Power and Empire

Clark was not one to keep count of the people he killed — the dead took care of that for him. He’d told himself early on when coming to grips with his chosen path in life that if killing ever became commonplace, it would be time to step away. That never happened — though he had to admit that, emotionally, some people were easier to kill than others.

Satisfied that it was safe to climb out of the grave, Clark left the Gemtech attached to the Glock and stowed it on his belt in a small leather scabbard called a Yaqui slide. It was open at the bottom to accommodate the suppressor. It seemed cruel to leave the girls exposed to the heat of the coming day, but he didn’t have time to do anything about it. Instead, he scooped up the two spent casings he’d fired and dropped them into his pocket before climbing out of the hole.

Matarife was smart enough to keep the brush and weeds mowed short in a full fifty-meter swath around his house, but there were a few old pickup trucks that provided just enough cover and concealment that, if Clark moved quickly, he could cross from the edge of the field to a brick pool house without being spotted.

He smiled despite the situation, and kept to the tall Johnson grass while he skirted the property. Long years of just this sort of action had taught him to keep a wary eye for signs of dogs — old chew toys, piles of crap, bones. Fortunately, Matarife didn’t have this added layer of security.

The home itself bordered on palatial, belying the junked vehicles beside it. Heavy draperies covered four gabled windows on the upper floor. A three-car garage stuck off toward the old trucks, forming a natural barrier between the pool house of matching red brick and the road. Groomed redbud trees alternated with black lampposts on a huge circular drive out front. Clark knew from an earlier drive-by that the iron gate over the cattle guard out front was secured with a chain and padlock. That was good. People put too much faith in locks, and too much faith made them lax.

Leapfrogging from vehicle to vehicle, Clark took less than two minutes to make it to a four-foot chain-link fence surrounding the backyard and pool. The sun was high now, adding dazzle to the surface of the blue water, and, to Clark’s way of thinking, illuminating far too much of the nude woman who sipped a drink on a floating chair while reading a magazine. Dark hair was piled high on her head. A pair of oversized sunglasses hid her eyes. Clark guessed her to be in her mid-thirties, but the bruises and scars on her fleshy body said those years had been hard ones. It was impossible to feel sorry for her, though. She was sipping fruity drinks in a pool while at least two girls lay dead in the dirt less than a hundred meters away. A black SMG lay poolside, just outside her reach, on a folded pink towel. Clark couldn’t be sure from this distance and angle, but the gun looked like a CZ Scorpion machine pistol. The woman was serious about her protection. Beside the pistol was an empty glass that resembled the full one in the woman’s hand and what looked to be a brown walking cane or a riding quirt. That would explain the whip marks on the dead girls.

Clark stayed in the shadows, watching the larger house for another five minutes. There was no good way to approach the house alone. He knew he should wait for Caruso, but there were kids’ lives at stake, and he didn’t have the patience or the time to wait.

Removing the suppressed Glock, he laid it in the grass at his feet and drew the .45. A single shot would wake anyone who happened to be in the house — and, he hoped, bring them outside — but was not likely to cause much concern to the neighbors. It was difficult to pinpoint the location of a lone report.

The unsuppressed round slammed into the CZ Scorpion, spinning it sideways and puffing the towel beneath it. The woman dropped the magazine on her lap and looked back and forth, unable to make sense of what had happened. Predictably, her first glance was toward the gravesite in the sorghum field.

Clark had already picked up the Glock. He set a suppressed round between her feet, causing the inflatable chair to burst beneath the weight of her fleshy body. Floundering, the naked woman untangled herself from the deflated plastic and attempted to swim toward her Scorpion SMG. Clark sent a second suppressed round zinging off the concrete lip of the pool, stopping her momentum. She spun in the water, looking for the shooter.

Clark’s eyes flicked toward the house. Still nothing. But it was early, and digging graves was hard work. And Matarife might be sleeping in. Clark decided to wait a little longer.

The woman treaded water now, looking toward the back field again. She obviously had some demons.

“Who is there?” she asked, a little on the gruff side for a nude person being shot at. She followed up with the same demand in Spanish, more tentative this time. “¿Quién es?”