He reached the Exclusion Zone border at Dytyatky. Ukrainian militsiyu soldiers manned a checkpoint that stretched across the main street of the town. He stepped inside the checkpoint building and showed them his passport and InterInform Chernobyl tour receipt and brochure. They had him sign a release in Ukrainian and English stating that he knew that by entering the Chernobylska Exclusion Zone he might be endangering his health. The soldier behind the counter told him it was another thirty kilometers from Dytyatky to the nuclear power plant. There would be a second checkpoint at the town of Chernobyl, ten kilometers out from the reactor. He would have to leave his vehicle there and join the tour. When he returned to Dytyatky, he would be tested for radiation.
Scorpion drove beyond Dytyatky toward Chernobyl. The landscape was empty; only an occasional abandoned farmhouse and snow. He wondered if the snow was radioactive and decided it was. He had the car radio tuned to news in Russian but could only understand a fraction of what he heard.
He was supposed to get a dosimeter to wear when he got to Chernobyl and wished he had it now. A leaflet from InterInform had stated that normal background radiation around the world averaged twelve to fourteen microroentgens. Inside the Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl, the background radiation had decayed over the years to an average of twenty, exposure equivalent to a transatlantic flight. But this was only an average; actual radiation varied greatly from one place to another. The real danger was in hot spots in various locations.
He turned on his cell phone’s iPlayer app to get the news from the BBC. The tinny voice of a British announcer came on.
“The crisis in the Ukraine has grown more serious following Russia’s veto in the Security Council of a U.S.-led resolution for a withdrawal of all military units to a distance of twenty kilometers from both sides of the Russian- Ukraine frontier. The Pentagon announced today that the American military has been ordered to a DEFCON-1 level, the highest level indicating war is imminent.
“In London, the prime minister told Parliament that Britain stands with the United States and NATO in this dangerous hour. Within the NATO alliance, member nations are still debating their response. Both France and Germany continue to express reservations about a military response to Russia’s actions, citing their concern that Ukraine is not an official member of NATO, but only a participant in the NATO Membership Action Plan, and that since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the status of ethnic Russians and the Russian-speaking minorities in former satellite nations such as Ukraine have been issues of contention. The Italian representative, Mr. Vincenzo Cassiani, told the BBC that we may be seeing the end of the NATO alliance.
“In the meantime in the Ukraine, it has been reported that one of the leading candidates for president in the election that sparked the crisis, Mr. Viktor Kozhanovskiy, has approached his opponent, Mr. Lavro Davydenko, with a suggestion that they meet to try to hammer out a joint statement regarding the steps Ukraine is prepared to take to deal with the crisis. Mr. Davydenko was selected as a replacement candidate by the Svoboda party leadership following the assassination of that party’s candidate, Yuriy Cherkesov. So far, there has been no response from Mr. Davydenko’s representatives.”
Iryna, Scorpion thought, unable to keep an image of her naked in bed, her breast barely touching his arm, out of his mind. She was trying to buy him time.
A shape darted in front of the Volkswagen and he slammed on his brakes, just missing it. The car fishtailed and swerved, coming to a stop in a snow pile on the side of the road. He saw a wild boar crash into the underbrush. The boar disappeared in the woods. Radioactive boars, he thought. What’s next?
The four-wheel drive got him out of the snow and moving again to the second military checkpoint at the town of Chernobyl. Many of the streets were overgrown with trees and foliage. It was a small town, easy to find your way around. The Tourist Office was a two-story building just beyond a strange-looking steel monument.
“T he test begin normal,” Denys-Call me Dennis-said, sitting on a table next to a slide projector showing images from the 1986 disaster. “Steam to turbines is shut down and turbines is begin to slow down. At 1:23:40 Operations Engineer Leonid Toptunov is starting ‘SCRAM’; test emergency shutdown of reactor number 4. Power level is stable at two hundred megawatts. Too low. Also, main computer, SKALA, is shut off. Why they go forward with low power and no computer is not clear. What happens now is big controversy, big mystery. We cannot ask either Akimov or Toptunov, because soon both men and everyone in room is being dead from radiation. Toptunov push EPS-5 button; cause insertion of all control rods into core, even manual control rods. Why he do this? Is only for ultimate emergency. We will never know for sure.
