Chapter 12 - The Delivery Hidden in the Mountains
Northstar Biologics described the Vermont property as a rural innovation center. Public records listed laboratories, housing for visiting researchers, and a small clinic licensed only for outpatient procedures.
Satellite images revealed a surgical wing.
The patient in labor was identified through the fetal tracing number: Rachel Dean’s eldest daughter, Sophie, seventeen years old.
Rachel collapsed when agents told her. Sophie had disappeared from school that morning after receiving a message claiming her mother had been injured. Her phone was found near a bus station.
“She is not pregnant,” Rachel insisted.
A recent school physical supported her. There was no pregnancy.
Aria examined the tracing again.
“This is not current,” she said. “It is simulated.”
Nora leaned over her shoulder.
“Then why lure us to Northstar?”
“To draw every investigator away from the real delivery.”
Aria searched the Aurora files for pregnancies among the First Daughters. One name appeared with an expected due date that week: Carmen Ruiz’s younger sister, Isabel, who had been part of the neonatal cohort but never informed.
Isabel had been admitted to a community hospital outside Boston that morning.
The hospital’s chief of obstetrics was a former trainee of Hale.
Nora split the teams. Federal agents moved toward both locations.
Aria called Isabel’s hospital directly. A clerk refused to confirm admission. Aria invoked physician-to-physician emergency consultation, but her credentials had been temporarily suspended during recovery.
Then Julian called.
His face appeared on her phone from a dim room. A bruise darkened his temple.
“Listen carefully,” he said. “Hale took me because he needs access to an old hemorrhage protocol. He is at Isabel’s hospital.”
“Where are you?”
“Inside Northstar. They brought me here first, then moved Hale’s team. I escaped from a transport room.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“You should not. Verify everything.”
He turned the camera toward a computer screen. It displayed two live surgical feeds. One showed Sophie restrained in an examination room at Northstar. The other showed Isabel in labor outside Boston.
Both were real.
Hale had divided the threat.
“He wants Sophie’s mitochondrial sample and Isabel’s delivery data,” Julian said. “If agents raid either location openly, the other team has orders to administer potassium.”
Nora heard the call through the secure line.
“Can you disable Northstar’s system?” she asked.
“Not remotely. The sites are linked through a failsafe. Both must be interrupted within thirty seconds.”
Aria’s mind became clinical.
“Who controls the failsafe?”
“Serena.”
Aria stared. “She is in custody.”
“She was transferred for cooperation interviews this morning.”
Nora checked with federal marshals.
The transport van had never arrived.
Serena had been extracted by agents using counterfeit credentials and a real court order altered inside the federal scheduling system.
Hale’s network extended farther than anyone knew.
Julian gave them a plan. Northstar’s server could be disconnected manually from a basement control room. Isabel’s hospital required removal of a receiver attached to the central fetal monitor. If both connections dropped together, the failsafe would default to local control.
“You have one chance,” he said.
Nora coordinated synchronized entry teams.
Aria remained on the call with Julian, watching the clock. At Northstar, he moved through service corridors while alarms sounded in the distance. At Isabel’s hospital, Emily joined agents after refusing to stay with her rescued mother.
“I owe Aria a delivery where somebody listens,” Emily said.
The countdown began.
Thirty seconds.
Julian reached the server room and found Serena waiting with a surgical knife.
At the hospital, Emily reached the monitoring station and found Bernard Hale holding the receiver.
Twenty seconds.
Serena raised the knife. “You ruined everything for her.”
Julian did not move. “No. I ruined everything for myself.”
Ten seconds.
Hale pressed a syringe against Isabel’s intravenous line.
Emily aimed a confiscated guard’s weapon but could not fire without risking the patient.
Five seconds.
Aria watched both feeds and understood that the synchronization was another trap. Hale expected everyone to focus on the devices.
“Do not disconnect,” she shouted. “The failsafe is designed to trigger when the signal drops.”
Julian froze.
Emily froze.
Hale smiled.
Aria continued, “The system needs to believe the delivery is over. Replace the live tracing with a closed-case file.”
Julian turned to the server terminal. Emily reached for the monitor archive.
May you like
Serena lunged.
The screen went black.
