“I did not.”
“You were recorded doing it.”
“This is entrapment.”
“No,” the agent replied.
“It's evidence.”
Marcus slowly turned toward the judge.
“That statement is on the record too.”
Whitaker pointed at him.
“He stood before this court under a false identity!”
Marcus reached inside his jacket.
Several spectators recoiled.
One officer instinctively moved his hand toward his weapon.
Marcus stopped.
Slowly, he withdrew a black credential case.
He opened it.
Inside was a gold FBI badge.
His photograph was beneath it.
“Supervisory Special Agent Marcus Hale,” he said.
The courtroom became completely silent.
Whitaker stared at the badge.
“No.”
Marcus nodded.
“Yes.”
The judge looked toward the officers.
“Do your jobs.”
The oldest officer behind Marcus looked at the screen.
Then at Whitaker.
Then at Marcus.
His hand slowly dropped away from his cuffs.
The other officers followed.
Whitaker understood.
For the first time that morning, he was alone.
The FBI agent climbed the steps toward the bench.
“Walter Whitaker, you are under arrest for bribery, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, evidence tampering, and deprivation of civil rights.”
Whitaker backed away.
“You cannot arrest me in my own courtroom.”
The agent stopped three feet from him.
“We can.”
She removed her handcuffs.
“And we are.”
The cuffs clicked around Whitaker's wrists.
The man who had spent twenty years sentencing others now stood in the same position as the people he had once ordered removed from his courtroom.
But the arrest was only the beginning.
Because the question everyone in that courtroom wanted answered was simple.
Why had the FBI allowed one of its own agents to be convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in prison?
And why had Marcus Hale willingly walked into that courtroom knowing exactly what was going to happen?
The answer had begun nine months earlier.
In a city where justice was supposed to be blind, someone had discovered that blindness could be purchased.
And Marcus had volunteered to become the bait.
Nine months earlier, Marcus Hale was investigating a murder.
The victim was Daniel Cross, a county financial auditor.
Cross had been found dead in his garage shortly after midnight.
The official report called it a robbery.
Marcus knew immediately that it wasn't.
There were no signs of forced entry.
The victim's wallet was untouched.
His expensive watch was still on his wrist.
His laptop was missing.
So was a small black notebook that Cross carried everywhere.
Marcus had worked enough homicide investigations to recognize staged scenes.
This one was too clean.
He stood in the garage while local detectives photographed the body.
"Anything?" he asked.
Detective Sarah Morgan shook her head.
"Nothing useful."
Marcus crouched near the garage floor.
There was a tiny smear of dark blue paint near the victim's left shoe.
"What's that?"
Sarah looked.
"Probably from the workbench."
"No."
Marcus touched it with a gloved finger.
"Fresh."
He stood.
"Find out what uses that shade of paint."
Sarah sighed.
"Marcus, we're already under pressure to close this."
"Why?"
She hesitated.
"Because the county attorney's office wants it classified as a burglary."
"Of course they do."
Sarah looked at him.
"You don't trust them."
"I don't trust anyone who tells me what the evidence means before the evidence has been examined."
That evening, Marcus went through Cross's financial records.
He discovered something strange.
Three weeks before his death, Cross had requested access to sealed county court files.
The request had been denied.
Two days later, he had filed another request.
This time he had attached a handwritten note.
Marcus found a scanned copy.
It contained only one sentence.
Someone is selling sentences.
Marcus read it twice.
Then a third time.
Someone was selling sentences.
It sounded impossible.
Judges didn't sell prison terms.
Prosecutors didn't sell convictions.
At least, they weren't supposed to.
Marcus contacted his FBI supervisor.
By the next morning, the investigation had been classified.
Three days later, Cross's missing laptop was recovered from an abandoned vehicle.
The hard drive had been wiped.
Almost.
One corrupted file survived.
Marcus's technical team restored it.
It contained a spreadsheet.
Names.
Case numbers.
Sentences.
Payments.
At first, Marcus couldn't understand the pattern.
Then he saw the numbers.
People accused of serious crimes were receiving unusually long sentences.
Some had public defenders.
Some had no criminal history.
Some had even maintained their innocence.
Beside several case numbers was a column labeled SETTLEMENT.
Marcus stared at it.
The payments were not from defendants.
They were from private companies.
Insurance firms.
Property developers.
Investment groups.
Corporations with lawsuits pending.