He holstered his taser and drew his secondary pair of cuffs.
"Turn around. Hands behind your back. Give me a reason to drop you."
"Come on, Officer Jenkins," Jonathan said, his voice terrifyingly calm, devoid of any fear.
"You just cost the United States government $3 million. You just let a cartel money launderer escape. My name is Special Agent Jonathan Paul. The man you just assaulted is Special Agent Samuel Hayes. We are with the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Jenkins paused. For a second, a flicker of doubt crossed his face, but then he looked at Jonathan's baggy clothes, his worn out shoes, and his skin color. The prejudice ran too deep. He couldn't compute the reality in front of him.
He laughed, a harsh mocking sound.
"FBI? Yeah, right. And I'm the president of the United States," Jenkins scoffed, stepping forward and violently spinning Jonathan around.
He kicked Jonathan's legs apart, almost hyperextending his knee and slammed his chest against the bench next to Sam. Jenkins slapped the cuffs on Jonathan, locking them tightly.
"You guys are pathetic," Jenkins gloated, patting down Jonathan's sides.
"Impersonating a federal officer? That's a felony. Let's see what you've really got on you."
Jenkins reached his hand under Jonathan's hoodie, expecting to find a small bag of narcotics or an illegal unregistered handgun. Instead, his hand brushed against a molded Kydex holster holding a perfectly maintained Glock 19. Next to it, clipped securely to a reinforced tactical belt, was a heavy leather credential case. Jenkins's smirk faltered.
He pulled the leather case out from under the hoodie. Flipping it open, the harsh midday sun hit the polished metal inside. A solid gold shield with the blue enamel seal of the Department of Justice. Next to it, a laminated ID card bearing Jonathan's photo, the FBI watermark, and the signature of the director.
The park around them seemed to go dead silent. The only sound was the splashing of the fountain and the erratic, suddenly shallow breathing of Officer Brian Jenkins. Jenkins stared at the gold badge. He blinked.
He looked at the badge, then looked down at the two men in handcuffs.
"A fake!" Jenkins stammered, though his voice had lost all its bravado.
His hands began to tremble.
"This is... you bought this online. Good fake, though."
"Check my left breast pocket, Brian," Sam said from the bench, his cheek pressed against the hot iron, his voice dripping with pure venom.
"Go ahead. Let's see how many fake federal credentials you can find today."
Jenkins swallowed hard, sweat suddenly pouring down his forehead, stinging his eyes. With shaking hands, he reached into Sam's shirt pocket and pulled out a second leather case, another gold badge, another federal ID. Right at that moment, the wail of police sirens pierced the air, but they weren't the standard two-tone sirens of the Atlanta PD backup Jenkins had called for. Three matte-black SUVs with hidden red and blue strobe lights came screeching through the park's pedestrian walkways, tearing up the grass as they surrounded Jenkins's patrol car.
The doors of the SUVs flew open. Out poured a dozen heavily armed tactical agents wearing olive drab tactical vests with massive yellow letters across their chests.
"FBI supervisory agent Richard Cole stepped out of the lead vehicle."
He was a large, imposing man, wearing a sharp suit with his badge clipped to his belt and an expression that promised absolute destruction. He bypassed Jenkins entirely and walked straight to the bench.
"Agent Paul, Agent Hayes, are you injured?" Cole asked, his voice cutting through the humid air like a razor blade.
"Just our pride, boss," Jonathan said calmly, looking over his shoulder at the paralyzed police officer.
"And our wrists. Officer Jenkins here has a heavy hand."
Cole slowly turned his gaze to Jenkins. Jenkins was frozen in place, holding two FBI badges in his trembling hands, staring at the dozen federal agents who now had their hands resting on their sidearms, watching him with hard, focused attention. The consequences were only beginning. Supervisory Special Agent Richard Cole did not yell.
He didn't have to. The terrifying quiet authority radiating from him was enough to suck the remaining oxygen out of the humid Atlanta air. He stepped right into Officer Brian Jenkins's personal space, staring down at the trembling cop.
"The keys, Cole demanded, his voice a low, gravelly baritone. Now Jenkins, his face entirely drained of its former arrogant flush, fumbled blindly at his heavy-duty belt, his fingers, suddenly devoid of fine motor skills, slipped over the metal clasp twice before he managed to unhook his keyring."
He handed them over to Cole like a terrified child handing a switch to a disciplinarian. Cole didn't even look at him. He tossed the keys to another tactical agent who swiftly stepped around the bench, unlocking the handcuffs, biting into Jonathan's wrists. Then Sam's.
Jonathan rolled his shoulders, massaging the deep, angry red indentations pressed into his skin. He stood up slowly, picking up his fallen gold shield from the concrete. He dusted it off and clipped it securely to his belt. Sam did the same, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles in his face ticked.
"Listen, I... I didn't know," Jenkins stammered, his eyes darting between the dozen federal weapons, casually resting in the hands of the tactical team.
He took a nervous step back until his hips hit his cruiser.
"They weren't wearing identification. They were loitering. It was a standard Terry stop—suspicious behavior in a high-crime transient area. I was doing my job."
"Your job?"
Jonathan stepped forward. The calm, deferential man from five minutes ago was gone. In his place was a furious federal investigator.
"Your job is to run a standard patrol, call in your stops to dispatch, and uphold the Constitution. You didn't run our descriptions. You didn't notify dispatch until you had already initiated the confrontation. You bypassed three other groups of people violating park ordinances to target us. And when I told you to back off, you assaulted my partner."
"I had probable cause," Jenkins protested, though his voice cracked.
"You had prejudice," Sam corrected, stepping up beside Jonathan.
"And because of your fragile racist ego, a primary target in a multi-agency RICO investigation just walked away with $3 million of Navarro cartel money."
Before Jenkins could formulate another pathetic defense, the wail of Atlanta Police Department sirens finally reached a crescendo. Two APD cruisers skidded to a halt on the grass, boxing in the FBI vehicles. Four uniformed officers jumped out, hands on their holsters, anticipating a shootout with armed suspects. Instead, they found a wall of heavily armed federal agents surrounding one of their own. Sergeant Thomas Griggs, a gray-haired APD veteran and Jenkins's shift supervisor, pushed his way to the front.