Chernobyl Murders

9

Friday night in Ukraine was a night of celebration. Even farmers, merchants, and teachers who worked Saturday used Friday night as an excuse to consume large quantities of vodka and wine. Another week of toil was officially over, and one deserved to overindulge.

The result of overindulgence was often a deep, satisfying sleep. For many, Saturday began with snores and dreams and, sometimes, nightmares.

Of course, not everyone drank on Friday evening. Major Grigor Komarov of the KGB, for example, had attended a concert featuring the works of Prokofiev at the Philharmonia with his wife. He had consumed not one drop of vodka, not even at dinner beforehand.

Now, after midnight, he lay awake in bed, listening to the gentle breathing of his wife. Although he knew exactly where a full bottle of vodka was located, could visualize its sparkle in the rear corner of the cupboard, he was determined to get through the night without a drink. Even if he could not sleep, he would not drink.

Instead of drinking, and instead of sleeping, Komarov lay awake thinking. He thought about recognition. He imagined elaborate schemes and stratagems to bring the name Major Grigor Komarov to the attention of the KGB’s chairman in Moscow. He thought about awards and promotions. But even with these thoughts, the bottle in the cupboard tormented him and kept him from dreaming these dreams in the fantasy world of sleep.

Tonight he and his wife sat in the balcony at the concert. He recalled looking down upon the heads on the main floor and imagining himself dancing about on those heads to Prokofiev’s music.

He imagined using his knife to create a crime he would eventually solve. While the music played, he reached into his pocket and held the knife. He must have smiled because at one point his wife touched his knee. After the concert on their way home, his wife commented on his change of mood the last few weeks, and they engaged in the playful banter they had practiced when they were younger.

“You seem happier, Grigor. I couldn’t help but notice. And I’m certain your superiors will notice.”

“You’re referring to my drinking, of course.”

“I thought it might be bad luck to bring it up.”

“It’s not bad luck, dearest. I’m a new man, free from the bottle.

My energy has returned, and I’ve taken more interest in my job.”

“Ferreting out the enemies of Communism?”

“Perhaps, my dear, pointing out the dangers of capitalism.”

“Are you referring to my spending habits, Grigor?”

“Your fur wrap might not be needed on such a warm April evening.”

“For one who espouses rigid principles, one would think you are an Islamist, Grigor.”

“Not me. Religious fanatics keep to themselves and hate civilized communist society. Look at all the problems in Afghanistan from these so-called cultures.”

“I thought you hated Gypsies, Grigor. Now your hatred extends to Islamists?”

“Gypsies, Islamists, they’re one and the same. Insane, male-dominated societies. Did I tell you about my boyhood in the slums of Moscow among Gypsies? They allow their children to smoke.

Eight-and nine-year-old Gypsy boys smoking while the men create swindles and the women read palms. As for Islamists, the men treat their women like animals, making them cover themselves from head to toe in horse blankets. Religion, fundamentalism, and superstition will cause the end of the world if we’re not careful.”

“You’re quite the philosopher tonight, Grigor.”

“Abandoning the bottle has awakened my intellect.”

“I’m happy for you, Grigor.”

Tonight, for the first time in over a year, Komarov and his wife made love. But in the darkness of the room, Komarov thought only of Gretchen. While his wife moaned beneath him, he played back the scene again, this time to the music of Prokofiev. He closed his eyes and saw Gretchen staring at him in those moments before the knife went in.

After his wife was asleep and the night continued its journey, Komarov lay awake, alternately thinking of the vodka bottle in the cupboard, the look on Gretchen’s face as she died, the Gypsy witch from the past named Barbara, and of schemes, yet unrealized, as perfect as the Sherbitsky affair.

In central Kiev, Detective Lazlo Horvath of the Kiev militia was also not asleep. Sleep, he hoped, would come much later, perhaps near dawn. The reason he did not want to sleep was because Tamara was in his bed.

It was dark in the room. Lazlo rested his head on Tamara’s breast. He could hear her heartbeat. When he spoke, his upper lip brushed against her nipple.

“Can we stay like this forever, Tamara?”

“In this position, or at this age?”

