Chapter 6 - The Dark Hospital
It was now Monday evening, and Ethan sat in a running car hidden in the hospital parking garage.
He had spent the last twenty-four hours secretly coordinating the most insane plan of his entire medical career.
He had recruited Sarah and a brilliant rogue anesthesiologist named David to help him perform an illegal surgery.
They needed to steal Claire from the heavily guarded ICU and transport her to the abandoned surgical suite in the basement.
At exactly midnight, the maintenance manager fulfilled his silent promise.
The entire power grid of St Jude Medical Center violently shut down, plunging the massive building into total darkness.
The emergency backup generators kicked in ten seconds later, but Ethan knew they only powered essential life support systems.
The security cameras, electronic door locks, and administrative elevators were completely dead.
Ethan slipped through a side service entrance, dressed in sterile black scrubs.
He navigated the dark, chaotic hallways using only a small penlight.
He reached the ICU, finding the security guards completely distracted by the screaming alarms of a dozen confused patients.
Sarah and David were already inside Claire's room, rapidly disconnecting her from the heavy wall monitors.
They transferred her life support to a portable battery pack and unlocked the wheels of her bed.
They moved with terrifying speed, pushing the bed down the dark, abandoned service corridors.
They reached the freight elevator, manually prying the heavy metal doors open.
They carefully lowered the bed into the dark shaft, using an emergency manual pulley system to descend to the basement.
The abandoned basement surgical suite was cold, filled with outdated equipment covered in plastic tarps.
David quickly set up the portable anesthesia machine, securing Claire's fragile airway.
Sarah prepared the sterile surgical instruments under the glow of powerful, battery-operated construction lights.
Ethan scrubbed his hands in a rusty sink, staring at his reflection in a cracked mirror.
He was about to slice open his ex-wife's chest in a dusty basement without any legal authority or proper backup.
He walked over to the operating table, picking up a scalpel with hands that were famously, flawlessly steady.
He made the first incision, cutting cleanly through her pale skin.
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Suddenly, the heavy metal door of the basement suite was violently kicked open.
Julian Vance stood in the doorway, holding a suppressed silver pistol aimed directly at Ethan's head.
