Chapter 260 - 260: 260 | Road Problems (1)

<🎧 Song Recommendation: SLAVIA FUNK! by MVSTERIOUS, Hxmr, yngastrobeatz.>

...

Von stepped down the three metal steps of the bus and dropped onto the gravel shoulder of the turnpike.

A hundred yards down the open lanes, a massive commercial refrigerated hauler roared past at sixty-five miles an hour, its headlights cutting through the dark.

Up on the overhead gantry, the weigh-station bypass light flashed green for it, and neither of the parked highway patrol cruisers even twitched.

Another freight truck blew past right behind it, completely unbothered.

Nobody else on the turnpike was being stopped. This entire roadblock had been set up exclusively for them.

Ahead, bathed in flashing blue and amber strobes, their lead semi-truck sat idling.

David and their lead transport driver, Frank, were standing by the front bumper with their hands raised in frustrated gestures, surrounded by three uniformed commercial vehicle enforcement officers.

Von shoved his hands into his sweatpants pockets and walked over.

"David," Von called out, his voice cutting through the engine rumble. "What's going on?"

David spun around, looking stressed. "Von, you shouldn't be out here."

The lead officer turned. He was a broad-shouldered man with a flat-brimmed campaign hat and a metal clipboard tucked under his arm.

He looked Von up and down with an unimpressed sneer.

"Who's this?"

"Oh? It's the kid on the billboard?"

"I'm Von Varley. It's my tour," Von said evenly, stepping up beside David. "Why is our convoy stopped?"

The officer tapped his pen against the clipboard.

"State Department of Transportation commercial safety check," the officer said flatly.

"Automated system flagged your fleet three miles back. Your electronic logbooks show a suspicious gap during departure from Miami. Suspected driver fatigue and falsified rest hours."

He pointed with his pen toward the fourteen semi-trailers lined up behind the coaches.

"On top of that, your manifest lists stage pyrotechnics. Under state administrative code, any fleet carrying event explosives flagged for logbook irregularities is subject to a full Level-1 mechanical audit and weight re-balancing."

"That's complete bullshit!" Frank snapped, his face flushed red under the strobes. He swung an arm toward the open highway where another commercial hauler sped past without slowing down.

"Three freight trucks just blew past your scales doing seventy!" Frank shouted, pointing an angry finger.

"Their transponders went green, and you didn't even look up! But you drag fourteen of our trucks off the road over an invisible computer flag?!"

"Those carriers are pre-cleared, driver," the lead officer replied coldly without even blinking. "Your fleet isn't. Keep your mouth shut before I cite you for non-compliance."

"Frank, let me talk," David said, stepping between them before turning back to the officer.

"Officer, look," David said, forcing his voice to stay steady. "We run a compliant operation. If there's a sensor glitch on your gantry, we have physical timecards in the production office. We have a load-in at the Amway Center in Orlando this morning. Holding fourteen trucks over an unverified system ping doesn't make any sense."

"Haha, how unfortunate." The officer let out a dry, condescending laugh.

"I don't care about your concert, mister," the officer said. "A system flag is a system flag. Until a certified state hazmat inspector checks every single trailer and signs off on the cargo, nobody moves an inch."

"Fine," David pressed. "Call the inspector out here. We'll pay the emergency off-hours fee."

"Can't do that," the officer shrugged smugly. "State-certified hazmat teams only work administrative day shifts. Next available crew isn't on-site until Wednesday morning. Until then, this fleet is on a mandatory seventy-two-hour administrative hold."

Von's eyes narrowed.

Wednesday morning. The day of the Orlando show. Holding the trucks until Wednesday meant missing load-in, canceling the date, and eating millions in refunds and penalties.

"Wednesday?" Von asked with his voice dead calm. "You're letting every other carrier on the highway drive by, but you're holding eighteen of our vehicles for three days over a clerical error?"

The officer sneered, about to reply, when the second officer walked over from the patrol cruiser carrying a heavy pair of iron bolt cutters.

"We're checking the hazardous cargo right now," the second officer announced, heading straight toward the locked latch of the lead pyrotechnics trailer.

Frank's eyes went wide. He lunged across the gravel, planting his boots right in front of the trailer doors to block the latch.

"Don't you touch that latch!" Frank shouted with his chest heaving. "Those are bonded corporate transit seals! You cannot break a federal freight seal without a signed warrant!"

"Step away from the trailer, driver!" the second officer barked, his voice rising as his free hand dropped straight to the grip of the taser on his duty belt. "Interfering with a commercial safety inspection is an immediate felony arrest. Back off right now!"

The gravel crunched beneath a sudden, heavy stride.

Von stepped directly into the space between Frank and the officer.

He didn't yell. He simply used his height, placing a broad palm flat against Frank's chest to firmly guide the older driver a step back.

"Frank, stand down," Von said quietly. "Don't give them an excuse."

Frank exhaled a ragged breath, his jaw tight, but he stepped back behind Von.

Von turned his eyes onto the second officer with the bolt cutters. The air between them turned freezing cold for a second.

"Put the cutters down," Von said with a flat but sharp tone. "You cut that seal without a warrant or a district supervisor standing here, and my legal team will file civil rights and carrier violations against your personal badge before the sun comes up."

The second officer froze, the heavy iron tool hanging mid-air. He looked into Von's unblinking eyes, felt the calm authority radiating off him, and glanced back uncomfortably at the lead inspector.

The lead officer's jaw tightened. He held up a hand, motioning his partner to step away from the trailer doors.

"Save the bolt cutters," the lead officer commanded, turning back to glare at Von. He pulled a thick stack of bright red adhesive tags from his clipboard.

"Slap the out-of-service tags across every tractor cab instead," the lead officer said cold-bloodedly. "Lock the kingpins. If any of these engines turn over before Wednesday morning, we're calling county tow haulers and impounding the entire fleet."

"You can't be serious!" David yelled, but the second officer was already peeling the red adhesive and marching toward the first truck.

David grabbed Von by the arm and pulled him back into the dark shadow between the coach and the semi.

"Von, this is a disaster," David whispered frantically after they got away, wiping cold sweat from his forehead. "Seventy-two hours kills Orlando. We lose the date, we eat the union penalties, and the tour momentum gets destroyed before we even leave Florida."

David ran a hand through his hair with his chest heaving.

"We need to wake Emily up," David said. "She handles the legal and carrier contracts. Maybe she can reach our firm in Miami or get an emergency injunction from a judge... Look, I don't believe she can magically fix this on the side of a highway at five in the morning, but she might know a loophole or someone to call."

Von looked past David toward the darkened windows of the star coach.

He pictured Emily asleep in her bunk. He remembered the dark circles under her eyes, the deep fatigue she tried to hide, and the fact that she had taken a flight across the country and back on zero sleep just to protect him.

He had stood backstage in Miami and told her she didn't have to fight every war on her own.

If he went back in there now, panicked, and dumped another disaster on her lap while she was finally resting, every word he had said would be a lie.

'No,' Von thought. 'She's carried enough.'

Behind them, the officer slapped the heavy red Out-of-Service tag directly onto Frank's windshield with a loud, mocking slap.

"David," Von said quietly.

David looked at him, bewildered. "What?"

"Stay here. Keep them arguing."

"Von, where are you going? What about Emily?"

"Let her sleep," Von replied flatly. "I'll handle it."

Without waiting for an answer, Von turned and walked around the back of the bus, slipping past the glaring strobe lights and into the quiet dark beside the tree line.

After getting away from their sight and hearing, he pulled his phone from his pocket and called a trusty number.