Chapter 3 - BLOOD IN THE WATERZ
The morning sun rose over Washington D.C. wrapped in a gloomy shroud of fog and industrial smog. By 0700 hours, the news was breaking on every major network.
“BREAKING NEWS: FBI RAIDS HEADQUARTERS OF VANCE DEFENSE LOGISTICS IN RESTON, VIRGINIA. EXECUTIVES ACCUSED OF MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR DEFENSE FRAUD AND RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT OF U.S. TROOPS.”
I sat in my office at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, watching the news ticker scroll across the bottom of the television screen while I scrubbed my hands for a scheduled surgery. The footage showed armed FBI agents in windbreakers carrying dozens of boxes of evidence out of the sleek glass-and-steel skyscraper my father had built.
My phone rang on the desk. I picked it up, pressing it to my ear with a shoulder as I pulled on my surgical gloves.
"Colonel Vance," I answered.
"It’s Reed," the Deputy Assistant Secretary’s voice sounded tight, strained, and exhausted. "The raid went through, but we hit a massive snag."
I paused, my heart sinking. "What kind of snag?"
"Arthur wasn't at his house, and he wasn't at the corporate office," Reed said, the background noise indicating he was in a moving vehicle with sirens blaring in the distance. "When the field teams breached his estate in Great Falls, the place was completely cleaned out. Hard drives missing, safe smashed open, personal vehicles gone. Someone tipped him off, Clarissa. He slipped through the net before the warrants were even fully processed."
"What about Julian?"
"We picked Julian up at Dulles International Airport. He was trying to board a private flight to Dubai with two passports and fifty thousand dollars in cash in a leather duffel bag. We have him in custody at the federal holding facility in Alexandria, but he’s refusing to talk without Arthur’s lawyers."
A cold pit formed in my stomach. Julian was weak, a spoiled child living in his father’s shadow. But Arthur Vance was a rat who knew every dark sewer pipe in the military-industrial complex. If Arthur was on the run, he was dangerous—a cornered animal with endless financial resources and no moral boundaries remaining.
"Where is Arthur going?" I asked, walking over to the window that looked out over the hospital courtyard.
"We don't know yet," Reed replied. "But there’s something else. The prosecutors found a second ledger in Julian’s luggage during the airport seizure. Clarissa... Vance Defense Logistics wasn't just shipping bad medical gear to Afghanistan. They were shipping modified tactical communication suites to unregistered third-party buyers in Eastern Europe and the Middle East."
I gripped the phone tightly. "Black market arms trafficking?"
"It’s worse than that. Some of those communications suites were tied to classified defense networks. Arthur wasn't just stealing money from the Pentagon; he was selling backdoors into U.S. military logistics networks. This isn't just corporate fraud anymore, Clarissa. It’s high treason."
Before I could reply, my office door swung open without a knock.
Two men in dark, tailored suits stepped into the room. They didn't look like FBI agents or Military Police. They had the cold, vacant eyes of private contractors—the kind of mercenaries my father hired when he needed dirty work done off the books.
"Colonel Clarissa Vance?" the larger of the two men asked, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. His right hand was buried deep inside his trench coat pocket.
"Reed, I have company," I said quietly into the phone, dropping the device onto the desk and taking a subtle step back toward my surgical tray.
"Clarissa? Clarissa, what’s happening?!" Reed’s panicked voice squeaked through the phone speaker, but I ignored it.
"Your father sent us to deliver a message, Colonel," the man said, taking a slow step forward. His partner moved to flank the door, closing it firmly and locking the deadbolt behind them. "He feels you’ve forgotten the importance of family loyalty."
"My father is a traitor," I said, my voice deadly calm. "And you are standing in a federal military hospital. You walk out of here now, or you leave in body bags."
The large man pulled a suppressed pistol from beneath his coat. "Mr. Vance sends his regards."
In combat medicine, speed is the only thing that separates life from death. When a blood vessel tears, you don't think—you act.
Before the shooter could raise the weapon, I grabbed a heavy stainless steel surgical tray loaded with scalpels, bone saws, and heavy clamps, and hurled it directly into his face.
The sharp metal edge hit him straight across the bridge of his nose with a brutal crunch. He screamed, dropping the suppressed gun as blood sprayed across his face.
I lunged forward, slamming my elbow into his throat with all the weight of my body behind it. He choked, staggering backward against the medicine cabinet, shattering glass jars of antiseptic across the floor.
The second man drew his gun, but I swung around, grabbing a heavy brass desk lamp and shattering it across his jaw. He reeled back, stunned, dropping his weapon onto the linoleum floor.
I kicked the suppressed pistol under the desk, grabbed the second man by his lapels, and slammed his head violently into the concrete wall. He went limp, collapsing into a heap of expensive fabric and blood.
The first man was struggling to his knees, clutching his broken nose, blood dripping through his fingers. I stepped over him, pulled his arms behind his back, and secured his wrists with a heavy set of surgical zip-ties from my supply cabinet, pulling them tight until he gasped in pain.
I picked up my desk phone, my heart pounding like a war drum in my chest, and pressed the emergency military police hotline.
"This is Colonel Vance," I said, my breathing heavy, my eyes locked on the bleeding assassin at my feet. "I have two armed intruders down in Room 402, Medical Wing B. Send an armed escort immediately. My father just tried to have me killed."
Ten minutes later, the hallway outside my office was swarming with heavily armed Military Police and federal agents. Reed arrived thirty minutes later, looking pale as he saw the blood-stained linoleum floor and the two mercenaries being led away in heavy iron hand shackles.
"They came into a military hospital," Reed said in absolute disbelief, staring at the shattered glass and medical trays scattered across my office floor. "Arthur has lost his mind. He’s completely off the leash."
"He’s not losing his mind, Harrison," I said, wiping a spot of blood off my cheek with a paper towel. "He’s desperate. He knows Julian will break under federal interrogation, and he knows I won't stop until he’s in a cage."
Reed handed me a secure satellite phone. "The Secretary of Defense just cleared a protective detail for you. You're being moved to a safehouse in Langley under 24-hour armed guard."
"No," I said firmly, tossing the bloody paper towel into the trash. "I’m not hiding in a safehouse while my father burns down everything in his path."
"Clarissa, he just sent two hitmen into your medical office!" Reed barked, grabbing my shoulder. "You're a doctor, not an intelligence operator!"
"I am a military officer, Harrison!" I fired back, pulling my arm away. "And my father is executing a tactical retreat. If you put me in a safehouse, I am a sitting duck waiting for him to send the next team. The only way to stop Arthur Vance is to cut off his head."
"And how do you propose we do that?" Reed asked bitterly.
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I looked at the silver lighter sitting safely on my desk, untouched amidst the chaos.
"Julian," I said. "Julian is the weak link. Arthur left him behind to take the fall. Julian knows where Arthur’s offshore accounts are, and he knows who Arthur relies on when he goes dark. I’m going to Alexandria. I’m going to make my brother talk."
