We also have footage of him attempting to plant drugs just now."
Thorn slumped back into his chair. It was over.
"Where is Harlan?" Dez asked.
"He's on his way back," Lang's voice came over the speakerphone on Dez's mobile, which he had left running. "And he's crying."
The drama was peaking, but the hard karma was just getting warmed up.
Harlan thought he was going to lose his job. He didn't realize he was about to become the face of a national movement and the primary target of a federal indictment.
Dez walked out of the office, flanked by the colonel and the FBI agents. He walked through the booking room.
The other officers, the ones who had laughed earlier, stared at the floor. They knew the storm had made landfall.
As Dez stepped out into the evening sun, the press cameras flashed like lightning, but Dez wasn't looking at them.
He was looking at the cruiser pulling into the lot. Harlan was coming back, and Dez was going to be waiting for him at the door, not as a suspect, but as the man whose case was about to end Harlan's life as a free man.
The parking lot of the Oak Haven Police Department had transformed into a carnival of accountability. Three satellite trucks were idling, their masts extended like robotic giraffes.
A dozen reporters jockeyed for position near the back entrance, the place where suspects were usually paraded for the cameras.
Officer Royce Harlan steered his cruiser into the lot, his stomach churning like a cement mixer. He saw the circus.
He saw the SUVs with government plates blocking the exit. He saw Harrison Lang giving a sound bite to a reporter from the Washington Post.
Harlan gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles ached. He was still clinging to a shred of delusion.
"I can fix this," he told himself. "I just need to explain.
The baggy fell. It was a mistake.
Thorn will back me up. The union will back me up."
He parked the car. He didn't see Sergeant Kowalski waiting by the back door.
He didn't see the two FBI agents standing in the shadows of the awning.
Harlan stepped out. The flash bulbs erupted immediately, a stroboscopic assault that blinded him.
"Officer Harlan, did you plant evidence? Officer, are you aware the suspect is a decorated veteran?
Why did you turn off your body camera audio?"
Harlan put his head down and pushed through the crowd, shoving a microphone away. "No comment.
Back."
He reached the heavy steel door, swiping his key card. The light blinked red.
"Access denied."
He swiped it again.
"Access denied."
Panic flared in his chest. He pounded on the door.
"Open up. It's Harlan."
The door clicked and swung open, but it wasn't a friendly face welcoming him inside. It was Sergeant Kowalski, and Kowalski wasn't smiling.
He wasn't eating a sandwich. He was standing with his arms crossed, blocking the threshold.
"Sarge, let me in. The press is eating me alive out there," Harlan pleaded, trying to squeeze past.
Kowalski didn't move. He put a heavy hand on Harlan's chest.
"You're not coming into the squad room, Royce. Not as an officer."