Yellow Blue Tibia (26 page)

So there I was, holding a grenade in my hand in the very heart of the active reactor of a nuclear power station.

I had to think what to do next. Clearly I ought to remove this suitcase from the power plant. There were five grenades in all; one in my hand, and four in the case. Perhaps the best thing would be to carry the whole kit outside; take it into the woods, where its explosion would do less harm. Very well: I needed to uncouple the case from its metal cable. I put the loose grenade down on the side of the pool. Then I closed the lid of the case, to get a better look at the handle, and the metal cable hooked around it. The cable was steel, heavy; as thick as my little finger. There was no way I could cut it. It was attached to the handle with a closed loop: the main body of the cable had been threaded through the cable’s eye. It could not be undone. I laid the suitcase down next to the loose grenade. Then I looked again into the water. I could see that the cable was attached via a clip to a fastening point set in the side of the pool, no more than a foot below the water. It would be an easy enough business unclipping that.

‘Saltykov!’ I yelled. ‘Saltykov, I’ve found it! I have the bomb!’

I lay down and reached with my right hand into the unsettlingly body-temperature warmth of the turquoise waters. A finger-twist with the clip and it came free. I had it by my fingertips, and then a nerve twitched in my arm, or I fumbled, or something happened, and I dropped it. The end of the cable fell away through the water.

This was clumsy of me.

I got to my knees and looked over the edge. There was something rather soothing in watching the leisurely fall of the cable through its medium; such a long way down. It unfolded in slow motion, and went taut. Then, with a slick inevitability, it continued its downward slide. The suitcase, no effective counterweight to the mass of dozens of metres of steel cable, slid across the tiles. My heart jolted, and I made a grab for the case, but my wet finger slid across its wet surface, and it went with a splash into the water.

I watched it sink for what seemed a very very long time. Part of me was convinced, irrationally perhaps, that the jolt of hitting the pool bottom would detonate the bomb. But it touched down, distantly, silently, and lay skewed across the griddle-iron pattern of the pool bottom.

‘Saltykov,’ I called out again. ‘I
dropped
the bomb!’

There was still one single grenade. It was right there, on the floor beside me. Not knowing what else to do, I picked it up. I was conscious mostly of embarrassment. I suppose I thought, rather incoherently, that I might make small amends by taking away this single RGD-5. I could at least dispose of
that
in the woods, which - surely - would be better than nothing. The fact that there were still four grenades in a case at the bottom of Chernobyl’s spent fuel pool was . . . Well, there was nothing I could do about that. I got to my feet.

‘You’ve dropped the
bomb
?’ shouted Saltykov, outraged, from behind me. Of course he was angry. The process of turning round to confront him was also the process of registering that something strange had happened to his voice. It had deepened and broadened in a most peculiar and rather comical manner - in sum, it wasn’t Saltykov’s voice at all. More, I thought that perhaps I
recognised
the voice. It sounded like Trofim’s voice.

I turned, and there he was: with his oxen manner, and the same half-comprehending expression on his big Slav face as he had ever had. He was aiming his pistol at me.

I held the grenade in front of me. Trofim waggled the gun. ‘Give it to me.’

I looked at the grenade. Since I carried no gun, it was the closest thing I possessed to a weapon. ‘I’d prefer not to,’ I said.

‘Just give it to me,’ he repeated.

‘You don’t want it, Trofim,’ I said. ‘It’s sodden. It’s not going to explode.’

‘They’re naval grenades,’ he said, the crease in his brow deepening. ‘They’re water resistant.’

‘Well,’ I said, digesting this fact. ‘Well, it’s probably radioactive. It’s more radioactive, down in that pool, than - Godzilla,’ I said, rather at a loss for a comparison. ‘You don’t want
this
grenade. It’ll give you cancer. I’m surprised to see you here, comrade.’

‘
I’m
the one who is surprised,’ said Trofim, possessively.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I concede my surprise to you. You’re welcome to it. I’m not surprised in the least to see you here. You planted this bomb - when, a few days ago? A week? It failed to detonate, and now you’ve come back to change it. Or change the detonator. Or something.’

