Chapter 41 - Sixty Seconds
Fifty-nine.
Naomi’s hands flew across the keyboard.
“The trigger is wireless but hard-coded.”
“Can you jam it?” Marcus asked.
“Not without killing our own communications.”
“Do it.”
Clara looked at him.
“What about Roman?”
“He’ll adapt.”
“That is a dangerous sentence.”
Fifty-three.
Naomi opened the building’s frequency management system.
“I can overload local receivers.”
“Then overload them.”
A warning appeared.
JAMMING MAY DISABLE CARDIAC TELEMETRY.
Clara froze.
“No.”
Marcus swore.
Patients depended on that telemetry.
Forty-seven.
“What else?”
Naomi pointed.
“We physically remove the receiver.”
“Where?”
“Mechanical level twenty-two.”
Marcus radioed his team.
No response.
Jamming had partially begun.
Forty-one.
Clara grabbed the stairwell key.
Marcus blocked her.
“No.”
“Not today.”
“Clara.”
“You stay here with Naomi.”
“Roman will murder me.”
“He retired.”
“Not emotionally.”
Thirty-five.
Clara ran.
Twenty-two floors.
Impossible.
She took the service elevator.
It stopped at seventeen.
Security override.
“Of course.”
She ran the stairs.
Twenty-nine.
Her lungs burned.
Twenty-four.
Floor nineteen.
Twenty.
Floor twenty.
Seventeen.
She reached twenty-one.
Thirteen.
The mechanical door was locked.
Clara slammed the emergency axe through the glass panel.
Nine.
She reached inside.
Opened.
Six.
Inside, dozens of pipes.
Three.
A blinking device.
Two.
Clara swung the axe.
One.
The receiver shattered.
Nothing happened.
Clara stood panting.
Then Marcus’s voice crackled faintly.
“Clara?”
“I’m alive.”
“Roman is going to become unbearable.”
“He already is.”
Downstairs, Naomi disabled a second device.
Adrian coordinated oxygen rerouting from the auditorium.
Luca realized he was losing control.
He grabbed Leo.
Gun to his head.
“Enough.”
Adrian froze.
Luca shouted toward the cameras.
“Roman!”
Outside, Roman heard it through the restored feed.
Luca dragged Leo onto the auditorium stage.
“Enter now or the surgeon dies.”
Roman walked toward the hospital.
Rhodes grabbed his arm.
“We’re not ready.”
“He has Leo.”
“That is why we don’t improvise.”
Roman looked at her.
“I have been improvising since I was twelve.”
He entered.
No weapon.
Hands visible.
The lobby doors locked behind him.
Luca appeared on a monitor.
“Elevator.”
Roman obeyed.
The elevator rose.
Floor numbers climbed.
Roman stared at his reflection.
He remembered the first time Clara fell into his lap.
The first gunshot.
The first time he realized losing someone frightened him more than dying.
He remembered holding Sofia.
Antonio.
Adrian.
A family he never planned.
The doors opened.
Two armed men searched him.
Roman allowed it.
They escorted him toward the auditorium.
Inside, Luca smiled.
“Roman Duca.”
Roman looked at Leo.
Then Adrian.
Catherine.
All alive.
“Release them.”
“After you authenticate the archive.”
A camera stood center stage.
A teleprompter displayed prepared words.
Roman read them.
I, ROMAN DUCA, CONFIRM THE CROWN RESERVE AS COMPLETE AND AUTHENTIC…
He laughed.
Luca frowned.
“What?”
“You wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“It sounds terrible.”
Luca struck him.
Adrian surged forward.
Roman raised one hand.
“I’m fine.”
Blood appeared at his lip.
Luca shoved him toward the camera.
“Read.”
Roman looked directly into the lens.
Then began.
“My name is Roman Duca.”
Clara watched from the control room.
Rhodes watched outside.
Millions of viewers would soon receive the hijacked broadcast.
Roman continued.
“My family committed crimes.”
Luca smiled.
“My father lied, bribed, threatened, and killed.”
Adrian stared.
This was not the script.
Roman continued.
“The Moretti family did the same. So did the Kesslers. So did officials who sold public trust for private wealth.”
Luca’s smile vanished.
“Read the text.”
Roman ignored him.
“But there is something more dangerous than inherited guilt.”
Luca raised his pistol.
Roman stared into the camera.
“Inherited excuses.”
Clara smiled.
Roman continued.
“You do not become innocent because your father suffered. You do not become righteous because your enemy sinned first.”
Luca grabbed his shoulder.
Roman turned.
“And you do not get to burn a hospital full of children because your grandfather lost a war.”
Luca hit him again.
Then the auditorium lights went out.
Marcus’s voice sounded through the darkness.
“Now.”
Federal teams breached.
Adrian pulled Catherine down.
Leo tackled a guard.
Roman struck Luca.
Gunfire erupted harmlessly into the ceiling.
Clara activated emergency lights.
Red illumination filled the auditorium.
Luca ran.
Roman followed.
Clara watched on cameras.
“Roman, east corridor!”
He heard her through his earpiece.
Luca reached the stairwell.
Roman caught him.
They crashed against the railing.
Luca pulled a knife.
Roman trapped his wrist.
Old Roman would have broken it.
New Roman shoved him backward.
Federal agents arrived.
Luca raised the knife again.
Rhodes fired.
The bullet struck his shoulder.
He dropped.
Roman stood over him.
Luca laughed through pain.
“You became weak.”
Roman looked toward Adrian helping patients evacuate.
Clara appeared at the end of the corridor.
His wife.
His brother.
His family.
Roman smiled.
“No.”
Rhodes handcuffed Luca.
May you like
“I became difficult to manipulate.”
And for Luca Moretti, that was worse.
