When Volkov and Novak returned to St. Elias Hospital, the hallway was cordoned off.

  Too fast.

  "Cardiac arrest," a doctor reported without looking directly at them. "Nothing could be done."

  Volkov entered the room without permission. The body was still there, covered up to the chest. The monitor displayed a flat line that had already been turned off.

  "What time did it happen?" Novak asked.

  "Twelve minutes ago."

  Novak checked his phone. The notification had arrived seventeen minutes earlier.

  A five-minute difference.

  Volkov noticed something else: the IV had been changed. The bag was almost empty, but the label looked freshly applied.

  "What medication did he receive before the arrest?" he asked.

  The doctor hesitated for barely a second.

  "Normal settings. Light sedation. He was agitated."

  "Agitated because he said something," Volkov replied.

  The doctor didn't answer.

  Novak approached the auxiliary monitor. He checked the team's internal log.

  "Marek…" he murmured. "The rate started to drop before the supposed shutdown. But someone deleted three minutes of data."

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  Volkov wasn't surprised.

  "Who has access to modify that?"

  "Medical administration. High level."

  At that moment, a young nurse appeared in the doorway. She wasn't the same one as before. Her hands were trembling.

  "Detective…" she whispered. "He wasn't that bad."

  Volkov looked at her calmly.

  "Explain yourself."

  "Since he arrived, everyone who's transferred here… receives the same protocol. They adjust the dosage. They keep them sedated. They say it's for their stability, but…"

  "But they die," Novak finished.

  She nodded.

  “Before they die, many say similar things. That they remember something. That they saw something. That it wasn’t an accident.”

  Volkov felt the pieces beginning to fall into place.

  “Accident of what?”

  “Road accidents. Factory accidents. Fire accidents. Each one different… but all with incomplete reports.”

  Novak opened a digital folder and began cross-referencing data.

  “Marek, listen to this. The ‘accidents’ happened in different places… but they’re all linked to the same construction company. Urban Infrastructure.”

  Volkov slowly looked up.

  “Name?”

  Novak rotated the screen.

  Helix Urban Group.

  Volkov knew that name. It had appeared years ago in a case closed for lack of evidence. A structural collapse. Officially, minor negligence.

  Unofficially… witnesses who disappeared.

  “They’re not killing the sick,” Volkov said quietly. “They’re eliminating survivors.”

  At that moment, Novak's phone vibrated again.

  "Marek… Central Hospital just issued a transfer order for another patient involved in an 'industrial accident.'"

  Volkov stared at the body in front of him.

  "They're not bringing him here."

  "What do we do?"

  For the first time since the case began, Volkov showed something close to urgency.

  "We go ahead."

  As they left the hospital, the nurse spoke again, barely audible:

  "They check the records before anyone else. If they know you're investigating..."

  She didn't finish the sentence.

  Because at that moment, at the end of the corridor, the administrator was watching them.

  Without a smile.

  Once in the car, Novak broke the silence:

  "If Helix is ??behind this, this is bigger than a hospital."

  Volkov started the engine.

  "It's not a hospital. It's a filter."

  "A filter for what?"

  Volkov glanced in the rearview mirror.

  "For memory."

  And this time, they weren't chasing a killer.

  They were interfering with a system designed so that no one would survive long enough to tell what they saw.