J. Porter Hamilton was the senior scientific officer of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute. It was said that he spoke only to God and the commanding general of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute, but only rarely deigned to do so to the latter.
Although he was triply entitled to be addressed as “Doctor”—he was a medical doctor, and also held a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Oxford and a Ph.D. in molecular physics from MIT—he preferred to be addressed as “Colonel.” He had graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point with the class of 1984 and thought of himself primarily as a soldier.
Colonel Hamilton had the reputation among the security force of being one really hard-nosed sonofabitch. This reputation was not pejorative, just a statement of the facts.
Colonel Hamilton—a very slim, very tall, ascetic-looking officer whose skin was deep flat black in color—showed the security guards where he wanted the biological hazard container placed on a table in his private laboratory.
After they’d left, he eyed the container curiously. It had been sent from the Daryl Laboratory in Miami, Florida. Just who they were didn’t come to mind. They had paid a small fortune for overnight shipment, which also was unusual.
He went to a closet, took off his uniform tunic, and replaced it with a white laboratory coat. He then pulled on a pair of very expensive gloves which looked like normal latex gloves, but were not.
“Sergeant Dennis!” he called.
Dennis was a U.S. Army master sergeant, a burly red-faced Irishman from Baltimore who functioned as sort of a secretary to Colonel Hamilton. Hamilton had recruited him from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Hamilton, doing what he thought of as his soldier’s duty, often served on medical boards at Walter Reed dealing with wounded soldiers who wanted—or who did not want—medical retirement. Dennis had been one of the latter. He did not wish to be retired although he had lost his left leg below the knee and his right arm at the shoulder.
There was no way, Hamilton had decided, that Dennis could return to the infantry. On the other hand, there was no reason he could not make himself useful around Building 103 at Fort Detrick, if that was the option to being retired. He made the offer and when Dennis accepted, he’d asked, “Can you arrange that, Colonel?”
“I can arrange it, Sergeant Dennis. The chief of staff has directed the Army to provide whatever I think I need for my laboratory. Just think of yourself as a human Erlenmeyer flask.”
Dennis appeared. “Sir?”
“What do we know of the Daryl Laboratory in Miami, Florida?”
“Never heard of it, sir.”
“Good. I was afraid that I was suffering another senior moment. Right after we see what this is, find out who they are and why they sent me whatever this is.”
“You want me to open it, Colonel?”
“I want you to cut the tape, thank you. I’ll open it.?
??
Dennis took a tactical folding knife from his pocket, fluidly flipped open the stainless-steel serrated blade, and expertly cut the plastic tape from the container.
Hamilton raised the lid.
Inside he found a second container. There was a large manila envelope taped to it, and addressed simply “Colonel Hamilton.”
Hamilton picked up the envelope and took from it two eight-by-ten-inch color photographs of six barrel-like objects. They were of a heavy plastic, dark blue in color, and also looked somewhat like beer kegs. On the kegs was a copy of The Miami Herald. The date could not be read in the first shot, but in the second photograph, a close-up, it was clearly visible: February 3, 2007.
“My God!” Colonel Hamilton said softly.
“Jesus Christ, Colonel,” Sergeant Dennis said, pointing. “Did you see that?”
Hamilton looked.
The envelope had covered a simple sign, and now it was visible: DANGER!!! BIOHAZARD LEVEL 4!!!
Of the four levels of biological hazards, one through four, the latter posed the greatest threat to human life from viruses and bacteria and had no vaccines or other treatments available.
Hamilton closed the lid on the container.
“Go to the closet and get two Level A hazmat suits.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Dennis asked.