He was already dressed by five — khakis, the volunteer polo, the boots he’d broken in over three weeks of walking corridors and delivering flowers to people who would never know his name.He stood at the kitchen table and looked at the operational map one last time.The east stairwell.The supply corridor.Janet Creighton’s office on the second floor, third door from the stairwell, four-pin lock.The thirty-seven seconds between the stairwell landing and the office door.
He folded the map and slid it into the inside pocket of his jacket.
His phone rang at five-oh-six.
Caleb.
“Perimeter team is in position.Mitch has four entrances covered.North dock and loading dock are the gaps, same as the plan.”
“Thompson?”
“Already inside.He got there at four.Told the night charge he wanted to review ER evacuation procedures before the safety drill.”A beat.“The man hasn’t slept.He looks like it.”
“He’ll hold.”
“He’ll hold because you told him to hold.That’s not the same thing as steady.”
“Is Ronan on the line?”
“He’s been on since three.He’s coordinating the federal team on the other eleven sites.We’re site four in a twelve-site simultaneous action.”
Twelve hospitals.Twelve extraction windows.Twelve versions of this morning happening across three states, and the only one Graham could control was the one twelve minutes down the road from the cottage where he’d slept badly.
“Harper?”
“Monitoring the hospital’s internal radio from the second-floor utility closet I mapped last week.She’ll have real-time audio on security dispatch, nursing station comms, and the administrator’s office.”
“If Creighton moves during the safety drill —”
“Harper will hear it before Creighton’s shoes hit the corridor.”
Graham checked his watch.Five-fourteen.Seventy-six minutes.
“I’m leaving now.”
“Graham.”
“Yeah.”
“The plan is good.Trust it.”
Caleb had never said that before an operation.He’d said copy, confirmed, proceed.He’d never felt the need to reassure.Graham understood what it meant — that Caleb had heard the thing in his voice that Graham was trying not to let show.
“Copy.”
He locked the cottage and walked to his truck.The cypress trees along Lake Road were still dark, the cab cool, the dashboard clock reading 5:18.He turned east at the bend past Wes Charles’s place and drove twelve minutes through the sleeping town to the hospital, and the only thing he let himself think about was the next move and the move after that.
Not Maren.Not yet.
Not until she walked through the front doors at five-nineteen on the dot.
* * *
He signed in at the volunteer desk at five-fifty-three.
Linda, the morning coordinator, barely looked up.“Flowers are in the cooler.Third floor has six orders.”
“Got it.Thanks, Linda.”
