Get security now.
He’s going to break the orderly’s arm.
The screams weren’t coming from a prisoner of war camp.
They were coming from room 304 of St.
Jude’s Memorial Hospital.
The man inside was dying.
His organs shutting down his blood turning toxic.
But he would rather die fighting than let a single needle touch his skin.
The doctors called him paranoid.
The police called him dangerous.
But nurse Sarah Jenkins saw something else.
She didn’t see a mad man.
She saw a soldier still holding the line.
And to save his life, she had to break protocol and speak five words that didn’t exist in any medical textbook.
A secret code that hasn’t been spoken aloud since 1972.
What happened next didn’t just save a life.
It uncovered a classified history that someone wanted buried forever.
The rain battered against the glass of the ICU ward at St.
Jude’s Memorial, creating a rhythmic drumming that usually helped drown out the beeping of monitors.
But tonight, nothing could drown out the chaos erupting from room 304.
Do not touch me.
I gave you a direct order.
The voice was gravel and glass, a throat shredded by years of smoke and apparently screaming.
Dr.Gregory Evans stood in the hallway adjusting his glasses, his face a mask of exhausted irritation.
He was 28, fresh out of residency, and convinced that every problem could be solved with the right dosage of Laorazzipam.
Nurse Jenkins, he snapped, not looking away from the clipboard where he was furiously scribbling notes.
The John Doe in 304 restraints now.
If we don’t get that IV in him within the hour, he goes into septic shock.
Sarah Jenkins didn’t move immediately.
She was 45, a 20-year veteran of the trauma ward.
She had seen drug dealers weep for their mothers and corporate CEOs curse God.
She knew the difference between a patient who was delirious and a patient who was terrified.
He’s not a John Doe Gregory, Sarah said, her voice calm but firm.
His wallet, says Arthur Vance, and he’s not psychotic.
He’s defending a perimeter.
He broke the orderly’s nose, Sarah.
Evans hissed, finally looking up.
He’s a confused, violent old man who is currently dying of what looks like advanced heavy metal poisoning and sepsis.
He is a danger to himself and my staff.
Restrain him.
Sedate him.
Treat him.
In that order, Sarah sighed, tightening her ponytail.
She walked toward room 304, the heavy rubber soles of her shoes squeaking on the lenolium.
Inside the room was a war zone.
A metal tray table was overturned.
Gaws and alcohol swabs littered the floor like snow.
In the center of the bed, backed up against the headboard, sat Arthur Arty Vance.
He looked like a ruin of a man.
He was skeletal, his skin the color of old parchment covered in liver spots and scars that told stories of violence.
His left eye was clouded with a cataract, but his right eye, piercing icy blue, was sharp, darting around the room, assessing threats.
He held a plastic water pitcher like a grenade.
“Stay back,” Arty roared.
His chest heaved, the ribs visible through his thin hospital gown.
“I know who sent you.
You tell the director I’m not signing I’m not signing the exit papers.
” Two large security guards stood by the door, waiting for the signal to rush him.
They looked nervous.
This old man, despite weighing maybe 130 lb, soaking wet, radiated a lethal kind of energy.
“Mr.
Vance,” Sarah said, stepping past the guards.
She held her hands up, palms open.
“My name is Sarah.
I’m not from the director.
I’m just here to clean that wound on your leg.
Liar.
Arty spat.
He swung the picture, splashing water across the room.
I know the protocol.
First the seditive, then the extraction.
You’re not taking me to the black sight.
I’ll die right here on this hill.
Sarah stopped.
She watched his breathing.
It wasn’t the hyperventilation of a panic attack.
It was controlled in hold out tactical breathing.
He wasn’t fighting the hospital.
He was fighting a memory.
“Get the straps,” Dr.
Evans ordered from the doorway.
“Enough of this.
Hold him down.
” The guards surged forward.
Arty let out a guttural roar, lashing out with a kick that, even in his weakened state, connected solidly with the lead guard’s thigh.
The guard grunted and lunged, pinning Arty’s chest to the mattress.
The old man thrashed his heart rate monitor, screaming a high-pitched warning.
140 150 160.
Get off me, broken arrow.
Broken arrow.
Arty screamed, his voice cracking.
Inject him, Evans yelled.
Sarah watched Arty’s face.
It wasn’t rage anymore.
It was pure unadulterated terror.
He was looking at the ceiling tiles, but Sarah knew he was seeing the canopy of a jungle.
He wasn’t in St.
Jude’s.
He was somewhere else, somewhere dying, and he believed these people were the enemy.
“Stop!” Sarah shouted, stepping between the doctor’s needle and the patient.
Move, Sarah,” Evans barked.
“Look at his chart, doctor.
” Sarah pointed at the monitor.
“His heart is in AIB.
You hit him with that seditive while his adrenaline is this high, you’ll stop his heart.
You won’t treat him.
You’ll kill him.
” The room went silent.
The guard held Arty down, the old man, wheezing tears leaking from his good eye.
He was mumbling now, a repetitive, desperate chant.
“Unit 77, heavy static, confirm extract.
Unit 77, heavy static.
Let him go,” Sarah said softly.
“If we let him go, he attacks,” the guard grunted.
“He’s attacking because you’re attacking,” Sarah said.
“Back off.
Everyone out of the room.
” “I can’t authorize that,” Evan said, his face red.
Then write me up.
Sarah snapped her eyes flashing.
But if he codes because you forced a seditive that’s on your license, Gregory, give me 5 minutes alone.
Evans clenched his jaw, looked at the erratic heart monitor, and then at the feral look in Arty’s eye.
