gary and Finch sat at the large table. They sat opposite of each other near the middle. Finch opened an envelope and began to read the will of his father.

  The reading was very short. Somehow Gary’s father had left him three hundred thousand dollars in cash. This was a number that seemed impossible for the man that Gary remembered to have had stowed away. The money had been kept in a safe deposit box in a local bank in Kansas City, and Gary was given the key. He could see the outline of the key pressed into the small manila envelope that it was sealed into. Then there was a letter.

  Finch said, “Gary, your father has a letter for you to read, when you have finished I will read the last of the will.”

  Finch handed an envelope to Gary, he used a letter opener, unfolded the paper and he read his father’s words silently,

  Gary,

  Son, if you are reading this I am sorry, I am sorry that I will not be there for you that I won’t be there to see what you will do and what you will become.

  Things I am going to tell you I have never told to anyone outside of the people who were with me, I have never spoken of these things with your mother, and had never intended to do so, if your mother is still alive I ask that you never reveal to her what you are about to read.

  Gary, you don’t know this but I fought in the war, I was in France, Germany, England, Africa, Italy, and for a brief time in China. I signed up after the Japs hit Pearl, and was shipped to Africa; I was not there for long and I was approached by a man named Whaite, a man who would change the course of my life in ways I could never imagine. He was a strange man, bad posture, a terrible disposition, and he was generally unpleasant. However, the stories that he told, the promises he made...they were enough to overcome his abnormalities.

  I guess first I should back up. I was born in Pennsylvania. I was not raised in Missouri. When I was born my parents were in their forties, to say I was unexpected I believe would be an understatement. I was in my mid-twenties when my parents passed. My father going only fourteen months after my mother. The depression had been hard on my folks, and when my mother fell ill and died in April of 1940 my father was too tired and too heartbroken to move on. After my father was gone I bounced around the country working when I could, stealing when I needed to, living on the fringe.

  The attack on Pearl was just what I needed to snap out of my stupor, had those bastards done it any later I would likely have wound up in prison or dead in a ditch somewhere. But like so many of us on that day, the attack struck a chord and that saved my life.

  The Army turned me inside out and pressed me straight. As it turned out I excelled in their world. They sent me to Africa in the infantry, where we joined the British chasing the Desert Fox.

  That little man came about six months after we had arrived on the African continent. He gathered a few of us apparently asking for us by name.

  Whaite knew a lot about me, things I didn't think anyone knew. But he asked questions, made notes, and he studied me for a while. That of course was the studying that I knew of at the time, I found later that Whaite had been collecting information on me since shortly after I signed up.

  I didn’t know initially what it was in me that flagged him but the foul little man liked something. I found out later he was looking for orphans, and he gave great priority to only children. Somehow my loss and pain brought that man to me and it would change my life more than I ever would have guessed.

  One early morning we came across a small group of German armor, they were flanked by roughly a company of infantry. We were lucky that day and laid waste to those Germans losing very few men. My orders at the time were to scour the dead for intelligence.

  Whaite found me there near the smoldering heap of German armor. He came to me, in his arms were a set of civilian clothes, he pointed to a smoldering disfigured body of an unfortunate German tanker and told me that man was about to become me.

  Whaite told me I should undress and put my GI issues on the charred soldier, along with my personal effects and ID tags. I did as I was asked, and as I dressed in to the clothes he gave me Whaite doused the body in lighter fluid and with the strike of a match, set it ablaze. As I watched the clothes curl and blacken from the flame I realized how complete this charade was to be. That the Panzer soldier would become me, and be buried as such. I was to choose a new name.

  So, I became James Cannon there in that desert as the sun sat on the African horizon. I did feel reborn, that man I was the man with another name on those dog tags really had died. I don't even know where he was buried.

  We trained for months, well they called it training, there wasn't time for real training we had work to do. Most of the training was on the fly, assassinations, kidnappings, and intelligence gathering. At first in the presence of a senior operative, and then they turned us loose. At that point and really that whole time it was catch on or die.

  We did our work in pairs mainly, sometimes in small teams but the work was all the same no matter how many of us were involved. I eventually made my way to planning the work. I never left the field though. Always lead from the front.

  Then the war was over. They came to us and said to take our new identity and start a life, they had made us into killers and they wanted us to shut it off. Not long after that few of us got together and formed a company. We used the contacts we had in government and in the military to get the ball rolling.

