Chapter 3 - Blood and Steel
The East Room of the White House glittered under towering crystal chandeliers, but the atmosphere inside the adjacent Roosevelt Room felt more like a military tribunal. Arthur, Evelyn, and Trevor were permitted inside only under escort, relegated to a row of chairs opposite the long conference table where the Defense Procurement Board sat.
Arthur had spent the last thirty minutes frantically trying to straighten his jacket, drinking water from paper cups, and whispering furiously to a high-priced corporate defense attorney he had dragged in on ten minutes' notice. Evelyn sat stiffly beside him, her aristocratic mask completely shattered, while Trevor stared at his expensive Italian shoes like a scolded schoolboy.
"This is an outrage!" Arthur’s lawyer barked, standing up and slamming a leather briefcase onto the polished table. "My client is a premier defense contractor who has contributed millions to national security infrastructure! To subject him to an ambush review led by his estranged daughter is a blatant conflict of interest!"
Secretary Hall didn't even look up from his briefing papers. "Counselor, sit down and lower your voice before I have the marshals remove you to Pennsylvania Avenue."
The room fell instantly quiet. I took my seat at the center of the review board, flanked by General Vance and two three-star admirals, my hands resting calmly over the red file.
"Arthur Mercer," I began, my voice steady, measured, and devoid of the childish deference he had demanded from me three decades earlier. "On June 14th of this year, Mercer Defense Tech submitted bid specifications for the Mark-IV Automated Defense Array. You personally certified under penalty of federal law that all navigational components were manufactured domestically."
Arthur cleared his throat, attempting to summon the booming boardroom presence that had terrorized corporate executives for forty years. "That is correct, Colonel. Our engineering standards are unassailable. Unlike people who play soldier in the mud, we build the technological spine of this country."
The slight was pathetic, an old man's desperate swing at a mountain that refused to move. I opened the folder, sliding three high-resolution diagnostic photographs across the table to his attorney.
"These are electron-microscope scans of the core processing units pulled from your test models in New Mexico yesterday morning," I stated, watching Arthur's eyes track the glossy paper. "They bear the serial numbers of a shell manufacturing firm operating out of a foreign black-market port. They cost four dollars each, yet you billed the United States government eighteen thousand dollars per unit."
Arthur’s attorney glanced down at the photos, his professional composure crumbling into sheer panic within seconds. He leaned over and whispered urgently into Arthur’s ear, his hand trembling as he pointed to the supply chain tracking numbers.
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"That's... that's an administrative oversight!" Arthur stammered, his face turning an alarming shade of crimson. "A subcontractor error! Trevor was in charge of the regional sourcing division! He must have—"
Trevor’s head snapped up in sheer horror, his eyes wide as he realized his own father was preparing to throw him under the legal bus to save his own skin. "Dad?! You told me to sign those manifests! You said the Pentagon would never look inside the casing!"
