Lazlo politely refused Asimov’s offer of coffee or tea and sat in one of the chairs facing the desk. The guest chair was lower than the one behind the desk.
“So,” said Asimov, “Deputy Minister Mishin informs me you were here yesterday. Is this an official visit from the Kiev militia?”
“No,” said Lazlo. “I want information about my relatives who live in Pripyat, and especially about my brother, an engineer at Chernobyl. After being at a roadblock all night and seeing the panic of thousands, I’m not prepared for the sort of dialogue I had with your deputy.”
“What sort of dialogue?” asked Asimov.
“Saying everything is under control,” said Lazlo. “Please fill me in as quickly as possible about what you know, Comrade Minister, because I am tired and impatient.”
Asimov stood and turned to the window. “Very well, Detective Horvath. I was simply trying to be civil. I’m afraid I have bad news.”
Asimov paused, continued standing with his back to Lazlo. “Your brother, Mihaly Horvath, senior reactor control engineer, was one of two engineers injured in an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Facility early in the morning on Saturday, April 26. Both injured men worked in the control area of the disabled RBMK-1000 reactor and were airlifted to Moscow for treatment. I am saddened to inform you your brother died from his injuries Sunday, April 27.”
The morning sunlight through the window beyond Asimov lay across the floor on bloodred carpet. On the wall, Lenin gazed skyward while Ryzhkov scowled. Lazlo sensed he was in the office, then felt for a moment he was not in the office. An overwhelming sense of guilt assailed him. The image of the dying Gypsy became Mihaly, and he became his brother’s murderer. History and time meant nothing. Was he a detective in the Kiev militia? Was he a nineteen-year-old soldier? Or was he a farmer? Mihaly with him, neither of them ever having attended the university in Kiev, neither of them ever having left the farm to be here in hell where machines steal a man’s mind and body. Mihaly!
If only closing his eyes could take him to the wine cellar. If only he could see Mihaly dance the czardas in his red canvas sneakers made in Czechoslovakia. If only this were a drunken dream caused by too much wine. Mihaly!
“I’m sorry,” said Asimov, returning to his chair and staring down at his desk. “It must be terrible, one’s own brother, and a younger brother. I asked associates at Medium Machine Building and The Kurchatov Institute if they had further information, but they do not.”
“What about Mihaly’s wife and children?”
“When I found out about your brother, I personally contacted officials in the area. It was difficult getting information because of the unnecessary panic.”
“What’s happened to them?”
“They were flown out of the area and are being treated in a Moscow hospital. I’ve been unable, so far, to determine their condition.
If you check back later today, I might have more news.”
“How was he killed?”
“I repeat, Detective Horvath, there was an explosion. Two engineers were severely injured, one of them your brother.”
“But you must know more.”
Asimov forced a look of sincerity. “It will all come out in the investigation, Detective Horvath. Your brother was the engineer in charge at the time, so if there was trouble, I presume he would have been close to it.”
“In charge? He wasn’t a chief engineer.”
“Nevertheless, he was the senior technical person present at the time.”
“I see,” said Lazlo. “And in this so-called investigation, will you be investigating your inadequate safety precautions and shoddy construction practices? Or will you be examining the character of my brother?”
Asimov pulled a stack of papers from the corner of his desk and began shuffling them. “I’m sorry about your brother, Detective Horvath. The sympathy of the ministry goes out to you and your family. As for investigations, I cannot speak of what has not yet taken place.”
The wine cellar. Mihaly describing systematic deprivation of safety procedures and dangerous experiments. Mihaly saying the situation was “fucked.” Down in the wine cellar, laughing at the fucked world, and now Mihaly was fucked. Without thinking about it, Lazlo stood and walked around the desk. He stood over Asimov and put his hand on his shoulder. “I’ll come back this afternoon.
When I do, I want to speak to someone who knows about safety at Chernobyl. Someone technical.”
Asimov stared silently up at Lazlo, his jowls visibly shaking.
“Who will I be speaking with this afternoon, Comrade Minister?”
“Who?”
“Yes. Who is your resident technical expert?”
“Vatchenko, the deputy chairman of the engineering council.
He knows about safety.”
“And he’ll be here?”
Asimov nodded his head. “Yes, Detective Horvath. But please listen. There’s something Moscow has instructed me to say.”
“What’s that?”
“They said no news is to leak out except through official channels. They said we are to report to them and to no one else.”
The room blurred, and Lazlo took out his handkerchief to dry his eyes.
Asimov pushed his chair back and stood up. “Please believe I’m sorry, Detective Horvath. At times like this, there is nothing one can say or do to set things right.”
“Yes, there is.”
“What?”
“Find out about my brother’s family and have Vatchenko here this afternoon.”
The shade of a chestnut tree across the street from the Ministry of Energy made the inside of the Volga comfortable. A few minutes earlier, unable to stand it any longer, Komarov had lit a cigarette.
Captain Azef rolled his window partway down and said, because of the nuclear accident, air drawn through a cigarette filter might be better than the air outside.
Komarov knew about the death of Detective Horvath’s brother, Mihaly Horvath, the engineer in charge at the time of the so-called accident. These facts, plus the work his KGB branch office had done concerning the Horvath brothers, their American cousin, and Juli Popovics, prompted Deputy Chairman Dumenko to place Komarov in charge of an aggressive investigation in spite of the Chernobyl accident.
Already, an agent digging into Soviet army records had uncovered a questionable shooting incident involving Detective Horvath.
The detective was his to watch and, perhaps, catch, like a fish out of water in this scheme, whatever the scheme might turn out to be. And now two of Captain Putna’s men had followed Juli Popovics from Pripyat. She was in Kiev, and the PK agent named Nikolai was to meet Komarov at his office later in the day. On the phone this morning, Nikolai sounded gratified to be out of the back room of the rural post office. The same PK agents who first revealed the possible Gypsy Moth connection were here in Kiev. Was it coincidence that, prior to visiting his cousins last summer, Andrew Zukor had stopped at the CIA station in Budapest? Perhaps Zukor wanted to obtain information about the plant from Mihaly Horvath in order to discredit the Soviet nuclear program, or perhaps he was digging deeper, searching for plutonium production numbers the way the Americans had always done.
As they waited across from the Ministry of Energy for Detective Horvath to emerge, Komarov wondered why Juli Popovics had come to Kiev instead of going directly to her aunt’s house in Visenka. She might contact Detective Horvath, her lover’s brother; such a contact would definitely suggest conspiracy. Yes, everything was falling into place. Even Juli Popovics’ pregnancy with Mihaly Horvath’s child added to the growing evidence.
Komarov found the business of childbirth and pregnancy distasteful. When he saw duck-shaped women waddling down sidewalks, he was reminded of the birth of his son. At the time, he reacted as anyone would expect. Grigor Komarov, proud father of a son who would grow into a man, follow in his father’s footsteps, and carry on his name. But Dmitry had betrayed him. Instead of normal courtship, instead of sewing the customary wild oats, Dmitry
