The Cure

Chapter 25

     TONY WAS STARTING TO THINK THE chase was over before it even had a chance to begin. He was showing the picture to as many people as he could, but they were getting no bites. The Special Agent was starting to believe Xavier had already left the building, but he was still going to keep looking as he moved on to the fourth floor. Some of the staff on forth couldn't commit to the entire face, but someone informed him that earlier in the day that a man and a woman came into the restricted quarantined area with the Chief of Staff and hadn't come back out yet. That was just the break Tony had been looking for as he started to look around the fourth floor for this quarantined area, which was where the Senator was currently being treated for his mysterious illness. He walked up to the nurse's station, and she didn't look very pleased as she pointed to her bio-suit.

     "Where the hell is your bio-suit?" she coldly asked him.

     "Sorry, I'll be gone soon," Tony replied, "Have you seen this man? I was told he might have come up here with a woman and the Chief of Staff."

     Tony flashed the photo for her, and she leaned over to see it through her suit.

     "I'm not sure," the nurse honestly answered, "But the man and woman you're referring to are right over there. I think they're leaving."

     The nurse pointed to two people in bio-suits who happened to be exiting the floor through the staircase.

     Tony turned to see one man in a bio-suit just about to exit to the staircase, and impulse took over. He immediate drew his weapon and pointed it at the man in the suit.

     "Federal Agent!" Tony shouted as loudly as he could, "Put your hands on your head!"

     He watched as the man ignored his request and bolted into the staircase and disappeared. Tony ran down the hallway and opened the staircase door. He immediately grabbed his cell and paged Bruce's number.

     "I got two people in bio-suits running down the north-east staircase!" He called out on the radio, "I am in pursuit; I think they're running for the garage!"

     "I'm on my way," Bruce immediately replied.

     Tony took out an earpiece and used it to connect to his cell phone and dialed Wilson back in Virginia.

     "Wilson," Tony started, "I'm in pursuit of someone who might be Carter. Give me a map of the hospital and possible exits he might use to avoid checkpoints."

     "I've been looking into that already D," Wilson replied, as he anticipated it, "I haven't come up with anything just yet, but I'm looking into it. Just be careful, there are a lot of people still in there... a lot of potential hostages."

     "Thanks, like I needed to be reminded of that." Tony huffed as he cautiously tried to go down the stairs as quickly as he could. He stopped for a moment and took a second to occasionally glance down the center of the stairwell, but it was empty. There was no way they could have gotten to the bottom already.

     "Wilson!" Tony called out, "Let Bruce know that they might have bailed from the stairwell early. They could be on the second or first floor. We're looking for two people in bio-suits. They shouldn't be too hard to find on those floors."

     "Got it Tony," Wilson acknowledged, "Passing that onto Bruce."

     Tony had concluded that if they had bailed out on the third floor, he would have heard the door slam. He moved on to the second floor and opened the door and cautiously came out with his weapon drew halfway up. There was just normal staff walking around and no signs of bio-suits. He started to job around the floor looking for anything out of the ordinary, but nothing was sticking out. He then spotting someone rolling a massive laundry cart and ran over to check it out. His instincts paid off as he found the two bio-suits in the middle of the pile.