Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary of Lies
The private Gulfstream G650 touched down on the tarmac at Bern Airport at two o'clock in the morning. The sky was a vast, starless sheet of black, heavy with the promise of high-altitude rain.
A silver Range Rover was waiting for us on the apron, engines idling softly. Nolan took the driver's seat, while Evelyn, Sophie, and I slid into the back. Sophie had woken briefly during the landing, but upon feeling Evelyn’s hand in hers, she had immediately settled back into a quiet, heavy sleep—a stark contrast to the restless, screaming fits that usually plagued her during travel.
"Where are we going first?" Evelyn asked, looking out at the dark pine trees lining the highway.
"To the clinic," I said, checking the encrypted laptop open on my knees. "Sankt Elisabeth was officially decommissioned fourteen months ago following a sudden corporate insolvency. The physical assets were acquired by a holding company registered in Liechtenstein."
"A holding company you own?" Evelyn asked bitterly.
I looked up at her. "A holding company owned by Vance Enterprises—my late wife’s family estate."
The silence in the car grew heavier. Every layer of the onion I peeled back revealed Helena’s hand deeper in the mechanism. When Helena had died, her personal accounts had been frozen under a complex network of family trusts that I had lacked the time—and the emotional energy—to litigate. I had been too busy trying to keep my company afloat while caring for a toddler who had stopped speaking the day her mother’s car went over the embankment.
The Sankt Elisabeth Clinic sat on a dark hill overlooking the Old Town of Bern. It was an intimidating four-story structure built of grey alpine granite, featuring narrow Gothic windows and a slate roof that gleamed under the rain. The iron gates surrounding the property were locked with thick chains.
Nolan stepped out of the vehicle, pulled a pair of heavy bolt cutters from the trunk, and snapped the chain links with two precise, mechanical movements. The gates swung open with a rusty groan.
We parked near the main entrance. The building was completely dark, its windows resembling empty eye sockets staring down at us.
"Stay in the car with Sophie," I told Evelyn as I reached for my coat.
"No," Evelyn said instantly, unbuckling her seatbelt. "I am not letting her out of my sight. And I spent three weeks in this building. I know where the surgical records were kept."
I evaluated her for a second, then nodded. Nolan armed himself with a heavy tactical flashlight and stepped onto the damp concrete, sweeping the beam across the double glass doors.
Inside, the air was stale, smelling of old antiseptic, wet plaster, and rotting paper. Our footsteps echoed loudly across the tiled lobby. The reception desk was stripped bare, wires hanging uselessly from the ceiling where security cameras had been ripped out.
"This way," Evelyn whispered, carrying Sophie expertly against her hip. She led us down a long, narrow corridor painted in a faded mint green. We passed abandoned patient rooms, their doors swinging half-open, exposing rusty bed frames and discarded IV stands.
She stopped in front of a heavy oak door marked ARCHIVES - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Nolan stepped forward, raised his heavy boot, and kicked the door right next to the brass lock. The frame splintered on the second strike, and the door swung inward.
The room was filled with row upon row of gray metal filing cabinets. Most of them were open, their contents burned or shredded, leaving piles of black ash scattered across the floor. Someone had performed a thorough, deliberate clean-up before abandoning the facility.
"They burned everything," Nolan muttered, sweeping his flashlight over a metal trash drum filled with charred paper.
"Not everything," Evelyn said, walking straight toward the back corner of the room where a small, floor-anchored steel safe sat beneath a wooden desk. "Dr. Keller was an arrogant man. He kept duplicate hard copies of all private adoption contracts in a personal fireproof safe because he used them to blackmail the board members."
"Do you know the combination?" I asked.
"No," Evelyn said. "But I know where he kept the key. He was obsessed with historical relics. He kept an antique bronze key inside the hollowed-out base of the bronze Hippocratic statue in his main office upstairs."
Five minutes later, we were standing in Dr. Keller’s former top-floor office. The room was grand, featuring floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a massive oak desk overlooking the city lights below. On a marble pedestal in the corner sat the bronze statue of Hippocrates.
Nolan stepped up to the statue, lifted it off its base, and inverted it. A small, heavy iron key fell into his gloved palm with a metallic clink.
"Get the safe," I ordered.
Nolan hurried back downstairs, while Evelyn sat in Keller’s leather executive chair, cradling Sophie against her chest. I walked over to the desk, pulling open the side drawers. They were empty, save for a few dried-up pens and a single leather-bound desk calendar from two years ago.
I flipped through the calendar pages. Most entries were standard medical appointments, staff meetings, and donor galas. But on the date of October 14th—the day Evelyn’s records indicated her daughter was born—there was only a single word written in red ink:
PROJECT ALCESTIS - SUBJECT 04.
May you like
My phone rang sharply, making Evelyn jump. It was Nolan from the archive room below.
"Sir," Nolan’s voice was tense. "I’ve opened the safe. You need to come down here right now. And bring Ms. Ward."
