The escort to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center moved with the synchronized, cold efficiency of a tactical insertion. Malcolm Reyes sat in the back of the lead vehicle, his hands steady despite the adrenaline that had surged during the roadside confrontation. The briefcase—a hardened container holding the future of neuro-regenerative medicine—was secured in a secondary vault, every hand-off documented by officials who treated a paper trail as a sacred vow. Inside a restricted wing of the hospital, the atmosphere was suffocatingly still. Emily Shaw, a vibrant young woman in her early twenties, lay beneath an intricate web of monitors...
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