Capitol Punishment (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 3)

by Ryne Douglas Pearson

  Art and Frankie followed the captain to an Army vehicle parked a hundred feet up on Riverside. It was a modified Humvee with what could only be described as a large box affixed behind the driver’s compartment. A door faced to the rear of the vehicle, and small fold down steps spanned the gap between the opening and the ground.

  “After you.” Orwell held the door open for the agents, climbing in after them. “Take your jackets off, and anything sharp or metal. Belts, watches, earrings.”

  Art slowed as he slid out of his blazer and looked down to the Smith & Wesson on his hip.

  “Guns, too,” Orwell said. “They’ll be locked in here.”

  Art unclipped the holster and spare magazine and laid it on a table that folded down from the wall. He didn’t like the feeling, and it showed.

  “There aren’t any bad guys up there, Jefferson. At least no live ones.”

  Frankie removed the locket from around her neck, kissing it lightly before setting it aside.

  “You can stay back, partner,” Art offered sincerely. He knew whose picture was in the locket, and that little girl needed a mommy. “I can check it out.”

  “Thanks, but no. Allen is mine, too, remember.”

  “Okay,” Art said. It was just an offer, but he knew she wouldn’t take it. In a way, though, he wished she had. The mix of him, his partners, and dangerous situations had often resulted in harm coming to the person paired with him. But that was the past. He repeated that until he almost believed it.

  “All right.” Orwell took three hooded camouflage jumpsuits from a cabinet and handed two to Art and Frankie. “These are MOPP suits. That stands for ‘mission-oriented protective posture.’ “

  Frankie noticed the odd texture of the material. “What is this?”

  “It’s a synthetic material impregnated with activated charcoal,” Orwell explained. “This is the same thing troops in the field would wear in a chemical environment. For us, though, it’s secondary protection.” He pulled three other garments from a separate cabinet. These were white, and had a more solid feel to them. “These are containment suits.”

  Art noticed the resemblance to the “moon suits” the Bureau EOD teams wore.

  Orwell lifted the head of one suit to show. A clear, rigid plastic faceshield covered the front of the head portion, and inside a suspension system similar to those in hard hats helped the bulbous space maintain its shape. “This will go over the other suit, then we’ll walk down to the gear area and have one of my team put the air packs on us and seal us up.”

  “Getting in sounds easy,” Art observed.

  “You’re right. It’s the getting out that can kill you.” Orwell smiled. “When we come away from the site we’ll be covered with the nerve agent. All that will have to be cleaned off before we can even think of getting out. The joy of decontamination. It can take some time, so if either of you have to take a leak, now’s the time to tell me. Otherwise it’s in your pants later.”

  “I’m dry,” Art said. “How about you, partner?”

  “As a bone.”

  “Then let’s get suited.”

  Orwell started, the agents following his lead, stepping into the MOPP suit, zipping up its front closure and cinching all the flex points. They left their hoods hanging loose. Next it was into the containment suit. Large, thick boots were at its base, big enough to fit anything but the largest foot size. The trio stepped into these up to their waists and let the upper half droop over one arm in front of them. Then it was out into the night once again.

  “These are warm,” Frankie commented.

  “You wouldn’t want to do any prolonged fighting in them,” Orwell said. “That’s why a chemical environment is a bitch to fight in. You get hot, tired, and dehydrated awful fast with any kind of activity. Fortunately we’ll have some relief from that.”

  “How so?” Art asked.

  “Inside the containment suit, besides the air supply, we’ll each have a small cooling system. It’s a miniature air conditioner that will circulate cool air around the head. The downside is that it only lasts for an hour; it’s a major power hog. But it is relief.”

  The three walked for a minute more until they were at a vehicle identical to the one they had just left. Waiting outside, with three sets of gear resting against the vehicle body, was a soldier in a MOPP suit.

  “Sarge, get us set,” Orwell directed.

  “Okay, sir,” the middle-aged NCO said. “Everyone, turn away from me. Let your suits drop and bring your arms back like I’m gonna cuff you, but farther apart.”