He threw his hands up.
5 minutes.
If he’s not hooked up to that IV by then, I’m calling the police to sedate him for transport to the psych ward.
The room cleared.
The door clicked shut.
It was just Sarah and Arty and the ghosts he had brought with him.
Silence returned to room 304, save for the ragged breathing of the old man.
Arty remained pressed against the headboard, his knees drawn up, shivering.
He didn’t look at Sarah.
He kept his eyes on the door, waiting for the second wave of the assault.
Sarah didn’t approach him.
Instead, she walked to the window and closed the blinds, shutting out the storm.
She then pulled a chair to the foot of his bed and sat down.
She didn’t speak.
She just waited.
She observed him.
She took in the details the doctors had missed while they were looking at his blood work.
She noticed the tattoo on his forearm.
It was faded, almost unrecognizable, obscured by a jagged burn scar.
But she could make out the faint outline of a chest piece, a knight, and a lightning bolt.
She noticed his hands.
Even while trembling, his right index finger kept tapping against his thigh.
Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.
She noticed the way he held his head tilted slightly to the left, favoring his good ear, listening for footsteps.
“You must be exhausted, Sergeant,” Sarah said quietly.
“Atie didn’t flinch, but his tapping stopped.
He slowly turned his head.
” “I’m not a sergeant,” he rasped.
I’m a landscape architect.
Sarah allowed a small sad smile.
Landscape architects don’t use the term broken arrow when they’re scared, Arty.
And they don’t know how to break a man’s nose with a palm strike.
Arty narrowed his eyes.
“You read my file, the agency send you.
” “No agency, just a nurse who grew up in a house full of silence,” Sarah said.
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
My father was in the service.
He never told us where.
He never told us what he did.
But every 4th of July, he wouldn’t watch the fireworks.
He’d sit in the basement with the lights off.
Arty’s jaw tightened.
He looked away.
Lots of guys don’t like fireworks.
True, Sarah agreed.
But my dad, he had a tattoo, a knight, and a lightning bolt, just like the one you’re trying to hide under that scar.
Arty froze.
The air in the room seemed to drop 10°.
He looked at his arm, then back at Sarah, his gaze lethal.
You see things you shouldn’t, girl.
That’s a dangerous habit.
He died 4 years ago.
Sarah continued, ignoring the threat.
cancer.
But right before the end, when the morphine made him talk, he kept asking for unit 77.
He kept asking if the perimeter was cold.
Arty’s breathing hitched.
A look of profound grief washed over his face, cracking the hard exterior.
Unit 77, he whispered.
There is no unit 77.
It was disbanded in 85.
We don’t exist.
You exist right now, Arty.
and you’re sick.
Sarah stood up slowly.
You have an infection in your leg.
It’s poisoning your blood.
If I don’t give you antibiotics, you will die.
Not in a blaze of glory.
Not protecting a secret.
You’ll just die in a bed smelling like antiseptic.
Is that how a soldier of unit 77 goes out? Arty looked at the IV pole.
It looked like a serpent to him.
It’s not the medicine, he whispered, his voice trembling.
It’s the sleep.
I can’t sleep.
If I sleep, I talk.
And if I talk, they find out where it is.
Where what is? Sarah asked gently.
Arty tapped his temple.
The ledger.
I have the ledger in here.
Coordinates, names, the ones who sold us out in Nicaragua, the ones who left us behind.
He looked at Sarah with pleading eyes.
The doctor, Evans, he looks like one of them.
He has the same eyes as the handler.
If I go under, he’ll interrogate me.
I can’t let him in my head.
Sarah realized then that this wasn’t just PTSD.
This was a man holding on to a secret so toxic it had become his entire identity.
He believed he was the last line of defense for a mission that ended 30 years ago.
The doctor isn’t a handler, Arty.
He’s just an arrogant kid, Sarah said.
But I understand you can’t compromise the mission.
The mission never ended, Arty said, gripping the sheets.
We are always active.
Sarah looked at the clock.
3 minutes left.
Evans would be back with security and the police.
They would force him down, drug him, and likely traumatize him to the point of cardiac arrest.
She had to bridge the gap.
She had to reach the soldier inside the madman.
She had to use the secret she swore she’d never speak.
The door handle jiggled.
Evans was ambushent.
Sarah walked to the side of the bed.
She needed to be close.
She needed him to hear her, but she couldn’t let the room’s microphone if Arty believed there was one pick it up.
“Arty,” she whispered.
“Look at me.
” He looked up, shivering violently now, the fever taking hold.
Get back.
Perimeter.
I’m going to tell you something, Sarah said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
My father’s name was Thomas Jenkins.
Call sign Ironside.
Arty’s eyes went wide.
The color drained from his face.
Ironside.
Tommy.
No.
Tommy didn’t make it to the extraction point.
I waited.
I waited three days in the mud.
He made it out, Arty.
He crawled out and he spent 40 years looking over his shoulder.
Sarah took Artie’s hand.
His grip was iron hard trembling.
He taught me something.
He said, “If I ever met a man with the knight on his arm, and I needed him to trust me, I had to give the counter sign.
” Arty stopped breathing.
He stared at her tears pooling in his eyes.
He waited.
It was a test.
If she got it wrong, he would snap her neck.
He was old, but he was a weapon.
Sarah leaned into his ear.
She remembered the nights her father would wake up screaming and how he would calm himself down by reciting the phrase.
It wasn’t just words.
It was a prayer.
It was the verification code for unit 77.
The signal that the person you were talking to was family, was safe, was alive.
Sarah spoke the words clearly.
