Haynes’s face flushed a deep, ugly crimson. He wasn’t used to defiance out here, and certainly not from a woman who looked like Sloan. He saw the faded T-shirt. He saw the old car. He saw the color of her skin, and he calculated, in that single reckless glance, that she was powerless. It was a fatal miscalculation.
“Listen to me very carefully.” Haynes ripped his gun from its holster and pointed it squarely through the open window at Sloan’s face. “You are going to open this door, and you are going to get out on the ground, or I am going to rip you through this window. Do you understand me?”
Behind the car, rookie officer Liam Davies gasped, taking a sudden step forward. “Travis, Jesus, man, what are you doing?” “Shut up, Davies. Watch the perimeter.” Haynes screamed over his shoulder, his eyes wide and manic as he pushed the barrel of his pistol closer to Sloan’s temple.
The moment had crossed the point of no return. Time seemed to stretch, slow, and dilate, like the endless highway itself. The heavy metallic click of the safety disengaging echoed through the still desert air. It was a sound Sloan had heard a hundred times on the firing range.
Feeling the hollow black eye of a loaded barrel hovering inches from her skull was an entirely different thing. She didn’t panic. Her heart rate spiked, yes, but her training overrode her fear. The man holding the gun was erratic, sweating heavily despite the dry heat, his finger hovering dangerously close to the trigger.
He was a powder keg, and any sudden movement would hand him the excuse he was desperately searching for. “Okay,” Sloan said, her voice eerily calm, projecting a deadly stillness. “My hands are on the wheel. I am complying.” “Open the damn door!” Haynes roared, spittle flying from his lips and landing against the window frame.
“Officer Haynes,” Sloan said, reading the silver name tag pinned to his chest. “Listen to me very carefully. I am a sworn federal officer. I am a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My credentials are in the same jacket on the passenger seat. I am going to reach for them very, very slowly. If you shoot me, you will be murdering a federal agent, and you will spend the rest of your natural life in a federal supermax prison.”
Haynes blinked. His mind struggled to process the words. For one split second, the barrel of the gun wavered. Then a twisted, incredulous grin spread across his face. “You’re an FBI agent?” He mocked, his tone dripping with contempt. “Yeah. And I’m the King of England. Get out of the car, you lying—” He trailed off, shaking his head. “You people will say anything.”
“Travis, hold on.” Davies called out from the rear of the car, his voice trembling. “Let her show the ID. Just let her show it, man.” “I told you to secure the perimeter, Davies.” Haynes snapped, then looked back at Sloan. “Fine. Show me the fake badge. Do it slow. You flinch, I drop you.”
Sloan kept her eyes locked on Haynes’s twitching trigger finger. Moving with agonizing slowness, she lifted her right hand from the steering wheel, reached across to the passenger seat, and let her fingertips find the cool, heavy leather of her FBI credentials case. She pulled it into her lap, then slowly raised it toward the window, flipping it open.
The gold shield caught the brutal midday sun and glinted brightly. Beneath it sat her official Bureau identification card. Sloan Jenkins, special agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation, complete with the Department of Justice seal, the security watermarks, and the stamped signature of the special agent in charge.