Chapter 18 - The Phantom Call
By midnight, the naval hospital had been placed on total military lockdown. Armed Navy SEALs from Daniel’s unit stood guard at every corridor entrance leading to Ethan’s private room. Inside, Ethan was resting peacefully under a gentle oxygen cannula, his color fully restored, holding Jo’s hand while he slept.
Daniel stood in a dimly lit, decommissioned aircraft hangar at the far edge of the base airfield.
Tied to a heavy steel chair in the center of the concrete floor was the private courier who had delivered the sealed medication to Daniel’s house the day before. The man was bruised, sweating profusely, and shaking with terror under the cold stare of Master Chief Ramirez and two hulking operators in civilian clothes.
"I didn't know what was in it! I swear to God!" the courier sobbed, his voice bouncing off the corrugated tin walls. "A man met me outside the distribution depot in San Diego! He paid me five grand cash to swap the bottle in the delivery pouch! He told me it was just a harmless tracer for an insurance audit!"
Daniel stepped out of the shadows, his combat boots clicking heavily on the concrete. He stopped inches from the courier’s face.
"What did he look like?" Daniel asked quietly.
"I didn't see his face! He wore a ball cap and sunglasses! But he had a burn scar on his neck! A cross-shaped scar!"
Daniel’s blood turned to ice water.
A cross-shaped burn scar.
Before Daniel could speak, a burner phone in the courier’s jacket pocket began to vibrate aggressively against the fabric.
Ramirez looked at Daniel. Daniel nodded once.
Ramirez used a gloved hand to slide the phone out of the pocket and held it out. Daniel took the phone, clicked the green accept button, and raised it to his ear without saying a word.
On the other end of the line, there was no sound of breathing. Only the faint, distorted hiss of an electronic voice distorter.
"Did the little deaf boy sleep well, Captain Vance?" the synthetic voice asked, cold and dripping with mechanical malice.
Daniel’s grip on the phone tightened until the glass screen fractured with a sickening crunch. "If you ever come near my sons again, I will track you to the ends of the earth and skin you alive."
A chilling, distorted laugh crackled through the speaker.
"Your sons were never the primary target, Daniel," the voice whispered. "Your sons were just bait to get her out of hiding."
Daniel froze. His gaze snapped toward the door of the hangar, toward the hospital where Jo was currently sitting alone by Ethan's bed.
"Tell me, Captain," the voice continued, smooth and sinister. "Did Nurse Evans ever tell you what happened to her real family seven years ago before she changed her name? Did she tell you why she knows so much about clinical poison? Look out the hospital window, Daniel. The fire is just beginning."
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The line went dead.
At that exact second, the base siren began to wail across the night air—a frantic, high-pitched scream indicating an active security breach at the medical wing. Daniel dropped the cracked phone, pulled his sidearm, and sprinted into the darkness.
