Killing Sanford (Gary Cannon Book 1)

by Mike Kershner

  Gary looked on with eyes wide and eyebrows raised, Neil raised the cover out of the way and sat the ledge, his legs hanging in from the knees down, he looked up at Gary, “You’re not the only one who can hide shit, boy.”

  “Who else knows about this?”

  “Counting you? Everyone who was at Sanford and had the need to know when this place was built is dead. So I guess that means you and me.”

  Neil slipped down into the manhole and climbed down a three rung ladder. Gary dropped his pack down to Neil, and then followed down to the landing, “Pull that thing down and dog it again.”

  Gary locked the door back down, and turned to see Neil heading down another ladder headed down to the depths of the compound. They crawled down the ladder for some time, the tube it was housed in was not lit and though Gary had a flashlight he did not want to risk the loss of his night vision so he continued the descent in the dark.

  He could feel the temperature change and hear Neil’s heavy breathing along with the ringing of the metal rungs as their feet hit each one.

  The burn in Gary’s forearms was becoming very uncomfortable when he heard Neil’s footfalls on flat ground. A few more rungs and Gary was at the bottom also, Neil was leaning against the concrete wall his chest was heaving.

  “You going to live?” Gary asked him.

  “I’ll be fine dammit, just give me a second.”

  “What level are we on Neil?”

  “Two.” Neil said standing up straight.

  “Where is this corridor going to come out?”

  “We’ll go down here about eight hundred meters, the door will open up into the wall on the inside of one of the air moving units. The room will be not far from where Abby’s office was when you were here.”

  “I’ll take the lead from here on.”

  Neil nodded and Gary took off down the dark corridor. At the end of the half mile tunnel Gary felt around the wall and found the hand wheel to unlatch the door, he spun it and the door moved inward. There was a rush of air and he pushed the door in, he was on the pressure side of the air mover. The floor was at armpit level for him. He pushed his backpack and rifle up into the space.

  Gary helped Neil crawl up into the bottom of the air handler, they pulled the door back to them, and Neil worked a mechanism similar to the one he had used to get them into the manhole in the desert.

  They crawled about ten feet and Neil felt for a handle to get them out of the concrete duct, slowly he opened the door and some light filled the space. Only lights from the air handling control panel were illuminated in the room’s interior. Gary poked the barrel of the 609 and swept the room as completely as he could from the cramped access.

  Satisfied Gary hopped out into the room, Neil started to push Gary’s back pack out, “Just give me that canvas satchel in the pack.”

  He opened the pack and handed the satchel out to Gary, then pushed the backpack out of the way and Neil slid out, and they resealed the door.

  “I’ll head to four and kill surveillance power, Flockstein will likely be on seven and locked down. You know we’ll surely get spotted when we hit the elevator, but the ladder access is on the north side, and we’ll get popped by cameras before we get there.” Neil said.

  “You hit the elevator, and get to the cameras as quickly as you can, I will go to the ladder access. There’s no way I can make it all the way to seven in the elevator before they kill the power.”

  “Works for me.”

  Gary pulled the door open, and the small room was slowly engulfed with an ever widening beam of light, weapon up Gary stepped into the hallway. Neil followed him out and where Gary had made a right turn, Neil headed left.

  Gary headed down the corridor as quickly as he could, passed the entrance to the gymnasium, and at the end of the passage he stepped into the access to the ladder chase.

  The ladder chase was dimly lit and also served as one of the pathways that was occupied with power conduits, water pipe, and HVAC duct.

  He slung the 609, stretched his arms a bit and started down the ladder. A count in his mind gave him an estimation of where Neil might be with the cameras, much of their ability to keep the element of surprise would rely on Neil’s ability to shut down the eyes of the security force. As Gary passed each level there were numbers and landings, at the level with the number “5” stenciled in yellow paint there two power distribution panels. As quickly as Gary was descending the ladder he almost missed the panels, and came back up two rungs and stepped off onto the landing.

  Gary racked the first switch open, and there was a noticeable change in the ambient noise in the area, he realized he had killed ventilation. When he threw the other switch open the entire access way went black.

  ***

  Ray noticed the change in air pressure almost immediately. He set up from his couch, he looked up at the vent in the ceiling, the sound coming from it was the only sound in the room and he had become accustomed to it. A second later the vent was gone, along with everything else in the room, replaced with only blackness.

  He spun feet on the ground now, and he stood. Closing his eyes and noticing no difference, he tried to make his way across the room, hand out in front of him. Ray made it to the desk and groped around for the phone, picked it up and felt on the keypad, dialed a number and waited, “What happened?”

  He interrupted the voice responding, “No shit you idiot. How much of it?”

  He waited, “Five and down? Anything on the cameras?”

  There was a response, then, “How long?”

  Then a response that made Ray’s stomach knot up, “Goddammit, he’s here get Gordon down here ASAP, and call the guys in from the surface.”

  Ray felt his way around to the back of the desk, and felt in the drawer, found the Walther and a flashlight. Pushing the switch on the light gave him a light that only lit up the inside of the reflector. He threw it to the floor where it went out completely. He felt his way to the door and switched the switch that locked the door, then stepped back positioned a chair in the direction he roughly calculated where the door was.

