The collision sheared the aftermarket power leads. A shower of yellow electrical sparks erupted against the vinyl floor mat, and the unencrypted quarry frequency howling through the console speaker shrieked into deafening, open-channel feedback.
Garrett flinched, his head jerking toward the flash inside his cab.
That half-second was the only opening the highway gave me.
I closed the distance before he could reset his stance, driving the heel of my right hand upward into the base of his wrist. His service weapon jerked toward the sky, cracking once into the wet dark. The slug tore through the empty roof rack of the cruiser. I hooked my left arm around his elbow, stepped deep across his lead foot, and dropped my entire body weight into a hip throw across the wet gravel shoulder.
Garrett hit the aggregate hard, the breath tearing out of his lungs in a sharp, ragged gasp. The pistol flew from his slick leather glove, skidding across the pavement and dropping through the bridge scupper into the gorge below.
I didn't try to pin him. A wrestling match on the shoulder meant eight vehicles would plow into the trailers at highway speed.
I spun toward the road, ripped the road flare cannister from the burning floorboard of the cruiser, and pulled the strike cap off the first magnesium stick with my teeth.
The flare sparked into blinding crimson fire, sulfur smoke scorching my throat as the wind whipped it back against my eyes.
I charged straight into the center of the northbound lane, fifty yards ahead of the bridge abutment, waving the burning flare in wide, overhead arcs. The red chemical glare painted the road, the rotted posts, and the towering silhouette of the dark haulers in bloody relief.
Behind me, Garrett scrambled to his knees in the shale, coughing through the exhaust and battery smoke rolling out of his wrecked cruiser.
"Miller!" he yelled, his voice cracking against the siren scream. "Get out of the lane!"
The lead Suburban was less than ninety yards away. Its massive push bumper filled my vision, the radiator grille gleaming like a chrome wall behind the strobe lights. The driver saw the flare.
The nose of the heavy truck dipped violently as all four anti-lock brake calipers seized against the rotors.
A high-pitched, metallic squeal tore through the night as twenty thousand pounds of armored chassis fought the slick, descending grade. The rear end fishtailed three feet to the left, throwing up a spray of river silt and broken shale that peppered my jacket. The heavy tires found traction on the centerline aggregate, sliding sideways until the bumper came to a dead stop barely ten feet from where I stood.
Behind it, the second escort vehicle cut its wheels hard, throwing its passenger side into the drainage ditch to avoid rear-ending the lead truck. The presidential limousine—the heavy seven-ton rolling fortress bearing the state seal on its rear pillar—slid to a halt directly behind them, its low-beam lights illuminating the jagged iron ballast plates piled high on the silent flatbeds ahead.
The highway fell into an abrupt, terrifying silence, broken only by the hiss of rain on burning magnesium and the hot tick of overheated brake drums.
The armored driver-side door of the lead Suburban popped open with a heavy pneumatic release.
Special Agent Frank Vance stepped down onto the asphalt. He didn't have his sidearm drawn, but his suit coat was unbuttoned, his hand resting near his lapel. Behind him, two tactical agents in full ceramic plates emerged from the rear doors, short-barrel carbines held low against their slings.
Vance took three slow steps forward, his polished dress shoes splashing through the runoff. He looked at the smoking flare in my hand. He looked past my shoulder at the two flatbeds anchored into the bridge deck with dropped iron landing gear. Then he looked at Garrett, who was still pulling himself upright against the cruiser's rear fender.
"Miller," Vance said, his voice flat, controlled, carrying easily beneath the sound of the idling V8s. "Drop the flare. You’re interfering with an active federal transit envelope."
"Frank," I said, my chest heaving as I lowered the flare to my hip, keeping the flame between us. "Check the span. Look at the axle load."
Vance didn't look at the bridge. He looked directly at my face, his expression completely devoid of surprise.
"The route was cleared through county emergency services twenty minutes ago," Vance said, taking another step. "Local detachment reported structural failure on the interstate culvert. We took the verified bypass under standard rural escort protocol."