Page 12 of Deadly Strain

“Yeah, he wants a report so he can decontaminate the village, pronto. He gave us another thirty minutes to finish up before he sends in a cleanup crew.”

“He can’t do that,” Grace protested. “Not until we’ve certain of the cause.”

“He seems to think he can.”

“What’s he planning to do?” she asked, not bothering to hide her derision. “Bomb the place?”

“Something like that.”

Grace mentally demoted Marshall to useless fuck. “Until I locate the source of the agent, we can’t decontaminate anything.” She looked at Sharp and Bart for support.

They looked back at her. Expressionless.

Men.

“Give me the phone.”

She must have sounded as irritated as she felt because Bart handed it over, then raised his hands as if washing them of the entire situation.

Grace punched in her commanding officer’s direct phone number.

He answered on the first ring. “Max.”

“Dr. Samuels here, sir. I’m at the site of the release of a probable anthrax attack. I believeweaponizedanthrax was released here, sir, but I haven’t figured out how it was introduced into this environment. Plus, it’s killing people in hours, Max,hours. Not days. And if the death rate is as high as I think it is, this could be a worst-case-scenario weapon.”

“Slow down, Grace,” Max ordered. “What’s got you in a panic? Our procedures can deal with this.”

“I need someone to talk Forward Operating Base Commander Marshall out ofcleaningthe site in approximately thirty minutes. I’ve also just discovered we have a possible secondary infection.”

“Secondary?”

“I won’t know until I take samples from one of the soldiers who found the bodies and have them analyzed. He may have been infected by the same spores as the dead villagers.”

“How many dead?”

“Sixty-eight.”

“How many alive?”

“None.” An impenetrable silence followed the word.

Finally, Max asked in an incredulous tone, “None?”

Grace swallowed to wet a throat gone dry. “Yes, sir. Like I said, it took less than seventeen hours for the infection to run its course. There’s also a possibility the strain killed thirty cows at the same time it was killing people.”

He swore. “I’ve never heard of a naturally occurring anthrax doing that within the time frame. Someone designed a nightmare.”

“That’s my feeling, as well, sir. Orders?”

“I’ll get in touch with Colonel Marshall and tell him to stand down on his cleanup plans. We can’t afford to do that until after we knowexactlywhat we’re dealing with, and we discover if this secondary infection is even the same contagion. Whatever this bug is, it’s too virulent, too deadly to skimp on confirming the identity of the pathogen and how it’s being transmitted. If we’re dealing with anthrax spores, they’re airborne. If their creator releases them in a densely populated area, we’d be looking a major disaster. It might only be another six to twelve hours to wait, but those are valuable hours to us. Have you got samples collected for lab verification?”

“Almost done. I just need to check on the discovery patrol members and get samples from them.”

“Good work. Do that, then get in a helicopter and get them to me as fast as you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anyone not involved in bringing the samples needs to stay in that village. No one else is allowed in or out.”

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