Chapter 3 - The Insider Threat
I was immediately escorted to a heavily armored military vehicle by my own soldiers.
Arthur waved at me from the porch with a smug, victorious grin.
He genuinely believed he had successfully framed a high-ranking military officer for his civilian financial crimes.
I sat in the back of the tactical vehicle and pulled out my encrypted military communicator.
I knew that Arthur did not have the security clearance required to hack a Pentagon terminal.
Someone incredibly powerful on the inside was feeding him classified access codes.
I contacted my trusted cyber-warfare unit stationed at Fort Meade.
I ordered them to run a trace on all personnel who had accessed my secure files in the last seventy-two hours.
The armored convoy sped toward the regional military base instead of the local police station.
Upon arrival, I was placed in a secure holding room by soldiers who looked incredibly confused by the situation.
An hour later, the heavy steel door swung open.
The base commander, General Thomas Vance, walked into the room.
He was Arthur's estranged uncle, a man I had only met once at our wedding.
General Vance looked at me with cold, calculating eyes and placed a heavy manila folder on the table.
He told me that my military career was permanently over.
He offered me a deal to quietly resign and accept full responsibility for the two-million-dollar theft.
In exchange, he promised that Arthur would grant me supervised visitation with my newborn twins.
I looked at the general and realized the Vance family corruption ran deeper than I could have ever imagined.
I leaned forward and told him I would rather die than surrender my children to a traitor.
General Vance sighed heavily and pulled a military-grade sidearm from his holster.
May you like
He pointed the weapon directly at my chest and clicked off the safety.
He whispered that I was not going to make it out of this holding cell alive.
