Reported on the Rescue Train

At the express train station entrance, I was stopped by a security guard. He asked, “What is in the container?” I said, “It is a living heart. It needs to be transplanted in two hours.” I handed over the urgent medical pass. After the security guard checked the document and prepared to let me through, a hand reached from behind and grabbed the container. A voice shouted, “Do not let her go! The container contains prohibited items!” I turned and saw my sister‑in‑law, Ariana Cole. She pointed at me and shouted, “Sir, I am reporting her! She is my sister‑in‑law. What is in the container is not a cure for illness. It is drugs she bought from the black market. She plans to transport them and sell them by using her doctor identity!” Armed police surrounded us with their guns drawn. My eyes were bloodshot from anxiety. “Ariana, have you lost your mind? There is a donor heart inside! The recipient only has two hours to live!” Ariana rolled her eyes and sneered. “Why are you pretending? My brother said you have acted mysteriously lately. You are definitely up to no good. If you have nothing to hide, why not open it and show us?” The place fell silent. The SWAT officer leading the group spoke in a cold voice. He said, “Please cooperate with the inspection. Open the container immediately.” I looked at my countdown watch as cold sweat soaked my back. If the heart became contaminated, Arthur Quinn, the national hero who depended on it, would not survive. Chapter 1 "Sir. We really can't open this container!" I held the incubator tightly in one hand and gave the urgent pass to the SWAT officer. “Look. This is the Department of Health and Human Services’ organ transport priority clearance pass. It has the official stamp. Inside the container is a donor heart kept at a constant temperature of four degrees. If it is exposed to the air for more than three minutes, the cardiac cells will experience irreversible necrosis.” The leading SWAT officer took the pass and examined it. His expression relaxed a little. He was ready to let them through when Ariana Cole shouted again. “It is fake! The pass is fake too!” She turned toward the onlookers in the departure hall. “Everyone, come and see! This woman is trafficking drugs under the guise of a doctor! What she has in her container is not a heart. It is methamphetamine. It is ice methamphetamine disguised as a medical kit. I am her sister‑in‑law, and I saw her pack these things in her house at three in the morning!” The crowd erupted in an uproar. Some people pulled out their phones to take pictures, and others grabbed their children and stepped back. “A drug trafficker? Arrest her!” “People nowadays will do anything for money.” “Do not let her escape!” My hands shook with anger. “Ariana. You are talking nonsense. When did I ever pack anything at home? This heart was taken from the operating room at three in the morning.” Ariana refused to listen. She pulled out her phone and started a live stream to stop me from leaving. “Everyone, look!” She pretended to look heartbroken in front of the camera. “This is my sister‑in‑law, Dr. Vivienne Linch, the head of the organ transplant department at Citizen Hospital. On the surface, she saves lives, yet she smuggles human organs and sells drugs behind the scenes. I will do whatever it takes to stop her!” The number of viewers in the live stream increased quickly, and the chat filled with comments. [Heartless doctor. Call the police!] [Human trafficker! Organ trafficker! This is awful!] [I support the sister‑in‑law’s report.] The situation spiraled out of control, and I stomped my feet in frustration. “Ariana. Turn off the live stream. You are spreading rumors. You will be held legally responsible.” Ariana held the phone higher, and her voice grew sharper. “I am spreading rumors? Open the container and show everyone then. Too scared to open it? That means you are guilty!” The SWAT officer’s attitude changed completely. Drug use, organ trafficking, and a formal complaint were serious allegations. Any one of them was more than he could allow clearance for on his own. “Ms. Linch, please cooperate and come with us to the interrogation room for further investigation.” “No!” I held the temperature‑controlled container tightly. “The container must remain refrigerated. You can investigate me, and you must let it go through.” Chapter 2 I shouted desperately, “Have the station staff place the container onto the express train. Once it gets to the destination, someone will pick it up!” As long as the heart was on the train, there was still hope. The SWAT officer hesitated for two seconds. During that brief moment, Ariana moved. She rushed forward and kicked the bottom of the temperature‑controlled container. Thump. The container fell out of my hands and hit the marble floor. The lid popped