Jefferson Plaza, Southwest Sector
0932 EST
"ISAC, I need the high level brief provided by the National Security Council on DC-62," said Ryckmen as the team approached Jefferson Plaza.
"Full brief will require two hours to provide," intoned ISAC.
"Give me the summary."
"DC-62 is a sulfonylurea derivative compound, intended to inactivate the RNA polymerase enzymes found in variola virions. Due to its chemical structure, it can be used as a contact agent for contaminated surfaces, or incorporated with inactive ingredients to form the basis for a pharmaceutical prophylactic or treatment regimen."
"Is it classified as an organic or inorganic chemical compound?" Gregory asked.
"DC-62 is classified as an organic compound."
"Then somebody screwed up by the numbers."
"How so?" asked Ryckmen.
"Sulfonylureas, being organic, are more likely to react in warm conditions. But everything I've heard so far about the stuff is that it somehow changed, chemically speaking, when the temperature dropped. I'm not a chemist, especially not an organic chemist, but something went horribly wrong here."
Ryckmen nodded. "ISAC, has there been any analysis of DC-62 after its initial applications in the District?"
"Chemical analyses have not been undertaken for DC-62 samples after application."
"All right. What is the pathology of individuals who have been exposed to DC-62 which has been subjected to cold temperatures?"
"Rapid and violent hemorrhaging in the lungs, eyes, and brain within two minutes of exposure."
The team looked at each other and shuddered noticeably. "Christ, it's like they inhaled atomized rat poison," Bundmeister murmured.
"Probably not a bad comparison," said Tarvey, nodding in agreement. "And Peace's comment about how organic compounds react to heat makes me think it's worse once it actually gets into your lungs or mucus membranes. Just because you warm the stuff up doesn't mean it automatically reverts to its original formula. If anything, the internal temperature of the human body probably turbocharges the reaction with the altered version."
Ryckmen sighed softly, hating the possibility that Tarvey might be right. "Current decontamination protocol?"
"DC-62 breaks down under prolonged exposure to short-wave ultraviolet light in the 150 to 250 nanometer range. Recommended decontamination ratio is one minute for every fifteen minutes exposed to DC-62."
Gregory winced. "Which means any areas which have significant DC-62 contamination are pretty much going to stay that way until somebody puts on a hazmat suit and paints buildings with a short-wave UV floodlight for the next couple of centuries."
Nodding somberly, Ryckmen came to a stop just outside of Jefferson Plaza. He tapped the watch a couple times, establishing a connection to the Theater. "Broadway, this is SHD Peacemaker. Advise the Director we will need a decon team and tanning bed goggles standing by at the front door. Inform her we're going to need short-wave UV lights between 150 and 250 nanometers. Something a little more intense than the lights currently in place. Probably have to use hand lights."
"Copy that, Peacemaker. We'll be standing by. Broadway, over and out."
The team gathered at the entrance to a subway station next to the Plaza. Thanks to maps provided by ISAC and a few judicious queries from Tarvey, their infiltration plan had been developed with an eye to cause as much havoc as possible. The possibility of the True Sons using the subway lines, even with the power turned off, as a logistical conduit was simply too good to pass up. And if sealing the line also ensured nobody would be getting weaponized DC-62 out anytime soon, so much the better. Tarvey went on point, his MP5 at the ready, followed by Bundmeister, Ryckmen, and Gregory at the rear. Their movements were careful and quiet. A part of Gregory's mind noted the lack of chatter between them, but the rest of him didn't seem to care.
Coming to the top of a landing inside the station, the team spread out, Bundmeister and Tarvey prepared to cover the two approaches up to their position. Ryckmen set up his SVD and began to mark out his targets as Gregory laid his M249 on the railing. Gregory's job was simple. Anything between the stairs on his left and the ruined subway cars on his right was to be as suppressed as efficiently as possible. Ryckmen would handle killing them. Any leakers who were lucky enough, and suicidal enough, to try the approaches were either going to get a burst of 9mm rounds from Tarvey or a shotgun round from Bundmeister. Bunny had swapped out her load right before leaving the Castle, reloading the SPAS-12 with slugs. It placed a greater premium on accuracy, but whoever got hit with one was going to feel it, body armor be damned.
