Part 2
The heavy hospital door swung inward, scraping against the linoleum tile.
I didn’t think; I just reacted. Twelve years of pretending to be a soft-spoken civilian nurse evaporated in a microsecond. I dropped into a low crouch behind the steel rolling cart just as a tall man in green surgical scrubs stepped into Room 614. He wore a surgical mask and a blue bouffant cap, looking exactly like the cardio surgeons on the fourth floor—except cardio surgeons didn’t wear heavy tactical combat boots. And they certainly didn’t hold a suppressed 9mm pistol discreetly tucked behind a patient chart.
The assassin didn’t hesitate. He raised the weapon, sweeping the room.
“Down!” Sloan roared.
Thwip. Thwip.
Two muffled shots shattered the heart monitor above the bed, showering sparks and jagged plastic across the blankets. Sloan, ignoring his shattered ankle and fractured ribs, launched his massive frame off the mattress like a missile. He slammed into the assassin’s waist, driving him hard into the drywall. The sheer force of the impact shook the ceiling tiles, but the gunman was a professional. He didn’t panic. He twisted his wrist, bringing the barrel of the gun down toward Sloan’s spine.
“Nora!” Sloan grunted, struggling to hold the man’s gun arm back.
I grabbed the heaviest thing within reach: a solid steel oxygen cylinder sitting in the corner bracket. I ripped it free, stepping into the swing with my entire body weight, and brought the base of the tank crashing down onto the assassin’s elbow.
A sickening crunch echoed through the room. The man grunted in agony, the pistol clattering to the floor. Before he could recover, Sloan threw a brutal, bare-knuckle punch straight into the man’s throat. The assassin collapsed, gasping for air, unconscious before his head hit the floor tiles.
Sloan rolled off the man, clutching his ribs, his breath coming in ragged, bloody wheezes. His hospital gown was soaked in fresh blood from where his stitches had torn open.
“Check his pockets,” Sloan rasped, spitting a wad of blood onto the floor. “See who sent him.”
My hands were shaking, but my training held. I knelt beside the unconscious man, patting down his scrubs. In his chest pocket, I found a sleek, unmarked black encrypted phone and a laminated hospital ID badge. The name read Dr. Alan Carter, but the face was unmistakably familiar. A cold spike of absolute dread drove itself into my stomach.
I peeled the surgical mask off the man’s face to be sure.
“Garrett,” I whispered, my voice trembling. I looked up at the Colonel, who was dragging himself up against the bed frame. “It’s Miller. Corporal Thomas Miller. From our unit.”
Sloan stared at the unconscious man’s face, his jaw clenching so hard I thought his teeth might crack. “Miller was supposed to be dead,” he muttered. “They told us everyone in the transport chopper burned.”
“Why is he trying to kill you?” I asked, grabbing a roll of gauze and dropping to my knees to tightly bind Sloan’s bleeding side. “You said your car crash wasn’t an accident. What is going on?”
Sloan hissed in pain as I pulled the bandages tight. He looked at me, his hard eyes searching my face, trying to decide if he could trust a ghost. “Two weeks ago,” he began, his voice low, “I was clearing out an old storage locker belonging to our late commanding officer. I found a false bottom in a footlocker. Inside was a black flash drive. It had the unredacted tactical logs from Operation Sandstorm. The day we got ambushed, Doc.”
My breath caught in my throat. My hands stopped moving over his bandages.
“The ambush wasn’t an enemy trap,” Sloan continued, his voice dripping with venom. “Our own command fed us bad coordinates. They used us as bait to draw out a local warlord, knowing we’d be slaughtered. Miller must be part of the cleanup crew trying to erase the last survivors. I brought the drive back to Chicago to give it to a journalist. That’s why they ran me off the highway.”
He leaned closer, gripping my shoulder. “We have to get that drive, Nora. It’s the only way to expose them.”
I stayed completely still on the floor. The fluorescent light buzzed loudly above us.
“I know what’s on the drive, Garrett,” I said softly, my voice barely audible over the distant wail of ambulance sirens outside.
He frowned, wiping sweat from his forehead. “How could you know? It’s been buried for twelve years.”
I looked up into the eyes of the man I had patched up a lifetime ago, knowing what I was about to say would destroy whatever fragile alliance we had just formed.
“Because I didn’t die in the chopper crash, Garrett,” I whispered, stepping back from him. “And I know the coordinates were faked… because I’m the one who forged the intel. I put the drive in that locker. I’m the reason our squad died.”
