With a startling clank the lock fell off.

Moreno and the others stepped forward and slid open the hasp, then grabbed the handles for the heavy doors. With a slight squeak of protest, the doors swung wide open. The interior of the bunker was pitch-black. Half of the group edged in, the other half staying outside. The doors swung shut and flashlights were turned on.

Moreno let out a slight sigh, not enough to be noticed by others, but enough to release the tension that had been building ever since he noted there was no guard on the bunker. The target was there, the only object in the large cavernous space. Set on a cart were four large, stainless steel canisters, each five feet high and two feet in diameter. Prominently displayed on the side of each was the warning triangle for a deadly chemical agent.

The U.S. government had long claimed it had destroyed all toxic agents in its inventory at the plant here on Johnston Atoll. As with many other things, Moreno knew for certain now that it was a lie. In those four canisters was a classified nerve agent, a variation of the extremely dangerous VX, which had been designated ZX.

He directed his special handling teams forward. Four men to each canister. They removed the four canisters and placed them on stretchers. They then strapped the canisters down and gathered near the large doors. The flashlights were turned off, the doors opened, and the group exited.

They carefully made their way through the holes in the fence and back to the Zodiacs. The rubber boats were shoved off and they headed back toward the submarine. There was still no sign of any alarm being raised.

Moreno sat in the bow of the lead boat staring at the steel canister that rested in the center of it. Not only was information about ZX a highly held secret, the fact that it had been developed before its sister agent, VX, was something very few people were privy to. According to most sources, VX was developed in 1952 by the British. In fact, ZX was developed in early 1945 by the Japanese at Unit 731. The formula for it was appropriated by the Americans when they gathered several of the lead scientists from 731 under the auspices of Operation Paper Clip. The information was shared by the Americans with the British, who developed a less lethal version they designated VX.

All this information had been gained by the Abu Sayef at great expense and effort. Bribery, torture, and murder had blazed a trail to these truths. While VX was considered by many to be the most lethal chemical agent in the world, it had half the lethality of ZX. Anyone exposed to just five milligrams of ZX died. Each of these canisters contained the potential for two million lethal doses. What made ZX very different and much more dangerous than VX – besides the higher lethality – was while the latter was in liquid form and difficult to make into a gas, ZX was already in a compressed gas state inside the tubes.

They arrived at the submarine, and looking toward shore, saw no sign of any alert or activity. With great care they hauled the canisters on deck. They slid three of them through the deck hatch into the sub, securing them in the forward torpedo room in place of the longer weapons. Moreno remained on deck with the fourth. Where a three-inch gun had once been bolted, there was now a device that resembled a gun with an oversized barrel that flared out to a four-foot-wide nozzle.

The fourth canister was slid into a rack at the base of the erstwhile gun placement and tied down. Moreno then ordered everyone else off the deck except one man. He was their chemical expert and wore a protective suit and mask. The man glanced at Moreno, waiting for him to leave also. The elder man shook his head. He wanted to set an example and make sure everything was done exactly right. He gestured for the expert to continue.

The man shrugged, then connected a hose to the back of the tube. As he was doing this, Moreno climbed up the outside of the conning tower and took his position on the small space on top. He held onto the railing with one hand as he picked up the mike with the other. He issued orders for the submarine to get under way, setting a course that would bring it closer to the atoll.

Moreno glanced down at the deck. The expert gave him the thumbs-up.

When Moreno nodded, the man walked to the bottom of the tower and stripped off the protective suit, then joined him on the bridge. Johnston Atoll was now less than two kilometers away.

Moreno and the expert went into the sub.

"Seal all hatches," Moreno ordered.

When the board showed all green, Moreno turned to the expert.

"Do it."

The man held a small remote. He pressed the red button.

It was anticlimactic, Moreno thought, as he went to the periscope. The sub was still on the surface.

"Turn to course one eight zero, maintain slow," Moreno ordered.

He shifted the periscope as the sub turned and ran parallel to the atoll. Moreno could see no sign of the agent being sprayed, so he had to trust that the job had been done right. He glanced at the expert, who was watching a stopwatch.

His attention back on the periscope, Moreno saw they were now even with the island. He watched as it slowly slid by. He turned the periscope and glanced at the expert. The man clicked the watch and gave a thumbs-up. Moreno looked one more time at Johnston Atoll. Still no sign of anything unusual. He snapped up the handles.

"Dive," he ordered.

"Course one-one-four degrees, full speed."

He looked at the digital clock in the control room.

"We must make the rendezvous in three hours and six minutes exactly."

On Johnston Atoll death came on the air, unseen and odorless. Some of the buildings in the main complex had been designed to handle Level IV contaminants, but these building with their complex filtering systems were designed to keep biological and chemical agents inside, not prevent outside agents from entering.

The first to be affected was the lone guard on duty at the airstrip control tower. The ZX was borne in from the ocean by the wind, carried across the runway. He had been reading a novel while the raid was conducted a kilometer and a half away. He was still reading as the first molecules of ZX arrived. He blinked as he felt unexpected tears form in his eyes. Two seconds later his throat constricted and he gasped for breath. His mind was desperately trying to figure out what was happening as it passed from consciousness to unconsciousness.

Which was fortunate for him. Every muscle in his body began to convulse as the agent spread, the ZX binding to the acetylcholinesterase enzymes at the end of each synaptic membrane. This made the AChE inactive, which then made it impossible for the nerve endings to stop firing, thus the uncontrolled muscle activity. Which quickly led to paralysis and death as the lungs stopped working.

All of this happened within thirty seconds.

The gas floated into the main complex, sucked in by the air-conditioning units in all the buildings and spewed out into the rooms inside. The results were the same. Most of those on the island were contaminated while they slept, and went from sleep to unconsciousness to death in half a minute without any awareness. The few others who were awake had those few moments of awareness that something was wrong. Then they too died.

Nine hundred sixty civilians and 250 military personnel were dead within five minutes.

The generators, amply fueled, continued to run, and the lights on the island continued to glow in the darkness.

Vaughn looked up and could see the first stars. He tried to count the days back to the failed raid. He had to assume his brother-in-law's body was back in the States by now. Most likely even in the ground. A military funeral. And he hadn't been there for his sister or to pay his respects. He looked up at the shaft still blowing hot air out. The one who was responsible was in there.