Chapter 8 - The Ultimatum on the Line
"A settlement?" I repeated, my voice dripping with bitter disgust. "You tried to have my newborn baby murdered in my hospital bed, and you're calling me to offer a settlement?"
"Let us be rational, Nora," Dr. Eleanor Vance replied smoothly, her voice completely devoid of panic or remorse. "Richard Sterling and Karen Gable were sloppy. They were weak links in a very lucrative, highly sophisticated operation. They failed because they underestimated your daughter."
"You're a monster," Chloe said loudly into the phone, her ten-year-old voice ringing clear and brave through the room.
A brief silence hung on the line before Eleanor Vance spoke again. "Ah, the little security guard. You have a very bright future, child. It's a pity your mother's stubbornness is putting that future at risk."
Mark lost his composure. "If you lay a single finger on my family, Vance, I swear to God I will hunt you down myself!"
"Mr. Miller," Eleanor Vance warned, her tone instantly hardening into ice. "Listen to me very carefully. I currently possess the master database containing the biological records, original birth certificates, and true parental identities of forty-two children swapped at Saint Jude’s over the past seven years."
My breath hitched in my throat. Forty-two children. Forty-two families living a lie, raising children that weren't biologically theirs, while their real infants were sold across the globe.
"I am currently sitting in a private hangar near the lakefront," Eleanor Vance continued. "In ten minutes, I am boarding a helicopter to an undisclosed location outside US jurisdiction. I have a encrypted flash drive containing that complete database."
"What do you want?" I demanded.
"I want the police cordon removed from the perimeter of the airport hangar," Eleanor Vance laid out her terms. "I want Sergeant Miller to instruct his officers to step down for thirty minutes, allowing my transport to clear local airspace."
"And if we refuse?" Sergeant Miller asked directly into the phone.
"If you refuse," Vance sneered, "I will press a single button on my laptop. The master database will be permanently wiped from the encrypted server. The paper files at my clinic have already been destroyed. The forty-two families who were lied to over the past seven years will never, ever know the truth. Their biological children will be lost forever in the system."
She took a slow, audible breath.
"In addition," Vance added, her voice dropping into a terrifying register, "I have placed a secondary device inside Nursery B at Saint Jude’s. If my transport is intercepted before I clear state lines, that device will detonate, destroying the entire eastern wing of the hospital."
The room plunged into absolute terror.
"You're bluffing," Sergeant Miller gasped.
May you like
"Test me, Sergeant," Vance laughed coldly. "You have six minutes to order your officers to stand down. Call me back on this number when the airspace is clear."
The line went dead with a sharp click.
