Power and Empire

50

The man who arrived at the Airstream that was tucked back among the oak trees was at least sixty, and probably a little older. Clark was less than fifty feet away, watching from behind the doghouse, lying on his belly yet again. He looked at the photo of Ernie Pacheco that Caruso had sent him, and guessed this guy to be his father. Pacheco senior didn’t even go inside the trailer. Instead, he grabbed a shovel that was leaning against the makeshift wooden porch and headed for the chicken coop. Ducking down through a small doorway, he disappeared inside with the shovel, then came out a short time later carrying not only the shovel but also a large black duffel — and got back in his truck and drove away.

Travel cash, Clark thought. All his compatriots dropping dead around him had rattled his cage. He needed money to run, and he’d sent his daddy to get it for him.

Clark jogged around the base of the hill to his rental car, reaching it about the same time he saw the lights of Pacheco Senior’s pickup turn back onto the farm-to-market road. Clark stayed well back, following with his lights off and keeping his foot off the brakes until the pickup got on the highway. Traffic was light, but at least there were other cars on the road, making it far easier to tail.

He didn’t have to go far. Twenty minutes after he’d left the chicken coop, the pickup pulled up in front of a white stone house in a rural neighborhood of five- and ten-acre ranchettes on the outskirts of the small community of Glen Rose, about fifty miles southwest of Fort Worth. Clark killed his lights and watched from two lots up. He wished he’d brought some NVGs, but a nearby streetlight, out front of Pacheco’s place, gave him just enough light to make out what was happening.

Pacheco Senior didn’t seem all that thrilled about being a bagman. He cast worried glances over his shoulder when he got out of the truck, the kind of looks people used to bleed off nervous energy, but didn’t really see anything. A shadowed figure opened the door and then stepped out on the porch.

“Hello, Ernie,” Clark whispered. He’d stopped thinking of this idiot as Matarife. It imbued him with too much worth if he had a spooky nickname.

The old man all but threw the duffel bag at him and turned to go. Ernie looked like he might follow him back to the pickup, but he raised his hands in surrender and took the bag back inside.

“Not the reunion you were hoping for,” Clark said, an idea forming in his mind.

The pickup turned back onto the main road at the same time Clark pulled down the short drive to the white stone house. He parked his rental on the far left of the driveway, making it more difficult for Ernie to see it unless he came outside. He moved quickly, hoping to take advantage of the old man’s recent departure, banking on Ernie thinking his dad had forgotten something and returned — maybe even to say good-bye.

There was no peephole, just a floor-to-ceiling window to the right of the door. Clark stayed to the left, out of the line of sight. He beat on the door with the flat of his hand, not too hard, but like someone who knew the occupant had just walked inside. Pacheco opened the door a half-second later.

Police Tasers deliver a fifty-thousand-volt shock for a five-second duration. Clark shot Pacheco with a civilian model called a Bolt that gave him a thirty-second ride. The instant he pulled the trigger, a compressed nitrogen canister propelled two barbed steel darts from the nose of the device on coils of whisker-thin wire. Deploying at an angle, one dart struck Pacheco just over his left nipple, and the other in the center of his right thigh. The device chattered as it discharged electricity. Pacheco came up on his toes, arms rigid, teeth clenched, and toppled backward on the tile entry like a felled tree, body arched on his heels and the back of his head.

Thirty seconds gave Clark plenty of time to duct-tape Pacheco’s wrists behind his back, using several turns of tape to connect his hands and feet, bending his knees almost up to his buttocks and effectively hog-tying him. Next Clark stuffed a wadded paper towel into the man’s mouth and then covered that with a strip of tape before dumping him into the trunk of the rental car. Two minutes later, Clark was driving north on Highway 144.

Traffic was almost nonexistent, and he reached his destination on the outskirts of Fort Worth in just under an hour. The rental car bounced as he turned off the main street into a deserted industrial park. Clark did his best to hit every pothole and bump, bringing a chorus of muffled cries from behind the backseat.