open, and refrigerant splattered across the ground. In the cold air, the heart wrapped in a sterile bag rolled out, tumbled twice, and stopped after hitting the base of a trash can. “No!” I screamed as I lunged toward it. My knees struck the floor, and my vision darkened. I ignored everything else. I held the heart in my hands as its temperature rose quickly. The preservation fluid leaked from the torn sterile bag. “It cannot be exposed to the air,” I whispered. I shivered and hugged the heart to my chest, wrapping it with my clothes as tears streamed down my face. Ariana stood nearby, clapped her hands, and shrugged. “You all saw that, right? What could she be hiding that is so important?” The flashlights from the onlookers’ phones flickered nonstop. Four armed police officers stepped forward. Two held my shoulders, and two pried my hands open. “Put down the item. Hands behind your head.” “You cannot take it. Please. It is a heart. A human heart.” My fingers were pried open one by one. The warm donor heart was placed in an evidence bag and sent to the laboratory. I collapsed onto the cold floor with no strength left. Ariana walked over, smiling at me. She turned off the live stream, bent down, and whispered in my ear. “Vivienne, who told you to disobey?” In the interrogation room, I sat handcuffed to the interrogation chair as I tried to explain. “Officer, the temperature‑controlled container does not contain drugs. It really is a heart. Every minute it stays at room temperature, the transplant success rate drops by ten percent. The recipient is a seventy‑two‑year‑old man with multiple organ failure. This is his last chance.” The interrogator remained expressionless. “The evidence cannot be returned until the test results are in.” “It is not drugs. It really is not.” Tears streamed down my face as I broke down. “Call our hospital. Call Dr. McGrath. He can vouch for me. The entire surgical team of seventeen people worked from three in the morning to eight in the morning to remove this heart.” The interrogator glanced at his colleague and hesitated. “We can contact your hospital to verify, and you must stay here until the results are in.” I nodded repeatedly. “Okay. I will not leave. Call now.” The interrogator pulled out his phone and handed it to me. “Dial the numbers yourself and put it on speaker.” My hands trembled as I dialed Dennis McGrath’s number. It rang twice before he answered, and Dennis’s anxious voice came through. “Vivienne, where are you? The neighboring province urged us eight times. The recipient’s blood pressure dropped to sixty.” I cried out, “Dr. McGrath, I am being held in the interrogation room at the express train station. Ariana reported me for drug trafficking. The heart fell out. They are testing it. You need to tell the police that it is a donor heart, not drugs.” Dennis yelled, “Damn it. Which interrogation room? I am switching to video calling right now.” The interrogator nodded, and I switched to video call. Dennis’s face appeared on the screen. Behind him was the hospital director’s office, with his medical license and several awards on the wall. “Officer, I am Dennis, the head of Citizen Hospital. Vivienne Linch is the head of our organ transplant department. There was a donor heart retrieval surgery this morning. I can provide all surgical records and the organ allocation system number.” Chapter 3 I said, “That heart is legal. It was distributed through the Red Cross organ donation system. All required ethics approvals are in place.” The interrogator’s expression softened a little. He was about to speak when the sound of high‑heeled shoes hitting the floor came from outside. Ariana pushed the door open and walked in, holding a cup of milk tea from an automatic vending machine. She took a sip. “Oh, are you already calling in reinforcements?” She walked to my side, bent over to look at the phone screen, and sneered. “Officer, do not be fooled. This so‑called Dr. McGrath was her old lover. They have been colluding to sell organs for several years. My older brother obtained the evidence and plans to report it to the disciplinary committee tomorrow. She is in a hurry to run away today to get this shipment out before everything came to light.” Dennis’s face turned pale with anger on the screen. “Nonsense. What are you doing? Who is this woman?” Ariana tilted her head toward the camera. “I am her sister‑in‑law and a representative of the victim’s family. Dr. McGrath, nice acting. You even chose a believable backdrop. I am telling you, AI face‑swapping technology is advanced. Who knows if the person on the screen is real? Maybe you are sitting in a rental house in front of a green screen.” The interrogator’s expression tensed again. “Video calls cannot be regarded as direct evidence.” Ariana urged him. “Then what are you waiting for? Dismantle