Shattered Bone (29 page)

So, without announcing their intentions, the bombers began a gentle left hand turn to the north. The F-16s stayed in the same position on their wing all through the turn. They would stay with the Blackjacks as they tracked up the coast until they had passed north of the coast of Maine.

As the Russian bombers began to fly to the north, Harris and his wingman faded back in their positions until they were a little more than a mile behind them. From here they would watch the bombers retreat.

Harris glanced down to check his fuel. He had just under 2,300 pounds of gas. Plenty to stay with the Blackjacks for another eight or ten minutes, then they would have to head back to basco But he wouldn't call for any other fighters to come and escort the bombers. By the time Les was out of fuel, the Blackjacks would almost be out of U.S. airspace. It wouldn't be worth it to scramble two more fighters to escort the bombers for less than one hundred miles.

Harris then took a glance at his wingman as they both faded back from the bombers. They dropped back to two-mile spacing. With two miles between the two formations, Harris felt comfortable enough to take care of some paper work. He knew that when he got back to base his commander and the intelligence branch would want a full report on the intercept. He would need to have good notes if he wanted to remember the details. He reached down to write a few quick lines on the kneeboard that was strapped to his leg.

He was just beginning to write when a blazing flash of yellow caught his eye. He dropped his pencil into his lap and looked up very quickly. The flash was extremely bright and he knew immediately that something was wrong.

As Harris looked forward through his canopy, he sucked in a short gasp of air. A knot of fear began to tighten in his throat as he searched the sky up ahead.

A thick cloud of black smoke and a rolling ball of fire was billowing up through the sky. Tiny black pieces of metal composites were beginning to bounce off of his canopy as he flew through a thin cloud of debris. He frantically searched for the two Russian bombers. He peered through the cloud of black smoke and scattering wreckage to see a single Blackjack as it began to frantically jink and dive through the air.

“Landmass Daggers, hold your fire! Daggers, Daggers, hold your fire! We pose no threat. We are retreating. We are unarmed. Withhold your fire!”

Captain Les Harris reached up and tore off his oxygen mask as he watched the falling debris. He swore and cursed and screamed at the empty air. He knew that somewhere in the scattering pieces of metal were the remains of four Russian aviators. He began to circle the wreckage as
it
tumbled through the air, hoping against hope that he might see a chute. But nothing was there. Only the smoke and falling debris.

Three minutes later, black and charred pieces of the Blackjack bomber finally began to splash into the North Atlantic.

___________________ 

____________________       

KIRGHIZIAKN, UKRAINE

T
HE LARGEST MILITARY SUPPLY CENTER IN THE
U
KRAINE WAS VERY BUSY
. Thousands of tons of war-fighting equipment was being prepared for shipment to the Ukrainian border, now simply referred to as the “Front.” Seven thousand men worked under the blanket of darkness, packing the pallets of the food, ammunition, medicine, clothing, tents, paper, and weapons that were desperately needed to assist the Ukrainian army in their efforts to repel the Russian invasion.

Because these supplies were so critical, Kirghiziakn was the most highly defended target in the Ukraine. No less than thirty-seven anti-aircraft guns surrounded the massive complex. Nine different surface-to-air missile batteries formed a protective ring around the center. This protective bubble extended outward from the heart of the complex for eighty-six kilometers and reached skyward to 70,000 feet. The SA-10 and SA-12 surface-to-air missiles were capable of shooting down everything from fighters to cruise missiles.

Six SU-27 Flankers circled over Kirghiziakn in combat formation, ready to repel any Russian attack. Tucked inside their tiny cockpits, the Flanker pilots were nervous. Their eyes were constantly moving, darting from their cockpit to the sky, to the ground. But it wasn't the fear of Russian fighters that had them scared. So far, the Russians had chosen to leave Kirghiziakn alone. It was the fear of their own missiles and anti-aircraft guns that made them jumpy. Over the past twelve hours, two Ukrainian fighters had been shot down by friendly fire, one by a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile, another by a barrage of 57mm anti-aircraft shells.

Two combat kills upon their own forces were far too many. But that didn't mean it couldn't happen again. So the Flanker pilots were very alert. None of them wanted to be kill number three.

The night was very dark. The little light that did reflect from the quarter moon was completely absorbed by a thick overcast of snow clouds well before it could begin to illuminate the frozen ground. The city of Kiev, thirty kilometers to the east of Kirghiziakn, was completely black. Every exterior light, from street lamps to front porch light bulbs, had been turned off in an effort to make it more difficult for the Russian bombers to find their targets.

Winding through the darkness was a four-lane highway. It extended west from the center of Kiev to Kirghiziakn, then turned northeast and made its way through the flat grasslands of northern Ukraine toward the Russian border.

A long stream of supply trucks drove along the highway in the darkness. They, too, had turned off their lights in an effort to be less of a target. Nothing would tempt the Russian fighter-bombers like a convoy of supply trucks on their way to the Front. So the trucks drove in complete darkness, their drivers peering through their night vision goggles, watching the tail of the truck up ahead, hoping that no one came to a sudden or unexpected stop.

Kirghiziakn was a huge complex of mile-long warehouses, narrow alleys, and squat administrative offices. High razor-wire fences and guard towers surrounded the complex to protect its cache of food, medicine, and military supplies from the outside world. Most of the materials were stored in long wooden warehouses. Some were kept in more modern brick storage units. But a very small percentage of the materials that were stored inside Kirghiziakn required much tighter security than a simple warehouse had to offer.

This was where the bunkers came in. Inside the wire fences that surrounded Kirghiziakn were twenty-three semi-buried bunkers, their thick cement frames protruding just a few feet above the ground. At one time, these bunkers had been used to protect nuclear bombs and missiles. But the Ukrainian military had ceded their nuclear weapons to the international community several years before. Since then, the contents of these bunkers had been kept a very well-guarded secret.

At 2100 hours, a small covered truck pulled up to one of the bunkers. As the truck coasted to a stop, the bunker's huge steel doors began to roll open. Three soldiers emerged from the bunker, their submachine guns flung across their backs. They wore white winter overcoats on top of thick, white woven pants. On their feet were Liata, very expensive winter boots that could only be purchased in Italy. The men were all Ukrainians, though most of them were Russian by birth. None of the men wore any rank or insignia. None of them carried any identification.

The men helped to guide the two-ton truck as it backed down the narrow incline that led into the bunker. When the truck was safely inside, the doors were rolled tightly closed.

The men worked quickly. Setting their machine guns aside, they stripped off their heavy overcoats and began to don their gear; heavy insulated pants, long rubber gloves, thin latex hoods, and alien-like face masks with dark protruding eyes.

In the back of the bunker was a single pallet loaded with eight small blue drums. Working together, the men started to load the drums on the back of the truck. Their pace was agonizingly slow. Every movement of the drums was very deliberate. Very careful. Every move was planned and calibrated to ensure that the drums weren't knocked or jostled in any way.

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.

AKHTRYKA, UKRAINE

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.