  That had a very unappealing sound to it for the agents, but the position was meant only to facilitate putting on their air supplies. The shoulder straps of the tank harness rode up their arms as the sergeant lifted the forty-pound packs onto their backs. “Cinch up your straps and I’ll check ‘em.”

  “Sarge, give them the rundown on the rebreather,” Orwell requested. His familiarity with the routine put him three steps ahead of the agents.

  The sergeant circled around to the front of his neophytes. He checked their harnesses with a few tugs and then took the full face-mask breathing rig from Frankie’s setup in hand. “This isn’t like a normal air supply that you might see a fireman or a scuba diver use. This is a rebreather. What that means is that whatever you breathe out after inhaling is directed through a chemical scrubber at the base of the air tanks on your back. About eighty percent of that gets fed back into your air supply. The other twenty percent is pumped into the waste tank. That’s why you have two tanks on. One is usable air, and the other is waste. You see, if this was a conventional breather the waste you exhaled would fill the containment suit and you’d blow up like a balloon. And keep blowing up until you popped. So you’ll hear the scrubber running, and you’ll hear the cooling system—”

  “I already filled them in on that, Sarge.”

  “Very well, sir. So you’ll hear sounds, but if you hear a repeated beeping that means the scrubber has failed. In that case you’ll have ten minutes to get to decon down the road before you start venting through tears in your suit. That doesn’t mean you’ll be contaminated right away, because the pressure outflow from the holes will prevent any infiltration...for a while.”

  “That sounds real comforting,” Art said.

  “It hasn’t happened yet,” Orwell said, trying to reassure the agents. But anything with a “yet” attached at its end could not fully alleviate natural fears.

  “Okay.” The sergeant went to the rear of his charges and activated the cooling systems, scrubbers, and air supplies on each setup. “Masks on.”

  Orwell slid his on easily. Art and Frankie had more difficulty, but the sergeant made sure they were properly fitted and sealed before pulling the MOPP suit hood over their heads and sealing it to the mask’s synthetic frame with a heavy tape.

  “Duct tape?” Art asked, hearing the familiar tearing sound.

  “Too porous,” the sergeant answered. “This has a zero air transference rating. Nothing in, nothing out.”

  “That’s how we like it,” Orwell said to the agents, his voice booming through the mask’s built-in amplifier.

  “Getting air okay?”

  Art and Frankie nodded to the sergeant.

  “Okay, sealing you up now.” He pulled the containment suits up and over, directing them to adjust the bubble-faced top on their hooded heads.

  “I feel like a damn tamale,” Art said.

  “A chili tamale?” Frankie ribbed him.

  “I wish.”

  The sergeant pulled the open back of the suits closed and zipped them down. Gravity would not make these zippers come undone. Next he ran multiple strips of tape over the closure and to each side. This he spent a good deal of time on. It was not the place to make a mistake.

  “Here,” Orwell said, handing each agent a battery-powered lantern.

  “And here,” the sergeant said, taking his turn and affixing a small object to the single Velcro strip on Art’s and Frankie’s ch
ests. “Remember that beeping sound I told you about? Well, if you hear a steady high-pitched screeching that means gas has gotten into your suits. If that happens, or if you feel any of these symptoms—dizziness, sudden extreme dryness in the mouth, blurring or double vision, sudden nausea, or a headache building rapidly—take the injector I just put on the Velcro and jab it into your thigh like this.” He made a downward stabbing action. “The action is automatic after that. It’ll put a massive dose of adrenaline into your system which may keep you alive.”

  “But I’ve got to be honest,” Orwell said. “Don’t count on it.”

  “Well, partner, I’m about ready for this ride,” Art joked dryly. “How about you?”

  Frankie looked to Art through the faceshield that slightly distorted his appearance around the edges. Blurry vision? she thought. “I prefer stuff I can see, partner. Stuff I can shoot at.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Sarge, let the decon crew know we’re coming through,” Orwell directed. “Is anyone on-site right now?”

  “Sergeant Fuller just pulled back through decon.”

