Cole didn't dive for cover. He didn't reach for a concealed pistol.
Instead, Cole reached into the small upper-left utility pocket of his camouflage blouse and withdrew a heavy, matte-black rectangular transmitter the size of an automotive key fob. In the center sat a single, recessed red toggle switch protected by a spring-loaded brass cover.
Cole flipped the brass cover with his thumb.
"Clint," Cole said, his voice dropping into a register so cold and still that it cut right through the wind whistling across the bluffs. "You've spent twenty years assuming nobody was watching this desert. You should have checked the airspace."
Cole pressed the switch.
A high-pitched, metallic whistle cut through the dry atmosphere, followed an instant later by a thundering, rhythmic whump-whump-whump that shook the caliche under their boots like an earthquake.
Over the eastern bluffs, barely fifty feet above the jagged shale, two matte-black Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters plunged into view. Their rotor blades churned the air into an absolute fury, throwing a hurricane of alkaline dust, shredded sagebrush, and loose stones across the asphalt. The downdraft hit the weigh station with the force of an artillery blast, tearing the rusted tin roof off the old weigh scale and sending it tumbling into the scrub.
Two choppers dropped with astonishing violence, their skids hovering barely three feet above the dirt shoulders flanking the roadblock.
The sliding cargo doors were already locked open. Inside the dark bays, operators from the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment and tactical agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation hung from web restraints in full digital arid combat gear, their suppressed M4 carbines and HK416s trained with laser precision on the huddle of bikers and county cruisers.
Before Clint or Murdock could even bring their hands to their ears against the deafening roar, the wail of multi-tone electronic sirens tore through the western gap of Route 40.
Six blacked-out Chevrolet Suburbans with reinforced tubular steel brush guards, followed by three armored BearCat transport vehicles belonging to the Nevada State Police Special Response Team, came screaming down the two-lane corridor at seventy miles an hour. They performed a practiced high-speed box formation, their tires throwing sheets of gravel as they sealed the highway from behind Clint’s motorcycle pack.
Within four seconds, forty federal agents in heavy black body armor bearing large yellow lettering—FBI - JOINT CORRUPTION TASK FORCE and DEA SPECIAL ENFORCEMENT—poured onto the roadbed, spreading out into an impenetrable suppression line with heavy ballistic shields and short-barreled rifles.
"FEDERAL AGENTS! DROP THE WEAPONS! DROP THE WEAPONS OR YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON!" the command roared through an external tactical speaker system with enough volume to rattle the glass in the cruisers.
Dozens of pulsing red and green laser targeting dots settled instantly across Clint Vance’s chest, between the mirrored lenses of Sheriff Murdock’s aviators, and over the leather cuts of every Iron Skull standing on the road.
Clint Vance’s eyes dilated in total, paralyzing disbelief. The nickel-plated Colt slipped from his nerveless fingers, clattering with a hollow clink against the hot blacktop. His breath caught in his throat, his chest hitching as he looked at the twin Black Hawks hovering close enough for him to see the pilots' mirrored visors.
Murdock’s knees simply gave out. The twelve-gauge shotgun dropped into the dust as the sheriff dropped to his hands and knees, clutching his chest, his aviators sliding down his sweating nose and shattering against the stones.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I'm the sheriff! I'm the elected sheriff!" Murdock screamed, his voice turning into a high-pitched, pathetic whine that was swallowed by the downdraft.
Two FBI SWAT operators in full tactical kits tackled Murdock with brutal efficiency, driving his face into the sharp gravel, wrenching his heavy arms behind his back, and cinching two heavy plastic flex-cuffs around his wrists until the nylon bit into the skin.
Across the perimeter, the Iron Skulls threw themselves flat against the asphalt without a single shot fired. The tire irons, heavy chains, and knives clattered to the dirt like useless iron scrap. Operators moved through the ranks like machines, their heavy combat boots pinning necks to the pavement, zip-tying wrists and ankles, clearing weapons, and tossing firearms into canvas recovery bags.
From the lead black Suburban parked thirty paces back, two figures stepped out and walked swiftly down the centerline.
The first was Assistant United States Attorney Sarah Sterling, wearing an immaculate charcoal business suit, her hair tied back in a severe, functional knot, carrying a thick leather case embossed with the seal of the Department of Justice. Beside her was Colonel Marcus Hayes, commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment’s Forward Support Detachment, wearing standard operational camo and carrying a green military dispatch case.
Hayes walked straight past the trembling bikers pinned to the caliche, marched up to Cole, and snapped his right hand to the stiff brim of his patrol cap in a rigid, razor-sharp salute.
"General Miller, sir!" Hayes barked, his voice cutting clearly beneath the settling idle of the Black Hawks' turbine engines. "Route 40 is secured. Operation Iron Scythe is fully executed across all three sectors."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Clint Vance, his cheek pressed hard against the blistering asphalt beneath the heavy combat boot of an FBI agent, slowly rolled his eyes upward. The blood completely drained from his leathery face, leaving him a sickening, ashen grey.
"G-General...?" Clint wheezed, his voice catching on road grit.
Cole did not glance at him.
With steady, deliberate fingers, Cole unbuttoned the top two buttons of his camouflage patrol blouse. From beneath the green cotton collar, he pulled out a heavy stainless-steel ball chain. Suspended beside his standard aluminum dog tags was a heavy, polished brass medallion bearing three five-pointed silver stars—the official insignia of a Lieutenant General, Deputy Commander of the United States Special Operations Command.