A brilliant scientist is recruited by the FBI to investigate a deadly biological attack on US soil. Then suddenly the scientist becomes the number one suspect. Could previously classified information prove his innocence? Or did the truth die with Bruce Ivins? Deadly Intelligence I: Dr Bruce Ivins, Amazon 2018
Ivins works at the Army Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Dr Irvins has been perfecting vaccines to protect America against bioweapons since 1980. ibid.
22 civilians were infected. 5 die. Ivins is recruited by the FBI for his specialised knowledge of anthrax. ibid.
He is discovered unconscious on his bathroom floor. ibid.
To this day there is still doubt that Bruce Ivins really was the culprit. ibid.
The killer is dubbed the Anthrax Mailer. ibid.
The killer anthrax is the so-caalled Ames strain, which originates in the United States. ibid.
Now all eyes turn to the scientists with access to the deadly bacteria. ibid.
Dr Hatfill is publicly announced as a person of interest. ibid.
‘We had a fingerprint, a DNA fingerprint, of the actual anthrax that was used in the attacks.’ ibid. comment
The DNA leads not just to a single lab but a single flask. ibid.
‘Dr Ivins has been custodian of this flask since the late 1990s.’ ibid. comment
‘There were approximately 20 laboratories that received some material from that flask.’ ibid. Comment
The FBI claims it was professional self-preservation to stop proposed cuts to his research. ibid.
Dr Bruce Ivins has a dark side. Unbeknownst to the public, in 2008 Dr Bruce Ivins becomes the FBI’s main suspect in the anthrax mailings seven years earlier. But many of those who work with Ivins think the FBI are focusing on the wrong man. ibid.
On July 12th 2008 federal agents raid Ivins’ home. What they find is alarming. ibid.
Ivins begins drinking heavily. In July 2008 he’s committed to a Baltimore psychiatric hospital. ibid.
Ivins takes excessive amounts of acetaminophen, a pain reliever that in extremely high doses can cause organ failure. ibid.
A bioweapons scientist found mortally wounded on a Manhattan sidewalk. His death remains steeped in mystery. Behind him, a covert career with deadly secrets. The knowledge he holds is explosive. Did the grim nature of his research push him over the edge, or did he die because he knew too mch? Deadly Intelligence II: Dr Frank Olson
Biochemist Dr Frank Oslon has falled ten floors from his room in the Hotel Stadler. ibid.
To stop him blowing the whistle on a top-secret US bioweapons program. ibid.
America’s germ-warfare program had been kick-started with Nazi research. ibid.
Testing is also carried out in urban areas. ibid.
‘He thought that the experimentations being done with prisoners was unethical.’ ibid. comment
‘It would require a degree of athletic ability that he simply didn’t possess’ ibid.
‘The two police officers found Lashbrook’s behaviour highly suspicious.’ ibid.
Only a superficial autopsy is performed. ibid.
Olson’s death is reported as a suicide. But two decades later, a government inquiry into CIA activities leads to the release of previously secret documents. They link the CIA and Olson to a covert program of experiments in which patients were dosed with the drug lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD. ibid.
So they begin testing it on their own troops. ibid.
2001: A highly regarded Harvard professor goes missing in Memphis shortly after September 11th. Did his work with the world’s deadliest viruses make him a target for biological terrorists? Deadly Intelligence III: Don Wiley
A mystery unfolds on the iconic Hernando de Soto bridge that spans the Mississippi River. ibid.
Dr Don Wiley: A Harvard professor specialising in lethal infectious diseases. ibid.
‘He was a world-renowned scientist.’ ibid. comment
Dr Wiley has been working on the most deadly influenza strain of all, a virus that 100 years ago swept across the globe … Known as the Spanish Flu, it’s the largest epidemic in history. ibid.
December 20th 2001: A body is found more than 300 miles downstream from Memphis. ibid.
Heinz Krug: A very different scientist goes missing. And this time the reason is clear. September 13th 1962: an anbandoned car is found outside Munich. It’s registered to 49-year-old Dr Heinz Krug. He’s been missing for 2 days. ibid.
20 years earlier Krug is a Nazi missile engineer … He holds deadly knowledge that will soon be linked to his disappearance. ibid.
And instead begins working on a strategic missile program for Egyptian President Abdul Nasser. ibid.
