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"And they sed the story?"

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"They had no reason not to," said Bass "Besides the President, Secretary of Defense Wilson, and myself and a handful of scientists, no one else knew exactly what Vetterly had discovered As far as the Joint Chiefs were concerned, the project was sily realical warfare They suffered no qual it off as a failure"

"What was the purpose of circu the armed-forces power structure?"

"Eisenhoas an old soldier who abhorred mass-kill weapons" Bass seehts "I a member of the Quick Death Team," he continued slowly "Unhappily, the secret will not die with me, as I had once hoped, because Mr Pitt, here, accidentally discovered a long-lost source of the disease strain I did not bare the facts then-nor will I now-to the on, for fear that they would consider recovering Vixen 03's cargo and storing it, in the naht be unleashed against a future enemy"

"But surely if it ca our country" Sandecker protested

Bass shook his head "I don't think you understand the true horror of the Quick Death organis known can impede its deadly effects Allow me to cite an illustration: if five ounces of QD were delivered over Manhattan Island, the organisht percent of the population within four hours And no one, gentlemen, no human, could set foot on the island for over three centuries Future generations could only stand on the New Jersey shore and watch the once-s erode and crumble over the bones of their former inhabitants"

The other men around the table paled; their blood ran cold For a while no one spoke They sat frozen, visualizing a city ento three million corpses It was Pitt who finally broke the uneasy silence

"The people in Brooklyn and the Bronx-they would not be affected?"

"QD organisely, they do not travel by human contact or by the wind They tend to stay localized Of course, if enough of the biological agent were delivered by aircraft or rockets, theoretically blanketing all of North America, the entire continent would become barren of all human life until the year 2300"

"Is there nothing that can kill QD?" asked Steiger

"H-two-oh," answered Bass "The organisen content You ht say it suffocates when immersed in water, just as we do"

"It strikes me as odd that Vetterly was the only one who kne to produce it" This from Pitt

Bass smiled thinly "I would have never permitted one man to keep the critical data to himself"

"So you destroyed the doctor's records"