Chapter 3 - The Interrogation Room
The military holding cell was freezing, smelling of bleach and cold steel.
I sat on the metal bench for three hours, running every scenario through my head.
Ryan was a civilian, which meant he needed high-level help to forge those specific defense contracts.
Someone inside Fort Meade was feeding him classified clearance codes.
The heavy steel door finally opened, and General Vance walked in alone.
He placed a digital recorder on the table and sat across from me.
I begged him to look at the offshore ledgers I had uploaded to the secure server.
Vance sighed heavily, telling me that the server logs showed I had deleted those files an hour ago.
My heart stopped beating for a fraction of a second.
Ryan had used my hijacked credentials to wipe the evidence remotely.
I was completely trapped, facing a court-martial and a lifetime in a federal penitentiary.
Vance leaned across the table and told me I had one chance to save myself.
He said I needed to sign a full confession and plead guilty to embezzlement.
If I did, he promised to protect my mother from being indicted as an accomplice.
I looked into the eyes of the man who had mentored me for ten years.
I noticed a massive, expensive platinum watch on his wrist that he had never worn before.
It was a custom piece that cost more than a general's annual salary.
In that horrifying moment, the final puzzle piece snapped into place.
Ryan was not the mastermind behind this massive theft.
General Vance was the inside man, and Ryan was just his civilian money launderer.
I leaned forward and told the general I would sign whatever he wanted.
May you like
He smiled, sliding a pen and a printed confession across the metal table.
As he looked down, I grabbed the heavy metal chair and swung it directly at his head.