  ***

  Neil had ridden the elevator safely to the fourth lower level and stepped off, weapon up a young man in a blue button up shirt and blue jeans carrying a wooden stocked Uzi sub-machinegun had met him face to face at Neil’s first left turn. Neil’s 629 spat two rounds they both landed just above the man’s right eye and he fell to the ground. The walls of the hallway were painted with grotesque spatter, he stepped over the body and entered the camera feed room.

  Inside the room there were cables looping in and out of terminal strips, Neil looked over the set-up. Electronics were not his strong suit. He was sure if he knew what he was looking for he could pull one or maybe two cables and shut the whole thing down, but he had no idea what he would be looking for to do that. A flick of his thumb and the selector on the 629 was pointed at “AUTO”, he spray the remaining contents of his magazine into the electronics, which was met with sparking and pieces falling to the floor in front of him.

  Neil dropped the spent magazine out and refreshed it with one from the mag pouch, his hand was one the doorknob when the lights went out. He smiled and pulled the door open.

  ***

  Gary reached the bottom of the ladder he opened the access way door and was met with a small room, the vault door was closed sealing off the seventh level. He pulled the satchel around to the front of his body and unpacked one of the demolition envelopes. He worked the four charges around the frame and hinges of the door, attached the detonators, removed the safety pins and untied the strings attached to the release pin.

  He unfurled the strings as he worked backwards out the door and back into the access way, he tore off a piece of his sleeve and wedged it into the door to keep it open and not pinching the strings.

  He knew he was going to have to make some distance get up to the sixth level if he could, he climbed the ladder, glad to have some light spilling into the opening from the dim emergency
lighting that was on in the entryway he would soon be making a very bad place to be. He was four rungs from the landing when he ran out of string. Gary looked at the door and back below, he tied the strings to the ladder and hopped up to the landing, tried the door to make sure he could get inside it, it opened freely.

  Gary climbed back down the ladder, got a good grip on the strings, he pulled them. The firing pins struck the primers, and there were pops. He began to climb again, counting thinking of the pyrotechnic train burning away below him. He reached the landing, and into the door he dove.

  Below him, blasting caps initiated an explosion that ripped and cut through the steel and concrete at five miles a second. The heavy door that was preventing Gary’s access to the seventh lower level was propelled inward and would no longer be a concern to him.

  ***

  Ray felt the tremor of an explosion shudder through the structure all around him and felt some concrete dust land throughout his hair and on his arms. He gripped the pistol tighter waiting for the door to move, only hoping that if that happened he could kill Cannon when he entered the door. “Goddammit Gordon where are you?”

  ***

  Concrete dust was thick in the air as Gary stepped through the jagged doorway. His weapon was up and he was sweeping it from side to side, covering the areas he could see through the dust. As he stepped past the mangled door he noted the arm extending from underneath. He chalked that up as luck and continued down the hallway moving forward slowly.

  He was low, and two men in drab uniforms, one with an Uzi, one with an MP5 rounded the corner in front of him. Gary shot the Uzi carrying man in the chest twice, his weapon discharged into the wall as he fell, dead before he hit the ground.

  Mr. MP5 had already been sighting down his weapon when Gary dropped the first man. Gary had started moving forward even as he was shooting the man with the Uzi, and before the first round left the barrel of the MP5 Gary had deflected it upward with his own rifle. The weapon fired, concrete particles rained down on the pair as Gary brought his right knee to the man’s midsection. He doubled over, but worked an elbow into Gary’s ribcage. Slightly stunned Gary took a half step back and with his right foot folded the man’s knee inward sending him fully to the ground now. Gary gave him a round to the torso and one to the head. He took a breath and moved on.

  Gary made a right turn and kneeling in the center of the hallway, almost invisible in the faint emergency lighting that was left, rifle raised Gary saw Gordon in his sights. He fired milliseconds before Gordon. Gary’s round struck the upper receiver of Gordon’s M-16 causing his round to fly wild.

  Gordon dropped the weapon to his side, Gary leveled down on him, moving forward. “What did he promise you Gordon?”

  Gordon’s hands were up, “It doesn't matter much now does it.”

  “Have you been in this from the beginning?”

  Gary noted a slight confusion cross Gordon’s normally expressionless face, “I believe you are the only one who knows when this began.” Replied Gordon.

  Gordon put his hands down, “Care to take a run at me? As you can see I have no weapon and you, well you are quite renowned for your hand to hand.”

  Gary lowered his rifle slightly, “Where is he?”

  “He’s just behind me on the left, you can put that rifle down, come over here beat me to death and walk down and have him.”

  Gary fired, this time the surprise on Gordon's face was more than apparent. The bullet entered in the nape of Gordon’s neck and he fell backward, when Gary stood over him dark blood was steadily flowing from the small hole, and he was coughing blood from his mouth. He pressed the end of the suppressor against the dying man’s cheek, “This was my other option, maybe you could have beaten me, maybe not, but what’s important to note is that you sided with the wrong man, and now you can die wondering if you were really as good as you have always thought.”

