Chapter 4 - The Black Box Dilemma
The magnetic locks hummed with high-voltage electricity, sealing the heavy reinforced oak doors of Room 1402.
"Julian," Anthony said, his voice flat, speaking into the room's nurse-call intercom. "You always were incompetent. If you're going to assassinate your older brother, you shouldn't use your own corporate security firm to secure the crime scene."
A sharp chuckle came through the speaker. "Incompetent? Anthony, look around you. You’re in a locked ICU room with sixty percent lung capacity. Your loyal attack dog, Marcus, has a daughter currently being escorted into a private jet in Geneva. And your little savior, Miss Carter, is about to suffer a tragic oxygen supply failure alongside you."
"The hospital security—" I began, panic rising in my throat.
"The hospital board answered to our late father, Miss Carter," Julian’s voice purred. "And Victoria owns the hospital's private equity firm. The local authorities have just been informed that a rogue, armed former employee—Marcus Reed—has taken Mr. Bennett hostage. A tactical team is currently clearing the thirteenth floor. In approximately four minutes, they will breach this room to 'neutralize the threat.' Sadly, the crossfire will be catastrophic."
The intercom went dead with a high-pitched click.
"Marcus," Anthony commanded, tearing the IV lines out of the back of his hand without flinching. A bead of dark blood welled on his pale skin. "The maintenance shaft."
"They'll have it covered from the boiler room," Marcus replied, already ripping open the service panel behind the bathroom mirror with a heavy pry tool from his kit.
"Not if we go up," Anthony countered. He swung his bare feet onto the cold linoleum, swaying slightly as his blood pressure adjusted. I rushed forward, catching him by the elbow before his knees could buckle. His skin was burning with a mild residual fever, but his grip on my shoulder was astonishingly firm.
"You can barely stand, Mr. Bennett," I insisted. "You had forty milligrams of synthetic aconite flooding your nervous system three hours ago. If your heart rate spikes over one-forty, you'll trigger another ventricular arrhythmia."
Anthony looked down at me, his eyes inches from mine. "Then I suggest, Evelyn, that you keep me calm. Because dying in this bed means my brother burns everything I spent twenty-five years building."
Marcus ripped the mirror off the bathroom wall, revealing a narrow vertical crawlspace containing pneumatic laundry chutes and high-voltage electrical conduits. "It leads to the fourteenth-floor mechanical roof. But it’s a twenty-foot climb. You won't make it with your lungs compromised, Anthony."
"He doesn't have to climb," I said, staring at the steel chute. "The laundry system operates on a negative-pressure vacuum during off-peak hours. If we trigger the manual override fire damper, the intake pulls toward the sub-basement incinerator exhaust, but the rooftop exhaust fans reverse to vent smoke."
Both men stared at me.
"I worked safety systems for commercial Boeing fuselages for eight years," I said, stripping off my scrub top to reveal the dark ballistic vest beneath. "A high-rise ventilation system is just a vertical airliner without wings. If we reverse the fan cycle, the updraft will carry the service lift platform."
Marcus didn't waste a second. He reached into the panel, located the red manual fire-damper lever, and wrenched it downward with all his weight.
Deep inside the walls, heavy pneumatic pistons hissed. A rush of freezing air roared through the vent, howling like a winter gale. Marcus jammed an aluminum medical cart into the chute opening to serve as a makeshift pulley anchor, looping a braided nylon tow-strap around the frame.
Suddenly, the heavy oak doors of the hospital suite shuddered. *BANG.*
A hydraulic ram slammed against the lock. Dust drifted down from the acoustic ceiling tiles.
"They're early," Marcus growled, drawing his weapon. "Evelyn, take Anthony into the shaft. Now!"
"Not without you!" I yelled over the roaring air.
"I hold the threshold until the lift engages!" Marcus yelled back, his eyes blazing. "Get him out!"
I grabbed Anthony by the waist, helping him hoist his legs into the narrow metal conduit. The draft was deafening, smelling of ozone, dust, and freezing rain from the roof above. Anthony gritted his teeth, his jaw muscles jumping as he pulled himself upward along the service rungs, using pure willpower to compensate for his poisoned muscles.
*BANG.* The suite door cracked open. The second ram strike splintered the heavy wood. Through the gap, I saw the black helmets and assault vests of Ironclad mercenaries—not Chicago police, but private corporate assassins carrying suppressed submachine guns.
Marcus opened fire.
The sharp, concussive *CRACK-CRACK-CRACK* of his Glock echoed in the confined space. A mercenary fell backward into the hallway, his weapon firing a wild burst into the ceiling. Marcus grabbed the edge of the service opening, swinging his legs inside just as a hail of nine-millimeter rounds chewed through the bathroom drywall, spraying white plaster and shattered glass across the floor.
"Climb!" Marcus roared, his boots scrambling for purchase on the wet metal rungs below us.
I pushed Anthony from behind, my muscles screaming with exertion. The freezing rooftop air hit my face like a slap. We burst through the rooftop access hatch into the swirling Chicago sleet.
The roof of Northwestern Memorial was a sprawling labyrinth of massive HVAC units, satellite dishes, and a designated emergency helipad. Fifty feet away, sitting on the painted yellow circle, was a sleek, matte-black AgustaWestland AW109 helicopter.
Its twin turbine engines were already whining, the rotor blades beginning to slice through the freezing mist with a rhythmic *whuff-whuff-whuff*.
Standing by the open sliding door of the helicopter, wrapped in a fur-trimmed black overcoat, was Victoria Bennett.
Beside her, holding an umbrella over her head, stood Julian.
May you like
"Welcome to the board meeting, brother," Julian shouted over the roar of the spooling turbines. He raised a nickel-plated automatic pistol, aiming it directly at Anthony's chest. "I believe this concludes your tenure as Chief Executive Officer."
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