to go for tea and samosas . . . particularly as the European was paying.
“How much do they pay you at Jowada?” The European knew the answer without having to ask. “Only fifteen thousand rupees a month, yes? A child couldn’t live on that amount, and you have a wife and a family. These people! They cheat the honest worker. Maybe it’s time they were taught a lesson. . . .” Very quickly the conversation was steered the way the two men wanted it to go, and that first time, they’d left him with a gift, a fake Rolex watch. And why not? Jagdish had done them favors in the past, giving them free food that he had stolen from the kitchen. Now it was their turn to look after Ravi. The next time they met, a week later, it was an iPhone— the real thing. But the gifts were only a glimpse of all the riches that could be his if he would just agree to undertake a piece of business on their behalf. It was dangerous. A few people might be hurt. “But for you, my friend, it will mean a new life.
Everything you ever wanted can be yours. . . .”
Ravi Chandra entered the reactor chamber of the Jowada nuclear power station at exactly eight o’clock.
Four other engineers went in with him. They had to go in one at a time through an air lock—a white, circular corridor with an automatic sliding door at each end. In many ways it looked like something out of a space-ship, and its purpose was much the same. The exit wouldn’t open until the entrance had closed. It was all part of the need for total containment. The five men were dressed identically, with safety helmets and goggles. All of them were carrying toolboxes. For the rest of the day they would carry out a series of tasks, some of them as ordinary as oiling a valve or changing a lightbulb. Even the most advanced technology needs occasional maintenance.
As they emerged from the air lock into the reactor chamber, they seemed almost to vanish, so tiny were they in these vast surroundings, dwarfed by the gantries and walkways—bright yellow—overhead, by electric hoists and cables, soaring banks of machinery, fuel rod transportation canisters, generators. Arc lamps shone down from the edges of the dome, and in the middle of it all, surrounded by ladders and platforms, what looked like an empty swimming pool plunged twelve yards down, with stainless steel plates on all four sides. This was the reactor. Underneath a 150-ton steel cap, millions of uranium atoms were splitting again and again, producing unimaginable heat.
Four metal towers stood guard in the chamber. If they were shaped a little like rockets, they were rockets that would never fly. Each one was locked in its own steel cage and connected to the rest of the machinery by a network of massive pipes. These were the reactor coolant pumps, keeping the water rushing around on its vital journey. Inside each metal casing, a 50-ton motor was spinning at the rate of 1,500 revs per minute.
The pumps were labeled north, south, east, and west. The south pump was going to be Ravi’s primary target.
But first of all he crossed to the other side of the reactor chamber, to a door marked EMERGENCY
EXIT ONLY. The two men had explained everything very carefully to him. There was no point attacking the reactor cap. Nothing could penetrate it. Nor was there any point in sabotaging the reactor chamber, not while it was locked down. Any blast, any radiation leak would be contained. To achieve their aims, an exit had to be found. The power of the nuclear reactor had to be set free.
And there it was on the blueprint they had shown him. The emergency air lock was the Achilles’ heel in the fortification of Jowada. It should never have been built. There was no need for it and it had never been used. The idea of a passageway between the reactor chamber and the back of the turbine hall, where it opened onto a patch of wasteland close to the perimeter fence, was to reassure workers that there was a fast way out should one ever be needed. But what it also provided was a single pathway from the reactor to the outside world. It was, in one sense, the barrel of a gun. All it needed was to be unblocked.
Nobody noticed Ravi as he strolled over to the emergency door, and even if they had, they wouldn’t have remarked on it. Everyone had their own worksheet. They would assume he was just following his.
He opened the inner door—a solid metal plate—and let himself into the corridor. This was identical to the one he had used to enter, the same size and shape as a passageway in an underground train station—
only without the advertisements. About halfway along, there was a control panel fixed high up in the wall. Standing on tiptoe, Ravi unscrewed it, using one of the few real tools he had brought with him.
Inside, there was a complicated mass of circuitry, but he knew exactly what to do. He cut two wires, took one of them, and attached it to a third. It was quite easy, really. The exit door slid open in front of him, revealing a patch of blue sky on the other side of another wire fence. He felt the sluggish air roll in. Somewhere, perhaps in the control room, someone would notice what had happened. Even now a light might be blinking on one of the consoles. But it would take a while before anyone came to investigate and by then it would be too late.
Ravi went back into the reactor chamber and over to the nearest of the four reactor coolant pumps. This was the only way that wide-scale sabotage was possible. What he was aiming for was known in the nuclear industry as a LOCA—a Loss of Coolant Accident. It was a LOCA that had caused the catastrophe at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union and had almost done the same at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The pump was locked in its cage, but Ravi had the key. That was one of the reasons he had been chosen for this job. The right man in the right place.
He stopped in front of the cylindrical wall, which rose more than sixty feet into the air. He could hear the machinery inside. The noise was constant and deafening. His mouth was dry now, thinking about what he was about to do. Was he insane? Suppose they traced this back to him? But then his mind drifted to all that money, to his wife, to the life they could finally lead. His family was not in Chennai today. He had sent them to friends in Bangalore. They would be safe. He was doing this for them.
He
For a few brief seconds greed and fear hung in the balance, and then the scale tipped. He knelt down and placed the toolbox against the metal casing, opened it and removed the top shelf. The inside was almost filled with the bulk of the plastic explosive, yet there was just enough room for a digital display showing ten minutes, a tangle of wires, and a switch.
Ten minutes. That would be more than enough time to leave the chamber before the bomb went off. If anyone questioned him, he would say he needed to use the toilet. He would exit the same way he had come in, and once he was on the other side of the air lock, he would be safe. After the blast, there would be panic, alarms, a well- rehearsed evacuation, radiation suits for everyone. He would simply join the crowds and make his way out. They would never be able to trace the bomb to him. There wouldn’t be any evidence at all.
People might die. People he knew. Could he really do this?
The switch was right there in front of him. So small. All he had to do was flick it and the countdown would begin.
Ravi Chandra took a deep breath. He reached out with a single finger. He pressed the switch.
It was the last thing he did in his life. The men from the street corner had lied to him. There was no ten-minute delay. When he activated the bomb, it went off immediately, almost vaporizing him. Ravi was dead so quickly that
