Chapter 7 - THE TRAP IN THE DARK
The rain-slicked highway vanished beneath the tires of Sarah’s cruiser as she pushed the engine to its absolute limit. The siren wailed, a desperate, screaming beacon against the deafening roar of the thunderstorm. In her mind, she kept seeing Harper’s fragile face, her tiny hands clutching that taped-up stuffed dog.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” Sarah had promised. It was a promise she refused to break.
"Marcus! Talk to me!" Sarah shouted into her Bluetooth earpiece, her hands gripping the steering wheel as the car hydroplaned slightly around a sharp curve.
"The hospital's main power grid just went offline, Sarah," Marcus’s voice crackled through, laced with static and rising panic. "Back-up generators are kicking in, but only for critical ICU machinery. The pediatric wing on the fourth floor is in near-total darkness. Security feeds are down. Dispatch has routed every available patrol unit to your location, but the storm is blocking the main bridge downtown. Police backup is at least eight minutes out."
"I don't have eight minutes!" Sarah slammed her hand against the steering wheel. "Are the elevators working?"
"No. They’re locked out on emergency protocol. You’ll have to take the stairs. Sarah, be careful. The desk sergeant said these guys aren't street thugs. They bypassed the front desk wearing tactical gear and carrying suppressed weapons. They know exactly who they are looking for."
Sarah tore into the hospital’s ambulance bay, fish-tailing onto the concrete. She didn't bother turning off the ignition. She threw her door open, drew her Glock 19, and ran through the automatic doors into the chaotic, darkened lobby.
Panicked nurses and patients were huddled near the reception desk under the pale, flickering emergency lights. Sarah bypassed them, sprinting straight for the heavy fire doors of the east stairwell.
She pushed through, her heavy tactical boots pounding up the concrete stairs. First floor. Second floor. Third floor. Her lungs burned, and sweat stung her eyes, but she didn't slow down.
When she reached the fourth-floor landing, she paused, pressing her back against the cold steel of the door. She slowly cracked it open.
The pediatric wing was dead silent. The long, carpeted hallway was bathed in an eerie, dim green glow from the emergency exit signs. The usual soft hum of nursing stations and television sets was gone, replaced by a suffocating, heavy quiet.
Sarah slipped into the hallway, raising her weapon, her flashlight kept off. She moved like a shadow, keeping her shoulder pressed against the wall.
A sudden, sharp pft-pft echoed from down the hall, followed by the heavy, dull thud of a body hitting the floor.
Sarah’s heart did a violent leap. She crept forward, her eyes adjusting to the dark. Just outside the central nursing station, a hospital security guard lay motionless, a dark pool of blood expanding beneath his chest. He had been shot with a suppressed weapon.
They were already here.
Sarah bypassed the fallen guard, her focus narrowing entirely on Room 408. It was three doors down on the left.
As she approached, she saw the door was slightly ajar, a sliver of darkness gaping open.
She took a deep breath, stepped into the doorway, and swept her weapon across the room. "Harper!" she whispered sharply.
The room was empty. The sheets on the hospital bed were thrown back, and a plastic IV line lay severed on the floor, dripping saline onto the linoleum.
Sarah’s stomach plummeted. But then, she noticed a faint, rhythmic tapping sound coming from the bathroom inside the room.
She crept toward the bathroom door, her gun raised. She pushed it open slowly.
Crouched inside the narrow space beneath the sink, wedged between a stack of clean towels and the plumbing pipes, was Harper. She was shivering violently, her knees pulled tight against her chest, her hands clamped over Barnaby's ears to keep him from hearing.
"Sarah," Harper whimpered, her voice a tiny, broken gasp. "The scary men... they have flashlights. They were calling my name."
"Shh, sweetheart," Sarah knelt down, gently pulling the trembling child out of the cabinet and into her arms. "I've got you. I promised I wouldn't let them hurt you."
"We have to go," Sarah whispered, her mind racing. The stairwell was no longer safe; the shooters would be monitoring the exit points. The elevators were dead. They were trapped on the fourth floor.
Suddenly, the heavy sound of approaching boots echoed from the hallway outside the bedroom.
"Check 408 again," a low, gruff voice ordered from the dark corridor. "The IV is still warm. The kid is nearby."
Sarah’s body went completely rigid. She looked around the cramped bathroom. There was no window, only a single exhaust vent and a heavy steel laundry chute door on the wall.
She looked at Harper. "Harper, do you trust me?"
Harper nodded, her blue eyes wide with pure, absolute trust.
"I need you to climb into this chute," Sarah whispered, opening the heavy metal door. "It slides straight down to the clean laundry department on the first floor. There’s a giant pile of soft sheets at the bottom. I want you to slide down, hide in the bin, and do not make a single sound until you see Marcus or the police. Can you do that for me, brave girl?"
"Are you coming?" Harper clutched Sarah’s sleeve.
"I’ll be right behind you. Now go."
Sarah helped the little girl slide into the dark metal chute. Harper gripped her stuffed dog tightly, gave Sarah one last nod, and let go. A soft, rushing slide echoed from inside the wall, followed by a distant, muffled thump.
Sarah let out a silent breath of relief. Harper was out of the line of fire.
Now, she had to handle the hunters.
Sarah stepped out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind her. She moved to the side of the main room's entrance, pressing her back against the drywall, her gun raised near her collarbone.
A shadow fell across the threshold.
A tall man in black tactical gear and a balaclava stepped into the room, a suppressed submachine gun raised. The beam of his tactical light swept across the empty bed.
"She’s gone," the man grunted into his radio. "Search the—"
He never finished the sentence.
Sarah lunged out of the shadows, her elbow driving violently into the man's throat, crushing his windpipe. He let out a choked gasp, dropping his weapon. Before he could recover, Sarah grabbed his wrist, twisting his arm behind his back and driving him face-first into the heavy metal bedframe.
Crack.
The man collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Sarah immediately snatched his submachine gun, checking the magazine.
"Room 408! We have contact!" a voice yelled from the hallway.
Bullets suddenly chewed through the drywall of the room, sending plaster spraying into the air like snow. Sarah threw herself to the floor, rolling behind the heavy concrete pillar in the corner as another barrage of suppressed gunfire shattered the glass windows of the room.
"I have you pinned, cop!" a voice called out from the dark corridor. "Give us the kid, and maybe you walk out of here alive!"
Sarah took a deep breath, her pulse steadying. She had the evidence. She had the flash drive. And she had the tactical advantage of a darkened, familiar layout.
"If you want her, you'll have to come through me," Sarah muttered to herself.
She reached into her vest, pulled out a small tactical flashbang she kept for emergencies, pulled the pin, and threw it out into the hallway.
FLASH-BANG!
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A blinding, white-hot explosion of light and deafening noise ripped through the darkened pediatric wing. The shooters let out agonizing screams as their night-vision-adjusted eyes were blasted by the intense light.
Sarah stepped out from behind the pillar, her weapon raised, and began to advance.
