Chapter 3 - The Men at the Door
The twenty minutes ticked by like a slow-motion execution.
I couldn't move. Every attempt to shift my weight sent white-hot spikes of agony radiating through my pelvis. The bleeding had slowed to a terrifying, steady seepage, and a heavy, dark dizziness was beginning to cloud the edges of my vision.
Carter was pacing back and forth across the kitchen, hyperventilating, slamming his fists against the granite counters. "It’s a glitch! It has to be a glitch! Uncle Richard is going to fix this, he has to, he’s the senior prosecutor—"
"Call him back, you idiot!" Eleanor screamed, shaking her son by the shoulders. Her hair, usually impeccably styled, was coming undone, and her face was mottled with panicked red blotches. "Call Richard! Tell him to get down here right now with the police!"
Carter grabbed his phone with shaking hands and dialed his uncle’s private line.
One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Four.
Voicemail.
He tried his cell. Voicemail. He tried the office emergency line. A pre-recorded message played: “This extension is no longer in service. All personnel associated with this exchange have been placed on administrative leave pending an independent ethics and counter-intelligence review.”
"They're... they're cutting us off," Carter whispered, dropping the phone. He looked at me, his eyes wide and bloodshot, filled with a sudden, desperate realization. "Who... who is your father? What did you do?"
I let out a weak, humorless laugh that tasted of iron and salt. "You... you called him a country bumpkin," I whispered, my voice barely audible over the ringing in my ears. "You said he drove a pickup truck."
Before Carter could answer, a concussive boom echoed through the front of the house.
It wasn't a knock. It was the sound of heavy boots kicking open the solid oak front door of our Alexandria home, splintering the deadbolts and frame into a thousand pieces.
"Federal Marshals! Nobody move!" a voice roared through the hallway, followed by the crisp, synchronized tactical clatter of assault rifles and heavy boots advancing across the hardwood floors.
Eleanor let out a piercing shriek, throwing her hands over her head as three heavily armored tactical officers in black ballistic vests swarmed into the kitchen, their weapons raised and laser sights painting the walls in eerie red dots.
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"Clear!" one officer barked, scanning the room before his eyes locked onto me, curled in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.
Instantly, his demeanor shifted from tactical aggression to emergency medical mode. He dropped his rifle to its sling, clicked his radio, and shouted, "Medic team, move in now! We have a pregnant female, severe trauma, active hemorrhage on location! Move, move, move!"
