“Which of the methods that you’ve described can be made available for our use first?”
Kaspar approached Wagner. “The sarin-soaked sponges are ready for insertion into a water supply, but I’m unable to state with certainty whether the passage of time has weakened their potency. The pure liquid sarin is as lethal as the day it was produced. Given a target location and the schematics of its ventilation system, we can design an appropriate deployment scheme to spread vapors to all breathable air within a building simultaneously.”
“I can have you a target and the building’s floor plan by the end of the day,” said Wagner.
Kaspar jutted out his chin and nodded. “Then I will have your detailed plan by morning and the requisite vaporized sarin by the next day.”
Wagner smiled and whispered in German, “Und so beginnt es.”
And so it begins.
Chapter Ten
Gunner’s House
Tangier Island, Virginia
Gunner had gathered Cam and Bear at his house for a day of blowing off steam. His conversation with Jackal had weighed heavily on his mind from the day before, causing him to toss and turn during the night. The only thing that took his mind away from killing Colonel Robinson and being done with the whole ordeal was the mystery surrounding the missing canisters off the sunken U-boat. He looked forward to spending time with his best friends, throwing down a few beers, and brainstorming about the lost cargo.
“I seriously cannot believe we’re about to play Monopoly,” said Cam jokingly as she set a bag of Tostitos Rounds and a bowl of salsa in front of the guys. She took a swig of her beer and sat with her legs folded under her on the floor on the opposite side of the coffee table.
“This is not just any ordinary Monopoly, Cam. This is vintage German Monopoly. Check it out.”
Cam studied the board. Although the colors and property locations were the same as the board game she’d loved as a kid, the street designations and landing spaces were all in German. To show its age, the board itself was played using German deutsche marks, the obsolete currency that preceded the euro’s use in Germany. She picked up a card identified as gemeinschaftskarte.
In her exaggerated Sergeant Schultz accent from the sixties comedy Hogan’s Heroes, she read the phrase written on the card. “Zahle an das Krankenhaus!”
Bear busted out laughing. “You even sound like a Nazi!”
“Okay, smart guy,” Cam shot back. “Do you have any idea what this means? Why are we playing this anyway?”
“Krankenhaus is the German word for hospital,” Gunner responded calmly. He was enjoying the sparring between his friends. “Zahle means pay.”
“Of course you would know,” said Cam. “Hell, Pop could probably tell us where all these streets are, too.”
Gunner’s parents had met in Berlin, Germany, while Pop was stationed there in the Air Force. He’d become fluent in her native language, and Gunner had picked up conversational German over the years.
“I don’t think our part of this whole U-boat investigation is done yet,” Bear finally replied to Cam’s question. “With a little luck, we’ll travel to good old Deutschland to chase down some Nazis.”
“They’re all dead, you dope,” said Cam. “The war ended eighty years ago.”
Bear scowled. He hadn’t done the math. “Well, we’ve still gotta start somewhere to find out who ran off with the canisters. The people who’d know about this stuff are probably Germans.”
Gunner rolled the dice first. While Cam and Bear went at each other, he’d grabbed the car as his token before Bear got the chance. Cam quickly snagged the horse and rider before flipping the iron in Bear’s direction with her middle finger.
“I don’t want the iron!” he complained.
She flipped the thimble toward him. “Better?”
Gunner laughed.
Bear grabbed the boot and tapped it on the oak tabletop. With a sly grin thrown at Gunner and a hint of snark, he said, “This’ll work in case I need to stick a boot up her—”
Cam cut him off. “Finish that sentence and you’ll eat that boot,” she snarled.
“Sooo testy,” said Bear with a slight smile.
Gunner moved his piece nine spaces to Post Strasse.
Cam took her turn and rolled a ten. “Nur zum besuch. Just visiting Bear in jail, right?”
Bear mocked her by repeating her statement aloud. He took his turn. “Say, we didn’t hear anything about Drs. Randolph and Li during the briefing yesterday. Are they out of the picture?”
Gunner responded as he rolled the dice, which turned up two fives. He moved the car to Berliner Strasse. “They needed a day or so to process the ship, and then Harper said they’d study the results back in their labs at DARPA.”
“I wonder why they cut the CDC out of this one?” asked Cam.
“National security,” Gunner quickly replied. “These guys are different from the epidemiologists in Atlanta. Their goal is to prevent a crisis or attack, not investigate them.”
“Left of boom,” added Bear under his breath.
Gunner nodded. “Exactly. Her husband’s Congressman Joe Mills. He practically writes our paycheck.”
“Wow,” said Cam. “You’d think she’d sit back and enjoy the spoils of Washington.”
“They’re not like that,” said Gunner. “Down-to-earth, roll-up-your-sleeves kinda people. She’s the one who solved the case of that virus discovered in Vegas.”
“That guy Kwon impressed me,” said Bear. “He didn’t talk much, but he had an air about him. Badass, you know.”
“Hot, too,” said Cam with a wry smile. She casually rolled the dice and moved her horse forward past Gunner’s piece onto the Free Parking space.
“If you say so,” mumbled Bear finally. “I didn’t see him as your type.”
“What is my type?” she challenged him.
Bear was cornered into responding. “I don’t know. Not Kwon.”
“I think you’re wrong, and when we
