Chapter 18 - THE FINAL COURT-MARTIAL OF THE SYNDICATE
THREE WEEKS LATER
The Grand Senate Committee Room in Washington D.C. was packed with international journalists, military brass, and federal investigators.
At the center witness table sat Colonel Arthur Vance, wearing a newly tailored Air Force dress uniform with his long-overdue Medal of Honor pinned to his lapel. Beside him sat Madison and me.
Across the room, behind the defense table in orange prison jumpsuits, sat Gordon Bennett and the surviving board members of the Iron Trident Defense Syndicate.
Gordon looked aged by twenty years. His posture was shattered, his arrogant posture replaced by a sunken, hollow glare.
The Chairman of the Armed Services Committee slammed his gavel down.
"In light of the physical evidence, the recovered Trident Matrix ledgers, and the direct testimony of Colonel Arthur Vance," the Chairman declared, his voice booming through the hall, "this committee finds Gordon Bennett guilty of high treason, military procurement fraud, and forced confinement."
The crowd broke into dramatic murmurs.
Gordon stood up suddenly, his wrist chains rattling as he pointed a trembling finger at me. "She stole my life! She was supposed to be nothing! She was just a diner girl!"
Madison stood up beside me, leaning over the wooden barrier, her voice echoing with absolute authority.
"She wasn't a diner girl, Gordon," Madison said, looking her former father straight in the eyes. "She was the officer who carried this family's honor while you dragged it through the mud. You have no daughter here."
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The federal marshals grabbed Gordon by his arms and forced him down, dragging him out through the side doors to spend the rest of his natural life in a supermax federal prison.
As he was pulled away, Gordon looked back one last time at Arthur Vance—the man he tried to erase forty years ago—standing tall, surrounded by his true family.
