Chapter 7 - Target ListThe hospital became a laboratory.
The fluorescent lights hum.
Pipes knock inside ceilings.
Industrial ventilation turns every corridor into a tunnel of white noise.
Harbor Point’s B2 level contained storage rooms, electrical equipment, old records, and biomedical maintenance facilities.
At 1:38 in the morning, it should have been empty.
It wasn’t.
The elevator opened.
A wheelchair stood in the center of the corridor.
Empty.
A piece of paper rested on the seat.
I approached carefully.
One sentence.
YOU STILL LEAD WITH YOUR LEFT FOOT.
My stomach tightened.
Cross.
During training, Ethan had spent weeks trying to fix that habit.
“You enter every doorway like you’re volunteering to be shot,” he once told me.
I had laughed.
He hadn’t.
I looked up at the nearest camera.
The red light blinked.
He was watching.
I raised both hands.
“Hello, Ethan.”
The speaker overhead crackled.
A voice I had not heard in seven years filled the corridor.
“You look healthy, Sparrow.”
For one irrational second, relief hit me.
He was alive.
Then I remembered Keller’s call.
Cole’s story.
Janus.
“Where’s Dr. Keller?”
“Safe.”
“Show me.”
“You never were patient.”
“I learned from you.”
A quiet laugh.
“Yes, you did.”
A door clicked open twenty feet away.
“Come in.”
The biomedical lab was mostly dark.
Machines lined the walls.
Diagnostic equipment.
Old monitors.
Portable ultrasound units.
Cross stood near the back.
Older.
Gray at the temples.
But unmistakably Ethan.
My brain tried to reconcile two realities.
The mentor in my memory.
The man threatening a doctor.
He spread his hands.
“No weapon.”
I stayed near the door.
“Where’s Keller?”
He nodded toward a side room.
Through the glass, Keller sat tied to a chair.
Alive.
Bruised.
Terrified.
“You shot him.”
“Shoulder.”
“You could have killed him.”
“I specifically didn’t.”
“That’s comforting.”
Ethan smiled.
“There she is.”
“Who?”
“The woman I trained.”
“I’m a nurse.”
“You always were more than a medic.”
“I never wanted to be.”
“No. That’s what made you useful.”
The sentence hurt more than I expected.
I forced myself to stay neutral.
“You arranged my job here.”
“Keller did.”
“Because you told him to?”
Ethan tilted his head.
“Eventually.”
“You’ve been watching me.”
“Protecting you.”
“By threatening me?”
“Those messages weren’t mine.”
That gave me pause.
“Derek?”
“A useful idiot employed by someone else.”
“Who?”
“Apex Meridian.”
“Why?”
“Because they want Janus.”
“And you don’t?”
Cross smiled.
“I want control of it.”
At least he was honest.
“That’s worse.”
“No. Destruction is fantasy.”
He gestured toward the machines around us.
“Data doesn’t disappear anymore, Maya. Every government, corporation, intelligence agency, hospital system—everyone collects it. The only question is who controls access.”
“You think that should be you?”
“I think it shouldn’t be billionaires.”
“Or governments?”
“Governments created it.”
I stepped closer.
“You created it.”
His face changed slightly.
There.
Guilt.
“I helped.”
“You used us.”
“We all volunteered.”
“For missions. Not experiments.”
“The data saved lives.”
“It got people killed.”
His jaw tightened.
“Sundown Valley was not supposed to become an ambush.”
“But it did.”
“Yes.”
“And you kept collecting data.”
He said nothing.
That was enough.
I looked through the glass at Keller.
“Why does he think I need protection from you?”
“Because Martin lost his nerve.”
“He recruited me.”
“To keep you visible.”
“So you could find me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Cross looked at my pocket.
“The key.”
There it was.
I smiled bitterly.
“You didn’t miss me.”
His expression hardened.
“I did.”
“You needed me.”
“Both can be true.”
I hated that answer.
Cross walked toward the table.
“Cole Mercer believes Janus should be destroyed.”
