I didn’t sneak through the back alleys.
I didn’t crawl through the drainage ditches.
I walked down the center of the asphalt of Willow Court, my work boots striking the road with a clean, measured, unhurried cadence: crunch… crunch… crunch.
I was wearing my dark tactical trousers and the olive-drab combat shirt, my Level IV plate carrier buckled tight across my chest, the brass drafting compass clutched in my left palm, the titanium key resting in my open right hand.
The contractor sitting in the passenger seat of the black Suburban raised a pair of compact military binoculars to his eyes.
He saw my face.
He keyed his throat microphone, spoke two hurried words, and lowered the glass.
The front passenger door of my home—the solid white pine door that I had stripped, sanded, and painted forest green with my own hands three summers ago—swung open.
