Black Cross by Greg Iles Read Free Book Online

pipe clenched between his teeth. “One thousandth of a raindrop. A droplet so small most of us couldn’t see it with the naked eye.”
    Churchill noted the stricken look on Eisenhower’s face. The meeting was going just as he’d planned.
    “Our people at Porton have been working round the clock to copy Sarin,” Lindemann went on, “but I’m afraidthey haven’t had much luck. It’s devilish difficult to reproduce.”
    “I’m afraid the Germans are having all the luck just now,” Churchill said dryly. “And there’s worse to come. Prof?”
    “Yes. General, Brigadier Smith brings word of a still deadlier gas than Sarin. It is called Soman. We don’t have a sample, but I’ve seen a detailed report. Remember your lethality ratios. Phosgene was the deadliest gas in 1939. Sarin is thirty times as deadly as phosgene. And according to the reports, Soman is to Sarin as Sarin is to phosgene. Worse, it’s persistent.”
    “Persistent?” Eisenhower echoed.
    The American major chose this moment to reassert himself. “General, persistence was one of the primary gauges of gas effectiveness during World War One. How long the gas stayed at ground level after it was released.”
    Lindemann nodded. “We have reports that Soman can remain stable for many hours, even days, clinging to whatever it comes into contact with. A soldier exposed even several hours after a battle would still likely die. And it would be a horrible death, General, I can assure you.”
    “Do we have any idea how much of this stuff the Germans have stockpiled?”
    Brigadier Smith cleared his throat. “General, our best estimate is upwards of five thousand tons, ready for use.”
    The intelligence major was stunned enough to preempt his general. “Did you say tons ?”
    Churchill nodded crisply. “Conventional cylinders, aircraft bombs, artillery shells, the lot.”
    Eisenhower held out his right hand to Churchill. “Let me see that damned thing.”
    Churchill tossed the sealed vial toward the sofa. Commander Butcher and Brendan Bracken jumped, but Eisenhower caught the vial and held it up to a lamp. “I can’t see anything,” he said. “Just some condensation at the bottom.”
    “That’s because it’s invisible,” Churchill said. “Prof?”
    “Eh?” Lindemann was fussing with his pipe again.
    “The delivery system. Aerosols vecteurs ?”
    “Right. General, when the Nazis overran Belgium in1940, they scoured the universities for technology that might further their weapons research. I’m sorry to say that they came across the work of a rather talented chemist named Dautrebande. Dautrebande had been experimenting with a new concept he called aerosols vecteurs. In plain language, he’d found a way to reduce almost any substance refined to its smallest stable state: charged particles in suspension, refined to ninety-seven percent purity. He intended to use this technology to disperse healing agents in sealed hospital rooms. Obviously, the Nazis have other uses in mind.”
    “Remember,” said Churchill, “the paramount consideration in gas warfare is the element of surprise. With Dautrebande’s system, the Nazis could saturate an entire battle area with Soman before anyone even knew they were under attack. And we have no idea how aerosols might affect current protective equipment. It could render it totally obsolete.”
    Eisenhower stood and began pacing the room. “All right, you didn’t invite me here to describe the problem. What do you want to do about this?”
    Churchill didn’t hesitate. “I want the Eighth Air Force and Bomber Command to begin hitting the German stockpiles immediately. All known nerve gas factories should be added to the master target lists and given top priority.”
    “Good God,” murmured Commander Butcher, whose former job had been a vice presidency at the Columbia Broadcasting System. “A direct hit could send clouds of lethal gas rolling across Germany. Thousands of women and children might be killed.