Reagan these days?
In front of the National Hotel, a man hurrying out the main doors bumped into him, almost knocking him down. The man grasped Komarov’s shoulders to steady him.
“I am sorry, comrade. I should not have been so clumsy.”
The man wore a hat and coat too warm for spring. He had a thin face and wore thick glasses. “I was in a hurry coming out the door,” continued the man. “It is my fault. I called a taxi. Can I offer you a ride?”
The man looked familiar. Was it someone from his past? Someone from a previous Moscow visit? The man’s breath smelled of onions.
Komarov pulled back. “I prefer walking.”
The man stepped forward and touched Komarov’s sleeve. “Are you sure? The taxi will be here soon. We can ride together and have a pleasant conversation. I’d like to talk to someone about this Chernobyl business?” The man let go of Komarov’s sleeve, took off his thick glasses, and stared at Komarov, smiling as if Komarov should recognize him.
Komarov began walking away. “I’m not interested in your conversation.”
He expected the man to follow, to continue harassing him. And when the man did not, Komarov glanced back to see a taxi pull to the curb and the man get in. When the taxi sped past, the man stared straight ahead.
Perhaps he was being followed. The man could have been from the Seventh Directorate, simple surveillance, or even from Directorate T. Perhaps the man had some connection to Major Struyev in the Kiev office. He had asked Struyev to attend to the Gypsy Moth in Hungary, and in the process Directorate T followed him. No matter. One could always expect to be followed in Moscow. But why should he recognize the fellow? A thin-faced man wearing glasses, about his age. What if the man was foreign intelligence? What if there really was a planned coup d’etat linked to Chernobyl? No matter. He had his own work to do, his own ladder to climb. What happened in Moscow might make a difference or, as was often true these days, might make no difference at all.
It was beginning to darken and a light mist fell. In Red Square, final preparations were being made for the May Day parade. Komarov walked along the Kremlin Wall to the Senate Tower. Beneath the tower, the queue of people in front of the Lenin mausoleum was short, probably because of the rain.
19
On May 1, 1986, the cities of Moscow and Kiev both held parades.
While Moscow’s parade was surrounded by Kremlin walls and paved squares wet with rain, spring greenery and lilacs blooming along paths down to the river surrounded Kiev’s parade. The morning was sunny, but by midday the wind changed, and an ominous cloud descended.
Kiev’s parade went along Khreshchatik past the university with its red facade, past the post office, past the Hotel Dnieper, and onto Lenkomsomol Square. Speeches were typically patriotic, with no mention of the Chernobyl incident. The assembled crowd was quiet, so much so, traffic in the underpass below the square could be heard.
The absence of the usual food vendors was obvious. News of roadblocks and technicians with Geiger counters had spread throughout the city. Although in subdued voices, rumors made the rounds.
“Did you hear? Ration coupons may be issued, along with compensation for evacuees.”
“Collectives are full, and they’re sending Chernobylites to vaca-tion on the Black Sea.”
“Whatever you do, don’t eat leafy vegetables or drink milk.”
“Be careful on the phone. If you even mention Chernobyl, the line goes dead.”
“Perhaps we should put our shortwave radios back in the attic for the time being.”
The mood on the square during the speeches was somber. Even the sound of traffic, which could be heard through storm drains in the floor of Lenkomsomol Square, became ominous. Heavy traffic meant many citizens were leaving Kiev and perhaps the danger was greater than anyone imagined. Some in the crowd referred to the radiation as “the silent killer.”
Two days after the parade, Major Grigor Komarov was back in Kiev, standing at his office window smoking a cigarette. He looked down to where he would have seen the parade had he been in Kiev on May Day. From his office, the people would have looked like multicolored beetles, the vehicles like toys, the banners like miniature flags used in cemeteries.
Even though it had drizzled, attending the Moscow parade was a high point in his career. The parade, with thousands of more participants than any Kiev parade, was impressive. And by simply glancing over his left shoulder, he could see Gorbachev and other members of the Presidium. Perhaps some of them, even Gorbachev himself, wondered who stood with Deputy Chairman Dumenko.
Someday soon, they would know.
Were some in Moscow already speaking of Komarov? Had gossip remained behind? During the dinner party at Deputy Chairman Dumenko’s residence, he reassured Mrs. Dumenko and several other guests. He spoke of the orderly movement of evacuees, the generous aid provided, and the cooperation of Kiev’s citizens and surrounding collectives. Later, after most guests were gone, Dumenko took him aside and commended him for his tact.
Because many were leaving Kiev rather than going to Kiev, Komarov had spent the peaceful trip back with an empty seat beside him. He’d thought about puzzles and chess games and how easily even intelligent men could be manipulated. He drew a diagram in his notebook in which Detective Horvath was represented by a circle surrounded by women-Juli Popovics, Nina Horvath, Tamara Petrov-all of them with power over this man, each a string connected to the superstitious puppet. And if Komarov could manipulate the strings…
On the plane, Komarov had imagined himself as clever as Dos-toevski’s Porfiry in Crime and Punishment. Detective Horvath a brooding Raskolnikov. But in this case he would have to be more clever than Porfiry. The potential existed others would step in to take credit or, worse, discover some bit of evidence to set the Gypsy anarchists free. The line between revolutionaries, anarchists, and terrorists was a fine one.
Komarov went to his desk and called Captain Azef. He told Azef to send Captain Brovko, the new man assigned by Moscow, up to his office.
“Deputy Chairman Dumenko and Captain Azef filled me in on the case, Major.”
“So now you are an expert?”
“Definitely not. I wish to gain more knowledge from you.”
Captain Brovko was thirty-five, unmarried, formerly stationed in East Berlin as a counterintelligence interrogator. His training in nuclear engineering was from the army. He was tall and muscular, his hair the color of sand, his eyes blue. He spoke fluent German and, in the GDR, was probably mistaken for the grandson of an SS officer. All of this had been in Brovko’s file, which Komarov studied earlier.
“I understand you have skills as an interviewer,” said Komarov.
“Interrogation was my specialty in KGB training,” said Brovko.
“We are from the same mold, Captain. I also trained as an interrogator. Of course, the mold might have changed somewhat since then.”
Brovko laughed politely.
“As for your nuclear training. Can you tell me exactly what happened at Chernobyl?”
“Not without more facts.”
“Deputy Chairman Dumenko said you would look into the situation. I assumed you had.”
“I’ve looked into a Pandora’s box, Major. Chaos and confusion make it impossible to come to a conclusion at this time.”
“I need your best guess as to what happened, and what will happen. Please be concise.”
Captain Brovko leaned both elbows on Komarov’s desk. “Very well. The Chernobyl RBMK reactors are pressure tube devices with graphite blocks to slow neutrons. Apparently the plan was to test reactor number four at low power during maintenance shutdown.
Normally this would be a routine test, except for two factors. The RBMKs are notoriously unstable at low power, and several safety systems were disabled too early in the test. A power surge could not be handled by control rod insertion, the temperature rose quickly, a steam explosion cracked the concrete shell, steam came in contact with hot graphite, and there was a second explosion exposing the core and igniting the graphite. The first