“Both. Especially this age. The position…” He touched her thigh and gently spread her legs. “The position I would like to alter quite soon.”

Tamara laughed. “I know you would. That’s why I’m staying awake.”

“You’re a spring flower.”

Tamara laughed and pulled at his ear. “Spring flower? You’ve had too much wine.”

“I had to drink it before the campaign against alcoholism began.”

“Last year it had the reverse effect,” said Tamara. “When does this campaign begin?”

“May Day,” said Lazlo. “We have only a few days to consume all the Hungarian wine in Kiev. The local wine and the vodka we’ll leave to others.”

“When Kiev runs out of alcohol and everyone becomes sober and ethical, what will the Kiev militia do?”

“With no criminals, we’ll most likely be ordered to crack down on literary journalists.”

“Even members of the Ukrainian Writers’ Union?”

“Especially members of the Ukrainian Writers’ Union. You are the provocateurs who exposed lapses in construction quality at the Chernobyl reactors.”

Tamara giggled. “We are spies.”

“Better not to say it.”

“Why?” asked Tamara.

“Because there really are spies everywhere. My boss wanted me to do a little espionage the other day.”

“No.”

“When I asked for permission to drive to Pripyat to visit my brother, Chkalov tells me to visit the militia station and check on the captain there. And now, if you are finished questioning me, I’m hungry.”

Lazlo lifted his head and moved atop Tamara, who opened beneath him like a vast warm valley. Her tongue filled his mouth and made him feel as though he would never have to eat or drink again.

In the distance, as their breathing quickened, the bell of Saint Andrew’s Church tolled the one o’clock hour.

Most others in metropolitan Kiev were asleep. Captain Azef of the KGB slept alone, his apartment filled with the sounds of his snoring.

Chief Investigator Chkalov of the Kiev militia snored in harmony with his wife, the combined symphony shaking the bed frame.

Farther north along the Dnieper River, farmers and some of their wives also snored. Except for an occasional rendezvous of young lovers in a barn, it seemed the entire world was asleep. In Pripyat, Nikolai dreamed an avalanche of unopened letters buried him, while Pavel dreamed a dream that would have angered his jealous wife. On the other side of town, Juli had just fallen asleep after another long talk with Marina.

In sleep, the joys and fears and desires of life were diminished, making the world calm and peaceful. At dawn the population would begin to scurry about, many of them queuing up at Saturday markets. But for now, speaking in relative terms, all was silent.

At the Chernobyl Nuclear Facility, it was never completely dark or quiet. The security lighting along the fences shimmered in the cooling pond, and the hum of power continued unceasingly. In the yard outside the main control room, extra lighting had been erected, and a crew of workers in hard hats stood about a high-tension tower.

Some drank coffee or tea from thermos cups; a few smoked. Two workers held a measuring tape along a slightly bent lower section of the tower.

Inside the main control room, one could not tell whether it was day or night because the room was wrapped in light from the fluorescent fixtures and the glow of the control console. At the sides of the console, which was over fifteen meters long, more light illuminated the room. A crew of electricians had lit up the back of the console in preparation for their work.

The chairs in front of the console had been pushed into the center of the room. No one sat at the chairs. A dozen or so technicians of various grades, from operator first class to engineer third class, stood at the console, concentrating on the lighted panels before them. All of the technicians were dressed identically in off-white uniforms and caps. Several observers, who stood back from the console area, also wore off-white uniforms. Two of the observers were women, but this was only apparent when they were viewed in profile.

The technicians muttered among themselves, careful not to speak loud enough for the observers to hear. They spoke of the weariness of operating what they quietly called “the bitch” under manual control for so many hours. They spoke about the absence of the chief engineer on this special shutdown duty. Several wondered if “bitch number four” would be shut down soon so they could go home. Others joked about the chief engineer referring to each of the units not as bitches, but as toys.

“The chief engineer home asleep while we play with his toy,” whispered one operator.

“I’d like to be there,” whispered another.

“Playing with his toy?”

“No, in bed with his wife.”

Several laughed quietly.

“You wouldn’t know what to do.”

“I’ve got experiments to perform.”

“You’d have to do them on yourself. Like our experiment here, seeing how long we can keep the power in our system up after the orgasm is shut down.”

