Dominant Warfare Pt. 04

His first stop was down to the Cottonwood campground and along the way, he saw many different kinds of birds, including a couple of roadrunners. He kept trying to get some shots of the birds, but they were a little too shy and uncooperative. The campground opened up to the Rio Grande River and he got a few decent shots, but he knew his decision to try the state park had been the right one.

For the next several hours he wandered through the park until the harsh light of the sun abolished virtually any chance of good photos. It took almost another hour for him to extricate himself from all the park's back roads, but finally he was back on Highway 118 headed towards Alpine.

About an hour outside the park, he was stopped at a makeshift customs and immigration checkpoint. He guessed this was an attempt to catch people who had illegally crossed the border. Just as obviously, he was not detained. However, the experience left him in the mood for some Spanish guitar, so he pulled out a Jesse Cook compilation.

His fast thumping "Nuevo Flamingo" style made his foot heavy on the gas. The first song "Matisse the Cat" made his foot bounce off the gas pedal and even the car responded to the beat. When the song finished "Mario Takes a Walk" took up the mantle and the car seemed to growl its acceptance of the fast thumping beat.

Very quickly, he was back at the Alpine city limit sign and unfortunately had to slow the Cobra down. He had also been thinking a lot about April and had even called the hotel for messages. Consuelo gave him April's message, so he knew tonight was on. That had gotten him thinking about a plan to discover the real April. He was going to give her a night beyond her wildest dreams, but to do so he had to get her to open up her heart and her mind.

She had to give herself willingly to him, but he knew there was going to be pain and tears to get her to that point. As he was pulling into Alpine, he saw a tack and Saddlery shop. He knew they would have exactly what he needed for this evening's festivities.

He spent about an hour in the shop looking, testing and feeling all the different implements that he might need. He finally made his purchases and stuffed them in a gym bag that he had in the car. Steve went back to the hotel and had a light lunch then retired to his room for a three-hour nap.

He left himself plenty of time to shower, shave and get all the grime from this morning's adventures off him. The directions that Consuelo had printed from April's email were fairly clear and about 5 o'clock he left for what he hoped would be an incredible night, with an incredible lady.

Chapter 11

Peter Neri took off his Stetson and laid it on the seat next to him. Then he picked up the thermos, unscrewed the lid and poured himself a small cup of coffee. Steve McKinny just arrived back from Marfa and was in the process of hauling all of his camera gear through the lobby of the Holland Hotel. Consuelo told Mister Neri that April was waiting for Steve in his room, so he was waiting for them to get to it.

He figured once they were started they would be in there fucking for at least a couple of hours. He needed to get some pictures of the action, but thought he would wait at least a half-hour until they were past the preliminaries. Fortunately, Consuelo had given Steve the room with a large window right next to the fire escape. He could easily get some decent photos from that vantage point.

The tame stuff would never send her father into one of his legendary rages, but seeing someone fuck his daughter would definitely do it. He needed April's father to do everything in his power to destroy Steve McKinny and photos of him screwing his daughter should do it. Therefore, for now he had to just chill and give their heat some time to develop.

No one would ever pass up a go at April's scrumptious body, so he had no doubt there would be some fireworks tonight. He had to admit it was strange, because April never had a boyfriend and never even seemed interested in having one. However, here she was giving this McKinny character the full court press.

The ways of men and women in love were strange to him. He just took whatever he wanted, but he had to admit he liked it when they struggled. The Ship Channel Rapist they called him on TV and a faint smile crossed his lips. He thought back to some of the women he had taken over the last few years and gave an evil smile. They were all beautiful in their own way, but he really loved the way they struggled and fought him. He thought of all the trophies he kept in the trunk of his car and knew he would have loved to add April that list. Unfortunately, she served a better purpose right now, but after this was over, he might add to her to his list.

