ONE

      As CIA spy Casper English crossed the threshold into the abandoned home, the faint wheezes of a man teetering on death whispered just above the gusting snowstorm. Drawing his weapon, he inched farther into the darkness. A cast of faint moonlight illuminated an arm, seemingly disembodied, lying on the floor across the threshold of a doorway. The wind battered against the house so badly that the old wood walls groaned in distress.

      Walking quickly, Casper closed the distance.

      It was his partner, Ethan.

      “You...found me.”

      Ethan’s breaths came quick and ineffective. Casper’s heartbeat quickened with each shallow gasp his partner...his friend...puffed out in vapors into the frigid night. Dark, thick fluid glistened from a wound in his chest, and Casper knelt down beside him to assess it. From an inner pocket of his leather jacket, Casper withdrew a small flashlight. Ethan’s hand flew up and knocked it out before Casper could turn it on.

      “They’re...close. Too...close.”

      Instinctively, Casper rose up and looked out into the darkness through the fractured, dust-crusted glass of the nearest window. This location was too close to the city. To everything. Too hard to keep hidden from those who had chased Ethan. It was more likely than not that they were going to be discovered. How Ethan had crawled through snow to even hide here was unfathomable. Casper concentrated on the landscape. The trees threw thorny shadows onto the silky white drifts. Nothing moved that resembled a human. Ethan pulled something from his pocket. His hand lifted up and flopped against Casper’s chest.

      “Take them.”

      Casper grabbed the two items. A photo and a small piece of paper. In the darkness, he couldn’t make out the information they contained. “Ethan, the terrorist attack. Did you find out anything about the date? The location?”

      A faint shake of his head. Casper’s stomach plummeted. None of this was good. His partner wasn’t going to survive, the gathering darkness brooding in Ethan’s eyes showed the shadow of the grim reaper on the hunt. Casper had seen it before in too many patients as they left this existence.

      “The attack...is ES1...”

      Casper swayed a bit at Ethan’s revelation.

      No, that’s not possible. Does Ethan even know what he’s saying? Or is his brain malfunctioning from blood loss?

      “It...exists.”

      Ethan’s eyes closed. Casper shook him by the shoulders and Ethan’s head lolled to the side. He had to verify this information. If he took what Ethan said to his superiors without proof, they’d laugh him right out of the CIA. That was how crazy Ethan’s statement was. Casper settled his hand in the center of Ethan’s chest. The tension in Casper’s gut eased as he felt it rise under his touch.

      How was Ethan’s claim possible? ES1 had been a theorized virus that combined two of the deadliest pathogens known to man—smallpox and Ebola. The Soviets reportedly looked to develop it before their illegal bioweapons program was discovered during a US inspection over twenty-five years ago. Purportedly, they’d abandoned their aspirations when the manufacturing sites had been dismantled.

      Ethan’s eyes fluttered open. “His daughter.”

      “Ashley,” Casper confirmed.

      Ethan nodded. “He...sent her...”

      “What?”

      “Information.”

      A spy sending sensitive information to a civilian? His own daughter? That didn’t make sense to Casper. Dr. Russell Drager, a leading bioweapons specialist, had been missing for