Tucked high up in the corner, magnetically clamped to the inside lip of the rear bumper where it would be invisible to anyone just walking around the truck, was a small, matte-black plastic square. It was the size of a deck of cards, completely free of the grime and road dirt that coated everything else under the trailer. It was a GPS tracking puck. It was brand new.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I reached out, my gloved fingers hovering an inch from the device. My first instinct was to rip it off and throw it into the storm drain. But if I destroyed their tracker, they would know I was onto them. They would adapt. They might just pull me over right outside the gate and plant the package right there, bypassing the county line trap altogether.
I needed the evidence. I pulled my left boot up, unzipped the side, and retrieved my phone. Keeping my body angled to block any possible sightline from the lot cameras or Ryder’s boots, I opened the camera app. I snapped three clear, high-resolution photos of the tracker attached to the truck's frame, making sure the trailer's unique serial number plate was visible in the background of the last shot.
I slid the phone back into my boot. I had the audio of the trap being set. Now I had photographic proof of the mechanism they were using to spring it.
I crawled back out from under the trailer, wiping grease on my jeans. Ryder was still standing exactly where I left him, his hand resting on his belt.
"Found the issue," I called out, my voice steady. "Loose fitting on the secondary tank. Tightened it up. We’re good to go."
I climbed back up into the cab and pulled the door shut. Before I could even put the key in the ignition, the mounted tablet on my dashboard chimed. It was an incoming voice call from dispatch.
I tapped the screen. "Walter here."
"Walt, it’s Marcus," the voice crackled through the cabin speakers. Marcus was the senior logistics manager for the company. I hadn't spoken to him directly in over a year; normally, I dealt with lower-level dispatchers.
"I got the rig released, Marcus," I said. "Just firing it up now."
"Good," Marcus said, his tone tight, hurried. "Listen closely. There’s a massive pileup on Interstate 70. Both lanes shut down. Do not take the highway. I am routing you down State Route 119. Take it all the way out past the county line, then cut back over."
I stared at the tablet screen. State Route 119 was a desolate, two-lane blacktop that wound through thick pine forests and abandoned logging roads. It was entirely outside city limits. It was the absolute perfect place to conduct a remote, unobserved traffic stop. It was the perfect place to plant a package.
"Route 119 is a restricted weight road, Marcus," I said, testing him. "I could get cited for running a commercial vehicle down that stretch."
"The trailer is empty, Walter. You're fine," Marcus snapped. "I’m the dispatcher. Follow the route I just sent to your tablet. Don't deviate. We need that truck back in the yard today."
The line went dead.
I sat in the driver's seat, staring at the gray route line now glowing on my navigation tablet. Route 119. The county line.
Marcus was in on it. The police weren't just running a random shakedown at the impound lot; they were coordinating with someone inside my own company. Marcus knew the truck was in the lot. Marcus was making sure I drove it directly into the kill zone Ryder had just arranged. If I deviated from the route now, Marcus would see it on the company’s internal telematics and tip off the spotter. If I followed the route, I was driving my own coffin to the graveyard.
The betrayal stung worse than the extortion. I had driven for this company for eight years. I had missed my daughter’s birthdays to haul their freight through ice storms. Now, they were serving me up to cover somebody else’s crimes.
I looked out the window. Ryder was pointing toward the open gate, his jaw clenched in a tight, victorious smirk. He thought he had me completely boxed in. He thought I was just a dumb steering-wheel holder who was too afraid of authority to do anything but follow orders and walk into the trap.
He was wrong.
I had the audio. I had the photo of the tracker. And now, I had Marcus's reroute order logged in the system, proving the coordination.
Silence wasn't going to save my CDL. Playing along wasn't going to get me out of this. If I wanted to survive today, I couldn't just avoid the trap. I had to drag the people who set it out into the light. I reached for the dash valves, pushed them in to release the brakes, and twisted the ignition. The diesel roared to life, and I put the transmission in gear.