He picked up his camera the 70D and made sure all the settings were configured for low light. He took a couple of test shots with his long lens and he slowly nodded his head, satisfied with the results. Peter scanned the lobby looking through the windows hoping to find one of the twins on duty. No such luck. There seemed to be a new girl behind the desk. Oh well, he looked for anything else that might test his low light camera settings.

Consuelo and her sister Catarina were a couple of the hottest items in this town. Both had beautifully styled black hair and brown almost golden eyes with figures that would stop traffic. Their skin almost looked like a polished maple with its beautiful umber hue, but it was their breasts that took his breath away. They were huge for such tiny girls and were the focus of every man's stare when they first met them. Of course, the twins knew this and used their looks, their bodies and their breasts to their advantage. When faced with the twins most men would think with the little head between their legs.

Peter stretched, pushing his ostrich Lucchese boots against the floorboard. He thought it was time to start getting ready and moved to his fiber-optic lens. However as he pulled the camera from his face he saw April wobbling down the stairs. She looked drunk or drugged, but she was definitely in some kind of daze. She was wearing an overcoat that only seemed to be buttoned at the top and every step revealed a toned and beautifully naked leg.

As he looked at his watch he was really confused. Steve had only been in the room for a little more than 15 minutes and now April was leaving. The impassioned, but dazed look on her face told him something must have happened, but what? As April neared the automatic doors, they swung open sending a gust of air into the hotel. Her coat flew open like a cape revealing her spectacularly naked body underneath.

The tops of her breasts and nipples were covered by the coat's singular button, but everything underneath was exposed to his ravenous gaze. Her loincloth was probably about the sexiest thing had ever seen. In his entire life he hadn't ever recalled seeing anything quite as sexy or erotic as April was right now. Only when the coat closed again did he remember his camera and he quickly snapped to his face hoping for another gust of wind. His prayers were answered as she stepped outside and a huge gust of wind turned her coat into a cape fluttering behind her.

This time he was ready and he held the shutter button down running off a series of 20 shots. The wind was strong enough that the bottoms of her breasts were also revealed this time. As she slowly walked to her car, April seemed unaware of what was happening or her exposure. As she reached her car, her overcoat closed again enveloping and hiding the spectacular vision beneath.

She absent-mindedly closed her door, started the engine and drove off. The man watching her had his camera down and was now going through the series of incredible shots. He didn't see where this would serve any purpose in discrediting Steve, but they would definitely go into his private collection. They were easily the sexiest, most provocative shots he had ever seen.

He turned the camera off and pondered what he had just seen. April had gone to Steve's room and waited for him, obviously in that very seductive outfit. She had come down roughly 15 minutes after he had entered the room, so they didn't have any time for hanky-panky. The only conclusion he could come to was that he had turned her away. Therefore, that meant either he had some high moral code or he was gay. Either way, that put his discrediting plan in jeopardy.

He pulled out his file on Steve McKinny, saw where he had been married and afterwards dated several other women. There was no indication he was gay. He also noticed other credit card charges to several BDSM clubs when he lived in Corpus Christi. So, that ruled out a moral code of some sort.

He absent-mindedly glanced at McKinny's window wondering what had happened in that room. He sat in his car for another 15 minutes trying to understand the dynamic between Steve and April. They were obviously very attracted to each other. In fact, he didn't ever remember seeing April so hot for anyone. So, why the hell were they not up in that room fucking right now? He shook his head because he didn't have an answer right now.

He knew he needed to get some sleep and maybe it would come to him in the morning. He put the report down, poured out the coffee and stashed his thermos while getting ready to leave. Before he is put his camera up he took one more look at the pictures he had just taken of April. He shook his head muttering to himself, "My God, that woman is smoking hot!" Almost none of the women in his porn collection looked nearly as good as she did.

He thought back to when he kidnapped her and how delicate she felt in his arms as he carried her away. She was exceptionally beautiful even then and right now he was regretting not having a little taste of her honey. She was after all only a means to an end, McKinny was the object of the exercise. That didn't mean he couldn't have a little fun along the way.

