Chapter 28 - The Ghost Protocol
Arthur Sterling didn't flinch. He casually stepped behind the carbon-fiber transport pod as the second paramedic reached for his concealed sidearm.
Before the guard could draw, Julian Vance burst through the smoke and cascading water, wielding the heavy iron crowbar he had ripped from the hospital’s emergency fire station.
With a roar born of pure, primal fatherhood, Julian swung the crowbar. The heavy iron struck the guard’s jaw with a sickening crunch, sending the man crashing across the tile floor, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Julian spun, water dripping from his soaked hair, the Glock raised and locked onto Arthur Sterling’s throat.
"Step away from my daughter, you son of a bitch," Julian snarled, his chest heaving, his fingers white on the trigger.
Arthur raised his hands slowly, a calm, patronizing smile playing on his lips despite the gun pointed at his carotid artery. "Julian. Impressive. I see Claire didn't kill you after all. She always was terrible at tying up loose ends."
Behind Julian, emerging from the smoky darkness of the corridor like an apparition of death, stood Claire. She carried a tactical submachine gun, flanked by two mercenaries in unmarked black combat gear.
"Arthur," Claire said, her voice echoing over the hiss of the water sprinklers. "Did you really think your firewalls could blind my satellite relay? Did you think I’d let you take the compound to the European cartel?"
Arthur let out a soft, dry chuckle. "Claire, my dear niece. You’re still laboring under the delusion that this is about money. Or patents."
Arthur tapped the screen of his gold wristwatch.
Across the room, the cardiopulmonary monitor attached to Lily began to shriek in a high-pitched, continuous alarm.
Julian’s eyes darted to his daughter. Lily was violently seizing, her small limbs rigid, her back arching off the mattress as foam bubbled from the corners of her lips.
"What did you do to her?!" Julian screamed, stepping toward his child, his heart tearing apart.
"The Sovereign Protocol isn't stable without the catalyst, Julian," Arthur explained coldly, looking at Claire. "And the catalyst isn't in Lily’s marrow. Victoria never burned the child to trigger regeneration. Victoria was infected with the carrier strain three weeks ago. When she poured that boiling broth onto Lily, she wasn't just scalding her—she was transmitting the synthesized binding enzyme from her own epidermis."
Julian froze, the world spinning in nauseating circles. "What are you saying?"
Claire stepped forward, her face turning pale for the first time, her tactical composure shattering. "Victoria... Victoria is the vector?"
"Victoria is the living lock," Arthur smiled, his pale eyes gleaming with monstrous triumph. "Lily is the living key. Separate them for more than four hours after initial transmission, and the child’s cellular matrix collapses into irreversible autoimmune necrosis. Look at her, Julian. Look at your precious daughter."
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Lily’s skin was turning a mottled, terrifying shade of violet. Her pulse was spiking over two hundred beats per minute.
"If you want Lily to draw another breath," Arthur whispered, pointing through the shattered hospital window toward the rain-swept sky, "you have thirty minutes to bring her to the Sterling Hangar at Westchester. Victoria is waiting. And so is the end of this game."
