The dispatcher’s voice was calm, but the tone shifted the moment I mentioned the highway culvert and the suppressed weapon. Within twenty minutes, three unmarked black SUVs were tearing up my gravel driveway. These weren’t local deputies; these were federal agents with “DEA” printed on their tactical vests.
A tall man with a buzz cut and a stone-cold expression introduced himself as Agent Miller. He didn’t waste time with small talk, heading straight for the kitchen table where the wet bills sat. He donned a pair of latex gloves and picked one up, sniffing it briefly before nodding to his partner.
“You did the right thing calling us, Mr. Coleman,” Miller said, his eyes scanning the treeline outside my window. He explained that they had been tracking a major trafficking ring that used this stretch of highway as a dead-drop point. They had missed the bag during a sweep two days ago.
The traffickers had panicked during a surprise highway checkpoint and dumped the “load” into the culvert, planning to retrieve it once the heat died down. If I had stayed at that pipe for five more minutes, I would have run right into the recovery team.
Miller asked me to show them exactly where the culvert was, but he insisted I stay in the back of the armored SUV. As we drove back toward the highway, I saw Max sitting on the porch, looking perfectly unbothered by the chaos he had unleashed on our quiet farm.
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