Chapter 9 - The Breakout
The crossover surged up the concrete ramp with a screech of tires that left thick black rubber burning against the stone.
Jack ducked low over the steering wheel as the descending security gate loomed in the headlights. The reinforced steel bars were three feet from the ground. With a bone-crushing impact, the front grille smashed into the gate. Metal shrieked against metal. The windshield spiderwebbed into an opaque sheet of fractured safety glass, airbags deploying with a deafening pop.
Jack threw his forearm out, shoving the deflating driver's airbag aside, and jammed the gas pedal through the floorboard. The vehicle lurched, snapping the gate’s hydraulic chains, and rocketed out into the rainy midnight air of the estate grounds.
Behind them, gunfire erupted. Bullets sparked off the rear tailgate and blew out the back window, showering Elena with tempered safety pellets, but Jack kept the wheel straight, careening down the serpentine driveway at seventy miles an hour, smashing through the ornamental wooden gates at the main road without tapping the brakes.
They were out.
The two-lane county highway was slick with rain and enveloped in dense fog. Jack switched off the vehicle’s main headlights, relying on the amber running lights to navigate the blacktop, putting as much distance between the Vance estate and his dying wife as possible.
In the back seat, Elena began to convulse.
A choked, strangled sound escaped her throat. Jack glanced into the rearview mirror and felt his heart plummet into his stomach. Her body was arching off the leather seats, her hands clawing spastically at the air, foam gathering at the corners of her lips.
"Elena!" Jack shouted, steering with one hand while reaching back to hold her head steady, preventing her from striking the interior door frame. "Elena, breathe! Look at me!"
She couldn't hear him. The neurological damage caused by the botched craniotomy and the severe systemic infection was causing a massive grand mal seizure.
Jack pulled over onto a muddy gravel turnout beneath a canopy of pine trees. He killed the engine, jumped into the back seat, and turned her onto her side, clearing her airway and holding her thrashing body until the convulsions slowly subsided, leaving her limp, gasping, and completely unresponsive.
Her pulse was thready, fluttering like a trapped moth under his fingers.
He couldn't take her to a regular county hospital. Eleanor Vance sat on the board of every major medical facility within fifty miles; the moment an O-negative female patient with untreated craniotomy scars arrived, the police and Blackwood mercenaries would descend within ten minutes.
Jack pulled out Mercer’s encrypted phone. There was only one person left in this state he could trust—a man who owed him his life from a ditch outside Kandahar, and who ran an underground triage clinic for undocumented workers in the city’s industrial district.
Jack dialed the number from memory.
"Marcus," Jack said the moment the call connected. "I have a critical trauma case. Craniotomy complications, septic shock, massive marrow aspiration trauma. I need an operating room right now."
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On the other end of the line, Marcus paused for two long seconds. "Who is she to you, Jack?"
"She’s my wife," Jack replied, his voice breaking. "And they're hunting us."
