As the new millennium fast approaches a new threat has arisen to challenge all of humankind.  Viruses, lethal microbes, they emerge without warning to sweep across continents leaving death and destruction in their wake.  Deadly killers who strike then disappear only to return more deadly then before.

Recent global changes as well as advances in the genetic, biological and chemical sciences and industries have provided a breeding ground for these new, terrifying predators.

The leaders of our nation recognizing this threat and fearing the horrors to come have mandated Dr. Daniel Cassian, a specialist in chemical/biological disasters, to create a specialized task force to spearhead the fight in the coming “plaque wars”.

Dr. Cassian has recruited some of the world's best and brightest to staff this elite team.   They are Dr. Edward Marcase, a world-renowned virologist with a bent for the metaphysical, Dr. Kimberly Shiroma, a molecular geneticist pathologist whose faith resides in the strict disciplines of science and Agent Michael Hailey, former Navy SEAL and trained killer who is the team's covert opts and defense intelligent expert.  These warriors of science are our first lines of defense in the Burning Zone.
 

The Team ...
 

Dr. Daniel Cassian:

Ranked as one of the most powerful physicians in the world, Dr. Cassian is no stranger to power.  With a grandfather who was president of Harvard Medical School and a father who was the founding director of the World Health Organization, leadership and medicine are in his blood.

The early years of Cassian's life followed a predictable course. Following in his grandfather and father's footsteps, he attended Yale and John Hopkins School of Medicine.  But after his graduation from medical school Cassian's life took some mysterious turns.  Much of his life is still a mystery known only to Cassian himself.   Whatever his experiences they have propelled him to the very height of power in the federal government.

He is currently listed as a "consultant on medical issues and special projects" to the White House, the CIA, the NSA, and the Pentagon.  He serves on the boards of a giant pharmaceutical conglomerate, two major medical schools, and a shadowy research institute located in Mexico City.  It is common knowledge that he meets regularly with the President.  It is rumored that he heads a secret government task force charged with investigating and handling outbreaks of plagues and other biological/chemical disasters.
 
Cassian has many friends but even more enemies.  His knowledge of the intricate workings of the government makes him a very dangerous man to cross.  Ruthless in the pursuit his goals, he is nevertheless a man devoted to life and will fight with all of his immense power to protect his country and the rest of mankind from horrors contained within the Burning Zone.
 

Dr. Edward Marcase:

Despite his young age and penchant for the mystical, Dr. Edward Marcase is ranked as one of the world’s top virologist.  The only child of missionary doctors, he was born in Zaire and spent the first five years of his life in the most remote regions of the country.

Then his African home was decimated by an outbreak of Ebola, which killed most of the native population as well as Marcase's parents.  Infected with the deadly virus, Marcase himself came close to death but miraculously he recovered, becoming one of the community’s few Ebola survivors.

For the next five months Marcase was passed among the remaining villagers until finally being turned over to the American Embassy.  The Embassy promptly sent him home to the USA where his widowed grandfather took him in.

A physician to the needy, Marcase's grandfather brought him to the inner city of Washington, DC where he maintained a struggling practice.  For the next seven years Marcase lived with his grandfather, learning to survive on the mean streets of DC.  Then tragedy struck again when his grandfather died leaving the young Marcase alone and destitute.

With no living relatives and no money Marcase's future looked grim.  Then fate again intervened in the form of an unknown benefactor who supplied the funds for him to enroll in the elite boarding school, Wesley Hall.

Life in the prestigious school was not easy for the street tough youth and many times he came close to being expelled.  Only his academic brilliance saved him from being ousted from the school.

At age sixteen Marcase graduated with highest honors from Wesley Hall and with the aid of his unknown patron went on to attend Georgetown University and Harvard Medical School.  Marcase tried many times to learn the identity of his mysterious benefactor but was never able to uncover their identity.  Finally, he gave up trying, accepting this as another of the many miracles in his life.

After medical school, Marcase's path inevitably led him into virology where he began his life long battle against the virus that had killed his parents.  Having seen the devastation of a viral epidemic up close Marcase brings a passion to his work that makes him a driving force in the battle to save lives.

 First on the scene whenever and wherever an outbreak occurs, Marcase leads the fight with a combination of intelligence, insight, and compassion, that make him the ideal field leader inside the Burning Zone.
 

Dr. Kimberly Shiroma:

A child prodigy, Dr. Kimberly Shiroma graduated from Standard University at the age of 18.  From college she entered medical school at UCLA where she obtain specialties in both molecular genetics and pathology.  Sought after by the major medical corporations and institutes of the world, she chose instead to devote her considerable talents to the World Health Organization.

It was on assignment for WHO in Asia that Shiroma met and fell in love with a young virologist named Allen Covell.  They were engaged to be married but had to postpone their wedding when Allen left for Africa to work on a crisis team led by Dr. Edward Marcase.  It was a trip from which he would never return, falling victim to the same Ebola virus he had traveled to Africa to combat.

After her fiancé’s death, Shiroma continued doing field work in Northern China and Pakistan where she quickly gained a reputation as one of the finest scientific minds in medical research.  Her accolades soon brought her to the attention of Cassian who quickly recruited her for his secret task force.

There is an another reason Cassian desires Shiroma to be a part of his team.  To Shiroma's knowledge she had an unremarkable childhood.  She was raised in the DC area by two normal, loving parents until they were suddenly killed in a car crash when she was thirteen years old.

Cassian is one of the few to know the truth.  Shiroma's parents were government researchers who participated in the earliest secret experiments in genetic engineering.  The data relating to Shiroma's conception and birth are classified on a need-to-know basis.  The material contained in those records is frightening but even more alarming are the circumstances surrounding the death of her parents.

Cassian knows he will need the best and brightest for the coming battle.  He hopes Shiroma's genetically enhanced genius will give them an edge within the Burning Zone.

 
Agent Michael Hailey:

Born into a successful military family, Michael Hailey was raised with a by-the-book father who was one of the first Navy Admirals of African-American decent.  Following in his family's military tradition he attended Annapolis where he obtained a reputation for excellence remaining always at the top of his class.  Thus it came as a shock to everyone when he was caught cheating in his fourth year and drummed out of the Academy.
 
Estranged from his family, he entered the Navy as a seaman and signed up for SEAL/Basic Underwater Demolitions training.  Passing the brutal training courses, he graduated and spent two years in the Teams before abruptly leaving.

Six months after leaving the SEALS, he reappeared as an operative for the CIA and was soon reassigned to the most elite unit in defense intelligence, reporting directly to the top echelon of the Pentagon.  Where he was and what he was doing during those missing six months remains a secret, one of the many surrounding Hailey's life.

In truth, Hailey has been a CIA operative since his second year at the Naval Academy.  The story of his 'cheating' was a cover to hide his covert activities. Hailey's true records, which show his graduation with honors, are sealed.  To his family he is a shame and disgrace but to the government he is a highly valuable resource.

When selecting a security specialist for his team Cassian would settle for no one but Hailey.  Winning this highly skilled operative away from the other covert groups which desired his services required all of Cassian's powers of persuasion and influence.  Hailey's detailed knowledge of the plagues of history; inside knowledge of the stakes in the fast approaching Plague Wars; and an understanding of the true significance of the Burning Zone make him indispensable to Cassian and the team.

 But like Cassian, Hailey is a man of secrets.  His excellence as a dependable warrior is well known, but even Cassian is unaware of the private agenda of Michael Hailey.