"Max Litvinoff, sir," the captain said, saluting.
Dowling returned the salute. "Pleased to meet you," he lied. Litvinoff looked even more like a brain than he'd expected. The captain with the cobalt blue and golden yellow arm-of-service piping on his collar couldn't have been more than thirty. He was about five feet four, skinny, and homely, with thick steel-rimmed glasses and a thin, dark mustache that looked as if he'd drawn it on with a burnt match for an amateur theatrical.
However he looked, he was all business. "This will be good terrain for the application of our special agents," he said briskly.
He might have been talking about spies. He might have been, but he wasn't. Dowling knew too well what he was talking about. Dowling also had a pretty good idea why Litvinoff didn't come right out and say what he meant. People who ended up in the Special Weapons Section often didn't. It was magic of a sort: if they didn't say the real name, they didn't have to think about what they were doing.
"You're talking about poison gas." Dowling had no such inhibitions.
Max Litvinoff coughed. His sallow cheeks turned red. "Well… yes, sir," he mumbled. He was only a captain. He couldn't reprove a man with a star on each shoulder. Every line of his body, though, shouted out that he wanted to.
Too bad, Dowling thought. He'd been up at the front with General Custer the first time the USA turned chlorine loose on the Confederates in 1915. "Gas is a filthy business," he said, and Captain Litvinoff's cheeks got redder yet. "We use it, the Confederates use it, some soldiers on both sides end up dead, and nobody's much better off. What's the point?"
"The point, sir, is very simple," Litvinoff answered stiffly. "If the enemy uses the special agent"-he still wouldn't say gas-"and we don't, then our men end up dead and his don't. Therefore…"
What Dowling wanted to do was yell, Fuck you! and kick the captain in the ass. Unfortunately, he couldn't. Litvinoff was right. Handing the CSA an edge like that would be stupid, maybe suicidal. "Go on," Dowling growled.
"Yes, sir. You will be familiar with the agents utilized in the last war?" Captain Litvinoff sounded as if he didn't believe it. When Dowling nodded, Litvinoff shrugged. He went on, "You may perhaps be less familiar with those developed at the close of hostilities and subsequently."
So I am, Dowling thought. And thank God for small favors. But he couldn't say that to Litvinoff. He was, heaven help him, going to have to work with the man. What he did say was, "I'm all ears."
"Good." Captain Litvinoff looked pleased. He liked talking about his toys, showing them off, explaining-in bloodless-seeming terms-what they could do. If that wasn't a measure of his damnation, Dowling couldn't imagine what would be. Litvinoff continued, "First, there's nitrogen mustard. We did use some of this in 1917. It's a vesicant."
"A what?" Dowling asked. The Special Weapons Section man might have his vocabulary of euphemisms, but that didn't even sound like a proper English word.
Reluctantly, Litvinoff translated: "A blistering agent. Mucus membranes and skin. It does not have to be inhaled to be effective, thought it will produce more and more severe casualties if the lungs are involved. And it is a persistent agent. In the absence of strong direct sunlight or rain, it can remain in place and active for months. An excellent way to deny access to an area to the enemy."
"And to us," Dowling said.
Captain Litvinoff looked wounded. "By no means, sir. Troops with proper protective gear and an awareness the agent is in the area can function quite well."
"All right," Dowling said, though it was anything but. "What other little toys have you got?"
"Walk with me, sir, if you'd be so kind," Litvinoff said, and led him away from the officers and men in his entourage. When the young captain was sure they were out of earshot, he went on, "We also have what we are terming nerve agents. They are a step up in lethality from other agents we have been utilizing."
Dowling needed a second or two to figure out what lethality meant. When he did, he wished he hadn't. "Nerve agents?" he echoed queasily.
"That's right." Litvinoff nodded. "Again, these are effective both by inhalation and through cutaneous contact. They prevent nerve impulses from initiating muscular activity." That didn't sound like anything much. But his next sentence told what it meant: "Lethality occurs through cardiopulmonary failure. Onset is quite rapid, and the amount of agent required to induce it is astonishingly small."
"How nice," Dowling said. Captain Litvinoff beamed. Dowling muttered, "I wonder why we bother with bullets any more."
"So do I, sir. So do I." Litvinoff was dead serious-under the circumstances, the exact right phrase. But then, as grudging as a spinster talking about the facts of life, he admitted, "These nerve agents do have an antidote. But it must be administered by injection, and if it is administered in error, it is in itself toxic."
"This is all wonderful news," Dowling said-another thumping lie. He had been looking forward to lunch. He usually did. Now, though, his appetite had vanished. And a new and important question occurred to him: "Good to know we have these things available. But tell me, Captain, what are the Confederates likely to throw at us if the war starts?"
Max Litvinoff blinked behind his spectacles. "I am more familiar with our own program…"
"Dammit, Captain, I'm not just going to shoot these things at the enemy. I'll be on the receiving end, too. What am I going to receive? What can I do about it?"
"Respirators are current issue. Protective clothing is rather less widely available, and does tend to restrict mobility in warm, humid climates," Litvinoff said. Dowling tried to imagine running around in a rubberized suit in Ohio or Kentucky in July. The thought did not bring reassurance with it. The Special Weapons Section officer went on, "The Confederate States are likely to be familiar with nitrogen mustard. Whether they know of nerve agents, and of which sorts, I am less prepared to state."
"Does somebody in the War Department have any idea? Can you tell me who would?" Dowling asked. "It might be important, you know."
"Well, yes, I can see how it might," Litvinoff said. "Unfortunately, however, defenses against these agents are not my area of expertise."
"Yes, I gathered that. I'm trying to find out from you whose area of expertise they are."
"Knowing that does not fall within my area of expertise, either."
Dowling looked at him. "Captain, why the hell did you come out here in the first place?"
"Why, to give you information, sir."
He meant it. Dowling could see as much. Seeing as much didn't make him very happy-or give him much information, either.
XX
Flora Blackford had been to a lot of Remembrance Day parades, in New York and in Philadelphia. This year's parade in New York City took her back to the days before the Great War, when the holiday had truly been a day of national mourning. People had commemorated the loss of the War of Secession and of the Second Mexican War, and had pledged not to fail again. Flags had flown upside down on Remembrance Day, symbolizing the country's distress.
Since the Great War, Remembrance Day had faded some in the nation's consciousness. People had a triumph to remember now, not just a pair of scalding defeats. The custom of flying flags upside down had fallen into disuse. Teddy Roosevelt had been the first to abandon it, in the Philadelphia parade in 1918, the year after the war ended.
This year, the custom was back. Anyone who cared to look could see war clouds looming up from the south, bigger and blacker with each passing day. If that wasn't cause for distress, Flora didn't know what would be.