Chapter 12 - THE BROADCAST
The encrypted evidence transmitted simultaneously.
Television networks.
Newspapers.
Congressional investigators.
Foreign intelligence oversight boards.
The Department of Justice.
Kane stared at his phone.
His face lost all color.
“What did you do?”
My father’s recorded voice played through the baby monitor.
“Authentication complete.”
Jason tightened his grip around me.
The blade pressed through my torn shirt.
Kane raised his weapon toward us.
“You destroyed national security.”
My mother laughed bitterly.
“No. We exposed the men who sold it.”
Snipers fired.
Kane dropped behind the jet stairs.
Jason dragged me toward the aircraft door.
I drove my heel into his injured shoulder.
He screamed.
The blade slipped.
My mother charged him from the side.
All three of us fell onto the wet runway.
I landed on my knees.
Pain tore through my abdomen.
Warm fluid ran down my legs.
My water had broken.
Jason saw it.
For one second, shock crossed his face.
Then he grabbed me again.
“You’re not having that baby here.”
He tried to lift me.
My mother struck him with the metal monitor.
Jason collapsed beside me.
Federal agents pinned him down.
Ross pursued Kane inside the aircraft.
Gunshots echoed from the cabin.
My contractions began almost immediately.
Too fast.
Too strong.
A medic rushed toward me.
“I’m only twenty-six weeks.”
“We’re transporting you now.”
My mother held my face.
“Stay with me.”
I looked at her.
“You used him.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Yes.”
“You watched him hurt me.”
“I believed the agents would intervene before it reached that point.”
“You were wrong.”
“I know.”
Another contraction took my breath.
The medic loaded me into an ambulance.
My mother tried to climb inside.
I stopped her.
“Not yet.”
Her face broke.
I needed space between survival and forgiveness.
Ross emerged from the plane with blood on his collar.
Kane had escaped through a cargo hatch and entered the storm drainage system beneath the runway.
The evidence was public.
His network was collapsing.
But he was still free.
At the hospital, doctors tried to stop the labor.
The baby’s heart rate dropped.
An emergency delivery became unavoidable.
I signed the surgical consent with a shaking hand.
My father arrived in a wheelchair.
My mother stood several yards behind him.
Jason was transported under armed guard.
Before nurses took me into surgery, my phone received one final message from Kane.
A live photograph showed Dr. Samuel Leonard lying in a morgue drawer.
His eyes were open.
Alive.
May you like
The text read:
THE DOCTOR YOU KILLED WAS NOT LEONARD.
