Part 2: My wealthy in-laws laughed when I walked into the hospital room in my Army colonel's uniform, completely unaware that I had just brought an entire platoon of military police.

The interrogation room in the basement of the federal detention facility was devoid of warmth, comfort, or pretension. A single fluorescent bulb hummed overhead, casting harsh shadows across the scratched stainless-steel table. Nicholas Ferguson sat in the center of the room, chained by his ankles to an eyelet bolted into the concrete floor.

His tailor-made linen shirt was gone, replaced by an ill-fitting, coarse navy jumpsuit. His expensive blowout hairstyle had collapsed into a greasy, unwashed mop. The arrogant smirk that had adorned his face in the hospital corridor was obliterated, replaced by bloodshot, terrified eyes and tremors that racked his hands every few seconds.

The heavy steel door swung open, and I walked into the room, accompanied by Major Daniel Ross, a veteran Judge Advocate General prosecutor whose reputation for dismantling corrupt defense contractors was legendary across the Pentagon.

Nicholas jerked upward, his chains rattling loudly against the steel floor. "Sarah... Colonel Gardner! Thank God! Please, you have to tell them to take these chains off! My wrists are bleeding! They won't even let me call my mother!"

Major Ross pulled out a metal chair, the legs screeching against the concrete, and sat down. He placed a thick dossier on the table with a dull thud.

I remained standing, resting my hands on the back of the chair, looking down at the creature who had raised his hands against my daughter.

"Your mother isn't taking calls, Nicholas," I said, my voice dead and cold. "She was booked into the county jail forty minutes ago. Her request for bail was denied as a severe flight risk."

Nicholas stared at me, his mouth dropping open like a fish suffocating on dry sand. "What? No... no, that's impossible. My mother has connections... she has—"

"Your brother Gregory signed a full confession," Major Ross interrupted, opening the dossier and sliding a copy of Gregory's signed statement across the table. "He gave us the private encryption keys to the Cayman accounts. He gave us the logistics delivery logs for the counterfeit titanium alloys your company supplied to the Bradley Fighting Vehicle refurbishment line at Anniston Army Depot."

Nicholas violently recoiled as if the paper were dipped in poison. "Counterfeit? No... we didn't know the titanium was sub-grade! The Chinese supplier assured us—"

Nicholas slammed his own hands over his mouth, his eyes widening in pure horror as he realized what he had just blurted out.

Major Ross smiled—a razor-sharp, predatory expression. "Thank you, Nicholas. That confirms Section Twelve of the indictment. You knowingly supplied substandard armor-grade metal to combat vehicles carrying United States soldiers into combat zones, pocketing an eighty-four percent margin on the price difference."

"I... I didn't mean that! I want my lawyer! I demand my lawyer!" Nicholas screamed, thrashing against his restraints until the cuffs bit deep into his flesh.

"Your lawyer was Arthur Sterling," Ross said smoothly. "He resigned this morning. Your new lawyer is a court-appointed public defender named Mrs. Higgins. She'll be here at two o'clock. But by then, the grand jury will have already handed down twenty-two counts of federal treason, wire fraud, conspiracy, and aggravated assault."

Ross leaned forward, his eyes boring into Nicholas's soul. "You are twenty-nine years old, Nicholas. With these charges, you will not see the light of day until you are eighty-five. You will die inside an ADX maximum-security facility. Unless..."

Nicholas froze, clutching at the single sliver of hope like a drowning man grasping at an anchor. "Unless what? Anything! I'll do anything! Tell me what you want!"

"Abigail found a secondary ledger," I spoke up, taking a slow step toward the table. The sheer physical presence of twenty-four years in combat command bore down on him like an armored column. "The ledger referenced a shipment scheduled for this Friday. Code name *Operation Iron Curtain*. What is it, Nicholas?"

Nicholas’s Adam’s apple bobbed violently. Sweat poured down his temples, dripping off his trembling chin. "I... I can't. If I talk about that, they'll kill me. You don't understand who's backing that shipment! It isn't just my family!"

"Listen to me very carefully, Nicholas," I whispered, leaning down until my face was six inches from his. "The men backing your shipment might kill you in a few years. But if you don't give me the clearance codes right now, I will ensure that every soldier whose life you endangered with your fraudulent armor knows your name, your face, and the exact cell block where you sleep. You will spend every single second of your miserable existence living in pure, unadulterated terror."

Nicholas broke. He collapsed forward onto the stainless steel, sobbing uncontrollably, his snot smearing against the cold metal.

"It’s not just armor!" Nicholas wailed, his voice cracking into high-pitched hysteria. "It’s encrypted satellite guidance transceivers! Gregory and my mother set up a backchannel to sell military-grade GPS jamming arrays to an unregistered cartel broker out of Mexico! The shipment is already staged in a private warehouse at the Wilmington shipping docks! It moves at midnight tonight!"

Ross looked up at me, his jaw clenched in astonishment.

"Who has the authorization key to release the shipment?" I demanded.

Nicholas looked up through his tears, his face twisted in utter despair. "Abigail took it. The master encryption chip... she stole it from my safe before I locked her up. She had it hidden on her body when you extracted her!"

My heart stopped beating for an entire second.