Chapter 12 - Stripped of the Trident
The collapse of Sergeant Ryan Briggs was immediate, total, and merciless.
General Vance looked at the screen, then down at his hands, knowing that any attempt to protect his nephew or Briggs now would drag his own stars into the mud of a federal conspiracy.
Colonel Martinez stood up, his face flushed with fury. He turned toward the military police officers stationed at the double doors.
“Provost Marshal,” Martinez barked, his voice vibrating the glass windows. “Place Sergeant Ryan Briggs under immediate arrest. Charges: Article 107, false official statements. Article 108, conspiracy to damage military property. Article 99, cowardly conduct before the enemy. And Article 134, conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.”
“No... General, please!” Briggs cried, scrambling backward as two armed MPs seized his arms, wrenching his injured shoulder without an ounce of sympathy. “It was a misunderstanding! She provoked me! She manipulated the situation!”
“Shut up, Briggs,” Martinez snarled. “You disgrace that uniform every second you breathe inside it.”
The MPs stripped the unit patches and instructor tabs from Briggs’s shoulders right there in front of the assembled brass, letting the colored fabric flutter down onto the floorboards. They wrenched his hands behind his back and locked the steel cuffs around his wrists with a heavy, definitive snap.
As they dragged him down the long, polished hallway toward the holding cells, Briggs caught sight of Avery standing near the glass doors.
He dug his heels into the floor, tears streaming down his face, completely broken. “Mitchell! Avery... please! My career... my whole life is in this! Tell them it was part of the stress evaluation! Please!”
Avery stepped into his path, stopping two feet away. She looked at the man who had called her a little girl, who had tried to break her body, frame her honor, and leave her for dead in a swamp.
“You said it yourself, Ryan,” she said softly, her eyes entirely clear of anger. “Accountability doesn't care about feelings either. You built your entire life on intimidation because you were always terrified of what would happen when someone wasn't afraid of you.”
She stepped aside, clearing the path to the transport van waiting outside in the cold sun.
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“Enjoy Leavenworth, Sergeant.”
As the doors slammed shut behind him, five hundred soldiers who had gathered outside the headquarters building watched in dead silence as the base’s former golden boy was loaded into the back of a barred cage, never to wear the uniform again.
