The Boy from Reactor 4

CHAPTER 42





“IT’S ONE FORTY, and I don’t want to arouse suspicion,” Karel said after they snuck into his laboratory at the Chernobyl Power Station through a rear entrance. “So I’m not going to turn the overhead lights on.”

He grabbed a bottle of spring water from a portable refrigerator and handed it to Nadia. “Eat a bag of these mixed nuts, too,” he said, offering her a sealed plastic bag. “They’re from Kyiv. Grown in eastern Ukraine. I know you’re a bit paranoid about food at this moment. It’s to be expected. Eat, drink, while I prepare these slides for you.”

The lab smelled of formaldehyde. Nadia moved a stack of journals and books off a folding metal chair, sat down, and inhaled the nuts. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark during the ride back to the power station from Oksana’s home. A green lamp cast a faint circle of light around Karel’s desk.

Images appeared in charcoal gray beyond the desk. A dozen mice squeaked in individual cages arranged on portable shelves. A chart of the anatomy of a wolf hung on one wall. A poster illustrating the effects of radiation on a wild boar hung on another. In the center of the room, a rectangular table held an array of tools, dishes, and vials.

An hour ago, when Nadia had emerged from Damian’s bedroom, she pulled Karel away from Oksana and asked him if he’d heard of a substance called 5-androstenediol. He stared at her for a moment with a blank expression and burst into action. He told her they were taking a trip on his motorbike. It would be easier to explain at his laboratory. In the event of unforeseen circumstances, he urged her to forget Damian had ever uttered that term to her. If interrogated as to what she was doing in the Zone without proper papers, she would tell the police she was visiting the dying uncle she’d never known.

The only thing Nadia knew for certain was that she was going back to see Damian in the morning. Regardless of what Karel explained to her, she still had questions about her father, the boy, and Damian himself. And she had the distinct impression her uncle might not live long enough to answer them if she didn’t hurry.

“Come take a look at these slides,” Karel said, lifting his head from a high-powered microscope on the large table.

Nadia pressed her right eye to the lens. The picture resembled a scatter plot of pink circles on a white background. Some of the circles were darker, while others were lighter. More than a third of the picture, however, was white.

“That is the bone marrow of a primate that has been exposed to ionizing radiation,” he said. “Ionizing radiation is radiation with energy high enough to change an atom or molecule. Like X-rays or a nuclear reaction. As opposed to non-ionizing radiation, which is low energy. It excites the atom or molecule but doesn’t change its shape. Like radio or microwave. For our purposes, we are talking about ionizing radiation.”

Nadia kept her eye pressed to the lens. “What do the pink circles represent?”

“Red blood cells,” Karel said. “When a human being is exposed to radiation, the bone marrow is the most susceptible tissue, especially the stem cells that give rise to new blood cells.”

“There’s a lot of white here. Does that mean blood cells are not reproducing properly?”

“Correct. When stem cells die, blood counts drop. Two types of blood cells are especially crucial. The neutrophils, which fight infection and stimulate the immune system. And the platelets, which stimulate blood clots. When neutrophils and platelets drop, the risk of infection and hemorrhaging rises. At very high doses of radiation, the gastrointestinal and central nervous systems are also affected.”

Nadia pulled away from the microscope and batted her eyelid to straighten her lash. “If the body is already infected and hemorrhaging…”

“Treatments like blood transfusions and fluid management are basically comfort measures. Death is certain. Now, take a look at this one.”

Karel changed the slide in the microscope and stooped to adjust the focus. When he stepped aside, Nadia took his place and lowered her head.

A crash outside.

Nadia straightened herself. Glanced at Karel. He raised an index finger to his lips. They both looked at the front door, where the sound originated.

“Probably just a wild dog,” Karel said, motioning for her to take a look.

Nadia peered into the microscope. “I see clusters of pink horseshoes filling most of the white background.”

“Progenitors of neutrophils. New blood cells are being created despite exposure to radiation because the mouse was given an oral dose of five-androstenediol.”

Nadia stood up from the microscope. “What?”

