Chapter 5 - THE DISARMAMENT OF THE VANCE FAMILY
Brenda Vance let out an un-human, animalistic shriek from the corner of the room:
*“CALL ARTHUR!
CALL MY BROTHER-IN-LAW!
HE IS THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES!
HE HAS THE SUPREME IMMUNITY!
HE CONVENES THE COURT AT ZERO-TWO-HUNDRED HOURS!”*
She lunged toward the hallway, clawing for her leather handbag to reach her phone:
CLACK.
Two SOG tactical operators did not draw their sidearms.
The two-hundred-and-twenty-pound tactical operators stepped forward in fluid, synchronized, terrifying mechanical velocity:
Their gloved hands caught Brenda Vance by her silk blouse and her right forearm in mid-lunge, spun her sixty-eight-year-old frame one hundred and eighty degrees against the laminate wall, and drove her face down onto the floorboards with three hundred pounds of linear downward kinetic leverage:
SLAM.
Her cheek struck the laminate, her cultured pearls snapping along the silk threading and scattering across the floorboards like hail:
click-clatter-roll.
A pair of heavy-duty, double-locking, high-security stainless-steel military transport restraints ratcheted around Brenda’s wrists with two sharp, definitive snaps that sounded like twin rifle shots across the silent room:
SNAP.
A second set of chains clamped around her ankles—the identical stainless-steel irons used for capital traitors at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth:
SNAP-CLINK.
Beside her, two federal marshals pinned Mark Vance flat onto his stomach:
SLAM.
His linen shirt ripped along the shoulder seams, his gold wedding band popping off his finger and skittering across the floor:
SNAP-SNAP.
The transport irons snapped around Mark’s wrists with an authoritative, metallic crunch:
SNAP.
And down in the foyer, Heather Vance was marched out of the coat closet in waist-chains and leg-irons by two female federal agents, weeping hysterically into her designer sweater:
SCREEECH.
Mark wept into the laminate, spit, blood, and tears pooling around his split lower lip:
"Elena… please!
Look at me!
I am your husband!
Six years!
We built a life!
You can't let them take me to a military prison in chains!
I was pressured by my mother!
I was pressured by Arthur!"
I walked across the floorboards.
My hand-welted leather field boots made a clean, concussive tack… tack… tack against the floor.
I stopped two inches from where my husband lay pinned in the dirt.
I did not strike his cheek.
I did not raise my voice.
I reached down, picked up the four-million-dollar Valkyrie insurance policy dated two days in the future—the document he had hidden beneath my starving mother’s mattress:
SLIP.
I laid the thick, embossed policy flat across the nape of Mark Vance’s neck:
TINK.
"You looked me in the eyes on the phone eight days ago, Mark," Colonel Elena Mercer whispered softly.
Every syllable fell like an un-appealable decree that sealed six years of domestic betrayal into solid rock forever:
"You told me that my mother was confused."
"You told me not to make a tragedy out of this from five thousand miles away."
I leaned down until my clear slate-gray eyes filled his entire field of vision:
"You were right about one thing, Mark."
"It wasn't a tragedy from five thousand miles away."
"It was an operational ambush."
"And tonight…"
I pointed toward Uncle David:
"…the tragedy belongs entirely to you."
CLICK-CLACK.
The two federal marshals hauled Mark Vance, Brenda Vance, and Heather Vance to their feet by their armpits, marching them down the grand staircase in waist-chains and leg-irons toward the armored tactical transport BearCats waiting on the front lawn:
SCREEECH.
Behind them were marched their forged notary logs, their encrypted offshore banking tokens, and the twelve-million-dollar factoring ledgers, sealed inside heavy forensic evidence drums:
CRASH-ROAR-PANT.
The front doors of the house closed behind them with an authoritative, airtight, pneumatic THUD.
May you like
The bedroom returned to silence.
The only sound left was the sixty-cycle hum of the portable oxygen concentrator, the steady, peaceful breathing of Mom sleeping in Uncle David’s arms, and the rhythmic tack… tack… tack of my grandfather’s chronometer watch on my wrist.