“In one second comes giant power surge, more than 530 megawatts. What cause surge? Some say is design of control rods; displace coolant. Less coolant is allowing more fission, thus more power. Another big question: Does power surge come after Toptunov press button or does Toptunov panic at spike in power? Who can say?” Dennis shrugged.
“Now everything happening very fast, maybe one or two seconds. Spike in power make big increase in temperature inside reactor. Make big big steam. Steam pressure is going crazy. Pressure is breaking fuel channels, causing control rods still going in to getting stuck,” punching his palm with his fist to show the control rods getting stopped. “Control rods is breaking. Jammed. Now control rods not moving, stuck partway into core, partway out. No control rods in bottom of core is meaning zero control down there. This make thermal energy in bottom of core go very very high. Steam explode!” splaying his fingers open to convey an explosion. “Explosion so big it ripping two thousand ton steel plate riveted to top of reactor fly like champagne cork. Bang! ” slapping his hand loudly on the table, startling them.
“Two seconds later comes second explosion. Nuclear excursion in core. Is baby nuclear bomb. Boom! ” Slapping his hand again on the table and holding up a fist. “Explosion is blowing radioactive dust from core, from pieces of walls and ceilings in building into sky. Is very bad. But,” holding up a finger, “now is getting worse.
“Explosion exposes graphite control rods in air; they are catching fire. Now burning pieces of building is flying up in sky. Fire is burning in Reactor 4 building; also burning pieces make fire on roof of Reactor number 3. Both buildings is burning. Fire is sending big smoke of radioactivity fallout in sky. Cloud of smoke and dust equivalent for radioactivity to four hundred Hiroshima bombs. Wind blow on radioactivity in cloud. Is going over all Europe. This is Chernobyl.”
Dennis jumped down from the table.
“Come,” he said. “We go see reactor.”
He handed each of them a dosimeter with an LED screen and helped them pin it on. Another tour guide, Gennadi, came in to join them. He would be taking the others. Scorpion had booked Dennis exclusively for the entire day. Dennis cautioned them about radioactive hot spots. They were not to wander off or go anywhere without his or Gennadi’s okay.
“How much radiation was there when it happened?” Mrs. Dowd, the American, asked as they started to leave the room.
“Was 5.6 roentgens per second. Is equivalent twenty thousand roentgens exposure in one hour. These workers stay. Very brave. They trying put water in for cooling core, but is no good.”
“How bad is that? That level of radiation,” Mr. Dowd asked.
“Fatal is five hundred roentgens in five hours. You get five hundred you die. First five hours they get 100,000. Is plenty bad,” Dennis said.
The others got into a minivan with Gennadi by the gray metal monument to the firefighters who had fought the blaze at the reactor buildings and paid for it with their lives. Scorpion got into the passenger seat in Dennis’s old Lada. Dennis climbed in and they drove off.
“Why you pay separate tour? Is all same,” Dennis said.
“I like privacy,” Scorpion replied.
Dennis shrugged. “Here was village,” he said, pointing at empty fields and bare trees as he drove. “Was bulldozed after accident. Put under soil brought in. You want take picture?”
Scorpion shook his head. He wasn’t sure when to broach what he really wanted or how to get Dennis to go along. His instinct cautioned him to wait. They drove down the empty road till they saw the smokestacks, construction cranes, and buildings of the reactors looming over the line of trees. Dennis’s handheld Geiger counter, which had been beeping regularly, started beeping faster. When they got closer, Scorpion saw the reactor buildings surrounded by electrical towers and power lines. They pulled up in a parking area next to the minivan.
The others were standing by a sculpture of a pair of giant hands holding something in front of the concrete sarcophagus that had been built over the destroyed Reactor 4 building. They were posing for pictures. Dennis’s Geiger counter was beeping rapidly. He showed Scorpion. The LED read. 883.
“Is okay for picture, but then we going inside the Zhytla,” the Shelter, pointing to a nearby building. “You