  “Then it’ll just be us.” Orwell took a belt from the ground and snugged it around the added girth of two protective suits. To this he clipped a handheld radio. “We’re off.”

  Art saw the captain take a few steps toward the roadway. “We’re walking?”

  “A half-mile,” Orwell responded. “We can’t drive in. Too much of a chance of transferring the agent from the site out here. Plus the motion of a vehicle could kick up particles from the roadway that have been contaminated. You saw the orange signs coming in, didn’t you?”

  “Now I know what they were for.” Art turned to Frankie. “Time to hike.”

  The trio walked onto Riverside Drive’s hard surface and moved abreast at a good pace toward the lights in the distance. Two hundred yards down they moved through the decontamination area. Multiple showers were set up, their feed hoses snaking to a water truck a few yards distant. Actually the compound filling the tank was more exotic, a combination of water, detergents, and chemical neutralizers. At the bottom of each shower a separate hose ran to a series of pumps. From those a single hose went to another truck.

  “You don’t take any chances,” Art observed, pointing to the second truck.

  “That stuff will be burned on-site eventually,” Orwell informed him. “On our way out we’ll shower off and get swept for traces of residue. If there is any left we go through the process again. We have to leave this spot absolutely free of contamination. Then halfway back to where we suited up we dump the containment suits in that bin by the road.”

  “To be burned later,” Art said, parroting what he’d heard from the captain.

  “Correct”

  “This stuff is that bad?” Frankie asked, a slight puffing coming through the amplifier. She was a sprinter in high school, not a distance runner, and the combination of additional weight on her back plus the heavy clothing was already taking a toll.

  “O-ethyl S-2-disoprylaminoethylmethylphosphonothiolate. That’s the chemical name,” Orwell said, as if he’d simply rattled off a cookie recipe. “The common name is VX. It’s the deadliest thing we have in our inventory.”

  “That’s an awful complicated name for something that you say was cooked up out here,” Art proposed, his own stamina tested after only three-fourths of their walk.

  “Complicated?” The laugh mixed with feedback static from the amplifier. “Anyone can buy the necessary chemicals to manufacture any number of nerve agents. Tabun, sarin, soman. You name it, it can be made by a kid with high school chemistry, some money, and a brave streak a mile wide.”

  “Or a stupid streak,” Frankie added.

  “Like our friends up here,” Orwell said. “Something went wrong. From what I could tell it was just in time.”

  “How so?” Art asked.

  “The fellow in the house looked like he was carrying the canister that had the VX in it,” Orwell said, recalling the scene from one of his three visits to the site. “About ten feet inside the door and around a corner is where we found him. The canister is right next to him on the floor. Allen is outside. I’m no cop, but it looks to me like there might have been a transfer of the VX about to go down when they had a spill. Totally unexpected, and totally irreversible.”

  “I thought this stuff was a gas,” Frankie said. “How do you spill a gas? Wouldn’t it just leak out?”

  “Gas really isn’t the proper term. Especially for VX. The correct nomenclature is ‘nerve agent.’ The gas misconception dates back to the mustard gas days of World War One. What you actually inhale if you are unfortunate enough to breathe in some VX are droplets. Tiny particles that are airborne because of dispersion—usually by spray canisters or warheads of some sort in wartime—or disturbance. That’s our concern with motion in the area.”

  “So this is a liquid,” Art said.

  “A thick liquid,” Orwell expanded. “VX has the consistency of a thin motor oil. That gives it usefulness in the battlefield because it sticks to everything.” The captain pointed toward the site. “That’s why we’re doing that.”

  They were just a hundred yards away now, and from this point twin streams of water were visible arcing high into the air near 1212 Riverside. After apogee the torrents dispersed into a wide spray that fell upon the house and its surroundings like a heavy rain. Backlit by a portable bank of floodlights, the deluge was comparable to that of a mild hurricane, less the wind. Thankfully less the wind.

  “That is one place I want any contamination in the ground,” Orwell said. “Water helps dilute the agent and prevents it from getting airborne. If it were possible, the best thing would be to just lift the whole house up and set it in a vat of water. But a wish is just that.”

