Serhiy shuddered. “Do you know what is the meaning of Chernobyl?” he asked. “Do you know why it has this name?”
“Not really. I seem to remember someone telling me it means ‘Wormwood.’”
“Tak. In English you call it ‘Wormwood.’”
“A lot of Americans got excited after the disaster, because Wormwood is mentioned in the Book of Revelation or something. They thought the Rapture had arrived.”
“Tak.” Serhiy stopped walking and closed his eyes, summoning the verse from memory and repeating it in heavily-accented English. “And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon a third of the rivers, and upon the springs of water; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and a third of the waters became bitter; and many people had died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”
“Wow,” said Victoria, privately wondering if he was about to start proselytising. “Good memory.”
“My parents make me learn English by reading the Bible,” explained Serhiy, shyly. “Wormwood is meaning a demon star that fall to Earth. Bitter is poison.”
“Yes. I prefer a dry white myself,” quipped Victoria, hoping that he would start walking again so she could get some privacy and some sleep.
“The third trumpet of the angels. Then darkness and the angel of woe,” muttered Serhiy. He fell silent, seemingly lost in a Biblical reverie.
Victoria rolled her eyes. It was late and she was tired. She didn’t need this. It was also freezing cold. Fortunately, he shook himself out of his fugue before too many moments had passed. “You will be pleased to wait here? Just one minute,” he assured her, his voice a flat monotone. Before she could reply he was gone, jogging away across the decaying concrete.
Victoria groaned with frustration. All she wanted was to use the loo and go to bed. Maybe she would log in to the site’s Wi-Fi and e-mail Malcolm before she went to sleep. Maybe she wouldn’t. In fact, no, why should she be the one to extend an olive branch? Screw him. The house was in her name; he could sod off if he wanted to. He would have gone out drinking with Les and Fat Frank after the match. Victoria wondered if he had gone around introducing himself to girls as ‘newly single,’ the way he had introduced himself to her. He could be cheating on her right now, for all she knew. There was a grim satisfaction to be found in how little the thought bothered her.
An engine grumbled to life, sounding excessively loud in the hushed stillness of the night. Victoria shielded her eyes as a pair of headlights flared. It must be one of the Russian SUVs that Octra used on site. Was Serhiy planning to drive her to her tent? There had to have been a misunderstanding of some kind.
The vehicle plunged forwards, accelerating towards her. Dazzled, Victoria turned away to face the derelict hotel. Blinking away after-images, she found herself squinting at the empty windows, the building’s grimy, ruined interior suddenly revealed in the blue-white rays of the car’s xenon headlights. There, in the middle of some anonymous room, at the foot of a flight of crumbling stairs, she saw a figure.
Black robes. Faceless. One arm raised, pointing straight at her.
A shoulder crashed into her midriff, winding her and lifting her off her feet. Victoria’s arms flailed reflexively as she was carried backwards by the impact. Her small suitcase flew from her grasp, thumping heavily against the cold concrete at the same time as her head. A moment later, the black SUV thundered past, still accelerating, right over the spot where she had been standing seconds before.
There was a jarring crash as it slammed head-on into the wall of the hotel, crumpling instantly like an imploding submarine, but punching halfway into the building’s interior nonetheless. Splinters of glass flew in every direction, tinkling melodically to the ground, while the SUV’s horn brayed like a dying boar. Giant chunks of brickwork began to rain down, and then a huge slab of wall around the point of impact completely collapsed. Victoria gave a strangled shriek as the car’s roof was staved in, stamped almost flat by giant blocks of tumbling masonry.
The stocky VV lieutenant who had sprung out of the night to shove her to safety was already on his feet and running towards the wreck, holding one arm in front of his eyes to protect them from the tempest of dust that whirled around the crash. Victoria wanted to scream at him to get back—lumps of brick were still sloughing away from the hotel like Tetris blocks—but she could not find her voice.
When she tried to stand up, her legs seemed to have turned to jelly. Arms caught her as she staggered, more VV troops surrounding her as their lieutenant tried to see inside the wrecked vehicle. People were emerging from tents all over the site, staring open-mouthed at the carnage.
“Gott im Himmel, what happened?” Wolfgang Osterberg elbowed his way through the platoon of troops and seized Victoria by the shoulders. “Where is Serhiy? Are you all right?”
Victoria nodded mutely. Her tongue felt like a sponge and her mouth was dry. She struggled to make words come. “I don’t know where Serhiy is. I think he’s in the car. He tried to run me over.”
“Run you over? Serhiy? Are you sure?”
She nodded weakly. “I think so.”
He stared at her, concerned, then patted the top of her head with one giant hand. “Also. Come with me. Come on. We must get you inside.”
He picked up her suitcase, and supported her with his other arm, leading her away from the crash. Behind them, the lieutenant barked orders at his men and began rattling commands into his radio. They sprang into action with commendable swiftness, and by the time Osterberg had found the tent reserved for Victoria, a gigantic, eight-wheeled ‘Guardian’ troop carrier was wrenching the destroyed SUV free of rubble using lengths of thick chain.
As they stepped into the cramped, rubber airlock at the entrance to the pressurised tent, Swan hopped crossly out of the one opposite. “What in the hell is all this commotion?” he demanded to know.
“Go back to bed, Mr Swan,” advised Osterberg. “Everything is under control.”
“The hell it is!” replied Swan, but stepped back into his tent anyway. “Don’t keep her up all night, Doc,” he leered before pulling the door closed. “She’s got work to do tomorrow.”
Osterberg did not dignify him with an answer, just closed the outer door and opened the inner one, bundling Victoria into the claustrophobic interior. He guided her to a small camp bed and then squeezed his bulk about the little chamber, turning on the space heater and moving it closer to her, while she sat and shivered with cold and unmetabolised adrenaline.
“Is he dead?” asked Victoria, almost inaudibly.
“Anyone in that car is dead, yes,” replied Osterberg, flicking on a small bedside light and sitting down next to her. The bed flexed threateningly under his weight, but held.
“I don’t understand—we were just talking.”
“It’s not you, Vicky, it’s this place. These flashes of madness have affected many of the men. The violence is indiscriminate.”
He draped a heavy arm over her shoulder. Victoria could smell his sweat, the cigarette smoke on his shirt, and the vodka on his breath. Not pleasant odours, but strangely comforting. She began to slump as the tension left her body.
“He was talking about this place, about Chernobyl, and about the Bible. Wormwood. The Book of Revelation.”
“Ah, yes. Serhiy was very devout. But a good scientist.”
“Not a good driver, though,” sniffed Victoria, and tried to laugh. She hesitated. “I—I thought I saw someone else.”
“Someone else? Who?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see their face. Standing in the hotel. Very tall. Right before it happened.”