He used a pair of bolt cutters to defeat the cheap padlock and pushed open the gate, closing it behind him after he’d driven through so as not to rouse the suspicions of any roving police or security patrols — though he doubted there would be any. This area didn’t have anything worth stealing.

Clark parked the rental beside a nondescript metal building, tucking it in behind row after row of bright red fifty-five-gallon rubber bins full of old oil filters and other industrial waste. Whistling to himself, he got out and slammed the door, pausing a few seconds so his passenger could anticipate — and worry about — what was going to happen next.

Clark stood off to the side as he opened the trunk. There was always a chance that Pacheco had wriggled free of his bonds. Still tied, he gazed up at Clark in the red glow of the taillights. His eyes sparkled with abject horror.

“You scared?” Clark asked.

Pacheco nodded emphatically.

Clark gave him a wink. “Kiddo,” he said, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

He hauled the terrified man out of the trunk and dragged him by his feet along the gravel. It would do him good to watch the process as it progressed.

Clark had never been here before. That would have left him at too great a risk of being recognized. He had, however, studied the place at length through the satellite images from Google Earth. He knew that the iron contraption the size of a train engine beside the tin building was an industrial incinerator. He also knew that the controls were located in a square blue box on the side of a steel chute where employees of the plant loaded refuse to be destroyed. What the Google images did not show was that a fire from the day before still glowed inside the belly of the incinerator, the thermometer on the box still reading 600 degrees.

A placard above warned that temperatures should not drop below 1,600 degrees when refuse was being burned. The company’s website advertised its ability to destroy industrial and hospital waste at temperatures exceeding 1,900 degrees.

Clark studied the directions for a moment, surprised to see there was no lock or computer key code, just a simple on/off switch to start the flow of gas to the primary burners and two buttons on either side of the box that needed to be depressed simultaneously.

He turned the switch, then counted to three before pressing both buttons. On the ground at his feet, Pacheco gave a muffled cry behind the duct tape as the gas inside the chamber ignited with a hollow whoompf!

“Hmmm,” Clark mused, loud enough for Pacheco to hear. “Works just like my grill at home.”

The chamber of the incinerator itself was a somewhat stubby cylindrical tank, approximately ten feet long by seven feet high. A large walk-in door was cut into the front, used for raking ash, replacing any of the foot-thick insulation, or loading refuse that was too large to fit into the rear chute. Secondary burners at the top of the chamber reached 1,200 degrees, igniting unburned gases before they could escape through a fifteen-foot chimney.

Clark waited for the reading on the control panel to reach 1,880 degrees and then lifted the heavy metal lid on the three-by-six-foot chute attached to the rear of the chamber. The rusty, coffinlike box was smeared with black oil and flecked with bits of fiberglass insulation and other trash. A trapdoor hung down in front of the firebox, telltale orange flames just visible around the edges of blackened metal. The face of a heavy steel ram was flush with the back end of the chute. A red plastic sign affixed to the box above the controls warned: Use by unauthorized persons is prohibited.

Clark looked down at his prisoner and smiled. “Don’t pay any attention to that. I’m authorized.”

Pacheco was no lightweight, and it took some maneuvering for Clark to get the thrashing man up over the edge. Both men were sweating, albeit for different reasons, by the time Pacheco landed inside the chute with his feet toward the fire chamber and his head against the ram. He rolled and thrashed, trying in vain to gain some kind of footing that would allow him to escape from the narrow prison. As he was wearing only gym shorts and a T-shirt, his hairy legs and arms were covered in black oil and grime in a matter of moments.

Clark leaned over the side, peering down into the greasy darkness. He caught the sudden odor of urine. That made sense. For an instant, he felt a pang of guilt, and then remembered the dead girls in the sorghum field, the snuff videos, and a child named Magdalena who was still somewhere out there, perhaps even dead already.

He clapped his hands together. “They say this can melt bone,” he said. “But I’d imagine they’ll find a knuckle or two.”

Pacheco began to sob.

Clark pushed the red button.

Nothing happened, except for the muffled screams, thrashing — and more urine.

