Killing Sanford (Gary Cannon Book 1)

by Mike Kershner

  Gary leaned down close. He slid his right hand slowly under Ed’s head, cradling the head in his hand. His left hand moved to the chin, and he got a firm grip and with a quick upward twist broke Ed’s neck. The effect was immediate, his breathing stopped and he twitched at the extremities, their link to the brain disrupted. In moments it was done.

  ***

  Gary stood over the bed and the dead man. His cheek was still twitching. He watched it until it stopped. Gary let out a breath, he felt at ease, “twenty-five percent there, he thought.”

  He turned and walked out of the room. Stopped in the living room to look at the books across a shelf, Tolstoy, Baldwin, Bradbury, and Steinbeck. Seemed like the reading habits were not quite what he would have expected from this one.

  There was more to go through, but there was no reason for him to make a detailed sweep, he was not there to gather intelligence, he just needed to look for anything obvious. See if there were any links to one of the other targets, or if there was anything on him in there anything that might change his plan.

  The rest of the living room was clean, kitchen was the same, and the spare bedroom had obviously been used as a trash bin, empty liquor bottles, six pack rings, boxes, some dirty clothes, and a few nudie magazines.

  Gary moved back to the bedroom where his prey now lay in permanent rest. There was a stillness in the room, it was like that for Gary, there was almost always a calmness surrounding a fresh kill. It was especially true when the work had been that clean. He knew though with the heat wave and the small window unit located on the other end of the house, there was no way this room would remain pleasant for long.

  Gary checked the dresser, nothing but clothes. In the night stand he found a .38 caliber revolver, which was not too much of a surprise. In the closet however he found a CAR-15 and a suppressed Remington 700 with a 10X Unertl scope.

  Gary sat down on a small wooden box in the closet that he had found contained two cowboy hats. He was looking at the Remington rifle, going from it to the CAR, he ran over possibilities in his mind. Maybe this guy had been overseas, there were vets that came home and had loved the rifles they served with and had either smuggled them out or found a way to get their hands on something similar later.

  Had Ed been in the service? Gary would have noticed that in the file that he had carried to Omaha after having it handed to him in Budapest. But, then he thought about the drinking, especially like Ed had been drinking. If Ed had been a vet who had seen some bad things and was having trouble with it, it would make sense. But the file had been missing any military service that would have been an important detail to omit.

  “What the hell?” he stood up, leaning the rifle against the door frame.

  Gary walked back over to the bed, and stood over Ed’s body, “What’s your deal Ed?” he whispered, “What am I missing?”

  ***

  July 1, 1976 18:55

  The mystery of Ed Pringle was weighing on Gary’s mind. He had slept after killing Ed, and had a good portion of the day to think about his findings. Ed had been well armed and the rest of the kit Gary found in the closet showed he was also well prepared and might have some training.

  Sitting in the apartment the uneasy feeling came over him again, an overwhelming pressure in his chest, a stir in his bowels. He leaned back the wooden chair creaking, his head was back and he tried to control his breathing, trying to slow his mind down.

  Deep down he knew there had to be something he was missing, but he kept having trouble making his brain focus on the external. All of his focus kept coming back to whatever torture his body was exerting on him.

  Gary had more work to prepare for in the morning and needed to get his mind reset. He turned to the table in front of him and looked at Pringle’s Remington rifle that he had removed from the small house. It was not a normal thing for him to remove items from a targets house but he was improvising just a bit now. He had shot the rifle earlier that afternoon and the instrument was accurate just as he had hoped. This was going to work perfectly for what he had planned.

  ***

  July 2, 1976 05:30

  Light morning dew had formed on him as he lay in the grass, he was facing west, the sun was breaking the horizon behind him and he could feel the temperature changing. The dew becoming stickier as the now visible sun started its long hot race across the sky.

  A wool blanket beside him covered the Remington rifle, Gary folded the blanket back exposing the back of the rifle stock up to the bolt. He raised the bolt and opened the chamber. He pulled a single .308 Winchester cartridge from his breast pocket, the brass glinted in the early morning light.

  In the same situations he would have set up his hide backwards, he was silhouetting himself to the lane he expected his target to advance on him from. In this case it was not his concern. The window from when his target could see him to its time in the kill box was fractions of a second.

  Gary laid his cheek against the rifle stock, pulling blanket over his head and shoulders. His rest was sturdy and from his slightly upright prone position he was able to hold his sight picture extremely still.

  Through the glass he worked down from the far horizon, not really looking for anything just surveying what lay beyond his immediate focus, he followed back a ribbon of blacktop to an overpass and looped back around to his left to a hard banking on ramp.

  Paula Hanson drove to work this way each day and she pushed the Monte around this on ramp right to the limit of what the Wide Ovals would hold, Gary had watched her make the curve slamming the 2-3 shift as she powered out of the arch and onto the merging lane. Gary calmly thought, “I don't think she’ll get out of second gear this time.”

  He relaxed taking his eye away from the glass and waited. Gary could hear the V-8 screaming long before he could see her coming. Through his field glasses he spotted her right on course. He made himself ready with the rifle, he was going to get one chance at this and his margin was narrow.

