What Lies Beneath The Broken Asphalt On County Road Nine
CHAPTER 1: THE STOP ON ROUTE NINE
The cold wind smelled of damp chaff and diesel exhaust, rolling off five thousand acres of harvested corn in Black Hawk County. Robert Vance kept his hands on the chrome handlebars of his 1974 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide, feeling the slow, rhythmic thrum of the Shovelhead engine vibrating through the worn soles of his engineer boots. Behind him, the strobes of a county cruiser slashed red and blue across the dry asphalt.
The cruiser door slammed shut with the sharp crack of cheap sheet metal. Footsteps advanced along the gravel shoulder—hurried, heavy, deliberately aggressive.
Robert didn’t flinch. In his sixty-two years, forty spent between Mekong river deltas and the cold-room interrogation suites of the State Department of Justice, he had learned that men and women who walked with that particular swagger were usually terrified of their own insignificance.
“Shut it down! Right now!”
The voice was young, reedy, and laced with manufactured vinegar. Robert turned his head slowly. The deputy was female, twenty-five or six, her blonde hair pulled back into a severe regulation bun beneath an eight-point saucer cap. Her aviator sunglasses caught the flat, gray glare of the Iowa sky. Her right hand hovered within two inches of her Glock holster, fingers twitching like spider legs on dry parchment.
Robert turned the ignition switch on the chrome tank console. The heavy twin-cylinder died with a soft mechanical hiss, leaving only the rustle of cornstalks scraping in the ditch.
“Afternoon, Deputy,” Robert said. His voice was a calm, low baritone, seasoned like smoked hickory.
“License, registration, and proof of insurance,” she snapped, stepping directly into his peripheral vision. Her steel citation pad slapped against the leather of her thigh with rhythmic impatience. “Now.”
“May I ask the probable cause for the stop?” Robert asked. He kept both hands resting loosely on the grips, open-palmed, visible. “The speed limit on County Road Nine is fifty-five. The vintage speedometer on this machine was holding steady at forty-eight.”
“You don’t ask questions, drifter. I do,” Deputy Cassidy Rowe sneered, leaning down until Robert could smell the mint chewing gum masking cheap coffee on her breath. “You crossed the state line forty minutes ago. Out-of-county plates. Heavy leather luggage. In Black Hawk County, that constitutes reasonable suspicion for drug trafficking and interstate contraband under municipal code eight-dash-four.”
Robert’s eyes narrowed behind his polarized aviators, though his mouth remained placid. “Municipal codes don’t supersede the Fourth Amendment, Deputy Rowe. And Iowa Code chapter eight hundred and four doesn’t grant warrantless roadside interrogation without articulable suspicion of an ongoing felony.”
Rowe’s pale cheeks flushed a mottled crimson. She took a half-step back, her left hand coming down hard on the Electra Glide’s chrome luggage rack, rocking the four-hundred-pound motorcycle on its suspension. “Are you lecturing me on state law from the seat of a scrap heap? Step off the vehicle. Place your hands on top of your helmet. We are conducting an inventory search of these saddlebags.”
“The saddlebags are locked,” Robert said softly. “And you do not have consent.”
“I don’t need consent under county emergency asset forfeiture!” Rowe barked, unclipping a heavy brass flashlight from her belt and gesturing toward the ditch. “Step off or I will remove you with physical force and charge you with felony obstruction of a peace officer! You have five seconds!”
Before she could count to one, the low, throaty roar of a twin-turbo V8 echoed across the flat cornfields from the north.
A second county patrol vehicle—an unmarked midnight-blue Tahoe sporting a low-profile LED bar behind the tinted windshield—drifted around the bend at eighty miles an hour. It kicked up a rooster tail of gray limestone dust as it slid onto the shoulder, stopping three feet behind Rowe’s cruiser.
Rowe glanced back, a triumphant smirk twisting her thin lips. “You’re in luck, old man. Backup’s here. Let’s see how cocky you talk when Sheriff James Soldoff writes the impound ticket himself.”
The Tahoe’s heavy driver door swung open. A man stepped out into the biting wind. He was broad-chested, six-foot-two, his dark hair salted with silver at the temples. A pristine tan county uniform stretched across his shoulders, topped by a broad-brimmed campaign hat and a gold five-point star pinned over his left pocket. His eyes swept over the motorcycle, the chrome gas tank, and the man sitting in the saddle.
Sheriff James Soldoff stopped in his tracks. His jaw slackened.
Rowe stepped forward, gesturing aggressively with her citation pen. “Sheriff! I pulled this out-of-towner on a suspected transit run! He’s refusing lawful orders to dismount, refusing a vehicle inventory, and threatening obstruction. I was just about to cuff him and call the tow rig—”
James didn’t look at her. He didn’t even blink. He walked past Rowe as if she were a fence post, stepping directly up to the motorcycle. He pulled off his polarized sunglasses, his eyes wide with an emotion that bordered on religious shock.
“Robert?” the Sheriff breathed.
Robert Vance allowed a small, warm smile to touch the corners of his gray mustache. He reached up with his gloved right hand and removed his sunglasses. “Morning, James. It’s been a long ride from Des Moines.”
Rowe stared between them, her mouth opening and closing like a landed bass. “Sheriff? You… you know this guy?”
James spun around. The warmth on his face vanished, replaced by an expression so terrifyingly dark that Rowe involuntarily took two steps back into the ditch. “Know him? Deputy Rowe, you are standing in front of Robert Vance. The former Chief of Criminal Investigations for the Iowa Department of Justice. The man who rewrote the state patrol tactics manual, prosecuted the Cedar Rapids cartel, and pulled my bloody carcass out of a burning patrol car on Interstate Eighty twenty years ago.”
Rowe’s throat clicked as she tried to swallow. The color drained from her face, leaving her chalk-white beneath the Iowa sun. “Chief… Chief Vance? I… he didn’t present credentials…”
“You didn’t ask for credentials,” Robert said quietly, dismounting from the Harley and setting the steel kickstand into the gravel. He walked to the rear of the motorcycle, his boots clicking on the asphalt. Then he leaned in close to James’s shoulder, speaking in a voice so low only the Sheriff could hear.
“Cassidy Rowe isn’t pulling random travelers, James,” Robert murmured. “Check her center console. She’s got a handheld radio receiver tuned to frequency four-sixty-point-twelve. That’s Donald Hatcher’s private grain security channel. And five minutes before you pulled up, her dash-cam flashed an alert from a cellular transponder wired directly into my rear brake light.”
Sheriff James stiffened, his fingers curling into hard fists at his sides.
