Ryne Pearson - Capitol Punishment

“It was too late for most of the people that did smell it,” Orwell reported reluctantly. The sight of bodies everywhere inside the skyscraper was burned into his psyche. He feared he’d be having nightmares about this for weeks to come. “But you’re right about the common concept of how the agents can be detected. VZ is no different in a complete state. If Kostin had manufactured it as a singular product it would have been odorless. But when VZ is made as a binary there’s a reaction between the two reagents that produce not only the desired agent, but also several by-products. It was the by-products that people were smelling.”

“And that clued you in,” Frankie said.

Orwell nodded. “We also verified it with a chemical analysis. There’s no doubt.”

“Is there anyone alive in there?” Art asked.

“We were only able to make a cursory inspection, but, no. I didn’t see anybody.” Orwell knew the agent’s reason for concern. “I wish I could tell you more.”

“What now, Captain?” Frankie inquired.

“I’ve got more personnel coming in, and we’re going to get the haz-mat guys from fire up-to-speed on procedures so we can use them. Let me tell you, those guys saved a lot of lives. The first fire and police units on scene rushed in just like up on Riverside. They look like official rag dolls now strewn all over the lobby and stair wells. The haz-mat crew held everybody back once they got on-scene.”

Frankie’s head shook slowly. Dead cops. Dead firefighters. Dead civilians. “Are you going back in?”

“As soon as I have more people. We need to find out how the stuff got in there. I know it was spread through the ventilation system. That’s the only way it could get from the top of the building to the bottom. We only got up to ten, and there were bodies up to there.” Orwell looked skyward briefly. “Thank God for the rain. We didn’t have to make our own here. On a dry, windy day… We were lucky.”

“Lucky?” Art snapped out of his narrowly focused state of worry. “ Lucky? Captain, the woman I love works in that building. Tell me how lucky I am.”

Orwell looked to Frankie, who gave a very slight shake of the head. “I didn’t mean—”

Art turned away and paced several yards before stopping. This just couldn’t be happening. Not Anne. Not her. Next came the selfish streak, and the pain that any thought of living without her brought on. Not now. Not when I’m starting to live again…

“Art!”

His head jerked up at the faint call, which came from somewhere in the distance. He looked right, through Pershing Square, then left, then every which way in search of the face to match the familiar voice. Or was it just a dream, a wish already dead? Something he wanted to hear but never would again.

“Art!”

It wasn’t his imagination. “Anne!”

“Art! Here!”

A hand swung back and forth in the air behind the police barricade two blocks distant. Below it was a face that he would have recognized had their separation been twice what it was. “Anne!”

“Art! Art!” Anne yelled, tears mixing with the rain on her face as she jumped high to be seen above the crowd of onlookers.

Art covered the distance almost before his partner knew he was gone, and she was now racing to catch up with him. But his attention was focused forward, on one set of eyes, on one face, on the one woman he loved.

“Anne!” He reached the barricade line as she pushed forward and threw his arms around her, pulling her as close to his body as possible. But not close enough. Never could he bring her close enough to wipe away the pain, the fear that had enveloped him at the thought of her being…

“Art. You’re okay.” Anne had an equally tight grip on him, and let herself be pulled over the barricade. Neither noticed the protestations of the nearest police officer, which were ended as Frankie came up and set matters straight.

“Anne. God, I thought you were in there.”

“Art, what happened?” Anne asked, her voice trembling. “Lena was in there, Art. She’s got three kids. Three kids!”

Art held on tight as Anne began to sob. “Anne, it’ll be all right.”

“Art. The radio said someone did this. It wasn’t an accident. Who? Who would do something like this?”

Art opened his eyes, releasing a river of tears, and looked to the sky. He wanted to tell her that a vile animal had made this all happen, but he knew that was a lie. This was the work of a man, a member of the only species to harbor hate as a way of life.

“Who, Art? Who could do this?”

Again he didn’t answer. He simply held her close, giving her what sense of safety he could offer at the moment. There was nothing more he could do.

At least not yet.

The president looked to his two advisers from the most powerful chair on the planet as the casualty figure numbed him into a feeling of absolute weakness. “One to two thousand? My dear God.”

Bud saw the president go pale, almost the shade of the drapes to either side of his Oval Office desk. The Man was hearing an official number for the first time since the attack eight hours earlier, and had not had the luxury of a few minutes to let the enormity of the carnage sink in. Bud had, and it still made his knees weak. He surmised that the chief of staff, who stood next to him before the president’s desk, was in a similar state.

“That’s preliminary,” Gonzales added. “The Bureau says it’s probably closer to two.”

The president leaned back in his chair and brought a shaky hand to his mouth. Some would be given pause at the sight, but there was a vast difference between crisis management and the reality of the deliberate murder of this many Americans. “Is everything being done to get help there?”

Bud nodded assuredly. “The Army has their chemical people on-scene, and the governor declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles County.” It was a formality, the NSA knew, and really it would have little impact on such a focused event. But appearances did count, and often such measures put the public a little more at ease. The “do something” theory of response.

“Any suspects?”

“The Bureau is shifting into high gear,” Gonzales reported. “Director Jones should be landing there any minute to get an update. They’ve been following a situation that probably led up to this. A few minutes ago we got word that they want to talk to someone very familiar: John Barrish.”

The president seethed at that. They had had the man behind bars, and let him get away. But even a white supremacist murdering bastard had the right to due process, the lawyer in the chief executive reminded the rest of the man. But how many times…

“Mr. President,” Gonzales began, “the press office also got wind that the Post is going to report tomorrow that several members of the Judiciary Committee are going to call for Jones’s resignation.”

“For Christ’s sake!” the president swore. “They haven’t even been briefed and already…”

“Where there are bodies…” the chief of staff mused soberly.

“The goddamn vultures should show a little decorum,” the president suggested angrily. But he knew the reason why that would never be more than a hope. A reason less than a year away. Yes, there were vultures out there, and they were circling 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with a vengeance. “Bud, regardless of what the Bureau thinks, what are the chances of this being an outside job?”

“Possible, but not likely. From what I know of the Bureau investigation to this point, all the indicators lend credence to this being a homegrown operation.”

“If it is that bastard…” the president began, avoiding finishing his statement.