Chapter 6 - Step Away From the Case
The armored vehicle stopped behind the patrol car.
Two military police soldiers stepped down in tactical gear, weapons lowered and controlled.
Sergeant Cole moved first.
Mid-thirties, calm eyes, one hand raised in warning.
“Step away from the case,” he said.
Higgins blinked like the sentence had arrived in a foreign language.
“I’m conducting a lawful traffic stop.”
Sergeant Cole did not raise his voice.
“Step away from the case.”
A younger MP moved to the side, disciplined but confused, eyes moving between my old Honda, the deputy, the crowbar, and me.
Higgins looked at me again.
Now he was searching for the woman he thought he had stopped.
The lost driver.
The easy arrest.
The person who would panic when he got loud.
She was not there.
I took one slow step toward him.
The phone was still on speaker.
General Aris remained on the line.
I looked at the crowbar in Higgins’s hand, then back at his face.
“You just compromised a Pentagon audit.”
His mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
No useful words came out.
Sergeant Cole removed the crowbar from his hand and placed it on the hood of the patrol car.
The young MP secured the area around the case without touching the locks.
Everything was calm.
That made it worse for Higgins.
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Chaos would have given him somewhere to hide.
Procedure did not.
