Chapter 9 - Breach and Clear
The service door was unlocked—a chilling confirmation that whoever had infiltrated the building had already compromised the internal access controls.
Marcus caught up to me in two long strides, pressing his back against the wall beside the frame. He raised his left hand, counting down silently with his fingers: Three... Two... One.
With a sharp kick, the heavy metal door flew inward, crashing against the interior drywall with a deafening bang.
“Federal agents! Don't move!” Marcus shouted, pivoting into the corridor with his weapon raised.
I swept past him, my boots hammering against the linoleum floor as we raced toward the service elevator bank. The hallway was dead silent, save for the hum of the overhead fluorescent lights flickering with a sickly, intermittent buzz.
We bypassed the elevators, taking the stairwell two steps at a time up to the fourth floor.
When I slammed my shoulder against the heavy fire door leading to Ward 4-B, the scene that greeted us was a war zone of cold, calculated precision.
The two private security guards who had been assigned to Ashley were tied securely to a structural pillar, unconscious, their breathing heavy and irregular from chemical sedatives. But the door to Ashley’s room—Room 412—was wide open.
I didn't hesitate. I raised my pistol and rushed across the threshold.
The room was empty.
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The hospital bed was stripped back, the sheets tangled in a frantic heap. On the bedside table, the heart monitor beeped in a slow, steady rhythm, attached not to my daughter, but to an automated saline drip mimicking a human pulse.
Pinned to the pillow by a gleaming, military-issue combat knife was a single sheet of heavy cardstock bearing a handwritten note: If you want the girl alive, trade the master ledger at the old dry docks by dawn. Come alone.
