The drums were placed onto a special platform that had been installed in the back of the truck. It was suspended above the bed on a complex series of springs and shock absorbers, isolating the platform from the bumps that it would encounter along the road.
Within an hour, the drums had all been loaded. One of the men started the truck’s engine while two others rolled back the bunker doors. The truck pulled out of the bunker and into the cold night air. Ten minutes later, it had joined another convoy of supply trucks that were making their way to the Front.
Boris Yershov switched on his landing light as he searched through the fog and darkness for his landing pad. But the bright light couldn’t cut through the fog. Instead, it spread and reflected around him, engulfing him in a billowing world of white clouds and wispy darkness, making it even more difficult to see.
Yershov quickly reached up and turned his landing light back off. He gently tugged up on his collective while at the same time pulling back on the stick. His helicopter stabilized in a hover above the high and blowing trees. The downdraft from his rotors stirred the treetops into a constant dance of motion, pushing their branches outward and washing the snow from their bristled leaves.
Directly below him, Yershov could barely make out the shape of a huge inverted Y. It was made up of a string of small lights and was suppose to direct him downward as he attempted to land in the clearing that had been cut through the trees.
But the clearing was small. Very small. He stabilized the helicopter in high hover directly over the clearing, then pushed against his right foot pedal. The helicopter began to slowly spin, giving Yershov a chance to survey the site.
The clearing was probably big enough — but barely. Yershov aligned his helicopter with the hole, then slowly lowered the collective and began a gentle descent, slipping downward through the blanket of fog.
After settling onto the thin layer of snow, Yershov brought his engine to idle and looked around him. Not a soul was in sight. He began to wait. His rotors created a dull woop, woop as they slapped through the cold, dense air.
Someone should have been here to meet him. He checked his watch once again. As he held his wrist up to the faint lights of his cockpit, he noticed his trembling hands. It had been a long time. Not since his combat days in Afghanistan had he felt the strain and excitement of a mission.
Yershov peered through the darkness once again to see three distinct shadows moving toward him through the trees. Billowing ponchos flapped in the wind. Dark masks with huge, bug-like eyes glinted in the darkness. Yershov recoiled at the sight. Chemical warfare suits! That was bad. Very bad. Something deadly must be floating through the air. Something evil and painful. Something silent, yet toxic. The invisible death. A gas that could suck the breath from his body, or a slimy film whose smallest touch would poison his blood.
A knot of fear immediately grew in the pit of Yershov’ s stomach. His mind began to scream to him, “Run!”
Boris Yershov had a very special fear of chemical weapons. He had seen first hand what chemical agents could do. He had watched men writhe through the dust in pain, begging for someone to shoot them as they heaved and choked on their own blood. He had watched men pierce their bodies with half a dozen five-inch needles in a desperate effort to inject themselves with the proper antidote. He had listened to the cry of suffering soldiers as they wailed in a deathbed of despair.
Yes, Boris Yershov knew the power of chemical weapons. And that fear drove him to make a quick decision.
He was leaving. He didn’t care how good the pay was, it could never be enough. He would wind up his engine and climb back up through the trees. If chemical agents were here, he was gone.
Yershov rolled up the throttle on his engine. The helicopter began to vibrate as his rotors picked up speed. As soon as he was at full power, he would yank up on his collective and blast upward through the trees.
His rotors were just coming up to full power when one of the men began to walk up to his chopper, motioning for Yershov to shut down. Yershov shook his head. The man pulled off mask. Yershov relaxed his grip on the throttle. The man set his mask to one side and pulled off his gloves while motioning once again for Yershov to shut down his helicopter. This time Yershov complied.
Forty-five minutes later, all of the three holding tanks that were strapped to the side of Yershov’s helicopter had been filled with the contents of the blue drums. Yershov had been issued his own chemical agent gear, along with some very detailed instructions.
For the next fourteen minutes, Yershov flew over very specific portions of the battlefield. He flew under the cover of darkness. His small helicopter was never picked up by anyone’s radar. No one even knew he was there. Using the wind, he sprayed his cargo over an area twenty miles square.
When he was finished, he came back to land in the same spot as before. His job was finished. He would collect his payment and go home.
It was one of life’s ironies that Boris Yershov, who harbored an enormous fear of chemical weapons, was more than happy to spread them all over the battlefield, protected in the bubble of his own chemical suit. And now that his duty was over, happy to have served his country one more time, he was ready to go home.
Once again, Yershov allowed his helicopter to settle down through the trees. After landing, he shut down his engine and sat in the cockpit as his blades slowly rolled to a stop. He was waiting for someone to bring him his money. But, once again, it appeared that no one was here. He sat and listened. The silence became almost eerie as his rotor blades coasted to a stop.
Then Yershov saw a sudden motion. A quick shadow darted from behind one of the trees. Yershov peered into the darkness. He turned on the battery to his helicopter, then flipped on the searchlight. It shined through the trees, casting long shadows outward from the helicopter. Then he saw it again. Another shadow, this time much closer, moving catlike through the brush.
Yershov felt his heart quicken. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it. Once again his instincts screamed to him “Run!”
The last thing Boris Yershov saw was the flash from the muzzle. It cracked the night like lightning, strobing the trees. But Boris was dead from a shot between the eyes long before the sound of the gun echoed through the forest to his ears.
The Ukrainian prime minister watched from the TCC’s conference room. Below him, most of the soldiers and controllers in the center sat in a horrified stupor as casualty rates were posted on the control center board. Seven thousand Ukrainian soldiers killed. Nine thousand more were contaminated and not expected to live. In one night. From one biological attack.
Golubev looked over at Andrei Liski, who sat at the back of the room, eating a fresh orange, one slice at a time. Between slices, he occupied himself by doodling on a white piece of scratch paper, writing notes to himself. He seemed completely unaffected by the casualty rates. The simple truth was, so far at least, they were much lower than he had expected. The Nertrav must have been nearly out of date. Secretly, he had expected at least three times the number of casualties. He just hoped the numbers were impressive enough to have the desired effect.
General Lomov sat at the opposite end of the table, slouched down in his seat, his head supported against the wide headrest. His haggard face was a perfect blank, his eyes staring unseeing at the far wall. He looked corpselike, with his mouth slightly open and his flesh drained of its natural color. The night had already become his own private nightmare, and deep in his skull, he considered an old German proverb.