Harper realized the depth of the trap. “He’s declaring war.”
Knox grunted from the bed. “So, we fight.”
“How?” Harper asked, frustration creeping into her voice. “We can’t silence a civilian billionaire without causing a national incident. We can’t just arrest him for being a liar.”
“We don’t silence him,” Halloway said, a small, cunning smile appearing on his weathered face. “We let him speak. And then we bury him with his own truth.”
Halloway tossed a secure military tablet to Harper.
“While you were in the cell, my intelligence officers did a little digging into Dr. Silas Preston and his father’s hospital administration. It turns out your incident today wasn’t the first time Silas messed up.”
Harper scrolled through the files on the screen. Her eyes widened in horror.
Case 402: Wrongful death. Settled out of court. NDA signed. Case 519: Amputation of wrong limb. Settled out of court. NDA signed. Case 660: Lethal overdose due to medication error. Scrubbed from records.
There were dozens of them. A trail of bodies and hush money. Silas Preston wasn’t just arrogant. He was dangerously incompetent. And his father, Sterling, had been using the hospital’s funds to pay off victims and destroy evidence for a decade to protect his son.
“This is a graveyard,” Harper whispered, sick to her stomach.
“It’s leverage,” Halloway corrected. “But we need more than digital ghosts. We need a witness. Someone on the inside who can testify that these records are real, and that Sterling Preston ordered the cover-ups.”
Harper thought back to the ER. She thought of the fear in the nurses’ eyes. She thought of the way David, the charge nurse, had tried to speak up but was terrified of losing everything. And she thought of young Kinsley, the nurse with the pink scrubs who managed the digital archives for the trauma unit.
“I know someone,” Harper said, her eyes narrowing with a new purpose. “Nurse Kinsley. She sees everything. She has the access codes to the archive servers.”
“She’s a civilian,” Halloway warned. “If we approach her, we put a target on her back. The Prestons will destroy her.”
“She’s already a target,” Harper said, standing up. “Preston terrorizes that staff every single day. If we give them a chance to fight back, they will.”
“You want to go back down there?” Halloway asked, raising an eyebrow. “Into the lion’s den? Preston has private security swarming the building.”
“I need to get Kinsley out, and I need the physical hard drives before Preston purges the servers,” Harper said, checking the mag-pouches on her flight suit out of habit, though they were empty. “If he knows we have the files, he’ll delete the backups. We need the physical evidence.”
Halloway checked his watch. “You have one hour before Preston holds a massive press conference in the lobby to condemn you. I can’t send federal troops into a civilian hospital to steal hard drives without a warrant. It’s illegal.”
Harper walked to the door. She looked back at the General, her eyes gleaming with the predatory intensity that had earned her the call sign Ghost.
“You’re not sending troops, General,” Harper said. “I’m just a nurse going to pick up her last paycheck.”
CHAPTER 3
The basement of Seattle Grace Memorial was a labyrinth of steam pipes, humming backup generators, and rusting laundry carts. It smelled of industrial bleach, damp concrete, and the heavy, metallic tang of boiler exhaust. It was a world away from the pristine, donor-funded marble floors of the main lobby, and it was Major Harper Bennett’s element.
She had shed the tactical flight suit. In its place, she wore a stained, oversized janitorial jumpsuit she’d swiped from a maintenance cart near the loading dock. A faded gray baseball cap pulled low over her eyes completed the disguise.
She moved through the shadows of the subterranean level, avoiding the overlapping security cameras she had meticulously memorized during her three months of employment. Most people walked through life blind to their surroundings. Harper had spent a decade mapping exits, blind spots, and chokepoints in every room she entered.
She wasn’t alone in the dark. General Halloway couldn’t send in the cavalry, but he could provide eyes.
A microscopic earpiece, pressed deep into Harper’s right ear canal, crackled to life.
“Ghost, this is Overwatch,” the calm, modulated voice of Halloway’s lead intelligence officer spoke from the Blackhawk helicopter hovering three miles away. “Comms check. How do you read?”
“Loud and clear,” Harper whispered, pressing herself against a cold concrete pillar as two maintenance workers walked by, arguing about the Seahawks game, completely oblivious to her presence.
“Be advised, Major,” the voice continued. “The hospital is on lockdown. We have four private security contractors moving through the main lobby and the administrative wings. Sterling Preston brought in hired muscle. They aren’t hospital security. They are armed.”
“Copy that,” Harper breathed. “What’s their ROE?”
Rules of Engagement. In the military, you needed permission to fire. In the corporate world, the lines were much blurrier.
“Unknown,” the officer replied. “But based on the contractor group Sterling hired, these men are ex-Blackwater, ex-police. They are likely authorized to detain you by any means necessary, and they are sweeping the building for you right now. Do not engage unless compromised. Repeat, avoid contact.”
“I’ll do my best,” Harper said, her eyes fixed on the red glow of the service elevator at the end of the hall. “But if they get between me and the target, I’m not asking for permission.”