  Through the scope he watched her slide onto the ramp, and heard the shift to second. She was building speed rapidly as the bank of the ramp started, Gary was focusing on the front passenger tire, leading it half its diameter. He was waiting for the highest portion of the bank, letting her build just as much speed as she could muster. When he had waited as long as he felt he could he gently squeezed the trigger.

  The rifle’s recoil took him off target for just a moment and he was back on target. The rim had already shucked the tire and bit into the black asphalt. In his mind everything was moving slowly and Gary watched as the car nosed forward, sheet metal was folding as it pushed itself into the ground.

  The rear of the car was in the air now, tumbling to the car’s front and right, the driver’s door was skyward, and for just a second he caught a streak of green as Paula came out of the driver’s side window, her lime colored skirt rippling in the wind.

  The car continued its roll as the white top disappeared and the undercarriage became visible, the first tumble was nearly complete and the car gave a bounce and the scenery behind it lit up like a light, and then was gone as it tore into the ground again farther down the embankment.

  The car was rubber side down for just a millisecond and the momentum continued to carry its roll. Gary saw the white top again headed over, and he saw a flash of green just before the white was gone again.

  The roll was slowing and after leaving its top and rolling across the driver’s side the tires hit and the car slammed to a stop. Gary peaked his head from under the blanket, his eyes taking just a second to switch from the close up view he had just been watching through the Unertl scope.

  Dust hung in the air, the noise had been intense although Gary had not registered it as he watched the rollover unfold, but he noticed it now in its absence. He left the rifle and his hide and he stood, looking around and searching both lanes of the Interstate and to his relief seeing no one. He started forward slowly walking to the hulking mess in front of him.

  By his earlier paces
he had been 260 meters from the shoulder of the road, and took him a bit of time to walk the distance, he was in tall grass now moving through the wide road ditch, on part of the on ramp right of way now. He could hear Elton John and Kiki Dee on the radio of the Monte Carlo, a white cloud was billowing from under the hood and the sweet smell of hot anti-freeze lingered on the breeze. Gary could see the red smear of blood across the white vinyl top, and in the flattened grass up closer to the road Paula lay splayed on her back.

  The long shadow cast by a shallow Sun moved across her body as Gary walked up to her. Her right leg was folded up under her body so neatly tucked almost as if it had never been there, her left shoe was gone and there was a tear where her big toe was poking through her stockings.

  Gary fixated on the toe for just a second and realized it was not the big toe that captured his attention but the missing two that should have been next to it. But they were not gone because of the accident, the scar tissue was old and wrinkled, he blinked and snapped his head, not allowing himself to get captured trying to imagine how the toes had been lost.

  Buttons were missing from Paula’s blouse and the white skin of her left shoulder was exposed as the shirts collar was now just above her left triceps on that side. Her eyes were open, shiny and looking off to the distance away from Gary, and then he saw them move and they moved to him.

  She hitched for breath, blood rolling from her nose. There was blood coming from her mouth and her right ear also. As Gary looked at her, kneeling down to get close he could see the faint bouncing of her carotid artery pushing what was surely to be the last bits of blood to her brain. Paula’s head did not move but her eyes looked at him still, there was a panic to the look, Gary had seen it before. The light in those eyes was just about gone and he watched the pupils widen and her eyes went skyward, her jaw was quivering as if she was cold, and then she was gone.

  Gary stood and fired up a Lucky it was time for him to get back to town. He walked away from Paula’s body and into the rising Sun, thinking of how he might like some bacon.

  ***

  July 2, 1976 09:15

  Gary lit a cigarette smoked it, and lit another, trying to picture every detail of the Pringle house see something in his memory that he had missed on the night he killed Ed.

  He should be feeling more at ease, Paula had been taken care of and he was half way done with his work. Something lingering in the back of his mind about Ed, clues that were just out of his reach. Paula had not left him feeling any better. He was pacing the inside of the small apartment, and finally he decided he needed to go for a walk, so he holstered his Colt and went out into the early heat of the day.

  He walked three blocks south, and two east to a pay phone. Gary picked up the receiver and dialed a number. The other end picked up on the second ring, “Yes.”

  Gary replied, “Could you recommend a movie?”

  There was a pause and then, “Yes. I can recommend a movie, do you have a favorite actor?”

  “I like Brando.”

  “I will call you back in two minutes.”

  Gary hung up the phone, and started the chronograph on the Omega, at one minute fifty five seconds he placed his hand back on the receiver, and he picked it up on half a ring, “Clear?”

  “Yes, what can I do for you?”

  “Edward Roger Pringle, DOB. 5-26-49. I need a military service check.”

  “Is this on our book?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call me back in twenty minutes, on 924.”

  Gary hung up and walked away from the phone, again starting the chronograph on the Speedmaster. He was breaking protocol. Once the advance team had turned a package over any contact checking on a target was only to be done in an emergency. The fact that the target he was calling about had already been taken care of made this an even more risky move. To Gary this was a risk he felt good about taking. Something was missing from the report, either it had been missed, or it had been left out for some reason.

