Chapter 7 - The Plea at the Gate
Two days later, Arthur tried his final hand.
Because his base access pass had been permanently revoked by order of General Hayes, he couldn't enter the installation. Instead, he stood outside the main visitor gate, standing behind the concrete barricades under the blistering gaze of the gate guards.
I walked down from the headquarters building, my uniform crisp, my left arm securely bound in a discreet black tactical sling. The sun was sharp and clear, reflecting off the concertina wire along the perimeter.
"Maya!" Arthur shouted, rushing toward the turnstile as I approached the fence line. A heavily armed MP instantly stepped forward, his hand resting firmly on the butt of his sidearm.
"Keep your distance from the perimeter, sir," the guard barked.
Arthur halted, trembling. He looked haggard, his clothes unironed, his hair unwashed. He had lost everything in ten days: his wife in federal custody, his stepson facing indictment, his luxury home seized, and his social standing eradicated.
"Maya, listen to me," he begged through the chain links. "I'm staying at a cheap motel by the interstate. They took my credit cards. They took the car. I have nothing left!"
"You have what you earned, Arthur," I said, standing three feet away on the federal side of the boundary line.
"I didn't know she was stealing the money!" he cried, tears welling in his hollow eyes. "She handled all the bookkeeping! She told me your mother's insurance had lapsed! I was a victim too, Maya! Can't you see that? She manipulated me!"
"You knew," I replied, my voice steady, slicing through his lies like ascalpel. "You knew because every time she bought a new sports car or booked a trip to Monaco, you knew your pension couldn't pay for it. You knew when she gave Julian my college fund. You chose to be blind because her lies were comfortable, and protecting your daughter was inconvenient."
He fell to his knees against the cold concrete curb. "I'm your father! You can't just leave me in the street!"
I reached into my pocket with my right hand and pulled out a small, velvet-lined box. I slipped it through the security slot in the metal gate. It fell onto the concrete near his knees.
Arthur looked down at it, bewildered. "What is this?"
"That is the wedding ring you gave my mother before her first deployment to Iraq," I said. "You took it off her finger in the morgue and gave it to Linda three months later. I took it back from Linda’s jewelry drawer when the marshals inventoried the house."
Arthur opened the box with trembling fingers. The gold band sat inside, unblemished by the filth that had surrounded it.
"Pawn it," I told him. "Use the money for food and rent. That is the very last thing you will ever receive from Sarah Vance. And you will never receive another breath from me."
"Maya! Please!" he sobbed as I turned my back.
"Guard," I said, nodding to the MP at the post. "Escort this civilian off the perimeter boundary."
"Yes, Captain."
May you like
I walked back toward the command post, leaving the sound of his weeping behind me in the dust.
***
