Chapter 8 - Under the Knife
There was no time to reach the boat. There was no time to call an ambulance.
The storm raged through the open metal grating of the funicular station. Julian dragged Clara inside the steel shelter of the pump room, stripping off his heavy woolen coat to create a clean bed on the wooden workbench.
"Julian... he's here. He's coming NOW!" Clara screamed, her body arching in agony.
Julian fell to his knees between her legs. His hands were covered in grease, rain, and blood. He ripped open Marcus’s tactical first-aid kit, dumping sterile saline, surgical shears, and clamps onto the bench.
"Look at me, Clara. Look into my eyes," Julian ordered, his voice dropping into an intense, hypnotic calm that cut through her hysteria. "Forget Eleanor. Forget the money. Forget the fall. It's just you, me, and our son. Push, Clara! Push for our boy!"
Clara screamed, a primal, sound of raw feminine power that echoed off the granite cliffs, drowning out the thunder above. She bore down with every shred of strength left in her broken body.
Julian guided the crowning head, his hands steady despite the tremor in his soul. "I see him, Clara! I see his hair! One more push! Give me everything you have!"
With a final, shattering cry, Clara pushed.
Out into Julian’s waiting hands slid a tiny, pale, slippery form.
The infant didn't cry.
The baby was silent, his lips tinted a terrifying faint blue, his tiny chest motionless in the freezing draft.
"Julian?" Clara whispered, her voice barely a thread of wind. "Why isn't he crying? Julian... please..."
Julian didn't panic. His military combat medic training took over. He quickly clamped and severed the umbilical cord with the sterile shears. He wrapped the baby in his clean flannel shirt, cleared the infant’s tiny mouth with his finger, and began gentle, two-finger compressions on the miniature chest, breathing tiny puffs of warm air into the baby’s nose and mouth.
*One, two, three, breathe.*
*One, two, three, breathe.*
"Come on, son," Julian whispered, tears streaming freely down his face, dripping onto the baby's pale cheek. "Fight. Your mother fell from the sky for you. Fight!"
Ten seconds passed. Twenty.
Then, a tiny, sputtering cough echoed through the pump room.
A sharp, indignant, furious wail erupted from the infant's lungs—the sweetest, most deafening sound Julian had ever heard in his life. The baby's skin flushed from pale blue to a vibrant, living pink.
Julian collapsed forward, pressing the crying child against Clara’s bare chest. Clara clutched her newborn son, sobbing uncontrollably, her tears washing the dust from the baby's cheeks.
Marcus stumbled down the tunnel entrance, his rifle smoking, his arm bleeding from a graze. He stopped dead, looking at the miracle before him, and lowered his weapon.
"Coast Guard cutter is docking at the pier right now," Marcus breathed, wiping sweat from his eyes. "I got through to federal marshals. Julian... Eleanor just convened an emergency board meeting at the Montgomery Tower in Manhattan. She thinks you’re all dead. She's signing the liquidation papers at noon."
Julian looked at Clara. Then he looked down at his crying son.
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"Call the federal prosecutor," Julian said, his eyes turning cold as liquid nitrogen. "Tell him the real Montgomery heir has arrived to claim his seat."
***
