Capitol Punishment (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 3) (3 page)

When you were a cop, parking was no problem. Frankie simply pulled across Riverside into the empty oncoming lane and stopped, leaving her flashers on.

“There’s Lou,” Frankie said.

Lou Hidalgo, the assistant special agent in charge of the L.A. office, saw their arrival and broke away from a small group he was part of to greet them.

“Lou, how are you?”

“Art.” The A-SAC, his face drawn, met the two agents at the front of the Chevy. “We’ve got a bad one.”

Agents, especially those in command, usually referred to situations as “tough” or “sticky.” For the A-SAC to call this one otherwise set it apart more than just descriptively.

“How so?” Art asked.

“You heard the chemical spill story, right?”

“On the way up,” Art replied.

“And the reporters asked us when we pulled up,” Frankie added.

“Some road worker who dropped off a bunch of signs overheard something and then shot his mouth off,” Hidalgo explained. “Fortunately he only heard part of a conversation.”

“So, was Allen cooking up some more explosives?” That would explain the massive perimeter, Art theorized, and Freddy had certainly shown a fondness for things that made noise.

“I wish,” Hidalgo said honestly.

Wish?
“What was he doing, Lou?”

Hidalgo looked over his shoulder to a spot of light a mile off in the distance. “Somebody over there was making nerve gas.”

Frankie looked to her partner just a second before he did the same. “Nerve gas?” she said. “What do you... Like the military stuff?”

Lou nodded. “There’s an Army guy here who knows the technical stuff, but, from what this cop brain of mine can figure, yeah. Like the military stuff.”

“Jesus,” Art said softly. He shivered briefly, wishing it was from the chill in the night air. “So there must have been an accident.”

“That’s what I gather, but only some Army guys and a couple of firefighters have been up there. The Army is keeping a tight seal on the whole area, and on the site in particular.” Hidalgo paused for a second. He was shaken by all this, the agents could see. Very shaken. “Art, there are more dead in there than just Allen.”

“Who?”

“Some cops. Paramedics. Someone else in the house. From what we can piece together no one knew what was going on when they showed up on-site,” Hidalgo explained. “There was a nine-eleven call about someone collapsing outside the house. Two deputies were first on scene. Then another arrived and saw his buddies down. He went in. Then a county fire rig and a paramedic unit pulled up together. One of the paramedics and a fire captain went to help them, then they went down. Thank God the other paramedic sounded a warning. He had haz-mat training and held the others back.”

Art saw that Lou was emotional. “Are you okay, Lou?”

“Yeah. I’m all right.” Hidalgo sniffled, then continued. “County fire got a haz-mat team out and they detected something nasty, then they asked for help from the Army. They brought in a gas detector and got a positive. Then all this happened. Three-mile perimeter. Reporters. This is big.”

“But how did they ID Allen?” Frankie asked. “He wouldn’t have been running around with anything that had his name on it.”

“His face,” Hidalgo answered. “The haz-mat team ran a cable from a camera at the scene to a truck a quarter-mile out. They did a tape of everything, all the victims, and then brought it to the ICP so they could identify the bodies.”

“So they called you down to ID Allen,” Frankie said. She watched a single tear roll down from Hidalgo’s eye.

“No. They called me down here because one of the firefighters that went down was my son.”

“Oh my God, Lou,” Art said. Frankie could only bring a hand up to cover her mouth.

“I saw Luis lying there, and I recognized Allen on the ground next to him.” Hidalgo stopped for a moment to regain his composure. He was a senior, Luis, his oldest boy, being his namesake. Now that was all gone. “Luis was trying to help that scum when he died. Can you believe that?”

“Lou, I’m so sorry,” Frankie said, stepping closer and placing a hand on the A-SAC’s back.

“Yeah. Me too.” Hidalgo took a handkerchief out and wiped his nose. “Jerry said to get you guys up here since Allen was yours.”

Jerry Donovan, the special agent in charge of the Los Angeles field office, had proven one thing in the time Art had worked with him: he didn’t like Art. But he also didn’t let that prevent him from assigning the more difficult cases to him. Maybe it was Donovan’s form of quiet warfare against him, but Art had learned to live with it since William Killeen, the former SAC, had packed it in for a retirement consisting of trout-filled Montana streams.

“God, Lou, is there anything we can do?” Art asked. Actually it was a plea from a man feeling helpless. You could shoot a bad guy, but what could you do for another man’s pain?

“No. It’s had a while to sink in now,” Hidalgo said. “I’m almost glad Marie isn’t here anymore. Luis was her favorite. I’d never tell any of my others that, but I knew. You could see it when they were together.” Again he paused. “I guess they are again.”

Breast cancer had taken his wife two years earlier. Now this. “Lou, you should go home,” Art suggested. “What about your kids?”

“My sister is with them. They don’t know yet.”

“We can get someone to drive you home,” Frankie offered.

“I can drive myself. I just wanted to wait until you got here.”

“Then go now, Lou,” Art said. “Go to your kids. We can take it from here.”

“All right,” Hidalgo agreed. “Up in the forward trailer is the guy you need to see. He’s Army. I can’t remember his name.”

“Okay. Go home. We’ll call you later if there’s anything you need to know.”

“Thanks, Art. Frankie.” Hidalgo gave her hand a squeeze before walking away to his car.

“I can’t believe this, Art. First his wife, and now his son.” Frankie’s mind flashed the face of her little girl briefly. How would she survive losing Cassie? How?

