“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,” Orwell 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.
“Jefferson,” Orwell began, sliding frustration aside. Making people understand the potential danger of these weapons was never easy. They weren’t nukes, after all. Nowhere near as sexy as a mushroom cloud, but every bit as deadly. “Do you know where the technology to make VX came from? To make most nerve agents, in fact?”
“Where?”
“Pesticides. Because that’s basically what nerve agents are: pesticides for humans.” Orwell briefly recalled a poster from a class some years earlier depicting a cartoonish bulldog in an Army uniform utilizing an old pump fogger to spray retreating mice wearing Red Army uniforms. The caption below read It’s that simple. “Think of what happens to a bug when you zap it with an insect killer. It becomes confused. Falls over. Twitches. Then it dies. See the similarity? All VX is, is a very potent pesticide designed to exploit the weaknesses of the human nervous system. What it does is attach itself to an enzyme our central nervous system relies on to maintain our basic life functions. It cuts off the transfer of necessary neural information. Without that control you get the spasms and the collapse of the respiratory functions.”
“You’re telling me this stuff is a bug killer?”
“No, but that’s what British chemists were looking for when they stumbled upon VX in the fifties. And that is precisely why it is so easy to manufacture.”
“But how does someone know how to do it?” Art pressed, still incredulous that anyone not connected with making these agents for military use could do so.