that container and conduct tests. I am telling you, there must be a hidden layer inside, and the drugs are in it.” The interrogator hesitated before picking up the walkie‑talkie. “Lab, disassemble and inspect the temperature‑controlled container for any hidden compartments.” “No.” I lunged toward the door. “Do not disassemble it. The container is already cracked. Disassembling it will ruin the heart.” Two policemen held me down as I twisted and struggled. Fifteen minutes later, the lab technicians entered with a tray. On the tray was the heart removed from the sterile bag. It had been exposed to room temperature for nearly thirty minutes. The surface had changed from bright red to dark purple. The technician handed over the report. “No prohibited substances detected. The liquid in the sterile bag is standard organ preservation fluid. There are no hidden compartments in the container. This is a human heart.” The interrogation room fell silent. Ariana paused while sipping her milk tea, and she tried to act calm. “That does not mean she did not smuggle organs. Who would be so secretive about legal organs?” No one responded to her. The interrogator’s face turned grim. He looked at the discolored heart, then at the lab report, and sweat formed on his forehead. I slumped into the chair and stared at the heart on the tray. Thirty minutes of exposure to room temperature and the loss of the preservation solution had destroyed the sterile environment. It was doomed. The heart was completely useless. My mouth hung open, and I could not speak. Tears streamed down my face. Seven hundred kilometers away, a seventy‑two‑year‑old man lay on an operating table with his chest open, waiting for this heart to save his life. He could not wait any longer. The digital clock on the wall showed 11:47. The express train had left forty minutes earlier. Even if the heart had not been damaged, it was too late. I leaned against the interrogation room wall, trembling. My phone vibrated nonstop in my pocket. The interrogator glanced at me and did not stop me. I pulled out my phone. The screen was full of missed calls: twenty‑three from the neighboring province’s Central Hospital, eleven from Dennis, six from the head nurse, and a long list of text messages. The phone rang again before I could read them. The caller ID showed Alex Fedric from the neighboring province’s Central Hospital intensive care unit. I answered shakily and put the call on speaker. “Dr. Linch. Where is the heart? Where on earth is the heart?” Chapter 4 Alex’s voice sounded completely hoarse. “The recipient has been put on ECMO, but he will not last long. His liver and kidneys have begun to fail. The entire surgical team of thirty people has waited here for four hours. Tell me when the heart will arrive.” I opened my mouth, and no words came out. I wondered how I could tell him. I wondered how I could tell him that the heart was already a discolored piece of dead tissue on the tray in the interrogation room. My voice trembled. “Dr. Fedric, the heart… the heart has…” I could not finish. I burst into tears and covered my face. There was silence on the other end of the phone for a long time. It lasted so long that I thought the signal was gone. Alex finally spoke in a low voice. “Vivienne, do you know who this recipient is? Do you know how long the entire hospital has prepared for this surgery? Do you know…” A rapid alarm cut him off. Beep, beep, beep. A nurse shouted in the background. “Blood pressure cannot be measured. Heart rate has dropped to zero. Dr. Fedric, the ECMO is failing.” Alex did not respond. Chaotic footsteps, instrument noises, and shouts filled the call. After two minutes, Alex picked up the phone again. His tone was flat. “Vivienne, the recipient suffered heart failure at eleven fifty‑one in the morning and is declared dead. You are on your own.” The call ended. I leaned against the wall as my body sank downward. My tears had dried. My eyes felt sore, and every joint in my body ached. It was a human life. He was seventy‑two years old. The matching heart he had waited eight months for was gone. The interrogator kept his head down and avoided my eyes. A cold sneer came from beside me. Ariana put down her milk tea and clapped her hands. “Are you done acting?” She stood from her chair and stretched. “Vivienne, your acting skills are wasted on the operating table. What dead recipient? What heart failure? I bet these are paid actors. Even funeral home voiceovers are not this professional.” She walked up to me, squatted down, and tapped my forehead with her fingertip. “Vivienne, stop playing the victim. Do you think you can turn things around by crying? Half a million people watched today’s live stream, and your drug‑dealing doctor hashtag is trending. Your career is over.” I snapped out of my daze and looked up at