James held up the tagged envelope, staring at it. “Tertra… chlora something or other?”
“TCDDMX4,” Marks said. He laid his sleeping bag out flat and moved back to the table, taking a seat over the map. He unfolded it then turned it so everyone could see it.
“What’s a TCDDMX4?” Jacob asked, moving closer and seeming to recognize the word from his college days.
Marks stopped and looked at him, then grinned. “It’s what gives Agent Orange its bite. Seems the same shit that kills us slowly stops the Deltas in their tracks. At least that’s what the Frogs and Germans are saying.”
“No way… Agent Orange kills ’em?” Stephens said as he reached across the table for the sealed envelope.
“No, not Agent Orange; the toxin found in it—the cancer causing part—when super concentrated and weaponized.”
Stephens paused, examining the word on the yellow tag before holding up the sealed envelope. “So what’s inside?”
Marks nodded. “Instructions on how to test and verify it… if we can find it.”
James laughed as he got up from the table and moved across the room to refill his cup. “And where do we find this elusive black magic that stops the Deltas cold?”
Marks opened the map and pointed at a city near the center of it. “Middleville, Michigan, twenty-five miles inland from our drop-off point. According to sources, they were working on the stuff before the government pulled the plug on the project. Apparently, they still have tanks full of it 'cause Uncle Sam never paid the expense of destroying it.”
Rogers leaned over the map, using his finger to scale the distance. “That’s a lot of uphill sledding, sir; better hope we can secure a vehicle.”
The lieutenant nodded. “It gets worse; they aren’t even sure that it’s there. The chemical plant may or may not be intact. Satellite and drone imagery shows the holding tanks intact, but we don’t know if they’ve been drained or damaged.”
Stephens put his hands up. “Now hold up. How do we even know this stuff works or what it’s supposed to do?”
“The French assure us it works,” Marks said.
Jacob shook his head. “And they have a history of reliability,” he said, causing the others to laugh.
“Well, look at that, the cherry’s got jokes,” James said.
Marks raised both his hands, silencing the group. “It’s good intelligence, and like I said before, the Germans confirmed it.” He lifted his cup and took a sip before taking the envelope back from Stephens. “There is a small village in Italy, Seveso. In the seventies, there was some sort of chemical spill. Loads of this shit got dumped into the ground there.”
“And?” Stephens asked.
Marks beamed. “And there ain’t no Deltas in Seveso. And that wasn’t even the concentrated batch.”
Stephens shook his head and prepared to speak. Marks put up a hand, stopping him. “No, the Germans didn’t believe it either, so they got their hands on some of it and sprayed it over an occupied village in the Alps. After twenty-four hours, every Delta in the neighborhood was dead or severely FUBAR and not a single one has moved back.”
“But sir,” Jacob said, “if this stuff is toxic, and say we use it, won’t we just be turning the world into a no man’s land? We might as well just hit them with sarin gas or anthrax.”
James chuckled mirthlessly. “Cherry, we already tried all of that shit; nothing worked. Hell, India even tried nuking the bastards. It incinerated some of them but didn’t even slow the rest of ’em down. If you’re afraid of hurting Mother Earth, you might as well punch out and sign the deed over to the Deltas. Because I don’t know if you looked outside lately, but it’s already no man’s land.”
Marks again put his hands up, silencing them. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Jacob; there isn’t enough to spray the globe, even if we wanted to. This stuff is pretty hard to come by in the concentrations we need. But if this chemical plant in Middleville has it, we can use what’s available to create a real buffer zone, a border to protect our people while we fight them. All we have to do is verify it’s there and get the hell out. If we can deliver a sample, that’s even better.
“If we can secure enough, it puts us back into the fight. Now let’s get some sleep. We can finalize our plans when we hit the Michigan coastline.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Graceful as a herd of stampeding buffalo, the ship’s crew was back in the galley, making coffee and preparing breakfast. Pots slammed together, waking Jacob. He rolled in his sleeping bag and pushed against the wall, checking his watch: Just past two a.m. Looking across the dark galley, he could see a small seam of light escaping from a door leading into the kitchen area. “Damn, nobody sleeps anymore,” he grunted.
“Hell, no. These guys don’t mess around,” he heard Jesse whisper. “Not gonna complain; I’m starving.”
Jacob sat up in the bag and looked back. Jesse was curled up next to one of the galley tables, the other soldiers farther behind them, still snoring away. The ship’s engines hummed, but very quietly now. Jacob could hear the calm slapping of the water against the sides of the ship instead of the breaking of waves he’d heard earlier, letting him know that the forward momentum had halted.
“When did we stop?” he whispered.
Jesse pushed himself into a sitting position and leaned close. “It got quiet about an hour ago. I think we’ve dropped anchor.”
Jacob nodded, letting the bag fall from around his shoulders, the cold night air slowly waking
