The smell of diesel smoke and wet ocean fog hung thick beneath the concrete ceiling of Ambulance Bay Two.
Outside the bay doors, the dark waters of New Marrow harbor churned against the municipal pilings, sending cold salt spray through the security grates.
Inside the cab of his armored six-ton Route 04 courier ambulance, Marcus “Mac” Cole sat behind the wheel.
The forty-six-year-old driver rested his heavy leather work boots against the steel floorboards. Between his teeth, he rolled an unlit birch toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other.
The dashboard tachometer needle trembled at eleven hundred RPM. The turbocharged Cummins diesel engine was running in high-idle power-take-off mode.
Through a heavy two-gauge copper jumper cable running from the front bumper, Mac’s rig was feeding two hundred and forty volts of clean alternating current straight into St. Jude’s Municipal Hospital basement riser.
On the roof of the cab, twin amber hazard strobes flashed with a rhythmic, mechanical pulse:
Flash... flash... flash.