“He’s right.”
“He doesn’t understand what’s on that drive.”
“What is?”
“Not data.”
I waited.
“Names.”
My pulse changed.
“What names?”
“Everyone who participated in Janus.”
“How many?”
“Thousands.”
“No.”
“Researchers. Doctors. contractors. officers. corporate buyers. foreign intermediaries.”
“And Night Cell?”
Cross nodded.
“All surviving members.”
That explained everything.
If the drive became public, protected identities would be exposed.
People would die.
“So Cole is carrying a death list.”
“Without realizing it.”
“He said he knows.”
“He knows parts.”
Cross approached.
“Give me the key.”
“No.”
“Maya.”
“No.”
“Apex Meridian has teams searching the hospital. If they get that drive, everyone connected to Janus becomes vulnerable.”
“And if you get it?”
“I secure it.”
“Where?”
He didn’t answer.
“Exactly.”
Keller slammed against the glass.
Cross glanced back.
That was when I saw movement reflected in a metal cabinet.
Someone behind me.
I dropped.
A suppressed gunshot struck the wall where my head had been.
Cross drew a pistol.
Three men entered.
Hospital scrubs.
Weapons.
Apex.
Cross fired twice.
One attacker fell.
I flipped the nearest metal cart.
Bullets shattered equipment.
Keller threw himself sideways in the locked room.
Cross shouted.
“Maya! Door!”
We moved automatically.
Old training.
He covered.
I advanced.
For five seconds, seven years disappeared.
I was Sparrow again.
I hated how natural it felt.
One attacker rushed.
I drove the cart into his knees.
He fell.
Cross disarmed him.
Third man retreated.
Then a second door opened.
Cole Mercer stepped inside holding a fire extinguisher.
Of course.
He slammed it into the attacker’s arm.
Gun dropped.
Cole kicked it away.
Silence.
Smoke from damaged electronics drifted through the room.
I stared at him.
“You were supposed to stay upstairs.”
He signed:
You knew I wouldn’t.
Cross looked at Cole.
Cole looked at Cross.
Recognition.
Hatred.
Cross raised his weapon.
Cole moved toward me.
I stepped between them.
“No.”
Cross snapped, “He has no idea what he’s carrying.”
Cole signed at me.
He is lying.
“I know.”
Cross’s face hardened.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Maya.”
I had heard that tone during training.
The tone that meant obedience was expected.
Once, I would have obeyed.
I didn’t.
“You don’t command me anymore.”
Something almost like pride crossed his face.
Then vanished.
The fire alarm erupted.
Sprinklers activated.
Water poured from the ceiling.
Lights flashed.
Keller shouted through the glass.
Cross turned.
The detained attackers were gone.
One wall panel had opened into a maintenance passage.
“They’re heading for the network core,” Cross said.
Cole signed:
Why?
Keller shouted through the glass.
“Because Janus isn’t on the drive!”
I unlocked the room.
Keller stumbled out holding his wounded shoulder.
“What do you mean?”
He looked at all three of us.
“The drive is only authentication.”
“To what?”
His face went pale.
“The actual Janus archive is stored inside Harbor Point.”
I stared.
“Why?”
Keller swallowed.
“Because Apex bought the building ten years ago through a shell company.”
The hospital wasn’t merely being acquired.
It had been built into the system.
Keller pointed toward the corridor.
“If those men reach the server room with Cole’s authentication key, they won’t steal Janus.”
He took a breath.
“They’ll activate it.”
A sound came from the hospital intercom.
Electronic.
Calm.
BIOMETRIC SECURITY PROTOCOL STARTED.
Cole’s face changed.
Cross swore.
I asked the obvious question.
“What happens if Janus activates?”
Keller looked at me.
“It begins identifying everyone in the hospital.”
“For what?”
“Vulnerabilities.”
I stared at him.
“All of us?”
He nodded.
“Patients. Staff. Everyone.”
May you like
Then his expression became terrified.
“And someone upstairs has already uploaded a target list.”
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