Black General Wrongly Cuffed by Cops, Until He Makes One Call to Pentagon and Crushes Their Careers

Three stars on his shoulders meant nothing in Harrison Falls. General Elijah Brooks knew this the moment Sergeant Riggs slammed him against his SUV at Murphy's Gas & Go. "The only mistake was thinking you belonged here," Riggs sneered, tightening handcuffs around the wrists that had once signed orders deploying thousands. But Elijah wasn't just any wrongfully detained Black man. Twenty years ago, he'd dismantled Colonel Dorian Vance's black-ops unit for targeting minorities—earning himself a patient, calculating enemy. Now, as Elijah made one call from the back of the police car—"Initiate Falcon Lock"—he couldn't see Mayor Wilson watching through security cameras, texting his shadowy partner: "He's in." Nor could he see Colonel Winters at the Pentagon receiving his distress code, whispering, "They triggered him." What began as small-town racism was actually the first move in a deadly chess game decades in the making.