Chapter 3 - An Order from Walter Reed
"What did you just say?!" Mrs. Eleanor screeched from the foyer, her voice cracking with indignation despite her trembling knees. "Admiral's daughter?! Are you insane?! Her father is a retired nobody who fixes tractors in a barn! Carter, call your Uncle Richard right now! Call the Fairfax police! These men are trespassing on private property!"
Carter fumbled frantically for his phone on the console table, his hands shaking so violently he dropped it twice. "I'm calling the District Attorney! You animals will lose your badges for this! You don't know who you're dealing with!"
The suit-clad federal agent turned around slowly. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't even draw a weapon. He pulled a black leather badge case from his lapel, flashing the gold crest of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, backed by presidential priority clearance.
"Mr. Bennett," the agent said, his voice dropping into a chilling monotone. "You are currently interfering with an active emergency medical evacuation ordered directly by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of the Navy. If you take one step toward that door or touch that telephone, you will be restrained under federal obstruction charges and detained at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall."
Carter froze. The color drained from his face until he was the pale white of chalk. "The... the Chairman of who?"
The paramedics gently lifted me onto the gurney. The cold metal beneath the padding felt like a sanctuary compared to the dirty kitchen tiles. A mask was placed over my face, delivering sweet, cool oxygen to my burning lungs. A medic gently placed an ultrasound Doppler over my belly.
For three terrifying seconds, there was only static.
Then, a faint, rapid thump broke through the speaker. Thump-thump-thump-thump.
"Heartbeat is present, but tachycardic. We have sixty minutes to get this baby out before uterine rupture," the doctor snapped into his radio. "Air ambulance is ready. Destination: Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Presidential Surgical Suite."
They wheeled me rapidly toward the front door. As the stretcher rolled past Carter, his mother tried to block the entryway, her eyes bulging with spite and denial. "You can't take her! She's his legal wife! This is a domestic matter! She hasn't even finished making dinner!"
The federal agent didn't even debate her. He took one step forward, grabbed Eleanor by the wrist, twisted her arm behind her back, and slammed her against the wallpaper with enough force to knock the air straight out of her lungs.
"Step aside, ma'am. You are three seconds away from being placed in flex-cuffs for conspiracy to commit aggravated domestic assault."
"Carter! Help me!" she screamed.
Carter stood paralyzed in his silk robe, his jaw hanging loose, watching me being wheeled out into the roaring gale of the Black Hawk's rotor wash. The wind whipped my hair across my face, but for the first time in two agonizing years, I could breathe without fear.
As they lifted the stretcher into the belly of the helicopter, a tall silhouette stood inside the cabin, wearing a pristine four-star Navy dress uniform adorned with rows of combat ribbons and the Medal of Honor.
My father. Admiral Robert Vance.
May you like
He fell to his knees beside my cot, ignoring the blood soaking his immaculate dress trousers, and wrapped his giant, scarred hands around mine.
"I've got you, Clara," he whispered, a tear cutting through his weathered cheek. "Papa is right here. Nobody will ever touch you again."
