Chapter 8 - The Confession of a Mercenary
The fluorescent lights of the Fort Meade interrogation room seemed to hum louder as Gregory Vance stared blankly at the metal table. The swagger was entirely gone; the former major looked like a deflated balloon, his broad shoulders hunched forward under the invisible weight of a life sentence in a federal military penitentiary. 'I didn't want to do it, Mara,' Vance muttered, his voice cracking into a pathetic whine that bore no resemblance to the commanding officer who had once led platoons into the fray. 'Your father... Charles is a monster. He approached me six months before Operation Ironveil. He knew about my mounting debts from my divorce, my mother’s medical bills... he offered me a way out.'
'So you traded the lives of your brothers-in-arms for a checkbook?' I asked, my voice dangerously low, my fingers curling into tight fists at my sides. 'You smuggled conflict minerals through a hot zone where American soldiers were dying daily, using my name as your shield?' 'It wasn't hurting anyone!' Vance shouted defensively, looking up, his eyes bloodshot and desperate. 'It was just rocks, Mara! Unprocessed cobalt ore! Nobody died because of the rocks!' 'Twelve soldiers died in the Korengal Valley because of the defective radios your corporate masters manufactured to fund operations like Ironveil!' I slammed my hand down onto the steel table with a force that made Vance jump in his seat. 'And forty-three soldiers were nearly wiped out in Sierra Leone because you treated our extraction bird like a smuggler’s mule! You put a target on every single back in our unit!'
Naomi Price stepped forward, placing a typewritten confession form and a black pen directly in front of him. 'Sign it, Gregory,' Naomi instructed flatly. 'Cooperation is your only remaining currency. If you confess fully, implicate every corporate co-conspirator at Whitmore Aeronautics, and hand over the remaining offshore accounts, we’ll recommend life imprisonment instead of a military firing squad.' Vance’s hand trembled violently as he picked up the pen. He looked up at me one last time, pleading for a shred of mercy that he didn't deserve.
'We used to watch each other's backs in the mountains, Mara,' he whispered, a pathetic tremor in his voice. 'Does that mean nothing to you?' 'You stopped watching my back the moment you decided my scars were a price you were willing to let me pay,' I replied, turning my back on him. 'Sign the papers, Major.' With a shaky hand, Gregory Vance pressed the pen to the paper and signed his name, sealing his own doom and tearing the final cornerstone out of my father’s criminal empire. As we walked out of the interrogation room, leaving him in the custody of armed military police, Admiral Mercer was waiting for us in the secure hallway.
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'The confession is secured,' Naomi reported, handing the signed document to Mercer. 'Good,' Mercer said, tucking the folder under his arm. 'Because the fallout from Charles Whitmore’s arrest has just reached Capitol Hill. The Senate Armed Services Committee wants an emergency closed-door hearing tomorrow morning. And they requested your presence, General Reyes.' I stopped walking, looking down the long, sterile corridor of the Pentagon sub-level. The wedding that was supposed to be the happiest day of my life had turned into a holy war against corruption. And the battle lines were about to reach the highest seats of political power in the United States.
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