Then he remembered the whole reason for this exercise was her father's legendary temper. That was the only reason he hadn't added her to his collection. He had no misgivings about taking April and repeatedly raping her. He gave a lopsided grin as he thought of the nickname the press had given him ... The Ship Channel Rapist. Only the fear of her father kept him from fulfilling his desires and making her number 22. However, mentally he made a note that if her father was out of the picture he wanted to make a full meal out of April.

He started his car and drove to the trailer he had rented outside Alpine, all while thinking of April. At the trailer he stripped out of his boots and work clothes. While sitting at the computer in his shorts, he downloaded April's pictures from his camera. She looked even more spectacular on the big computer screen as he slowly went through each picture. In the end he found one photo that captured the extraordinary essence of April's raw, untamed beauty and he made this his computers background. Now she would always greet him every time he logged in.

April had sidetracked him and he would get back to McKinny in the morning. Meanwhile, he could dream about April and what it would be like to have his meaty, calloused hands roaming over her soft satiny skin. He had erotic dreams of April, with her fabulous naked body fighting and squirming underneath him as he took what he wanted from her.

He knew she would never have anything to do with him, so if another opportunity arose he would just have to take what he wanted from her. He fell asleep dreaming his sick and twisted dreams, with April as the centerpiece. He had never been caught because most of his victims had been drunks, bar flies, or prostitutes and he scattered them all across the US. Doing something to someone as prominent as April, would definitely put him on law enforcement's radar.

It was a little before 8 o'clock in the morning when his phone rang. He almost didn't answer it, thinking it was some kind of crank call, but he did. It was Consuelo from the Holland Hotel and she told him that April had just called. She had wanted to talk to Steve McKinny, but she had made up an excuse so she could take the message. April was going to meet McKinny out at her ranch house for dinner at 5:30.

His eyes popped wide open as he hung up, slipped on some jeans and put his feet back into his ostrich Lucchese boots. He sat for a moment holding his head in his hands as he thought about what this might mean.

McKinny must have turned April away with the promise that they would have more time the next day. The early dinner hour meant that she wanted to get the food out of the way so they could spend the rest of the night romantically together. In other words, he may get his fucking pictures after all. He knew if he showed Mr. Hunt photos of his darling daughter being ravaged by Steve McKinny, Steve would be the proverbial dead man.

The one thing everybody knew about Mr. Hunt was that he would do anything for April. She was his life. If anyone took advantage of her or tried to work her to get to him, if they lived, they would never work in Texas again. His temper was legendary. A couple of times, gigolos had tried to take advantage of April, but they were never seen or heard from again. He needed pictures to make sure McKinny was thought of the same way. He had to make Mr. Hunt believe that McKinny was only there to get money from him by using April.

Then when Mr. Hunt was shown on environmental impact report, created by McKinny, concerning his refinery in Corpus Christi, he would ignore it. Mr. Hunt would automatically assume this was just another financial scam by McKinny. He knew that no matter what Steve said about mercury in their plant in Corpus Christi, Mr. Hunt would never believe him.

That is what he needed, for that Mercury report to be buried and never see the light of day. When the engineering staff at the refinery had brought a problem to him about ruptured mercury seals he thought it wasn't anything very important. It was after all a theoretical issue and his decision had been to let it work through all the wastewater systems winding up in the solid waste. Then it can be disposed of along with all the other solid waste and never hurt anyone.

As the refinery manager, he signed off on the project. At the same time, the engineering staff had brought to him a study that had been done several years earlier in Dallas. The study showed the mercury was being carried out with the methane generated from solid waste sludge digestion. The mercury would then contaminate the soil and water in the immediate area. This had not been proven and had been considered a wild theory by the engineers.

A year later, people started to get sick both in and outside the plant. The study of the sick and dying was long, exhaustive and ultimately settled on mercury poisoning. Federal, state and even the city officials demanded answers, with most of the refineries on the ship channel being leading candidates. McKinny had been hired by his engineering manager to do an independent study on the Hunt refinery.