  We did work no one wanted or didn't know they wanted, the work that a government couldn't be seen to be involved in. It was post-war "peace" but there were still people who were dangerous and people who would pay for us to make those people go away. We did that for them, and we were good at it.

  And so Gary, I leave this with you, I leave you the money, and the bit of a legacy that I have, son, I have done things that have made the world safe for democracy, but I have done things that I will have to stand before God and be judged for.

  I hope for you all the best, as you are the best of me.

  Love, your father

  James

  Gary folded the letter, placed it in the envelope and wiped the tears from his eyes. He handed the letter to Finch's open hand, Finch struck a match with his thumbnail and held it to the corner of the envelope. The flame licked quickly up the dry paper and soon Finch dropped the burning letter into the steel waste can next to his chair.

  ***

  Finch finished the will, Gary was not listening, and the final lines of the will concerned the dissolving of the Cannon's assets. There was a final clause, a clause that Gary heard, and he heard it with absolute certainty, Finch read "...in the event that my only son Gary is less t
han eighteen years old, and if my wife Lorraine is no longer living, custody of my son shall be remanded to the custody of Neil Degrassi."

  In Gary's mind there was only one thought, "Who the hell is Neil Degrassi?"

  The plain man in the corner stood up, his way was smooth, to Gary he was scary, his eyes were dark, and nearly black. Finch stood, "Gary, this is Mr. Degrassi, he is now your guardian."

  Degrassi extended his right hand, Gary sat in disbelief, he gathered the composure to stand and he shook Degrassi's hand. "Hello Gary, please, call me Neil"

  Gary could only look into the deep oil like pools that were Degrassi's eyes, they were consuming him, pulling his will to stand, his will to live, and they chilled him to his soul. Gary could only stare for what seemed like an eternity, "Hi, Mr. Degra... Neil, nice to meet you."

  Finch closed a file and began to gather the documents in front of him, "Gary, I believe you and Mr. Degrassi have some things to discuss, this room is yours as long as you need it."

  Neil sat, motioned for Gary to sit as well. Gary took his seat, uneasy in the large room with this scary man. Degrassi paused for a long time, "Gary, you will have a lot of questions for me, more than you can imagine. The answers I will give will create more questions, now is not the time nor the place for those questions. The answers will come in due time.”

  Neil paused, “I will tell you this now, some things that I am guessing were in the letter you read are tied to me, your father was a dear friend of mine, as close to a brother as I have ever had. I had not seen him in years. The last time he and I spoke was when he made arrangements for what is going on today."

  Gary noticed that as Neil spoke of his father there was a softening in his features, his eyes wandered ever so slightly and for a brief moment Gary thought that he saw just the glint of a tear.

  Gary sat dumbfounded, his mind returned to memories of his father. Memories of seeing that loud old truck pull up in front of their small house. He could still smell the faint bitterness of diesel fuel that lingered on his father when he would hug him upon his arrival home. Gary could still picture his father's slick hair, not the black he remembered as a small boy, but speckled with the grey of a man entering the fall of his life.

  Even as Gary grew into his teens he never questioned the love of his father, it had always been obvious to Gary that he was the center of his father's universe. James never missed an opportunity to grab Gary and ask him to run to the hardware store, or a Sunday afternoon trip down to one of the rivers to try and catch some flathead.

  Gary found himself missing his father deeply, as he sat across from this man his father had thought enough of to leave as his guardian he felt sorrow and pain. There was an emptiness he had never known.

  ***

  June 3, 1976

  Gary had slept for what felt like days, he was sweating heavily as the sun was pouring in the window and onto him. Outside the desert of Nevada was speeding by.

  His back ached from being stuck in the broken down bus seat for hours already. The drone of the old diesel, the heat and the monotony of the ride were wearing on him. He had still over a thousand miles to ride on this big tin can and he was ready for the ride to be over.

  At the last stop seven passengers had gotten off, five more had gotten on.

  Gary shifted in his seat trying to ease the tension and stiffness from the ride. He ran his fingers through his light hair, damp with perspiration. He removed his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes, checked the time and cracked his knuckles. Gary asked the man across the aisle if he was finished with his newspaper, the man graciously handed it over.

  Gary was feeling weird, there was a turning in his stomach, his mind was all over the place, his hands were beginning to tingle and he felt trapped. The feeling was coming on stronger minute by minute. His breathing became shallow and he struggled to control it, breathing in on a four count, holding it and out on the same count.

