Page 59 of The Half Life of Valery K

He straightened up. ‘Sorry?’

‘I don’t know how much you know about this place, but the reactors have been active for ten years. There was a nine-month break in production in fifty-seven, but apart from that, they’ve run continuously. Each reactor generates thousands of tonnes of liquid nuclear waste every year. The trenches are right across the land between the lake and the forest. All around the facility.’

There it was again, the niggling unease he’d had in Shenkov’s office, the feeling that he’d forgotten something big. He could feel his way around the shape of it now. ‘They … I see. Um. Comrade; these reactors. They still only get about an eighty per cent plutonium yield, is that right? There’s still the twenty per cent trace plutonium in the waste.’

She nodded. ‘We’re going to have to talk to the director.’

Shenkov looked between them. Valery felt graceless for not trying to include him more. Shenkov must have been used to it, because he had only settled with a cigarette of his own and he had been making the coffee – Valery couldn’t remember hearing the kettle on the Bunsen burner sing, but it was off now – patient and quiet. ‘Why do we need to talk to the director?’ he asked.

Valery glanced at Anna, not sure he should be the one to explain. It wouldn’t sound real, coming from him.

‘Because,’ she said, ‘a twenty per cent trace of plutonium is nothing in one batch of waste; a few tenths of a gram. But with each reactor producing tonnes of waste every year for ten years …’ She tipped her head one way and then the other. ‘I’d guess there must now be a hundred kilograms or so of plutonium in the ground around the Lighthouse. This wouldn’t be a problem, because combined with other elements, plutonium is inert. But as Kolkhanov has just proven, the soil has separated out all the elements in the liquid waste. The plutonium is pure, and it will therefore explode in water. One nuclear bomb, of the kind used at Hiroshima, requires only six kilograms of plutonium.’

Shenkov was silent for a long second. ‘You’re saying that this facility is sitting – really – on top of twenty atom bombs.’

‘Yes,’ she said. She was the opposite of Valery; calm, even louche, despite what she was saying. She sipped her coffee. ‘And they could well go off in a chain reaction as soon as the groundwater penetrates the plutonium strata.’

They all looked outside, over the black lake. All the time they had been talking, new snow had been tapping at the windows, and now it strengthened just enough to ruffle the surface of the lake, which jumped and skittered, dull under the grey clouds.

20

Albert

‘That was quite a catch,’ Shenkov said as they walked back to the Lighthouse together in the snow. It wasn’t thick yet, but it crunched under their boots. Already it had made the bare earth of the whole complex white, and smoothed over the caterpillar tracks from the diggers and cranes.

‘Only by accident. We could just have easily dug somewhere else,’ said Valery, who was starting to feel shaky from the nearness of that other future.

Shenkov was quiet for a few paces. ‘I called the administrator at Kolyma.’

The blood left Valery’s fingers. ‘Right.’

‘He said he couldn’t possibly comment about any alleged accidents at the camp, but he said he knew exactly what I was talking about and that you weren’t dangerous.’

‘Okay.’

‘I want to believe that, but – will you tell me what happened?’

‘No. I can’t,’ Valery said, and then had to slow down, because there was a shushing roar in his ears now. ‘Can you leave it?’

‘No. I’m not a reptile, for God’s sake, I haven’t been so brainwashed I can’t think for myself. If you had a reason then—’

‘Stop!’

‘What?’ Shenkov demanded.

‘Oh, Christ …’ Valery leaned against the fence and tried to breathe normally, but it didn’t work. His heart was galloping so hard it felt like it would smash in his chest. Perversely, though, the cold felt much worse than it had a minute ago, and he was shuddering.

Shenkov looked caught somewhere between annoyed and confused. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m having a panic attack, I’ll be fine.’ He had to slide down towards the ground. ‘Go on ahead, they last for a while, it’s tedious.’

Shenkov knelt down, a fine line just deepening between his brows. He didn’t ever let his expressions develop strongly enough to mark him more. ‘But—’

‘If you’re about to complain that the very mention of something shouldn’t be giving me panic attacks then you can get in the queue,’ Valery snapped. He heard his own voice go high. ‘I agree. I’m as embarrassed as you are.’

‘No. I was going to say you can’t stay out here for long.’ Shenkov held up his stopwatch, which already showed they’d been out for four minutes. He touched Valery’s elbows and levered him upright. ‘Come on, let’s get inside. We need to see the doctor, you’re going to collapse if—’

‘Oh, get off me,’ Valery growled. ‘You collapse. I’m not insane, I don’t need drugging. It’ll go away by itself.’