"I pulled the hospital's surgical logs. This was an unrecorded, emergency addition."
"Where are they?"
The reality was that the surgery had already been completed. They were just dragging out the final sutures. Julian Grant had deliberately prolonged the procedure, claiming 'unexpected complications,' entirely to buy time.
He was stalling for the extraction team.
Julian's eyes flickered.
He subtly shifted his gaze toward the back of the room.
Toward the hysterical female nurse!
Dane moved with terrifying speed, lunging across the room and grabbing the nurse by the throat.
The 'nurse' instantly countered with lethal force, and the two clashed in a blur of violence.
This operative was incredibly skilled, employing erratic, unpredictable strikes. In a flash of silver, a surgical scalpel sliced across the back of Dane's hand, drawing blood.
Simultaneously, the other 'medical staff' in the room dropped their act and drew concealed weapons.
Silas reacted instantly, engaging the fake doctors in a brutal firefight within the confined space of the OR.
In the chaos, Julian Grant tried to slip out the back doors, only to be grabbed by one of his own assisting physicians.
"Not so fast, Doctor."
The physician pressed a bloodied scalpel directly against Julian's carotid artery.
The man who had been assisting him moments ago was suddenly a Syndicate sleeper agent.
Julian froze in terror.
He was just an arrogant plastic surgeon. Against a trained killer, he had absolutely zero chance of fighting back.
The scalpel in his hand felt utterly useless compared to the lethal precision of the man holding him hostage.
Dane continued to exchange savage blows with the 'nurse'.
It was Quinton Graves in disguise.
While Tycho and Felicity had swapped outfits on the roof, Quinton had altered his own appearance down here.
His disguise was flawless. When he had screamed at them earlier, even the vocal pitch was a perfect auditory match for a terrified woman.
The Daybreak Syndicate's operatives were horrifyingly versatile.
"Where is Claire?" Dane roared, throwing a devastating punch.
If Quinton was hiding in this room, Claire had to be close.
The fire alarms were still screaming. The blaze spreading through the corridors was undoubtedly set by this bastard's team.
Dane's chest tightened with sheer terror for Claire's safety.
"She's already gone. You're never going to find her."
Quinton had fully intended to extract with the asset, but when the SSD collapsed their perimeter so quickly he chose to stay behind as the ultimate decoy.
Quinton's arrogance was staggering. He had literally used himself as bait to lock down Solenia's apex predators allowing his subordinatės to smuggle Claire out through the chaos.
His intelligence dossiers included highly detailed profiles on both Dane and Silas.
He knew exactly who he was fighting.
If Dane hadn't been so impossibly observant, Quinton's disguise would have bought him a clean walk-out.
Now that he was trapped, his only objective was to inflict maximum casualties and burn as much time as physically possible!
Quinton matched Dane blow for
blow, his combat proficiency off the charts, but Dane's sheer,
unadulterated rage ultimately
overwhelmed him. Dane slammed him into the surgical trays and
pinned him to the floor.
The remaining Syndicate operatives in the room, realizing they were cornered, didn't
hesitate. They drove their scalpels into their own throats.
Their suicide protocols were executed with a speed that even Silas couldn't
intercept.
Fortunately, Dane had Quinton in a chokehold.
"Give me Claire's location!"
Dane drove his fist straight into Quinton's face, shattering his nose.
Blood poured from Quinton's mouth, but his lips curled into a sickening, triumphant smile.
"I have no idea."
"The hell you don't!" Dane brought his fist down again, the sickening crunch of bone echoing in the room.
Dane's eyes were bloodshot, his chest heaving with feral intensity.
"You're Daybreak, aren't you?"
Dane had already intercepted intel that The Daybreak Syndicate had breached Solenia's borders, and he had deduced they were hunting Claire.
He just hadn't realized they had smuggled a massive strike team into the country. How had they bypassed federal customs?
Quinton's pupils dilated in shock. He hadn't expected a civilian CEO to have access to highly classified intel regarding The Daybreak Syndicate.
"You know what happens to Daybreak operatives who fail their mission, don't you?" Dane threatened, completely unfazed by Quinton's stubbornness.
Quinton knew exactly what happened. Operatives who failed didn't die by the target's hand; they died in the Syndicate's interrogation rooms.
Incompetence was always aggressively purged.