by Alex Dryden
Finally, he spoke first.
‘Did you kill Professor Bachman?’ he asked her gently.
It was such a strange and unexpected question, she was lost for words.
‘In Krasnoyarsk,’ he prompted her eventually, and again with a great, gentle inquisitiveness.
‘I know of no one called Bachman,’ she said finally. ‘And I killed no one, not in Krasnoyarsk in any case.’
The straightforwardness of her admission caused his mind to be at rest. After all, he’d seen the road littered with bodies and the OMON officer in the jeep in the forest and heard from Fradkov about the killings of the conscripts at the dacha and at the checkpoint on the road to Norilsk. Who knew, there might be others.
‘Why are you here?’ he asked.
‘Did you find me on the road and bring me here?’ she said, without answering his question.
Petrov nodded.
‘How far was it?’
‘Twenty miles or so through the canyons. I had to take a roundabout route. There’s a great deal of military activity in the area. They’re looking for you,’ Petrov added. ‘As I’m sure you’re aware.’
Anna was amazed that a man could carry an inert body so far through such difficult country. That he’d bothered to do so at all and not turn her in to the authorities lifted her confidence in him further. She felt her trust in him becoming embedded. She decided she would slowly open the doors of her knowledge and trust.
For his part, Petrov had no intention of hurrying her, and so he withdrew from the direct question he’d asked. He would lead up to it.
‘I saw the wreck of the Rossiya,’ he said. ‘Was that you? How did you do it?’
She told him about the freeing of the anchor chain, and the grounding of the ship. ‘I was lucky,’ she added. ‘It grounded on a ridge next to a trench in the riverbed. That’s why it turned completely on its side.’
Petrov considered this for a moment.
‘And all the time you were heading north?’ he asked her. ‘You never had any intention of remaining in Igarka?’
Yes, she thought, to trust him was the only way. ‘I was trying to reach the Putorana nuclear research station,’ she replied. ‘That’s what I’m doing here.’
He sat and watched her in silence. If she was going to tell him, then she would.
His silence was one of intense calm, she thought. And she knew that, if she wanted their contact to mean anything at all, any communication would have to come from her.
‘There is… there was a man there, in Putorana. A great scientist in the nuclear field. We believe he’d made a discovery of truly life-changing proportions. His name was Vasily Kryuchkov. Another professor. I found him in the back of the truck on the road. But what I found was his dead body.’ She looked intensely at him. ‘I believe the State has killed him, in order for the world to remain ignorant of what he found.’
Petrov decided not to ask her what ‘We’ meant. ‘We believe…’ Who believed, he wondered, who did the woman work for? But he was not going to pursue it. It didn’t seem to matter much anyway. And so he sat in silence once more. Let her come to him, if she would.
‘Who is Professor Bachman?’ Anna asked suddenly.
Petrov let out a small sigh. His mind reeled back to the morning at the apartment block on Sverdlovsk Street, the discovery of Bachman’s dead body, and his own extreme diligence – peculiar, he now thought – by which he’d discovered the papers in Bachman’s shoe, papers that he still carried in a shirt pocket beneath the deerskin coat.
‘My name is Alexei Petrov,’ he began at last. ‘Lieutenant Alexei Petrov of the militsiya. But my mother’s family is here, all around us. It was up here where I was born, and up here where my spirit lies. My Evenki name is Munnukan. It means “hare”. But for many years I followed my Russian father’s demands to be Russian and to join the militsiya like him. It was me who first examined the body of Professor Bachman on the morning of the third of June. It was found in a trash alley at the side of an apartment block on Sverdlovsk Street.’
He saw her eyes widen, her body stiffen, but he didn’t pause. ‘It was lying face up next to the same apartment block where you had rented a room in the name of Valentina Asayev from a woman called Zhenya. That last information I alone found out. The MVD investigators there were not told your name, nor of your presence there. They must have found out in other ways about you.’
