Chapter 5 - THE HOSPITAL RAID
The screen of my phone flashed with a blinking red warning: ‘TRAUMA BAY 4 - SECURITY BREACH - CODE BLACK.’
“Damn it!” I cursed aloud, abandoning the interview room in a blind sprint.
“Colonel! What is it?” Sergeant Christopher shouted, scrambling to keep pace behind me as I burst out of the precinct doors and threw myself into the driver’s seat of my SUV.
“The hospital! My mother!” I roared over the screaming engine as I slammed the transmission into drive, tires screeching against the asphalt as I peeled out of the parking lot with enough force to leave black skid marks on the pavement.
The drive that usually took ten minutes melted away in three as I blew through two red lights, my hazard lights flashing in a frantic rhythm. My mind raced at Mach 3. If Marcus Apex was behind this, he knew Ryan had failed the moment he was arrested. And in the world of high-stakes corporate espionage and military black ops, a compromised asset meant only one thing: damage control.
Which meant silencing the primary witness permanently.
When I screeched to a halt in front of the Baltimore Central Hospital emergency entrance, the scene was pure chaos. Sirens wailed in the distance. Two security guards were sprawled out on the pavement near the sliding glass doors, unconscious, their uniforms torn. The automatic doors were jammed halfway open, sparking and smoking from a blown circuit board.
I drew my sidearm—a standard-issue Sig Sauer P320—disengaging the safety with a crisp click that disappeared into the ambient roar of the hospital’s emergency alarms.
“Stay back, civilian!” I barked at a terrified nurse cowering behind the reception desk as I bolted through the shattered glass entryway. “Military intelligence! Clear the corridor!”
I sprinted down the familiar hallway toward Trauma Bay 4, my boots pounding against the linoleum. The overhead lights flickered erratically, casting long, menacing shadows across the walls.
As I rounded the corner into the intensive care wing, my heart stopped.
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The heavy privacy curtain around Trauma Bay 4 had been ripped down. Standing beside my mother’s bed was a towering figure in a matte-black tactical turtleneck, combat webbing, and a neoprene face mask. In his right hand, he held a silenced pistol aimed directly at my mother’s oxygen mask, while his left hand gripped a pillow, ready to suffocate her.
“Don't move another inch, Colonel,” a cold, synthesized voice rasped from beneath the mask. “Or the old lady takes the fast train out.”
