A 6x8 cell? And a terrifying Aryan Brotherhood cellmate who wanted him dead. Bryce uncapped the pen. "Screw them," he whispered to the empty room. "If I'm going down, I'm taking the whole damn town with me."
He signed his name, Bryce A. Callahan. The ink wasn't even dry when he knocked on the door. "Guard, I'm done. Get Agent Voss back here."
Days later, the storm that Kendrick Voss had promised finally made landfall in Pine Creek. But this wasn't just rain. It was a hurricane of federal indictments. It started early one morning on a weekday. The town was waking up, coffee brewing in the diner, school buses idling, a convoy of black SUVs, unmarked vans, and armored trucks rolled down Main Street.
This time they didn't stop at the police station, they went straight to the top. Target one, the courthouse. FBI agents breached the chambers of Judge Roy Abernathy. Abernathy, a man who had sat on the bench for decades, signing blank warrants for Bryce Callahan to fill in later, was dragged out in his pajamas. He was found shredding documents in his home office.
The image of the distinguished judge in a silk robe being handcuffed on his front lawn was broadcast live by the news choppers. Target two, City Hall. Mayor Harlan Donovan was in the middle of a televised press conference denying any knowledge of the corruption when Kendrick Voss walked onto the stage. "Mayor Donovan," Kendrick said, his voice booming without a microphone, "Federal warrant." Donovan froze.
"You can't do this here. I am the mayor." "You're a racketeer," Kendrick corrected him. "We have the ledger, Harlan. The kickbacks from the construction contracts, the payoffs from the impound lot, the cut you took from every settlement Langley made.
It's over." Serena Voss stepped up and slapped the cuffs on the mayor. The press cameras flashed like lightning. It was the perfect visual, the corrupt establishment falling to the very justice they had tried to pervert. Target three, the remnants across town.
The dominoes fell. The towing company owner who charged exorbitant fees and split them with the police, arrested. The doctor who falsified sobriety tests, arrested. Officer Riley, who had just stood by and watched, he surrendered voluntarily, tears streaming down his face hoping for leniency. By midday, the power structure of Pine Creek had been decapitated.
The good old boys network wasn't just broken, it was pulverized. Months later, Bryce Callahan sat in a sterile recreation room in a federal correctional institution in West Virginia. He had been moved. Witness protection for prisoners was a lonely existence. He was in a unit with other snitches, mobsters who turned state's evidence, gang leaders who sold out their lieutenants.
There was no status here, no hammer. He was just inmate 8942. He was sweeping the floor, a job that paid pennies an hour. On the wall, a television was playing the news. Bryce stopped sweeping.