The Eider Files

The search for a new breed of

bio-terrorism weapons

by Doug Hanson

Dr. Steven Finder, Head of the Laboratory for "Special Microbial Research & Development" at the prestigious National Institutes of Health is relieved of his duties after an accidental explosion that resulted in the death of three people and serious injury to others. Two years later, Finder unable to find a job, almost broke, accepts consulting from a mysterious man known only as Standek.

Finder is paid a large sum of money, in advance, to track down newly developed biological warfare agents, germs more deadly than Anthrax or any others previously developed. A unique delivery system has been developed for these agents; tiny flying robotic "bugs" that can be flown remotely to a precise location in an office, mall or other target.

Late one evening, Finder is given a set of documents called "The Eider Files" by an enigmatic Chinese man. This same man is found the following morning murdered, drowned in the Potomac River Tidal Pool. Finder soon realizes that a group of Chinese operatives are after these organisms and the files he has been given. Two Tanzanian thugs, working for a Moroccan terrorist group, are also on his trail.

Finder is aided in his search by a beautiful Russian Scientist, Dr. Natalia Smirnova, a bio-weapons development scientist in the former USSR. She helps him break the identification code and leads him to the only surviving member of a lab team that was accidentally exposed to one of these agents.

George Stidworthy, a bitter recluse, has never talked to anyone about the accident, but finds a friend in Finder and relays vital information about these deadly organisms. Stidworthy knows that he is dying, all of his body systems are failing; he characterizes himself as a," talking head in a wheelchair".

Finder is also helped by a beautiful young, blonde graduate student, Penny Smith, visiting Washington from a small college in Utah. A college with close connections to the Army's Dugway Proving Grounds and a secret project taking place in a ghost town called Bacchus, in the Oquirrh Mountains Utah.

Finder learns that Army Colonel Leonard Campbell was the last person to have possession of now missing vials of these bio-weapons. Campbell has disappeared and his records scrubbed from the Army's databanks. He finds that Campbell has become a rogue operative and has established a secret underground lab in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains not for from Washington, DC.

While talking Penny Smith to a meeting in Crystal City Underground they are confronted by both the Chinese and Moroccan groups; a gun battle ensues. Finder and Smith escape the situation but Finder is wounded in the arm.

Steve Finder eventually locates the rouge Army Colonel ands retrieves the original cultures of the four bio-agents. He puts an end to Campbell's operation.

Finder's dilemma now is what to do with the bio-agents and the information contained in the Eider files. The Saga comes to a climax when all four parties meet in a field near an old, dilapidated red barn in the Maryland countryside.

Set in Washington, DC, The Eider Files, is the intriguing adventure of an ordinary man placed in extraordinary circumstances, against criminal and terrorist elements, for which he has no experience. An adventure where scientific know-how and plain common sense prevail over a four weeks that could drastically affect the future of bio-terrorism.

The Eider Files is available at:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com

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