Chapter 11
The rain finally cleared by Friday morning, leaving the streets of Metropolis slick, gray, and bitterly cold. Inside the federal grand jury room on the fifth floor of the federal plaza, the atmosphere was thick with intense concentration. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Vance—no relation to Marcus or the Lieutenant, a sharp prosecutor with a reputation for dismantling white-collar crime syndicates—sat at the head of the long mahogany table, reviewing the comprehensive evidence package compiled by Maya, Sarah, and retired Captain Henderson.
Across the room, sitting quietly in the gallery section reserved for witnesses, Captain Maya Vance wore a simple charcoal blazer over her black top, her brown shoulder bag resting safely on the floor between her feet. Her hands were folded calmly in her lap. Despite the overwhelming stress of her sudden suspension, the loss of her active-duty status, and the relentless smear campaign running across local news networks, her posture remained unshakeable.
The heavy double doors of the grand jury room swung open, and federal marshals escorted a visibly sweating, highly agitated Marcus Vance into the chamber. Stripped of his internal affairs uniform and wearing an expensive tailored suit that suddenly looked two sizes too big, Marcus tried to maintain an air of arrogant defiance. But his eyes betrayed him, darting nervously toward the panel of ordinary citizens seated on the jury dais.
As Marcus took his seat at the witness stand, Assistant U.S. Attorney Vance stood up, adjusting his glasses, and placed a heavy stack of documents—including the signed bank transfer receipts provided by retired Captain Henderson and the encrypted dispatch logs—directly onto the wooden podium.
"Director Vance, let's begin for the record," Assistant U.S. Attorney Vance stated, his voice ringing crisp and clear through the acoustic room. "Can you explain to this grand jury why your internal affairs division utilized classified counter-terrorism tactical deployment codes to orchestrate an unprovoked street detention of an active-duty precinct captain at the Metropolis Grand Galleria last Tuesday afternoon?"
Marcus swallowed hard, clearing his throat as he gripped the edges of the podium. "That deployment was... an administrative error resulting from an automated panic button malfunction at a retail location. The patrol officers acted in accordance with standard threat-assessment protocol based on witness descriptions."
A collective murmur rippled through the grand jury dais. Assistant U.S. Attorney Vance calmly walked over to the evidence projector, clicking a remote. Instantly, the large wall screen illuminated with a crystal-clear, high-resolution digital playback of the internal text message transcripts leaked from Marcus’s encrypted group chat—messages explicitly plotting to fabricate Maya’s disciplinary file and discredit her integrity.
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"Is that your private encrypted account communicating with Lieutenant Vance, Director Vance?" the prosecutor asked quietly, stepping closer to the witness stand. "And did you personally authorize the manual triggering of the administrative terminal panic button to target Captain Maya Vance?"
Marcus stared at the glowing screen, his mouth opening slightly, but no sound came out. The air in the grand jury room seemed to vanish entirely, leaving only the deafening silence of a crumbling empire.