Anna thought of the photograph the foreman Ivan had taken of her on his mobile phone.
‘I was photographed on the Rossiya,’ she said. ‘It must have been passed on.’
‘Then your face is obviously well known in Moscow,’ he stated, without demanding affirmation from her. But, from her eyes, he knew he was right.
‘I searched the body of Bachman,’ Petrov continued. ‘Even though when, almost immediately, I’d found that he was a foreigner, I knew the case should be handed at once to the MVD. I found he had a return ticket from Norilsk that day. I also saw that his clothes had been slit. Someone had been searching for something he was carrying, no doubt illegally or, at any rate, something that the authorities would not wish him or any other foreigner to possess.’ He paused. He didn’t know – not yet – whether he should reveal what he’d found in the sole of Bachman’s shoe. ‘I checked up on this Bachman,’ he continued. ‘He is, or was, a very eminent nuclear scientist from Germany who has written many papers, is very respected throughout the world, and had been researching a highly secret nuclear project for many years – as far back as the sixties, I believe. It seemed clear to me then, as it does now, that he was murdered for whatever it was he was carrying. And that must have been something that he’d brought from Norilsk that afternoon.’ He paused again. He didn’t want to tire her. ‘Norilsk is a hundred miles to the west of us from here, from this meadow, and only a little more than that from the Putorana nuclear research facility.’
He paused, watching her face all the time. He saw that a whole wild flock of thoughts were crossing her mind; calculations, assumptions, and just guesswork perhaps. But she was making connections without pause and he saw this from what was in her eyes and what was written in the changing lines on her forehead.
‘So,’ he continued. ‘An internationally renowned German nuclear scientist is found dead in an alley in Krasnoyarsk on the third of June, the same day you left on the Rossiya. With something evidently valuable concealed on his person. For that, surely, was why he was murdered. And then, eight days later, an internationally renowned Russian nuclear scientist is found in a coffin in a truck on the deserted road over there,’ he pointed vaguely northwards, ‘leading away from the nuclear research facility which you were trying to reach.’ He leaned forward on the stool, but it was a movement without threat. ‘You were trying to reach Kryuchkov too, just like Bachman was and, perhaps, did… yes? And you believe this Kryuchkov was murdered by us, by the Russian State. And again, he was murdered in order to conceal something. The connection, it seems to me, is obvious. Bachman met Kryuchkov – or maybe some go-between of Kryuchkov’s – in Norilsk on the second of June. Something was exchanged between the two of them, or between the go-between and Bachman – and it was for this that Bachman was murdered. And now Kryuchkov is dead also, and his secret is presumably intended to die with him.’
Anna pulled herself up on the palliasse until she was more upright against the sled runners. It was painful, but she wanted to find out how painful, how difficult it was for her to move.
‘What you are looking for,’ Petrov continued, ‘has, I believe, something to do with what was exchanged between Kryuchkov and Bachman. You wanted to find Kryuchkov at the research facility, in order to find what you are looking for, yes? And you knew nothing of Bachman and what apparently took place between them on the second of June.’
Anna looked back into the dark, intense eyes of the man who sat beside her, a militsiya lieutenant who hadn’t put her under arrest, but had saved her life.
‘And so that is why you’re here,�
�� Petrov concluded. ‘Just like Bachman. Kryuchkov.’ Petrov paused. He didn’t know what he possessed in the pocket of his coat. ‘Had Kryuchkov discovered something so terrible, so dangerous, that first Bachman, and then Kryuchkov himself, were murdered?’
Anna sat and watched the man’s gentle but determined face in front of her. She knew she had little – no, no options – now but to open herself to him.
‘My name is Anna Resnikov,’ Anna said quietly. ‘I was an SVR colonel, my father and grandfather were both senior officers in the KGB and its predecessor, the NKVD, before that. My father was head of station in Damascus. I defected from Russia five years ago.’
