Crocodile Tears Read Free Page A

that his children would never meet Mickey Mouse. Nor did he see the effect of what he had done.

    Exactly as planned, the bomb tore a hole in the side of the coolant pump, smashing the rotors. There was a hideous metallic grinding as the entire thing tore itself apart. One of the other plant operators—
    the same man who had been chatting about cricket just a few minutes ago—was killed instantly, thrown off his feet and into the reactor pit. The other engineers in the chamber froze, their eyes filled with horror as they saw what was happening, then scattered, diving for cover. They were too late. There was another explosion and suddenly the air was filled with shrapnel, spinning fragments of metal and machinery that had been turned into vicious missiles. The two closest men were cut to pieces. The others turned to run for the air lock.
    None of them made it. Alarms were already sounding, lights flashing, and as the machinery disintegrated, it seemed that everything in the chamber had been slowed down, turned into a black-andred hell. A cable whipped down, trailing sparks. There were three more explosions, pipes wrenching themselves free, fireballs spinning outward, and then a roar as burning steam came rushing out like an express train, filling the chamber. The worst had happened. Jagged knives of broken metal had smashed open the pipes, and although the reactor was already closing down, there were still several tons of radioactive steam with nowhere to go. One man was caught in the full blast and disappeared with a single hideous scream.
    The steam thundered out, filling the entire chamber. Normally, the walls and the dome would have contained it. But Ravi Chandra, in almost the last act of his life, had opened the emergency air lock.
    Like some alien stampede, the steam found it and rushed through, out into the open air. All over the Jowada power station, systems were being shut down, corridors emptied, safety measures put into place.
    But it was already too late.

    The people of Chennai saw a huge plume of white smoke rise up into the air. They heard the alarms.
    Already, workers at Jowada were calling their relatives in the city, warning them to get out. The panic began at once. More than a million men, women, and children dropped what they were doing and tried to find a way through traffic that had come to a complete standstill. Fights broke out. There were collisions and smashups at a dozen different junctions and traffic lights. But it had all happened too quickly, and not a single person would have actually made it out of the city before the radioactive cloud, blown by a southerly wind, fell onto them.
    The story appeared that night on television news all around the world.
    It was estimated that at least a hundred people died in the one hour following the explosion. Of course, there had been casualties within the Jowada power station itself, but far more people were killed in the madness to get out of Chennai. By the following morning, the newspaper headlines were calling it “A NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE”—in capital letters, of course. The Indian authorities were adamant that the steam cloud would have contained only low-level radiation and that there was no need for panic, but there were just as many experts who disagreed.
    Twenty-four hours later, an appeal was made to help the people of Chennai. Further casualties were being reported. Homes and shops had been looted. There were still riots in the streets and the army had been called in to restore order. The hospitals were full of desperate people. One British charity—it called itself First Aid—came forward with a comprehensive plan to distribute food, blankets, and, most important of all, potassium iodate tablets for every one of the eight million people of Chennai to counter possible radiation sickness.
    As always, the world’s people were unfailing in their generosity, and by the end of the week First Aid had raised over two million dollars.

    Of course, if