Rocket Plant, Cairo, Egypt 30.05N 31.23 E. ibid.
Israel’s Secret Service, Mossad, launches a campaign targeting the German scientists working for the Egyptian rocket program. ibid.
The nuclear arms race can be almost as deadly as the bombs themselves. Bizarre deaths strike Star Wars, America’s nuclear strategic defense program. The body count rises. Could it be state-sponsored sabotage? Deadly Intelligence IV: Soviet Assassination Plot
And in Iran when a secret nuclear program is explosed, a spree of bloody assassinations follows. ibid.
But soon, the scientists tasked with executing this top-secret defense project begin dying in mysterious ways. ibid.
In all he [researcher] uncovers 25 mysterious deaths in the defense industry. ibid.
Further examples of Soviet assassination. ibid.
But in the 1970s Britain had expelled nearly a hundred suspected Soviet spies. ibid.
The Stasi are suspected of deploying up to a hundred secret agents in Britain specifically to target defense programs. ibid.
Millions of Stasi files are destroyed. ibid.
One of six scientists who died from carbon monoxide poisoning. ibid.
In the Middle East 20 years later another set of scientists are in the crosshairs. January 12 2010: Iranian academic Massoud Ali-Mohammadi leaves for home from his job at the University of Tehran, but he will never arrive. This has all the hallmarks of a professional hit.
At various remote [Iranian] sites, American intelligence observes suspicious activity. ibid.
Surprisingly, Iran’s nuclear program was kick-started in the late 1960s by America. President Eisenhower actually provided the Shah of Iran with the country’s first reactor in a program known as Atoms for Peace. ibid.
‘In 2007 a number of scientists in Iran started to die, various ways.’ ibid. comment
Stuxnet is designed to cause damage only at Iran’s nuclear plants. ibid.
The deaths are likely the work of the MOSSAD. ibid.
He’s the unsung hero of American rocketry. Founder of NASA’s JPL and Aerojet Corporation. But Jack Parsons’ genius has a dark side. Did his unusual beliefs and top-secret science play a role in his violent end? Deadly Ingelligence V: Jack Parsons
June 17th 1952: Pasadena, California, is rocked by a massive explosion. A makeshift laboratory lies in ruins, and Jack Parsons, a legend of American science, is mortally wounded. Jack Parsons dies from his injuries at just 37 years of age. ibid.
‘He was an eccentric who bizarrely had had this strange private life involving magic and the occult.’ ibid. comment
And attends nightly meetings of an occult society called Ordo Templi Orientis. ibid.
‘Is it possible that Jack Parsons was murdered? Very possible.’ ibid. comment
A brilliant engineer dreams of conquering space with the biggest gun ever built. But to bring his super-gun to life he must make a deal with the devil. And when his work becomes a global threat, his ambition may lead to a deadly downfall. Deadly Intelligence VI: Gerald Bull
1990: World-renowned ballistic scientist, Dr Gerald Bull, returns home to his apartment in Brussels, Belgium … ‘Somebody stepped up behind him and fired a number of shots.’ ibid.
He finds support in an unlikely corner of the world: Iraq. ibid.
Bull’s obsession is too great to be stopped. ibid.
Israel suspects what he is trying to do. ibid.
Nikola Tesla is one of the greatest scientific minds of all time. Pioneer of alternating current, remote control, and wireless power. But the circumstances of his death are highly suspicious. Was Nikola Tesla murdered in a conspiracy to steal his death-ray plans? Or could he have been assassinated to stop enemy powers obtaining his devastating weapon? Deadly Intelligence VII: Nikola Tesla
In 1934, after a lifetime of scientific discovery, Serbian-American Nikola Tesla announces his invention of a revolutionary particle-beam weapon, the death-ray. ibid.
Nikola Tesla is found dead in his Manhataan hotel room. The timing of his death is suspicious, and so is the fact that his hotel safe is ransacked and personal papers taken. ibid.
The mysterious group was led by Tesla’s one nephew, Sava Kosanovic, who was a Yugoslav diplomat and not well-liked by his uncle. Kosanovich is named in the FBI files as a possible communist. ibid.
Top of the list Nazi Germany. Another possible culprit, Tesla’s home country, America. ibid.