The shadow is long, but the fox walks at midnight.
Arty gasped.
It was a sound like a drowning man breaking the surface.
He stared at her, his mouth open.
The rage vanished.
The paranoia evaporated.
In its place was a heartbreaking vulnerability.
He wasn’t a soldier anymore.
He was a lost brother finding home.
And the moon.
Arty choked out the response, his voice breaking.
The moon pays no debts.
Sarah nodded, tears stinging her own eyes.
Permission to treat, sergeant.
Arty slumped back against the pillows, the fight leaving his body.
He looked at the IV pole, then at Sarah.
Permission granted, nurse.
Secure the line.
The door flew open.
Dr.
Evans marched in, flanked by two police officers and three security guards.
Times up, Jenkins.
Step away from the patient.
Officers hold him down.
Stop.
Sarah held up a hand.
“I’m done with your games, Sarah.
” Evans yelled, reaching for the restraint straps.
“Dr.
Evans,” Arty said.
His voice was different now.
It was calm, authoritative.
The voice of a man who had commanded men in the dark.
“Stand down.
” Evans froze.
The change in tone was palpable.
“The nurse,” Arty said.
party said, pointing a shaking finger at Sarah.
Is the only one who touches me.
She is the designated medical officer.
If anyone else comes within 3 ft of this bed, I will consider it an act of aggression.
He looked at the police officers, and you boys don’t want to do that paperwork.
The police officers looked at each other, then at the calm old man.
They stepped back.
Fine.
Evans huffed, throwing his hands up.
But if he flinches, we sedate him.
Sarah moved quickly.
She prepped the IV.
Arty didn’t flinch.
He watched her with a look of intense gratitude and recognition.
As the needle pierced his skin, he didn’t pull away.
He leaned in and whispered to Sarah.
“You’re Tommy’s girl.
” Yeah, she whispered back, taping the line down.
He saved my life in 82, Arty whispered.
And now you’re saving it.
He closed his eyes as the medicine began to flow.
But you have to be careful, Sarah.
The code speaking it.
It wakes things up.
It’s just a code, Arty, she soothed him.
No.
Arty murmured, his eyes drifting shut as the exhaustion took over.
“It’s a beacon.
If you say it, he will hear it.
” “Who?” Sarah asked, feeling a sudden chill on the back of her neck.
Arty’s voice was barely audible as he drifted into sleep.
“The man who hunted us, the pale horse.
He’s not dead, Sarah.
and he’s he’s in this city.
Sarah froze.
She looked at the door.
The hospital hallway suddenly felt very long and very dark.
She thought she had just calmed a paranoid patient.
But as she looked at the vitals monitor, she realized something terrifying.
Arty’s file said he had been admitted for a fall at a construction site.
But as she lifted his hospital gown to check his abdomen, she saw it.
It wasn’t a bruise from a fall.
It was a fresh bullet wound roughly stitched up with fishing line.
Arty hadn’t fallen.
He had been hunted.
And by bringing him here and speaking the code, Sarah had just unknowingly turned St.
Jude’s Hospital into a target.
Sarah stood over the sleeping form of Arty Vance, her hands trembling in her latex gloves.
The storm outside had intensified, throwing jagged shadows against the wall every time lightning flashed, but the thunder was nothing compared to the storm raging in Sarah’s mind.
A gunshot wound.
In the state of Washington, medical professionals were mandatory reporters.
If a patient presented with a gunshot wound, the police had to be notified immediately.
Protocol was clear.
Call the charge nurse.
Call the cops document everything.
But Arty wasn’t just a patient anymore.
He was a ghost from her father’s past.
And he had been stitched up with fishing line, a field expedient closure that Sarah recognized.
Her father had a similar scar on his thigh.
The moon pays no debts.
The phrase echoed in her head.
It was the motto of a unit that officially didn’t exist.
If she called the police, she wasn’t just reporting a crime.
She was ringing a dinner bell for whoever had put that bullet in Arty’s gut.
She made a decision.
It was a careerending decision.
Perhaps a prison sentence decision, but she made it.
She grabbed a fresh abdominal pad, covered the wound, and taped it shut, hiding the fishing line stitches under a pristine white bandage.
“Chart says abrasion from a rebar fall,” she whispered to herself.
“So it’s an abrasion,” she began to clean him up, wiping the grime and grease from his face.
Under the dirt, he looked younger than his file suggested.
He was 68, but his body was weathered like he was 80.
As she moved his tattered canvas jacket from the chair to the closet, something fell out.
It wasn’t a wallet.
It was a heavy silver Zippo lighter.
Sarah picked it up.
It was cold and scratched.
She flipped it open out of habit.
It didn’t spark.
The flint was gone.
But as she turned it over in her hand, she felt a seam that shouldn’t be there.
The bottom of the lighter didn’t look right.
She glanced at the door, ensuring the hallway was empty, and used her fingernail to pry at the bottom plate of the lighter.
It popped off with a soft click.
Inside the hollowedout fuel chamber wrapped in a scrap of oil paper was a micro SD card.
You found it.
Sarah jumped, nearly dropping the lighter.
Arty was awake.
His blue eyes were open, lucid, and locked on her.
“This is the ledger?” Sarah asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“The digital copy?” Arty rasped.
He tried to sit up, but groaned, clutching his side.
The antibiotics were working on the fever, but the pain was still raw.
The original paper logs were burned in Nicaragua in ‘ 86, but I kept the backups.
I knew I knew one day they would come to scrub the history.
Who is they, Arty? Sarah moved to the bedside, clutching the lighter.
