CHAPTER 1: The Trap On Route Seven
Officer Mitchell jerked my left arm behind my shoulder blade until the joint ground against bone, forcing my face toward the damp gravel shoulder. The Virginia rain had turned the culvert into red mud, soaking through the wool knees of my charcoal suit. Beneath my pressed collar, the molded silicone earpiece remained seated in my canal, crackling with encrypted frequency traffic from the outer perimeter sweep.
"Keep your mouth shut, boy," Mitchell muttered, his knee driving between my ribs as he pinned me down. "You were doing forty over, drifting across the center stripe, and you've got no visible plates. Out here, that buys you concrete."
"Look at the credential folder on the console," I said, keeping my voice level despite the weight crushing my lung capacity. "The dashboard lockbox contains federal credentials. You are interfering with an active advance corridor."
Mitchell did not check the console. He pulled my right wrist back, looping the ratchet cuff until the notched steel teeth locked into the skin. He had cut his cruiser’s headlights before pulling onto the shoulder, running only an amber strobe that threw jagged yellow bars across the wet pines. He hadn't touched his department radio since pulling me over; the microphone cord remained looped tight around his dash mount.
"Anybody can buy a leather badge wallet off an surplus site," Mitchell said. He dragged me up by the collar, slamming my spine against the Charger’s reinforced rear quarter panel. "You don't have front tags. You don't have county registration on the glass. What you have is an unregistered, darkened vehicle sitting across an unlit evacuation route at two in the morning."
He reached into my open jacket, intending to strip my breast pocket, but his thick fingers caught on the coiled covert harness tucked beneath my armpit. He pulled hard, ripping the seam. The radio unit stayed anchored to my body armor, but the sudden tear knocked the lapel mic loose, letting the tactical dispatcher’s voice spill into the open air:
Corridor Alpha clear through mile marker fourteen. Motorcade lead is four minutes out.
Mitchell’s eyes darted toward the empty asphalt behind us, then hardened. He didn't unhook his weapon, but he stepped inside my reach, his hand resting on the heavy grip of his department Glock.
"Cute party trick," Mitchell whispered. "You think a stolen scanner saves you from a felony stop? I’ve worked this stretch of Route Seven for twelve years. No federal detail runs this sector without notifying the county supervisor first."
"Check the dispatch log on your terminal," I said, cold rain running across my temples. "Call your watch commander. Ask for the sealed state transit permit filed under Operation Blackthorn."
Mitchell smiled, thin and sour. Instead of walking back to his cruiser to run my name, he took my heavy key fob from the Charger's center cup holder, stepped to the edge of the ditch, and hurled it into the swollen drainage pipe below. The metal splashed into six feet of surging runoff, disappearing beneath the concrete culvert.
"You’re stranded, friend," he said, turning his cruiser door open just enough to reveal his center console. The mobile data terminal was completely dark, its power switch taped into the off position with heavy black electrical tape.
My earpiece hissed again, direct and urgent: Lead car crossing marker sixteen. Maintain sterile route.
Mitchell reached down, gripped the chain linking my wrists, and yanked me toward his rear cage. His cruiser wasn't recording. His terminal was dead. And three miles up the dark asphalt, six armored Suburbans were barreling toward a highway blocked by an unverified vehicle whose keys were at the bottom of a storm drain.
CHAPTER 2: The Sump Pipe Roared Below As The Blind Interceptor Approached
Mitchell shoved me into the cage door of his Ford Explorer, his shoulder driving hard between my shoulder blades. The impact jarred my teeth, sending a sharp throb through my wrenched shoulder where the cuff ratchet bit deeper into the radial nerve. The vehicle was cold, dark, and smelling faintly of stale coffee and wet carpet. Behind the heavy wire partition, the cage smelled entirely of damp vinyl and old iron.
"Get your feet inside before I take the door off your shin," Mitchell rasped. His flashlight beam swept across the wet floor mats, catching the glint of my dropped tactical harness. He snatched the torn wire harness off the gravel, crumpled the coiled line in his thick fist, and shoved the mangled plastic into his jacket pocket.