McKinny had seemed to be the perfect candidate. He was a professional engineer with degrees in Chemical Engineering and a Masters in Environmental Engineering. McKinny had quit his previous job and was working as a short term contractor. He reviewed the status reports from McKinny with great anxiety, hoping he was sloppy enough not to find anything. Unfortunately, he found the very thing that he was afraid of.

Sure enough he had found the methane, created during the bacterial digestion of sludge, bonded with the mercury and was carried into the atmosphere. Sunlight seems to dissolve the bond and the mercury would float back to earth in the surrounding area. He put all of this in his report and had given the report to the engineering managers. Several of the managers came to him and told him they were worried that McKinny would turn the report into the EPA.

He knew all of this would wind up falling on his shoulders. He had approved the plan despite the risks, but he was the person in charge of the refinery. As a result all liability was his. People were getting sick and dying, and everyone was going to blame him. He had to discredit the report, discredit the author, kill the author or find any way he could to cover his ass. So far, no one knew about the problem or his part in it, and he needed to keep that way.

If Mr. Hunt actually believed the report, he would be out of a job. However, if the EPA got a hold of the report, he would be fined into bankruptcy and go to jail for the rest of his life. So one way or another, Steve McKinny had to be stopped and the first course of action was Mr. Hunt.

Once McKinny had been branded a gold digger, gigolo after his daughter and after his money, he knew Mr. Hunt would do anything to destroy McKinny. Those pictures were the key to discrediting Steve McKinny in Mr. Hunt's eyes. He still needed to make sure the EPA never found that report and that meant that if Mr. Hunt didn't kill Steve, he would.

Peter knew the layout in and around the ranch house. He thought the best approach would be to arrive right around sunset. There was a stand of trees about 100 yards from the main house and he could watch through all the open windows until the time is right. The ranch house was very open with many windows to allow access to the outstanding view. That also meant unobstructed windows would easily allow him photographs of whatever went on inside the house.

His plan was making a comeback and by late tonight, he would have what he needed. He looked over at his computer screen and saw April's mouthwateringly bare body looking at him. Peter felt his crotch swelling inside his pants as he thought of watching McKinny fuck April. He made a mental note to get some more memory cards because he wasn't going to miss a single minute of their debauchery.

As his daydreams took shape, he fantasized about punishing April as he had all of those other women. He still had his rape kit in the trunk and if the opportunity presented itself he was going to make April his 22nd victim. Steve McKinny was the prime patsy and if he wanted to do anything with April now was his chance. He could blame everything on McKinny and everyone would believe him. He wandered out of the trailer to make sure all of his supplies were current. Then he thought, "22 is my lucky number."

Chapter 12

The drive up the dirt road leading to April's ranch house was long and dusty. April's little ranch house was not a little ranch house. It was a magnificent two-story wooden house built with large beams and a huge expanse of windows. It was nestled against the mountains with an incredible view. As Steve looked at the ranch house he thought it looked like a rather modern version of the Ponderosa ranch from the old Bonanza TV show.

It was magnificent and rustic at the same time while the closer he got the larger it became. The main house had a beautiful wraparound porch and large balconies jutting from some of the upstairs rooms. It appeared to have three sections. What he guessed was the living area had huge two-story windows facing the mountains. There was a smaller section with a high steeple roof that he assumed was the kitchen and dining areas. The third area was a two-story block house that must have been filled with bedrooms.

Like any other working ranch it had a couple of barns, and what looked like a detached garage capable of holding at least half a dozen vehicles. There were also pens for livestock, but everything was strangely serene and devoid of any additional life.

As he pulled up to the house, the dust swirled and began to settle back to the earth, as well as covering his car. April had been watching his approach through the big family room windows, and she waited for him to get out of his car. April's entire day was spent eager for this moment. She still couldn't figure out why she wanted him so. She had dated the rich and powerful, as well as the bold and beautiful, but none made her feel the way Steve did.