Who shot you? Arty took a ragged breath.
We called him the pale horse.
His real name is Julian Cain.
Back then, he was just a logistics officer, a pencil pusher.
But he figured out how to move product through the conflict zones.
Weapons, heroin, intel.
He used unit 77 as his personal mule team, and we didn’t even know it until the end.
Arty reached out, grabbing Sarah’s wrist.
His grip was weak, desperate.
Your dad, ironside.
He was the first one to suspect.
He tried to radio command, but the coms were jammed.
Cain jammed them.
He left us in the jungle to be overrun so there wouldn’t be any witnesses.
Sarah felt a tear slide down her cheek.
My dad said he got separated.
He said it was chaos.
It was an execution.
Arty corrected.
Tommy got out.
I got out.
Two others.
We scattered, changed names, stayed off the grid.
But Cain, he rose through the ranks.
He’s powerful now.
Sarah, private contractor, defense consulting.
He’s cleaning up his loose ends because he’s up for a cabinet position.
If the Senate finds out he built his fortune on blood money, he kills you.
Sarah finished.
He killed Miller in Detroit last week.
He killed Halloway in intense care in Miami 2 days ago.
Made it look like a heart attack.
Arty looked at the heart monitor next to him.
That’s why I wouldn’t let them touch me.
A needle is a perfect weapon.
Sarah looked at the micro SD card in her hand.
It wasn’t just data.
It was a death warrant.
Why come here? Sarah asked.
Why, Saint Judes? I wasn’t coming here, Arty admitted.
I was heading to the Canadian border.
He caught up to me at the railard.
I took a hit.
I managed to lose him in the storm, but I passed out in the alley a few blocks away.
The ambulance brought me here.
He looked at her with intense sorrow.
I’m sorry, Sarah.
I brought the war to your doorstep.
You need to take that card.
Give it to a journalist.
A big one.
New York Times, Washington Post.
And then you need to run.
I’m not leaving you, Sarah said firmly.
You don’t understand.
Arty hissed, struggling to rise again.
Cain doesn’t leave witnesses.
If he finds me here, he burns the whole building down if he has to.
Suddenly, the overhead paging system crackled to life.
Code gray.
Main lobby.
Security to the main lobby.
Code gray.
Code gray meant a security threat.
A combative person or a lockdown.
Sarah looked at the clock.
It was 2 herder.
The hospital was locked down for the night.
Only the ER entrance was open.
Arty went rigid.
He knew that sound.
It was the sound of the perimeter being breached.
“He’s here,” Arty whispered.
“Hide the card, Sarah.
Hide it where God himself can’t find it.
” Sarah shoved the micro SD card back into the Zippo lighter, snapped the bottom shut, and dropped it into the front pocket of her scrubs.
She grabbed Arty’s hand.
“You’re safe here.
” She lied, her heart hammering against her ribs.
This is a hospital.
There are cameras.
There are witnesses.
Arty looked at her with the pity of a man who had seen villages erased from maps.
Cameras break, Sarah.
And witnesses, witnesses just disappear.
Three floors down in the expansive fluorescent lit lobby of St.
Judes.
The atmosphere had shifted from sleepy to terrified in the span of 30 seconds.
The night shift security guard was a man named Ben.
Ben was a retired high school football coach, big and friendly, who spent most of his nights doing crossword puzzles.
He wasn’t equipped for Julian Kain.
Cain stood at the reception desk.
He didn’t look like a monster.
He looked like a masterpiece of corporate architecture.
He wore a charcoal bespoke suit that cost more than Ben made in a year.
His hair was silver, perfectly quafted, and his rimless glasses caught the light, hiding his eyes.
He held a black umbrella that was dripping rainwater onto the polished floor.
Behind him stood two men.
They were large, wearing tactical panets and black windbreakers with vague insignias that looked official but meant nothing.
They stood with their hands clasped in front of them, scanning the room with the predatory boredom of apex predators.
Sir, like I said, Ben stammered his hand hovering near the phone.
Visiting hours ended at 8.
You can’t just walk in here.
Cain smiled.
It was a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
It was merely a manipulation of facial muscles.
I understand the protocol, officer, but this is a matter of national security.
We are tracking a fugitive who poses a significant biological threat.
Biological? Ben blinked.
Cain slid a laminated badge across the counter.
It had a Department of Defense seal, a holographic chip, and a clearance level that Ben had never seen.
The individual is Arthur Vance.
He is an escaped patient from a containment facility.
He is carrying a highly contagious strain of viral hemorrhagic fever.
He is delusional, violent, and highly infectious.
Ben recoiled, pulling his hand back from the counter.
Infectious? He’s here admitting said we just had a John Doe with sepsis.
That is the cover story his mind has created.
Cain lied smoothly.
He believes he is a soldier.
He believes he is being hunted.
It is part of the pathology.
We need to extract him immediately before he contaminates your staff.
Where is he? Ben hesitated.
I I have to call the administrator.
Cain leaned forward.
The air pressure in the room seemed to drop.
If you make a call, you waste time.
If you waste time, the virus spreads.
Do you want to be responsible for an outbreak in your own city, Ben? He knew the guard’s name.
He hadn’t looked at the name tag.
Ben swallowed hard.
He typed into the computer.
Room 304, ICU, third floor.
Thank you, Ben.
You’re a patriot.
Cain straightened up and nodded to his men.
Lock down the exits.
Disable the outgoing phone lines.
We initiate quarantine protocol.
No one leaves until I have the asset.
As Cain walked toward the elevators, Ben picked up the phone to call Dr.
