"Deputy," Master Sergeant Ramos answered without a second’s hesitation, "Major Marcus Vance is the executive officer of the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team support battalion. His active-duty credentials were electronically verified against Defense Enrollment Eligibility records twelve minutes ago. His emergency leave authorization was logged through brigade personnel at 0800 hours. Furthermore, your county dispatch supervisor, Lieutenant Calloway, is patched into this circuit right now. Lieutenant, you have the floor."
A third voice broke over the small speaker, tinny and strained, speaking from the county seat twenty miles away.
"Brett," the voice said, heavy with disbelief and barely contained rage. "What in God’s name are you doing down at Carl’s yard?"
Hollis flinched. His hand slipped off the counter. "Lieutenant, I’m working an abandoned vehicle intercept at mile fourteen. The subject refused to comply with removal procedures—"
"Shut up, Brett," Lieutenant Calloway cut in. "State Patrol just rolled two interceptors out of the Hinesville post. They’re crossing the county line right now. Don't touch that man, don't touch his vehicle, and don't take one step out of that office until Sergeant Miller gets there. Do you understand me?"
Hollis reached out and slammed his palm down on the disconnect button, cutting the line dead. The sudden silence in the corrugated shed was heavier than the static had been. He glared at me, his eyes bloodshot, his teeth bared in a desperate, cornered grimace.
"You think they care about you down here?" Hollis whispered, his voice shaking with a cold, venomous fury. "You think two troopers from the interstate are going to take your word over a sworn deputy with eight years on the county payroll? I’ll tell them you reached into your console. I’ll tell them you threatened my life on the shoulder. It’s my word against an outsider."
"It isn't your word against mine, Deputy," I said, pointing toward the desk terminal where Carl’s digital log was still glowing green. "It’s your word against your own radio logs. It’s your word against the 3:15 PM call you placed to Carl’s personal phone, two hours before you saw me. It’s your word against the pre-written impound ticket in your cruiser, dated thirty-three minutes before you lit your flashers. And it’s your word against the federal audio recording sitting in the provost marshal’s archive."
Two miles down the state route, the distant wail of high-output sirens rose above the pine trees, rising and falling in sharp, synchronized bursts.
Hollis turned toward the front window, watching the dark corridor of the highway. His breathing was rapid, shallow, the panic finally breaking through his hard exterior. He reached down to the desk, grabbed my Common Access Card and my folded leave orders, and held them out toward me, his fingers trembling against the laminated plastic.
"Take them," he rasped, his voice dropping to a plea disguised as a compromise. "Take your papers, Vance. Tell Carl to drop the car off the bed. You get behind the wheel, you turn around, and you drive back to Savannah. We call it a misidentification on an unlit shoulder. Nobody files paper, nobody goes to court, nobody loses their pension."
I didn't reach for the card. I kept my hands at my sides.
"Fourteen years in uniform taught me how to read an ambush, Hollis," I told him. "If I take those papers and walk out that door, you’ll tell the state troopers I fled an active investigation. You’ll tell them I abandoned the vehicle under suspicion. Those credentials stay on that desk until your supervisor and the state police pick them up off the wood."
Carl stepped back until his shoulders touched the tool rack on the rear wall, crossing his arms and shaking his head. "Don't look at me, Brett. I ain't touching that winch. I ain't moving that car an inch until the troopers put eyes on that chain."
Blue and red strobes swept through the front windows, painting the oil-stained walls in flashing arcs of crimson and cobalt. A white Georgia State Patrol Dodge Charger slid onto the gravel apron, throwing up a spray of crushed stone as it braked hard behind Hollis’s cruiser. A second later, a marked Dixon County Sheriff’s Tahoe pulled in beside it, its spotlight instantly hitting the doorway of the scale office.
Two uniformed figures emerged from the vehicles. The state trooper, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a wide-brimmed campaign hat and the gold rank stripe of a senior patrolman, moved with methodical speed toward the door. Behind him walked an older man with gray hair, wearing the gray uniform of the Dixon County Sheriff's Office with three silver chevrons on his sleeve—Sergeant Miller.
Hollis stepped through the doorway onto the porch, plastering an expression of beleaguered calm across his face, holding his hands out in an easy, placating gesture.
"Sergeant, Trooper," Hollis called out, trying to head them off at the steps. "Glad you’re here. We had a complicated situation at mile fourteen. Suspect was combative, refusing lawful orders regarding an impound, claiming military status without providing immediate proof—"