Chapter 7 - The Interrogation Room
A deafening, high-pressure hiss tore through the quiet room as pure, pressurized oxygen screamed out of the tank nozzle. The sudden blast hit the loose medical drapes and paper wrappers, sending them whirling through the air in a blinding blizzard of white.
“What the hell!” Vance shouted, reflexively throwing his forearm over his face as the freezing gas blasted across the room.
In that split second of distraction, Daniel moved.
Ignoring the agonizing fire tearing through his freshly sutured abdominal wall, Daniel launched his upper body forward. His right hand snapped out, seizing the wrist of the fake medical tech holding the lethal syringe. With a savage, torque-twisting motion honed by a decade of hand-to-hand combat training, Daniel snapped the man’s radius bone with a sickening crack.
The man let out a strangled shriek, dropping the syringe. Before the second agent could clear the weapon from his waistband, Emma grabbed the heavy stainless-steel IV pole and swung it with all the force in her body, slamming the weighted cast-iron base directly into the man’s collarbone. The impact sent him crashing backward through the glass observation window, shattering the heavy pane into a shower of crystalline safety glass.
Alarms throughout the third floor began to wail instantly—the code red fire alarm triggered by the sudden pressure drop in the oxygen manifold, accompanied by the piercing siren of the shattered ward window.
“Security! Code silver on three!” a voice blared over the PA system.
Vance drew a suppressed automatic pistol from beneath his jacket, his calm facade completely vanishing into a mask of murderous fury. “You just signed your own death warrant, girl!”
Before Vance could align his sights on Emma, Daniel lunged off the mattress. He hit the floor on his knees, grunting through the blinding pain in his abdomen, and drove his shoulder directly into Vance’s midsection. The two men crashed against the heavy medical cart, overturning trays of sterile scalpel blades, alcohol bottles, and electronic monitoring gear.
Vance was older, but he was ruthless and strong. He jammed his thumb into Daniel’s fresh surgical incision, twisting his thumb into the wound. Daniel let out a guttural roar of agony, his vision going white at the edges as the sutures tore apart beneath the pressure.
“Daniel!” Emma cried.
She didn't hesitate. She grabbed a heavy glass bottle of sterile saline from the counter and brought it down hard against the side of Vance’s skull. The glass shattered, and Vance collapsed sideways onto the floor, dazed, blood pouring from a jagged cut along his hairline, his pistol clattering across the slick tiles.
Emma kicked the weapon away under the bed and dropped to her knees beside Daniel.
“Daniel! Look at me!”
Daniel was curled on his right side, both hands pressed against his bleeding flank. Blood was already soaking through his hospital gown, hot and dark. His face was gray, his breathing shallow and rapid.
“I tore it,” he choked out, his teeth stained with crimson. “Sutures... tore loose...”
“Stay with me!” Emma commanded, stripping a clean bedsheet from the gurney and pressing it firmly against his wound, using her entire body weight to compress the bleeding vessels. “You are not dying in this room, Chief! Do you hear me? Stand down and breathe!”
The sound of heavy tactical boots echoed down the corridor outside. Flashlight beams cut through the smoke and drywall dust in the hallway.
“Freeze! Nobody move! Federal security, drop your weapons!”
Four heavily armed military police officers in full tactical gear burst through the shattered window frame, their assault rifles raised, weapon lights illuminating the carnage in Room 312. Behind them stood Dr. Cole, his face pale with horror, flanked by the hospital’s Chief of Police and a two-star Navy Admiral wearing service dress blues.
“Hold your fire!” Dr. Cole screamed, rushing into the room. “Hold your fire! The patient is bleeding out!”
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Admiral Marcus Sterling stepped through the debris, his sharp eyes taking in the scene: the shattered window, the incapacitated CIA liaison bleeding on the floor, the dropped syringe of potassium chloride, and the rookie nurse kneeling in a pool of blood, desperately fighting to keep Daniel Mercer alive.
“Get the surgical crash team in here right now!” Admiral Sterling barked, his voice echoing with undisputed command authority. “And secure Director Vance in heavy restraints. The Inspector General’s office just received the decrypted files from Norfolk. This operation is officially over.”
