ONE MONTH SINCE BILL ROBERTS’S DEATH
Excerpt from FACTOR-7 by J.D. May
Sam tossed and turned that night. He thought
he must have looked at his clock fifty times and gotten up to pee just as many.
His mind reviewed the morning hours when Bill died. He thought about John
Albright and his history with him. He replayed everything that Rainee Arienzo
had told him. It was beginning to come together but was still so unbelievable.
It was what science fiction movies were made of and couldn’t be real life, but
then again, he knew the threat of biological warfare was real. It was considered
in the top three threats, right up there with nukes and cyberattacks. The world
had seen multiple novel viruses arise in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries. Were these Mother Nature’s hand at work or something else?
But what could a man-made pandemic achieve,
and how would it be played out? How could it be proven that the pathogen was
manufactured? And if it could be proven, would the major world governments even
report that or do anything about it? Panic would spread, causing world economic
and collateral devastation. If intentional like Rainee suggested, innocent
collateral damage would be a war crime, but who would prosecute? Sam had no
idea how he could help with stopping such an atrocity, especially if it was so
secret. Dr. Arienzo had no proof. Bill Roberts’s autopsy specimens and blood
had all been stolen and most likely destroyed. Where were the pictures taken
during the autopsy? Dr. Morris had been killed. Could he have known too
much? Sam wondered. There were no breadcrumbs to follow on Bill’s
death.
If the pathogen Factor-7 existed and existed
for the purpose that Rainee outlined, then the players might be about to engage
in the rawest barbarism, and what would Sam Hawkins, MD, do to stop it? So
rogue agents or not, there surely was someone in the United States government
who had heard about the threat of the Factor-7. No way could something this
large not be leaked. So perhaps if Sam did contact someone within the
government for help, they might already know. Would that be a good
thing or a bad thing? he asked himself. But if they knew the scope of
Factor-7 and feared the secret getting out, and Sam and Rainee knew about it,
then they could be seen as a detriment…a liability. They needed proof to tell
someone in the government, or they didn’t have a chance in hell of getting
anyone’s attention. And that proof could also be an insurance policy or a death
sentence. Maybe there was no proof. Maybe it was all a big hoax. But he knew
that was wishful thinking. If Albright and his cronies were willing to make a
bacteriophage to kill people they did not agree with, Sam’s life was not worth
a flyspeck to them. If those government officials in charge wanted complete
silence to avoid panic, then Sam and Rainee would equally be worthless to them.
But Sam knew deep in his heart that Rainee was right. They had to take a
chance. They were not people made to do nothing in the face of such an
atrocity. They must have proof. Yes, he convinced himself. Knowledge
could be dangerous, but knowledge could also save our lives.
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