Power and Empire

John Clark was a dyed-in-the-wool .45 guy. He’d used the 1911 weapon system to great effect in Vietnam and the many — way too many — years that followed. He’d eventually transitioned to a SIG P220—still in .45—but a brutal injury to his shooting hand had caused Clark to reevaluate his choice of sidearm. Long and painful months of rehab had finally returned his ability to shoot the trusty SIG Sauer, though at first with only his middle finger. He’d finally regained dominion over the tendons in his index finger — but the shorter single-action pull of the 1911 made accurate shooting a hell of a lot easier. Plus, it was the excuse he needed to buy a new gun and revert to the firearm system that was so ingrained in his muscle memory. The Wilson Combat Professional felt like he was reuniting with an old friend.

Still, he’d regained proficiency with a variety of weapons. Necessities of the mission and common sense made him grab a Glock 19, a spare fifteen-round magazine, and a Gemtech GM-9 suppressor from the Gulfstream before the others departed for Argentina. He wanted to have a little deeper pockets when it came to ammo loadout. The argument of .45 versus nine-millimeter went out the window when you were out of bullets. Even so, he didn’t abandon the Wilson in favor of the Glock. He carried them both. He was a firm believer in “Two is one and one is none,” and the .45 remained his primary weapon in the Askins Avenger holster at three o’clock, while the Glock rested comfortably over his right kidney in a Comp-Tac holster inside the waistband of his pants.

Along with the pistols, Clark carried a Benchmade AFCK folding knife, a small roll of Gorilla tape, and a pocket Streamlight flashlight. It wasn’t much, but he’d done more with less. His rules of engagement made the job a little easier.

If anyone fought back, he intended to kill them.

From the looks of the waist-high Johnson grass and dry stalks of grain sorghum, little else but mourning doves and rattlesnakes had spent much time in the fields behind Matarife’s house in years.

Clark stayed low as he moved, crawling when the stalks were short, stooping in a fast duckwalk when the plants gave him better cover. Earth-tone 5.11 slacks and a black sweatshirt helped him blend well into the long morning shadows. The field was damp from recent rains, but the day promised to be a hot one for September and the ground was already beginning to steam. The humidity and muggy odor of wet earth, not to mention the fire ants and the high probability of coming nose-to-nose with a pit viper, brought back so many memories that Clark found it nostalgic… almost.

Ding Chavez hadn’t exactly been wrong in his earlier assessment. John knew full well he risked becoming far too focused on the human-trafficking aspects of this op. The sight of the girls at Naldo Cantu’s, covered with track marks and surrounded by used condoms, brought back memories he’d suppressed for decades, memories that made him who — and what — he’d become. Just looking at the poor drugged kids made him feel like his teeth might shatter. He was nearing seventy years old. Still a tough old bird, no doubt, but old was fast eclipsing tough as the operative word.

For as long as he could remember, something inside Clark had pushed him to check out danger, to go and see, to help. Some accused him of being addicted to violence. If he was honest with himself, there had been a time when he relished a good fight. When there was going to be violence on his watch, he certainly didn’t want to miss it. But the fight wasn’t the main thing. His wife, Sandy, had summed up his sentiment best when she caught him coming back in from his private range early one morning on their Emmetsburg, Virginia, farm.

“John,” she’d said, sipping her morning coffee and looking even more beautiful than she had the day he’d met her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ll still be relevant.”

It was at once the kindest and most pitiful thing anyone had ever said to him.

Maybe that was it. Relevance.

His workouts were less intense now, his runs slower. His hair was thinning… no, it was just plain thin. Even worse, each passing year saw him get a little more emotional. Hell, he got choked up when his grandson caught a pop fly at a baseball game. And all that blubbering just served to piss him off. He abhorred the idea of going soft.

But a guy past his use-by date wouldn’t be inching through a dry sorghum field behind a murderous bastard’s house. Pound for pound and year for year, he could still hold his own against most threats. He was the personification of the sentiment “Never underestimate an old man in a dangerous profession.” Like Jack London, he wanted to go out on his own terms, “as ashes instead of dust.”

And so Clark fought the clock by fighting bad men, whenever and wherever he found them.