"Light'em up," growled Ryckmen softly, his sights already on his first target.
Gregory pulled the trigger, sending bullets down on to the platform, traversing slowly, killing three True Sons and sending the rest scattering. Ryckmen went to work servicing targets, shifting fire the moment he saw blood erupting from the skulls. A few tried to take cover in the train cars, only to be cut down by Tarvey. Only one person thought to try the stairs. The slug from Bundmeister's shotgun caused his head to explode like an overripe melon.
With the upper platform cleared, the team made their way down to the lower platform. Tarvey and Bundmeister each took an escalator, splitting the area into zones of responsibility, dropping targets before they even realized the approaching threat. The lower platform was cleared even more quickly than the upper. Ryckmen tapped his watch twice. "Casablanca, this is SHD Peacemaker. We're currently near Jefferson Plaza, attempting to locate and neutralize any chemical weapons currently stockpiled on site."
"Lobo, it's Manny. Where are you? Your signal's a little fuzzy."
"Standing on a subway platform. If I've got my directions right, there are two lines, and this lower one seems to be aimed more or less towards the Capitol."
"That tracks with our intel up to this point. True Sons have been using subway lines running under DZ South to establish footholds over on the west side of town. We were told the lines were sealed off, but that may have just meant CERA sealed off the stations and maintenance access points without collapsing the tunnels."
"Which we're not going to do without a lot of C4 and a civil engineer with a demolitions background."
"Maybe not, Lobo," said Tarvey slowly. "But we do have a little C4 right here, courtesy of Ridgeway's goons. We can't blow the tunnel. We can, however, blow the train. If I rig it right, I can cut one of the rails with the same charge."
"Go for it, Ricky."
Tarvey grabbed a brick of C4 from a case, attached a detonator, then looked under the edge of the light train engine and attached the charge. "Natural gas cylinder," he murmured to himself as he got back to his feet and snagged a few more bricks. "That'll help nicely. Everybody, up the stairs." The team cleared the platform and moved over into a utility room. Tarvey pulled a remote from his pocket, activated it, and smiled beatifically. "Fire in the hole," he said as he pushed the button. A thunderous explosion came up from below. "Train's out of commission. Where do we go from here?"
"We come up from the ventilation maintenance access. We'll make our way through the lobby, see what we can find." Ryckmen flicked the muzzle of his MDR to indicate their course. Moving along the HVAC conduit area, Tarvey took point, going up the ladder and covering the area at the top as the others came up. The scent of chlorine lingered in the air as they made their way along the now empty pool and past the locker rooms, heading towards the lobby.
A small group of True Sons stood at various points, keeping a rough watch on the door leading from the pool patio. Tarvey peeked around the edge of the doorway, passing the others inside one by one, letting them get into position behind the front desk. Ryckmen silently counted down from three. Popping up, the team opened fire, clearing the room quickly. As they made their way up to an elevator, ISAC continued to pipe True Sons comm chatter into their ears, the defenders clearly aware their position was under attack and they lacked an escape route. Certainly one which would let them keep their weapons project intact. The True Sons knew who their enemy was, and they knew death or glory were the only possible outcomes.
Tarvey descended down the elevator shaft, reaching the bottom and scanning the area. ISAC chimed in his ear, warning him of lethal levels of DC-62 contamination. It was, Tarvey thought, one of the more unnecessary warnings he'd heard in his life. Even through the mask, there was a chemical odor which woke a subconscious tension within him. If pure evil had a scent, what he was smelling would probably be just like it.
"What's down here?" asked Gregory as he stepped out of the elevator shaft.
"Not quite a mall, as such." Ryckmen glanced around, faintly disturbed by all the Christmas decorations still hanging on the walls in the middle of high summer. "Food court, yeah. Shopping arcades, but nothing as expansive as a major shopping mall would be."
"Creepy," murmured Bundmeister. "I will never find the phrase 'Christmas in July' cute ever again."
The team moved into what had once been a brew pub, several True Sons standing guard over two large stainless steel containers. Once, they might have held gallons of specially brewed craft beer. Now, from the crust of dried yellow gunk near the bottom, it was clear they'd been repurposed as part of the DC-62 weaponization program. "ISAC," Ryckmen subvocalized, "are there any toxic by-products from DC-62 being incinerated?"
