Chapter 15 - Ethan's Military Legal Counsel Steps In
At 3:00 PM, Ethan was sitting in a windowless room inside the Base Legal Office at Fort Belvoir.
He was accompanied by a young Navy lieutenant assigned to him as public military defense counsel.
The lieutenant was frantically flipping through the thirty-page charge sheet that had just been handed to them by federal prosecutors.
“Captain Hawthorne... this is bad,” the lawyer whispered, sweating through his navy dress shirt.
“They’re charging you with wire fraud, grand larceny, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and Article 134 misconduct.”
“Can’t we talk to Mara?” Ethan begged, his hands clasped together in a desperate prayer motion.
“She’s my wife! She can drop the charges! She has executive authority over the oversight division!”
The young lawyer looked at Ethan as if he had lost his mind completely.
“Captain, Inspector General Vance isn't just the investigator on this case... she’s the primary witness for the prosecution,” the lawyer explained.
“She signed the affidavit confirming you asked her to hide your financial records during your marriage.”
“The prosecutor told me ten minutes ago that they’re seeking fifteen years in federal penitentiary at Leavenworth.”
Ethan dropped his head onto the cold laminate table, letting out a loud, agonized sob that echoed off the bare walls.
His uniform jacket was unbuttoned, his tie was crooked, and his dreams of becoming a colonel were completely dead.
He thought back to the parking lot before the ball, when he had told me to hide my past and stay quiet.
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He had thought he was protecting his reputation from a boring, unimportant wife.
In reality, he had been insulting the only person in the world who had the power to save him from his mother’s greed.
