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Wednesday, March 31, 2021, 9:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Bill Ruppert collected his cell phone, wallet, jacket, keys, and briefcase from the property window on his way out. He wearily slung the jacket over his shoulder and called his wife.

“My god, Bill,” she said. “What’s going on? Where can I pick you up? I’m out front.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” he said. “I just want to get home.”

“Where do you want me to pick you up?”

“Can you come around the back of the Lockup? I’ve been assured I can leave privately if you do.”

“Of course,” she said. “See you in a minute.”

After getting directions to the private rear exit, he opened a door that led into a dark hallway. He walked wearily down the hall toward the double doorway marked EXIT. As he approached the door, a large guard stepped into his path.

“I’m just leaving,” Bill said wearily.

“Wait here,” the guard said.

After a minute, Bill said, “I’ve been released. I was never even under arrest. I’ve been here four hours since I was told I was not under arrest. What’s the holdup?”

The guard seemed to be listening to an earpiece.

“One minute? Okay,” he said to whoever was talking to him.

“Excuse me,” Bill said, exasperated now. “I have every right to leave.” He made a move to go around the guard.

The guard moved into his path.

“Just one minute, sir,” the guard said.

A few seconds later, the door behind him opened, and there were footsteps in the dark hallway behind them. Another guard approached, holding another person by the shoulder. Lights behind them made it difficult for Bill to see who it was, but it appeared to be a woman.

“Can I go now?” Bill said.

“One more minute,” the guard said. Bill noticed for the first time that these guards did not have District of Columbia insignia on their uniforms. What is going on here? he thought.

Just at that moment three other people, all men, were brought through a different, side door, into the darkened hallway. Nods were exchanged between the guards.

“Ready?” the guard in front of Bill said.

The other guards appeared to nod. Bill let one of the other guards and the first prisoner – was she a prisoner, or another person like him? – pass him. The guard still blocked his view of the woman – that it was a woman was now clear – who seemed to be wearing a scarf over her head. Whoever it was moved toward the door ahead of Bill, and both guards stepped to the side.

Bill hesitated for a moment, then followed the second prisoner to the large metal door. The three other detainees were being led forward behind them.

A conservative gentleman to the last, he came forward to open the door for the female prisoner. He pushed on the horizontal latch of the door. She turned toward him, and he recognized the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee just as the world seemed to explode. A dozen flashes seemed to go off in his face. He instinctively closed his eyes and turned backward, looking into the hallway.

When his eyesight recovered a bit, he looked back and saw the former President, Okomo, alongside the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate and his son. A phalanx of at least two dozen reporters quickly surrounded him in a semi-circle, just as if they had been arranged by someone to greet him.

“Why were you arrested?”

“Is it true that you all conspired to create the Russia hoax?”

“When is the trial?”

“How long were you five plotting against the President? Since 2016, or was it even earlier?”

“Have you retained counsel?”

“How do you answer the accusations?”

“Will you now release the missing emails?”

“Were all the staff of the Special Counsel in on the entire Hoax? How did you five communicate while the Hoax was ongoing?”

Bill squinted and shaded his eyes with his hand and turned toward the people beside him in incomprehension; they met his gaze with equal incomprehension.

Signs blaring WOLF NEWS surrounded them; but he also saw reporters from the New York Record and the Washington Tribune. The light was blinding, and Ruppert instinctively pulled his jacket over his head and held it in front of his eyes.

And just like that, as far as the outside world was concerned, Bill Ruppert, Lieutenant, USMC, law-and-order prosecutor, G-Man, and Special Counsel, became Bill Ruppert, just another shame-faced perp holding a jacket over his head.

Paul, he thought, you son of a bitch.

He could deny it no longer. Now he had to admit that he really was exactly the political naïf and patsy much of the “liberal-biased press” had made him out to be for the past two years.

He could barely restrain himself from laughing as he fought his way through them, away from his equally unsuspecting “alleged co- conspirators,” out toward the car containing his horrified wife, the car that would take him to the humiliating denouement of an illustrious career in service to the public.

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian