"All units on tactical band Charlie-Four, be advised: Hostage Rescue Team helicopter asset Vanguard-One is wheels up from Hunter Army Airfield, ETA Telfair County thirty-eight minutes. Regional command has assumed operational control of all local state assets. Repeat: all units stand down until federal teams arrive on scene."
Thirty-eight minutes.
Vance’s twin-engine would be at ten thousand feet over the Florida line in fifteen.
I dropped the cruiser into drive, slammed my foot down, and spun the tires back onto County Road 44, heading south toward State Line Road.
Chapter 4: The State Line Strip
The speedometer needle of the Interceptor hovered past ninety as the cruiser cleared the Telfair county boundary, its heavy steel frame vibrating against the broken asphalt of State Line Road.
To the west, vast dark swathes of managed timberland stretched toward the Coffee County line. To the east lay the cypress breaks and black sloughs flanking the Ocmulgee river basin. The radio was alive with overlapping layers of federal chatter—callsigns from Savannah, Macon, and the Atlanta Field Office trying to establish a coherent command structure over an incident that was outrunning their operational timelines.
I ignored the radio traffic and focused entirely on the terrain.
Two miles past the abandoned junction with Old Lumber Road, the dense tree line receded, revealing a rusted chain-link fence topped with overgrown honeysuckle. Behind it lay the airstrip: eighteen hundred feet of cracked, unlit asphalt that had once served agricultural biplanes spraying the county’s commercial pine plantations.
The access gate had been rammed open, its padlock sheared and hanging by a twisted link. Fresh tire ruts gouged deep into the wet ditch bank where Vance’s Escalade had cut the corner at high speed.
I hit the brakes, killing the cruiser’s momentum as I swung through the torn gate.
At the far end of the tarmac sat a single corrugated steel hangar, its sliding doors thrown wide. Parked haphazardly against the hangar wall was the Escalade, its driver's side door flung open, headlamps cutting bright diagonal beams through the humid ground fog.
Beyond the vehicle, positioned on the runway apron with its nose pointed south toward the tree line, was a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air.
The starboard turboprop was already spinning in a screaming, high-pitched whine that drowned out the night insects, kicking up sheets of mist and dry debris across the cracked runway. Through the heat blur above the engine cowl, I watched the port propeller cough, sputter white exhaust, and catch, settling into a synchronized drone.
Vance was on the airstrip.
He was hauling two heavy aluminum flight cases toward the open air-stair door at the rear of the fuselage, his tailored shirt soaked through with sweat, hair plastered to his forehead. In the cockpit, a hired pilot in a flight headset was running through pre-flight run-up checks, the interior green instrument lights illuminating a tense, shadowed profile.
They were less than ninety seconds from brake release. On a strip this short, a King Air with light fuel and two passengers would reach rotation speed in eight hundred feet, clearing the southern timber before any federal asset was within twenty miles.
I clicked the cruiser’s selector into drive, gripped the wheel with both hands, and buried the gas pedal against the floor mat.
The Interceptor’s V6 screamed as the tires found purchase on the asphalt. I angled the cruiser across the tarmac, cutting diagonally toward the centerline of the runway rather than chasing Vance toward the boarding stairs.
In an airfield interdiction, you don't engage the pilot; you deny the vector.
Vance heard the roar of the oncoming vehicle. He swung around, dropped the second aluminum case onto the asphalt, and raised an automatic pistol with both hands. The muzzle flared three times in rapid succession.
Two rounds skipped off the reinforced steel push bumper of the police cruiser; the third punched through the passenger-side windshield, showering the empty bucket seat in pebble-grained safety glass.
I stayed low behind the steering column, tracking the aircraft’s landing gear.
The pilot in the cockpit saw the cruiser barreling directly across his intended taxi path. Panicked, he throttled up both turboprops prematurely, attempting to swing the nose wheel onto the main strip before the runway was clear. The sudden surge of prop wash buffeted the Interceptor, violently shaking the chassis as I closed the final fifty yards.
I didn't ram the fuselage. A collision with pressurized aviation fuel tanks was an unacceptable risk.
Instead, I whipped the wheel hard to the left, initiating a controlled high-speed bootlegger's slide. The heavy rear quarter-panel of the Interceptor swung outward, catching the Beechcraft’s port landing gear strut with the full kinetic energy of two tons of rolling steel.
The impact was catastrophic.
Metal sheared with a deafening, structural shriek. The port strut folded inward beneath the wing. The port propeller, spinning at full takeoff thrust, struck the asphalt, disintegrating instantly in a blinding shower of sparks, shattered composite blades, and flying shrapnel that shredded the lower fuselage. The plane tipped violently onto its left wingtip, dragging itself fifty feet across the runway in a screech of tearing aluminum before slewing to a halt in the muddy overrun.
The pilot cut the fuel mixture levers. The remaining engine sputtered, choked, and died, leaving only the hiss of leaking hydraulic fluid and the ticking of superheated manifolds in the sudden silence.
The cruiser had come to rest against the edge of the hangar apron, its rear axle bent, tires hissing steam.
I reached to the passenger seat, retrieved the Colt patrol rifle, and kicked my door open.
Vance was stumbling backward across the tarmac, clutching a bleeding forearm where flying prop debris had grazed his skin. His pistol lay discarded five yards away on the asphalt. He looked at the ruined aircraft, then turned his gaze to me as I stepped out of the wrecked cruiser, the rifle seated firmly against my shoulder pocket.
The cold red aiming dot from the carbine’s holographic sight rested dead center on Vance’s chest.
"Stay down, Commissioner," I said, my voice carrying cleanly over the crackle of burning oil.
Vance collapsed onto the cracked runway, his knees hitting the tarmac with a wet slap. The arrogant, untouchable architect of Telfair County was gone. In his place sat a desperate, terrified man watching every asset, every bribe, and every stolen acre crumble into dust.
"You don't understand," Vance choked out, his chest heaving, his fingers clawing at the gravel. "You think this was just me? You think this was about seventy acres of swamp dirt for a distribution hub?"
I kept the rifle leveled, closing the distance to ten paces. "On your stomach. Hands flat behind your head."