Chapter 5 - The War Room
The tension inside the conference room reached a boiling point.
Senator Vance signaled to the two U.S. Marshals. "Take the child. If the Colonel resists, arrest her for obstruction of justice."
The two Marshals stepped forward, their hands resting on their sidearm holsters.
Before they could take another step, the double doors clicked open again.
Four armed MP officers stepped into the room, led personally by General Thomas Marcus. Behind them walked two senior agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Public Corruption Division, holding open badges and federal arrest warrants.
Senator Vance froze, her eyes widening in sudden shock. "Thomas... what is the meaning of this?"
"Senator Eleanor Vance," the lead FBI agent announced smoothly, "you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit federal human trafficking, corporate embezzlement, wire fraud, and treason against the United States."
"This is absurd!" Vance shrieked, backing away. "I have diplomatic immunity under the Defense Research Act! You can't touch me!"
"Your immunity was revoked twenty minutes ago by the Senate Ethics Committee," General Marcus informed her coldly. "After Colonel Hawthorne's team delivered twenty gigabytes of encrypted financial records showing your offshore shell accounts receiving kickbacks from Vanguard Bio-Technologies."
The FBI agents stepped forward, snapping steel handcuffs around Senator Vance’s wrists.
"You will rot in a federal prison for this, Sarah!" Vance screamed as she was dragged out of the room, her elegant pearl necklace swaying violently. "You and your bastard child! Vanguard will lock you out of every court in the country!"
"Take her away," General Marcus ordered.
As the door closed behind her, a heavy silence fell over the room.
I sat back down in my chair, feeling a sudden wave of physical exhaustion crash over me. But I knew this was only the first line of defense destroyed. Senator Vance was the political shield, but the financial heart of the conspiracy was still breathing.
Neil.
Twenty minutes later, I walked down into the subterranean holding facility at Fort Belvoir, where Neil was being held in a stark, stainless-steel interrogation room.
He sat at a metal table, wearing an orange jumpsuit, his hands cuffed to an anchor ring in the center of the table. He looked small, broken, and pathetically hollow.
I sat down in the chair across from him, resting my hands on the cold metal surface.
"Sarah..." Neil whispered, his voice shaking. "Please... you have to believe me. I never wanted to hurt her. They told me she would be treated like a princess! They said she would just live in a luxury facility and give blood once a month!"
"You sold our daughter, Neil," I said, my voice empty of all emotion. "You buried an empty casket. You sat next to me at Arlington while I wept on your shoulder, knowing she was locked in a lab."
"I had gambling debts!" Neil sobbed, burying his face in his cuffed hands. "They were going to break my legs, Sarah! I owed bad people two hundred thousand dollars! Vanguard offered to clear the debt and make us rich!"
"You didn't make us rich, Neil," I corrected him coldly. "You bought a sports car, a vacation home in Florida, and high-stakes poker chips while I was deployed in combat zones."
Neil looked up, his eyes bloodshot and pleading. "I can help you! I know where Vanguard kept the secondary financial ledgers! I know the names of the doctors who performed the procedures on Grace! Just tell the prosecutor to drop the treason charges, Sarah! Please... I'm your husband!"
I leaned forward, looking into the eyes of the man I had once sworn to love and protect.
"You stopped being my husband the day you put a price tag on our child's life," I said softly. "The prosecutor isn't dropping a single charge. In fact, I personally requested that they add child torture and human trafficking to your indictment."
"Sarah, please!" Neil screamed, thrashing against his handcuffs as I stood up and walked toward the door. "I'm her father! You can't do this to me!"
May you like
I paused at the door, looking back at him over my shoulder.
"Grace has no father," I said, my voice firm as mountain granite. "She only has a mother who will make sure you never see the light of day again."