Evans.
The line was dead.
He tried his cell phone.
No signal.
He looked at the men guarding the doors.
One of them produced a small black device from his pocket.
A signal jammer.
Ben realized then that this wasn’t a quarantine.
It was a takeover.
Up on the third floor, Sarah was pacing.
She had moved the heavy armchair in front of the door, a flimsy barricade, but it was something.
You need a weapon, Arty said.
He was sitting up on the side of the bed now, adrenaline overriding his weakness.
He held a pair of surgical scissors he had swiped from the tray.
“I am a nurse, Arty.
We don’t do weapons,” Sarah snapped through her eyes were scanning the room for anything heavy.
“Everyone is a weapon if you press them hard enough,” Arty replied.
The elevator dinged down the hall.
Sarah froze.
It was the only elevator that accessed the ICU at night.
Step, step, step.
The footsteps were slow, deliberate, hard leather on tile.
They were distinct from the soft squeak of nurs’s crocs or the shuffle of doctors.
These were the footsteps of a man who owned the ground he walked on.
Sarah pressed her ear to the door.
She heard voices at the nurse’s station.
Gentlemen, can I help you? It was Dr.
Evans.
He sounded annoyed as usual.
This is a restricted area.
Dr.
Evans, a smooth baritone voice replied.
I am Agent Cain.
We are here for the patient in 304.
The John Doe, Evans scoffed.
He’s in critical condition.
He’s septic.
You can’t move him.
We have a containment unit downstairs, Cain said.
Step aside, doctor.
I will not, Evans said.
For all his arrogance, Gregory Evans was a doctor who took his oath seriously.
This is my ward.
You don’t have jurisdiction here without a warrant.
There was a pause, a heavy, pregnant silence.
Show him the warrant, Cain said.
There was a muffled thump like a heavy book hitting a desk followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor.
Sarah gasped, covering her mouth.
Dr.
Evans.
One of the other nurses screamed.
Oh my god, what did you do? He’s just sedated.
Cain’s voice drifted down the hall, calm and terrifying.
He was hysterical.
Nurse point me to room 304.
I I The nurse was hyperventilating.
3004.
Cain repeated.
Now or you join the doctor.
Sarah turned to Arty.
The old man was standing now, leaning heavily on the IV pole.
He looked like a skeleton warrior.
He held the scissors in a reverse grip.
He’s going to kill us, Sarah whispered.
He’s going to try, Arty growled.
Help me to the door.
What? No, we need to barricade it.
Barricades are for people who are waiting for rescue.
Arty said, his eyes burning with a cold fire.
Nobody is coming, Sarah.
We have to break the ambush.
Open the door.
You’re crazy.
Open the door.
Verify the target and drop to the floor.
Arty commanded.
It was the voice of unit 77.
Do it.
Sarah’s trembling hand grabbed the door handle.
She pulled the armchair away.
Her heart was beating so hard she could feel it in her throat.
She turned the handle.
The door swung open.
Standing 10 ft away in the middle of the hallway was Julian Kain.
He looked impeccable.
He looked bored.
When he saw Sarah, he smiled.
Ah, Miss Jenkins, the daughter of the late Thomas Jenkins.
I see the family resemblance.
You have his stubborn chin.
Get away, Sarah said, her voice shaking.
Give me the old man, and you walk away, Cain said, taking a step forward.
I have no quarrel with you, Sarah.
You’re a civilian.
Just hand him over.
He’s a patient.
He’s a loose end.
Cain reached into his jacket.
He didn’t pull out a badge this time.
He pulled out a suppressed pistol.
“Last chance.
” Sarah didn’t move.
She stood in the doorway, blocking his view of the bed.
“A pity!” Cain sighed.
He raised the gun.
“Now!” Arty screamed from inside the room.
Sarah dropped to the floor, curling into a ball.
Arty didn’t charge out.
He didn’t shoot.
He kicked the IV pole.
He had rigged it.
While Sarah was pacing, he had looped the oxygen tubing around the wheels of the heavy metal stand and the overturned tray table.
He kicked it with his good leg, sending the metal stand skidding into the hallway like a bowling ball.
Cain fired foot, two shots that sparked off the metal pole as it careened toward him.
He stepped back, annoyed, dodging the debris.
“Fire alarm!” Arty yelled at Sarah.
“Pull it!” Sarah scrambled on her hands and knees across the hallway floor toward the red box on the wall.
“Stop her!” Cain ordered his men who were coming around the corner.
One of the tactical officers lunged for Sarah.
She felt a hand grab her scrub top, yanking her back.
She screamed flailing.
Arty appeared in the doorway.
He looked like death incarnate.
He wound up and threw the heavy glass water pitcher with picture perfect accuracy.
It smashed into the tactical officer’s face, shattering into jagged shards.
The man howled, letting go of Sarah.
Sarah lunged forward and slammed her hand down on the white handle.
Clang, clang, clang, clang.
The fire alarm shrieked.
Strobe lights began to flash, turning the hallway into a disorienting nightmare of white bursts and darkness.
“Go!” Arty yelled, grabbing Sarah’s arm with surprising strength.
“Move into the stairwell.
” We can’t outrun them, Sarah cried, supporting his weight as they stumbled toward the exit.
We don’t have to outrun them, Arty panted, clutching his bleeding side.
We just have to get to the subb.
Why the subb? Because, Arty grinned, blood staining his teeth.
That’s where the oxygen tanks are stored, and I need to build a bomb.
The stairwell was a concrete echo chamber.
