Chapter 3 - The Traitor in the Hallway
The silence inside Bay 4 expanded like a balloon stretched to its absolute limit.
Sarah did not step aside. Her eyes swept the room in a fraction of a second, cataloging every potential weapon and exit. To her right: a heavy stainless steel tray holding a set of surgical scalpels. To her left: an unclipped oxygen tank. Behind the agent: two security guards who were utterly oblivious to the fact that they were standing next to a professional hitman.
"You're not Homeland Security," Sarah said softly, her voice so steady it made the agent’s eyes narrow slightly. "Homeland agents carry badging with red holograms on their left lapel. Yours is a private security clearance badge from Vanguard Holdings. You’re a contractor."
Gerald Voss blinked, visibly rattled. "Kesler, what on earth are you talking about? Show some respect to—"
"Shut up, Voss," the agent barked without taking his eyes off Sarah. He reached inside his jacket, his hand hovering over a concealed shoulder holster. "You're smart for a night-shift nurse, Sarah. Or should I call you Captain Vance?"
Voss’s jaw dropped. "Captain who? What is going on here?"
Before the agent could draw his weapon, the telemetry monitor beside Marisol’s bed began to scream with a sharp, continuous tone. Marisol’s chest heaved violently, her eyes rolling back as her heart entered lethal ventricular fibrillation.
"She’s in V-fib!" Sarah yelled, turning the sudden medical emergency into a weapon.
In one fluid motion, Sarah grabbed the heavy metal crash cart behind her and slammed it directly into the agent’s midsection. The heavy steel cart hit him like a battering ram, throwing him backward into Gerald Voss and the two security guards. The four men collapsed in a chaotic heap of limbs and curses against the hallway tiles.
Sarah didn't hesitate. She grabbed two paddle leads from the defibrillator, charged the machine to two hundred joules, and turned toward Marisol.
"Clear!" Sarah yelled.
She pressed the paddles to Marisol’s chest. The electrical surge jolted the woman's body off the mattress. The monitor beeped once, caught a rhythm, and stabilized back into a fragile, racing beat.
"Dr. Ferris!" Sarah shouted as she grabbed a bottle of sterile saline and smashed it against the edge of the counter, creating a jagged glass weapon. "Code Blue in Bay 4! Get security!"
The agent scrambled to his feet, pulling a silenced pistol from beneath his jacket. "You made a mistake, Captain!"
"Did I?" Sarah said.
She lunged forward, grabbing the agent’s wrist before he could level the barrel. She drove her thumb hard into his radial nerve, forcing his fingers to release the weapon. As the gun dropped, Sarah caught it with her left hand, racked the slide with practiced muscle memory, and pointed it straight at the agent’s forehead.
The entire hallway went dead quiet.
Gerald Voss was cowering on the floor behind a linen hamper, his face pale as paper, staring at the mild-mannered, quiet nurse who was now holding an illegal firearm with the icy precision of a seasoned assassin.
"Drop your weapons," Sarah commanded the two hospital security officers, who were staring at her with wide, terrified eyes. "Do it now!"
The guards immediately unclipped their belts and threw their tasers onto the floor.
"Who sent you?" Sarah demanded, her finger resting lightly on the trigger of the agent's gun. "Who gave you my location?"
The agent sneered, a drop of sweat rolling down his temple. "You think you escaped six years ago, Vance? The director never lost track of you. We let you play nurse because you were quiet. But when Marisol escaped the Panama facility, we knew she’d head straight for her favorite captain."
"Who is the director?" Sarah asked, her voice dropping into a lethal register.
The agent chuckled darkly. "Look in the mirror, Captain. The person who sold out Operation Phoenix is someone you trusted with your life. And they're sitting on the board of this very hospital."
Sarah’s eyes widened slightly as the pieces of a six-year-old puzzle suddenly locked into place.
Before she could press the agent further, the double doors at the end of the emergency hall burst open. A tactical team clad in black uniforms swept into the corridor, their assault rifles raised.
"Drop the weapon!" the team leader shouted over a megaphone.
Sarah looked at the approaching tactical team, then back at Marisol, who was watching her with conscious, trusting eyes from the gurney.
"Hold on, Marisol," Sarah whispered.
May you like
Sarah raised the gun toward the ceiling and fired two shots into the emergency sprinkler system. The heavy brass heads shattered, bursting into an intense deluge of water that flooded the hallway, setting off loud fire alarms and blinding the incoming tactical team with a thick curtain of artificial rain.
Amidst the screaming alarms, flashing red emergency lights, and pouring water, Sarah unlocked the wheels of Marisol’s gurney, grabbed her medical bag, and pushed the bed forcefully through the rear ambulance doors out into the storm.
