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.”
“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.
SIXTEEN
Casualties