Chapter 8 - Ghost Stands Alone
The hospital went into lockdown.
Adrian's men secured the floor.
Claire helped evacuate patients through a service corridor.
Adrian refused to leave.
“Keene wants me.”
Claire glared.
“That's not a reason to give yourself to him.”
“It keeps him away from everyone else.”
“You sound exactly like my father.”
“That isn't an insult.”
“It is tonight.”
Adrian almost smiled.
Then an explosion shook the building.
Smoke filled the hallway.
Claire pushed Adrian toward the stairwell.
He stopped the wheelchair.
“I can't take stairs.”
Claire looked down forty floors.
“Then we'll find another way.”
They entered a maintenance elevator.
Halfway down, it stopped.
The doors opened.
Thomas Keene stood outside.
Two armed men beside him.
“Ghost.”
Adrian reached for his weapon.
Keene's men aimed at Claire.
Adrian stopped.
“Let her go.”
Keene smiled.
“You always did have predictable weaknesses.”
Claire stepped forward.
“Where's my father?”
“Closer than you think.”
Keene ordered Adrian transferred.
They were taken underground through a hospital service tunnel.
A van waited.
Adrian whispered to Claire, “When I tell you to run, run.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
“You are remarkably difficult.”
“Still here, though.”
Keene overheard.
“So was Daniel.”
Claire stared at him.
“Was?”
Keene smiled but gave no answer.
The van stopped beneath an abandoned warehouse.
Adrian was wheeled inside.
Machines waited.
Keene explained that the implant contained encrypted evidence Daniel had hidden before capture.
Only Adrian's biometric signature could unlock it.
“You crippled me for a password?”
Keene shrugged.
“Collateral damage.”
Adrian's expression became murderous.
Claire stepped between them.
“Don't.”
Keene laughed.
“She thinks she controls Ghost.”
Adrian looked at Claire.
“No.”
He smiled faintly.
“She reminds him he's human.”
Keene's smile vanished.
They connected Adrian to the machine.
Claire watched his pain.
Then she noticed Marco behind one guard.
He had infiltrated the warehouse.
Their eyes met.
Claire understood.
She knocked over a tray.
Marco attacked.
Gunfire erupted.
Adrian dragged himself from the chair and pulled Claire behind cover.
Marco disabled the guards.
Keene escaped through a rear door.
Adrian tried to follow.
His legs failed.
He punched the floor.
Claire grabbed him.
“Look at me.”
“He's getting away.”
“Look at me!”
Adrian did.
“You're alive.”
His anger broke.
For one second, he let her hold him.
Then Marco returned.
“We got the data.”
On the recovered screen was a location.
A farmhouse in Pennsylvania.
Registered to a dead man.
Daniel Donovan.
Claire stared at it.
They drove through the night.
At dawn, they reached the farmhouse.
No guards.
No cameras.
Claire approached the door alone.
Her hand shook.
Adrian waited behind her.
She knocked.
Nothing.
Then footsteps.
Slow.
Heavy.
The lock turned.
The door opened.
Claire looked at the man standing there.
May you like
And whispered one word.
“Dad?”
