Chapter 627: [Extra] Boundary Marker - 5 - Gunshots on a Snowy Night

The Pennsylvania border. An abandoned gas station off Highway 30.

The blizzard was even worse than it had been three nights ago.

The wind whipped pellets of snow against the car window, scraping like sandpaper.

Joe Miller sat in the command vehicle, watching as rows of fully armed SWAT officers leaped from armored personnel carriers.

They wore black tactical vests, the night-vision goggles on their helmets glowing green. The safeties on their assault rifles were already off.

This time, there would be no mercy. No turning a blind eye.

It was an unequivocal order from Leo Wallace himself: excise the tumor.

"Move in."

Miller spoke the command into his radio.

The SWAT team moved quickly, surrounding the convenience store, which glowed with a faint light.

A battering ram slammed into the glass door with a tremendous CRASH.

"Police! Search warrant!"

"Get down! Everyone on the ground!"

Shouted commands and the harsh beams of tactical flashlights instantly flooded the small space.

Edgar Stone was standing behind the counter, organizing the last batch of insulin due to be shipped out.

He didn’t panic or try to run when he heard the door crash in. He simply raised his hands slowly.

He watched the SWAT officers storm in, followed by Joe Miller.

"You’re here."

Dr. Stone pushed up his thick-lensed glasses, a wry, knowing smile on his face.

"I was wondering when you’d be back."

Miller walked up to him, handcuffs in hand.

"The game’s over, Doctor."

Miller’s voice was cold as ice.

"Practicing medicine without a license, smuggling controlled substances... the amounts involved are substantial. You’ll be spending the rest of your life in a state penitentiary."

"I know."

Stone turned and compliantly allowed Miller to cuff his wrists.

The metallic CLICK of the cuffs locking was jarringly loud in the quiet room.

"But the medicine..."

Stone motioned to the refrigerated case.

"Don’t cut the power. Hundreds of lives depend on that."

"It’s evidence now."

Miller waved his hand. A few agents stepped forward with evidence bags and began to empty the case.

Box after box of NovoRapid and Lantus were roughly swept into the bags and sealed.

Everything was going smoothly.

Until Miller escorted Stone out the front door of the convenience store.

The parking lot outside was still filled with beat-up cars from the surrounding states.

The people who had waited all night in the blizzard for medicine now watched in horror at the sudden turn of events.

They saw the police.

They saw the doctor in handcuffs.

And they saw the medicine, their medicine, being loaded box by box into a police van.

That was the hope they had driven hundreds of miles for, maxed out their credit cards for, even sold their last few valuables for.

Now, that hope was being confiscated.

"No!"

A gut-wrenching cry tore through the crowd.

The door of a rusty Ford pickup with West Virginia plates was thrown open.

A middle-aged man in camouflage hunting gear charged out.

His eyes were bloodshot, his face chapped and raw from the biting wind.

"Leave the medicine!"

The man held a double-barreled shotgun.

It was a common hunting gun in the Appalachian Mountains, its dark muzzle wavering in the glare of the headlights.

The atmosphere at the scene instantly dropped below freezing.

The SWAT officers reacted instantly. A dozen assault rifles snapped up, and a swarm of red laser dots converged on the man’s chest.

"Drop the gun!"

The SWAT captain roared.

"Drop your weapon, or we will open fire!"

"I don’t care!"

The man didn’t back down.

He was on the verge of a breakdown, his sanity obliterated by despair.

"My daughter’s in the car! She’s in a coma! She needs that medicine! She needs it now!"

The man advanced step by step, his shotgun aimed at the agent holding the box of evidence.

"Give me that box! I’ll pay! I have money!"

He pulled a wad of crumpled bills from his pocket and threw it forcefully onto the snow.

"That’s my medicine! You goddamn robbers! It’s mine!"

Miller stood on the steps, watching the man.

He recognized that look.

It was the look of a beast backed to the edge of a cliff, baring its fangs to protect its cub.

The man didn’t want to take a life; he just wanted the $35 vial of liquid.

"Don’t shoot!"

Dr. Stone struggled, trying to rush forward.