Several laughed again.

“Keep talking this way,” said one of the assistant engineers, “and the director will have you sent to a place where you’ll have plenty of time to play with yourselves.”

There were a few chuckles, but not the comfortable laughter of earlier.

The supervisor of the electricians walked out from behind the console and stood with his thumbs hooked into his tool belt. “I don’t understand. First it’s supposed to be down this afternoon, then this evening, now it’s already after one in the morning. Up-down.

On-off. Nobody knows what they’re doing around here.”

Mihaly Horvath, the senior engineer in charge, looked from the console to the supervisor of electricians. “Can’t you be a little patient? What’s all the noise back there?”

“We’re removing access panels,” said the supervisor. “How much longer before you shut down? Now? Or do we have to wait until Sunday?”

“Not long,” said Mihaly. “What’s the big hurry?”

“You should know,” said the supervisor. “You’re the ones who made us come in for this shift. My boss wants us finished with the lock-ons by the end of the shift, but we can’t start until you shut this damn thing down.”

Mihaly did not answer the supervisor. Instead he gave orders to the other technicians and told them to watch the panel indicators.

The shutdown process had been in progress twenty-four hours.

There were signs of boredom, technicians looking at the clock and yawning, something they would not have done if the chief engineer had been on duty.

During the slow process of lowering the control rods while maintaining steam and water flow, various valves and pumps in the system went through many cycles. It was an excellent time to watch for malfunctions. And, theoretically, it should be a safer time because if anything should go wrong, the reactor was already in the process of being shut down.

The effect of bringing down the power of unit four could be heard in the large room containing the turbine and generator. The sound was similar to a jetliner very slowly shutting down its engines, or to a long, drawn-out sigh of relief. But power was not supposed to drop this fast, and a signal was sent to a panel in the main control room.

“I’ve got a light!” said one of the technicians in a loud whisper.

Others tried to whisper back, but the whispering got louder and louder and eventually changed to shouting.

“What is it?”

“The power is dropping too fast!”

“Why?”

“How the hell do I know?”

“Pavlov, you dog! Where the hell is Pavlov?”

“Stop calling me a dog, idiot! Especially with visitors here!”

“Did you program the computer?”

“For what?”

“To prevent the bitch from dropping below the minimum!”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Mother of God! We already hit the minimum, and look how it’s falling! Do something! What happened to the alarms? How come there are no alarms?”

“I… We shut them off.”

“Tasha! Begin the manual procedure for reinserting the control rods!”

“Reinserting?”

“Yes! Now, before it’s too late! Someone run and get the computer printouts! You! Is your foot still in your mother? Run and get them!”

Several minutes went by, during which the technicians who were not at the console went to the console. Everyone was visibly shaken as they watched the semicircle of lights and gauges. Their expressions conveyed confusion, annoyance, fear, and everything in between.

“I don’t know what’s happening!” said one technician. “First the pressure is down, then it’s up!”

“Same with the temperature!” said another technician. “It’s the highest I’ve seen! Wait! It’s not going down! There’s something wrong with the cooling system! Core temperature up two hundred!”

“All right!” shouted Mihaly, stepping back from the console.

“Bring her under control with the backups! Open the primary cooling backup valve slowly! Sergei, call out the temperature changes!”

“But this afternoon…” said one of the technicians.

“What about it?”

“The chief had us turn off the backups so we could work on those first.”

“They’re still off?”

“Yes.”

“Sergei!”

“Up another fifty! It’s out of control! The fucking rods won’t go in! Do something!”

During this exchange, the supervisor of the electricians looked to the ceiling and shook his head. Then he went behind the console and could be heard cursing.

Amid the cursing and confusion at the console, more and more lights came on. Technicians began retreating from the console as a group, resembling children being told to line up in a hallway. Eventually, they gathered beneath the recessed ceiling lights above a conference table in the center of the room. The conference table was often used for meetings and discussions. Their automatic movement to the conference table was an indication that problem solving was needed, and in a hurry. As they gathered beneath the bright overhead lights, many began shouting at one another. No one sat at the chairs around the table. The few who did not shout stood about waiting for orders. Several demanded a solution from Mihaly, and he broke from the group to survey the entire console. When he turned back to the others, the determined look on his face silenced them.

