Chapter 9 - Into the Fire
The Maybach tore through the rain-drenched highway toward Bellevue, its emergency strobe lights cutting through the murky afternoon grey. Beside Michael, Marcus was frantically tapping on a tactical tablet, attempting to override the remote lockout of the Bellevue facility.
"It’s a military-grade kill-switch," Marcus grunted, his fingers flying across the screen. "Someone activated Protocol Zero. In fifteen minutes, the automated fire-suppression system in the deep subterranean labs will flood the biological containment units with concentrated nitrogen gas to extinguish any potential chemical hazards. Anyone inside will suffocate."
"Override it!" Michael barked, pressing his foot harder onto the accelerator.
"I can't from here! The physical hard-line was severed from inside the main control room!" Marcus replied, looking up with grim urgency. "We have to breach the facility manually."
Inside the Bellevue lab, darkness had swallowed the corridors. Red emergency lights rotated rhythmically against the cold concrete walls, accompanied by the monotonous, blaring screech of an automated alarm.
Clara clutched her tablet to her chest, her back pressed against the reinforced steel door of the primary cleanroom. The air was already growing thin, cold, and heavy. Across the room, standing behind the reinforced glass of the control booth, was a man she recognized immediately: Dr. Julian Hayes, the senior chief of bio-integrity whom Michael had trusted to oversee the lab's security after Sterling's arrest.
"Julian!" Clara screamed, banging her fist against the thick glass. "Turn off the nitrogen valve! What are you doing?!"
Dr. Hayes looked at her through the glass, his face entirely devoid of emotion. He held a black encrypted transmitter in his hand.
"I’m sorry, Clara," Hayes said through the intercom, his voice distorted by static. "You were supposed to die on that sidewalk in December. Sterling failed because he was sloppy. He thought small—he wanted money. But the syndicate behind Sterling Capital wants total control over global pharmaceutical patents. You're too smart, Clara. You keep fixing the flaws we need to monetize."
"You killed Michael's father!" Clara shouted, connecting the dots as her lungs strained for oxygen.
"Old Harrison was going to blow the whistle on our global distribution network," Hayes replied coldly. "And now, Michael will arrive just in time to find his brilliant Chief Scientific Officer suffocated by a tragic 'industrial accident.' History repeats itself, Dr. Vance."
BOOM!
The heavy steel entrance doors of the laboratory complex shuddered under an explosive force.
Hayes turned around, startled. Before he could react, a second breach charge detonated, tearing the hinges off the reinforced door. Smoke and thermal sparks showered the hallway as Marcus Vance rushed through the opening, sidearm drawn, sweeping the room.
Behind him came Michael Harrison.
Michael took in the scene in a fraction of a second: Clara pale and gasping for air on the lab floor, Hayes holding the remote detonator in the control booth.
Without hesitation, Michael snatched a heavy steel fire extinguisher from the wall mount and hurled it with immense force at the glass window of the control booth. The reinforced pane cracked into a web of spiderwebs. Michael stepped forward, slamming his shoulder into the fractured glass, shattering it entirely as he tumbled into the control room.
Hayes lunged for the manual nitrogen purge switch, but Michael caught him by the throat, slamming him hard against the control console.
"Where is the master override?!" Michael roared, his fingers tightening around Hayes's neck, his blue eyes burning with an unholy rage.
"It's... it's too late..." Hayes choked out, a cruel smile forming on his bruised lips. "The sequence... is automated..."
Marcus leapt into the booth, shoving Hayes aside as Michael dropped the traitor to the floor. Marcus reached under the console, ripped open the wiring panel, and severed the main power conduit with his combat knife.
The blaring sirens instantly cut out. The heavy pneumatic locks hissed open, and fresh air flooded through the emergency vents.
Clara slumped against the wall, taking long, greedy gulps of oxygen. Michael rushed out of the booth, dropping to his knees beside her, gathering her into his arms just as he had done on Fourth Avenue months before.
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"I've got you," Michael breathed against her hair, his body trembling with violent relief. "I've got you, Clara."
Clara wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him tight. "He tried to destroy it all, Michael... but I saved the master drive. I saved the truth."