Part 3
Silence descended on Room 614, heavier than the suffocating heat of the desert we had left behind twelve years ago.
Sloan stared at me. The betrayal didn’t register as sadness; it manifested instantly as pure, unadulterated violence. With terrifying speed, his hand lashed out, gripping my throat and slamming me against the tiled bathroom wall. His thumb pressed perfectly into my carotid artery.
“Give me one reason,” he snarled, his face inches from mine, his eyes black with rage, “why I shouldn’t snap your neck right here and let Miller’s friends clean up the mess.”
“Because… I… can keep you… alive,” I choked out, clawing at his thick wrist. “And because… I have the decryption key. The drive is useless without it.”
His jaw worked furiously. The muscles in his arm trembled with the urge to crush my windpipe. He had carried the guilt of surviving Operation Sandstorm for over a decade, and now the architect of his nightmare was wearing nurses’ scrubs, trapped under his hand. Slowly, agonizingly, he released his grip. I slid down the wall, gasping for air, rubbing my bruised throat.
“You have two minutes,” he ordered, his voice devoid of any human warmth. “Talk.”
“Command blackmailed me,” I said quickly, pulling myself up. “My brother was facing federal treason charges for leaking classified drone footage. They told me if I swapped the tactical coordinates in the comms tent before the mission, they would make his charges disappear. They swore the new coordinates were just a routine recon route. They promised me there would be no combat.”
“They lied,” Sloan said coldly.
“I didn’t know it was a slaughter until the radio calls started coming in,” I pleaded, tears burning my eyes. “When the dust settled, they put me on the medevac chopper. But a CIA handler pulled me off right before takeoff. Ten minutes later, someone blew the chopper out of the sky with an RPG to tie up loose ends. I ran. I changed my name. I’ve been hiding in emergency rooms ever since.”
Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. Heavy boots. More than one pair. Miller hadn’t come alone.
“Get up,” Sloan commanded, his survival instincts overriding his hatred for me. “Where do your service elevators lead?”
“The underground loading dock,” I replied, moving swiftly to the supply cabinet. I grabbed two trauma kits, a handful of epinephrine auto-injectors, and tossed him a set of oversized doctor’s scrubs to cover his bloody gown. “Put these on. If we use the laundry chute in the utility closet next door, we bypass the main floor entirely.”
Three minutes later, we were falling through the dark, plunging into a massive canvas bin of dirty hospital linens two floors below. The smell of bleach and blood filled my lungs. I scrambled out, helping Sloan drag his injured leg over the edge of the cart. The loading dock was dimly lit, damp from a recent Chicago rainstorm.
“My car is in the staff garage,” I whispered, handing him my keys. “Silver Honda Civic. Third level.”
“We aren’t taking your car,” Sloan grunted, limping toward a pair of parked, idling ambulances. The EMTs were inside at the vending machines. “They’ll track your plates the second they realize who you are.”
Sloan wrenched the driver’s side door of the ambulance open, sliding into the heavy seat. He hotwired the ignition bypass with the brutal efficiency of a man who had stolen vehicles under heavy fire. I climbed into the passenger seat just as the loading dock doors burst open behind us. Three men in tactical gear poured out, raising suppressed rifles.
“Get down!” Sloan yelled, stomping on the accelerator.
The heavy ambulance lurched forward. Pop-pop-pop! Spiderweb cracks exploded across the rearview mirror as bullets chewed into the reinforced steel chassis. We smashed through the wooden exit barrier, the vehicle’s heavy tires squealing as Sloan wrenched the wheel hard to the left, merging violently into the midnight traffic of Lake Shore Drive.
The cold wind whipped through a bullet hole in the window, freezing the sweat on my neck. I looked over at the Colonel. His face was pale, losing blood fast, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were white.
“Where is the drive now, Garrett?” I asked quietly over the roar of the engine.
He didn’t look at me. His eyes were fixed on the dark, winding road ahead. “It’s in a safety deposit box at Union Station. We get it, we decrypt it, and we burn these bastards to the ground.”
He finally turned his head, his gaze burning right through me. “But when this is over, Nora… you and I are going to have a final reckoning.”
Before I could answer, the stolen ambulance’s dispatch radio suddenly crackled to life in the dashboard. A voice came through the static, calm, cold, and devastatingly clear.
“We have your brother, Nurse Whitaker. Bring us the drive, or we send him back in pieces. You have one hour.”
Sloan slammed on the brakes, the ambulance skidding to a halt in the middle of the empty bridge. We sat in the dark, staring at the radio, realizing the war we thought we left in the desert had just followed us home.
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