Chapter 6 - The Saboteur
Miller made a sudden, aggressive move toward the bed, raising the needle to puncture the rubber port of the main line.
I didn't hesitate. I swung the brass IV pole with trained military precision, striking Miller hard across his forearm. The sharp impact cracked against his wrist, sending the syringe flying across the room, where it shattered against the hard tiled floor, spilling its lethal amber contents.
Miller hissed in pain, grabbing his bruised arm, but he didn't retreat. He lunged at me, attempting to pin me against the wall.
Despite years of wearing civilian scrubs, my muscle memory took over instantly. I parried his grab, stepped inside his center of gravity, and slammed my elbow directly into his sternum. Miller gasped for air, staggering backward, but he managed to grab my shoulder, ripping the sleeve of my uniform as we crashed into the supply cabinet.
A tray of steel instruments crashed to the floor with a loud, metallic clatter.
"Guards!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. "Code Black in 912!"
Miller recovered quickly, pulling a small tactical blade from his scrub pocket. His eyes were wide with desperate fury. "He can't wake up, Nora! You don't understand what he knows!"
He lunged with the knife, aimed directly at my neck. I ducked beneath the blade, grabbed his wrist, and twisted it violently downward—a standard combat disarm from my military medical training. The knife dropped, sticking into the linoleum floor.
Before Miller could recover, the door burst open. Colonel Vance and the two armed military guards rushed into the room, guns drawn.
"Freeze!" Vance roared.
Miller froze, panting heavily, his face pale as he looked at the two handguns pointed at his chest. I held Miller's arm locked behind his back, pressing him firmly against the wall until the guards stepped in, roughly hauling him to his knees and snapping heavy steel handcuffs around his wrists.
Victor Hale rushed into the room seconds later, stopping dead in his tracks as he saw the shattered syringe, the tactical knife stuck in the floor, and Miller pinned to the ground.
"What in God's name is happening here?!" Victor yelled, his voice cracking with hysteria. "Dr. Miller?"
"Dr. Miller was about to deliver a lethal dose of succinylcholine to a four-star general," I said, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead as I smoothed down my torn scrub top. "He's not a resident, Victor. He's an operative."
Colonel Vance walked over to the broken syringe, using a pen to carefully lift the plastic remnant. He looked at Miller with absolute coldness. "Take him to the secure holding cell downstairs. Nobody speaks to him until federal counter-intelligence arrives."
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As the guards dragged the struggling resident out of the room, Vance turned to me, a look of profound respect in his eyes. "You held your own, Captain Bennett."
"I told you, Colonel," I said, breathing heavily as I stepped back over to the general's bedside to check his heart rate. "I don't let my patients die."