They could stand there, watching the taillights of Lou’s car fade as he drove away, and dwell on the pain and sorrow. But there was a job to do. That there was now a very personal element attached only made it more important to get to it.

“Come on, partner.”

The agents went to the forward trailer, a solid white rectangle on wheels that was still attached to the sheriffs department pickup that had towed it there. They walked up the foldout steps into the trailer. Four people were inside, two at a communications console and two standing at a wall-mounted map. One of the latter wore an olive-drab jumpsuit with rank insignia stitched on the epaulets.

“Excuse me,” Art said. Only the two men at the map turned. “Agents Jefferson and Aguirre from the L.A. FBI.”

“One minute,” the military officer—a captain, Art thought—said, then turned back to the sheriffs department captain he was standing with. “If the wind gets past fifteen knots you’re going to have to evacuate this area.” A finger tapped on the map. “Remember: fifteen knots and that area gets cleared. Don’t wait for my word. Just do it.” The officer turned back to the agents. “Sorry. It’s been pretty busy around here.”

“That’s what we gather. I’m Art Jefferson. This is Frankie Aguirre.”

“Hi,” Frankie said.

“I’m Captain Orwell. Don’t ask the first name; my parents were cruel.”

Captain George Orwell?
That must have been hell for him during basic, Art thought. “We just sent our boss home.”

“I’m sorry about his kid,” Orwell said. “He never had a chance.”

“That’s what we gather,” Frankie said. “Nerve gas?”

“The worst kind. You want to take a look?”

“You mean...”

Orwell looked to Art. His face might be a chocolate brown, but it was a shade lighter than the second before. “It’s safe. At least as safe as it can be. We’ll get you suited up. Come on.”

Art and Frankie followed the captain to an Army vehicle parked a hundred feet up on Riverside. It was a modified Humvee with what could only be described as a large box affixed behind the driver’s compartment. A door faced to the rear of the vehicle, and small fold down steps spanned the gap between the opening and the ground.

“After you.” Orwell held the door open for the agents, climbing in after them. “Take your jackets off, and anything sharp or metal. Belts, watches, earrings.”

Art slowed as he slid out of his blazer and looked down to the Smith & Wesson on his hip.

“Guns, too,” Orwell said. “They’ll be locked in here.”

Art unclipped the holster and spare magazine and laid it on a table that folded down from the wall. He didn’t like the feeling, and it showed.

“There aren’t any bad guys up there, Jefferson. At least no live ones.”

Frankie removed the locket from around her neck, kissing it lightly before setting it aside.

“You can stay back, partner,” Art offered sincerely. He knew whose picture was in the locket, and that little girl needed a mommy. “I can check it out.”

“Thanks, but no. Allen is mine, too, remember.”

“Okay,” Art said. It was just an offer, but he knew she wouldn’t take it. In a way, though, he wished she had. The mix of him, his partners, and dangerous situations had often resulted in harm coming to the person paired with him. But that was the past. He repeated that until he almost believed it.

“All right.” Orwell took three hooded camouflage jumpsuits from a cabinet and handed two to Art and Frankie. “These are MOPP suits. That stands for ‘mission-oriented protective posture.’ “

Frankie noticed the odd texture of the material. “What is this?”

“It’s a synthetic material impregnated with activated charcoal,” Orwell explained. “This is the same thing troops in the field would wear in a chemical environment. For us, though, it’s secondary protection.” He pulled three other garments from a separate cabinet. These were white, and had a more solid feel to them. “These are containment suits.”

Art noticed the resemblance to the “moon suits” the Bureau EOD teams wore.

Orwell lifted the head of one suit to show. A clear, rigid plastic faceshield covered the front of the head portion, and inside a suspension system similar to those in hard hats helped the bulbous space maintain its shape. “This will go over the other suit, then we’ll walk down to the gear area and have one of my team put the air packs on us and seal us up.”

“Getting in sounds easy,” Art observed.

“You’re right. It’s the getting out that can kill you.” Orwell smiled. “When we come away from the site we’ll be covered with the nerve agent. All that will have to be cleaned off before we can even think of getting out. The joy of decontamination. It can take some time, so if either of you have to take a leak, now’s the time to tell me. Otherwise it’s in your pants later.”

“I’m dry,” Art said. “How about you, partner?”

“As a bone.”

“Then let’s get suited.”

Orwell started, the agents following his lead, stepping into the MOPP suit, zipping up its front closure and cinching all the flex points. They left their hoods hanging loose. Next it was into the containment suit. Large, thick boots were at its base, big enough to fit anything but the largest foot size. The trio stepped into these up to their waists and let the upper half droop over one arm in front of them. Then it was out into the night once again.

“These are warm,” Frankie commented.

“You wouldn’t want to do any prolonged fighting in them,” Orwell said. “That’s why a chemical environment is a bitch to fight in. You get hot, tired, and dehydrated awful fast with any kind of activity. Fortunately we’ll have some relief from that.”

“How so?” Art asked.

“Inside the containment suit, besides the air supply, we’ll each have a small cooling system. It’s a miniature air conditioner that will circulate cool air around the head. The downside is that it only lasts for an hour; it’s a major power hog. But it is relief.”

The three walked for a minute more until they were at a vehicle identical to the one they had just left. Waiting outside, with three sets of gear resting against the vehicle body, was a soldier in a MOPP suit.

“Sarge, get us set,” Orwell directed.

“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.