  He hoped the paper would give him something to focus on, he needed his mind active right now the idle time was driving him mad. Gary could not let himself get rattled, not now, now when there was no reason. Something just felt wrong. Maybe it was the upcoming work, maybe it was something else but deep in his mind. Something was not lining up the way it should. His instincts were usually quite right and he was going to make sure he stayed on point.

  ***

  To the right of the bus on a large sign in reflective letters Gary read “Omaha 100” he shifted in his seat more he was nearing the end. Only one hundred miles and some change left to his destination.

  The bus had not taken on new passengers since Denver, and it had been shedding them at each stop along the way across the plains. Gary’s concerns had not eased.

  He just hoped he could avoid speed bumps, if there were any he would likely have to take care of a body. He had done that before, but a body that he had not counted on could interrupt his schedule. Gary would work around it if he had to, he could do it as he had done countless times before.

  In so many cases before there were these types of unexpected surprises. Unexpected surprises were part of his job, it was the reason he was so good at it. Gary had been trained to see the big picture but focus on the immediate tasks, everything was about compartmentalizing.

  Adapting was what he did, being too rigid meant jobs were not completed, and if jobs go uncompleted the money stopped.

  Gary’s biggest concern about the possibility of taking another person out was not the task, but the location. Gary had very deftly solved these problems in places so different from Nebraska. Places that were more accustomed to people going missing, bodies showing up, and much more likely to turn a blind eye to some unknown soul turning up dead in a back alley.

  Omaha worried him, this was the heartland of America, he was not in Phnom Penh or Prague, there were no standing armies in Omaha, and there was no martial law or civil unrest.

  Gary hated doing this type of work in the States. And even more he hated having to tie up unneeded loose ends. Gary he had done some cleanup after an op in June of ‘68 in Los Angeles, that op had been a mess from start to finish and even almost ten years later, the inefficiency of the work bothered him.

  Before that in ‘67 while still in training he had been the principal shooter on a chilly March day in Virginia, it was his first lesson in the true pain that came along with his job. Those two jobs had been tough lessons for him.

  Gary was not willing to let his mind go back to the painful learning days of his youth and tried not to dwell on those mistakes. He had been working as one half of a pair at the time, he was still young, very young. Los Angeles in ‘68 had been tough and a mess but it was pale in comparison to his first mission, moreover the aftermath of his first.

  In the days following his mission Gary’s partner became a threat and was dealt with, it was something that haunted Gary each day, the man had become a close friend and losing him was tough.

  These things and the loss of his parents were what he thought of each time he had returned home in the past and this time was turning out to be even worse. This time he was here working again. Sweating in that bus he wished he were back in the comfort of his jungle.

  Gary tried hard to push those bad days from his memory and focus on the days ahead, there were four targets waiting for him in Omaha. In just a few weeks he would be relaxing on an island, soaking up some sun.

  ***

  June 6, 1976

  Gary picked up his general delivery package at the post office addressed to Milo Bronson. In the box there was an envelope with a note and a safe deposit box key. The note simply had an address, Gary knew this was a bank. The standard practice for the advance team to set these types of things up.

  Gary took two hours making the short trip to the bank, deliberately backtracking and watching, observing, and waiting. This was a critical point. When he was getting the handoff from the advance team, making the transition he would be vulnerable.

  If the advance team had been noticed
, there would be people watching, and they would be watching for him to make this pick up.

  If there were people watching the bank Gary did not see them, he was satisfied he had not been followed, and he had not seen anything that made him uneasy, but before he entered the bank he stopped on the steps and casually smoked two cigarettes, taking one last look over the area.

  The safety deposit box was loaded with ten thousand in cash divided from hundreds, fifties and twenties. Gary divided the stack in half, and put each half in his front pockets. There was another envelope with eight photos, the last and most recent photos taken by the advance team of the targets. Lastly there was a key to an apartment that had been swept and secured by the team.

  Gary made his way slowly to the apartment next, backtracking and watching just as he had on his way to the bank.

  The small room in the apartment was dirty and hot, but the away team had picked a great location. Gary had certainly stayed in worse. After his trip and the uncertainty of setting up in a new location he was ready to relax for a few hours and try to get his mind right again. Gary was on the bed, he was happy the trip and the set-up had gone smoothly.

  His vulnerability would continue until he had a lay of the land, before he had made his first reconnaissance of the targets.

  His mind was just not right, he was distracted, an ever increasing uneasiness. The uneasiness was a fog that was settling in his brain. Work in the States made him so uneasy.