Martin’s left arm dropped from his sloppy salute. His thumb slid back over the snapped leather of his sidearm, forcing the weapon back down into its molded holster. "Evening, agent," Martin shouted, his voice cracking on the syllable before leveling into a brittle, county-issue baritone. "Corridor 14 is secured. Route is locked down by order of Sheriff Albright. You're five minutes ahead of the cleared manifest."
The man in the windbreaker didn't stop until he was six paces from the front bumper of Martin’s idling patrol car. He glanced once at the dark lightbar, then at the left front tire, which was cut hard toward the brush—a pursuit stop posture, not a traffic closure block.
"Deputy Vance?" the man asked. His tone was brisk, devoid of regional cadence, entirely bureaucratic.
"Martin Vance, Badge 214," Martin said, planting his boots wide in the ditch apron, deliberately shielding the low spot where my boots were visible beneath the weeds. "Sheriff told me to expect two vehicles under the state agricultural transport seal. Not five."
"You're not Deputy Vance," the man said. He lifted the waterproof folder, his fingers tracing a laminated line on a printed manifest. "Deputy Vance was scheduled to be relieved at three o'clock at the south gate. Deputy Miller was assigned to the cut-through. Where is Vance?"
Martin’s throat moved. "I'm Martin. Vance is my brother. He resigned eight months back."
"Then you're Deputy Martin," the man said, indifferent to the lineage. "And this checkpoint is unlogged."
The rear door of the armored limousine swung out. A second man emerged, taller, older, wearing an unbuttoned overcoat over a dark suit. In the headlight backwash, the silver lapel pins caught the light: the crossed balance scales and seal of the State Inspector General's Special Investigations Division.
It was Agent Joseph Aris. I recognized the square jaw and graying temples from the state regional directory, the man whose name had been stamped on the formal acknowledgment notice Albright had handed me eight months ago with a patronizing smirk, saying, State reviewed your fuel logs, Joe. Said it's clerical noise. Turn your brass in before you embarrass your wife.
Aris didn't look at Martin. He looked past Martin's shoulder, straight into the dark reeds where my dead truck sat down the incline, its hazard lights dead, its hood propped on an oil can.
"Who's in the weeds, Deputy?" Aris asked.
"Local transient," Martin said instantly, his words tumbling out too fast. "Trespasser on the closed bypass. Broke down, became combative when I initiated the clearing protocol. I restrained him according to Albright's directives until your convoy cleared the sector."
"He became combative," Aris repeated. It wasn't a question. "While walking toward a sealed corridor with an empty radiator?"
"He had tools," Martin insisted, his hand twitching near his utility belt. "Could have been an improvised device. You don't know the folks in this valley, sir. They think the county property line ends where their fathers dug post holes."
Aris took three slow steps forward, his polished oxfords crunching evenly on the shale. He stopped three feet from Martin’s shoulder, towering over him by two inches. He didn't look at Martin's badge or his holster. He looked down into the ditch, where my cheek was still pressed against the limestone gravel.
"Get him up," Aris said quietly.
"Sir, he hasn't been swept for contraband—"
"I said get him up, Deputy. Or I have my perimeter team lift him, and then we have a jurisdictional custody question on state asphalt."
Martin swallowed hard. His face had gone from flushed red to the gray color of cured cement. He reached down into the reeds, grabbed my jacket at the shoulder seam, and hoisted me upward. My knees scraped the shale as I found my footing. The cuffs bit violently into my radial bones, numbness crawling through my middle fingers, but I kept my back straight, refusing to hunch over the pain.