Petrov just nodded. Then he sat deep in thought, looking down at his hands clasped on his knees in front of him. He still felt that there was no dilemma, but he had no idea why he felt that.
Then he withdrew the satellite phone from a leather bag beside the stool.
‘I was given this by a Colonel Fradkov of the FSB, in Igarka three, four days ago. My orders are to call him every day. My other orders are also to find you. I have seen how much they want you. To destroy you too.’ He wasn’t sure how to go on, so he persisted with facts for a moment. ‘This Fradkov has said that if I find you, I will be made a general. I will be given a pension, an apartment in Moscow, a dacha, enough money to live in the West, if that’s what I want.’
‘As far as anyone can trust the FSB, I believe that’s true,’ Anna replied at once. ‘They will give you all those things. Medals too, anything you want. You will be a great hero.’
Once more, Petrov was impressed by her straightforwardness.
‘But even if I were interested in those things,’ Petrov said, ‘that would not be a reason to hand you over to them. There would have to be other reasons.’
‘I’ve killed eleven Russians in the past eight days,’ Anna said. ‘That should be reason enough for a militsiya lieutenant.’
‘Instead of those things they’ve promised me,’ Petrov continued, ignoring the provocation of her response, ‘I’ve actually decided to downgrade my position. I no longer wish to work for the militsiya, let alone become a Hero of Russia. I intend to remain here, with my people, at least for as long as they allow us to live our old way of life.’
They sat in silence then, but it was a complete, comfortable silence, one of two old friends who had no need to talk. Finally, Petrov looked up from his clasped hands.
‘There were others on board the Rossiya,’ he said. ‘Like you, they also escaped when the ship collapsed. Four of them have been arrested, according to this Fradkov. Up in the area of Dikson, where our new mobile reactor is waiting to be taken to the Pole. Were you with them, part of them?’
Anna thought of Oleg, with his fanatical eyes and his determination to commit ‘a great act’.
‘I met them onboard, or their leader, anyway,’ she replied. ‘He wanted me to join them, but he didn’t tell me what for. He told me they had access to explosives and a highly dangerous explosive substance called thermite.’
‘And you had no connection with them other than talking with their leader?’ Petrov asked.
‘None.’
‘Good,’ Petrov replied. He was relieved about her reply and, more importantly, he completely believed its honesty. ‘They were arrested, apparently, these boys, before they were able to blow up this reactor. A highly stupid thing to do. To save the world? Is that what they were trying to do? But in doing so, risking the exact damage they purported to be fighting against. Nuclear fall-out – and up in the Arctic of all places.’
‘They were fanatics, certainly,’ she said. ‘The act, for them, was more important than the fall-out – in both senses of that word.’
So, Petrov thought, the way was now clear for him to go on. She was not connected to the stupidity and violent danger of the boys who’d been arrested. It was time to pursue his course to its core.
‘Tell me, Anna,’ he said quietly, ‘what is muon catalysed fusion?’
He saw her whole body tense then, despite the pain of muscular contraction. Her eyes were suddenly wild. Or was it amazement, or confusion? She seemed ready to leap from the palliasse, to reach out at him. In violence? No, he thought not. It seemed to be some kind of desperation.
‘Is it what Professor Kryuchkov was working on? What Bachman was working on?’ he said. ‘What you want?’
‘It’s what Kryuchkov had been working on for many years, and no doubt Bachman too,’ she replied tensely.
‘Then you know what it is,’ he said.
‘And you too,’ she replied.
‘I know nothing. That’s why I’m asking you.’
Anna was silent, her mind reeling. What did the militsiya lieutenant, the Evenki tribesman, know in order to ask such a question?
‘I’d like to stand up,’ she said.
‘Of course. If you feel up to it.’
Petrov stood and began to put his arms around her back to help her. But she put her hand on his right arm and looked at him.
‘I can do it on my own,’ she said.
