Chapter 7 - The Interrogation in the Vault
The subterranean holding facility beneath JSOC Headquarters was known simply as the Vault. It didn't exist on any base blueprint. Located eighty feet below the pine barrens of North Carolina, insulated by four feet of reinforced concrete and copper Faraday shielding, it was a place where rank held no meaning.
Lieutenant General Richard Vance was sitting on a cold steel bench, stripped of his service jacket, his tie, and his shoes. The three silver stars he had worn with such pompous vanity were gone, sitting inside an evidence bag on the table in front of me.
The heavy steel door hissed open, and I walked in, carrying a plain black folder.
Vance shot up from the bench, his face a mixture of fury and desperation. "Morgan! This is an outrage! I demand to see the Base Staff Judge Advocate! I demand a phone call to the Secretary of the Army!"
I sat down across the metal table, resting my forearms on the cold surface. "Sit down, Richard."
"I will not sit down! You are committing treason! You and that rogue JSOC colonel will face a general court-martial for this! Do you hear me? Court-martial!"
"Sit down," I repeated, my tone dropping into an octave of absolute, terrifying stillness.
Something in my eyes must have finally registered with him. The sheer, unyielding predator lurking beneath the surface of the woman he had bullied for half a decade finally pierced his delusions. Slowly, reluctantly, Vance sank back onto the steel bench.
I opened the black folder.
"We recovered the cargo at Green Ramp," I said calmly. "Harold is currently being processed in Cell Four. He took seven minutes to break. He gave us the account numbers in Zurich, the shell companies in Panama, and the encrypted comms logs between you and the Aegis Vanguard executives."
Vance’s chest rose and fell in ragged gasps. "Harold is a liar. He’s setting me up to save himself."
"Harold didn't sign the transfer orders, Richard. You did." I slid an eight-by-ten glossy printout across the table. It showed the high-resolution biometric log from his private terminal, stamped with his iris scan and thumbprint. "And Harold didn't accept a four-million-dollar wire transfer into an account registered under my mother's maiden name."
Vance went rigid.
"You used Sarah's name," I whispered, the rage I had suppressed for years finally burning hot behind my eyes. "You dishonored her memory by using her identity to launder blood money from foreign adversaries."
"It was an investment," he rasped, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper. "The defense sector is changing, Morgan. Those drone technologies were going to be obsolete in three years anyway! Aegis promised they were only selling the telemetry to private defense firms in allied nations—"
"Aegis Vanguard was selling them to front companies backed by Beijing," I cut him off savagely. "The money you took was bought with the blood of every American service member who will ever have to face those drone swarms in combat."
Vance covered his face with his hands. The illusion of the mighty three-star general, the master of Fort Bragg, the decorated warrior, shattered completely. Sitting in front of me was nothing more than a pathetic, cowardly thief who had sold out his nation for a private jet and a villa in the Carolina pines.
"What happens now?" he asked through trembling fingers.
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"Now, Richard," I said, leaning back in my chair, "you’re going to help me burn down the rest of your network."
***
