A Merciful Silence (Mercy Kilpatrick #4)(6)

Truman wouldn’t trade his city for anything. It was God’s country. Sun, rivers, mountains, lakes. Forests to the west and fields to the east. And he laughed at the rush-hour traffic that made the locals moan. He’d lived in San Jose—he didn’t mind Eagle’s Nest’s two-minute wait at 5:00 p.m. to turn onto the highway.

The El Camino started to slow. Truman held his breath as he drew closer, squinting at the license plate.

No state DMV authorized that plate.

It was white with blue lettering and had a flag on one side. The vehicle pulled over, and Truman stopped behind it. There was no point entering the small numbers along the bottom of the plate into his computer. The license plate read US CONSTITUTIONAL LICENSE PLATE in big letters above the numbers.

He sighed. Over the radio Lucas announced that a Deschutes County deputy was minutes away.

Might as well get this over with.

Truman put on his cowboy hat, stepped out of his truck, and sniffed the air, noting a damp odor; the rain was coming back. He slowly approached the El Camino. It wasn’t in bad shape for a vehicle that had to be at least thirty years old. The paint was shinier than Truman’s dusty SUV’s, and he saw only one dent on the driver’s side. There appeared to be a single person inside, and the bed of the vehicle was loaded with plastic tubs and fresh-cut lumber. The driver made eye contact in the rearview mirror, and Truman saw he was young, maybe in his twenties or thirties.

Truman stopped a few feet behind the driver’s door, getting a good view of the front seat through the rear window. No apparent weapons. Yet.

A traffic stop in Arkansas nearly a decade earlier flashed in Truman’s brain. It hadn’t been his stop, but not a single cop in the United States would ever forget it.

It’d been in the news for months.

The homemade license plate had brought the memory front and center.

Maybe I should wait for county.

His hand hovered over the butt of his gun.

“Did I do something criminal, sir?” The voice from the car was calm and polite.

Truman tensed at the man’s emphasis on the word criminal. “License and registration, please.” He took a step closer. Now he could see the man’s lap and both hands. No weapon.

“Did I do something criminal, sir?” he repeated. “You cannot stop me unless you suspect me of a criminal act.”

Moving closer, Truman decided the driver was in his midtwenties. “What’s your name?” he asked the driver.

“I don’t have to identify myself,” he stated, piercing blue eyes meeting Truman’s. “That’s my right. I know my rights.”

“You have an illegal license plate on your car, and you were exceeding the speed limit.”

“I don’t care what your highway traffic act says. I have no contracts under that act. I’ve canceled them all so you can’t enforce them on me.”

I don’t have the energy for this today. “Let me guess. You’re a free man and have a God-given right to travel freely.”

“That is correct, sir.”

The man’s confirmation told Truman he was of the same beliefs as the two men who’d leaped out of their vehicle and murdered the cops in Arkansas.

A sovereign citizen. Someone who believes they are above all laws.

Truman kept a sharp eye on the man’s hands. “Well, you’ve endangered other innocent people by speeding, and your plate tells me that you haven’t paid the taxes to drive on these beautiful roads of ours.”

“I know my rights. You’re enforcing corporate policy, sir, and unless you suspect me of a criminal act, you have no right to detain me.”

A Deschutes County cruiser stopped behind Truman’s vehicle. “How about you simply tell me your name?” Truman asked politely. “That way we can have a civil discussion.”

“I’m not operating in that capacity.”

The capacity of being sane?

“I am the human being that owns the entity. You know a legal person is a nonhuman entity, right?”

“How about you share your entity’s name?” Truman didn’t bother to try to understand the man’s logic. There was no logic when it came to dealing with sovereign citizens. They firmly believed every word they said, indoctrinated by the internet and other like-minded people. Most were polite to a point but had an arsenal of word magic and pseudo-legal phrases to make anyone’s head spin.

The man considered Truman’s question and then handed him a plastic card from his wallet. “Are you the Deschutes County sheriff?” the driver asked, twisting his neck to see Truman’s uniform.

Right now, I wish I were. Sovereign citizens recognized only a sheriff as law enforcement because sheriffs were elected by the public.

Truman took the card without answering and stared at it. “What is this?” he blurted, confused by the identification the man had handed him.

“That’s my diplomatic identification card.”

Truman was pretty certain the young man in the dirty jeans and yellowing white T-shirt wasn’t a diplomat. But according to the card, which showed the name Joshua Forbes, his photo, the word ambassador across the top, and the seal of the State Department, he was exactly that.

Completely bogus.

Truman had heard of the cards but had never seen one before. He’d now met his first card-carrying sovereign citizen.