Chapter 3: The War Council

Chapter 3: The War Council

The conversation with Dr. Vance had changed the chemical composition of Leo's anger. The hot, personal fury directed at Isabella di Stefano had cooled and hardened into something sharp, cold, and lethally focused. This was no longer a battle of wills over a parking spot. It was a tactical problem with a human cost. A seven-year-old girl was the objective, and a crimson Lancia was the barricade.

His first call was a long shot, a protocol-mandated suicide mission. He dialed the Director’s office. A crisp, professionally indifferent female voice answered.

"Director di Stefano's office."

"This is Leo Rossi in Warehouse Management. I have an urgent operational matter for the Director. A vehicle is obstructing a critical medical delivery."

"The Director is at lunch. Can I take a message?"

"This can't wait for a message," Leo insisted, keeping his voice level. "The vehicle belongs to Mrs. di Stefano. It's blocking the—"

"Mr. Rossi," the secretary's voice dropped ten degrees, "the Director is unavailable. I will be sure to inform him of your... concern... when he returns." The click of the phone was deafeningly final. The castle walls were strong.

His second call was to Frank at Security, a last, desperate plea. "Frank, it's Leo. The red Fiat is back."

"I saw," Frank's voice was a miserable whisper. "My guys are under orders not to go near it."

"There's a 35-ton rig coming, Frank. It's carrying a pediatric ECMO machine. A kid's life is on the line."

There was a genuine anguish in Frank's sigh. "Leo, I swear to God, if I could do anything, I would. But the order came from the Director's office after you called. 'Mrs. di Stefano is a guest of the hospital. Afford her every courtesy.' That's a direct quote. My guys so much as look at her car with a tow hook, they're fired. I'm sorry."

That was it. All official channels were sealed. The system wasn't just failing; it was actively protecting the obstruction. Leo hung up the phone and stared through the glass of his office at the loading dock below. His kingdom. His responsibility. He'd been taught in the army that when the chain of command fails, the man on the ground has to act to complete the mission.

He keyed his radio. "Marco, Sal. My office. Now." Then he picked up the phone again and dialed the maintenance department's direct line. "Gus? Leo Rossi. Can you come down to the warehouse breakroom? I've got a problem your particular brand of genius might be able to solve."

Five minutes later, the war council was assembled.

The breakroom was the forgotten corner of Leo’s kingdom. The air was thick with the ghosts of a thousand microwaved burritos and the scent of bitter, burnt coffee. A single fluorescent tube flickered overhead, casting a sickly light on the scarred linoleum floor and the mismatched collection of chairs huddled around a Formica table. On the wall, a greasy calendar from a forklift parts supplier featured a smiling woman in a bikini who seemed wildly out of place.

Marco, young and coiled with restless energy, paced by the grimy coffee machine. Sal, a veteran of the docks with twenty years of service etched into the lines on his face, sat hunched over, nervously stirring a cup of instant coffee. And then there was Gus, the maintenance chief. He was a small, wiry man in his late sixties, with grease permanently embedded in the cracks of his knuckles and a cynical glint in his eyes that suggested he'd seen every form of institutional stupidity the hospital could invent.

"Alright," Leo began, shutting the door. He laid it all out. The car, Isabella's contemptuous dismissal, the uselessness of security, and the stonewalling from the Director's office. He finished with the most important part. "Dr. Vance was just here. There's a truck inbound, ETA less than an hour. It's carrying a specialized heart-lung machine for a seven-year-old girl in the PICU. She says it's the kid's last shot. The truck is a 35-ton rig. It needs this entire bay to offload. And that," he pointed through the grimy window at the crimson car, "is sitting right where the crane needs to set its outriggers."

A heavy silence fell over the room. Sal stared into his coffee cup as if searching for an answer in the black liquid.

Marco broke the quiet, cracking his knuckles. "So what're we waiting for? There's four of us. Let's just get on one side of it and bounce the damn thing into the alley."

