Power and Empire

Wood creaked and swayed as Muffin Top walked to the east end of the dock. Waiting at the far end, just outside the edge, Clark brought the Glock up a fraction of a second after his face broke the surface, tipping the barrel slightly to let the water drain. The shot struck Muffin Top as he threw his first stone, straight through the bottom of his chin. The triad man teetered there for a moment, the rest of his rocks slipping from his hand, and then fell face-first toward the water. Clark rounded his shoulders, collapsing under the weight of Muffin Top’s body, mitigating the splash. Ready to duck and swim, he glanced uphill and breathed a sigh of measured relief that no one came running down with guns blazing.

Clark stuffed Muffin Top’s body under the edge of the dock and then, without looking back, swam past the boat to exit the water at the other end of the cove. He moved quickly, up the long finger ridge that ran along the west side of the house, opposite his earlier vantage point. He had about ten minutes until the guards shifted posts, if he was lucky.

It took him five minutes to work around to the circular driveway behind the house. He would have put a guard up here, by the vehicles, but was glad Zambrano and Chen relied on a man in the trees a hundred meters away up by the gate. Clark hadn’t actually seen this one’s face, just enough movement when he’d driven by to know someone was there. The gate guy was too far away to be an immediate threat, but Clark would have to remember to watch his six once the rodeo began.

Clark shrugged off the CamelBak in the relative safety of the cedar trees along the driveway. Music still thumped around the corner, muted some by the house. The sun was low, and though it was still plenty light, would soon fall behind the ridge, throwing the little valley into shade. There was a strong possibility Zambrano and Chen would go back in the house when that happened, which put more pressure on Clark. He wanted them outside to make this work.

The half-cup of chlorine granules dumped in the water bottle of brake fluid gave him about a minute and a half. He didn’t bother with the lid, but left the bottle upright beneath the gas tank. The mixture did nothing at first. Clark punched a hole in the rear of the gas tank with his Benchmade, large enough that fuel began to drain into the gravel beside the water bottle. This done, he rolled out from under the truck to crawfish back into the buckbrush along the driveway, well away from what he knew was about to happen. Roughly a minute and a half in, white smoke began to pour out from the edge of the truck. An instant later, Clark heard a rush of sound like a jet engine, and then a hollow whoompf as the fuel tank caught fire. Richie Rich, who was posted near the end of the house, heard the noise and trotted out to investigate, earning him two shots to the face from Clark’s suppressed Glock.

Pigeon poked his head around next, and met the same fate.

It would have been nice if they’d just keep offering themselves as targets, but sooner or later the others would get wise to the fact that their buddies weren’t coming back. When in doubt, Clark preferred to err on the side of action. He decided to press the issue, not wanting to give the folks on the other side of the house time to figure out what was going on. He shot a quick glance toward the road. The guard out there would notice the fire soon enough, and Clark wanted to be done with the other seven by the time he got here.

He turned back around just in time to see Mini Fridge run out of the back door with a fire extinguisher. Instead of dropping the canister and going for a gun, Mini Fridge ducked his head and ran, intent on bowling Clark over. Clark brought the Glock around a fraction of a second too late, getting a shot off, but impacting the extinguisher instead of the man. Mini Fridge growled, lashing out with the aluminum cylinder, knocking the gun out of Clark’s hand and into the bushes.

The short man looked at a now empty-handed Clark and laughed, moving his thick neck back and forth like a wrestler warming up. Surely the younger man was thicker and stronger than Clark. No doubt he saw only a granddad there in the driveway, soaked to the skin, no less. And in some ways, Mini Fridge was dead right. Clark was breakable — and the vagaries of age and passing time had robbed him of his once great strength, made him slower than he’d been.

He was, however, still an incredibly accurate instinctive shooter.

The Wilson Combat all but jumped into Clark’s hand as soon as he’d swept the tail of the windbreaker aside. He thumbed down the safety and brought the gun upward, indexing the target as naturally as pointing a finger. Clark shot three times in quick succession, twice to the chest and once to the head, in the event Mini Fridge was wearing a ballistic vest and decided to stay in the fight.

Mini Fridge wasn’t — and he didn’t.