Chapter 5 - The Silent Accomplice
"Gas mask, now!" Ross yelled, tearing her scarf from her neck and pressing it over her nose while moving toward the frame. "Stay low!"
A thick, pungent white vapor poured into the room, smelling sharply of ammonia and industrial degreaser. It wasn't lethal nerve gas, but within seconds, my lungs burned, and my eyes began watering uncontrollably.
Mark began coughing violently from the corner. "Maya!"
"I've got you!" Sterling barked, throwing his jacket over Mark's head and shoving him down behind the heavy ceramic base of the bathroom partition.
*BANG.*
The lock on the door blew inward with a deafening blast. The door flew open, and a man lunged inside, dressed in gray coveralls, wearing a heavy rubber respirator. In his gloved hands was a silenced tactical pistol.
He didn't hesitate. He swung the barrel straight toward my bed.
He wasn't Richard. He was a hired hand. Richard was sitting in a cell, but his money was still walking the streets.
Before the intruder could acquire his sight picture, Ross fired two rounds. *Crack! Crack!*
The shots tore through the man's right shoulder. He stumbled backward against the doorframe, his weapon discharging wildly into the ceiling tiles, raining down plaster and dust.
Despite the blinding pain in my hip, I raised the Beretta Sterling had given me. My military training overtook the agony, the fear, and the haze of painkillers. Center mass. Exhale.
I fired once.
The hollow-point caught the intruder directly in the center of his chest rig. The kinetic force threw him flat on his back into the hallway corridor, his weapon skittering across the linoleum.
"Clear!" Ross yelled, advancing swiftly, her gun trained on the fallen man’s head as she kicked his pistol away. She knelt on his uninjured shoulder, pulling off his respirator with one swift motion.
The man beneath was young, mid-thirties, with a military-style buzzcut and cold, vacant eyes.
"Contractor," Ross spat, checking his wrist. "Former private security. He’s got an encrypted radio in his pocket."
Sirens converged on the ward. Footsteps—dozens of boots—pounded up the stairwell. General Sterling emerged from the smoke, coughing, his eyes blazing with fury.
"Status!" a Security Forces lieutenant shouted as four armed airmen flooded the room, rifles raised.
"Suspect down," Ross said, standing up and flashing her badge. "Lock this entire hospital down. Nobody leaves without an escort from federal agents. And get Captain Vance prepped for transport. We're moving her to an undisclosed safe facility on the base immediately."
I lowered the pistol, my hands shaking as the adrenaline crash washed over me. Mark crawled out from the bathroom, coughing, and gripped my uninjured hand.
"He's never going to stop, Maya," Mark whispered, his voice trembling with sheer terror. "Even behind bars, he’s going to keep sending people until we're both dead."
"Look at me, Mark," I said, squeezing his hand until my knuckles turned white, forcing him to meet my gaze through the clearing smoke. "Look at him out there on the floor. Richard thinks he can buy people to do his dirty work because he’s a coward. But cowards leave trails. Every check he writes, every favor he calls in, is another nail in his coffin."
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General Sterling took the Beretta from my hand, his face etched in solemn resolution. "Captain Vance is right. He just escalated this from a domestic incident to an armed hit on a military hospital. Richard Vance didn’t just bury himself. He handed us the shovel."
***