“Five-androstenediol is a steroid that occurs naturally in the human body. Its benefits as a radioprotectant were first discovered by your Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in 1996. It’s known as five-AED. Five-AED stimulates blood cell growth and improves survival rates. But it’s not a true countermeasure. A true radiation countermeasure would have to do one of three things: prevent initial injury, repair all molecular damage, or stimulate surviving stem cells so aggressively that they counter the original injury.”

Karel picked up a third slide. When he was done loading it, he stepped back. His eyes gleamed.

“Take a look at this,” he said, swallowing the last word.

Nadia peered in. “The entire slide is pink,” she said.

“Surviving cells have proliferated at an exponential pace. The five-AED has been modified. New enzymes have been introduced. Proteins have been added that result in the synergistic benefits of a true radiation countermeasure.”

Nadia looked at Karel. “You?”

“No, no. I’m just a zoologist.”

“Then who?”

“A biologist by the name of Arkady Shatan. He conducted the original experiments with wheat in the Caves Monastery to discover why the bodies of the saints did not decompose. It was he who discovered that they produced a protective field of radiation. After the explosion at Unit Four, he was sent to Clinic Number Six in Moscow, where the most serious work was done on radiation effects on humans.”

“Is he here? Is his laboratory in Chernobyl?”

“He retired in 1997. He came back here to do his own research, though. Which is how we met in the café one day. Just as you and I met today—”

Fists pounded on the front door.

“Station Security,” a man said. “I am armed. Open the door. Now.”

“Quick, you must hide,” Karel said. “You have no papers. They cannot find you here.”

Nadia looked around. “Hide where?” Then a new idea came to her. “Open the door. I’ll handle this.”

Karel blanched. “What?”

“Trust me. Let him in.”

Fists pounded on the door again.

In a panic, Karel gathered himself and opened the door.

A wiry young man in a camouflage uniform pointed his rifle at Karel and sneered. “Oh. It’s you. What are you doing here so late?”

“Working. Why are you bothering me?”

The guard looked over Karel’s shoulder toward Nadia and squinted in the darkness. “Who’s that over there? Is someone else here?”

Nadia had yanked her shirt out of her pants. Unbuttoned it quickly and unzipped her pants. Swept the papers off Karel’s desk with the outside of her arm and straddled the corner of the table.

“Who else is here?” the guard said. He pushed Karel aside with his rifle and marched into the light.

Nadia grasped the desk with both hands and thrust her shoulders back. She thought of Anton and channeled his memory into her facial expression.

The guard froze when he saw Nadia. His eyes drew a line from her head to her waist and back up again. His mouth fell open. He glanced at Karel, face twisted with jealousy and disbelief.

Karel managed a grin and shrugged.

The guard looked at Nadia again and shook his head. “F*cking scientists,” he muttered as he headed back to the door. “No guests in the facilities after six o’clock. You know the rules. Make sure she’s out of here within ten minutes. Ten minutes. That should be plenty for you, eh, old man?”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Karel said. “We scientists know the benefits of being deliberate and patient with our research.”

After he left, Nadia dressed quickly. Karel looked interested, but her face told him it was for show only. They left via the rear path along the cooling ponds, circled back to the main road, and took off back toward the village. When he got to Oksana’s house, Karel continued along a dirt road for another mile. He stopped beside a tree with a purple ribbon tied around it near a thick patch of evergreens.

Nadia crouched behind a large boulder. Her dosimeter chattered lightly. Karel put on a pair of long rubber gloves and walked thirty yards away from Nadia toward a stream. He tossed some brush to the side and revealed a circular container buried underground. Its top protruded four inches and had the circumference of a manhole cover. He pulled a chain of keys out of his pocket, found the right one, and unlocked the cover. Lifted it off the container and placed it to the side.

When he joined Nadia behind the boulder, he was out of breath. “Now we wait,” he said.

“For what?”

“You’ll see.”

A minute passed. Nothing happened. Four more minutes passed. Nothing happened.

Nadia’s knees ached. She stood up to stretch them.

A rustle among the evergreens. Karel grabbed her hand and yanked her back down.

