Chapter 68 - The Noon Arraignment
By 11:30 AM, the gravel drive of Black Oak looked like a staging ground for a military invasion.
Sixteen black vehicles belonging to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of the Treasury, and the United States Marshals Service choked the perimeter. Above the yellowing pines, two Black Hawk helicopters circled in wide, protective patterns, their rotor thrum vibrating through the autumn air.
Julian Sterling was escorted out of the ruined cellar in heavy iron cuffs, his Barbour coat dripping with sewer water and blood, flanked by four federal agents with sidearms drawn. News vans from every major network in Virginia were already parked at the base of the haul road, blocked by state police cruisers whose officers had now been placed under the direct command of the U.S. Attorney.
Miller stood beside me on the porch steps, drinking black coffee from a thermos she had pulled from her truck. She looked exhausted, her tactical jacket smeared with soot, but the tightness in her eyes had eased.
"The Attorney General signed the emergency warrants twenty minutes ago," Miller said, looking over at the sovereign ledger resting in an evidence container in the back of an armored van. "It’s not just Sterling. Seven appellate judges, three state senators, and the entire board of the Virginia Maritime Commission are being taken into custody as we speak."
Thomas walked up, his arm wrapped in a white field dressing, holding two printed receipts from the county clerk’s satellite transmission.
"Recorded at 11:42 AM," he said, handing me the paper. "The deed is registered, June. Uncontested, unencumbered, sovereign title to the entire fifty-thousand-acre tract. The Holloway Trust is officially extinguished. Claire has no claim. Eleanor has no claim. The State has no claim."
I held the paper in my hands. The paper was light—barely an ounce of wood pulp and ink.
Yet for this single document, Claire had tried to crush my throat. Eleanor had stood over my hospital bed, smelling of coffee beans, treating my survival like an administrative inconvenience. Arthur had lived his entire miserable life as a pawn to an unyielding machine.
"Where is she?" I asked.
"Eleanor was transferred to the federal processing center in Charlottesville," Miller replied. "She requested to speak to you. One last time before they lock her in an administrative segregation unit without bail."
I folded the county clerk’s receipt and slipped it into my pocket.
May you like
"Let’s go."
***