  Gary’s deliberate walk brought him back to the booth just before the nineteen minute mark. When the time was up he called back on the second number, “Do you have it?”

  “There is no military record for an Edward Roger Pringle.”

  “None? Did you run law enforcement?”

  “There’s nothing.”

  Gary paused, thinking about his next question, “What do you have for his background? Prior to 1969.”

  “Nothing. We don't have a file on Pringle. He’s not on our books. Why are you in Omaha?”

  “I am working. I had four jackets delivered to me before I jumped the pond.”

  “Four? Do any of the jackets fit?”

  “I two of them fit so far.”

  “You better sit tight. I’ll be on a plane in the morning. Don't do anything more until I get there.”

  “I’m fine, in a couple of days this is going to be over, I am going to finish this, and I think these are company jackets. You should have seen the pre-work.”

  “I haven’t seen any pre-work at all in the states this quarter, and if these were jackets from the Washington club I would have seen advance work orders, on soil or off.”

  “There is too much detail for this not to be from that club, and four at a time. Who else does four?”

  “I’ll be there tomorrow. I’ll meet you at the Woodman Building.”

  “Dammit Neil, I said I’ve got this.”

  He hung up the phone. Now it was time for bacon.

  ***

  July 2, 1976 09:36

  As he walked in to Hal’s place he found an unfamiliar comfort seeing Julia there and he knew at that moment he was going to save her. He was going to save her for the last, there was a goodness that he enjoyed just talking to her. Gary had not gotten much goodness in his life and it was something that he was going to preserve as long as he could, until his loyalties said he was out of time.

  She smiled when she saw him, not the normal smile that all the customers got but one he had seen from here when we was there the day before. He took his normal booth and she brought coffee. Even though Gary drank it black he stirred the cup slowly to cool it more quickly. Julia checked on her customers and then came to sit opposite Gary as she had done before.

  “How are you today Milo?”

  “I’ll be better when I get a few cups of coffee in me.”

  “Not much of a morning person?”

  “Late night last night.”

  “Oh? Have a night on the town?”

  He shook his head, “No, just trouble sleeping, I think it’s the heat.” Gary knew it was not the heat it was whatever had unnerved his subconscious, there was something not adding up.

  “This heat has been terrible this summer, it hasn't even let up at night, so difficult to get a night’s sleep when it doesn't cool off. If you need more coffee to stay warm today you say the word and I’ll get you a fresh cup.”

  Gary smiled and nodded. They both paused, not making eye contact. Julia fidgeted with the fingernail of her right index finger.

  “Do you have plans for the fourth?” she asked.

  “Actually I do have plans.” he said as he thought about how he planned to walk up behind Raul Garcia and put a bullet in his brain, maybe as he ate his eggs that morning. Then depending on whether or not Julia was still breathing he would be heading south by the time fireworks were wafting overhead.

  She looked back down at her hands, “Oh, I thought if you weren’t busy you would like to watch the fireworks.”

  “I’m sorry, I have some plans that I can’t break. But what about tomorrow? Would you like to have a late lunch with me tomorrow, after your shift is over?”

  She smiled, “I would like that.”

  “I can meet you here after your shift?”

  Julia thought for a second, “How about I meet you at the park four blocks over, say two o'clock?”

  “Two o’clock it is.” Gary smiled.

  ***

  July 3, 1976 05:55

&nb
sp; Gary watched the sun come up, the morning of July 3rd was starting like so many had since he had arrived in Omaha. The high thin clouds burning off as the sun cooked the night’s moisture from the atmosphere. The red hue faded as day began and the heat rose across the sun baked plains. This morning was different for Gary, it was different from all mornings in Omaha and it was different from all mornings he had had in his life. Gary was meeting a woman for lunch today. It was not the first time he had lunch with a woman, but it felt like it. What was different and what had kept Gary up last night was that the woman he was meeting was someone he was supposed to kill.

  Gary had thought about his lunch with Julia all night. Not the way a man might think about lunch with a beautiful woman, he was not thinking about her at all. It was the entire act he was thinking about, so many possibilities in his mind made this meeting so wrong.

  He thought about the odds, he had flown eight thousand miles and ridden a bus half way across the country to kill this woman. Was she aware of him, was she getting close to him to have the opportunity to kill him before he made his move on her? On the other hand was she truly interested in him where her advances genuine? Those questions had rattled though Gary’s mind all night.

  He was going to have to be on his guard, he would need to be as aware of things going on around him as he ever had been. The simple act of going to lunch with her was opening his mission to a set of possibilities that he had never dealt with on any level. More than risks to his life, more than risks to his mission he was worried that she was genuine.

  He worried that she did like him. If she did Julia certainly seemed like someone he could care for. Gary knew that he would be dealing with new feelings, dealing with the possibility that if he could make a life from this seemingly random meeting he would have to jeopardize everything not to kill her. Not killing Julia opened up the floodgates, and being with her made her a more valuable target to the assets of Sanford. It made him a target.