Chapter 12 - The Visit Across The Glass
The morning after my unanimous Senate confirmation, I signed my final command departure vouchers at Fort Belvoir.
My official flight to Ramstein Air Base in Germany was scheduled for forty-eight hours later.
Before packing my household goods and boarding that military transport, there was one final unresolved perimeter I had to close.
I drove across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge into Northern Virginia, pulling into the secure visitor parking lot of the Alexandria Adult Detention Center.
The facility was a bleak, monolithic structure of reinforced grey concrete, topped with coiled razor wire that glinted coldly under the overcast sky.
I cleared the security checkpoint, surrendering my military credentials and personal phone to the intake marshal.
“Colonel Bennett—excuse me, General Bennett,” the intake officer corrected himself quickly, looking at my paperwork with immense reverence.
“Room four is prepped for your non-contact conference, ma’am.”
I walked down the narrow, sanitized corridor, the heavy steel security doors buzzing and clicking behind me with absolute finality.
I entered room four and took a seat on the bolted steel stool.
Separating me from the prisoner side was a three-inch-thick sheet of scratched ballistic plexiglass.
On the shelf below the glass rested a heavy, black plastic telephone handset.
Two minutes later, the reinforced door on the opposite side buzzed open.
A corrections officer escorted Richard Bennett into the booth, his wrists secured in front of him with steel chains linked to a waist belt.
Dad was wearing a bright orange institutional jumpsuit that hung loosely off his shrunken frame.
In less than a week, he looked as if he had aged fifteen years.
His once perfectly styled silver hair was thin and wild, his posture was hunched forward, and his hands shook continuously with an uncontrollable nervous tremor.
He sat down heavily on the steel stool, his handcuffs clinking against the counter.
He picked up the black receiver with trembling fingers and pressed it against his ear.
I lifted my receiver, looking directly into his sunken, bloodshot eyes.
“Claire,” Dad whispered, his voice sounding hollow and tinny through the analog line.
“You... you actually came.”
“I came because I leave for Germany on Thursday morning, Richard,” I answered calmly.
“I wanted to ensure you understood the disposition of the family assets before my departure.”
Dad blinked, a sudden, desperate flicker of his old avarice flaring behind his eyes.
“The assets...?” Dad gasped, leaning against the glass.
“Claire, did you talk to the federal bankruptcy trustee? What about the house in Great Falls? What about my foreign accounts?”
“The federal magistrate signed the preliminary asset forfeiture order yesterday afternoon,” I informed him, not flinching at his desperation.
“Bennett Defense Analytics has been completely dissolved by order of the court.”
“The estate in Great Falls is scheduled for public auction next month to satisfy the restitution liens filed by the Department of the Army.”
“Every single bank account in your name—domestic and offshore—has been seized by the Department of Justice.”
Dad pressed his forehead against the scratched glass, a broken, agonizing groan spilling from his lips.
“Everything...?” he wept, hot tears smearing against the dirty plastic.
“Forty years of building... forty years of work... gone? Completely gone?”
“You didn’t build anything, Richard,” I said, my voice steady, cold, and unrelenting.
“You constructed a house of mirrors using stolen money and Ethan’s trauma as the mortar.”
“When the light finally hit it, it shattered.”
“What about Ethan?” Dad asked suddenly, his tone shifting into bitter, venomous rage.
“That boy betrayed me! He went to the feds! He gave them my private server keys!”
“Is he happy now that he’s put his own father in an orange jumpsuit?”
“Ethan surrendered his commission to the Army Provost Marshal on Tuesday,” I told him.
“He signed a full confession regarding his role in the procurement bids, waiving all immunity protections.”
“The military court accepted his plea and sentenced him to three years of federal supervised probation with complete community restitution.”
“He will spend the next three years volunteering forty hours a week at the polytrauma rehabilitation center at Walter Reed, helping combat amputees rebuild their lives.”
Dad laughed, a bitter, barking sound that was filled with venomous disgust.
“A rehabilitation orderly! A Bennett cleaning bedpans for wounded privates! What an absolute disgrace!”
I slammed my palm against the steel counter, the sharp metallic crack making Richard flinch violently backward against his stool.
“He is ten times the man you could ever dream of being!” I said, my voice dropping into a lethal, razor-sharp whisper that made his eyes widen in terror.
“Ethan made a catastrophic mistake as a young captain in Syria, but he took responsibility for his blood and his errors!”
“He stood before a military judge, looked the world in the eye, and told the truth!”
“He gave up his status, his money, and his pride so he could finally heal his soul!”
“While you sit in this orange jumpsuit still worrying about country club reputations and corporate bank balances!”
Richard’s mouth twitched, his shoulders caving inward, his hollow defiance evaporating into absolute, pathetic insignificance.
“Claire... please,” he whimpered, his eyes pleading through the plastic.
“What about you?”
“Are you really going to Germany without ever looking back?”
“I’m your father, Claire... I gave you life.”
“My mother gave me life, Richard,” I replied, looking through the glass with total, absolute detachment.
“And the United States Army gave me my purpose.”
“You gave me nothing but a lesson in what happens to an arrogant man who trades his honor for a lie.”
I set the black plastic handset firmly back on its cradle.
Richard grabbed his receiver with both hands, slamming his chained wrists against the reinforced glass, shouting words I could no longer hear.
May you like
The corrections officer stepped forward, grabbing Richard’s orange collar, and pulled him away from the booth.
I stood up, adjusted my coat, and walked through the heavy steel security doors, stepping back into the vast, bright autumn light.
