I’ve survived mortar fire in Helmand Province.

Rex didn't tear his throat out.

A civilian attack dog bites out of rage; a military working dog bites out of training, discipline, and execution. When Rex pinned Sheriff Vance to the gravel, he didn't maul him. He planted his massive front paws firmly on the sheriff’s shoulder blades, drove his heavy snout into the back of Vance’s neck, and clamped his jaws onto the thick leather collar of his uniform shirt.

One inch higher, and the titanium canine would have severed the jugular artery.

Vance felt the cold metal resting against his skin. He felt the hot, rhythmic breath of the beast on his ear. He stopped moving completely. He froze like a man who had just stepped on a pressure-plate landmine in an open field.

"Don't move," I said, stepping through the drifting gunsmoke, the smoking Remington hanging loosely in my right hand.

"Call him off!" Vance sobbed, his face pressed flat against the sharp limestone aggregate. The great, untouchable feudal lord of the county was weeping, tears cutting clean streaks through the gray quarry dust on his cheeks. "Please! Call him off! He’s gonna kill me!"

"He only kills on command," I replied, coming to a halt three feet from his head. "And right now, I haven't given the order."

I racked the slide of the Remington, ejecting the fourth and final spent plastic hull. It bounced off Vance’s boot with a light, hollow tap.

The gun was empty.

Vance didn't know that. All he knew was the cold steel of the shotgun barrel now resting gently against the crown of his skull, and the eighty-five pounds of living muscle pinning his spine to the earth.

"Let's talk about the Iron Vipers, Sheriff," I said quietly.

"I... I don't know what you're talking about!" Vance stammered, his voice muffled by the gravel. "They're outlaws! I've been trying to run 'em out of the county for five years!"

Rex tightened his grip on the collar by a fraction of an inch, a deep, vibrating rumble rattling through his ribs.

Vance screamed. "Okay! Okay! Jesus Christ, okay! We got an arrangement! They run the distribution on the interstate, and I keep the state patrol out of the county! That's all it is! Just business!"

"And Butch?"

"He's my brother, man!" Vance wept openly now, the arrogance completely incinerated from his soul. "He's blood! When he called and said some out-of-towner broke his arm and disrespected the cut, I had to back him up! If the gang thinks I won't protect my own brother, they'll pull their shipments! They'll burn my house down!"

I reached down, grabbed the thick leather collar of Vance’s uniform jacket, and hauled him up onto his knees. Rex stepped back on my silent signal, circling to my left side, his eyes never leaving the sheriff’s face.

Vance was a broken man. His hat was gone, his uniform was soaked in oil and radiator fluid, and his left eye was swollen shut from his fall out of the truck bed.

"Where’s their compound?" I asked.

Vance blinked through his good eye, his mouth falling open. "What?"

"The Iron Vipers," I repeated, my voice as smooth as polished river stone. "Where do they keep their staging yard? Where does the product come in?"

"You're crazy," Vance breathed, staring at me as if I were a ghost that had walked out of an open grave. "You can't go out there. There's twenty of 'em at the sawmill on Old Mill Road. They've got automatic weapons. They've got three hundred pounds of precursor chemicals sitting in the drying sheds. If you go out there, they won't just kill you—they'll put you through an industrial wood chipper!"

"Old Mill Road," I murmured, committing the location to memory. "The old Henderson lumber yard?"

Vance gave a single, terrified nod. "Yeah. Mile marker four. But you'll never get close. They've got spotters on the ridge."

"Thank you, Sheriff," I said.

I reached behind his back, pulled his own pair of heavy stainless-steel Peerless handcuffs from his duty belt, and ratcheted them around his wrists. I pulled them tight—not tight enough to cut off circulation, but tight enough that he wouldn't be slipping them with a paperclip.

I dragged him across the gravel flat to the front wheel of the Caterpillar loader, looped a length of heavy logging chain through his cuffs, and secured it to the hydraulic ram with a heavy master padlock I found in the cab.

"You can't leave me here!" Vance yelled, his voice rising into hysterical panic as he realized he was anchored to a forty-ton piece of rusted iron in the middle of a deserted quarry. "The temperature's dropping! I'll freeze to death!"

"The temperature is forty-eight degrees," I told him, checking my watch. "You won't freeze. You'll just be very uncomfortable. And the state police will be here in about forty-five minutes."

"State police?" Vance sneered through his tears. "They don't have jurisdiction on county roads unless I invite 'em!"

I reached into my pocket, pulled out my smartphone, and held the screen up to his face.

The screen wasn't off. It was glowing with an active, high-priority cellular bridge.

CALL CONNECTED: FBI SAC LAUREN CHEN - SPECIAL ENTERPRISE BRANCH, ATLANTA FIELD OFFICE. CALL DURATION: 18 MINUTES, 42 SECONDS.

A crisp, sharp female voice came through the speakerphone, cutting through the quarry air like an arctic wind:

"Sheriff Vance. This is Special Agent in Charge Lauren Chen. For the past eighteen minutes, your confession regarding interstate narcotics distribution, conspiracy to commit murder, and official corruption has been recorded on an authorized federal wire under Title Three of the Omnibus Crime Control Act."

Vance stopped breathing.

The color drained from his face so fast he looked like a corpse propped up against the giant rubber tire.

"We have three tactical teams from the Richmond field office staging forty miles north of your position," Agent Chen continued. "State Police Tactical Units are currently deploying to the Henderson lumber yard on Old Mill Road. Thank you for your cooperation, Sheriff. You just saved the taxpayers three months of grand jury depositions."

I tapped the screen, disconnecting the call, and slipped the phone back into my pocket.

"You..." Vance choked out, his voice cracking into a dry, hollow rattle. "Who the hell are you? You're not just some highway driver."

I didn't answer him.

I walked over to the bed of my ruined pickup truck, pulled out my canvas duffel bag, and transferred my gear into the passenger seat of Vance’s Dodge Ram. The front end was heavily damaged, but the Cummins diesel fired on the first turn of the key, rumbling with unbroken, mechanical power.

I opened the passenger door.

"Rex," I called out. "Mount up."

Rex leaped into the leather cab with effortless grace, taking his position by the window, his ears perked, watching the sheriff with cold, unblinking detachment.

I climbed behind the wheel, shifted the heavy truck into reverse, and backed away from the loader.

"Hey!" Vance screamed behind us, straining against the logging chain, the steel links clinking uselessly against the iron wheel. "Don't leave me here! What about the Vipers?! If they find out I talked, they'll kill me!"

"Then you'd better pray the FBI gets here before they do," I said through the open window.

I dropped the truck into drive, hit the gas, and tore through the ruined gate of the quarry, heading south toward Old Mill Road.