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"He's providing directed intelligence. Specific, verifiable, consistent with someone who handled the routing packets himself."
I pause long enough to hear my own breathing in the closed cab, then choose my phrasing the way I'd choose my footing on a ledge.
"He identified a second phantom carrier today. A company called Sandoval Hauling that appears in the APRA approved system but may not exist in the federal registry. I've documented the discrepancy and I'll verify tonight."
"How is he delivering the intelligence?"
"Directly. Verbal. At the events."
"Are you maintaining operational distance?"
He asks it after any prolonged source contact, the same flat cadence he'd use to confirm a mileage report. My answer should be just as routine.
The word that comes out of my mouth is the one I've given at each progress check since the operation began. The fact that it's no longer accurate doesn't change the sound of it.
"Yes."
The line stays quiet long enough for me to hear the loading chute gate swing open and bang shut. He's deciding whether to push, and I can feel the pause from two states away. He lets it go.
"Verify the company. If it's a phantom, I want a formal request to Torres for a subpoena on the full approval chain before the next event. And keep the cooperation window with Carrick open. He's the closest thing we have to a firsthand witness."
"One more thing. There's an unscheduled Thornton trailer behind pen twelve. It arrived last night with no livestock movement until tomorrow. I've also got a solo vendor leaving the grounds alone after teardown. I need eyes on the trailer and the east gate tonight."
"Send Torres the plate. No contact unless you see an overt threat."
"Understood."
The call ends. In the span of one progress report, I requested surveillance to protect a woman I've never formally identified as at risk and lied about the source whose intelligence made the request possible. My report is accurate. It's also incomplete by the width of a motel room and a man I can still feel against my skin when the air goes quiet.
I open my laptop and run Sandoval Hauling through the FMCSA database. No active USDOT number, no motor-carrier authority, no federal safety record under the name or the Doña Ana County address.
I rerun the address and registered agent through the New Mexico business registry. The LLC exists on paper, filed months ago at the same Doña Ana County address, but nothing in the filing connects it to a carrier with federal operating authority.
Everything about Sandoval reads like a shell: a paper LLC with no federal authorization, appearing in APRA's approved-carrier system despite having no authority to haul, and, according to Carrick, displayed on a rig whose paperwork names another company.
My phone buzzes. Torres.
East-gate footage preserved. Trailer plate matches your partial. SANDOVAL HAULING visible on the door.
Second phantom confirmed. Carrick's intelligence is corroborated. The mismatch between the rig and the paperwork is no longer his word against the documents.
I close the laptop and watch the fairgrounds through the windshield. The Thornton trailer is still parked beyond pen twelve. Penny is carrying cases to her Tahoe alone, locking her inventory in for the night. Torres has an unmarked unit ten minutes out.
Whatever else Carrick is holding stays with him until I prove Sandoval dirty. Proving it means going back to him.
7
SLADE
Wade Ashcroft leans against the fence rail without being invited. He's watching the steer wrestling stock cycle through the holding pens with the flat, patient attention of a man who has nothing better to do this morning and isn't pretending otherwise.
The last time Wade and I spoke was in a barn aisle last season, the night he called riders together against Thornton. I told him to count me in and to watch the pens at night, and I walked out before he could ask me anything. He was still dissolving into his own purse checks back then, a saddle bronc rider whose divorce was eating through whatever the whiskey hadn't reached.
He looks different now. Steadier. The bloat is gone from his face, and he rests flat on the rail without the tremor I remember.
"Carrick." He says my name the way circuit men do, without warmth or hostility, just verification. His shirt is clean and his hat is straight. Both of those are worth noting for a man who used to show up to events looking like his truck's floor had dressed him.
"Ashcroft."
