Is that all?' said Grushko.
Nikolai whistled quietly. Gidaspov closed the door behind them. Grushko silently crossed the wide expanse of carpet and came round the mausoleum-sized desk to the picture window. In front of a row of trees he could see the tennis courts and on one of them was parked the most futuristic-looking truck Grushko had ever seen. It looked like one of the UFOs dreamed up by the Director of the Police Academy.
You seem to want for nothing, sir,' he said. Is that one of your trucks there?'
Yes. Quite something isn't it? Cost $1 million, and there are four more the same as that one.' He picked a packet of Winston off the desk and offered one to Grushko.
Grushko seemed about to accept one, but changed his mind. He had only wished to take a closer look at the packet to see from which end the packet had been opened.
No, thanks, sir,' he said, taking out his own pack of Astra, I'll stick to my own. It's best that I'm not reminded of how bad they taste in comparison with yours.' He pointed towards the truck again.
Did Tolya drive one of those?'
Yes, he did. Tolya was one of our best drivers actually. He was with us since the beginning, about ten months ago. Before that he worked for SOTRA, driving to Afghanistan, India and Iran for Irantransit and then for Yuzhtransit. He came highly recommended, like all our drivers. Well, you can imagine what our vetting procedures are like. Ingostrakh, the state insurance organisation, was very strict about the kind of men we could employ: only the best drivers with absolutely clean licences.
Anyway, about a month ago Tolya started to become unreliable. Family problems of one sort or another. He started drinking rather a lot. There was never any question of him driving under the influence, you understand, but it meant that he was late on a number of occasions. I'm afraid I had been intending to dismiss him, Colonel. But before that happened he just stopped coming to work altogether. That's why we've one vehicle still here instead of on convoy.
Of course I had no idea that something had happened to him. I tried telephoning him. I even went round to his address once.'
Gidaspov shrugged. To be honest with you, I assumed his drinking had got the better of him, and that he was probably out on a bender.' He sighed and shook his head. Poor Tolya. Have you any idea how he died?'
He was murdered, sir,' said Grushko. Shot through the head. But only after someone had tortured him with an electric iron.'
Good God,' breathed Gidaspov. But why. ?'
That's what we're trying to find out, sir,' said Grushko. It might help if you could tell us a little more about your work here.'
You don't think it might be connected, do you, Colonel?' Gidaspov sucked nervously at his cigarette. Oh, I'm sure it wasn't.'
We're investigating all the possibilities, sir,' said Grushko. No matter how remote.'
Gidaspov nodded and then remembered Grushko's request for an outline of the company's operation.
Well, Colonel, as you may or may not know, there are four reactors working at Sosnovy Bor, and reactors produce waste. Our past record in the matter of waste disposal has not been a good one in this country. And many of the RBMKs operating in Russia, Lithuania and the Ukraine are in poor condition. At the same time they also provide half of the former Soviet Union's nuclear electricity. So you can see how important they are.
In order to qualify for certain international loans to help us modernise these plants, Russia has agreed to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Authority in the matter of nuclear-waste disposal. In the short term we are dealing only with intermediate-level waste from the local facility and the Lithuanian reactor at Ignalina. But when St Petersburg becomes a free economic zone it is hoped that it will become an entrepA't for the whole of northern Europe's nuclear waste.
The waste itself is sealed inside steel drums and loaded on to our part-refrigerated vehicles. As you can see they're even part armoured in case of accident. The British lead the field in this particular area and they have provided the technical know-how, and the trucks themselves, of course. The trucks then take the barrels to our long-term encapsulation plant.'
In other words,' said Grushko, the West is helping us to modernise our own nuclear reactors in return for letting them dump their waste with us.'
That's about the size of it, Colonel, yes. Of course it's not just waste that needs to be dealt with. There is also the matter of transporting nuclear warheads to destruction sites. There are already plans afoot for us to operate another specially designed fleet of trucks to cope with that problem as well.
But why transport all this stuff by road?' asked Nikolai. Surely rail would be a lot safer?'
Forgive me, Major, but anywhere else and I might agree with you. Here in Russia, however, most people don't own a car and when they travel any distance at all they go by train. Passengers take priority on the railways. That makes rail freight slow and unreliable. You can't afford any delays where the transport of radioactive material is involved.'
I'm sure you've investigated all the feasibilities with an operation like this,' said Grushko. But I would like a chance to speak to some of your other drivers. Men who knew Tolya. Ones he may have got drunk with, maybe. Perhaps they can help to shed some light on his death.' He shook his head vaguely. He may have said something to someone.'
By all means, Colonel, only you'll have to wait for a few days. At least until the convoy returns from the disposal site.'
And where is that sir?'
Didn't I say? It's in southern Byelorussia, on the Ukrainian border. Near Pripyat.'
But that's close to Chernobyl, isn't it, sir?' said Nikolai.
Three kilometres away, to be precise.'
I thought there was some sort of exclusion zone in operation around the whole area.' Nikolai was frowning now. He didn't much care for the nuclear industry. Nobody did in St Petersburg. Not since the leak of radioactive iodine gas from the reactor at Sosnovy Bor.
You're right, there is,' said Gidaspov. A hundred-kilometre exclusion zone, enforced by the KGB. But the zone does not apply to nuclear-industrial personnel. After all, three of the four reactors at Chernobyl are still in operation.'
Three still operating? I didn't know that,' said Nikolai.
Gidaspov tried to look reassuring.
I can assure you that this is all perfectly in order, gentlemen,' he said smoothly. The whole programme has the full blessing of our own Ministry of Atomic Energy and the IAEA, not to mention the new Nuclear Power Plant Operating Directorate of the Russian Federation. Why, just last week we had a team over from the SKE that's the Swedish nuclear-installations inspectorate.
And after all the waste does have to go somewhere. The exclusion zone at Pripyat already has 800 separate burial sites containing 500 million cubic metres of radioactive scrap and debris from the accident at the Chernobyl reactor.' He shrugged. That's land that will never be reclaimed. Can you think of a better place for a nuclear-waste-disposal facility than somewhere that is already impossibly contaminated?'
No, I guess not,' admitted Grushko. It makes a change from just dumping it into the ocean, I suppose.' He paused and lit another cigarette.
You said you undertook vetting procedures for all your drivers, sir: does that mean you keep personnel files on them?'
Nothing wrong with that, is there?'
No, of course not. I just wondered if you might let me have Tolya Boldyrev's file. There might be something in his background that is relevant to our inquiry.'