  Gary smiled at him, and pulled the muzzle away, leaving Gordon to bleed to death, he walked on to the only door on left in the corridor. Gary approached the door cautiously, in a normal structure he would have kicked the door, but El Comizio was no normal structure all the door frames were reinforced steel and each room locked with electronic pins embedded and actuated by a switch next to each door and powered by the emergency power supply.

  Again he slid the satchel around, and pulled an envelope of demolition charges from it. He stuck one of the full sheets to the door’s center.

  ***

  Ray was sweating, the loss of ventilation was contributing to his perspiration, but the main cause was his anxiety of not knowing what was happening outside the door in the hallway. He had heard a single shot a few moments ago, followed by two voices, he was sure one had been Gordon’s, that gave him hope. Not hearing from Gordon after this long did not give him hope.

  He could hear movement now outside the door, and his grip on the pistol tightened. He squinted turning his head slightly to the right, trying to get some indication of what might be going on. He did not dare call out, then there was a pop. Ray jumped slightly, he almost fired the Walther, but he stood and listened again, and then all he saw was white light.

  ***

  After Gary pulled the releases on the detonators he had ducked back behind the corner. Following the blast he quickly moved back into the main hallway, and in through yet another jagged doorway. He found Ray bowled over backwards against the opposite wall. He was bleeding from his ears and nose, and Gary could see the subtle rise and fall of his chest. The suit he had on was tattered and in places Gary could see shrapnel protruding through the fabric, obviously embedded in flesh or bone beneath.

  Gary turned one of the chairs right side up again and sat in it. He watched Ray breathing, lying motionless. Gary sat and tried to think about how he wanted to progress, what his next step would be.

  Neil stepped through the doorway, his weapon at his shoulder, he lowered it slowly upon seeing the situation in the room. “What’s your next move here?”

  “Not sure how I want to go. Ray is being kind enough to give me some time to think.”

  “Yes. I see that.”

  “How many others are left, do you have any count?”

  “I don't have a solid number. We know there were the five up top, I got three on the way down here to you. I see you got lucky on one at the door, two after that, and Gordo out there in the hallway. So seven down.”

  “No way Ray was able to pull any more than ten to fifteen down here in the time he’s been here, so we could still be up against another five to eight, give or take. Have you seen any familiar faces?”

  “None. These all have looked like local guys.”

  “My guess once the lights went out and the ground shook a few times we can count two maybe three of them off the reservation.”

  “I’ll buy that, what are you thinking?”

  “To be honest with you, I was thinking I would wait for the sicko to wake up over here, but I think its best just to put him down, and clear the rest of this place.”

  “If we clear this place up to the control center I can make some calls, start getting some of this cleared up, get us some assistance.”

  “Let’s work that direction.”

  Gary stood up, he walked over to Ray, and as he pushed the end of the suppressor against the bridge of Ray’s nose, there was a cough, and his eyes opened. Gary pulled the rifle back, and watched the man come around.

  Ray’s eyes fluttered open, he saw Gary standing over him, the recognition was obvious, and Gary could tell he was trying to move, but somewhere in his body his brain had disconnected from the extremities.

  Gary looked down over this helpless man, he had looked down at so many dead or about to be dead by his hand. Never had one person, or even a group of people tried with such dedication to destroy him. As Gary looked into Ray’s eyes, the sclera of the right one was fully red with blood, he could appreciate the commitment, the way Ray had immersed himself into his cause. Then Ray spoke hoarsely, “That w
hore is dead.”

  “What was that?” Gary asked, his eyebrows crumpling.

  “Co...” he coughed, “Cobb and Jacobs they killed your whore just after they picked her up, they left her in the stre...” Ray went into a coughing fit.

  “They killed Julia? Did you tell me they killed her and dumped her body in the street, is that what you just told me?” As Gary completed his question his voice had raised in its volume and intensity.

  Ray smiled. Gary’s face became emotionless, “You’ve failed Ray, failed to kill me, failed to topple my father’s company. Your life’s work is over, because your life is over.”

  The Ka-Bar came out with lightning speed and drew across Ray’s throat, the razor sharp blade cut with such speed and force that the red line seemed to appear if my magic. Ray’s mouth came open, but no sound came out, blood poured from the wound. Gary stood up and walked to the door.

  “Let’s go Neil.”

  “Fair enough kid, fair enough.”

  ***

  July 1, 1977

  It was a cool rainy day in Toronto, Kyle Cobb balanced the paper bag of groceries in his left hand as he pulled his door keys from his right front pocket. He unlocked the bolt, stepped into his modest apartment, and closed the door behind him. The groceries he sat on the counter, he opened the refrigerator and drank from an orange juice container, when he closed the door he was struck with a gloved hand, and he fell. On the ground now, there was a man was on him, another strike to his ribs, and then another the face.

  Gary Cannon pulled the man to his feet, he was breathing heavily and was groggily struggling against him as Gary turned him around. Cradling his head, one arm around the chin, one across the back of his head, holding tightly Gary swiftly moved his arms in opposite directions. There was a muffled pop and he let Cobb’s body fall at his feet, he piled straight down and then over forward, his head and neck landing off at a nearly impossible angle.