After seven months serving overseas with the Marines, I returned home two days ahead of schedule, hoping to surprise my wife.

"Can she be moved?" Frank asked, looking at Sophia’s monitor readouts.

"If she stays here, she's dead in ten minutes," I replied.

I didn't hesitate. I disconnected the non-essential telemetry monitors, unhooked the IV saline bag from the pole, and hung it around my neck. I gently slipped my arms beneath Sophia’s shoulders and knees, lifting her with the absolute care I would give unexploded ordnance.

She gasped in pain, her head resting against my chest, her fingers weakly clutching the fabric of my combat jacket. "I trust you..." she whispered.

"I've got you, baby," I muttered against her hair. "Nobody touches you again."

I looked at Richard, still curled on the floor.

"Get up," I snapped.

Richard looked up, bewildered. "What?"

"Get up, or I leave you here for Henderson to clean up," I said. "You're our ticket past the front desk."

We moved out into the hallway. Frank took point, his weapon concealed beneath a heavy rain poncho, clearing each corner with military precision.

Instead of taking the main stairwell where Henderson's men were moving up, Frank led us toward the service elevator used for biohazard disposal. He swiped a stolen maintenance keycard across the reader.

The heavy doors groaned open.

We rode the elevator down into the subterranean basement, bypassing the lobby entirely, emerging into the damp, echoing laundry and maintenance tunnels that ran beneath the hospital complex.

The sound of police sirens echoed from the street level above us, muted by six feet of concrete.

"The ambulance bay is compromised," Frank said, checking a tablet mounted to his forearm. "Henderson’s got two squad cars blocking my van. But I parked a secondary extraction vehicle near the incinerator dock."

We pushed through the heavy rubber doors of the loading dock into the freezing rain.

A nondescript gray cargo van sat idling in the shadow of the industrial trash compactors.

"Put her in the back," Frank said, unlocking the rear doors. Inside was a makeshift field medic cot with secure straps and heavy fleece blankets.

I laid Sophia down gently, securing the safety harnesses around her torso and legs, ensuring her fractured wrist was immobilized. I plugged her IV line into a portable drip stand mounted to the van's interior frame.

"Ethan," Richard stammered, standing in the rain, shivering violently. "Where are we going? We need federal protection! We need to go to the FBI field office!"

"Henderson has people inside the field office," I said, grabbing Richard by the lapels of his soaked coat and throwing him headfirst into the van’s rear floorboards. "We go to ground."

Frank jumped into the driver’s seat. I slammed the rear doors shut, climbed into the passenger side, and leveled my weapon at Richard.

"Dock Street," I told Frank.

Frank hit the accelerator. The van lurched forward into the rain-slicked alleyway.

Richard looked at me with pure horror. "Dock Street? That’s Vance’s territory! Brock is there! Why the hell are we going to Dock Street?!"

I looked at Richard through the dim cabin light.