Shadow of the Vial

“He’s insane! He tried to kill me! You mustn’t…” the man wheezed before losing consciousness. “Calm down sir. We’re here to help you.” The voice barely audible through the layers of the fully encapsulated bio-hazard suit. “Any idea what happened here?” asked another taller figure, clad in the same kind of suit. “Not really colonel. As best I can tell, there was some kind of agent release in here,” said the shorter one. Lieutenant Colonel Wilfred Mann had been an infectious disease pathologist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases also known as USAMRIID, for the past 12 years and never had he witnessed anything like what was now unfolding before him. “In here?” asked the colonel, “All readings show no contaminants, the scrubbers are clean, the airlock to the level 4 lab section was intact, and these men aren’t even suited up.” he said, pointing at the two men on the floor. “The emergency decontamination system was activated manually before…” the colonel interrupted the sergeant, “Manual activation of the system does not necessarily mean agent release in this case sergeant,” said Col. Mann, “and even if it was some kind of non persistent agent there should still be some trace of it. Unless…” “Unless the agent is not detectable with our equipment,” said the sergeant, finishing Col. Mann’s sentence.

Master Sergeant Sylvia Wright had worked with Col. Mann for 7 of the 12 years since the colonel arrived at USAMRIID. They quickly formed such a rapport that they almost knew what the other was thinking. “That’s correct sergeant,” the colonel responded, “which is why we will remain in total encapsulation and all level 4 containment protocols will be followed here until further notice.” “Yes sir!” said Sgt. Wright.

“What’s the deal with our two gentlemen?” asked the colonel. “I don’t know yet sir. This one bought the farm. The other guy barely had a pulse when we got here but the medic was able to stabilize him. He’s semi comatose. There’s a half mug of coffee and some cake over there on the table. There’s an empty syringe, an empty vial, and what appears to be a bag of saline solution there on the other table.” The colonel stopped her, “You don’t think they were experimenting on themselves do you sergeant?” “That thought crossed my mind but there’s also a dead Rhesus back there in its cage,” said Sgt. Wright. “We’re going to take everything here and ship it back for analysis, oh and colonel, we found a laptop on the floor near this man.” she said, pointing to the man the medics were putting into a special quarantine pod, “we’re running it through decon and we’ll have the IT people look at it ASAP.” “Great!” said Col. Mann,”hopefully we can use it to figure out what was going on here. Carry on.” he said as he turned and headed for the exit.

“What is going on here?” thought Col. Mann as he finished his decontamination process. “A level 4 bio facility where there shouldn’t be one, one man dead, one in a coma. And to top it off, instead of CDC and the authorities, they call USAMRIID in. This has covert op gone bad written all over it,” he thought as he finished putting on his uniform. His cell phone rang. “Colonel, this is General Mosley, I need a Sitrep,” the voice said. “One DOA, the other is being MEDEVAC’ed as we speak,” said the colonel. “We have another… Situation, two more scientists dead, this time in a lab explosion. It’s another level 4 colonel,” General Mosley said. “We have a helo warmed up and waiting for you colonel. I’ll speak with you again shortly.” The general broke the connection without waiting for a response. Things had just taken a turn for the worse for Lieutenant Colonel Wilfred Mann.

“So what do we have so far Sylvia?” asked Col. Mann. Addressing the sergeant in the informal way they talked to each other when not around subordinates. “This is strange Will,” she responded, “we’ve tested for every conceivable chemical and biological agent known to man. Hell! We even checked for radiological contamination and found nothing. Zero!” What about the other site?” asked the colonel. “The explosion destroyed nearly everything in the lab but they were able to recover partial data from one desktop computer hard drive. It’s a file named “Project Idunn”. NSA was able to crack the encryption but the damage has corrupted most of the info. They don’t know if they can recover it.” she explained. “What about the laptop?” asked Col Mann. “The access to it is heavily secured. It has a fingerprint reader and a neat little webcam that’s actually a retinal scanner. The eggheads removed the drive hoping they could access the info that way.” said Sgt. Wright. “And?” asked Col. Mann “Nothing!” she answered, “and check this out. No one from the NSA, FBI, DoD or anyone else for that matter has been able to crack the encryption.” Col. Mann looked disappointed. He knew right then this was going to be an uphill battle from here on.

“What about our guy in ICU?” he asked. “Lapsed into a full coma,” replied Sgt. Wright, “totally unresponsive,” she said, looking at the report in front of her. “But other than a few blood tests that were slightly off the mark, that man should be fine,” protested Col. Mann, “CT scans are normal and he has normal ECG readings. Also there was no sign of poisoning or infection in either man or the monkey but something got to them.” said Col. Mann, with a worried look on his face. “There’s more,” said Sgt. Wright. Now the colonel’s brow showed even deeper creases. “I looked for info on those two level 4 facilities and they aren’t registered in the CDC/USDA database. They don’t show up on our list either. And…” “Let me guess,” said Col. Mann, “when you looked for Project Idunn, you got the same results?” “No,” Sgt. Wright replied, “We have files right here in our database about that project.” she paused a moment for effect then continued, “here, take a look.” Col. Mann looked at the computer and saw the words: PROJECT IDUNN – TOP SECRET – RESTRICTED – EXECUTIVE LEVEL CLEARANCE REQUIRED. Col. Mann felt a tight knot forming in his stomach. He knew now without a doubt, this road was about to lead somewhere very unpleasant. Even he did not have the proper authorization to access the file. It was time to go and see General Mosley.