‘I am not permitted to disclose confidential data pertaining to my mission,’ said Trofim, with the air of an amateur actor reciting his lines. He stepped towards me, the gun level at my chest the whole time. I held up the grenade. ‘One more step,’ I said, ‘and I shall pull the pin.’

‘Pull the pin
out
,’ he said.

‘Pull the pin, yes, means pull it
out
.’

‘I’m telling you,’ he said. ‘Not asking.’

‘I’m not sure you understand me, comrade,’ I said. ‘I
will
pull it out, if you come any closer.’

He took another step towards me. ‘Do it.’

I thought about this for a moment. ‘Perhaps you meant to say
don’t
do it?’

‘That’s not what I meant to say.’ He took another step, and was now standing no more than two yards in front of me. The pistol in his right hand was still aimed at my chest. His left hand was carrying his little briefcase.

‘You’re calling my bluff,’ I observed.

‘You’re not bluff,’ he said. ‘You’re the least hearty man I’ve met.’

‘I,’ I said, and stopped. ‘What?’

‘
Ironist
, that’s what Comrade Frenkel said. He knew you, all right.’

‘When I said bluff, I meant—’ But I was distracted. ‘Are you saying you
want
me to blow you up?’

‘What I
want
doesn’t come into it.’

‘You surely can’t want to be blown to pieces inside this power station?’

‘I am not permitted,’ he repeated, ‘to disclose confidential data pertaining to my mission.’

‘You do realise that if I pull the pin we will both die?’

He puffed his chest out. ‘I’m a warrior,’ he said. ‘If dying is the only way to achieve my mission, then so be
it
.’

I coughed. ‘Well, I’m not a warrior. I’m a science fiction writer.’ I disengaged my finger from the ring-pull. ‘I have no desire to immolate myself.’ Catching sight of the expression on his face, I added: ‘To blow myself up, you know.’

‘Give me the grenade,’ he said.

I thought about this. ‘I will if you promise not to use it.’

‘I
must
use it.’

I didn’t like the sound of this. ‘No promise, no grenade.’

A light went on in his eyes, as if the idea was only just then occurring to him. ‘I’ll shoot you and take it from your dead body.’

‘It’s like playing chess against a grandmaster,’ I said, crossly. ‘You have forced my move, Comrade Spassky.’

He stared at me. ‘Don’t you recognise me? It’s Trofim.’

‘Christ,
have
the stupid grenade.’ I held it out towards him.

Still aiming the gun straight at my chest, he reached up to take the grenade with his left hand. But he was still holding his suitcase in this hand. For a moment his face bore the traces of a brain strenuously wrestling with a logic problem that was almost
but not quite
beyond his capacities (if I put the
mouse and the dog
in the boat, and leave the
cat
on the nearside bank, then paddle across to leave the
dog
on the far side of the river . . . ). He lowered his left arm. He put the suitcase on the floor and then reached out with his left hand, now empty. I handed him the grenade, and he took it. Then with as smooth a gesture as I could manage I reached down and picked up the suitcase.

Both of Trofim’s hands were occupied: gun, grenade. ‘Put that down!’ he said.

‘The suitcase?’ I asked, as if requesting clarification. ‘You want me to give it up?’

He straightened his right arm, bringing the muzzle of the gun up to my face. ‘Give it up
right now
.’

Give it up? Or put it down?’

‘Do it now!’

‘Which, though? Up or down?’

‘Put it
up
,’ he said, becoming agitated. ‘Give it
down
. Give it
- put
it down.’

‘I’m a little confused, comrade, as to which direction you want me to move this suitcase.’

‘Put it down or
I will shoot you
and,’ he said, a flush starting to spread over his face, ‘shooting you will
make
you put it down.
Then
it will be down.
You
will be down’

‘All right, all right, I’ll put it down,’ I said.

With a single heave I threw the case. It fell with a surprisingly loud splash into the far side of the pool.

It took a moment for him to process what I had done. ‘It’s fallen,’ he said, perhaps because explaining it to himself solidified the concept in his head. ‘It’s fallen
in the water
.’ His voice was higher pitched than usual. Two steps took him to the edge of the pool and he peered down. ‘I hadn’t primed it! he said. His voice rose another semitone. ‘You threw it in the water! Look! It’s sinking all the way down.’

