Bitter Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the men in the company. The rest carried the standard assault rifles used by the airborne troops. It was an unusual mix of weapons, but his division commander had authorized it without argument. He had read Mikhailov’s report of the action on Spitsbergen, and was a firm believer that more firepower was always better. Mikhailov would have liked to get flamethrowers such as those used during the Great Patriotic War, but they were no longer in service. Instead, two men in each squad were carrying RPO-M thermobaric rockets. They were extremely powerful weapons that could level a small building, but couldn’t be used in tight quarters. They would be his last resort.  
    His reverie was interrupted by a call from the pilot. “There it is.”  
    Mikhailov looked out the window. Two hundred feet below them was the facility, which had four buildings. One, the lab building, was roughly thirty meters by sixty. Behind it were three much larger rectangular buildings, identical in appearance and more than a hundred meters long. Two of the larger ones were where test crops were grown under controlled conditions. While they technically weren’t greenhouses, that’s how Mikhailov thought of them. The third large building was for livestock, and next to it was a feed silo and a large water tank. All of the buildings were joined by enclosed connectors so the researchers could move between them regardless of the weather.  
    Around the facility were several fallow fields. The facility specialized in developing hybrid strains of corn, but the growing season was months away yet.  
    Except in the greenhouse buildings. There, under artificial light and heat, corn and other plants could be grown year round.
    “Take us around the facility,” Mikhailov ordered. He looked up as Rudenko leaned against the side of the fuselage next to him, looking out the window. The older man’s face bore a stony expression.  
    “Understood.” The Mi-17 began a slow circle of the facility.  
    The parking lot in front of the two lab buildings was full of cars. Nearly two dozen more, including the police vehicles, were parked along the entrance road. Another half dozen were parked outside the gate.  
    There was no one moving about, or visible in the small windows of the lab building. There were no bodies or signs of violence. It was as if the buildings of the complex had simply consumed everyone.
    The thought sent a shiver down his spine.
    As the Mi-17 continued its circuit, the rear of the animal husbandry building came into view.
    “ Chto za huy !”  
    Even above the clamor of the engines, Mikhailov heard Rudenko’s curse.
    The rear wall of the animal husbandry building where cows, horses, goats, and other livestock were kept as guinea pigs for the crops the facility developed looked like it had been beaten from within by a giant hammer. The metal siding bulged outward at irregular intervals and in odd shapes. Mikhailov could swear that one of the bulges formed the near perfect outline of a cow. Seen on a television show it would have been comical. Here, it was terrifying.  
    Several sections had also been knocked out, the metal and insulation of the walls bent outward as if something had burst from within the building.  
    Whatever had been inside had clearly gotten out.
    Mikhailov momentarily considered changing his plan. He had intended to land his platoon at the front of the complex and sweep through the buildings with what he hoped would be overwhelming force if they met any resistance. Now, he wondered if he should not drop a squad at the rear of the complex as a blocking force in case whatever was inside, if anyone or anything indeed remained, tried to escape.  
    “Let the helicopter be our eyes to watch the rear,” Rudenko suggested, reading his mind. “It has teeth in case anything tries to escape.”  
    Outside the window, Mikhailov could see the rocket pod hanging from the helicopter’s weapons pylon. A matching one hung on the other