Chapter 9: The Courier’s Bay
Julian instantly pulled Claire behind a towering stack of plastic laundry hampers filled with blue surgical sheets. They crouched low in the narrow gap between the bins, holding their breath as heavy footsteps approached from down the hall.
A man in a high-visibility yellow vest and gray work pants walked past their hiding spot, carrying a clipboard under one arm. It wasn't Marcus. It was a facility maintenance worker doing a routine rounds check. The man muttered something under his breath, his boots crunching on stray bits of gravel before his footsteps faded away toward the boiler room on the opposite side of the complex.
Julian let out a slow exhale, looking down at Claire. Her face was pale, glistening with a cold sweat, but her jaw remained stubbornly set. “Can you make it another fifty feet?” he whispered.
“I have to,” she replied, pushing herself up from the concrete with Julian’s help.
They crept out from behind the laundry hampers and hurried down the final stretch of the corridor. Ahead of them, a set of heavy double doors marked LOADING DOCK B – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY stood slightly ajar, letting in a cool breeze and the ambient hum of idling delivery trucks outside.
Julian pushed the door open wider and stepped out into the cavernous loading bay. Bay doors stood open to the rainy night, revealing the rear parking lot where several white panel vans sat idling under flickering halogen lamps.
Standing by a metal sorting desk near the back wall was a tall man with tousled dark hair and a gray courier uniform bearing the logo Apex Medical Transport. He was flipping through a stack of manifest sheets with a look of intense concentration.
“Marcus?” Claire called out softly, stepping out from the doorway.
The man snapped his head up, his eyes widening in disbelief. “Claire? What in the world are you doing out of bed? You look like a ghost.” He dropped his clipboard on the metal desk and hurried over, his boots clicking loudly against the concrete.
Marcus reached them just as Claire’s knees finally gave out. Julian caught her by the shoulders, lowering her gently onto a wooden shipping pallet draped with a clean canvas tarp.
“They took her, Marcus,” Claire wept, her composure finally breaking as the adrenaline wore off. “Evelyn’s lawyers... they filed emergency papers and moved my baby to the fourth floor. They’re going to take her out of the country.”
Marcus’s face darkened instantly, his jaw tightening into a hard line. He looked up at Julian, his eyes burning with an old, familiar resentment. “I told you, Julian. You can’t play games with people who own the board. My shift supervisor just signed off on an unlisted transfer manifest for a private Vance Foundation ambulance ten minutes ago.”
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Julian stepped closer, grabbing Marcus by the shoulder of his uniform. “Where was it headed? Do you have the dispatch code?”
Marcus reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small, crumpled slip of thermal paper, shoving it into Julian’s hand. “ hangar 4 at the private airfield off Route 9. A Gulfstream jet bearing tail number N-772VX. It’s scheduled for takeoff at dawn.”
