Chapter 7 - THE SHATTERED GLASS
The reinforced glass spider-webbed under the brutal impact, but it held.
Outside the door, the pounding intensified. "Breaching the door!" a heavy voice shouted.
Nolan roared with raw, desperate strength. He swung the heavy steel oxygen tank again, putting the entire weight of his body behind the blow.
CRASH.
The window shattered outward, raining a cascade of safety glass down into the hospital courtyard four stories below. The freezing night wind instantly howled into the sterile delivery room, violently whipping the curtains.
"What are you doing?!" I screamed over the wind.
Nolan dropped the oxygen tank and rushed back to the barricaded door. The heavy medical cart was already groaning under the force of the police battering ram.
"They expect us to hide, Savannah," Nolan said, his eyes wild but fiercely calculated. "They expect us to play the victims. We're not."
He pulled the heavy velvet coat from the armchair and threw it over my shoulders, wrapping it tightly around me and the baby to protect us from the cold.
"We are going out onto the ledge," Nolan ordered.
"Are you insane? We're on the fourth floor!"
"The ledge connects to the old fire escape on the north wing," Nolan explained rapidly, grabbing the silver pocket watch, the torn train ticket, and the faded photograph, stuffing them deep into his scrub pockets. "Vance and my mother control the hospital security and the local precinct. If we stay in this room, they separate us, drug you, and take our daughter. We have to get to the federal building downtown."
The door hinges groaned with a loud, metallic screech. They were seconds away from breaking through.
I looked down at the tiny, perfect face of my daughter. She was sleeping peacefully, completely unaware of the monsters trying to steal her.
"Okay," I breathed.
Nolan climbed through the shattered window first, carefully testing his weight on the narrow concrete ledge overlooking the sheer drop. The wind whipped his surgical scrubs. He turned back, reaching his strong arms into the room.
I held the baby tightly against my chest, secured by the heavy velvet coat, and stepped up onto the window sill. I didn't look down. I looked exclusively into Nolan's gray eyes.
He gripped my waist and pulled me out into the freezing night air.
My back pressed flat against the freezing brick of the hospital exterior. The ledge was barely two feet wide. Below us, the parking lot looked terrifyingly far away.
Just as Nolan pulled me clear, the delivery room door exploded inward.
Four armed police officers, flanked by Arthur Vance and Margaret Pierce, burst into the room.
"They went out the window!" an officer yelled, rushing toward the shattered glass.
"Move!" Nolan hissed.
We shuffled sideways along the ledge, the wind howling around us. I kept my body angled, shielding the baby from the elements and the sheer drop.
An officer leaned out the broken window, shining a blinding tactical flashlight onto the ledge.
"Stop right there!" the officer barked, drawing his weapon. "Dr. Pierce, step back inside!"
Nolan stopped. He put himself between me and the officer's gun.
"If you shoot, you risk hitting an infant!" Nolan yelled back over the wind. "We are unarmed! My mother is paying you to facilitate a kidnapping!"
Margaret leaned out the window next to the officer. Her hair was blowing wildly, her mask of aristocratic perfection completely destroyed by panic.
"Don't listen to him! He's unstable!" Margaret screamed to the officer. She looked at Nolan. "Nolan, stop this insanity! You are ruining our legacy!"
"Your legacy is built on murder, Mother," Nolan spat into the wind.
Suddenly, a loud, piercing alarm echoed from the hospital courtyard below.
Red and blue lights flooded the concrete. But it wasn't local police cruisers.
It was a fleet of black, unmarked SUVs.
Agents in tactical gear swarmed out of the vehicles, establishing a perimeter around the hospital.
I looked down in shock. "Who are they?"
"The FBI," a voice echoed from the ledge behind us.
I whipped my head around.
Standing on the fire escape landing ten feet away, leaning heavily on a metal cane and wearing a thick winter coat, was a man I hadn't seen in three years.
He looked older, scarred, and his hair was entirely gray, but I would recognize those green eyes anywhere.
"Mark," I sobbed, the sheer relief nearly making my knees buckle.
My brother was alive.
Mark smiled, a tired, painful expression. He limped forward on the fire escape and held his hand out toward us.
"Come on, little sister," Mark called out. "Let's get you and my niece off this ledge."
Answer one, open two. Mark was alive. But how did he survive the transport crash, and how did he bring the FBI to the hospital at the exact moment we needed them?
Margaret saw Mark on the fire escape. She let out a horrific, guttural scream of absolute defeat.
Nolan guided me the last few feet along the ledge. Mark grabbed my arm, pulling me and the baby safely onto the heavy iron grating of the fire escape. Nolan jumped over the railing right behind us.
May you like
As soon as we were safe, Mark pulled a walkie-talkie from his coat pocket.
"Target secured," Mark said into the radio. "Move in on the fourth floor. Arrest Margaret Pierce and Arthur Vance."
