Ryne Pearson - Capitol Punishment

“Wha — what?”

“I don’t know anything more than that, Art. Just get there.”

Art clicked the phone off and tossed it across the front seat, jumping in right behind it. Frankie didn’t need to be told they were leaving.

“What is it?” she asked as he accelerated away from the house, swinging a tight U-turn that made the tires scream.

She’s all right, Arthur. She has to be.

“Art, what is it?”

Art told her through bared teeth as they entered the southbound 101. The rest of the drive was made in worried silence.

“Take the Fifteen,” John Barrish told his youngest son from the backseat.

Stanley silently questioned the reasoning behind that routing, but expressed none of it. He simply obeyed his father’s instruction and slid to the right on Interstate 10, merging onto the long, sweeping transition to Interstate 15.

“Hey, Pop,” Toby said with feigned excitement as they passed under the sign marking the 15 as the choice route to Las Vegas. “We could do some gambling.”

John gave a mild smile in response to his son’s kidding. “I don’t want to take the obvious route.”

Toby’s head bobbed up and down as he looked back from the front seat. Interstate 10 would have been the quicker route across country, but quicker wasn’t always better. “Pop?” Toby offered, holding a bag of chocolate chip cookies over the seat. He got a head shake in response, and shifted his attention to the left. “Mom?”

Louise Barrish, hands resting one atop the other on her lap, mouthed a polite “No” and looked back out the window, watching as the mountains became clearer through the haze. Seeing the first wisps of snow, the lush green hills, the animals meandering through pastures. All the beautiful things. All the good things. All the…

“What are you crying about?” John asked his wife, seeing the tears roll down her face.

Louise looked toward the floor and shook her head. “Nothing.”

Stanley rose up in his seat a bit and leaned toward the driver’s door to get a look at his mother in the rearview mirror. “Mom? You okay?”

“I’m fine, Stanley.”

“She cries over anything,” Toby commented. Especially lately, he thought to himself next. No offense, Pop, but no wife of mine will ever snivel like that.

“I am fine,” Louise repeated, wanting to deflect attention from herself. She knew what unwanted attention elicited from her husband, and the bruise he’d given her that first night back had just gone away. She had avoided any more by simply fading further and further into the background. No challenges, at least none that she could identify as such before letting them slip out. No. It was best to just stay in the shadows. To cook his meals. To keep wherever they were living clean. And to say nothing. Nothing. She felt the tears want to come again, and looked out the window to the beautiful scenery to force the desire from her mind.

“Listen,” Toby said loudly as he turned the volume up on the car radio.

“ …the casualties are numerous, and area hospitals are inundated. Initial reports, still unconfirmed, indicate the cause of what can only be called a disaster that began to unfold this morning in the First Interstate World Center in downtown Los Angeles may be nerve gas. We’ll have more on this breaking story next… ”

“YEEEEEESSSSS!” Toby screamed. “Pop! Pop! Did you hear that?”

John drew in a deep breath and let his head fall back. “I heard.”

“It worked! They did it!” The niggers were good for something after all! The thought of it made Toby roll with laughter in the front seat.

“We really did it,” Stanley said, though his words were drowned out by his brother’s raucous laughter.

Toby regained his composure and looked to the backseat. His mother was staring out the window, more tears streaming down her cheeks, and his father’s head was still resting on the rear deck. He looked so peaceful. So content. So… “Pop?”

Stanley looked in the rearview. “What?”

“Shh,” Toby said. “He’s asleep.”

Stanley looked back to the road ahead. His father was made of steel, though some would say stone, and others ice. But there was no denying the man was made of something that others were wise to respect… even to fear. Stanley saved a little of both for the man who had given him life.

“Just drive, Stan,” Toby said. “He deserves the rest. It’s been a rough couple weeks.”

“I know it’s been rough.” He glanced again to the mirror and the sight of his quietly weeping mother. “For all of us.”

“Dammit, Frankie,” Art said painfully. “She’s in there.”

Frankie put a hand on her partner’s shoulder and rubbed firmly. She could understand the feeling of helplessness completely. Standing a full two blocks from the tower, a position enforced by the fire department’s hazardous materials unit and a phalanx of no-nonsense blue suits, there was little anyone could do but stand in the steady downpour and wait. Even the members of the haz-mat team were holding back, waiting for instructions from the Army personnel on-scene.

“This can’t be happening.”

“Art, go easy.”

“They’re not doing anything.”

“Orwell is in there now.” Frankie dug deeper with her fingers. “He’ll know what to do. And they’ll listen to him.”

Art nodded curtly, his eyes locked on the scene just outside the tower’s Fifth Street entrance. Body upon body, some collapsed on top of others, littered the sidewalk and the empty street. Anne could be there. She could be one of…

“Damn you, Barrish. If she…”

“Art.” Frankie gave her partner a gentle shake and gestured down the street. Emerging from the building were three men in oversized white coveralls topped by bubble helmets. “Orwell’s out.”

They watched together as the trio of men moved to a decontamination area they had set up a hundred feet from the building. A shower assembly, with several heads arrayed around a frame somewhat larger than the standard-size door, stood inside what looked like a large wading pool surrounded by a clear plastic tent. Several hoses snaked from the base of the containment pool to a small pump, and from there to a tank truck. The three walked one at a time through the high-pressure shower, which sprayed a mixture of water and a chemical neutralizer over every exposed portion of their protective outer suits. Once all three were through, one man used a hand-held gas probe to check for any residual contamination left on his comrades, and was then checked himself. Once satisfied, they passed through the shower once more, then through blowers in a similar tent enclosure a few yards away. Emerging from that they removed the white outer suits and disposed of them in seriously marked red drums. Beneath the outer suit was the basic camouflage “gas suit” issued to all Army personnel, though to this a nonstandard respirator and rebreathing apparatus had been added. It took just a minute for the men to step out of these restrictive garments, which two members of the team went about drying of perspiration. Captain Orwell, wearing just an olive-drab jumpsuit now, headed directly for the agents a block and a half from him.

“Is it?” Art asked as the officer drew near.

“VZ,” Orwell answered, nodding, the welcome cool rain cascading over his body. “But I was ninety-nine-point-nine sure of that when I heard the first fire reports. A lot of people were saying they smelled sulfur, or the scent fireworks give off when they’re set off. That’s a product of the VZ binary.”

“I thought these things were supposed to be odorless,” Frankie said. “You know. No warning until it’s too late.”