Inside that trunk, tucked beneath the spare tire housing, was a secondary Pelican case containing the daily operational flight sheets, the hard-copy route clearance signed by the state police troop commander at five that afternoon, and my personal agency passport. But Vance didn't have access to the trunk. The trunk release had an electronic lockout tied to the ignition key—and the ignition key was inside my left jacket pocket, pressed flat against my ribs under the heavy twill of my suit coat.
Vance slipped in the weeds. His right boot slid into the slick gray clay of the ditch, the mud sucking at his leather lace-ups with a loud, wet slurp. He cursed, catching himself against the rusted corrugated steel of the culvert pipe. The flashlight beam jerked violently into the bare branches of an oak tree before settling back onto the yellow foam gathering at the mouth of the drain.
He crouched down, his uniform trousers sinking directly into the four inches of standing water. His bare fingers clawed through the wet dead grass, raking aside soda cans, gravel, and shredded retread rubber.
Then his light hit something reflective six inches beneath the surface of the pool. The metallic blue border caught the halogen beam and flashed silver.
Vance reached down, his fingers plunging into the muck. He pulled up the card, shaking muddy water from the thick plastic pouch.
Even from ten feet away, through the glass and the rain, I could see the layout Vance was finally reading under the raw light of his flashlight. The gold eagle seal was centered at the top. Beneath it, printed in block red capital letters, was the daily movement identifier: WHITE HOUSE TRANSPORTATION AGENCY - ADVANCE ROUTE RECONNAISSANCE.
And across the lower left corner, stamped in indelible blue ink, was the direct contact number for the Secret Service field office watch desk in Philadelphia.
Vance stayed on his knees in the mud for three full seconds. The arrogance drained out of his posture, leaving his shoulders hunched, his spine stiff, and his chin tucked down toward his chest. He looked like a man who had reached into an empty mailbox and pulled out a live fuse.
He stood up slowly, the water dripping from his trousers, his boots caked in thick county clay. He tucked the badge into his left breast pocket, buttoning the flap down tight. He wasn't going to hand it back. He was going to try to control the document before anyone else saw it.
He stepped back up onto the gravel shoulder, wiping his wet hands on the thighs of his pants. He took three deliberate steps toward the rear door of his cruiser, his keys jangling at his belt. He pulled the silver handcuff key from his leather keeper, holding it between his thumb and index finger like an apology he hadn't yet figured out how to say.
Before his key reached the lock cylinder of the transport door, the first pair of auxiliary lights swept over the tree line behind us.
The beams were not the swinging, scattered white lights of local traffic. They were two piercing columns of high-intensity daylight-spectrum LEDs, mounted high on the push-bar of an unmarked black three-quarter-ton truck. The vehicle didn't slow down as it took the crest of the hill. It cut across the center line, tires throwing a sharp spray of mist across both lanes, and pulled directly across the nose of Vance’s cruiser at a forty-five-degree angle, boxing the patrol car completely against the guardrail.
The driver’s door of the truck cracked open before the suspension had settled. A man in an unbuttoned black foul-weather parka stepped out onto the wet asphalt, his eyes already tracking the skid marks on the shoulder, the position of my sedan, and the mud coating Deputy Vance’s uniform from the knees down.
"Step away from the cruiser, Deputy," the man said. He didn't raise his voice, but the sound cut clean through the idling engines. He didn't show a badge; he didn't have to. The olive-drab tactical earpiece spiraling down his neck into his collar told Vance everything he had refused to hear from me twenty minutes ago.
Vance’s hand froze two inches from the cruiser's door handle. He tried to slide the handcuff key back toward his palm, but the metal clicked sharply against his wedding band in the wet air.
"Captain," Vance began, his voice cracking slightly on the first syllable. "I was just—"
"I didn't ask for a statement," the man in the parka said, walking past Vance as if the deputy were nothing more than a rusted road sign. He pulled a heavy flashlight from his pocket, clicked it on, and shone the beam directly through the rear window into my face.
"Marcus," he said, his eyes scanning my lapel, the torn fabric, and the angle of my shoulders against the partition. "You still functional?"