Chapter 5 - Midnight in the Pharmacy
I descended into the hospital basement alone, telling Knox and my security team to hold at the elevator doors. I wanted to see the last rat try to run.
The basement corridors were dim, lit only by emergency fluorescent tubes. The smell of floor wax and disinfectant hit my nose—a familiar smell that reminded me of the weeks I had spent pushing my mop through these very halls.
Outside the main pharmaceutical vault, the heavy steel door sat ajar.
I pushed it open silently.
Dr. Gregory Brandt—Hale’s chief anesthesiology partner—was frantically stuffing velvet-lined cases of fentanyl, morphine, and experimental synthetic sedatives into a large canvas duffel bag.
"Packing for a long trip, Gregory?" I asked from the doorway.
Brandt spun around, dropping a vial of liquid onto the tile floor. It shattered, filling the small room with a sharp, chemical odor. He held a heavy steel torque wrench in his right hand, his eyes wild with panic.
"Grant..." Brandt gasped, backing up against the metal storage shelves. "Stay back! I know who you are! You think you can just come in here with your billions and ruin our lives?"
"You ruined your own lives when you decided patients were ledger entries, Gregory," I said calmly, taking two steps into the room. "Put the bag down."
"Hale was weak!" Brandt yelled, waving the heavy wrench threateningly. "He let you spy on him! He let an old man with a mop ruin a fifty-million-dollar operation! I'm not going to prison, Grant! I have ten million dollars waiting for me in Zurich, and you're not stopping me!"
Brandt lunged forward, swinging the heavy steel wrench violently at my head.
Despite my age, six weeks of manual labor had left me far stronger than Brandt anticipated. I ducked beneath the heavy swing, stepped inside his guard, grabbed his forearm, and slammed his wrist against the sharp edge of the steel shelving.
The wrench clattered to the floor.
Before Brandt could regain his balance, I wrapped my arm around his neck, taking him down to the floor in a sleeper hold. He thrashed frantically for five seconds before his eyes rolled back, his body going limp against the cold basement floor.
May you like
I stood up, dusting off my suit trousers, taking a deep breath as Knox and three officers from the local precinct burst into the room with weapons drawn.
"Secure the vault," I instructed Knox smoothly. "And make sure Dr. Brandt’s Zurich accounts are frozen before morning."