“Sir! Why didn’t you tell me about this project before?” Col. Mann asked. The anger evident in his voice. The general replied, “First of all, let me caution you on your bearing colonel. Now to answer your question not even I had access to this information. And I still don’t.” Col. Mann’s shoulders slumped in disbelief. “How could the head of USAMRIID not know about a project like this?” he asked. Gen. Mosley continued, “all I know is I received a call from the Secretary of Defense himself ordering me to give my total cooperation to the Director of CIA and keep it in the strictest confidence.” “That’s it? No paperwork?” asked a bewildered Col. Mann. “That’s it! Since then I have had virtually no access to any other info concerning this matter. They even changed all upper level access codes and brought in their own people.” said Gen. Mosley. “What about those facilities and why were WE sent to investigate?” asked Col. Mann. “Colonel, you are not to discuss this with anyone,” said the general as he handed Col. Mann a manilla folder. “What’s this?” “Off the record colonel, I think something very, very bad has happened.” came the reply. “So do I general… So do I,” said the colonel. “Dismissed colonel,” Gen. Mosley ordered. Col. Wright saluted his superior sharply, and left the office. As Col. Mann walked down the corridor, he opened the folder. On the first page in bold letters was: TOP SECRET – RESTRICTED – EXECUTIVE LEVEL CLEARANCE REQUIRED. At the top of the next page was: PROJECT IDUNN: BIO-WEAPONS RESEARCH DEPARTMENT, CLANDESTINE OPERATIONS DIVISION, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. The rest of the pages were heavily redacted. All he could think of now was some horrible disease unleashed on the public with no hope of developing a cure and the hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of deaths and of course, the stark denials by those responsible having any knowledge of what happened. His mind was made up. He would pursue this mystery. No matter where it leads.

Four months had passed and there was still no more information on what happened in those two labs that day. The data on the damaged hard drive was declared unrecoverable and the laptop, along with its hard drive had been – “accidentally” destroyed. “How convenient!” Col. Mann thought. At this point he would not be surprised if the next thing he heard was that the surviving scientist passed away from “unknown causes”. He began to reason with himself… Maybe it was best it all happened this way. As things stood, there was no reason for “them” to come after him and maybe, just maybe this project was a complete failure. With no chemicals or unknown pathogen released at all. Deep down inside though, he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling but what could he do now? There was virtually nothing to go on and the only one that might possibly be able to shed some light on what really happened was in a deep coma. His phone rang. “Col. Mann this is Sgt. Wright,” came the words from the earpiece, “our friend is awake and extremely talkative.” “I’ll be there right away,” said the colonel as a tight lipped grin appeared on his otherwise stern face.

Col. Mann, and Sgt. Wright had been there for the past two hours, listening intently as the doctor described what took place. “…and then I felt very sick. Like I never had in my entire life…,” the doctor said, “I remember him standing there with a syringe. I tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come out. I managed to activate the emergency decontamination system hoping that the alarm would bring help to me. Then I awoke here in this bed,” he finally ended, waving his arms about the room. Col. Mann stared at the man for a moment then said, “So it looks like your colleague intended to test the serum on you after you were overcome by the undetectable poison he gave you in your coffee. Then after the alarm went off, he panicked and for some reason decided to inject himself with the serum which killed him.” “It would seem so colonel,” said the man. “It looks like the whole experiment was a failure. As long as I still have all of the information on my laptop I shall be able to continue without…” “Doctor…” Col. Mann said, “I’m afraid your laptop is gone. I understand it was accidentally destroyed along with some obsolete computer hardware it somehow got mixed in with.” “Oh my!” exclaimed the doctor, “Without that laptop and with all the duplicate data destroyed in that explosion, I fear there is no way to remake the serum,” he lamented. “Especially with the loss of my poor friend. He was instrumental in the development of that project.” A hint of happiness crossed Col. Mann’s face then he said, “I’m sorry for the loss of not only your friend and fellow colleagues but your life’s work as well doctor.” “Thank you colonel. I guess some things are just not meant to be.” said the doctor. “I must say I have to agree with you doctor.” said Col. Mann thoughtfully.

“Well doctor, we thank you for taking the time to clear this up for us. It’s a shame that everything turned out this way though,” he said shooting a disgusted glance at Sgt. Wright.

As Col. Mann got up to leave, he turned and said, “I’m glad to see you’ve made a complete recovery doctor. It seemed like touch and go for a while there.” he said. “You could almost call it a miracle colonel. If one believed in such things.” the doctor responded with a tiny gleam in his eye. “You just might,” said the colonel, “if one believed,” he said to the doctor as he walked out of the room.

Col. Mann and Sgt. Wright stood waiting for the elevator. They had been silent since they left the interview with the doctor. As the elevator door opened, Sgt. Wright stopped in her tracks. “How did he know about the explosion Will? She asked, “Come on Sylvia,” said the colonel as he gently grabbed the sergeant by the arm. “It’s out of our hands now.”

“I hope we were able to make your stay here as comfortable as possible doctor,” said the young nurse with a bright smile. “Under the circumstances, it was quite accommodating, young lady,” answered the doctor smiling back. “If you’ll just sign here please,” requested the nurse. The doctor signed the paper and she handed him an envelope. With a polite thank you, the doctor turned and began walking away. “Doctor?” called out the nurse, “this is yours too.” she said. “Oh!” he said as she handed him the soft black case, “Don’t want to leave without this,” he said while opening the case to reveal a laptop computer. “Thank you very much,” said the doctor. The young nurse smiled again and said, “You’re very welcome and have a great day, Dr. DeVillineuve.


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