Ryne Pearson - Capitol Punishment

“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 chests. “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.”