He ripped the wire the rest of the way from my lapel, dropping the specialized earpiece onto the wet asphalt. He brought his heavy black boot down on it, grinding the hardened plastic casing into the gravel until the rhythmic electronic pulse shattered into silence.
"Spoofed tech," he muttered, more to himself than to me. "You can buy that sovereign citizen crap on the internet."
"You just destroyed government property," I said, keeping my voice utterly devoid of panic. "And you just cut my only direct audio link to the Joint Operations Center. The countdown hasn't stopped, Mitchell. You just made it so we can't hear it."
"Shut up and walk," he growled, grabbing the chain of the handcuffs and shoving me violently forward.
The awkward angle forced my shoulders to hyper-extend, sending a fresh, nauseating wave of fire tearing through my rotator cuff. I stumbled toward the rear door of his cruiser, my boots slipping on the slick shoulder of the highway. He yanked the rear door open and pushed me down into the freezing, molded plastic seat of the interceptor. The heavy door slammed shut behind me with a hollow, metallic thud, sealing me inside the stifling smell of old sweat and aerosol air freshener.
I shifted my weight, trying to alleviate the biting pressure of the steel cuffs digging into my wrist bones. Through the heavy wire mesh of the partition, I had a clear view out the front windshield. My Dodge Charger was parked roughly thirty feet away, idling perfectly. Through its rear window, I could see the soft, blue ambient glow of the tactical communications array illuminating the front seats.
We were now at five minutes and forty seconds.
Mitchell climbed into the driver’s seat, the cruiser dipping heavily under his weight. He didn't look back at me. He was breathing hard, the adrenaline of the physical confrontation warring with the creeping, icy dread of his own subconscious. He unclipped his radio microphone, his thumb hesitating for a fraction of a second before pressing the transmission button.
"County, Mitchell. Run the plate on that black Charger," he commanded, his eyes fixed on my vehicle. "I’ve got an uncooperative male in custody. Used spoofed federal tech to try and intimidate his way out of a stop. Send the tow, priority."
"Copy, Mitchell. Stand by on the plate," the dispatcher’s voice crackled through the cruiser's cabin speakers.
The wait was excruciating. In a normal traffic stop, running a plate took seconds. The National Crime Information Center database was virtually instantaneous. But my Dodge wasn't in the standard NCIC database. It was shielded by a Department of Homeland Security firewall, explicitly designed to prevent local adversaries or compromised databases from tracking the President's advance security assets.
Thirty seconds passed. The silence in the cruiser grew heavy, thick with unresolved tension.
"County, you copy on that plate?" Mitchell asked, his fingers drumming anxiously on the steering wheel.
The radio hissed. When the dispatcher finally spoke, her voice had lost its bored, bureaucratic drone. It was tight. Nervous.
"Mitchell... the system is locking me out. It's throwing a hard error code I've never seen before."
"What do you mean, a hard error? Just read the registration, Brenda."
"I can't," the dispatcher replied, the static popping sharply. "The screen went red. It says 'Restricted Federal Fleet - Priority One Asset.' I don't have a name or a registration. I just have a flashing prompt telling me to immediately contact a Joint Operations Command routing number in Washington, D. C. Mitchell, who exactly do you have in the back of your car?"
Mitchell stared through the windshield, his jaw locked. The blue and red strobes of his lightbar washed rhythmically over his face, illuminating the absolute panic settling into his eyes. The reality of the situation was finally breaching his defenses. He had forcefully detained a senior federal agent, injured him, and compromised a secured route.
If he admitted it now, his career was over. He would face federal charges for assault under color of law.
I watched him make the choice. I watched him decide to double down, betting that he could control the narrative if he destroyed the evidence first.
Mitchell reached up to the center of his chest. His thick finger found the raised button on his Axon body camera. He pressed and held it. The small, blinking green light that indicated active recording suddenly went dark.