“Everyone get back to their stations!” shouted Mihaly.

While the men returned to the console, Mihaly grabbed one of the technicians by the arm, and headed for the door at the side of the room.

While running, Mihaly shouted, “We’ll have to open the lines manually! I’ll get the intake valve! You take care of the steam valve!

The rest of you stay at the console!”

When Mihaly and the other technician were gone, the remaining technicians glanced alternately to one another, then to the lights flashing on the console. The supervisor of electricians came out from behind the console, followed by two electricians.

“What’s going on?” demanded the supervisor of electricians.

“Why have the visitors gone away?”

“We were too busy to notice!” shouted one of the technicians.

“You tell us why they left! You probably fucked something up back there!”

The supervisor of electricians ran at the technician with his fist raised. “All we did was remove a couple of panels! We didn’t touch a damn thing!”

The accusing technician backed away. “How did I know? I thought you might have started working on the circuits!”

The supervisor of electricians glanced at the lights flashing on the console, then shook his fist in the accuser’s face. “You’d better not try to blame us for this!” He turned to the others. “None of you!”

The other technicians ignored the supervisor of electricians.

Instead they stood at the console, staring wide-eyed at the flashing lights at their stations the way children stare wide-eyed when trapped in an impossible situation. The lights from the console surrounding the technicians gave their off-white uniforms a pinkish hue. When an alarm bell began ringing, everyone froze, standing perfectly still and silent.

A few seconds later, there was an explosion that shook the control room. Dust fell from the ceiling, and the plastic shields from several overhead lights clattered to the floor.

“The core!” shouted someone.

“No! Idiot! A steam line!”

“Get out!”

“We can’t! We have to go in there!”

The control console was even brighter now. Hundreds of red lights were glowing in the room like a fire from hell.

After double-checking his gauges, one of the more knowledge-able technicians backed quickly from the console, slamming into the conference table and falling on his back. He wriggled on the table for a moment like an upturned turtle. A few smiled back at him, but stopped smiling when they saw the look on his face. When the technician got off the table, he shouted. “I’m reading more than a thousand rems in the turbine room! If we don’t get the fuck out of here, we’ll all be dead!”

Everyone in the control room remained frozen for another moment until first one, then another, then all of the men began running for the exit at the rear of the control room. None of them went to the door at the side of the room that lead to the turbine room and the reactors, the door through which Mihaly and another technician had disappeared shortly before the explosion.

In the turbine room of unit four, the sound of the turbine slowing down had reached a low pitch, almost a moan. Off to the side, there was another moan, the feeble moan of the technician who had run from the control room with Mihaly. The technician lay trapped beneath a massive section of steam line blown from the side of the turbine by the explosion.

Nearer the turbine, superheated steam from the reactor gushed upward, blowing out skylights, knocking down sections of catwalk.

The room became engulfed in a hot fog. Mihaly crawled on the floor to the man trapped beneath the steam line and began pulling on the man’s arms. Nearby electrical fires and sparks lit up the fog in alternate hues of orange and blue.

Across the cooling pond on the narrow strip of land separating the pond from the Pripyat River, waterfowl settled back down after being startled by the steam explosion. Back at the plant, ghostlike figures ran across the yard of the lighted complex. One of the ghostlike figures jumped onto the rear bumper of a utility truck speeding away. Shouts of panic could be heard across the pond as faint whimpers in the night.

Soon after the running figures disappeared beyond the bright lights of the main reactor complex, the core of unit four exploded.

From across the pond it appeared as if the roof of the building had been severed and lifted slowly and quietly by a cauldron of flame.

Then the sound and the shock wave hit, and all the creatures of the pond were startled from their sleep.

The roof broke into several pieces, turning end over end. Flames shot into the air, lifting fragments that glowed and arced in the sky like fireworks. Flames emerging from the shell of the building lit up the sky and made the thick, black smoke from unit four into a monster dancing in the gentle spring breeze.

It was 1:23 a.m. on Saturday, April 26, and something was very wrong at Chernobyl.