Chapter 9 - Escape Through the Sub-Basement
The iron rungs bit into Lauren’s hands like frozen razors. Every movement was agonizing; she had to keep her chest tilted back to avoid crushing Eli against the ladder, while her sneakers slipped on the moss-covered stone.
Ten feet down. Fifteen feet down.
Above her, the linen room door was blown off its hinges with a dull roar. A blinding tactical searchlight beam shot down the shaft, cutting through the steam and mist.
“She went into the drainage tunnels!” a voice yelled from above. “Drop a thermal flare!”
“Move, Josie!” Lauren hissed down into the dark.
Her foot struck the slick wooden boards of the catwalk. She grabbed Josie by the waist, pulling her into the deep recess of an old brick archway just as a brilliant magnesium flare plummeted down the shaft, hissing violently as it hit the black harbor water below, turning the basin into a boiling cauldron of eerie white light and noxious smoke.
They were underneath the hospital’s foundation, standing on an old timber dock that opened directly into the mouth of Prescott Harbor. The freezing Atlantic mist hit Lauren’s face like a slap. Outside the archway, the black water churned against the stone sea wall under a driving sleet.
Eli began to wail—a thin, reedy, desperate sound. The cold was attacking his fragile lungs.
“Lauren!”
A voice echoed from the darkness of the catwalk further down the wharf.
Lauren flattened herself against the slime-slicked brick, pulling her trauma shears once more.
A figure emerged from the fog, silhouetted against the distant amber harbor lights. It was Vance. His uniform coat was torn at the shoulder, dark blood staining his left arm, but his service weapon was still in his right hand.
“Vance!” Lauren breathed. “You’re hit!”
“Flesh wound,” Vance grunted, limping toward them. “The harbor patrol launch is tied off at slip four, past the old cannery pier. But they’ve got a cutter idling in the main channel. They’re jamming all marine frequencies.”
“We have to administer the serum,” Lauren said, her fingers frantically checking Eli’s pulse. His skin was turning an icy, translucent blue. “If I don't neutralize the delivery capsule now, the synthetic antigen will trigger cardiac arrest within thirty minutes.”
“Can you do it on the move?” Vance asked, taking Josie’s hand to help her navigate the rotting boards.
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“I need sixty seconds of light and clean hands,” Lauren said, her teeth chattering. “The ampoule has to be mixed with an intramuscular saline suspension, or it will blow out his renal system.”
“Slip four has an enclosed bait shack,” Vance said. “It’s got a generator. Let’s move!”
