Chapter 6 - The Interception
"Hang on," Marcus growled.
He didn't wait for me to give the order. He yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, cutting across three lanes of morning traffic and sending the Tahoe screeching over a concrete median. Tires smoked as we reversed direction, heading back toward Blackwood Memorial at eighty miles per hour.
"How far out are we?" I asked, my heart hammering like a war drum against my ribs.
"Four miles," Marcus said, shifting the heavy SUV into high gear. "Three minutes if the lights cooperate. Reach into the glove box."
I popped the latch. Inside lay two Glock 19s, four spare magazines, and a pair of heavy tactical zip-cuffs. I checked the slide on the first Glock, popped the magazine to verify eighteen hollow-point rounds, and holstered it beneath my canvas jacket.
"We cannot engage in a firefight in an active hospital parking lot, Marcus," I said, keeping my tactical focus razor-sharp. "Too many civilians."
"Understood," Marcus replied. "We don't shoot. We create a bottleneck."
Through the windshield, the grey concrete towers of Blackwood Memorial rose into view. As we crested the hill leading down toward the emergency entrance, I saw it: a sleek, unmarked black Mercedes Sprinter van with tinted windows and blacked-out commercial plates idling beside the ambulance bay.
Two burly orderlies in medical scrubs—though they carried themselves with the rigid posture of hired mercenaries—were wheeling a gurney out through the double sliding glass doors. Strapped to the gurney, struggling weakly against heavy leather restraints, was Maya.
Chief Albright stood beside the van, holding a clipboard, signing off on paperwork presented by a man in a sharp grey suit.
"They're loading her," I said, my teeth bared.
"Hold onto something," Marcus snapped.
Marcus didn't slow down. He steered the Tahoe straight into the ambulance bay driveway, hit the brakes, and pulled the emergency handbrake. The heavy Tahoe swung broadside in a controlled ninety-degree skid, slamming directly into the front bumper of the Sprinter van with a deafening metallic *crunch*.
The impact crushed the van’s radiator, sending a cloud of white steam hissing into the rainy morning air.
Chief Albright jumped backward, his clipboard flying, his hand scrambling wildly for his duty holster. "What in the hell—!"
I kicked the Tahoe’s passenger door open before the vehicle had even fully settled.
The two orderlies froze, reaching under their scrub tops toward concealed waistbands.
"Don't do it!" Marcus’s voice boomed like thunder as he stepped out of the driver's side, leveled a heavy Remington 870 shotgun directly at the driver’s windshield, and racked the slide with a terrifying, unmistakable *clack-clack*. "Hands flat on the van hood! Both of you! Right now!"
The orderlies looked at the massive barrel of the 12-gauge, looked at Marcus’s unblinking, combat-hardened eyes, and slowly pressed their palms flat against the warm, steaming metal of the crushed hood.
I was already at the gurney.
"Frank! You're under arrest!" Chief Albright bellowed, finally drawing his service revolver with trembling hands. "Step back from that gurney or I will put you down!"
I didn't step back. I stepped directly into Albright’s personal space.
Before the corrupt sheriff could align his sights, I grabbed the cylinder of his revolver with my left hand, preventing the hammer from cocking, and drove my right elbow violently into his jaw.
Albright stumbled back against the brick wall of the hospital, dazed, spitting blood. I twisted the gun from his grip, ejected the cylinder, dumped all six .357 rounds onto the wet pavement, and tossed the empty frame into the storm drain.
"You're done, Ronald," I hissed in his ear. "Your badge won't save you from what’s coming."
I turned to the gurney, drawing Donald’s combat knife from my boot. With three quick slices, I severed the heavy leather straps pinning Maya down.
"Dad!" she sobbed, throwing her bruised arms around my neck. "They were going to drug me... they brought a syringe..."
"I've got you, Maya. Nobody touches you again."
I lifted her in my arms, turned, and carried her straight into the back seat of Marcus’s Tahoe.
Sirens wailed in the distance—real police sirens, likely responding to the crash report called in by hospital security.
Marcus hopped back into the driver's seat, threw the Tahoe into reverse, tore away from the crushed Sprinter van with a screech of rubber, and spun us out onto the main boulevard just as two county cruisers flashed past in the opposite direction.
"Where now, Frank?" Marcus yelled over the engine noise. "We can't go to your house, we can't go to mine. Every cop within fifty miles is going to be hunting this truck."
"Head north," I said, holding Maya tight against my side as she wept softly into my jacket. "Take the logging roads up to Old Man Miller’s cabin near Blackwood Ridge. Nobody has set foot in that hollow since my father died ten years ago."
"And the coat?" Marcus asked. "The drive with the ledger?"
May you like
"Once Maya is secure and off the grid," I said, staring at the rearview mirror, watching the flashing red and blue lights disappear into the grey fog, "I'm going back to the Vance estate. And this time, I’m not leaving until the whole house burns down."
***
