Chapter Eleven
The Search Continues
It was the customs agent. "I'm not positively sure," the man commented, "but I think I may have the men you're looking for. How dangerous are they?"
"VERY dangerous," Nathaniel informed him. "Extremely dangerous, if you happen to be colored or Jewish. You sound overly concerned. Why?"
"Because right now," the man answered, "my daughter's with them. Our furnace went out three days ago. We've been forced to move into a motel. The young men in question are in the room next door. They've taken up an acquaintance with my daughter, and have become very close to her."
Nathaniel swallowed. "I'm going to have to give you very difficult instructions," he continued. "You cannot, in any way, warn your daughter. You must wait until she is safely out of the area before withdrawing."
There was silence for several minutes then the customs agent's voice came back, "I understand, sir. We mustn't startle them. I will inform my wife the repairs were completed early and we may return home. Hopefully that will draw my daughter away from them."
There was a click on the other end of the phone and Nathaniel sat down the cellular. In a couple of seconds he regained his composure and was screaming orders to his men to get rolling.
It seemed like it took them forever to reach the motel. They got a room across from the one they were targeting. They watched a woman and children in the neighboring room happily loading belongings into a car. From time to time a young man would emerge from the target room and speak to the tall blonde teenage girl.
"Damn!" Nathaniel thought, "Just kids! Why do these lunatics always have to poison their damned kids?"
He decided to make a walk by. He wanted a closer look. As he was nearing the open door of the young man's room he heard a popping sound and coughing. He saw the young woman turn and start for the door. One of the young men was staggering out of the room towards her.
Nathaniel found his legs being driven forward with incredible speed. He seized the young woman from behind as she was part way through the door, grabbed her up into his arms, and as she struggled violently dragged her back to the safety of the open air. He immediately felt other arms wrap around his throat and heard a woman screaming in his ear, "Let go of my daughter!"
Nathaniel heard other footsteps and men screaming "Federal agents! Federal agents! Let him go, men, he's a federal agent!"
Nathaniel added his own voice to the confusion.
"The door!" he screamed, "The door! Shut the goddamn door!"
One of his men darted by the girl's still flailing legs, grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut. Finally the girl's mother let go and others helped subdue the screaming teenager. "What's the matter with you?" she screamed. "There was something wrong with Bobby and Teddy. You left them in there."
A man in a custom's uniform ran up. "Be quiet, Mary!" he snapped. "The man knew what he was doing. He saved your life. If you'd have gone in that room you would have only died with them. Now be quiet. Get out of the way."
The girl looked bewildered but at her father's bidding she backed off. Two of Agent Green's men appeared carrying a sealed suit. They were already in theirs, only had to put on their gas masks and zip them up.
Nathaniel was in his in moments. They entered the room quickly. The two boys were on the floor twisted into grotesque forms from the convulsions of death. On the bed was a metal tube about four inches long and about two inches across. A three inch metal cylinder was half screwed into the base. One of the men unscrewed it. "It's a gas gun, all right," he remarked. He carefully untwisted the cylinder. "This isn't issue," he muttered. "home made. When they tried to screw it in the head cracked open releasing the gas. This isn't cyanide, I'd better get my kit in here and find out what in the hell we've got. From the way their bodies are twisted up it looks more like good old J-47."
"Nerve gas?" Nathaniel muttered. "A gas gun wasn't designed to use that! It would kill the user as well as the victim."
"Maybe this cylinder," his companion answered, "was meant to be used in some other system, and they took it by mistake. If there's more of them around we'd sure as hell better find them!"
Nathaniel nodded. By the time he reached the door a plastic bubble had been attached to the outside, and he was given a decontaminating shower before he emerged and slipped out of the protective suit. "Priority red!" he snapped, "Clear this building. Possible toxic contamination. Keep the press away from here."
In a few minutes the area was totally secure and the cover story was being spread that two young men had been killed in a flash fire in their motel room doing drugs. It was such a common happening that perhaps the local press would pass it over.
Nathaniel waited impatiently but the specialist took his time. He finally came out.
"Pretty rotten stuff!" he ,announced "Pretty damn high tech. No back yard chemical plant produced this stuff! They had to have damned sophisticated facilities."
"Like a pharmaceutical company?" Nathaniel asked.
"Good possibility," the specialist answered.
On the way back to Hartford Nathaniel was on the phone to Ohio. The search there was going to become much more thorough, very much more thorough.
"Two down," he muttered, "three to go."
Then a terrifying thought entered his mind. They hid a second gas gun. What canister was ready to be loaded into that one? Would the user have any idea what he was carrying, any idea at all?