Chapter 8 - Whispers in the ICU
The helipad at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center was swept by cold Maryland drizzle when the Chinook’s landing gear settled with a heavy, pressurized hiss.
Four Marine sentries in service dress over tactical carriers formed a rigid perimeter as the rear ramp fell. Behind them, General Thomas Harrison—a veteran of three tours who carried two Silver Stars and wore his four-star rank like armor—stood with his hands clasped behind his back, flanked by the chief of trauma surgery.
“Wesley,” Harrison said, stepping forward as the medics rolled the litter down the incline. He placed an iron-clad hand on my shoulder. “She’s safe now. We have the entire seventh floor cleared. No visitors, no civilian police, no federal agents without my personal authorization.”
“Thank you, General,” I said, my voice hoarse.
“Don't thank me yet,” the General replied, his eyes dark. “The Secretary of Defense has already received three calls from North Carolina’s senior senator demanding your arrest for the unauthorized use of military assets on domestic soil. Constance Voss is pulling the levers of every PAC she funds. You have forty-eight hours to make this stick, Major, or the Department of Justice will step in to take custody of the case.”
“Forty-eight hours is forty hours more than I need, sir.”
Thirty minutes later, the chaos of transport faded into the rhythmic, hypnotic hum of the Walter Reed intensive care unit.
The room was vast, sterile, and silent save for the ventilator and the arterial line monitoring Adeline’s blood pressure. Through the high security glass, two armed military policemen stood motionless at the airlock entry.
I sat on a stainless-steel stool beside the bed, my combat blouse removed, my green undershirt damp with sweat. I hadn't slept in seventy-two hours. My boots were still coated in the red clay of Brookhaven and the dust of the Syrian border.
I took Adeline’s uninjured right hand between both of mine.
Her pulse was steady now. The color had begun to return to the undamaged skin around her cheeks, though the heavy white bandages wrapped around her cranium and jaw gave her the fragile appearance of porcelain that had been shattered and glued back together.
At 0340, the monitor beside her bed registered a subtle change in brain-wave activity.
Her breathing pattern hitched.
“Addie,” I whispered, leaning in until my lips were inches from her ear. “It’s Wes. You’re at Walter Reed. You’re out of Brookhaven. Nobody can touch you.”
Her eyelids, heavy and bruised, fluttered.
A sharp spike of fear registered on the cardiac monitor—her heart rate jumped from seventy-two to ninety-eight. Her hand tightened in mine, a sudden, desperate grip that lacked full strength but carried all the terror of someone drowning in the dark.
“Easy,” I murmured, resting my free hand against her forehead. “Look at me, Addie. Look at my face.”
Slowly, painfully, her right eye cracked open. The pupil was slightly dilated, but as it tracked across the ceiling and locked onto my face, the terror in her expression cracked. A single tear broke over the swelling of her cheekbone, carving a clean line through the dried antiseptic on her skin.
Her lips parted. The plastic ventilator tube shifted slightly, and she let out a low, ragged sound that tore straight through my chest.
“Don't try to speak,” I said softly. “You have a fractured jaw and broken ribs. I know what they did. I know about Project Icarus. I know Marcus Kane was in the house.”
Her head moved an eighth of an inch—a microscopic nod.
Her fingers scratched lightly against the palm of my hand. One scratch. Then two. Then three.
It was an old habit from our college days, a silent Morse code she used when we sat in public rooms crowded with her suffocating family.
*D-O-O-R.*
I leaned closer. “What door, Addie?”
Her lips trembled against the tape securing the airway. She forced air past her vocal cords, producing a dry, clicking rasp.
“...not... Kane...” she whispered, the effort sending a jolt of pain across her monitors.
I froze. “What did you say?”
Her eye widened, burning with an intense, desperate clarity that cut through the haze of the sedatives.
“...Kane... didn't... hit... me...” she rasped, tears spilling freely now. “...Vivian... Vivian had... the iron... Constance... watched...”
A violent tremor ran through her arm.
“...they... have... the real... files... on... Bethany’s... car...” she breathed, her voice failing as the monitor alarms chimed softly at the increased metabolic strain. “...kill... her... Wes... they’re... going... to...”
Her eye rolled back, the sedation dragging her back down into the chemical abyss before she could finish the sentence.
Captain Reyes stepped into the room, checking the drip rate on her IV pole. “Major, she’s expending too much energy. We need to keep her under until the brain swelling recedes.”
I slowly let go of her hand and stood up.
My hands were not shaking. My pulse was dead-flat.
Constance hadn't just hired thugs to protect her fortune. Her daughters had participated in the ritual butchery of their own sister to preserve their inheritance. Vivian had swung the fireplace poker while their mother stood by the door checking her diamond watch.
And now, Bethany was alone in North Carolina with a target on her back.
I pulled my satellite phone from my pocket and dialed Vance’s direct line.
“Colonel,” I said, my voice stripped of all human emotion. “Where did Dixon take Bethany Voss?”
“She refused protective custody from the county sheriff—smart girl,” Vance replied instantly. “Our drone tracked her vehicle leaving Brookhaven thirty minutes ago. She’s heading west toward the Blue Ridge Parkway, driving her personal sedan. But Wes... she’s not alone.”
“How many vehicles?”
“Two black Suburbans from Voss Corporate Security. They’re running her down near the Pisgah switchbacks. Local state troopers aren't responding—somebody jammed the emergency dispatch frequencies in that sector.”
“Deploy the extraction team from the airfield,” I snapped, walking toward the airlock doors.
“The airfield team is tied up securing the hangar evidence under federal subpoena,” Vance said with rising tension. “The nearest tactical bird is forty-five minutes out. By the time they reach that mountain pass, Bethany’s car will be at the bottom of a six-hundred-foot gorge.”
May you like
“Then divert the Little Birds,” I said, slamming my shoulder through the airlock door into the staging corridor. “I’m taking the strike transport back to North Carolina right now.”
***