The whale of the fire alarm bounced off the walls a rhythmic shriek that masked the sound of their ragged breathing, but not the heavy boots thundering down from the floors above.
Sarah had Artie’s arm draped over her shoulder.
He was dead weight.
The adrenaline that had propelled him out of the room was fading, replaced by the crushing reality of sepsis and blood loss.
Every step down was a battle.
Leave me, Arty wheezed, stumbling on the landing of the first floor.
Block the door.
Run.
Shut up, Sergeant.
Sarah panted, using his own rank against him.
We don’t leave men behind.
That’s the code, right? Arty looked at her, a flicker of pride cutting through the pain in his eyes.
You really are Tommy’s girl.
They reached the subb.
It was heavy steel marked authorized personnel only.
High voltage oxygen storage.
Sarah threw her weight against the crash bar and they spilled into the cool humming darkness of the hospital’s bowels.
This was the mechanical heart of St.
Jude’s.
Massive boilers hissed like sleeping dragons.
Thick bundles of colored wires snaked along the ceiling.
And in the corner, a cage more sword of chained link fence held rows of tall green oxygen tanks.
The breaker panel, Arty commanded, pointing a shaking finger toward a gray wall of industrial switches.
And the main generator transfer switch.
What are we doing? Sarah asked, dragging him toward the tanks.
Cain’s men.
They have thermal optics.
Arty coughed, spitting blood onto the concrete.
Darkness won’t stop them.
But chaos.
Chaos slows everyone down.
He slumped against the cage of oxygen tanks.
His hands were shaking so badly he could barely grip the wrench hanging on the wall.
I need you to open three of these tanks.
All the way.
Fill the room with O2.
Arty.
That’s highly flammable.
One spark.
Exactly.
Arty said.
He pulled the Zippo lighter from her pocket, the one containing the micro SD card, and handed it back to her.
Keep this safe.
Now get the wrench, open the valves, then go to that breaker box.
When I say mark, you pull the main lever.
Sarah hesitated.
What happens to you? I hold the line, Arty said softly.
He looked at the door.
The handle was turning.
Someone was picking the lock.
Sarah grabbed the wrench.
She twisted the valves on the first tank, then the second, then the third.
A loud hiss filled the room as pure oxygen flooded the space, enriching the air, turning the basement into a potential bomb.
She ran to the breaker box.
It was a massive lever painted red.
Main utility cutff.
The door to the subb burst open.
Three tactical officers flooded in their weapons, raised laser sights, cutting through the gloom.
Behind them walked Julian Cain, unhurried, holding a handkerchief to his nose.
“End of the road, Arthur.
” Cain called out his voice, echoing over the hiss of the escaping gas.
“Nowhere left to run.
” Arty stood up.
He wasn’t leaning on anything now.
He stood tall, his hospital gown stained with blood, his eyes locked on the man who had erased his life 30 years ago.
I’m not running, Julian, Arty said.
Take them, Cain ordered.
Mark, Arty screamed.
Sarah yanked the lever down with a thunderous kachchunk.
The massive breakers tripped.
The hum of the hospital died.
The lights in the basement vanished instantly.
For a split second, it was pitch black.
Then Arty did the unthinkable.
He grabbed a metal pry bar from the floor and swung it with all his might against the exposed terminals of the high voltage junction box next to him.
Metal met live current.
Crack.
Boom.
A massive arc of blue white electricity exploded into the oxygenrich air.
It was like a miniature lightning storm.
The flash was blinding, searing the retinas of the men wearing night vision goggles.
They screamed, tearing the devices from their faces as the sudden brilliance overloaded the sensors and blinded them.
The sparks ignited the oxygen stream.
It wasn’t a deton, but a deflration.
A wall of sudden intense fire rolled across the ceiling, blowing the fire suppression pipes.
Water and halon gas rained down, turning the room into a chaotic swirl of steam smoke and flashing electrical arcs.
Move, Sarah.
The maintenance tunnel.
Arty roared, shoving her toward a small, dark hatch in the floor behind the boilers.
“Come with me,” she screamed, grabbing his hand.
“I have to close the door,” Arty yelled back.
He looked at her, his face illuminated by the dying sparks.
“Tell the world, Sarah.
Tell them we existed.
” He shoved her into the hatch and slammed the great shut.
From below, Sarah looked up.
She saw Arty turn back toward the wall of smoke where Cain and his men were stumbling, coughing and firing blindly.
She saw Arty Vance pick up the pryar again.
He wasn’t a sick old man anymore.
He was the knight of unit 77, and he charged into the smoke.
The darkness in the subb was absolute.
It wasn’t just the absence of light.
It was a physical weight, heavy and suffocating.
When Sarah had pulled the main breaker, the hum of the hospital’s life support systems had died, instantly replaced by a ringing silence that was even louder.
The only sound remaining was the hiss of the oxygen tanks, spewing their invisible, flammable cargo into the air.
Sarah stood frozen against the cold metal of the breaker box, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
She couldn’t see Arty.
She couldn’t see Kane, but she could hear them.
She heard the chaotic shuffling of boots on concrete as Kane’s tactical team tried to adjust.
“Visuals are down.
” One of the mercenaries shouted, his voice laced with panic.
“Night vision is washed out.
The transition killed the sensors.
Hold your fire.
” Cain’s voice cut through the blackness.
He didn’t sound panicked.
He sounded annoyed, like a man whose dinner reservation had been cancelled.
He’s an old man with a hole in his gut.
He can’t have gone far.
Switch to thermal.
Sarah held her breath.
Thermal, the heat signature.
They would see Artie’s fever warm body glowing like a beacon in the dark.
