Chapter 7 - The Interrogation
The detention room at the Fort Meade Provost Marshal’s office was six paces long and four paces wide, illuminated by humming fluorescent tubes that cast a sickening, green-tinged glare over the stainless steel table bolted to the concrete floor.
Linda Vance sat on the metal bench, her hands cuffed in front of her to an eyebolt set into the table.
She was no longer wearing the silk blouse; she had been stripped of her civilian clothes and forced into a standard, oversized orange jumpsuit made of rough polyester. Her makeup had smeared into muddy streaks down her cheeks, her styled blonde hair was tangled and greasy, and her manicured nails were chipped down to the quick.
Sitting beside her was Arthur Henderson, her lead defense attorney, a man who charged twelve hundred dollars an hour and looked like he was regretting every life choice that had brought him to this military base.
“Arthur, this is an outrage!” Linda hissed, her voice vibrating with high-strung hysteria. “They haven't given me my thyroid medication! They made me use a communal toilet! Call the governor! Call Senator Miller! Richard gave him two hundred thousand dollars for his reelection committee!”
“Be quiet, Linda,” Henderson muttered, flipping through a stack of yellow legal pads covered in frantic shorthand. “Senator Miller’s chief of staff blocked my number two hours ago. The Pentagon leaked the video of the ceremony to the Associated Press. It’s on the front page of every news outlet in the country. You’re currently trending as the most hated woman in North America.”
The heavy steel door clicked open.
General Hayes entered first, followed by Captain Sarah Jenkins from DCIS and a court stenographer carrying a digital recording unit.
Behind them walked Richard Vance.
He was dressed in his full, retired Army dress blues. Every ribbon, every medal—including his own Silver Star from Desert Storm—was pinned with absolute precision. His posture was rigid, his eyes looking straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge Linda’s existence as he took a seat at the far end of the metal table.
“Richard!” Linda cried out, lunging forward until the chain on her cuffs snapped taut against the eyebolt. “Thank God! Tell these barbarians to take these irons off me! Tell them what that little monster did! She baited me, Richard! She orchestrated this whole thing to humiliate our family!”
Richard didn't blink. He folded his hands on the metal table, the bare skin of his left ring finger pale and stark against his weathered knuckle.
“Arthur,” Richard said, addressing the attorney without looking at his wife. “You represent Mrs. Vance in her personal capacity. You do not represent the Vance Family Trust, nor do you represent Vance Defense Enterprises.”
Henderson cleared his throat nervously. “Colonel Vance, as the primary beneficiary of the marital estate, your wife has the legal right to—”
“My wife has nothing,” Richard said. His voice was calm, measured, and entirely devoid of heat. “At six o’clock this morning, the probate court of Fairfield County, Connecticut, granted an emergency petition revoking Linda Cole-Vance’s power of attorney, citing gross fiduciary malfeasance and active criminal conspiracy.”
Linda froze. The air left her lungs in a sharp, whistling hiss. “Richard… what are you saying?”
Richard finally turned his head to look at her.
The look in his eyes wasn't anger. It wasn't hatred. It was the vast, terrifying emptiness of a man looking at a venomous snake that had finally run out of venom.
“I am saying that Trevor has already confessed,” Richard said.
Linda’s face turned the color of lard. “He… what?”
“Your son gave a twelve-page sworn deposition to federal agents in New Haven at four this morning,” Captain Jenkins said, dropping a thick document onto the steel table between them. “He detailed the entire procurement fraud operation. He provided the bank routing numbers for the dummy corporation in Cyprus. He gave us the encrypted communications where you explicitly instructed him to swap the ceramic armor plates on the Shigal Valley transport convoy.”
“He’s lying!” Linda screamed, thrashing so violently against the cuffs that the metal scraped the skin from her wrists, drawing thin lines of red. “He’s a weak, stupid boy who panicked! He made those decisions! I was just a mother trying to help her son start a business!”
“You tried to kill my son, Linda,” Richard said, leaning forward until his face was twelve inches from hers. “You took the boy Eleanor gave me, and you tried to burn him alive in a foreign desert so you could buy another summer house in Martha’s Vineyard.”
“You loved me!” Linda sobbed, her arrogance finally shattering into ugly, desperate terror. “Richard, think of the twenty years we spent together! I took care of you! I held this family together when you were broken!”
“You didn't hold me together,” Richard whispered, every word landing like a hammer blow. “You hollowed me out. You made me into a monster who stood by while you beat my daughter and erased my son. And now, I am going to watch the federal government strip you down to the bone.”
He stood up, adjusted the cuffs of his dress uniform, and turned to General Hayes.
“General, I have provided the initial affidavits to Captain Jenkins. I am formally requesting that the Department of the Army proceed with full federal prosecution under concurrent jurisdiction. I will testify for the government at every hearing, every grand jury, and every court-martial.”
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“No! Richard, please!” Linda shrieked, reaching out with her bound hands, her tears cutting tracks through the grease on her face. “Don't leave me here! Richard!”
Richard didn't turn back. He walked through the heavy steel door without breaking stride, the heavy latch clicking shut behind him, cutting off Linda’s screams forever.