"Minimal by-products. Smoke inhalation without filtration mechanisms will cause severe but non-lethal lung irritation."
"All right. Let's drop these scumbags, then see what we can do about burning this crap out." Ryckmen took a bead, waited till the others were ready, then murmured, "Execute." The coordinated fire ripped through the guards like a scythe, and the follow-on volley ensured there were no defenders left.
Gregory moved up, examining the equipment sitting between the two steel holding tanks. "Distillate of some sort," he muttered, then checked to see if there were any labels. Failing to find any, he took a crucible, poured a bit of the distillate into it, then put it over a burner, waiting for ISAC's chemical sensors to identify the substance.
"Methanol detected."
"Jesus wept," Tarvey growled. "Are they trying to make a liquid form of this?"
Ryckmen scraped a small bit of crust off the nearest holding tank with the point of a combat knife, then brought it over to the burner. "Might be. But I don't think they're there yet." Passing the point of the knife through the flame, the team watched as the yellow gunk burned off in a faint puff of white smoke. "Think they're playing more with a slurry. Probably something thin enough to be mistaken for a liquid, but not an actual liquid compound. Still bad news for anybody exposed to it. Wood alcohol poisoning would be the least of your worries." He shrugged as he looked over at Tarvey. "Small favors, Ricky. A methanol base will burn nicely. Slap a brick of C4 on each of those tanks and set a timer. We need to take out their mortar."
As Tarvey rigged the charges, Gregory moved over next to Ryckmen. "Can we capture the mortar, maybe? Emplace it against the True Sons? It'd be a hell of a force multiplier against them and the Hyenas."
"Tempting," said Ryckmen reluctantly. "But in this case, I think we're better off destroying it. We can capture other tubes if we really need to, but this one is...tainted, for lack of a better word. For civilian militia, it'd either be abhorrent to use the weapon which murdered the Castle, or there'd be a desire to use it and the remaining chemical shells against Ridgeway. There's enough fodder for revanchism as it is. Best to remove the temptation."
Tarvey trotted over to them. "Charges are set and the clock's ticking. We've got five minutes."
Nodding, Ryckmen checked his MDR, then brought it to battery. "Move out. We're going to see how well the True Sons do on charge zero."
"Charge zero?" Gregory asked as they approached what had been set aside as "Santa's Workshop," the cheerful decorations and raised platform almost an obscene counterpoint to the deadly chemical weapon lab a few rooms over.
"Mortar crews, particularly for light and medium tubes, can use what are referred to as augmentation charges to throw the shell further. A shell fired without any of those charges is considered to be on 'charge zero.' By the same token, mortar crews are not expected to be within visual range of the enemy. Certainly not within effective small arms range. And the only way a mortar crew could engage enemy units within effective small arms range is to use a shell on charge zero."
"Of course," Bundmeister said frostily, "there's a certain minimum range the shell can go. If you get inside that range, charge zero or not, your mortar team is dead meat. Believe me, it's interesting trying to get under the guns like that."
The team went down a corridor and up a stairwell, heading for a garden courtyard. The remaining True Sons appeared to be dug in around a building on the far side of the courtyard with the facade ripped off. Ryckmen noted a M252A1 mortar tube set up on the third floor, pointing into the courtyard. "Heads up, guys. There may be another mortar hiding around somewhere. They've got an 81mm set up over there, but the Castle was hit with a 120. Stay alert." Taking up position, the team waited until the charges on the chemical slurry tanks below and behind them blew. The rumble of the explosion, combined with the column of smoke rising up from the building, distracted the True Sons troops, pulling their attention away for a fatal second.
Team Peacemaker opened fire, with Gregory suppressing the True Sons ruthlessly, pinning them in place behind planters and stacks of containers. Bundmeister had swapped to her AK, pressing her left hand down over the weapon's forearm as she braced it against a container, keeping the True Sons from working around the edges. Meanwhile, Tarvey had brought up his M1A, servicing any target stupid enough to poke a hand or a head out of cover.
Only Ryckmen wasn't involved in the shootout. His SVD was up, but his "off"eye was open, focused on the platform where the 81mm mortar tube sat. It was a powerful weapon for the True Sons. Even if the person behind the mortar inflicted catastrophic friendly fire casualties, it'd be worth it to wipe out a full Division team, and one who'd demonstrated their competence far too often against the True Sons.
