In the early hours of April 26, 1986, reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station exploded. The Soviet government said nothing publicly for two days. When the admission finally came, on the evening news on April 28, it ran to a handful of words — an accident, a damaged reactor, “measures undertaken.” International news services, picking up on radiation readings drifting over Scandinavia, were already speculating about a meltdown before Moscow said anything at all.
Jack hears about it the same day it happens—from Eton who himself has just learned from his grandfather, Prof. Volkonsky, well ahead of any public announcement.
Four days after the explosion, Red Square held its grand May Day parade exactly as planned—flags, flowers, Gorbachev and the Politburo waving from above. Chernobyl, three hundred miles to the southwest, went unmentioned. The same celebrations went ahead in Kiev and towns well within the fallout zone.