He watched as she struggled with the pain, until she’d heaved her legs over the side of the low palliasse.
The poultices his mother had put on her wounds were good, she thought, whatever they were. Her hand barely hurt. The gash in her thigh was worse than her hand, but she saw it was well wadded with bandages under which a few sprigs of some herbs were protruding. Only where the bullet on the road, fired by the dying truck driver, had ripped her right side was the pain still very great.
She rested on the edge of the palliasse for a moment and he made no move to help her. Then she pushed her way through the pain to stand on her feet. She stood, panting slightly from the pain, but she was steady.
‘Let’s have some vodka,’ she said.
He got up from the stool and picked two cups from an upturned box and, clutching them and a vodka bottle in one hand, placed them all on a low table in the centre of the choom. Then he threw some wood into a wood burner and lit it. There was an icy wind coming under the flap of the choom, from the north. He thought from the smell of the wind that there would be snow tonight – and then he wondered how he had developed the sense to know that.
When the fire was blazing, he filled the two cups, gave one to her and raised his own. They both sipped from the cups until he put his down while she held hers, perhaps unable to bend easily to the low table. He then sat cross-legged on the floor. Anna continued to stand, as if to test herself and her strength.
‘In the late 1940s,’ Anna began, ‘our Professor Sakharov predicted that there was a possibility, theoretically in any case, of producing muon catalysed fusion at some time in the future. A muon is an unstable subatomic particle. It’s like an electron, but two hundred times bigger, or more. If a muon were to replace one electron in a hydrogen molecule, they would therefore be drawn at least two hundred times closer together. When they’re this close, the possibility of creating nuclear fusion is greatly enhanced.’
Petrov looked and concentrated and began to feel that the mystery – the ‘secret he didn’t know he possessed’, as Gannyka had told him the night he died – was closer to being revealed.
‘Fission and fusion are therefore two very different things. The word “fission” means “split apart”. In the case of normal nuclear reactors – or bombs – uranium atoms are split apart producing gigantic amounts of energy; millions of times more energy than any other type of fuel. But they also produce gigantic and unstable amounts of nuclear waste and, in the case of a damaged reactor, for example, or a bomb, they produce a huge amount of fatal radiation. Radiation from the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki more than sixty-five years ago is still killing people. The disaster at Chernobyl will still be killing people in decades time. Perhaps in Japan too, from its recent reactor disaster.’
Now she sat down on the thin rug inside the choom, and faced Petrov directly. She was keen, he saw, to make him understand the point she was heading towards. She couldn’t cross
her legs, with the gash in her thigh still not properly healed, but she kept them straight out and leaned against the stool Petrov had been sitting on.
‘Fusion,’ she continued, ‘is different. It fuses muons on to the electron in a hydrogen molecule. It can be done at room temperature, or even less, while thermonuclear fission requires extremely high temperatures.’
She sipped from the tin cup of vodka and this time placed it on the floor beside her.
‘However, it is difficult to produce muons in large enough quantities to make much of a difference. Another problem is that the muons decay away before they produce more than a few hundred nuclear fusion reactions. Muon nuclear fusion works in a laboratory, in other words, but not in a practical, commercial situation in order to produce the energy we actually need and use. And so, in 1957, an American scientist concluded that muon nuclear fusion would therefore be impractical as an energy source.’
Each of them felt the wind outside the choom pick up again from the north and some iced flakes scudded under the flaps at the entrance. When the gust had died down, Anna continued.
‘If a way could be found to bring it out of the laboratory and into the world, four things would result. First, it would be much cheaper than normal nuclear fission reactors. Second, it would produce almost no radioactive waste, perhaps none at all if it were properly efficient. Third, it would produce almost no greenhouse gases. Fourth, it would eliminate the need for fossil fuels altogether, including coal, oil and gas.’
Petrov thought about this extraordinary possibility for a moment. But then his mind returned to what the American professor had said in 1957.