Gus snorted, a dry, rattling sound. "You do that, kid, and you'll set off the car alarm, scratch the paint, and probably rupture a tire. She'll have you arrested for vandalism before you can even wipe the sweat off your brow. You'll be fired so fast your grandkids will feel it."

"Sal?" Leo asked, looking at the older man.

Sal shook his head slowly. "We call the cops. The real cops, not hospital security. Tell 'em it's a hazard."

"And the first thing they'll do is run the plate," Leo countered, the bitter taste of his earlier phone calls still in his mouth. "DI STEFANO 1. They'll make a call to the Director, and he'll personally assure them it'll be moved shortly. They'll log the call and drive away. We'll still be standing here with a blocked bay when that truck arrives."

The flickering fluorescent light hummed, marking the seconds ticking away. Desperation began to creep into the room. They were grunts, the invisible men who made the hospital run, and they were utterly powerless against a woman whose only skill was having been born into the right family.

"This is on me," Leo said, his voice low and firm, drawing their eyes. "But I need your help. Gus, you know every piece of heavy machinery in this place better than you know your own wife. What have we got?"

Gus leaned back, a slow, calculating smile spreading across his face for the first time. The cynical glint in his eye sharpened into something brighter, something dangerous. "Well," he mused, "there's Old Bessie."

Old Bessie was the Clark C500, the biggest, meanest forklift in their arsenal. A ten-ton diesel beast, mostly used for shifting the backup generators.

"Bessie can lift five tons without breaking a sweat," Gus continued. "That little Lancia… she can't weigh more than a ton. We could pick it up like a toy."

"Okay," Leo said, leaning forward, his mind racing. "We lift it. Where do we put it? We can't just move it to another spot on the dock."

"The street?" Marco suggested.

"She'll just say one of us hot-wired it and moved it," Sal countered, shaking his head. "It's our word against hers. Guess who they'll believe?"

They were stuck. They could move the car, but they couldn't do it without getting caught or creating a situation they'd be blamed for. Leo stared out the window, past the Fiat, towards the main hospital building. He thought of Isabella sweeping away, so certain of her power, so sure that the world would bend to her will. She believed she was untouchable because she operated in a world of influence and whispers. The solution, he realized, wasn't to hide what they did. The solution was to make it so public, so undeniable, that no amount of influence could quietly sweep it away.

A wild, audacious idea sparked in his mind. "Gus," he said, turning from the window. "How precise can you be with Old Bessie?"

Gus grinned. "I can pick a dime off the floor with those forks."

"Good," Leo said, a feral smile of his own touching his lips. "Because we're not just going to move her car. We're going to give it a place of honor." He strode over to a dusty corkboard where faded hospital site plans were pinned up. He jabbed a finger at the center of the main building's entrance. "Right there. In the middle of the roundabout, right in front of the main entrance fountain."

Marco’s jaw dropped. Sal looked like he was going to have a heart attack.

"It's a perfect plan," Leo explained, his voice crackling with energy. "We're not damaging it. We're not stealing it. We're relocating an illegally parked vehicle that was posing a public health risk. We place it dead center, where no tow truck can get to it without a crane. It'll block the entire entrance. The Director, the board members, every visitor will see it. She can't claim it was stolen. She can't claim it was vandalized. She'll have to explain to the entire world why her car is sitting in the middle of a fountain roundabout, and we'll have a hundred witnesses who saw us do it to clear the way for a life-saving medical delivery."

The sheer insanity of it was breathtaking. It was an act of logistical jujitsu, using the car's own weight and position against its owner.

Marco started to laugh, a deep, booming sound of pure joy. "Holy crap, boss. That's... beautiful."

Sal was pale, but a slow nod of agreement showed he was in. The injustice had finally outweighed the fear.

Gus just rubbed his greasy hands together. "She wanted to be the center of attention. Let's give her what she wants."

"Alright then," Leo said, clapping his hands together. "The truck will be here in forty-five minutes. Let's get Old Bessie fired up." He looked at the faces of his men, united in a conspiracy born of desperation and a shared desire for justice. "Let's call it... Operation Trojan Fiat."