Chapter 5 - The Sub-Level Breakthrough
Outside the perimeter, Mara didn't wait another second.
"GO! GO! GO!" Mara screamed into her radio headset.
The heavy tactical engine of the police armored bear-cat vehicle roared to life, smashing through the iron gates of the compound in a shower of sparks and twisted metal. Four tactical cruisers followed in tight formation, their sirens screaming through the morning fog.
Inside the foyer, Nolan’s security radio buzzed frantically with panic. "Sir! Police units have breached the main gate! Tactical team on the lawn!"
Nolan’s face turned thunderous. He grabbed Claire violently by the arm, dragging her toward a hidden door behind a wood-paneled wall. "You brought them here!"
"It’s over, Nolan!" Claire yelled, struggling against his grip as he shoved her down a steep concrete staircase leading into the subterranean basement. "They know about 19-B! They know about the stem-cell harvest!"
"Nothing is over until I say it is!" Nolan snapped, locking the reinforced steel door behind them from the inside.
They entered a vast, sparkling white medical facility hidden directly beneath the luxury home. Surgical lights hung from the ceiling, surrounded by high-end lab equipment, incubators, and monitoring stations.
On a gurney in the corner, Tessa Lane lay pale and shivering, tied to the bed rails by leather restraints, an IV line dripping into her arm. Beside her, beneath a clear plastic incubator, lay a tiny newborn baby girl—Twin B—crying softly.
A doctor in surgical scrubs stood near the instrument tray, holding a specialized bone-marrow extraction needle.
"Nolan!" the lab doctor yelled in panic as the heavy thuds of police breaching tools echoed against the ceiling above. "What is happening?! The police—"
"Complete the extraction now!" Nolan ordered, pulling a handgun from his coat drawer. "We take the sample and exit through the south tunnel before they break through the security door!"
"Don't touch that baby!" Claire screamed, throwing her weight against Nolan.
Nolan whipped around, striking Claire across the face with the butt of the pistol. Claire fell hard against the tiled floor, her lip splitting open, her vision spinning with stars.
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Through the haze of pain, Claire saw Nolan turn his weapon toward Tessa’s bed.
"You ruined everything, Tessa," Nolan hissed, leveling the gun at the mother's chest. "If you hadn't dropped that boy at the hospital, none of this would have happened."
