Chapter 6 - The Entire Room Snaps To Attention
As I stepped away from Table Seven, General Caldwell walked beside me, acting as my official escort.
The moment we cleared the edge of the table, the lieutenant colonel at the neighboring table stood up sharply.
He snapped into a crisp, rigid military salute as I passed his seat.
Beside him, three majors and a navy captain immediately followed suit, standing tall and saluting as well.
Like a wave moving through water, the movement spread across the entire four-hundred-person ballroom in seconds.
Officers of every rank—captains, majors, colonels, and civilian department heads—stood up from their dinner tables.
The room erupted into the quiet, rustling sound of hundreds of formal dress uniforms snapping into rigid attention.
They weren't saluting the civilian wife Ethan had tried to hide in the corner of the room.
They were saluting the Inspector General who had built a reputation for absolute integrity and cold, unyielding authority.
Ethan stood completely frozen at Table Seven, surrounded by hundreds of standing officers while he remained standing uselessly in the center.
His eyes tracked me as I walked past his peers, his supervisors, and the senior leadership of the entire military district.
Every single person in that room was showing me the profound respect that he and his mother had denied me for years.
Evelyn watched with her jaw hanging open, her chest heaving as her precious social hierarchy was completely inverted before her eyes.
The woman she had treated as a low-class, uneducated burden was being escorted like royalty by the base commander.
I kept my chin held high, my posture perfect, and my eyes fixed straight ahead as I approached Table One near the stage.
Undersecretary Miller stood up from the head table, pulling out the empty armchair directly to his right.
“Welcome, Inspector General Vance,” Miller said loudly enough for the front row of tables to hear.
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“We were hoping you’d grace us with your presence tonight. We have much to discuss regarding the upcoming audit.”
I took my seat at the most powerful table in the room, leaving Ethan and his mother stranded in the wreckage of their own making.
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