  “So this washes it all into the soil,” Art said, the first droplets of mist beginning to reach his faceshield. He prayed silently that it was only water.

  “Exactly. Then all we have to deal with is the interior.” Orwell reached up and wiped his faceshield. They were literally walking into a stationary rainstorm. “That’s going to take weeks to clean up enough to dispose of.”

  “The house?” Frankie inquired.

  “The whole thing. Piece by piece, sealed tight. We’ll take it out in the clear somewhere and burn it. Incineration is the only real way to get rid of VX quickly. Over time it will degenerate into its base elements. But that’s too long to wait.”

  They were very close now, coming upon the American LeFrance fire engine abandoned by its L.A. County Fire Department crew. Ahead of that, closer to 1212 Riverside, was the empty paramedic unit from the same station as the engine. To its side was the backup sheriffs unit that had heeded a call for help. Then, stopped cautiously just shy of the house was the black-and-white that had been first on-scene, its front doors still open, the radio continuously spewing calls as dispatched by the sheriffs communications center.

  “What about these vehicles?” Frankie asked.

  “We’ll burn them eventually,” Orwell answered, slowing the pace now. “Watch your step all around here. Try not to trip.”

  “Religiously,” Frankie assured him.

  The agents rounded the front of the sheriffs car and slowed even beyond their guide’s suggestion at the sight before them. It was as if they were on a movie set, observers of an eerie production that looked too real to be. The man-made rain fell steadily and danced upon the cement walkway to the front of the house. On that walkway and on the lawn were the bodies.

  “This is unreal,” Frankie commented.

  “It’s too real,” Art said, adding his own correction to her words.

  They continued carefully up the slick walkway, the constant downpour drumbeating on the heads of their containment suits. At the jumble of bodies they stopped.

  “How long have they been out here?” Art asked, looking down upon the lifeless forms. They appeared waxen, the water cascading off their faces.

  “Fourteen hours,” O
rwell answered.

  Frankie squatted down next to the single body not in a uniform. “Can I touch him?”

  “Go ahead.” The captain certainly didn’t relish putting his hands on the departed.

  Frankie reached over and unzipped Frederick Allen’s jacket. She checked his shirt pockets, then his front pants pockets. “Just car keys. Art, you want to help me move him.” With her partner’s help Frankie lifted Allen from the right and rolled him onto his side, his body resting upon that of Luis Hidalgo, Jr. His soaked jacket clung to his body, the back of which was caked with mud from the wet ground.

  “Wallet,” Art said.

  “Got it.” Frankie removed the bulge from Allen’s back pocket and looked through it. “License. He’s using the Sam Toomy alias again. A few bucks. No credit cards.” She picked through the recesses. “That’s it.”

  Art shook his head and looked to the faces of the dead cops at his feet. He noticed something on the lip of one. “Look at this.”

  Orwell knelt with Art.

  “That’s a pretty nasty gash,” Art observed.

  “Look.” The captain used a gloved finger to pry the officer’s cut lip up to reveal a shattered set of teeth. “The result of convulsions and tremendous spasms in the jaw muscles. See the jagged remains? That’s what caused the cut. If you could look inside the mouth you’d see worse.”

  “The ME is going to have a job with these,” Frankie said.

  “The medical examiner is never going to see them,” Orwell informed her. “These will be burned on-site.”

  “What?” Frankie stood. “What about their families?”

  “Look, the human body is a perfect host for this agent. We can’t decontaminate the insides, the lungs, the digestive tract. There’s no way to make these corpses safe for removal.” Orwell eased his tone. “I understand your feelings, but there’s too much of a risk. We can’t take that.”

  “I still can’t believe that someone could make this stuff,” Art said. The sight of a man’s body assaulted by an unseen killer infuriated him. Cancer was the same way. He remembered the experience of watching his grandmother succumb to that invisible killer. But that was natural. Almost expected as one progressed in years. This...this was created by men, and unleashed here by those who obviously had had bigger plans than what he now looked upon.