Vector
Rob Swigart
 New York City cab driver Yuri Davydov is a disgruntled Russian émigré poised to lash out at the adoptive nation he believes has denied him the American Dream. A former technician in the Soviet biological weapons program in Sverdlovsk, BIOPREPARAT, Yuri possesses the knowledge and expertise to wreak havoc in the Big Apple. But before he executes his planned pièce de résistance of retribution against the wealthy Jews of Manhattan he first tests the Anthrax's efficacy on a dealer in exotic carpets as well as on his increasingly suspicious American-born wife. Dr. Jack Stapleton and Dr. Laurie Montgomery (both last seen in Chromosome 6) begin to witness some unusual cases in their capacity as forensic pathologists in the city's medical examiner's office: a young obese black woman dies of respiratory failure on the heels of a Greek immigrant's succumbing to what initially appears to be a sudden, overwhelming attack of influenza. At the same time, the pair are pressured from above to investigate the death of a prisoner from the blatantly obvious use of excessive force by police. When an unexpected breakthrough persuades Jack that the first two seemingly unrelated deaths are connected, his colleagues and superiors are skeptical. Only Laurie is somewhat convinced. The tension builds as the reader's complacent assumption of the usual happy ending is eroded away by a never-ending series of twists and turns in the action. For even if the pair of doctors succeeds in solving the puzzle, will they still be able to react in time to keep Yuri and his militant American cronies from snuffing out the lives of a million Manhattanites?