Chapter 5 - The Dismantling of Captain Vance
While Mark was loading his trash bags on the suburban curb, three miles away at Fort Belvoir, an entirely different kind of execution was taking place.
Inside the headquarters of the 4th Cyber Operations Battalion, the fluorescent lights hummed with an ominous, low-frequency buzz. Captain Chloe Vance sat at a metal table inside an interrogation room, her uniform stripped of its operational patches, her beret confiscated, and her security access badge severed into pieces inside an evidence envelope on the table.
Across from her sat Colonel Marcus Vance—her direct brigade commander—and Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Jenkins from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
"Captain Vance," Jenkins said, opening a dossier that was nearly four inches thick. "At zero-eight-thirty today, a forensic extraction of your military-issued cellular device was completed by the 902nd Military Intelligence Group."
Chloe stared at the steel surface of the table. Her eyes were red, puffy, and completely drained of the arrogance she had displayed in my hospital room.
"Ma'am, I requested legal representation," Chloe whispered.
"And you have been assigned an assistant defense counsel, who is currently reviewing the initial filings," Jenkins answered coldly. "However, this is an administrative board interview pursuant to your active Top Secret/SCI clearance suspension. You are required to account for the compromise of classified protocols."
"I didn't compromise any protocols!" Chloe sobbed. "I had a personal relationship! People have affairs all the time in the civilian world! Why am I being treated like a traitor?"
"Because your civilian lover, Mark Whitmore," Colonel Vance said, leaning forward until his shadow consumed her side of the table, "attempted to access encrypted files on Colonel Whitmore’s personal defense workstation on four separate occasions during the past six months."
Chloe's head snapped up. "What?"
Jenkins pulled several sheets of data logs from the folder. "Between October and January, your personal mobile IP address was logged pinging the local area network of Colonel Whitmore’s residence while Mark Whitmore was attempting to log into her classified Department of Defense remote terminal. You provided him with your personal CAC-reader software package, did you not?"
"No! No, he told me he was trying to help her fix her civilian VPN!" Chloe screamed, panicked horror setting in. "He said she was having trouble with her DOD clerical access! He asked me to send him the driver package so he could configure her laptop! I swear on my life, I didn't know!"
"You provided military software to an uncleared civilian so he could access a secure terminal belonging to the Director of Special Reconnaissance," Jenkins said, writing a deliberate note on the paper. "Whether you acted out of gross negligence or operational treason will be determined by a general court-martial."
"Court-martial?" Chloe choked. "Sir, please! My father was a Master Sergeant! My grandfather served in Korea! If I get a dishonorable discharge, my life is over! I have eighty thousand dollars in ROTC debt that will immediately become due! My security clearance is the only reason I had a job lined up at Lockheed Martin!"
"Lockheed Martin rescinded their contingent offer thirty minutes ago," Colonel Vance informed her without a shred of pity. "When an officer’s clearance is revoked under suspicion of espionage and fraternization with the spouse of their commanding officer, corporate defense contractors do not hold positions open."
"He lied to me," Chloe wept, burying her face in her trembling hands. "Mark lied to me about everything. He told me he was the primary earner. He told me his wife was an uneducated dependent who was leeching off his salary. He told me he owned that house in Arlington! He told me he was going to buy me a townhouse in McLean!"
"He owns nothing," Jenkins said, closing the file with a loud, final slap. "And as of this morning, neither do you. You are hereby suspended from all duties, confined to quarters at the transit barracks, and forbidden from setting foot outside the installation without an armed escort. If you contact Mark Whitmore via any electronic medium, you will be immediately remanded to pretrial confinement at the regional brig."
Two military police officers stepped into the room from behind the door.
"Escort the former executive officer to building 1402," Colonel Vance ordered.
May you like
As they hauled Chloe to her feet, she caught her reflection in the observation window. The polished, elegant woman who had stood over my hospital bed flaunting a ring was gone. In her place was a broken, disgraced junior officer facing the total destruction of her future, her reputation, and her freedom.
***
