The predator had been caged, but the nightmare for Faulkner County's corrupt elite was only just beginning. Director Fletcher turned away from the defeated man. He reached into his suit jacket, pulling out a encrypted satellite radio. He pressed the transmit button. "This is Vanguard One," Fletcher said calmly into the mic.
"The primary target is secured. Operation Iron Sweep is a go. I repeat, Iron Sweep is a go. Burn it to the ground." For a fleeting second after Fletcher released the radio button, the Georgia highway remained quiet.
Then then the horizon seemed to shatter. From the dirt access roads hidden behind the dense tree lines, from the hidden turnoffs miles down the highway, and from the sky above, the full, terrifying might of the federal government descended upon Faulkner County. Three matte black, heavily armored BearCat tactical vehicles roared onto Route 9, their massive tires chewing up the asphalt as they surrounded Briggs's lonely cruiser. Overhead, the rhythmic, thunderous chopping of a Black Hawk helicopter cut through the stifling heat, its shadow passing directly over the handcuffed sheriff. Following the armor came a seemingly endless procession of unmarked black suburbans, identical to the one Fletcher had been driving.
Their emergency lights strobing blindingly against the afternoon sun. Briggs was roughly spun around by Agent Sullivan and shoved against the side of his own cruiser. He was forced to watch as the convoy blew past them, heading straight for the heart of his town. "Watch closely, Thomas," Fletcher said, standing beside the road as the wind from the passing vehicles whipped his suit jacket. "That is the sound of your empire ending."
10 miles away, in the heart of the county seat, the Faulkner County Sheriff's Department was running as usual. The air conditioning was humming, deputies were drinking stale coffee, and Captain Roy Dempsey, Briggs's ruthlessly loyal second-in-command, was sitting in his office counting a stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills seized from a routine traffic stop the night before. Dempsey was a lean, wiry man with a cruel smile and a profound lack of morality. He was currently trying to fudge the evidence logs to make the $10,000 he was holding look like 2,000. Suddenly, his desk phone lit up.
It was the private line, the emergency line. He snatched the receiver. Dempsey? Roy, it's Judge Holloway. The voice on the other end shrieked, laced with sheer panic.
The feds The feds are everywhere. They just kicked in the door to my chambers. They have warrants, Roy. Federal warrants. Dempsey's blood ran cold.
He dropped the stack of cash. What? What are you talking about? Where is Briggs? I don't know, the judge screamed before the line abruptly went dead, replaced by the dial tone.
Dempsey shot out of his leather chair. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. If they had Holloway, they had the warrants, the wiretaps, the whole corrupt judicial pipeline. He lunged for his office door, locking the deadbolt, and immediately scrambled toward the heavy steel filing cabinet in the corner. Inside that cabinet was the burn book, two black leather ledgers detailing every illegal seizure, every bribe paid, and every politician bought over the last decade.