her. “Ariana, this is a human life. A living, breathing human life. He is dead because of your kick. How can you live with yourself?” Ariana paused for a moment, then burst into laughter. She laughed so hard she almost fell over. “Conscience? What is my conscience worth? Vivienne, do not try to scare me with dead people. People die in hospitals every day. One more or one less makes no difference. Besides, who knows if that old man is dead or alive? Maybe he is perfectly fine. You are trying to morally blackmail me.” She straightened up, took out her phone, glanced at it, and pursed her lips. “Speaking of which, Vivienne, let us not push things too far. My brother is still waiting for news at home.” She walked closer and lowered her voice. “You know my brother and you have been married for three years, and that demolition compensation house has always been in your name. My dad’s medical expenses of three hundred thousand dollars came from that house. Now that my dad is gone, should you not return that house to us?” I stared at her with wide eyes. “You caused this scene at the express train station today just for that house?” Ariana nodded. “Or what? Do you think I followed you here for no reason?” Chapter 5 Ariana said, “My brother said if you refused when we discussed this with you, then we would have to resort to force. You are suspended now, and your reputation is ruined. Keeping the house will not help you. Sign here and transfer the property title to my name. Then I will withdraw the complaint and help you clear your name online. How about you sign it?” She shook her phone. On the screen was a screenshot of the live stream from earlier, showing me kneeling on the ground with blood on my face. “If you do not sign it, I will post these photos in your hospital group chat. You will not be able to perform surgery. You will be buried under public criticism.” I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms. It became clear. Ariana had never come to report drugs. Her goal was not the container. Her goal was the house I had purchased with ten years of salary. The seventy‑two‑year‑old man and the heart that could have saved his life were only tools she used to force me to comply. “Ariana, do you know that you killed someone today? Do you know how important that person was?” Ariana rolled her eyes. “Stop talking nonsense. I am asking if you will sign or not. If you will not, I am leaving. I will do another live stream before I leave. This time, I will say that you not only trafficked drugs, but you also accepted bribes from patients’ families.” Bang. The iron door of the interrogation room slammed open. The hinge scraped loudly. The sound of hurried, synchronized footsteps came from the corridor. They were not leather shoes. They were military boots. Thud, thud, thud. The sound grew louder until it shook the walls. Ariana jumped. Her milk tea fell to the floor and splashed across her skirt. “What is that commotion outside?” A dozen heavily armed special forces soldiers stormed into the interrogation room. They wore bulletproof vests and night vision goggles. Tactical flashlights hung from the muzzles of their guns, and the beams flickered across the walls. “Everyone stay still. Hands over your heads.” The interrogator and Ariana were forced to the ground. A female soldier escorted me to the wall. The leading officer strode in. He wore a uniform with a gold star on his shoulder. He was a Major General. His eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were pressed into a thin line. His gaze swept across the room and stopped at the tray on the table. He stared at the destroyed heart, now dark purple. His back stiffened. He turned his head and looked at everyone in the room before his eyes locked onto Ariana. “It is you?” he asked in a low voice. Ariana was pinned to the ground with her cheek pressed against the tiles. Her eyes darted around. “Who are you? What is this act? Let me go. I am calling the police.” The Major General walked up to her and knelt. He spoke through clenched teeth. “Did you kick over the temperature‑controlled container?” Ariana lifted her chin. “So what if I kicked it? That container had drugs. My report was meritorious.” The Major General closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were red‑rimmed. He stood and addressed the entire room. His voice was firm and steady. “The recipient of that heart was Academician Arthur Quinn of the Academy of Engineering. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor for the bombs and satellite programme and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award. Mr. Quinn dedicated his life to the country. He died on the operating table fifteen minutes after the heart never arrived.” He turned and stared at Ariana’s face, smeared with milk tea. “It was you who killed Mr. Quinn.”