The Poseidon Initiative

The Poseidon Initiative Read Free Page A

Book: The Poseidon Initiative Read Free
Author: Rick Chesler
Tags: thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Military, War
Ads: Link
the pad. “The police came and took a standard report. They said they’re looking for the men. Officials from my university stopped by but they only seemed concerned about liability. They told me how my elevated security request for working with the modified STX hadn’t been approved yet.”
    But Tanner was having trouble focusing.
Dark skin, speak Dutch…terror…
The name
Hofstad
rode the nerve impulses through his brain.
    Although he was no longer with the FBI, Tanner Wilson was a veteran Special Agent having served for a dozen years — two as a field agent and then a decade as a counter-terror specialist. Though not as well known as Al Qaida, Hofstad had been committing local level acts of deadly terrorism from their base near The Hague, Netherland’s seat of government, for at least a decade. They had loose ties throughout Europe, and although the group was never at the top of Tanner’s watch lists while working in the FBI’s vaunted Counter-Terror division, they were usually on the list — somewhere near the bottom, perhaps even dropping off for a while, only to claw back up to the bottom rungs.
    “Jasmijn, tell me more about STX. I’m not familiar with that. What is it?”
    “Saxitoxin, a potent neurotoxin. It’s derived from marine microorganisms that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning. I was working with a genetically enhanced dinoflagellate population to influence the STX to target cancer cells, but it turns out all I really did was to make the toxin even more potent.” She told him about how all of her lab animals died from it.
    “So how exactly did they kill your lab assistant with it?”
    “They sprayed it on him from some kind of mister attached to the vat they transferred it to.”
    The word
aerosolized
hopped on the neuron train in Tanner’s brain.
    “And tell me exactly what your assistant’s symptoms were?” He immediately regretted the question as he heard her begin to cry softly.
    “Never mind, that can wait if you—”
    “No, it’s okay. If anyone can help me it would be you. You see, Tanner, I haven’t told you the worst of it yet. I didn’t call you just to cry on your shoulder. I’m in trouble.”
    “Go on.”
    He heard her take a measured breath. “As soon as they left, I called 1-1-2—that’s like 911 in your country — knowing it would do no good, since there is no known antidote for even naturally occurring STX, and mine is slightly modified. But I’ve been working off and on on an antidote — so as to understand this compound as thoroughly as possible, not to mention to create a safety factor for my own lab. As soon as they left I immediately set up my latest antidote samples — unproven samples that were simply the next iteration from the last batch that failed miserably. I had no other recourse. Even to set that up required almost twenty minutes and toward the end Nicolaas was convulsing on the floor, banging his feet, which had just been shot, into the lab benches. But I couldn’t stop to help him, I had to prepare—” She broke up into a crying jag. Tanner waited, consulting a device that displayed the security status of his home line as he did so.
    Green light. So far so good.
    “By the time I had the experimental antidote ready to administer, Nicolaas’ face was turning purple and he was unable to talk or move. I knew that he had mere seconds before his muscles were so paralyzed that he wouldn’t even be able to breathe. I injected him with the antidote, and then…” She choked back a sob.
    “He didn’t make it,” Tanner finished for her.
    “No! His eyes opened for a brief second and I thought, maybe — I—”
    “You did your best.”
    “The emergency responders arrived right after that. They tried to resuscitate him but it was no use.” She paused for a moment, composing herself, and then continued. “The terrorists said they’ll be back for me, Tanner, and when they come if I don’t have the working antidote ready, they’ll kill me.

Similar Books

The Ship of Lost Souls 1

Rachelle Delaney

2 Grand Delusion

Matt Witten

Tom's Angel

Linda George

Rotten Apple

Rebecca Eckler

Out of the Mist

EvergreenWritersGroup