Chapter 12 - FOUR MINUTES
Victor lifted Sam from the operating table while Sadie carried the IV bags.
Bell led them through a service corridor at gunpoint.
Behind them, Gabriel fired again and again.
Then the gunshots stopped.
Victor didn’t look back.
They reached the server room with less than three minutes remaining.
Bell entered the shutdown code.
ACCESS DENIED.
Anthony laughed over the intercom.
“You didn’t think I would give Lawrence full control, did you?”
Victor shot the speaker.
Sadie searched the room.
Rows of servers held years of patient records, financial transfers, debt contracts, and illegal transplant data.
A computer screen displayed the gas level rising.
“Can we cut the system?” she asked.
Bell shook his head. “The controls are encrypted.”
Victor pushed him against the wall.
“Then decrypt them.”
“I can’t.”
Sadie noticed a mechanical fire panel beside the main server rack.
“What happens if there’s a fire?”
“The facility seals tighter.”
“What if the servers overheat?”
Bell’s eyes changed.
“The emergency system redirects all ventilation into this room.”
Sadie understood.
“We can pull the gas away from the patient wing.”
“And into here,” Victor said.
Someone would have to remain behind to trigger the manual override.
Victor handed Sam to Sadie.
“Take him.”
“No.”
“Sadie.”
“No. We find another way.”
“There isn’t time.”
“You don’t get to decide your life matters less.”
Victor looked at Sam’s pale face.
“My life has been borrowed for years.”
“That doesn’t mean you throw it away.”
Bell suddenly grabbed a scalpel and lunged at Sadie.
Victor caught his arm.
They fought between the server racks.
Bell slashed Victor across the ribs. Victor punched him to the floor.
Sadie picked up the scalpel.
Bell froze.
“You chose my brother because you thought we were poor and alone,” she said. “You were wrong about one of those things.”
She forced him toward the control panel.
“You’re staying.”
Bell’s face went white.
“The gas will kill me.”
Sadie thought of every family he had pushed into debt. Every sick child turned into inventory.
“Then shut it off.”
Bell entered a hidden administrator code.
The warning light changed from red to yellow.
VENTILATION PURGE INITIATED.
Fresh air rushed through the hallway.
Victor copied the server files onto an encrypted drive while Bell sat handcuffed to a pipe.
Then the building shook.
Mick had escaped from the van.
He appeared on the security monitor beside Anthony’s wheelchair.
Mick held a detonator.
“If I can’t own Hopewell,” he said over the intercom, “no one gets its secrets.”
A timer appeared on every screen.
02:00.
Victor grabbed the drive.
They pushed Sam’s gurney toward the storm tunnel, but an explosion collapsed the passage ahead.
“We’re trapped,” Sadie said.
Bell laughed behind them.
“There’s another exit.”
Victor turned.
“Where?”
“Anthony’s private elevator.”
They raced toward it.
When the doors opened, Anthony waited inside.
He held a gun against Mick O’Shea’s head.
“Give me the drive,” Anthony said, “or I shoot the only man who knows where the backup files are hidden.”
Mick looked at Sadie.
May you like
“Please,” he whispered. “Help me.”
For the first time, the debt collector was begging her for his life.
