Yeah, process that for a moment.

In the decades since the Cold War ended, maniacs like Volker were semi-retired. A lot of them were given jobs in R and D projects tied to DARPA or in corporations doing government contract work. There was always supervision so they didn’t do anything hinky. Which is like saying condoms are one hundred percent effective.

So, Volker said he wanted to stay active and asked for a job as a doctor in a super-max prison. Sew up some tough guys after yard brawls and maybe do some quiet research on the side with “test subjects” who wouldn’t complain a whole lot. Wasn’t supposed to be working on anything within a million miles of Lucifer. What his handler failed to grasp was that Volker had history apart from his work with the Soviet bioweapons lab. Family members of his had been torn apart by a serial killer, and that left him scarred. Or, maybe “warped” is a better word. His hatred of those kinds of predators was the fuel that fired his engines, but also consumed his humanity.

When a particularly vicious serial murderer came up for lethal injection, Volker decided to get a little of his own brand of revenge. He replaced the usual chemical cocktail with a brand-new version of the one he’d helped develop—Lucifer 113. His plan? He wanted the killer to go into the ground and then reanimate inside his coffin. Awake, aware, connected to all five senses, but totally unable to control his body. He would lie there, feeling himself rot, kept alive by the parasites that fed on him with infinite slowness.

Problem was that an aunt nobody knew about filed papers to claim his body after the execution and had it transported to her home town for burial on family land.

In the mortuary of that little town, the killer woke up. He woke up hungry, too.

That’s how it started. A big-ass super-cell storm hitting the area was how containment failed. People fleeing the area in cars, trains, on foot and on planes was how it spread.

Now it was everywhere.

We sat on the plane and watched the end of the world. Three big, tough, ruthless, capable special operators. Helpless as fucking babies.

— 4 —

And then the phone rang.

— 5 —

“Captain Ledger,” said a male voice. “This is Scott Pruitt, National Security Advisor—”

“I know who you are,” I interrupted. “Tell me you’re calling to tell me this shit isn’t as bad as it looks.”

There was a beat. “It’s worse than it looks,” said Pruitt.

“Tell me.”

“Lucifer 113 has a one-hundred percent infection rate,” he said. “It has a one-hundred percent mortality rate.”

The three of us were clustered around my satellite phone, the speaker on. Command Sergeant Major Bradley “Top” Sims and First Sergeant Harvey “Bunny” Rabbit had walked through the Valley of the Shadow with me more times than I could count. No matter how bad things ever got there was always a light shining somewhere, however small and fragile.