“Ah,” Clark said. “The lid needs to be closed.” He reached toward the hinge and flipped a manual override that allowed the mechanism to operate with the lid open, before hitting the red button again.

This time, the heavy door at Pacheco’s feet began to slide upward, metal squealing against metal. At the same time, the ram at his head pushed him toward the waiting flames. Pacheco tried to brace himself, but even if he hadn’t been tied, the slippery steel box would have made that all but impossible.

Clark pushed the button again, relieved that the hydraulic ram actually stopped. It occurred to him that he should have tested it beforehand.

“Okay, Ernie,” he said. “Here we go. I need information. You have information. It’s a simple process.”

Pacheco nodded, seeing a possibility of survival for the first time.

Clark continued. “I should tell you, I’m not a patient man. I’m looking for Magdalena Rojas. You’re going to tell me where she is.”

More nodding and some muffled grunts.

Clark shrugged. “Not good enough. I told you I wasn’t patient, Ernie.” He pushed the red button again, waiting for the door to get halfway up and the ram to begin its movement before pushing it again.

“Sorry about that,” Clark said, ripping away the tape. “Guess I do need to take this off so you can talk.”

Pacheco spat out the paper towel and let fly a string of Spanish curses, hyperventilating to the point that Clark thought he might vomit. Clark reached as if to push the button again.

“Okay! Okay!” Pacheco said. “I dropped her at Emilio’s. She was good when I saw her last. I swear on my mother’s grave.”

“I’ve probably seen your mother’s grave,” Clark mused. “Zambrano. Where do I find him?”

Pacheco gave him directions to the ranch Caruso and Callahan had already visited.

Clark shook his head. He left his hand over the red button. “Already tried there.”

“Hang on!” Pacheco cried. “He’s got another place out in Palo Pinto County.” He rattled off the directions.

“And if he’s not there?”

“If he’s not at his other place, that’s where he’ll be,” Pacheco said. “Good luck getting to him, though. He’s got a shitload of guards. Lily’s guys. Emilio is a badass, but his woman, I ain’t shittin’ you, man, she’s the devil. And her guys ain’t much better.”

“Triad?” Clark asked. He’d been wondering where all the Sun Yee On goons were hiding.

Pacheco nodded. “She keeps a dozen or more around all the time. Look, amigo, I told you what you wanted to know. Can you please untie me now? You’re scaring the shit outta me. Know what I’m sayin’?”

“I’m not your amigo,” Clark said, his voice hoarse and pointed. “Let’s say Magdalena’s not with Zambrano. Where else would I look for her?”

Pacheco snorted. “What is it with bitchy little Magdalena? Did you bid on her? And if you did, how did you find me?” He studied Clark for a moment and then threw him a conspiratorial smile. “You wily bastard! I knew Lupe didn’t know how to make that computer anonymous. You found me with the IP address, didn’t you?”

Clark nodded. “How much did Zambrano bid?”

“Twelve grand,” Pacheco scoffed. “Can you believe that shit? Hey, come on, let me out and I’ll get you set up with somebody even better. If Magdalena’s your type, I got a line on a couple young ones down in Reynosa—”

Clark slammed his fist into the red button. The trapdoor rattled upward. The fire greeted them with a terrifying roar. A cyclone of orange and yellow whorled and danced inside the glowing chamber. At the other end of the chute, the ram slid into the battery with a resounding clunk. Pacheco drew himself into a ball, flipped sideways, bent his neck, doing everything he could to brace himself. Nothing he did would stop the unrelenting steel ram from pushing him toward the flames. Now free of the gag, he loosed a shattered scream — surely the same kind of cry the countless young women he’d murdered had screamed before him.

Clark lowered the heavy door to the sound of metallic thuds and hysterical, shrieking pleas. The frenzied howls grew more intense, drowning out the hydraulic hum of the ram — and then fell silent, leaving only the roar and pop of the flames.

The Slaughterer,” Clark said, sliding in behind the wheel of his rental car. “What a dumbass name.”