Chapter 8 - The Ticket To Geneva
The heavy reinforced doors of the trauma bay wouldn’t budge.
Adrian slammed his shoulder against the glass, his gun useless against the ballistic shielding designed to protect the ER from active shooters.
Daniel stood on the other side, impeccably dressed in a custom suit, twirling the small remote detonator between his fingers.
He pressed a button on the wall intercom.
His voice crackled through the speakers inside our locked room.
“Nothing personal, Adrian,” Daniel said smoothly. “But you always were too sentimental to lead the company.”
“You sold out your own father to his bastards?” Adrian yelled, his voice muffled by the glass.
“I sold out a dying man to secure my future,” Daniel corrected. “Vivienne gets the trust fund. Sarah gets her revenge. And I get Vale Enterprises without Thomas looking over my shoulder.”
I stared at the airline ticket in my hand.
“You shot David,” I said into the intercom. “You hired my ex-husband to kidnap my son, and when he failed, you shot him.”
Daniel smiled thinly. “Loose ends, Claire. A billionaire can’t be linked to a junkie from the South Side.”
David moaned on the gurney, his vitals crashing.
“Daniel, open this door!” Adrian commanded, his authoritative voice returning. “You detonate a bomb in a hospital, there is no corner of the earth you can hide in. Not even Geneva.”
“Who said anything about a bomb?” Daniel chuckled.
He held up the remote.
“This doesn’t trigger explosives, brother. It triggers the hospital’s automated lockdown and fire suppression system. Specifically, the Halon gas system in Trauma Bay 3.”
My blood ran cold.
Halon gas extinguished fires by displacing oxygen.
It would suffocate us in less than three minutes.
“Goodbye, Adrian,” Daniel said.
He pressed the button.
Daniel turned and walked calmly away down the hospital corridor.
Instantly, the air vents above us slammed shut.
A loud, mechanical hiss filled the room as thick, white gas began pouring from the ceiling nozzles.
“Claire!” Adrian coughed, pulling his shirt up over his nose. “We have to break the glass!”
He raised his gun and fired three rounds into the window.
The glass spider-webbed, but it didn’t shatter. It was rated for armor-piercing rounds.
The gas was filling the room fast. The oxygen was disappearing.
I felt dizzy. My lungs burned.
David’s heart monitor began to sound a steady, dying alarm.
I looked around the room desperately.
I was a nurse. I knew this room.
“Adrian!” I yelled over the hissing gas. “The oxygen lines!”
I stumbled toward the wall behind David’s bed.
There was a massive, central oxygen port built into the wall, designed to supply ventilators directly from the hospital’s main reserves.
I grabbed a heavy wrench from the surgical tray.
“Hit the valve!” I screamed, handing it to Adrian.
Adrian didn’t hesitate. He swung the wrench with brutal force, smashing the emergency release valve on the main oxygen line.
With a deafening roar, pure, pressurized oxygen blasted into the room.
It fought against the Halon gas, creating a localized pocket of breathable air near the floor.
We dropped to our knees, gasping for life.
“Breathe,” Adrian coughed, pulling me close to the oxygen stream.
We stayed there for five agonizing minutes, the oxygen keeping us alive until the hospital’s emergency override finally kicked in.
The heavy doors slid open.
Hospital security and fire crews flooded the room.
Adrian stood up, his face pale but his eyes burning with an unholy fury.
He didn’t wait for medical attention.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the trauma bay.
“Where is he?” Adrian demanded to a terrified security guard.
“Mr. Daniel Vale took the private elevator to the helipad, sir!” the guard stammered.
Adrian ran.
We hit the stairwell, climbing six flights to the roof.
We burst through the roof access doors just as a sleek black helicopter was spinning up its rotors.
Daniel was stepping into the cabin, a smug smile on his face, holding a leather briefcase.
Adrian raised his gun.
He didn’t yell to stop. He didn’t negotiate.
He fired one shot.
The bullet shattered the tail rotor mechanism of the helicopter.
Sparks flew. The pilot immediately cut the engine, the helicopter groaning as it aborted takeoff.
Daniel dropped the briefcase, his smug smile vanishing into pure terror as Adrian walked across the tarmac.
Adrian grabbed his brother by the collar, dragging him out of the helicopter and slamming him onto the wet concrete of the roof.
“You don’t get Geneva, Daniel,” Adrian said, pressing the barrel of his gun under his brother’s chin. “You get a cage.”
Police sirens wailed in the streets below. The hospital had called them.
Daniel raised his hands, surrendering, his arrogance finally broken.
Adrian looked at me, standing in the rain, the helicopter rotors slowly dying down.
The immediate threat was over.
Daniel was caught. Vivienne’s inside man was gone.
But as I looked at the leather briefcase Daniel had dropped, a cold feeling settled in my stomach.
The briefcase had sprung open.
Spilling out onto the wet tarmac wasn’t money.
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It was a collection of thick, black rosaries.
TITLE: The Rosaries In The Briefcase