But Arty knew that.
From the corner of the room near the steam pipes, came a rhythmic clanging.
Clang, clang, clang.
Contact left, a mercenary yelled.
Three distinct laser sights sliced through the darkness, converging on the steam pipes.
Foot, foot, foot.
Suppressed rounds sparked off the metal punching holes in the high pressure steam line.
A jet of scalding white steam erupted with a banshee scream, filling the left side of the room with a superheated cloud.
“Hold fire, you idiots!” Cain roared.
“He’s baiting you.
” The steam did exactly what Arty intended.
It created a wall of heat, a thermal bloom that blinded the thermal goggles.
Now Cain’s men were blind in every spectrum.
You’re in my world now, Julian.
Art’s voice floated out of the gloom.
It was impossible to pinpoint where it came from.
The acoustics of the concrete room through his voice everywhere.
You spent 30 years sitting in air conditioned offices signing kill orders.
You forgot what the jungle smells like.
I smell a dead man, Cain retorted, though Sarah could hear the click of his own safety coming off.
You think darkness will save you? I have three men at the door.
You’re trapped in a box.
I’m not trapped, Arty whispered.
The voice was suddenly right next to Sarah.
She jumped, nearly screaming, but a calloused hand clamped over her mouth.
Arty was leaning heavily against her.
She could feel the sticky wetness of fresh blood soaking through his hospital gown.
He was fading fast.
The burst of energy that had gotten them downstairs was gone, burned up in the adrenaline spike.
“The hatch!” Arty breathed into her ear.
“Behind the boiler, it’s a maintenance crawl space.
It leads to the storm drains.
I’m not going without you, Sarah whispered back, gripping his arm.
Sarah, Arty said, his voice trembling with a mixture of pain and affection.
My leg is septic.
My gut is shot.
I can’t crawl.
I can barely stand.
If I try to go down that hole, I’ll just block the way, and we both die.
No.
Sarah’s eyes filled with tears she couldn’t wipe away.
Listen to me, Arty Hist.
He pressed something cold and hard into her hand.
The Zippo lighter.
This isn’t about me.
It never was.
It’s about the truth.
If you stay, the story dies in this room.
If you go, the ghosts.
The ghosts finally get to rest.
Across the room, the tactical team was regrouping.
Fan out.
Use the flashlights.
Sweep the room.
Beams of blinding white LED light began to cut through the steam and darkness, sweeping closer and closer to where Sarah and Arty were huddled behind the generator.
Go, Arty commanded.
It was the order of a sergeant.
That is a direct order, nurse.
Sarah sobbed a silent racking convulsion.
She squeezed his hand one last time.
“Thank you, Arty.
Go, Tommy’s girl.
Run.
” Sarah dropped to her knees.
She found the iron ring of the floor hatch.
It was heavy, rusted shut by years of neglect.
She pulled her muscles, straining adrenaline, giving her the strength of 10 women.
With a groan of metal on metal, it popped open.
The smell of sewage and rot wafted up.
It was the smell of freedom.
She lowered herself into the hole.
Just before her head dipped below the rim, she looked up.
Artivance had stepped out from behind the generator.
He stood directly in the beam of three tactical flashlights.
He looked like a ruin of a man, pale, bleeding, shaking, but he held the heavy iron pryar in his hand like Excalibur.
There he is.
A mercenary shouted.
Drop the weapon.
Arty didn’t drop it.
He smiled.
A blood stained wolfish grin.
Broken arrow.
Arty whispered.
He raised the pry bar.
But he didn’t attack the men.
He swung it with every ounce of life he had left at the junction box on the wall where the high voltage cables met the exposed copper.
“No!” Cain screamed, realizing too late what the hissing sound in the room had been.
“Oxygen.
” Arty’s metal bar hit the live current.
Sarah slammed the hat shut and locked the wheel just as the world above her turned white.
The explosion wasn’t a movie fireball.
It was a concussive wave that shook the very foundations of the earth.
Even through the heavy iron door and the concrete floor, Sarah felt the slam of it.
Dust and rust rained down on her head.
The sound was a muffled thump that vibrated in her teeth.
Then silence.
Sarah turned on the small flashlight on her keychain.
A tiny pathetic beam in the oppressive dark of the tunnel.
She began to crawl.
The tunnel was a nightmare.
It was barely 3 ft wide, slick with slime and half filled at the wall with freezing runoff water.
Rats skittered away from her light, their red eyes glowing in the dark.
Her knees scraped raw against the concrete.
Her scrubs were soaked in muck.
She wanted to stop.
She wanted to curl up in the fetal position and cry until the world ended.
The image of Arty standing in that light, smiling as he triggered his own death burned in her mind.
He sacrificed himself so you could tell the truth.
The thought forced her forward.
Inch by inch, yard by yard.
She crawled for what felt like hours.
Her hands went numb.
Her mind began to play tricks on her.
She heard her father’s voice.
She heard Artie’s voice.
The shadow is long, but the fox walks at midnight.
Finally, she saw a great above her.
A sliver of moonlight, real moonlight, pierced the gloom.
She pushed against the great.
It wouldn’t budge.
Panic surged.
Had she crawled all this way just to die in a sewer.
She screamed a primal scream of frustration and slammed her shoulder into the iron.
Once, twice, on the third hit, the rusted hinges gave way.
Sarah clawed her way up, gasping for air.
She rolled onto wet asphalt.
Rain washed the slime from her face.
She was in an alleyway behind a dumpster.
The sounds of the city sirens distant traffic washed over her.
She checked her pocket.
The zipper was still there.
