Free Immortality by Kevin Bohacz

brainstems. The region controlling respiration and heart were disconnected by microscopic cuts to key nerves. Toxicology is completely negative. This nerve damage is the cause of death, but I have no idea how it happened. The microscopic incisions were not caused by anything mechanical, and I can’t figure out how a chemical agent could have dissolved fibers without affecting adjacent tissue.”
    “So you’ve decided it’s not a chemical toxin,” said Jeffrey. “The only thing left is biological. Does this mean you’ve come over to my side?”
    “I can’t see how a bacterium or virus could have done this either. It’s just too clean.”
    “What, no little teeth marks?” said Jeffrey.
5 – The Nevada Desert: November
    The Army helicopter bucked through an air thermal, dropping a good ten feet. General James H. McKafferty didn’t blink, didn’t flinch, he barely even noticed. The same was not true for the other four passengers who sat opposite him in the forward facing seats. Their faces were pale and clammy, as if all the blood had drained to lower parts of their bodies. McKafferty smiled at their weakness. Civilians, he thought. He was a bear of a man at six three and two hundred forty pounds.
    The United States Senator glanced at him, then turned away with a trace of fear in his eyes. McKafferty was a truly ugly man. He knew this and liked the power it gave him. He had gotten that look of fear from others all day long and all the days of his life. His face was large and quarter moon shaped on profile. A pair of jug ears stuck out rudely from below a peach fuzz of gray hair. His skin had a ruddy leather complexion from too much booze and fistfights.
    There was a black and gold braided insignia on his jacket just below his shoulder. The emblem contained a cobra coiled around a sword with the letters BARDCOM below it. This was McKafferty’s command: Biological Armaments Research and Development Command.
    “We should be reaching The Zone in a few more minutes,” said McKafferty.
    Senator Kitridge nodded, then continued looking out his window. Their destination was out in the middle of the desert on property annexed by Nellis Air Force base more than two decades ago. This was BARDCOM’s primary facility. The site was so highly classified that it did not exist.
    McKafferty had picked up the Senator at McCarrin Airport thirty minutes ago. The Senator had arrived in a Lear Jet owned by Caesar’s World. This was his third trip to Vegas this year. He was the ranking member of the Defense Appropriations Committee and had oversight authority on McKafferty’s command.
    Across the left windows, the peaks that ringed Las Vegas like a giant crater drifted past. McKafferty forced a smile at the Senator’s aide, a woman in her early twenties. She looked away also with that hint of fear he recognized as matter-of-factly as others noticed the weather or the temperature of their food. She’d have to be parked somewhere before he and the Senator finished their tour.
     
    As The Zone came into view, McKafferty described it for the benefit of the passengers who were making their first tour. The structure looked like an octagonal concrete slab that had been dropped from the sky into the middle of endless sand. The structure measured eight hundred feet across with one story above ground and six below. The only markings were the white outlines of a helicopter pad on the roof. There were no roads. All supplies and personnel came by air. Ten thousand men and women were stationed there on permanent assignment; half were scientists, the other half soldiers. The facility was the size of a small town.
    A coded message had come in a few minutes ago. The contents had left McKafferty distracted. He recited his welcome speech but his mind was on the Sea Wolf incident. The salvage operation had gone smoothly. A pair of deep submersibles had dropped down onto the sub. Luckily, it had settled onto a ledge that was only a thousand feet down.