The Elimination Threat by Michael Laurence

Author:Michael Laurence
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

39

JULY 4

They’d evacuated the entire Milstein Hospital Building, transporting emergent patients by ambulance to other critical-care facilities and cramming the remainder into every other nook and cranny throughout the hospital complex. The media seemed to be buying the story about a small fire on the third floor triggering the inadvertent release of radiation from the radiosurgery suite, which housed the Gamma Knife and radiation therapy unit, but it wouldn’t hold up to any kind of real scrutiny.

Mason donned a black tactical CBRN suit and waded through the bedlam to the room where Rand Marchment had been murdered, mere feet away from him. He hated the former deputy secretary of the DHS with every fiber of his being. He’d aided and abetted the Hoyl in his plot to unleash a virus capable of triggering an extinction-level event and run interference for the Scarecrow in her quest to release enough Novichok to kill everyone in Manhattan. He was a monster the likes of which few in the history of mankind could compare, and yet still he hadn’t deserved to die in such an awful manner.

The sheets were scorched and the body looked as though it had been cooked over a bonfire. The FBI’s Evidence Response Team couldn’t risk moving it until Locker had completed his documentation of the site, especially considering that even their most careful attempts to remove the blankets had resulted in layers of tissue peeling off with the fabric. A pair of special agents wielded RIIDs—radioisotope identification devices—that almost looked like bullhorns. The scintillation detectors used sodium iodide crystals to convert radiation into pulses of light, which were then transformed into electrical energy and processed to produce characteristic spectra that identified the invisible radionuclides lingering in the room.

“You should get out of here for a while,” Locker said, placing his hand on Mason’s shoulder and offering a reassuring squeeze. “This is going to take a while and you’re no good to anyone like this.”

“I was right here with him when he started to burn,” Mason said.

“Consider yourself fortunate that you weren’t any closer than you were.”

Mason nodded. The doctor and nurses who’d attempted to stabilize Marchment were down the hall being treated for radiation burns to their arms, chests, and faces. He’d never forget the horrible sounds of their screams and hoped to God they survived their injuries. The prospect of any of them dying from wounds sustained while trying to save Marchment made him physically ill.

“What have you found so far?” he asked.

“We’ve detected significant amounts of cesium-137 and hafnium-178, both of which are capable of producing gamma radiation, although it’s unclear how the killer was able to generate them at will and channel them into a coherent beam. I know DARPA looked into creating a gamma ray weapon by using X-rays to bombard hafnium in hopes of triggering transmutation, but as far as I know they weren’t successful.”

“Where does someone get these isotopes in the first place?” Mason asked.

“If this guy has access to uranium-235, he can create as much cesium-137 as he wants,” Locker said.

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