Chapter 9 - The Race to Nursery B
Panic erupted instantly.
"Evacuate the third floor!" Sergeant Miller roared into his radio, pulling his weapon. "We have a bomb threat in Nursery B! I repeat, Code Black in Nursery B! Initiate emergency patient evacuation immediately!"
Red emergency lights began flashing down the corridor, accompanied by the deafening, rhythmic blare of the hospital fire alarm system.
ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL: CODE BLACK THIRD FLOOR. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY.
Nurses ran into the hallway, pulling clear plastic bassinets toward the emergency stairwells. Mothers in hospital gowns were helped out of their beds by security staff, the air filled with the sounds of crying babies and shouting voices.
Mark grabbed my arm, helping me out of the bed. "Nora, we have to go now!"
"Not without Sarah!" I shouted, grabbing Leo tight against my chest while Chloe held my arm.
We ran down the corridor toward Room 312. David Jenkins was pushing Sarah in a wheelchair, holding their baby wrapped tightly in a blanket.
"Nora! What's happening?!" Sarah screamed over the deafening alarm.
"Bomb threat!" I yelled back. "Head for the south stairwell! Move!"
While the police officers guided the patients down the concrete stairs, Sergeant Miller, Detective Cole, and a team of bomb squad officers sprinted toward Nursery B at the end of the hall.
"Chloe, stay with your father!" I ordered, handing Leo into Mark's strong arms.
"Nora! What are you doing?!" Mark yelled as I turned back toward Nursery B.
"I know where the hidden storage room is!" I shouted back, my nursing background taking over. "Nursery B has an old laundry chute panel behind the incubator bay! If there's a device, that's where she put it!"
I sprinted down the hall, ignoring the intense, tearing pain in my surgical abdomen.
I burst through the double doors of Nursery B.
The room was empty of babies, but the plastic incubators stood lined against the wall, their digital monitors flashing wildly.
Detective Cole was on his knees near the back wall, holding a thermal scanner, searching the floorboards.
"Mrs. Miller! Get out of here!" Cole shouted.
"Look at the laundry chute!" I pointed to a metal panel recessed into the wall behind Incubator 4. "It hasn't been used in ten years, but it connects directly to the central ventilation shaft!"
Cole rushed to the panel, pulled the latch open, and shone his flashlight into the dark chute.
Inside, resting on a small metal ledge, was a black plastic box with a digital timer counting down.
02:14... 02:13... 02:12...
"Is it an explosive?!" I gasped.
Cole leaned close, his sharp eyes examining the wiring connected to the box.
"It's not an explosive," Cole revealed, his voice filled with sudden realization. "It's a high-frequency EMP jammer paired with a thermite incendiary charge! She wasn't trying to blow up the building—she's trying to melt the hospital's central digital server room located directly beneath this chute!"
"She's destroying the digital backup records!" I realized. "The forty-two files aren't on her laptop—they're stored on the hospital's local mainframe!"
Cole pulled out a heavy pair of wire cutters from his tactical belt. "I have to cut the primary detonator loop before the thermite ignites!"
"Which wire?!" Sergeant Miller yelled from the doorway.
Cole looked at the timer. 00:45... 00:44...
There were two thick wires connected to the timer—a blue one and a red one.
"The thermal tracking on Eleanor Vance's personnel file!" I shouted, remembering the shift logs from yesterday. "She used the blue tracking protocol for the illicit swaps! Cut the blue line!"
Cole didn't hesitate. He jammed the wire cutters onto the blue wire and snicked through the copper core.
00:12... 00:11... 00:00.
The digital screen went black.
The warning lights on the box flickered once and died.
The room went dead quiet, save for the rhythmic chime of the hospital fire alarm down the hall.
Cole wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, letting out a long, heavy breath. "Blue line. God bless you, Mrs. Miller."
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Sergeant Miller pulled out his encrypted radio, pressing the transmit button.
"All units, this is Sergeant Miller," he barked into the microphone. "The device in Nursery B has been disarmed. Mainframe secured. Execute Alpha Option on Eleanor Vance's transport at the lakefront hangar immediately! Shoot to disable!"
