Chapter 8 - Sins Of The Golden Boy
The basement interrogation room of the Fort Vanguard Provost Marshal office was built entirely of raw cinder blocks.
A single overhead halogen bulb cast a harsh, unforgiving glare onto a scratched aluminum table bolted into the concrete floor.
Derek Mason sat in the center metal chair, his hands cuffed to a heavy iron ring in the tabletop.
His immaculate dress uniform jacket had been stripped away, leaving him in a sweat-stained white undershirt with wrinkled sleeves.
His golden hair was disheveled, matted against his forehead by greasy sweat.
Every five minutes, he rattled the chains against the aluminum, screaming at the two stone-faced military guards standing by the reinforced steel door.
"I demand to see my legal counsel immediately!" Derek bellowed, his voice hoarse from hours of shouting.
"I am an active-duty field grade officer with full constitutional protections!"
"You cannot hold me without charging me under the Uniform Code of Military Justice!"
The heavy steel latch clicked open, and the door swung inward.
Colonel Nathan Vance stepped into the room, carrying a thick black leather binder under his arm.
Behind him came Margaret Vance, walking with that same calm, unhurried pace that had unsettled Derek in the cafeteria.
Derek’s head snapped up, his lips curling into a sneer of desperate bravado.
"Nathan!" Derek gasped, lunging forward until the chains jerked his wrists back with a sharp metallic clatter.
"Thank God you're here!"
"You need to put an end to this absurd circus right now!"
"Your mother... look, I admit I was out of line in the mess hall!"
"I lost my temper! The stress of the upcoming division inspection had me on edge!"
"I will make a full, public apology to her in front of the entire battalion!"
"I will pay for whatever medical cream she needs for that little broth splash on her arm!"
"We are practically family, Nathan! My father-in-law Richard Vance is your father’s first cousin!"
"You cannot let General Bradley destroy my career over an old woman's bruised ego!"
Nathan did not sit down.
He stood across the table, towering over Derek, his steel-gray eyes devoid of any human warmth.
He dropped the thick black binder onto the aluminum surface with a loud, ringing slam.
"My mother’s name is Margaret Vance," Nathan said, each syllable dropping like a lead weight.
"She is the widow of General Thomas Vance, who took three bullets on the perimeter of Da Nang to ensure his men could evacuate."
"She holds the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal awarded by the President of the United States."
"You don't get to speak her name with your filthy mouth, Derek."
Derek blinked, the arrogance flickering slightly in his eyes as he looked from Nathan to Margaret.
"Nathan, please..." Derek stammered.
"Family protects family."
"That is the law of the Vance lineage."
Margaret stepped up to the edge of the table, leaning forward until her face was inches from Derek’s.
"You are not family, Derek," Margaret said softly, her voice ice-cold.
"You are a tick that attached itself to a proud name so you could gorge yourself on unearned power."
"And your host is already dead."
Derek swallowed hard, an uneasy chill spreading through his gut.
"What... what are you talking about?" Derek whispered.
Nathan flipped open the black binder, turning the pages so Derek could see the high-resolution documents inside.
"Captain Jason Barnes was apprehended forty minutes ago in Building Forty," Nathan stated calmly.
"He was attempting to incinerate the Project Ironclad archives."
"We recovered twenty-four physical manifests bearing your personal authorization stamp."
Derek’s breath caught in his throat.
His eyes darted frantically across the pages, recognizing his own signature on every fraudulent invoice.
"That... that's a fabrication," Derek choked out.
"Barnes and Miller ran the procurement office! I merely signed administrative clearances based on their staff recommendations!"
"I didn't know the supplier was delivering subpar steel plating!"
"You didn't know?" Nathan asked, his voice chillingly sarcastic.
Nathan flipped to the next section of the binder.
A series of bank transfer statements from the Cayman Islands and Zurich filled the sleeves.
"This is an offshore shell entity registered under the name Apex Tactical Solutions," Nathan explained.
"The sole beneficial owner of Apex Tactical Solutions is Derek Michael Mason."
"Over the past thirty-six months, eighty-four million dollars was transferred from military procurement allocations into that account."
"And seventy percent of those funds were immediately routed to PAC campaign accounts managed by Richard Vance in Washington."
Derek’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
The room seemed to shrink around him until he couldn't draw enough air into his lungs.
"Richard promised me..." Derek stammered, his voice dissolving into a terrified whimper.
"Richard said the audit would never look at the metallurgical certifications."
"He said the congressional defense committee had total jurisdiction over the regional contracts."
"He said he was going to make me a Brigadier General within four years."
"Richard Vance was arrested this morning at his McLean estate by thirty federal marshals," Nathan revealed with ruthless satisfaction.
"He was wearing his silk bathrobe when they dragged him across his driveway in handcuffs."
"And do you know who handed the Justice Department the master decryption keys to your Swiss accounts, Derek?"
Derek stared up at Nathan, his eyes wide with horror.
"Who?" Derek whispered.
"Your wife, Victoria," Margaret answered quietly.
Derek flinched as if he had been slapped across the face.
"No... Victoria wouldn't... she loves me!" Derek cried out.
"Victoria made a proffer agreement with the United States Attorney at eight o'clock this morning," Margaret explained, her voice devoid of pity.
"She traded you, your bank accounts, and your career in exchange for immunity from federal prosecution."
"She told the prosecutors that every single corrupt idea originated in your greedy, narcissistic mind."
"She said you forced her to sign tax shelters while you lived like a king on blood money."
Derek’s head dropped onto the cold metal of the table.
A low, guttural sob tore from his chest as the reality of his total destruction crashed down upon him.
"It's over, Derek," Nathan said, closing the binder.
"You will not be promoted next Friday."
"You will not be celebrating at the country club."
"You will be tried for military fraud, grand larceny, and reckless endangerment of armed forces personnel during wartime."
"Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, you are facing forty-five years at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth."
"You will break rocks under the Kansas sun until your hair turns as white as my mother's."
Derek looked up, tears and snot streaming down his face, his dignity entirely disintegrated.
"Nathan, please!" Derek wept, pressing his chained hands together in desperate prayer.
"Talk to General Bradley! Tell him I will testify against everyone in the procurement ring!"
"I'll name the senators! I'll name the base commanders!"
"Just don't send me to Leavenworth! Please! I won't survive five years in a military prison!"
Margaret looked down at the sobbing man, remembering how he had shoved her chair away and mocked her in front of fifty laughing officers.
"You should have thought about survival when you ordered an old woman to eat beside a garbage chute, Derek," Margaret said softly.
"And you certainly should have thought about it before you put defective armor on vehicles driven by nineteen-year-old boys."
Margaret turned her back on him and walked toward the heavy steel door.
"Nathan, let us go," Margaret said, knocking once on the metal panel.
May you like
"The air in this room smells worse than the cafeteria scullery."
Nathan followed his mother out into the hallway, leaving Derek Mason screaming into the empty cinderblock darkness.
