Chapter 16 - The Ticking Flesh
"What do you mean, detonator?" I dropped the syringe, grabbing the portable ultrasound probe and slamming it against Julian’s epigastric region.
On the small monitor screen, I saw the black shadows of fluid accumulation. But it wasn't blood filling the pleural space.
Inside the titanium housing embedded in Julian’s chest, behind the micro-valves and pacing leads, was a high-density, radio-opaque mass. A secondary compartment, roughly the size of a deck of cards, nestled directly behind the heart muscle.
"It’s an electrolytic compound," I said, my medical training rapidly deconstructing the engineering. "David showed me the schematics of the original failsafe in Marco’s father’s chair. If the core pacing frequency drops below thirty beats per minute, or if an external radio pulse commands it... the chamber ruptures."
"Ruptures with what?" Marco asked, his grip on Julian’s hand never loosening.
"Barium nitrate and pressurized cyclotrimethylene," I answered, the clinical terms tasting like ash in my mouth. "A surgical-grade demolition charge. If his heart stops... this entire cave, the docks, and the north wing of the estate above us will be vaporized."
Julian tapped Marco's arm again. Faster this time. Erratic.
*Tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap.*
"He’s telling me to leave him," Marco said, his voice flat, completely stripped of emotion—the final stage of psychological overload. "He’s telling me to shoot him through the head and run before the sync completes."
"If you shoot him, his heart stops, and the charge blows instantly!" I screamed at Marco, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and shaking him violently. "Look at me, Marco! Look at me! We don't execute patients on my table! We save them!"
"Laura, you don't understand what we're dealing with—"
"I don't care who built this machine!" I yelled, pulling a pair of angled vascular clamps from the tray. "I cut you out of that chair eighteen months ago with kitchen shears and a modified scalpel while the damn house was burning down around us! You think I’m going to let some faceless syndicate blow up your brother on a rusty boat?"
Marco stared at me. The dead look in his eyes cracked, replaced once more by the terrifying, indomitable resolve that had made him the head of the family.
"What do you need?" he asked.
"I need three things," I said, talking at machine-gun speed while inspecting the surgical field. "First, I need you to go to that helm and see if this vessel is tethered to an automated GPS track. If this boat drove itself in here, someone is steering it from outside."
"Done," Marco said, moving toward the forward cockpit.
"Second," I continued, "I need David. Get him on the satellite radio. Tell him I need an electromagnetic dampening field around this hull within five minutes, or Julian's telemetry is going to sync with whatever master transmitter is broadcasting from the lake."
"And third?" Marco called back over his shoulder.
"Third," I said, picking up the titanium-tipped surgical shears, "I need you to pray that my hands don't shake. Because I have to dissect a living explosive out of a beating human heart while Lake Michigan is throwing four-foot swells against the hull."
Julian’s eyes locked onto mine. There was terror in them, yes, but beneath the terror was a desperate, pleading trust.
"Julian," I said, leaning over him, my voice steady, calm, carrying the absolute authority of a trauma nurse who refused to yield to death. "My name is Laura. I took care of your brother. I took care of your father. And I am not going to let you die in this cave. But you need to breathe with the machine. Don't fight the tube. Let the ventilator do the work."
Julian’s chest eased slightly. The wild spikes on the monitor smoothed out into a steady, albeit fragile, rhythm.
"Marco!" David’s voice suddenly crackled through the boat's marine VHF radio, bursting through static. "Marco, do you read me? Get out of the docks!"
Marco grabbed the mic. "David, report! We have Julian on board."
"Julian?" David’s voice squeaked in utter disbelief. "Marco, that's impossible—Julian's dead! Listen to me! The radar just picked up three high-speed watercraft crossing the state line from Indiana. They aren't coast guard. They're running blacked-out hulls, radar-deflecting profiles, and they’re converging on the sea cave at forty-five knots!"
Marco looked out the forward windshield into the pitch-black mist of Lake Michigan.
May you like
Cutting through the fog, three pairs of sharp, infrared spotlight beams flickered into existence, slicing across the whitecaps directly toward the mouth of our cave.
***