A wolf emerged from the brush. Muscles flowed beneath its gray-and-black coat as it stalked around the container. It stuck its mouth inside the bin for a moment. Walked around the periphery of the container again and stopped. Turned toward Nadia and Karel. Its eyes glowed yellow-green in the dark.

The wolf’s eyes met Nadia’s. It pulled its pointed ears back in an aggressive posture but relaxed them just as quickly. It howled.

Five more wolves appeared. They looked inside the container also. When they found nothing, they followed the leader of the pack upstream.

“The wolf saw us,” Nadia said. “But it didn’t run.”

“Only in the Zone,” Karel said. “Let’s go back to the house.”

When they arrived at Oksana’s home, she let them in and went to bed. Nadia and Karel sat in the small dining area.

Karel said, “The common explanation for the wolf not running is that humans are no longer present in the Zone. If you remove the hunter, you remove the fear. That is certainly true, but it’s not the only reason.”

“What was in that container?”

“It once contained a sample of modified five-AED. Notice there was a stream nearby. I wanted to see if animals would gravitate to the medicated water on sheer instinct. They did. Within two weeks of when I put it out, every local species was drinking out of that container.”

“It looked empty.”

“It is. But the wolves were waiting for more. They want to protect themselves from the next nuclear catastrophe.”

“Animals sense things.”

“Ever see a cat an hour before a storm? Maybe Reactor Four will blow again. Maybe it will be one of the other reactors. Or a terrorist. Or nuclear war. But it will happen. The wolves are telling us it will happen. But now there is a countermeasure.”

“Are you telling me that modified five-AED cures existing radiation damage in a living organism?”

“The longer you wait after exposure, the more blood cells break down and the less effective it becomes. It’s most effective when administered immediately after exposure. It has all the necessary attributes. Arkady said it is cheap and easy to make, has a long shelf life, and is easy to administer.”

“Chemotherapy and radiation treatment will be changed forever. This formula will save lives.”

“Or cost them,” Karel said. “In 2004, the United States commissioned a test to determine what would happen to a city like Washington, DC, if a ten-kiloton nuclear device were detonated. The conclusion was that sixty thousand people would die from the explosion, but two hundred and fifty-five thousand would die from radiation poisoning. More than eighty percent of the deaths would be caused by radiation. In the hands of a single country, possession of this formula would be a tactical advantage.”

“It could turn their enemies’ nuclear weapons into conventional bombs.”

“We cannot let the wrong man get his hands on this.”

“Still,” Nadia said. “You have to get this formula out there. There are people dying every day from treatments their bodies could handle if they had this drug. Why haven’t you and Arkady published this yet?”

“We were waiting for you.”

Nadia pulled back in surprise. “Me? Why me? Surely a scientist and a zoologist—”

“No,” Karel said. “We cannot trust our government. We cannot trust our colleagues because they work for the government. But we can trust you. That is why your uncle sent your mother letters asking for your help. Your uncle told us you are a person of integrity.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“You broke up a criminal enterprise in America.”

“I had a lot of help.”

“You are a mathematician skilled at problem solving. You are resourceful. You know people in America.”

Nadia’s vision went green. “Millions of dollars” was a gross understatement. “You have the formula? On you right now?”

Karel shook his head. “No. Arkady was an eccentric man. He shared his results with me but never the formula.”

“He was an eccentric man? Past tense?”

“He died ten days ago from natural causes.”

Nadia felt the air go out of her. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry. And the formula?”

Karel shook his head sadly. “He kept everything in his head. He put nothing on paper. He was notorious for it.”

“What about his laboratory? Didn’t he have a laboratory?”

“Yes. In Kyiv. I must confess, I searched it before I destroyed it. But there was nothing.”

“You destroyed it? Why?”

“Because that was his wish. He wanted all trace of his work to die with him.”

“But you must know the chemical compounds.”

Karel shook his head firmly. “No. I only saw the product of his labor. Never the formula. I swear to you on my wife and child’s graves that I am telling you the truth.”

“The formula’s lost?”

“Gone. You asked me what five-androstenediol is. You deserved an explanation. I have given it to you. But I’m afraid you are too late. The formula is gone forever.”