I watched it sink for what seemed a very very long time. Part of me was convinced, irrationally perhaps, that the jolt of hitting the pool bottom would detonate the bomb. But it touched down, distantly, silently, and lay skewed across the griddle-iron pattern of the pool bottom.
‘Saltykov,’ I called out again. ‘I dropped the bomb!’
There was still one single grenade. It was right there, on the floor beside me. Not knowing what else to do, I picked it up. I was conscious mostly of embarrassment. I suppose I thought, rather incoherently, that I might make small amends by taking away this single RGD-5. I could at least dispose of that in the woods, which — surely — would be better than nothing. The fact that there were still four grenades in a case at the bottom of Chernobyl’s spent fuel pool was… Well, there was nothing I could do about that. I got to my feet.
‘You’ve dropped the bomb?’ shouted Saltykov, outraged, from behind me. Of course he was angry. The process of turning round to confront him was also the process of registering that something strange had happened to his voice. It had deepened and broadened in a most peculiar and rather comical manner — in sum, it wasn’t Saltykov’s voice at all. More, I thought that perhaps I recognised the voice. It sounded like Trofim’s voice.
I turned, and there he was: with his oxen manner, and the same half-comprehending expression on his big Slav face as he had ever had. He was aiming his pistol at me.
I held the grenade in front of me. Trofim waggled the gun. ‘Give it to me.’
I looked at the grenade. Since I carried no gun, it was the closest thing I possessed to a weapon. ‘I’d prefer not to,’ I said.
‘Just give it to me,’ he repeated.
‘You don’t want it, Trofim,’ I said. ‘It’s sodden. It’s not going to explode.’
‘They’re naval grenades,’ he said, the crease in his brow deepening. ‘They’re water resistant.’
‘Well,’ I said, digesting this fact. ‘Well, it’s probably radioactive. It’s more radioactive, down in that pool, than — Godzilla,’ I said, rather at a loss for a comparison. ‘You don’t want this grenade. It’ll give you cancer. I’m surprised to see you here, comrade.’
‘I’m the one who is surprised,’ said Trofim, possessively.
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I concede my surprise to you. You’re welcome to it. I’m not surprised in the least to see you here. You planted this bomb — when, a few days ago? A week? It failed to detonate, and now you’ve come back to change it. Or change the detonator. Or something.’
‘I am not permitted to disclose confidential data pertaining to my mission,’ said Trofim, with the air of an amateur actor reciting his lines. He stepped towards me, the gun level at my chest the whole time. I held up the grenade. ‘One more step,’ I said, ‘and I shall pull the pin.’
‘Pull the pin out,’ he said.
‘Pull the pin, yes, means pull it out.’
‘I’m telling you,’ he said. ‘Not asking.’
‘I’m not sure you understand me, comrade,’ I said. ‘I will pull it out, if you come any closer.’
He took another step towards me. ‘Do it.’
I thought about this for a moment. ‘Perhaps you meant to say don’t do it?’
‘That’s not what I meant to say.’ He took another step, and was now standing no more than two yards in front of me. The pistol in his right hand was still aimed at my chest. His left hand was carrying his little briefcase.
‘You’re calling my bluff,’ I observed.
‘You’re not bluff,’ he said. ‘You’re the least hearty man I’ve met.’
‘I,’ I said, and stopped. ‘What?’
‘Ironist, that’s what Comrade Frenkel said. He knew you, all right.’
‘When I said bluff, I meant—’ But I was distracted. ‘Are you saying you want me to blow you up?’
‘What I want doesn’t come into it.’
‘You surely can’t want to be blown to pieces inside this power station?’
‘I am not permitted,’ he repeated, ‘to disclose confidential data pertaining to my mission.’
‘You do realise that if I pull the pin we will both die?’
He puffed his chest out. ‘I’m a warrior,’ he said. ‘If dying is the only way to achieve my mission, then so be it.’
I coughed. ‘Well, I’m not a warrior. I’m a science fiction writer.’ I disengaged my finger from the ring-pull. ‘I have no desire to immolate myself.’ Catching sight of the expression on his face, I added: ‘To blow myself up, you know.’
‘Give me the grenade,’ he said.
I thought about this. ‘I will if you promise not to use it.’
‘I must use it.’
I didn’t like the sound of this. ‘No promise, no grenade.’
A light went on in his eyes, as if the idea was only just then occurring to him. ‘I’ll shoot you and take it from your dead body.’
‘It’s like playing chess against a grandmaster,’ I said, crossly. ‘You have forced my move, Comrade Spassky.’
He stared at me. ‘Don’t you recognise me? It’s Trofim.’
‘Christ, have the stupid grenade.’ I held it out towards him.
Still aiming the gun straight at my chest, he reached up to take the grenade with his left hand. But he was still holding his suitcase in this hand. For a moment his face bore the traces of a brain strenuously wrestling with a logic problem that was almost but not quite beyond his capacities (if I put the mouse and the dog in the boat, and leave the cat on the nearside bank, then paddle across to leave the dog on the far side of the river… ). He lowered his left arm. He put the suitcase on the floor and then reached out with his left hand, now empty. I handed him the grenade, and he took it. Then with as smooth a gesture as I could manage I reached down and picked up the suitcase.
Both of Trofim’s hands were occupied: gun, grenade. ‘Put that down!’ he said.
‘The suitcase?’ I asked, as if requesting clarification. ‘You want me to give it up?’
He straightened his right arm, bringing the muzzle of the gun up to my face. ‘Give it up right now.’
Give it up? Or put it down?’
‘Do it now!’
‘Which, though? Up or down?’
‘Put it up,’ he said, becoming agitated. ‘Give it down. Give it — put it down.’
‘I’m a little confused, comrade, as to which direction you want me to move this suitcase.’
‘Put it down or I will shoot you and,’ he said, a flush starting to spread over his face, ‘shooting you will make you put it down. Then it will be down. You will be down’
‘All right, all right, I’ll put it down,’ I said.
With a single heave I threw the case. It fell with a surprisingly loud splash into the far side of the pool.
It took a moment for him to process what I had done. ‘It’s fallen,’ he said, perhaps because explaining it to himself solidified the concept in his head. ‘It’s fallen in the water.’ His voice was higher pitched than usual. Two steps took him to the edge of the pool and he peered down. ‘I hadn’t primed it! he said. His voice rose another semitone. ‘You threw it in the water! Look! It’s sinking all the way down.’