I stood three feet from my father at the witness table, the distance between us both impossibly vast and acutely small. My voice, though strained, cut through the clamor.
“Answer the Chairman, Father,” I demanded, Julian’s final letter clutched tight in my hand, the paternity proof a solid weight in my coat pocket. “Tell them what you did to Julian and what you did to your grandson.”
Arthur opened his mouth, his face flushing a dark, angry red. His jaw worked, a soundless struggle for words. But before a single syllable could escape his lips, before any confession or denial could be uttered, the heavy wooden doors at the rear of the chamber burst open.
Capitol Security officers flooded the aisle, their movements urgent and chaotic. “Emergency evacuation!” one officer bellowed, his voice amplified by a megaphone. “Bomb threat! Evacuate immediately!”
A violent surge of guards and panicked spectators swept through the room. People screamed, pushing against each other in a desperate scramble for the exits.
In the sudden, terrifying crush, Arthur Holbrook clutched his left arm, his face contorting in pain. He collapsed backward over his chair, a heavy thud against the marble floor.
Guards rushed to him, clearing a path. He was whisked out a side exit on a gurney, his face ashen, his body limp. Without speaking a single word, without offering an apology or a confession, the confrontation ended abruptly, leaving the reckoning cut short and tragically unresolved in the sudden, eerie silence of the cleared hall.
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