Chapter 1 - The Dark Network
"Phone," Nicholas repeated, his voice barely a gravelly rasp, though his blood-crusted fingers held her wrist with an unyielding, desperate firmness. "Call... a private number. No police. No emergency dispatch."
Hannah’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She looked down at the triangular piece of broken mirror still clutched in her right hand, then at the blood pooling from his infected thigh wound onto the frozen concrete floor.
"If I don't get antibiotics into your bloodstream within two hours," Hannah said, her professional tone rising above her fear, "you're going to go into septic shock and die right here. I don't care who you are or who's hunting you."
"Nine-one-seven," Nicholas choked out, his dark eyes burning into hers through a haze of fever. "Five-five-five... zero-one-nine-four. Tell him... the Raven is down. Tell him... St. Jude."
Hannah hesitated for two agonizing seconds. Then she pulled her cracked phone from her pocket and dialed the digits.
The phone rang twice before a voice answered—low, flat, and completely devoid of emotion.
"Speak."
"I... I have a man here," Hannah stammered, her knees shaking against the concrete. "He's chained—was chained—in a basement in Curtis Bay. He said to tell you the Raven is down. He said St. Jude."
Silence slammed through the line like a vault door closing.
"Is he breathing?" the voice demanded, suddenly razor-sharp and cold as dry ice.
"Barely," Hannah answered, stepping back into her clinical training. "GCS is roughly ten. Tachycardic, weak radial pulse, high fever. He has a penetrating gunshot or shrapnel wound to his right thigh with advanced localized infection. He needs a trauma surgeon and IV broad-spectrum antibiotics immediately."
"Who are you?"
"I'm the night cleaner!" Hannah yelled into the speaker, her voice cracking under the pressure. "And he's dying! If you want him alive, get here in five minutes or I'm calling 911 regardless of what he says!"
May you like
"Thirty-two seconds," the voice replied. "Look out the street window."
Before Hannah could even lower the phone, the dull rumble of heavy engines vibrated through the floorboards. High-powered headlights slashed through the filthy basement windows, illuminating the swirling dust particles in the frozen air.
