“And how would you ‘properly’ disperse it,” I asked.

“VX is a liquid. It looks and feels like lubricating oil. It’s possible to receive a fatal dose absorbing it through the skin, but it’s much more effective if breathed in as an aerosol. Because it’s viscous, it helps to heat it a bit first to make it flow more easily. We would have used aircraft to spray it, or M55 rockets or M23 chemical land mines. The explosives in those would heat and disperse the VX.”

“The V in VX means that it is a persistent agent. It’s not volatile, so it won’t evaporate and disperse. Onset of symptoms varies with the amount of exposure and the method. Breath it in and you have seconds. Absorbed through the skin, it depends on the amount of the exposure and time. You might not start getting symptoms for 30 minutes.”

“What kind of symptoms,” I asked.

“For skin exposure, muscle twitching, pinpoint contractions of the pupils, local sweating at the point of contact. Vomiting, difficulty breathing, followed by convulsion and death.”