The Death Strain

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The jigsaw puzzle of death began on a calm, quiet Sunday in the Cumberland mountains where Kentucky and Virginia rub shoulders. On that afternoon Colonel Thomas MacGowan walked toward the two soldiers standing in front of the doorway to the gray, flat-topped, two-story building.

"Red" MacGowan to his classmates at "the Point," but definitely the Colonel to everyone else, had already passed the outer security checkpoint and the main gate station. The two privates snapped to attention as he came up to the door. He returned their salutes with brisk smartness. Sunday was always a quiet day, in fact a boring day to stand duty, but he was in the rotating pool and this was the Sunday he'd drawn. He carried, the morning paper under his arm, crammed with the usual bulky Sunday sections.

As was his habit, Colonel Thomas MacGowan paused at the door to glance around at the stillness of the compound. He should have been relaxed, as befits a man on a boring tour of duty. Yet for some reason he was on edge, almost jumpy. Mildred had even passed comment on it during breakfast, but he'd chalked it up to a poor night's sleep. The Colonel was a traditional military man and not given to thoughts of extrasensory premonitions.

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