Chapter 7 - The Safe House
Madison waved eagerly through the open window of the massive vehicle.
An elderly man in a faded mechanic’s uniform was sitting in the driver’s seat.
He held up the heavy silver coin Arthur had given Madison.
Arthur managed a weak, agonizing smile as he recognized the man.
It was Elias, an old contact who owed Arthur a life debt from a decade ago.
Elias helped Sarah load Arthur into the spacious back seat of the SUV.
He hit the gas before the doors were even fully closed.
They sped through the bustling city streets, blending into the heavy afternoon traffic.
Arthur was convulsing slightly now, the neurotoxin attacking his spinal cord.
Sarah sat beside him, holding his freezing hands tightly in hers.
Elias drove them to an abandoned warehouse district on the edge of the industrial port.
He pulled the SUV inside a rusted shipping container and killed the engine.
The interior of the container was a fully stocked, high-tech medical bay.
Elias helped Sarah carry Arthur onto a sterile steel gurney in the center of the room.
He immediately hooked Arthur up to a heart monitor and an IV drip of saline.
Elias explained that he couldn’t cure the poison, but he could slow it down by cooling Arthur’s blood.
He packed bags of medical ice around Arthur’s chest and neck.
Madison sat quietly in the corner, clutching her stuffed bear tightly to her chest.
Sarah paced the metal floor, her mind racing with a hundred different impossible plans.
They needed to infiltrate a highly secure corporate laboratory to steal a single vial of serum.
And they had to do it with an army of private mercenaries actively hunting them.
Elias tossed Sarah a heavy canvas duffel bag from the storage cabinet.
She unzipped it, finding body armor, tactical gear, and a small arsenal of automatic weapons.
She looked at Elias, surprised by the extreme level of preparation.
Elias looked away nervously, refusing to meet her eyes.
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He quietly admitted that Arthur didn’t call him to arrange a rescue mission.
He told Sarah that Arthur had paid him a fortune to execute her.