I took him at his word, and looked into the pool. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘At any rate, it’s not sinking
up
.’

‘You threw it in!’

‘You said it was waterpoof.’

‘But I hadn’t
primed
it!’ Trofim’s capacity for petulance, like his musculature, was larger than a normal person’s. ‘I hadn’t primed it! It’s ruined now! How can I prime it now? You’ve ruined everything!’

‘Look on the bright side,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t your fault. If you take me back to Moscow you can put the blame on me.’

‘We’ve got to retrieve it! We have to fish it up!’

‘The best thing would be to go down like a pearl diver. Give me the gun and take your jacket off.’ He looked towards me, and there was something almost heartbreaking in the way hope flickered in his eyes, for the second or so before he thought better of himself. His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re trying to trick me.’

‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘It must be thirty metres deep, that pool. You probably wouldn’t be able to hold your breath under water for long enough.’

‘You go!’ He brought the gun closer to my face.

‘Well I
certainly
couldn’t hold my breath. You know how poorly my lungs function.’

A sly look, or what approximated one for Trofim, crept into his features. ‘Aha,’ he said. ‘You’re trying to trick me again, but I’m wise to you!
Your
lungs don’t work
anyway
! You could go under the water without ill effects.’

I looked steadily at him. ‘Could you explain your logic?’

‘My what?’

‘Your logic. The logic of that statement.’

‘The logic is,’ he said, ‘that, and there is logic. It is
logically
the situation that since your lungs don’t work in air, you won’t need them under the—’ He looked at me. ‘Under the, um.’

‘When you describe this as
logic
. . .’ I said.

His eyes defocused momentarily; but he snapped back. ‘
This
is my logic!’ he cried, brandishing the gun.

‘And it is a very persuasive argumentative tool,’ I agreed. ‘But it won’t make my lungs work under water.’

Something gave way in his will. His shoulders sagged. His voice, when he spoke, was almost imploring. ‘What am I suppose to do now?’

‘Why don’t the two of us get out of here?’ I said. ‘Go find a bar and discuss that important question over a drink?’

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I can’t leave. The mission. You were in the army, after all. You know the importance of orders. You understand the importance of completing your mission.’

‘Having been in the army,’ I said, ‘I know how often commanding officers send honest soldiers to their deaths for no very good reason.’

But this didn’t hit home. ‘Comrade Frenkel is a great man,’ he told me, stiffly. ‘This mission is of the utmost importance for the continuing success and survival of,
survival
of, the Soviet Union.’

‘I’d say the Soviet Union needs good men like you alive,’ I said. ‘I’d say you can serve the Soviet Union better alive than you could as a corpse.’

‘I could at least shoot you,’ he said, in a meditative voice.

‘I’ll wager those aren’t your specific orders.’

‘Oh no. I don’t have any specific orders with respect of you. I don’t believe Comrade Frenkel expected you to be here.’

‘Well there you go.’

‘But he’s keen on his men showing initiative,’ Trofim added, aiming the handgun at my head. His brow creased once again, and the redness rose once again in his cheeks. ‘I wish you hadn’t thrown the suitcase into the pool!’

‘What can I say? I’m an impulsive man.’

He remembered then that he was holding the grenade. ‘I could pull the pin,’ he said, holding it up between us. ‘And throw
this
in the water. It would sink down, wouldn’t it. Plus, I’d have time to get out of this chamber, at any rate.’

‘Come come, comrade,’ I said. ‘This is a nuclear power station. You are trying to
blow up
a nuclear power station. Or have you forgotten? You think a seven-second grenade fuse gives you enough time to outrun a nuclear explosion?’

Two fat worry lines wormed into the flesh of his brow. ‘You’re right of course,’ he said, in a gloomy tone. ‘Well, there’s nothing for it then.’ He aimed the gun again at the centre of my brow.

‘Comrade,’ I said. ‘Think what you’re planning! To blow up this power station - it would be like dropping an atomic bomb on the heart of the Ukraine! Have you any idea how many would die? Do you really want their deaths on your conscience?’