Chapter 7 - The Trap in the Vault
The air inside the old morgue was dead, smelling of old formaldehyde and cold zinc.
Lily stood behind the central marble autopsy table, her eyes watching the thin strip of red light beneath the broken door. Outside, the heavy, rhythmic crunch of military-grade boots on broken glass was getting closer.
"They're clearing the rooms one by one," she signed to Caleb, her movements minimal, her hands barely rising above the cold stone of the table.
Caleb didn't answer with signs. He reached down and picked up a heavy, stainless steel bone saw from the old instrument tray beside the sink. The tool was old, its hand-cranked gears rusted but solid, its circular blade ten inches of serrated steel. He held it like a combat hatchet, his fingers locking onto the iron grip until his forearm veins bulged against the electrical cord tourniquet.
The door moved.
A long, black gun barrel equipped with a silencer crept through the opening, followed by the tactical helmet of a shooter.
Caleb didn't wait for the man to clear the threshold. He lunged from the shadows behind the door, the steel bone saw coming down in a savage, vertical arc. The serrated blade caught the attacker across the forearm, the steel chewing through the ballistic fabric of his sleeve and deep into the bone with a horrific, crunching force.
The man let out a muffled scream, his weapon dropping to the floor as Caleb slammed him back against the wall, his large hand locking onto the throat of the helmet to stifle his cries.
Before the second attacker could step into the room, Lily picked up a heavy bottle of industrial concentrated ammonia from the shelf beneath the autopsy table. She hurled it through the broken door frame, the glass shattering against the concrete floor of the corridor in a violent splash of clear liquid.
The intense, chemical fumes flared instantly into the narrow hallway, creating a cloud of burning, caustic gas that made the remaining two attackers stumble backward, their eyes coughing and tearing behind their night-vision goggles.
"Now!" Lily signed, grabbing the dropped pistol from the floor.
She didn't hesitate. She had spent three years pretending she didn't know how to shoot, but as her fingers locked onto the textured grip of the Sig Sauer, her muscle memory returned like an old friend. She stepped into the doorway, raised the weapon with both hands, and fired three synchronized shots into the darkness of the smoke-filled corridor.
The suppressed weapon let out three quiet, metallic coughs.
The second attacker fell forward, his chest compromised by two nine-millimeter rounds, his body sliding through the pool of ammonia. The third man, realizing his team had been decimated by a nurse and a deaf operator in an old morgue, turned and fled down the steam line corridor, his boots splashing through the water as he scrambled for the exit.
Caleb stepped out of the room, his bare chest slick with sweat and the blood of his attackers. He looked down at the gun in Lily’s hand, then up at her face, his pale blue eyes softening for a fraction of a second.
May you like
Nice grouping, Sparrow, he signed.
"Let's get the lights on, Chief," she signed back, her voice firm, the steel underneath her softness finally fully visible. "We still have a hospital to save."
