Chapter 7 - Collateral Damage
"They know," Vance whispered, his face turning an ashen gray that rivaled death itself. "The transfer failed. The encryption on the flash drive must have tripped BioGrid’s automated counter-measure."
"They're BioGrid assets?" I asked, pulling Vance up by his collar and shoving him toward the back partition.
"They're corporate retrieval contractors," Vance spat, wiping blood from his chin. "They don't leave witnesses. If they find either of us here, this entire warehouse will burn to the ground within an hour, and our ashes will be in the river by midnight."
The sound of heavy vehicle doors slamming outside reverberated through the cavernous metal building.
I didn't care about Vance. I didn't care about the corporate syndicate. Every nerve in my body was screaming one singular, terrifying truth: *Elena is at home alone. And if these men know Vance was compromised, they know where he went every night.*
"The terminal," I ordered, dragging Vance toward the main desk. "Unlock the terminal right now."
"We don't have time! We have to take the emergency exit through the drainage tunnel—"
I slammed his hand down onto the biometric scanner. "Unlock it, or I leave you here on the floor with two broken legs to greet them."
Terrified, Vance pressed his thumb to the optical glass. The terminal beeped, and the desktop array sprang to life.
I didn't hesitate. I pulled an administrative override flash drive from my pocket—a tool I carried every day for emergency server maintenance—and shoved it into the USB port. My fingers flew across the keyboard, executing a brute-force extraction script.
*Target: Chiron_Protocol_9_Neutralizer.dat*
Lines of code cascaded down the screen in emerald green cascades.
*Access Granted.*
*File Size: 4.2 GB.*
*Synthesizing Compound: Recombinant Monoclonal Antibody CL-4.*
*Location of Physical Stores: BioGrid Distribution Hub, Sector 4, Boston.*
There *was* a neutralizing agent. Vance hadn't known, or hadn't cared to look deep enough into the encrypted secondary protocols. BioGrid never created a lethal bio-agent without developing an internal proprietary antidote to protect their own personnel in case of accidental laboratory exposure.
The download bar reached 100%. I ripped the drive from the port and shoved it deep into my coat.
*BANG.*
The reinforced steel front door was violently breached.
A stun grenade detonated in the center corridor, filling the warehouse with a deafening roar and a blinding wall of white magnesium light. Even twenty yards away behind the cleanroom partition, the concussive force knocked me off my feet, sending me sprawling into a rack of surgical trays.
Footsteps—tactical, synchronized, and rapid—advanced down the main aisle.
"Clear right! Move up!" a voice barked with military precision.
Vance didn't look back. With a desperate, animalistic shriek, he scrambled toward a low maintenance hatch set into the concrete floor behind the chemical hoods, threw the latch open, and dove headfirst into the darkness of the municipal drainage tunnel.
I didn't follow him.
I rolled behind a bank of commercial refrigerators as a hail of suppressed gunfire shredded the plastic cleanroom sheets where I had been standing seconds before. Glass shattered, liquid nitrogen hissed violently from ruptured cooling lines, creating a thick, freezing cloud of white vapor that instantly blanketed the floor.
Using the dense fog of vapor as cover, I crawled on my belly toward the side loading bay.
"Target moving toward Sector B!" someone shouted.
Bullets punched through the sheet-metal wall above my head, throwing showers of sparks. I reached the manual release lever of the bay door, grabbed the steel chain, and pulled with every ounce of strength I had left in my body.
The chain groaned. The bottom of the roll-up door lifted six inches.
I wedged the chrome wrench into the track to hold the gap, dropped flat onto the icy concrete, and shimmied through the opening just as a burst of automatic fire tore through the metal panel directly behind my boots.
I tumbled out onto the rain-slick gravel of the loading dock, scrambled to my feet, and ran into the blinding downpour.
Behind me, an explosion ripped through the side of Warehouse 11. Orange fire erupted into the gray sky, fueled by the ruptured chemical tanks, sending a thick column of black smoke roiling into the rain.
I sprinted through the perimeter fence, dove into my car, and threw the transmission into reverse. The tires spun on the wet gravel before catching traction, propelling the vehicle backward into the street.
I slammed the shifter into drive and floored the accelerator, my heart pounding violently against my ribs.
I grabbed my phone, plugged it into the dash mount, and dialed our home landline.
*Ring.*
*Ring.*
*Ring.*
No answer.
I dialed Elena’s cell phone.
It rang four times before clicking over to her voicemail: *"Hi, you've reached Elena. Please leave a message..."*
"Pick up, Elena! Pick up the damn phone!" I screamed at the dashboard.
I hung up and dialed Claire’s number.
My sister answered on the second ring. "David? Where are you? Sonia is asking for—"
"Claire, listen to me very carefully," I interrupted, my voice trembling with an intensity she had never heard before. "Do not ask questions. Take Sonia. Get into your car right now. Do not pack bags. Do not turn on the house lights. Drive directly to the state police barracks on Route 9, walk into the lobby, and stay there until I call you. Do you understand me?"
Silence stretched over the line for two agonizing seconds. "David... what is happening?"
"Our lives depend on it, Claire! GO!"
I disconnected the call.
I glanced at the dashboard clock.
*3:45 PM.*
Elena had been alone in the house for over four hours.
If Vance’s contractors had tracked his movements over the past seventy-two days, our home was already in their crosshairs. And without the neutralizing compound, Elena’s body was a ticking time bomb.
As I sped down the highway, weaving through rush-hour traffic like a madman, my phone suddenly vibrated on the dash.
An incoming call from an unknown, private number.
I hit the speaker button. "Who is this?"
"David," a calm, chillingly familiar voice answered over the speaker.
It was Arthur Sterling.
The Vice President of Research and Development at BioGrid Therapeutics. My direct superior.
"You've had a remarkably busy afternoon, David," Sterling said smoothly, the sound of rain tapping against glass audible in the background of his call. "You really should have stuck to software architecture. When you step into biochemistry, the variables become... dangerously unpredictable."
"Where is my wife, Sterling?" I demanded, gripping the steering wheel so hard the leather groaned under my palms.
May you like
"She’s right here, David," Sterling replied pleasantly. "In your lovely living room. She was kind enough to make me tea. Though I must say, she looks dreadfully pale. If I were you, I’d observe the speed limit on your way back. An accident would be so terribly tragic at this stage of the negotiations."
***