She wasn’t Sarah Jenkins, the quiet nurse, anymore.
She was the courier.
and she had a delivery to make.
It was 4 huru.
Sarah sat in the back corner of an allnight internet cafe 3 mi from the hospital.
The teenager at the counter had looked at her filthy bloodstained scrubs with alarm, but a $100 bill from her emergency cash stash had bought his silence and a private booth.
Her hands shook so badly she could barely fit the micro SD card into the reader.
The computer screen flickered.
A folder opened.
Operation Silent Night, 1982, 1889.
She opened the first file.
It was a scanned letter signed by Julian Ka.
It authorized the use of expendable assets unit 77 to transport unregistered cargo, heroine, and arms across the Cambodian border.
She opened the second file.
It was a list of coordinates, mass graves, where the men who refused to follow orders were buried.
She opened the third file.
It was a bank ledger.
Billions of dollars.
Money that had built Cain’s empire.
money that had bought his political influence.
Sarah felt a cold rage settle in her chest.
This wasn’t just corruption.
This was evil.
Pure distilled evil that had been wearing a suit and tie for three decades.
She opened a browser.
She didn’t just send it to the police.
The police could be bought.
Cain owned the police.
She went to the upload portals for the biggest news agencies in the world.
The New York Times, The Guardian, Alazer, Washington Post.
She found the encrypted dropboxes for whistleblowers.
She attached the files, uploading 10%.
She looked out the window.
A police cruiser drove by slowly.
Sarah ducked her head.
uploading 45%.
Her phone, which she had turned off, was sitting on the desk.
She knew she should destroy it, but she needed to make one call.
Uploading 80%.
She turned the phone on immediately.
It buzzed with 50 missed calls and texts.
Where are you? Police are here.
Sarah, pick up.
She dialed the number for the FBI field office in Seattle.
Not the local police, the feds.
FBI Seattle, state your emergency.
My name is Sarah Jenkins, she said, her voice steady, terrified, and defiant.
I am currently uploading classified evidence regarding Julian Ka and the massacre of unit 77.
By the time you trace this call, the world will know.
Uploading 100% scent.
Ma’am, stay on the line, the operator said, her tone shifting instantly.
No, Sarah said.
She pulled the micro SD card out and snapped it in half.
The digital copy was gone.
The cloud had it now.
I’m done.
She hung up.
She walked out of the cafe and into the rain.
Two days later, Sarah sat in the departure lounge of SeaTac airport.
She looked different.
Her hair was cut short and dyed black.
She wore oversized sunglasses and a nondescript gray hoodie.
The TV monitors hanging from the ceiling were all tuned to the same news channel.
The volume was low, but the headlines were screaming in bold red text.
Defense contractor arrested in massive corruption scandal.
The footage showed a chaotic scene outside a luxury estate in Virginia.
FBI agents in windbreakers were leading a man in handcuffs toward a waiting SUV.
It was Julian Ka.
He didn’t look like the smooth predator from the hospital hallway.
He looked old.
He looked small.
His hair was disheveled.
and he was shouting at the cameras, but no one was listening to his orders anymore.
The news anchor’s voice cut in.
The documents leaked by an anonymous source detail decades of illegal arms dealing and extrajudicial killings orchestrated by Kain’s private firm.
The leak has also shed light on the fate of Unit 77, a special forces platoon previously thought to be a clerical error.
The Pentagon has announced a full inquiry.
Sarah watched Cain being shoved into the car.
She didn’t smile.
She just felt a heavy weight lift off her chest.
A weight she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying since she was a little girl, watching her father stare at the wall.
The anchor continued.
Tragically, the leak came at a cost.
Authorities are still investigating the fire at St.
Jude’s Hospital.
While no staff or patients were harmed, the body of an unidentified man was recovered from the subb.
Forensic analysis suggests he triggered the explosion to prevent mercenaries from accessing the hospital’s main levels.
He is being hailed as a hero.
They showed a picture.
It was a grainy security camera still from the hospital lobby taken hours before the chaos.
It showed Arty Vance.
He looked frail, yes, but he was standing straight.
Sarah reached into her pocket.
Her fingers brushed the Zippo.
She pulled it out.
She had bought a new flint and fluid at a gas station.
She walked to the large glass window, looking out at the tarmac.
The rain had stopped.
The sun was trying to break through the gray Pacific Northwest clouds.
She flipped the lid open.
Clink.
She spun the wheel.
Snick.
A strong, steady orange flame erupted.
It danced in the reflection of the glass.
Perimeter clear, Sergeant, she whispered.
She watched the flame for a long moment, honoring the man who wouldn’t let anyone treat him until someone finally treated him like a soldier.
She snapped the lighter shut.
Click.
Mission accomplished.
Nurse Sarah Jenkins picked up her bag.
She wasn’t running away anymore.
She was moving forward.
She had a list of names the other families of Unit 77.
She had to find them.
She had to tell them that their fathers and brothers hadn’t just disappeared.
They had been heroes.
And she was the only one left to tell the story.
And that, my friends, is the story of the ghost of St.
Jude’s.
It’s a terrifying reminder that history is written by the victors.
But sometimes, sometimes the truth survives in the ashes.
Arty Vance spent 30 years running only to stop and fight when it mattered most.
He died so the truth could live.
It makes you wonder how many secrets are buried in the people we pass by every day.
The homeless veteran on the corner.
The quiet old man in the nursing home.
What wars are they still fighting in their heads? If this story hit you as hard as it hit me, please do me a favor.
Smash that like button.
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And until next time, keep the perimeter secure.
