The Double Agents (Men at War 6)

“And it would have been effective in that state?” Fine asked. It was more a statement than a question; Fine already had read in Canidy’s report that that was the case.

Rossi nodded again.

“Not as much had the nerve agent been delivered undiluted from a munitions shell,” he said. “But, yes, people, as well as animals, would have suffered the severe effects—would be suffering its effects.”

Everyone was silent a moment.

“And if it did not burn?” Fine then said.

“I really don’t think that this could be the case,” the professor replied. “There could not have been anything left of the ship’s contents.”

“But, hypothetically,” Fine pursued, “if the shells maintained their integrity in the fires and simply went down with the ship?”

Rossi shrugged.

“Very well,” he replied. “Hypothetically, if it went to the sea bottom the salt water would corrode the metal of the shells. Eventually—probably years but possibly sooner—the shells’ seal would fail. Then the T83 would leach into the water, then to the surface, possibly in such volume as to poison the harbor and anyone close to it.”

He paused.

“Incidentally, it is a fact—not a well-kept one and not at all hypothetical—that the shells themselves are prone to leakage. Great care must be taken in their transport…and in their salvage, if your thinking is that they could be retrieved intact from the harbor bottom.”

Fine and Canidy exchanged a long look. The instability of the shells was something that they had not known.

“And,” Rossi said finally, “this was only the first shipment. I heard that more was coming from Messina, possibly already en route.”

Fine glanced again at Canidy, then turned to Rossi and said, “Would you mind excusing us for a moment, Professor?”

Rossi nodded, then suddenly yawned, covering his mouth with his right hand.

“This has been quite exhausting,” he said. “I’d actually like to lie down. Would that be possible?”

“Of course,” Fine said, then raised his voice: “Monsieur Khatim!”

When the tough old man almost immediately appeared in the arched doorway, Canidy realized he had been standing a silent guard outside the door.

Khatim leaned slightly forward in a bow that conveyed At your service.

Captain Stanley Fine said, “Monsieur Khatim, please show our guest to his room.” He turned to Rossi, and added, “You’ll please forgive the accommodations. When we got here, the beds were all infested. Now we have no more than cots.”

“That will be fine,” Rossi said, standing and putting down his teacup. “My alternative right now would be t

o be back in Palermo.”

[FOUR]

“I know what you’re going to say, Stan,” Major Richard M. Canidy said after Professor Arturo Rossi had been made comfortable and Canidy had refilled their coffee mugs.

“You do?” Captain Stanley S. Fine said. “Then you’re way ahead of me, Dick, because I don’t know what the hell to say right now.”

He sipped at his mug, watching Canidy return to the French doors, then look out in silence, his back toward Fine.

“There was no option, Stan,” Canidy said finally. “I had to blow up the Tabun; I couldn’t leave it for the Germans. Deadly cloud or not. It was a split-second decision, and—”

“And one that I agree with.”

Canidy turned. He looked at Fine for some time, took a sip of coffee, then nodded thoughtfully. His eyes showed some relief.

“Thanks, Stan. I appreciate that. I hope we’re not alone in holding that opinion.”