Chapter 9 - The Ruin of Authority
Michael’s voice, when he finally tried to speak, was no longer the booming roar of a police chief. It was a raspy, pitiful whine that barely reached above the sound of the idling V8 engines outside.
"Mitchell..." Michael croaked, his bloodshot eyes swimming with tears of horror as he looked at her boots. "Mitchell... please... I didn't know... I thought... your mother said..."
General Mitchell walked slowly over to the chipped blue breakfast table. She reached down with her right hand, picked up her heavy matte-black satellite phone, and tapped the screen to terminate the secure relay link.
She slid the encrypted phone into her tactical jacket pocket, securing the button flap.
Then, she turned around and walked over to where Michael lay pinned against the tile floor. She stood directly over him, looking down with the same cold, unreadable expression she had shown him while lying on the floor minutes earlier.
"You knew exactly what you were doing, Michael," General Mitchell said quietly. "You didn't care about the law. You didn't care about the truth. You saw a woman standing in front of you who refused to submit to your authority, and you used your badge and your gun to try and break her."
"I was protecting my family..." Michael whimpered, a tear tracing through the dirt on his cheek. "I’m the Chief of Police..."
"Not anymore," General Mitchell replied flatly.
She turned to Colonel Vance. "Transfer this individual and his son into federal custody. Process them for aggravated assault on a flag officer, treasonous interference with military communications, and armed felony abuse of official power."
"With pleasure, General," Colonel Vance answered.
The two tactical officers hoisted Michael off the floor by his arms. The gold chief’s badge on his chest hung loose, torn from its leather backing during the struggle, dangling pathetically from a single thread before snapping off completely and falling into the pool of spilled black coffee on the floor.
Michael was dragged through the kitchen, past his weeping wife, and out through the shattered front entryway into the bright, blinding glare of the afternoon sun.
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As he was led down the front steps, he saw his quiet suburban street lined with military transport trucks, federal sedans, and dozens of armed personnel in full tactical gear. Neighbors stood at the edges of their lawns, holding up their phones, filming the local Chief of Police being loaded into the back of a blacked-out federal SUV in heavy steel chains.
His career, his reputation, his power, and his freedom had been utterly obliterated in less than fifteen minutes.
