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Chapters (36)
  1. VECTOR
  2. Copyright page
  3. Dedication
  4. AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  5. Epigraph
  6. PROLOGUE
  7. ONE
  8. TWO
  9. THREE
  10. FOUR
  11. FIVE
  12. SIX
  13. SEVEN
  14. EIGHT
  15. NINE
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. TWELVE
  19. THIRTEEN
  20. FOURTEEN
  21. FIFTEEN
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. TWENTY
  27. TWENTY-ONE
  28. TWENTY-TWO
  29. TWENTY-THREE
  30. TWENTY-FOUR
  31. TWENTY-FIVE
  32. TWENTY-SIX
  33. EPILOGUE
  34. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  35. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
  36. GLOSSARY

The next order of business was to harvest more anthrax spores from the fermenter and get the slurry into the dryer.

After that was completed, Yuri recharged the fermenter with fresh nutrients to let the bacteria continue their rapid reproduction and spore formation.

Finally, Yuri turned to the second fermenter. Once again he checked the level of growth of the Clostridium botulinum and once again it was less than it should have been. Yuri was still mystified, but no longer concerned now that he was going to convert the fermenter to Bacillus anthracis. With both fermenters producing the anthrax spores, he’d have the required eight to ten pounds in a matter of days.

Pausing in his labors, Yuri pondered what he should do with the existing culture of the Clostridium botulinum. Even though the growth had been far less than anticipated, the unit contained gargantuan numbers of the bacteria. He looked around for some kind of storage facility. The only thing that might have worked was using the empty nutrient containers, but he’d been discarding them as he’d gone along. What he currently had on hand wasn’t enough to hold the fermenter’s volume.

There was only one other solution: let the entire contents of the fermenter drain directly into the sewer. Yuri tried to think if there would be any consequences that might alert the authorities. He stood for a moment and pondered the consequences, but he couldn’t think of any. He couldn’t imagine that sewage treatment plants would worry about the bacterial content of the influx. They only worried about the outflow.

Confident of his decision, Yuri got out the plumbing tools he left in the lab and set to work. The job only required opening a few valves, since Yuri had originally plumbed the fermenters to a drain for flushing purposes.

With the appropriate valves open, Yuri watched the fermenter’s level fall. A gurgle issued forth from a relief valve on top of the unit.

Once the fermenter was empty, Yuri flushed it out. Then he began loading it with fresh nutrient broth. Finally he seeded it with a fresh growth of anthrax from the original culture he’d isolated from the Oklahoma soil sample.

When Yuri was finished, he straightened up. He gave the fermenter a pat and told it to make him proud. Then he turned his attention back to the pulverizer to see how much time was left on the current run. As soon as that was over and he’d unloaded the powder, he planned on going upstairs and taking a long-needed and deserved nap.

ELEVEN

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ELEVEN

Tuesday, October 19

1:00 P.M.