“Blow the wall!” Dean shouted, his chest heaving.
“Wind would only bring the gas on us faster!” J.B. shot back.
“Other wall!” Jak urged, pointing down the passage.
Turning, Ryan thrust a hand into his pocket. The teenager meant blow open the loading bay doors and vent the gas out the front. Brilliant.
Pulling grens, Ryan and J.B. whipped a couple of HE spheres through the mustard gas. Moments later the charges violently exploded, but there was no change in the growth of the poison vapors.
“Dark night, it didn’t work!” J.B. raged.
Snarling, Ryan pulled another gren. “Do it again!”
“No, cover your faces!” Krysty commanded, pulling out the Veri pistol. Aiming for the ceiling, she yanked the trigger and the signal gun thumped in her grip, her last flare launching on a sizzling column of colored flame.
Chapter Sixteen
Streaking away, the signal flare slammed into a steel rafter and exploded into a blinding flash of colors. Almost instantly, there was a gurgling hiss and water began to sputter from the fire sprinklers lining the vaulted ceiling. As the brackish fluid began to rain upon the swirling poison, yellowish water started running along the concrete floor and into the rusty drains.
Tearing and coughing at the pungent reek of horseradish, the drenched companions held wet handkerchiefs and covered their faces. Incredibly, the cloud was getting smaller, the deluge of water diluting the gas and washing it away. But the volume from the sprinklers was already slowing, what little water had remained in the century-old feeder pipes depleting rapidly. Now, the military warehouse was fighting itself, the two defensive systems locked in mortal combat. Long minutes passed with the floor vents spitting out tiny gasps of mustard gas while the sprinklers pitifully drizzled their dwindling supply onto the reeking death mist.
Then without warning, the vents became silent, the chem reservoir completely drained. But designed to extinguish a warehouse full of burning munitions, the fire sprinklers still sputtered out the occasional burst of water. In growing relief, the companions watched as the mustard-gas cloud slowly thinned away, even diminishing in density and height, until only faint wisps floated over the puddled floor.
Dean started to remove his rag and Mildred stopped him. Patiently, the group waited for the sprinklers to cease operation, and there was no longer any sign of the lethal gas. Soaked to the skin, Ryan decided to be the first and hesitantly lowered his damp cloth to chance a sniff. The warehouse smelled like a stagnant pool, but without any trace of horseradish. Carefully, the Deathlands warrior did so again, then drew in a full deep breath.
“Clear,” he announced, tossing aside the rag. “Good thing you had a flare.”
“And that mustard gas is a soluble toxin,” Mildred said, blinking rapidly. “How did you know?”
“Didn’t,” Krysty replied, pouring some more water from her canteen into a palm and smoothing down her stinging hair. “But there didn’t seem to be anything else to try.”
A drop of water fell from the overhead pipes, landed with a splat on the protective hood of a lantern and hissed away into steam. Dean moved the lantern to a peg on the wall.
“Damn smart move,” J.B. said, shaking the moisture from his Uzi, the bolt and wire stock clacking softly. “Going to remember that trick.”
“Try running first, lover,” Mildred said, squeezing out her sodden sleeves. “If this had been VX or M-55 nerve gas, we would have been chilled before the first drop of water fell.”
“VK chills even faster,” Ryan growled, using stiff fingers to brush back his crop of dripping hair.
“How know that?” Jak asked.
Exchanging glances, Ryan and J.B. didn’t reply.
There were many secrets in the Deathlands that they would never talk about. What they knew about nerve gas was one of the biggest.
“I’m going to open the door,” Dean said, wrinkling his nose at the remembered stink, and headed for the exit.
Splashing through the shrinking puddles, the companions reached the loading dock and forced open the three doors. A warm breeze moved into the warehouse, carrying the rich fragrance of the jungle, flowers, fruit and the heady aroma of living green plants.