The print version of this Soviet-era spy story has been used in many American high school and college Russian language classes since originally published in the U.S. in 1984 by the Russian Packet at Friends School Baltimore. The characters include a famous professor of microbiology and his daughter, Valya; two laboratory assistants; and an investigator. It is World War II and a vaccine against shock and gaseous gangrene has been developed in the small lab, but subsequently stolen. The investigator is sent out from Moscow to the professor’s hidden laboratory deep in a swamp to find the vaccine and the laboratory documents required to reproduce it. Meanwhile German troops threaten capture of the laboratory.