A grenadier tried to approach the mortar tube. Ryckmen put the crosshairs over the target, gave himself just a tiny bit of lead, and stroked the trigger. The bullet came under the grenadier's armpit, erupting out the opposite shoulder, sending them rolling away from the tube. Another trooper, one of their engineers, tried to slide in behind the mortar, catching a bullet from Ryckmen's rifle between the right orbit and the bridge of his nose. Before a third could start to move, Ryckmen put a round right through the center of the "sniper's triangle," killing his target. He caught sight of movement down on the ground, as one of the True Sons saluted another in a heavy flak vest. Ryckmen shifted the SVD, putting his aim point right at the base of the man's neck, the trigger breaking at one pound, the bullet striking the base of the throat right as he turned around. Ryckmen observed the falling corpse had captain's bars on his collar, but it was a distant sort of recognition, like a flicker of light from a variable star. The muzzle of his SVD came down to bear on the few remaining True Sons, picking them off with the precision of an atomic clock, the recoil of the high velocity rounds kept tightly controlled.
When the shooting ended, Ryckmen stood up and made his way over towards the fallen captain, snatching a set of dog tags from the body, then looking around. Off to one side, he saw the 120mm mortar tube. "Ricky, over there. Trash it."
"Gladly," said Tarvey as he pulled his last brick of C4 out of his backpack.
"What about that other one?" asked Gregory.
"Tag it. We'll get Odessa's recovery team to stash it. Might be useful later." Ryckmen looked around, wishing beyond all measure for a tanker truck of napalm and a hose. He saw what looked like a communications tent over against some rubble and made his way over to it. "ISAC, tie in with this radio equipment," he growled softly. "Send a general signal on all known True Sons channels, all known scrambles and encrypts."
"Standing by."
"Attention all True Sons fighters. This is Agent Lowell Ryckmen of the Strategic Homeland Division." He paused for a moment to let it sink in that the Division had one of their comm sites. "By now, you have undoubtedly heard of your successful chemical weapons attack upon the Castle settlement led by your former compatriot, Mike Snow. Enjoy it. Because it is going to be the last victory you will ever be able to claim," he hissed. "Up to this point, the Division was willing to be considerate of circumstances. We were willing to work with those who were prepared to maintain the continuity of government and aid us in the effort to rebuild.
"But as far as the True Sons are concerned, there will be no further considerations from us. We do not know if the attack on the Castle was ordered by Colonel Ridgeway or not, and we no longer care. No surrenders shall be accepted. No mercy shall be granted. No quarter shall be given. You have not just betrayed your oaths to your nation. You have betrayed the basic foundations of civilization. You have forfeited the right to consider yourselves a part of the human race, and you will be hunted down as the animals you have demonstrated yourselves to be."
Ryckmen's hand tightened into a fist, the nails biting deep enough to draw blood. "There is no distance far enough away to escape us. There is no hole deep enough to hide from us. None of you will leave this city alive. You are all walking corpses who haven't been buried yet. And when we have buried you, you will not even be a memory." Breaking the connection, Ryckmen took a deep breath. "ISAC, for the next 96 hours, jam all transmissions on every known True Sons frequency. Don't just step on the freq. Curbstomp the damned things."
"Initiating frequency jamming and signal interference measures."
"Let's get the hell out of here," Ryckmen said, his voice inhumanly weary. Nodding, the rest of the team filed in behind him, making their way back down the stairs and out into the street.
Author's Note
A few readers might wonder why I would choose a compound (or class of compounds) which is normally associated with diabetes medication. Surprisingly, when digging around for a suitably plausible substance, I learned sulfonylureas are not just used for managing diabetes. Some of the compounds in the family are also used as herbicides, and they do inactivate certain enzymes (albeit protease instead of polymerase) as the mechanism for their intended purpose. Given the history of chemical weapons in the real world, and their relationship with herbicides and pesticides of the past, this seemed like it would hit the "plausible" mark nicely. Much like Paxton Gregory, I'm not an organic chemist, so it would take an evil genius with a better background in that branch of science than mine to work out the finer points of how DC-62 would react as the game and my chapter here have depicted it.