Chapter 6 - The Mercenaries in Surgical Scrubs
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The mercenary on the floor spat blood onto the white tiles, glaring at me with cold, contemptuous eyes.
“You’re an architect, kid,” the man sneered, holding his broken shoulder. “You think you can stop Aegis? There are twelve more operators in the stairwells. The building’s fiber-optic trunk has been severed. Nobody is coming to save you.”
“Nobody needs to save us,” Dr. Hayes replied with a grim, razor-sharp smile.
He pulled a private satellite transponder from his inside breast pocket and held down the red SOS toggle switch.
“What is that?” I asked, keeping the barrel trained on the two disarmed men.
“Twenty-six years ago, after David died, I didn't just stay in medicine,” Dr. Hayes said, stepping back into the room to help my mother into a transport wheelchair. “I became the Senior Biological Defense Advisor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Security Division. That transponder just triggered a Tier-One domestic terrorism protocol.”
Down in the city streets below, the distant wail of multiple sirens began to echo between the high-rise buildings—not the two-tone sirens of civilian ambulances, but the low, ominous, synchronized wails of federal tactical motorcades.
From the roof above our heads, the thunderous, rhythmic chop of twin turbine blades shook the building’s structural steel.
Two unmarked black Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters swooped low over the medical center, their spotlights bathing the 7th-floor windows in brilliant, daylight-level illumination.
Through the glass, we could see heavily armed federal operators in dark olive uniforms rappelling down fast-ropes toward the balcony terraces.
The mercenary on the floor looked up at the windows, his arrogant sneer vanishing into ash.
May you like
“The FBI Hostage Rescue Team,” Dr. Hayes announced with icy satisfaction. “Now, Julian... let us take your mother to the operating theatre she actually deserves.”
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