"He’s the miner! His daughter is only eight! It’s ketoacidosis! She’ll die without an injection!"

"Stand back!"

The SWAT captain’s finger was on the trigger, his nerves stretched to the breaking point.

"Final warning! Drop the gun!"

The blizzard howled.

The man stared at the confiscated box, at the rear doors of the police van swinging shut.

He felt his last lifeline being severed.

"Give me... the medicine!"

The man roared, raised the shotgun, and started to charge the agent.

BANG!

A single, sharp crack of a gunshot.

It wasn’t the shotgun.

It was the sound of a sniper rifle.

The SWAT sniper, positioned on the high ground, had pulled the trigger.

A spray of blood erupted from the man’s chest.

The force of the impact threw him backward, and he landed heavily in the snow.

The shotgun flew from his grasp and skidded under the wheels of the police van.

For a moment, the world seemed to stand still.

The man lay in the snow. His body convulsed twice, then went still.

Blood pooled beneath him, staining the white snow and the scattered banknotes a deep red.

A woman’s piercing wail came from the truck. She scrambled out, clutching the unconscious little girl, and collapsed beside the body.

Her cries echoed across the empty wasteland, sharper than the howling wind.

Joe Miller stood over the body.

Snowflakes landed on his face, melting into icy drops.

He looked at the dead father.

Even in death, the man’s eyes were fixed on the medicine.

Miller felt his stomach churn.

He’d caught murderers, broken major cases.

He’d seen countless dead bodies.

But none had ever made him feel a chill that sank this deep into his bones.

This was the collision of two worlds.

On one side, a fortress of rules, privilege, and cheap medicine. On the other, a wasteland of the abandoned and the dispossessed, who could only trade their lives for medicine.

All to protect the financial security of the Mutual Aid Alliance, to ensure the privileges of the people of Pittsburgh weren’t diluted.

A father had died on this invisible border.

Miller raised his radio.

His hand was trembling.

"Command."

"Operation complete."

"Threat... neutralized."

...

「Pittsburgh. The top floor of City Hall.」

Leo Wallace stood before the floor-to-ceiling window.

He held a glass of whiskey, but he hadn’t taken a sip.

’Mr. President,’ Leo whispered in his mind. ’We killed a man.’

’Yes.’

Roosevelt’s voice echoed in his mind.

’That is the price of a border.’

’Leo, you must understand.’

’Any localized utopia is built on the exclusion of the outside world.’

’If you want to make Pittsburgh a paradise, you must keep everyone else in hell.’

’If we don’t hold that line, if we don’t cut off that smuggling chain, Pittsburgh’s finances will be crippled. The Mutual Aid Alliance will go bankrupt.’

’Then, it won’t just be that father from out of town who can’t save his daughter. Pittsburgh’s own diabetics will lose their medicine too.’

’And then, even more people will die.’

Leo looked out the window.

The lights of Pittsburgh glittered below—a bastion of civilization, order, and hope.

But beyond the city’s edge, in the depths of the pitch-black wasteland...

...there was only the biting wind, only despair, and a body that had just grown cold.

An invisible wall stood between life and death.

’There are no winners here.’

Leo drained his glass.

’The father is dead, the doctor is in prison.’

’And I’ve become the dragon hoarding its pile of gold.’

He turned away from the darkness.

He walked to his desk and picked up the proposal for the "Pennsylvania Statewide Healthcare Reform."

"We can’t just protect Pittsburgh."

Leo’s finger traced a line across the proposal.

"This kind of mutual aid, limited to a single city and built on exclusion... it’s too cruel."

"If we don’t tear down this wall, if we don’t expand this protection to the entire state, to all of America..."

"...then the gunshots from tonight will echo again and again."

"More fathers will come with guns."

"More blood will be spilled in the snow."

Leo’s expression hardened with resolve.

"We have to go to Washington."

Leo said it to himself, and to Roosevelt.

"Not just for power, but to make this wall disappear."

"So that next time, a father like him won’t need a gun to get that vial of medicine."

Outside, the snow fell even harder, as if trying to bury all the world’s sin and sorrow.

But the crack of that gunshot was now etched into his very bones.

Never to fade.