Shattered Bone

by Chris Stewart

  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.

  KREMENCHUG-CHERKASSY, UKRAINE

  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.

  “In times of war, Satan makes more room in hell.”

  Certainly that was true. He knew it was true. And his fate was now guaranteed.

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The President of the United States awakened very slowly. The soft buzzer that sat on his nightstand sounded for several minutes before he finally rolled over. The President yawned and stretched and pushed his head against his pillow. He shut his eyes tightly, wishing the buzzer would just go away.

  But it didn’t, and after a few seconds he finally reached over and pressed a small button on the side of the alarm.

  “Mr. President, I’m sorry to wake you.” It was Milton Blake, his National Security Advisor. “Sir, we have a problem. Could I come up for a moment.”

  President Allen stretched once again, then rolled his feet to the floor and sat up on the side of his bed. “What time is it?” he asked.

  “It’s almost four, sir,” Milton Blake responded.

  The President rubbed his hands through his hair and pressed his palms against the side of his head.

  “Come on up, Milt. I’ll be waiting for you.” The President spoke in a rough and congested voice. He reached over and turned on his lamp, then rubbed his eyes to help them adjust to the light. He sat on the bed for a minute or two before standing up and pulling on his bathrobe. He then stumbled into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face.

  About that time, Ken Labrems, his personal secretary, knocked gently on his bedroom door. Ken walked into the room without waiting for the President to answer, followed by the President’s National Security Advisor. Both of the men were freshly showered and dressed in dark suits.

  President Allen caught a glimpse down the hallway as the two men entered the room. The upper floor of the White House was very quiet. Only one small light illuminated the hallway and no one else was in sight.

  The President walked over to a huge leather couch that sat against the far wall of his bedroom. He plopped down on the soft leather and put his feet up on the oak coffee table, then motioned for Blake to sit down beside him. Meanwhile, Ken Labrems went into the President’s closet to begin to layout his clothes.

  “What is it, Milt?” the President began in a weary voice. “And don’t tell me the Russians have lost another bomber.”

  “No sir, it’s nothing like that,” Blake quickly responded. “Though I only wish it were so. I’m afraid this is much worse. Something has happened in the Ukraine. It has enormous implications, and it may prove very complicated for us to work through.”

  Blake paused and then continued. “It’s Fedotov, sir. Last night, portions of the Ukrainian Army were attacked with a chemical weapon. The number of casualities is unknown at this time, but it might be enormous.

  “We have reason to believe it is Nertrav, the Russians’ newest blood agent. If it is, there will be no doubt that the attack was precipitated by Fedotov, for the Russians are the only country that have Nertrav in stock. We should know in a few hours when the final analysis comes back from our lab.”

  As Blake spoke, he leaned forward in his seat to study the President’s face. He couldn’t help but notice that the strain from the past few weeks was beginning to show. Only a handful of men in the entire world would ever understand the burden that th
e President carried. And of those, only one or two were close enough to President Allen to see how the stress had carved deep lines in his face.

  The President stared straight ahead in a horrified stupor. He didn’t know what to say. Finally, Milton Blake broke the awkward silence.

  “Mr. President, there is going to be enormous pressure for us to do something. And maybe we should. I mean, how far do you let a man like Fedotov go? When do we take a stand? How long can we stand idly by?

  “Mr. President, I understand that in times of war, the bounds of human decency are sometimes vague and ambiguous. I mean, when your objective is to kill and destroy, it is easy to fall into a mode where one means of death is the same as another.

  “But sir, there have been, and always will be, some things that are clearly unacceptable. Some actions scream out to be punished. Some lines were not meant to be crossed.”

  The President slowly shook his head. How could he ever disagree?

  That afternoon, after hours of urgent meetings, the President authorized his National Security Team and the Pentagon to draft a contingency plan calling for limited air strikes, using forward deployed F-117s, against carefully selected Russian targets, primarily chemical and biological weapon storage facilities.

  Three hours after the planning cells were assembled, an anonymous source called the Washington Times. By early the next morning, the entire country had been notified that the United States was developing its military options against Russia.

  The press reports alarmed many people. The country seemed to be bracing to enter the war. And the news didn’t go unnoticed in the Kremlin. By late that evening, Fedotov’s people were making contingency plans of their own.

  BOLLING AIR FORCE BASE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Lieutenant Colonel Oliver Tray stared once again at the map, with the city of Dallas at the center from which concentric circles expanded. Tiny pins noted the various reported sightings, though none of them had yet born any fruit. They were scattered from Houston to Oklahoma City. From Baton Rouge to Pacos. It was such a huge area they had to cover! More than two hundred thousand square miles! Simple old fashioned police work would not be the answer. They didn’t have time! They needed him now!

  “When will the National Reconnaissance Organization decide on moving the satellite?” he demanded.

  “Hopefully by the end of the day.” Colonel Fullbright replied.

  Tray rocked on his feet as he studied the map and cursed to himself. What was taking so long?

  Fullbright read the look on Tray’s face and said, “Keep in mind what we are asking for, Oliver. You know that moving a satellite takes direct approval from the National Security Advisor himself. As you can imagine, he is extremely busy. This isn’t the only pile of worms on his plate. Not only that, but we are requesting one of the K-23s. The K-23s, Oliver! There are only two satellites in the entire world that are capable of doing what we want it to do—detecting and locating a microburst transmission. Do you have any idea how difficult it is going to be for us to convince Blake to move one of them out of the combat theater to monitor the States? We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t throw us out of his office!”

  Tray nodded. He understood.

  “But still,” Fullbright continued, “I have ten minutes on his schedule at five this evening. General Mann is also going with me, and as you know, he can present a very hard sell. If we can get Blake to relocate the K-23 for just a few days, that might be all we need. If he approves, the satellite will be moved overnight. It should be in place to monitor the southwestern part of the U.S. by early morning.”

