Extinction Horizon by Smith Nicholas Sansbury

Author:Smith, Nicholas Sansbury
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-12-28T16:00:00+00:00

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Colonel Gibson choked back a cough before taking another drag. His hand shook as he brought the cigarette to his lips.

Closing his eyes, he sucked in the smoke, holding it before exhaling through his nostrils. He pressed the glowing red end into an ashtray on his desk and then leaned forward to his keyboard.

He’d listened to the audio message Dr. Medford had sent shortly before Building 8 went dark more than a dozen times now. Memorizing the words. Five of which stuck in his mind.

Viral weapon is too contagious.

Gibson dug inside his chest pocket for his smokes and wedged another cigarette into his mouth. He leaned closer to his computer and keyed in his security credentials so he could play Medford’s encrypted message again. The doctor’s soft voice spilled out of the speakers a moment later.

“Colonel Gibson, it’s Isaac Medford. Got an update for you. I’ve finally made a breakthrough. After months of work, I was able to successfully bond VX-99 with the Ebola virus. My only fear is that the viral weapon is too contagious. I doubt anyone will be able to link it back to the United States. I’ve used a highly synthesized protocol designed to make the virus look like it was formed in nature, but a good scientist will probably be able to determine it was lab-engineered. I’m sending Jim Pinkman to Fort Detrick to brief you personally.”

Gibson let the cigarette sag from his lips. “My God,” he muttered, remembering the call he’d made to Medford days before. The call that required a series of codes—the call that he’d waited on for nearly an hour before he realized no one was going to pick up at Building 8.

Now the country he loved, the country he’d fought so hard to protect over a lifetime career with the Medical Corps, was collapsing right in front of him. And no matter how anyone sold the story, he was the one to blame. He had kept the secret chemical and biological weapons program going at Building 8 and several other locations.

He’d done so to protect America against her enemies. He wasn’t one of the ignorant fools that believed Russia and China had stopped developing chemical weapons back in the ‘90s. They had massive stockpiles of the nastiest shit known to man—stuff that could melt eyeballs and make you cough out a lung.

Gibson watched the smoke drift around his monitor. He knew people would call him a monster, but they would never understand why he’d continued the VX-99 program. His vision was simple: Create a bioweapon that could be deployed discreetly in hot spots abroad.

Jihadist groups such as Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS instantly came to mind. VX-99 was supposed to reduce the need to send U.S. soldiers abroad. The program he’d developed over the years was built around that vision. He’d dreamed of a weapon that could be used on foreign soil to kill enemy targets and then fizzle out with minimal civilian casualties. It would be untraceable.

As the

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