Chapter 8 - The Midnight Reckoning
The black tactical SUV tore down the mountain highway at eighty miles an hour, its four-wheel drive biting into the slush.
Marcus drove with one hand on the wheel, while his other hand monitored a satellite uplink on his dashboard tablet.
Eleanor sat in the passenger seat, wearing her medical coat over her winter sweater, her phone pressed to her ear.
In the back, Evelyn lay covered in blankets, her breathing shallow but steady.
“The fourth-floor surgical wing has been placed on restricted access,” Eleanor reported, hanging up the phone with shaking hands.
“Chief of Police Danvers personally signed the executive security order thirty minutes ago.”
“That means Detective Harris is already on site,” I said, loading fresh shells into my pocket.
“Harris is Frank’s primary dog,” Marcus muttered, checking his rear-view mirror.
“If Harris is at the hospital, he’s there to sign off on Dustin’s sudden cardiac arrest without an autopsy.”
“They are going to frame you for capital murder, Thomas.”
“They can try,” I said, watching the amber city lights emerge through the rain.
“Dustin is a coward and an abuser, but he is also Evelyn’s only legal shield against federal conspiracy charges.”
“If Dustin dies tonight, Frank’s offshore shell company falls entirely onto Evelyn’s name.”
“She becomes the sole registered owner of Iron River Holdings.”
Evelyn stirred in the back, her bruised hand reaching out to touch my shoulder.
“Dad,” she whispered through her wired splint.
“Dustin kept a second phone inside the base of the trophy case in our living room.”
I turned around to look at her.
“What is on that phone, Evelyn?”
“It’s a burner phone Frank bought for him two years ago.”
“Every order Frank ever gave him was recorded on an automatic dictation app.”
“Dustin was terrified of Frank.”
“He told me once that if Frank ever turned on him, that phone was his life insurance policy.”
“Did Dustin give you the combination to the trophy case?”
“He didn't have to,” she whispered, tears glistening in the dim green dashboard light.
“The safe code is my mother’s birthday.”
“He used it because he knew I would never guess it.”
Marcus let out a low whistle from the front seat.
“The boy was stupid, but his paranoia was military-grade.”
“We split up,” I said firmly.
“Marcus, you take Evelyn and this SUV to the federal building across the state line in Green Bay.”
“You hand her directly to the regional inspector general’s office along with the decrypted flash drive.”
Marcus glanced back at me through the rearview mirror.
“And what about you and Eleanor?”
“We have an appointment in room four-oh-two at Saint Jude Memorial.”
“You can’t just walk through the front doors, Thomas.”
“The entire county sheriff’s department is waiting there with arrest warrants.”
“I’m not walking through the front doors, Marcus.”
“I’m going through the subterranean oxygen intake vents on the east wall.”
“I helped build that hospital wing in nineteen-eighty-four before I re-enlisted.”
Marcus grinned in the dark, pulling the SUV onto the shoulder of the road two blocks from the hospital perimeter.
“Take my sidearm, Thomas.”
“Keep it for Evelyn, Marcus.”
“If Frank’s people spot that vehicle, do not negotiate.”
“Nobody touches this girl while I have a heartbeat, Thomas.”
I squeezed Marcus’s shoulder, leaned down to kiss Evelyn on the forehead, and stepped out into the pouring rain.
Eleanor followed me, pulling her hospital ID lanyard over her neck.
Her face was resolute, the fear replaced by the iron will of a mother defending her child.
“Where is the utility tunnel entrance?” Eleanor asked, sheltering under the concrete loading overhang.
“Behind the medical waste compactors near the morgue ramp.”
“Security keeps a magnetic lock on that door now, Thomas.”
“Magnetic locks operate on low-voltage copper relays, Eleanor.”
I pulled a six-inch insulated wire stripper from my pocket, smiling faintly in the shadow.
“Copper is my specialty.”
We moved through the darkness behind the dumpster bay, staying low beneath the surveillance camera cones.
The hospital hummed with the mechanical pulse of massive ventilation chillers.
I knelt beside the steel maintenance hatch, popped the weatherproof control plate with the tip of my blade, and stripped the blue common wire.
The electromagnetic lock popped with a soft metallic click.
I pushed the heavy iron door open, revealing the damp concrete tunnel beneath the hospital foundation.
The smell of steam, machine oil, and chlorinated water filled the narrow passage.
Eleanor led the way toward the service elevator shaft, stepping lightly on her rubber-soled nursing shoes.
We could hear the crackle of police radios through the ceiling vents above us.
Detective Harris’s deep, abrasive voice echoed down from the third-floor stairwell.
“Keep the press outside the perimeter!” Harris was barking.
“If anyone asks, the suspect Vance is considered armed, extremely dangerous, and actively hostile.”
“Shoot on sight if he enters the perimeter.”
Eleanor turned to me, her eyes wide in the dark corridor.
“They have kill orders on you, Thomas.”
“That only works if they see me coming, Eleanor.”
I pressed the call button on the freight lift with the override key Eleanor handed me.
May you like
The heavy hydraulic doors slid open with a whisper of grease.
The elevator began its slow, mechanical ascent toward the fourth-floor intensive care unit.
