Chapter 10 - The Whistleblower's Vault
Olivia led Agent Vance and Dr. Mercer into the basement of the hospital, where the staff locker rooms and old paper archives were housed. The air was cool and smelled of industrial wax and aged paper.
"Dr. Ross used Locker 47," Olivia said, guiding them down the narrow aisle of blue lockers.
She opened the locker, reached to the underside of the lowest metal shelf, and peeled away the heavy industrial tape she had noticed weeks ago. The small brass key dropped into her palm.
"It belongs to a safety deposit box," Dr. Mercer observed, leaning in. "Look at the stamped emblem. St. Jude’s Medical Library archives."
The old hospital library, situated in the historic wing of the complex, maintained private researcher carrels with antique lockboxes for rare manuscripts. Ten minutes later, Olivia, Dr. Mercer, and Agent Vance stood inside the quiet, oak-paneled library.
Olivia inserted the brass key into Lockbox 114 behind the reference desk. The tumbler turned with a satisfying click.
Inside lay an encrypted cold-storage thumb drive wrapped in a handwritten note:
*“To whoever finds this: Dr. Sterling and Apex BioTech are killing our patients for profit. If anything happens to me, deliver this drive directly to the Department of Justice. Ethan Cole is on Batch 4. Stop them before Batch 5 starts.”*
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Agent Vance drew a sharp breath. "This is the entire master manifest. Every child. Every hospital. Every dose."
Suddenly, the library’s glass entrance doors shattered with an explosive crash.