CHAPTER 30

TROOPER CLAY Hancock from District Two, Troop C, of the Tennessee Highway Patrol spots a black Jeep Wrangler with Virginia license plates pulled over on the side of southbound I-75 and slows down his white Chevrolet Caprice. He switches on the overhead light bar and pulls in right behind the Wrangler, lifts up his Motorola radio handset, and calls in the traffic stop.

He waits for just a second, to see if anyone’s in the area. Nope, the near grassy strip is clear, which means the driver hasn’t let a passenger out for an unofficial rest stop. There also doesn’t seem to be anyone lurking in a nearby grove of trees. The driver has both hands on the steering wheel and is looking back at him via the Jeep’s rearview mirror.

All right, he thinks. Let’s see what’s what.

He picks up his round campaign hat, steps outside, and tugs it on. It looks routine—maybe the driver needed a break, or to check the GPS, or heard something funny from the engine—but Hancock knows no traffic stop is ever routine. Last year he pulled over an RV with Kentucky plates that was weaving back and forth on this same stretch of highway, and the little old lady said she was just tired and needed a cup of coffee.

Maybe she was tired, but a quick search revealed about a hundred pounds of plastic-wrapped weed hidden in the RV’s rear storage unit.

He approaches the Wrangler and presses four fingers on the Jeep’s rear, leaving his fingerprints behind. If something untoward were to happen in the next few minutes, at least his fellow troopers would have forensic proof that he had stopped this Jeep.

Not being paranoid, he thought. Just being careful.

Careful highway patrolmen live to go home at end of shift.

A Tennessee highway patrolman is pulling his cruiser right up behind my Jeep Wrangler, and thoughts and options are rattling through my mind like an avalanche of rocks and stones.

Relax, I think, just relax. Keep the hands on the steering wheel. Act calm and courteous. These guys are professionals, and they have a sixth sense if anything appears odd or unusual.

My goal now is to get a ticket for whatever Tennessee state law I may be violating and get going, but above all, don’t let him search the Jeep. I’m not sure what the law here is concerning driving with two concealed firearms, but I’m sure it’s not a laugh and a lollipop and being sent on one’s way.

I lower the window and put my hands back up on my steering wheel.

The highway patrolman comes up and stands at a distance from the door, so I have to crane my neck to look at him. He’s a male, early thirties, and his lean face is impassive. He has on dark-green trousers and a light-tan shirt with dark-green pocket flaps. With his round campaign hat firmly on his big head, he looks like he could be an Army drill instructor in his spare time.