“That would be good.”

“How much is it worth to you? We’ve got a roadblock problem.”

“They’re shaking us down, is that it?” said Oscar, his brow creasing beneath his immaculate hair. “They want a bribe, straight across? Is it really that simple?”

“Nothing is ever simple anymore,” said Fontenot. The campaign’s security man wasn’t attempting world-weary sarcasm. He was relating a modern fact of life. “This isn’t like our other little roadblock hassles. This is the United States Air Force.”

Oscar considered this novel piece of information. It didn’t sound at all promising. “Why, exactly, is the Air Force blockading a federal highway?”

“Folks have always done things differently here in Louisiana,” Fontenot offered. Through the phone’s flimsy earpiece, a distant background of car honks rose to a crescendo. “Oscar, I think you need to come see this. I know Louisiana, I was born and raised here, but I just don’t have the words to describe all this.”

“Very good,” Oscar said. “I’ll be right there.” He stuffed the phone in his sleeve. He’d known Fontenot for over a year, and had never heard such an invitation from him. Fontenot never invited other people out to share the professional risks he took; to do that countered every instinct in a bodyguard. Oscar didn’t have to be asked twice.

Oscar set his laptop aside and stood up to confront his entourage. “People, listen to me, here’s the deal! We have another little roadblock problem ahead.” Dismal groans. “Fontenot is on the situation for us. Jimmy, turn on the alarms.”

The driver pulled off the road and activated the bus’s inbuilt defenses. Oscar gazed briefly at the window. Actually, the campaign bus had no windows. Seen from outside, the bus was a solid shell. Its large internal “windows” were panel screen displays, hooked to external cameras that scoped out their surroundings with pitiless intensity. The Bambakias campaign bus habitually videotaped everything that it perceived. When pressed, the bus also recorded and cataloged everything that it saw, exporting the data by satellite relay to an archival safe house deep in the Rocky Mountains. Alcott Bambakias’s campaign bus had been designed and built to be that kind of vehicle.