Chapter 6 - The Ghost of Major Vance
The name hit me like a physical blow. Major Gregory Vance. My former second-in-command, a man I had trusted with my life during three separate deployments, a soldier who had taken a shrapnel wound to save my flank in the Hindu Kush. 'Vance left the service six months ago,' I said, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper as I gripped the edge of the conference table. 'He took an early medical retirement, claiming post-concussion syndrome and psychological burnout. He moved back to his family estate in Savannah.' 'Medical retirement is a convenient cover when you're cashing out a multi-million-dollar payout from a corporate backer,' Naomi Price noted, sliding a dossier labeled VANCE, GREGORY - CLASSIFIED across the table. 'According to our financial tracking, the day after Operation Ironveil was closed out, a lump-sum wire transfer of two point five million dollars was deposited into an offshore account tied directly to Vance’s private holdings.'
I opened the file. Inside were high-resolution bank statements alongside recent photographs of Vance meeting with Arthur Pendelton, Charles Whitmore’s lead attorney, at a secluded private club in downtown Washington just three days before my wedding. The betrayal cut deeper than my father’s rejection. Charles was a ruthless capitalist who viewed his own children as corporate assets, but Vance—Vance was a brother-in-arms. We had bled together in the mud; we had shared rations under sniper fire. To find out he had sold out my command integrity for blood money turned my stomach.
'He didn't just forge my signature,' I said, staring at the photographs of Vance laughing with Pendelton over scotch. 'He used my operational clearance to turn our unit into a cartel courier service. If the Department of Defense uncovers this without us exposing it first, the blame will fall squarely on my shoulders. I’ll be court-martialed for treason, stripped of my rank, and spent the rest of my life in a military penitentiary.' 'They won't get the chance,' Daniel said, standing up and stepping to my side, his hand firmly grasping my shoulder. 'We go on the offensive. We hunt Vance down before he can skip the country.'
'We can't launch an unsanctioned manhunt on domestic soil, Daniel,' Naomi warned, crossing her arms. 'Vance is a ghost with deep intelligence connections. If we move without official backing, we’ll trigger a federal jurisdiction war between the FBI and the Pentagon.' Admiral Mercer stood slowly, straightening his service cap with an air of absolute authority. 'Then we don't use an unsanctioned manhunt,' Mercer said, a cold, calculated gleam in his eyes. 'We issue a classified recall order under the guise of an active duty debriefing. We lure him into a secure military facility where he can’t run, can’t hide behind civilian lawyers, and can’t destroy his digital footprint.'
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I looked at Mercer, feeling a surge of military precision cutting through the fog of chaos. 'And if he refuses the recall order?' 'Then he goes AWOL in time of war,' Mercer replied flatly. 'And military intelligence handles deserters very, very efficiently.' Within forty-eight minutes, the trap was set. Naomi Price transmitted an official, encrypted dispatch routed through encrypted Department of Defense servers directly to Gregory Vance’s Savannah estate, summoning him to Fort Meade for an immediate, mandatory operational review regarding Operation Ironveil. The response time was instantaneous. Vance didn't suspect a thing; he assumed Charles Whitmore’s arrest had created panic in the upper echelons, and he was stepping in to clean up the mess or demand a bigger payout. What he didn't know was that we were waiting in the shadows with the full weight of the United States military behind us.
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