Michael Malone - Weebly

to his Washington visitors before their departure, flawed
only temporarily by its extremely short-lived
effectiveness. For once released into the atmosphere, it
killed everything within its immediate radius, but it was
potent only for thirty minutes before structural
decomposition took place.
Svatopluk had been certain it would work. Sadly,
as with many scientists before him, Truth had to suffice
as its own reward.
But he had been right. Precisely at 2:07, thirty-four
minutes after the tail rotor of an army helicopter had
splattered Dr. Thomas Svatopluk against a tree trunk
and smashed itself against a building (and approximately
twenty-nine minutes after the excruciatingly painful,
though rapid, demise of three biochemists, two
microbiologists, two virologists, one geneticist, two
pathologists, four lab assistants, three security guards,
one cook, one handyman, one custodian, and two
German shepherd dogs), Modified Q Fever No. 61
(New Q) suffered decomposition and left not a trace
behind. There were the corpses, of course; Polly
Hedgerow and Luke Packer had, on the following