Chapter 4 - The Hospital Traitor
Nathan moved before Caleb Voss could pull his hand free.
He struck Voss’s arm against the wall.
A metal syringe fell from the doctor’s hand and skidded across the floor.
Security officers rushed from the nurses’ station.
Voss twisted away and shouted, “He attacked me!”
Nathan kicked the syringe out of reach.
“What’s in it?”
Voss’s face remained strangely calm.
“A sedative. You’re clearly unstable.”
“For whom?”
Hospital security restrained them both until Mara arrived.
The syringe contained enough fentanyl to kill an adult.
Voss claimed it had been prepared for a patient, though it carried no label and appeared in no medication record.
Mara searched him.
She found Sarah’s phone inside his coat pocket.
“You’re under arrest,” she said.
Voss stopped pretending.
“You don’t understand what you’re protecting.”
“I understand you walked toward a pediatric intensive care unit with a lethal injection.”
Voss looked at Nathan.
“Sarah copied data she couldn’t interpret.”
“She understood it well enough for you to chase her into a blizzard.”
“The device saved hundreds of children.”
“It killed six.”
“Every clinical trial has losses.”
“You erased them.”
Voss laughed bitterly.
“Marcus erased them. I kept the company alive.”
Security escorted him into a private interrogation room.
For two hours, he denied knowing where Sarah was.
Then investigators showed him the blood found inside the Winterglass facility.
It matched Sarah’s medical records.
Mara also revealed that Marcus’s attorney had blamed Voss for creating the altered trial documents.
That broke his loyalty.
“Marcus took Sarah to Saint Augustine’s,” Voss said.
Nathan knew the name.
Saint Augustine’s had once been a small private hospital owned by Pierce-Kane. It closed after a flood damaged the lower floors. An abandoned chapel remained attached to the west wing.
“Lily called it the place where children disappeared,” Nathan said.
Voss looked away.
“Early valve surgeries were performed there before the official trial began.”
“On children?”
“Families signed experimental-use waivers.”
“Did they know the device had not been approved?”
Silence answered him.
Mara sent tactical officers to Saint Augustine’s.
Before they departed, Voss gave one warning.
“Marcus installed cameras everywhere. If he sees police, he’ll kill Sarah and burn the archive.”
“What archive?” Nathan asked.
“The original patient files. The real Winterglass data.”
Marcus had taken Sarah to the same building where the hidden trial began.
He intended to destroy the woman and the evidence together.
At the hospital, a judge issued an emergency protection order placing Lily and the twins under temporary medical custody. Marcus could not remove them.
Nathan arranged for armed officers to guard the unit.
He sat beside Lily’s bed and told her the police were searching for Sarah.
“Did I leave Mommy too soon?” she asked.
The question nearly destroyed him.
“No.”
“But she told me to be brave for five minutes.”
“You were brave for hours.”
“I heard her crying when I closed the door.”
Nathan took her small hand.
“Your mother sent you because saving Owen and Ethan was the most important thing in the world to her.”
“What if the monsters hurt her?”
“Then we help her heal.”
Lily stared at him.
“You won’t send us away?”
“Never.”
She closed her eyes, but her fingers remained wrapped around his.
Mara returned shortly after noon.
“Marcus contacted us.”
She played an audio recording.
Nathan heard Sarah breathing before Marcus spoke.
“You have something that belongs to me,” he said. “I have something that belongs to you.”
Sarah’s voice came faintly in the background.
“Nathan, don’t—”
A sharp sound silenced her.
Marcus continued.
“Bring the microSD card and sign the share authorization. Come alone to Saint Augustine’s chapel at six. No police.”
“He knows we found the card,” Nathan said.
“Voss probably told him before entering the hospital.”
“What’s on the encrypted files?”
“Federal analysts are working on them, but Marcus doesn’t know that.”
Nathan looked through the window at the children.
“I’ll go.”
Mara shook her head.
“You’ll wear a tracker and body camera. My team will enter through the east service tunnel.”
“Voss said Marcus has cameras.”
“The service tunnel flooded years ago. It may not be monitored.”
Lily opened her eyes.
“There’s another way.”
Nathan turned.
“What do you mean?”
“Mommy showed me a picture of the hospital once. She said there was a tunnel under the chapel where nurses moved babies during the flood.”
Voss confirmed it.
An old utility passage connected the chapel basement to a maintenance building near the reservoir.
Marcus might not know it still existed.
At five thirty, Nathan arrived at Saint Augustine’s carrying a black case containing the microSD card and false transfer documents.
The abandoned hospital stood against the white landscape like a dead ship.
Broken windows stared across the frozen reservoir.
The chapel bell tower leaned slightly toward the trees.
Nathan entered alone.
Candles burned along the aisle.
Sarah sat near the altar, tied to a wooden chair.
Her face was bruised. Blood had dried along one side of her hair.
But she was alive.
Marcus stood behind her with a gun.
“You came,” Sarah whispered.
Nathan’s chest tightened.
“I should have come seven years ago.”
Marcus pointed toward the black case.
“Put it down.”
Nathan placed it on the floor.
“Let her go.”
“Sign first.”
Nathan stepped toward a table where the documents waited.
Then he noticed something beneath Sarah’s chair.
A thin wire ran across the floor and disappeared behind the altar.
Marcus followed his gaze.
“If my hand leaves this switch,” he said, raising a small trigger, “the chapel burns.”
From beneath the floor came a faint metallic sound.
The police were inside the tunnel.
Marcus heard it too.
His face changed.
“You brought them.”
He grabbed Sarah by the hair and pulled her to her feet.
Then the chapel lights went out.
A gun fired in the darkness.
Sarah screamed.
May you like
And Nathan heard a body fall.
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