  Oliver turned to face his boss. “We’ve got to have it, sir. We’ve absolutely got to have it. We can’t count on anything else. They will be getting and receiving messages. They have to. Of that I am sure. And if we can just get the satellite in position to pinpoint their location, if we can get it there before it is too late, assuming it isn’t too late now, then we will get them. As soon as that bloody Morozov so much as peeps on a satellite broadcast, we’ll nail his hide to the wall!”

  Fullbright grunted, then turned away from the wall map and strode around to sit down at his desk. Oliver Tray turned back to the map.

  As he stared at the wall, a funny thought kept rolling around in his head. It had popped in his mind when he had first woken up, and now he couldn’t seem to get rid of it. It was a line from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, a perennial favorite among his three kids.

  “He puzzled and puzzled until his puzzler was sore.”

  That was how Oliver felt. His brain actually hurt. Deep in his skull, it actually hurt. A result of the stress and constant worry. And three nights without any sleep. The frustration was boiling inside him! The answer was there, but he couldn’t see it! It all fit together, but he didn’t know how!

  What was going on with Badger? It just didn’t make any sense! Why had Morozov suddenly called his man back? And now, here they were, the two of them back in the country! That was the absolute last place Tray thought Morozov would be. With the Ukraine about to be overrun by a million Russian soldiers, why on earth would he be here in the States? And what about the stolen computers? It all fit—it had to—it’s just that he hadn’t yet figured out how.

  He shook his head and reached into his pants pocket to take out a tiny package of aspirin, popped two in his mouth, then chewed on them without any water.

  “Any news on Jesse?” he finally wondered, with genuine concern in his voice.

  “Nothing yet,” Fullbright replied. “I talked with Pearson, one of the deputy directors, yesterday noon. Those guys over at FBI are ready to pull out their hair. I think they are even more stressed out than we are. It’s like she just disappeared. Normally, I wouldn’t be too concerned, but with the way things are going, I see a negative trend, which makes me believe that it might not look so good.”

  Tray replied, “Yeah ... but you know, I was thinking, late last night as I was driving home from work. He said something to me long ago. It didn’t mean much at the time ... but I wonder. Now I know it’s a long shot, but I think we should try. I mean, at this point, what else have we got?”

  Fullbright looked up from his work.

  Tray glanced quickly around the room, scanning the cluttered desk and the disorganized bookshelf that filled the far wall. “What I really need is a Rand McNally,” he finally said. “Have you got a map of California anywhere in this mess?”

  TWENTY-THREE

  __________________

  __________________

  WICHITA, KANSAS

  RICHARD AMMON LAY IN HIS BED AND LISTENED TO THE SOUND OF the aircraft as they took off and landed at McConnell Air Force Base, located just outside the Wichita city limits. The cheap motel that Morozov had chosen for them was situated directly underneath the departure routing for the airport, and Ammon tried to identify the different aircraft by the sound of their engines as they flew overhead. The KC-135 tankers sounded like any jet airliner, while the F-16s lifted off with a high-pitched scream.

  Then there were the B-1s. The sheer size of their engines made them impossible to miss. The walls of the motel vibrated and rattled as the B-1s took to the air.

  Ammon glanced at the alarm clock that was sitting on the fake cherry nightstand next to his head. It was almost 10 A.M. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept in so late. It had been three days since he and Morozov had checked into this truck-driver dive, and so far, laying in bed and watching television was about all he had been allowed to do. Once he had walked to the window and pulled back the blinds, but Morozov had quickly pushed him away. But still, Ammon had had enough time to see him. He was walking from a dark blue Camaro toward his hotel room. The goon from the diner. Morozov’s main man.

  For three days Ammon had not been allowed to leave. No maids ever came in, for the “Do Not Disturb” sign was always left hanging from the outside doorknob. The only thing he had eaten was Domino’s pizza and the soggy coffee cakes that Morozov brought him from the corne
r vending machine. He was never left alone. Morozov had always stayed with him, except for quick walks to the lobby for donuts, colas, and the morning paper. And whenever Morozov left for even the shortest amount of time, the goon from the diner, who was apparently staying in the room next to theirs, was invited in first. The goon would sit in the corner and play with his nose ring while drinking beer and watching television. He would swear at the television and complain about Morozov while spitting black chew into a plastic hotel cup. He always seemed anxious and very impatient.

  It had been three very long days.

  Ammon listened to the sound of Morozov sleeping, then rolled onto his side and stared at the clock once again. For the thousandth time he looked at the tan telephone on top of the night stand. It was dead. Morozov had pulled out the cord and cut it in half the night they had checked into the hotel.

  How long had Richard been trying to get to a phone? From P’yongyang to Kiev to Helsinki, he had only one thing on his mind. It wasn’t a huge undertaking. It shouldn’t have been a big thing. All he wanted was three minutes of time with a telephone and an international operator. But he now recognized that had been one of his biggest mistakes. He had never realized how closely Morozov would control him, once he had him back under his wing. He had assumed that he would be trusted. And given a little leeway. A little freedom.

  How wrong he had turned out to be.

  Come on you guys, where are you? he thought, as once again he stared at the phone.

  LONE PINE, CALIFORNIA

  It was early morning when Nadine pulled Jesse from her bed, dragged her by the hand into the cabin’s tiny kitchen, and sat her at the kitchen table. After three days of lying on her bed in the darkness, without eating, without responding in any way to their presence, Jesse was worrying Clyde and Nadine. If things didn’t go well, if anything happened to Jesse on their watch, they would pay a terrible price. The foreigner had been very specific. Keep track of her. Keep her in the cabin. And don’t hurt her in any way.