Chapter 6: Judgment Day

Chapter 6: Judgment Day

Kade pushed the door open and stepped inside. The air in Mike’s office was thick and suffocating, a potent cocktail of stale coffee, cheap air freshener, and pure, unadulterated panic. It wasn’t an office anymore; it was an interrogation room. And he was the guest of honor.

Mike was behind his desk, but he wasn’t the one in charge. He was a cowering, sweating mess, his face pale and pasty. The real power in the room was held by the two men standing in front of the desk, their backs to the door. They turned as Kade entered, and the atmosphere dropped another ten degrees.

They were both full Colonels. Their crisp uniforms, adorned with the silver eagles of their rank, seemed to suck the light out of the room. One was lean and wiry, with the cold, analytical eyes of a logistician—the G4 Colonel, Kade surmised, Mike’s boss’s boss. The other was built like a retired linebacker, his face a granite block of stern authority—likely the G3, the operations chief, the one who cared about training and readiness.

This was no mere reprimand. This was a tribunal.

“You wanted to see me, Mr. Henderson?” Kade asked, his voice a calm, professional baritone. He closed the door behind him, the soft click echoing like a gunshot in the tense silence. He stood at perfect parade rest, his gaze fixed on a point on the wall just over Mike’s shoulder.

Mike jumped as if he’d been tasered. “There he is!” he squawked, pointing a trembling finger at Kade. “That’s him! That’s the one who did it!”

The G4 Colonel, the logistician, silenced Mike with a single, icy glare before turning his full attention to Kade. “Sergeant First Class Sullivan, I am Colonel Rehman. This is Colonel Evans. Are you aware that there are currently four Army helicopters—two Blackhawks from Fort Drum and two Chinooks from Washington State—sitting on a field at Fort Hood, assigned to a single infantry platoon that has no use for them?”

“Yes, sir,” Kade replied without hesitation. “I sourced them.”

The blunt admission hung in the air. Mike made a sputtering sound, a mixture of outrage and relief that the confession had been so easy.

“You sourced them?” Colonel Rehman repeated, his voice dangerously low. “This little adventure of yours has an initial cost projection of over one hundred thousand dollars in fuel, flight hours, and per diem. It has pulled critical assets from two separate divisions preparing for major training cycles. And it has made this command the laughingstock of Fort Hood. All for a request that should have been deleted the second it hit your inbox. Explain yourself, Sergeant.”

Before Kade could speak, Mike burst out, unable to contain his panic. “He went rogue, Colonel! Completely rogue! He has an authority problem, a bad attitude, I’ve been counseling him on it for months! He circumvented protocol, overstepped his authority… he clearly has some kind of vendetta against the system!”

Mike was building a narrative, a desperate, flimsy wall of blame. He was painting Kade as a disgruntled subordinate, a loose cannon who had single-handedly orchestrated this disaster.

Colonel Evans, the G3, hadn't spoken yet. He just watched Kade, his arms crossed over his massive chest, his expression unreadable. He was observing, evaluating the players on the field.

Kade remained motionless, letting Mike’s frantic accusations wash over him. He weathered the storm, his posture as unflinching as a mountain peak. He waited. He knew that in any real interrogation, the blustering idiot eventually runs out of air, and the real questions begin.

Finally, Colonel Rehman held up a hand, and Mike’s tirade sputtered to a halt. The Colonel’s cold eyes locked back onto Kade.

“The accusations from your supervisor are serious, Sergeant. But the results are even more serious. I’m going to ask you one more time, and I advise you to choose your words very carefully. Why did you source these aircraft?”

This was it. The moment. The opening he had been waiting for.

Kade’s gaze shifted from the wall to meet Colonel Rehman’s directly. There was no fear in his eyes, only the cold, hard certainty of a man who held a royal flush.

“Sir, approximately one month ago, this section received a request from the California National Guard for three Rhino Runner armored buses,” Kade began, his voice clear and steady, like a narrator recounting a historical event. “As the commodity manager, I denied the request on the grounds that the Rhino is a theater-specific combat asset and is unavailable for stateside training exercises, per Army regulation.”

He saw a flicker of understanding in Colonel Rehman’s eyes. The G4 knew the regulations.

“The request was escalated,” Kade continued. “I explained the logistical impossibility to a Captain, a Lieutenant Colonel, and a full Colonel from the requesting unit. Each time, I was met with resistance. The situation finally culminated in a phone call from Major General Thompson, the Deputy Commanding General for the National Guard.”

Mike flinched at the mention of the General’s name, his face turning a shade paler.

“I presented the same facts to the General,” Kade said. “I detailed the location and operational status of every Rhino in the Army inventory, all of which were in the CENTCOM area of operations. The General, upon being presented with the facts, understood the situation and the call ended.”

He paused, letting the first part of his story settle in the quiet room. He had established his competence, his adherence to policy, his willingness to stand on principle even against a two-star. Now, for the kill shot.

“Immediately following that call, I was summoned to this office by Mr. Henderson. He was… displeased that I had told a General ‘no’.”

Kade’s eyes shifted, just for a second, to lock onto Mike’s. Mike visibly shrank back, a cornered rat realizing the trap was sprung.

“I was given a direct order by my supervisor, Mr. Henderson,” Kade said, his voice dropping slightly, each word now a precision-guided munition aimed directly at his boss. “He informed me, and I quote…”

He took a small breath.

“‘It’s not your job to validate equipment. It’s not your job to question the mission. It’s your job to source it. When a request comes to your desk, from any unit, for any reason, you find it. You don’t ask why. You just find a way to fill the order. Do. You. Understand?’”

The words fell into the suffocating silence of the office like stones into a deep, still pond. The air froze. Every bit of oxygen seemed to have been sucked from the room. The direct, verbatim quote was an undeniable, catastrophic indictment. It was an order of such profound stupidity that it constituted a dereliction of duty.

Slowly, deliberately, the gazes of both Colonels shifted from Kade’s unflinching face to the pale, trembling form of Mike Henderson.

Mike opened his mouth, but no sound came out. A small, gurgling noise escaped his throat. He looked from Colonel Rehman’s face of stone to Colonel Evans’s suddenly very sharp, very focused stare. He saw no rescue there. No escape.

“Is that true, Mr. Henderson?” Colonel Rehman asked, his voice now a quiet, deadly thing. “Did you give this NCO that order?”

Mike’s mouth flapped uselessly. He stammered, his eyes darting around the room as if searching for an exit that no longer existed. “I… well, it was… a counseling statement… he was being insubordinate… I didn’t mean…”

But the lie was plain on his face, in his panicked eyes, in the sweat that now poured down his temples.

He had built his entire career on shifting blame, on pushing paper, on avoiding responsibility. But now, in his own office, under the cold, hard gaze of his superiors, the bill for a lifetime of incompetence had come due. He had handed Sergeant Sullivan a loaded weapon and ordered him to fire. And the bullet had gone straight through his own career.

Judgment had arrived.