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“Juan,” Ruben Mora lied.

“You really need to get that injury looked at, Juan,” Clarke said, then pointed past the concourse exit. “There’s a hospital ER just a few blocks away.”

For Clarke, it unfortunately was a regular occurrence to come across someone who had overdosed—not necessarily on the El, though that of course had happened. Just two days earlier he had had to administer a prefilled syringe of naloxone hydrochloride that he recently had begun carrying as part of his kit to a nineteen-year-old white female—the naloxone blocking and reversing the effects of opioid painkillers, such as Oxycontin, and heroin—and then had EMTs transport her the short distance down Kensington Avenue to the emergency room at Temple University Episcopal Hospital on West Lehigh Avenue.

“Yeah, it hurts bad,” Ruben Mora said.

Mora then looked from Transit Officer Clarke to his burned hand. Then all at once his eyes drooped, his shoulders slumped—and he collapsed to the ground.

“Damn!” Transit Officer Clarke blurted.

He quickly knelt and then lifted Mora off the ground. He threw him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and began trotting toward the exit, calling out, “Make way! Clear a path!” as he went.

After maneuvering down the stairs and reaching street level, Clarke carried Mora to the marked Ford Crown Victoria that he had left parked in the spot at the curb marked OFFICIAL SEPTA USE ONLY.

Transit Officer Clarke opened the Police Interceptor’s back door behind the driver’s, then squatted and carefully leaned forward, dropping Mora onto the backseat. He then hopped behind the wheel, activated the emergency lights and siren, then looked over his shoulder as he yanked the gear selector into drive.

“C’mon, c’mon, make a hole!” Clarke said, stabbing his right index finger at the control panel button between the seats that added a louder BRAAAAP! BRAAAAAP! horn sound to the Woop-Woop! of the siren.

At the third BRAAAAP! a delivery van braked hard, creating an opening, and Clarke caused the Ford’s rear tires to squeal as he took it, the engine roaring as he accelerated down Kensington Avenue.

[ FOUR ]

Office of the First Deputy Police Commissioner

The Roundhouse, Philadelphia

Saturday, December 15, 5:15 P.M.

“The difference with the murder of the reporter and his wife,” Matt Payne explained to First Deputy Police Commissioner Dennis V. Coughlin and Lieutenant Jason Washington, “beyond it being a slaughter—terrible word, but that’s exactly what they did to the O’Briens—is that those responsible wanted everyone to know they did it. They basically left a calling card saying, ‘Hey, we did it before, and we’ll do it again.’”

Washington shook his head. “Mickey O’Hara said this cartel—”

“The New Acuña Cartel, Jason,” Payne provided.

“—this New Acuña Cartel did the same to another reporter who worked for O’Brien in Texas?”

Payne nodded. “Tomas Rodriguez, thirty-five, a husband and father who fled Acuña with his family after the cartel tortured and killed his photographer, and then hung his body with a note saying, in essence, ‘We warned you. Stop the reporting. Or else.’ The cartel hunted down Tomas and his family in San Antonio. Left his bloody head on his laptop with a note, and I quote verbatim, ‘The sins of the father shall be visited upon the son.’ I saw the photograph of it. Those are images you never forget.”

“My God,” Coughlin said. “The butchering of human beings is beyond simply uncivilized. It’s savage . . . barbaric.”

“And tragically it’s starting to happen more and more,” Payne said. “I’ve certainly seen more than I ever expected.” He paused. “So we basically know who’s responsible. But, and I’m getting this from Jim Byrth, the cartels are hiring hit squads.”

“Contract killings?” Coughlin said.

Payne nodded. “And these squads are more or less expendable. They live or die at the will of the cartel. That’s what Jim Byrth says the Texas Rangers found when they investigated the murder of the Rodriguez family.”

“I don’t think I follow you,” Coughlin said. “What exactly did they find?”

“Same as we found here in University City. The doers made no effort to hide any evidence. They didn’t try to cover their tracks—literally, there were bloody boot prints all over the scene. And fingerprints, there and in the truck they stole from the pest control company that was found abandoned blocks away.”

“And?” Coughlin pursued.

“And we may very well find these killers, matching them to those bloody fingerprints.”

“I’m repeating myself, ‘And?’”

“And, like Byrth said of the killers of the Rodriguez family in San Antonio, they’ll be found dumped on a roadside with a single bullet wound to the back of the head.”