I did not scream.
I did not drop my phone.
I slowly, deliberately reached down to the walnut table.
I picked up my grandfather’s antique brass drafting compass.
I bent the needle point back straight against the edge of the mahogany desk until the steel bit into the wood with an unyielding, permanent snap:
*CLACK.
*
I turned to Detective Sergeant Marcus Vance:
“Marcus,” I said softly.
My voice had no fear.
It carried the unyielding density of an armor plate:
“Get the assault team.”
“Warm up the helicopter.”
“The pitch is finished.”
“Now…”
I slipped the titanium key into my coat pocket:
“…we’re going home to protect the family.”
The air above the foothills of Jefferson County did not smell of urban smog; it smelled of dry lodgepole pine, ozone, and forty-five hundred pounds of burning JP-8 jet propellant.
