“Blyad!” Yuri blurted. He was horrified. The compartment was empty! Quickly he yanked open all the doors. All the compartments were empty. There were no HEPA filters in place! For two hours the system had been venting to the outside with no protection!

Yuri staggered back. It was a catastrophe. Only then did he become conscious that the phone was still incessantly ringing in the background. He knew who it was. It was the shift supervisor wondering why he’d stopped the pulverizer.

Yuri dashed into the control room while he mentally tried to estimate how many grams of weaponized anthrax had been spewed out over the unsuspecting city. From his walk to the factory he knew there was a moderate northwesterly wind.

That meant the spores would have been vectored to the southeast toward the main military compound. But more important, it meant that the spores would be heading toward the ceramics factory!

“It’s the fourth house on the right,” the Estonian woman said, yanking Yuri from the grip of his nightmare-like reverie. The woman’s finger jutted through the Plexiglas divider and pointed at a set of white steps.

Yuri was instantly conscious he was perspiring profusely and his face felt hot. He’d been forced to remember an event that he actively avoided thinking about. After twenty years, the memory of that terrible day still had as powerful an effect on him as it did when it happened.

The Estonian woman paid the fare before climbing from the cab. She tried to give Yuri a tip, but he refused. He thanked her for her generosity and for the offer to share her holiday. Self-consciously he avoided looking at her. He was afraid she’d see his perspiration and flushed face. He was worried she might have thought he was having a heart attack.

As the Estonian woman mounted her steps, Yuri switched on his off-duty sign. He drove ahead to a fire hydrant and pulled to the curb. He needed a moment to get his breath. He reached under his seat and pulled out his flask of vodka. After making sure he was not being observed, he took a quick, healthy swig. He allowed the liquor to slide down his throat. The sensation was delicious and calming. The overwhelming anxiety he’d experienced just moments before abated. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

The aftermath of the pulverizers being run without the HEPA filters turned out to be worse than Yuri could have imagined. As he’d feared, an invisible cloud of anthrax spores had drifted out over the southern part of the city, an area that included the major military installation as well as the ceramics factory. Hundreds of people became sick with inhalational anthrax and most of them died. One of the victims was Nadya.

Her first symptoms were fever and chest pain. Yuri knew immediately what she had but hoped he was wrong. Sworn to secrecy on the pain of death, he did not tell her his suspicions. She was taken to a special hospital and housed in a separate ward with other patients complaining of similar symptoms. The group included a number of military personnel. Her course was relentlessly downhill and extremely rapid. She was dead within twenty-four hours.