A doctor whose controversial practice has threatened her license is recruited by the military to treat a cosmonaut. Returning from space after a mysterious accident, the man has brought with him a nocturnal passenger which thrives on destruction; Tatyana wants to stop it from killing while the military wants to keep it as a secret weapon.

At 01:23:40 on April 26th 1986, Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency shutdown button at Chernobyl's fourth nuclear reactor. It was an act that forced the permanent evacuation of a city, killed thousands, and crippled the Soviet Union. The event spawned decades of conflicting, exaggerated, and inaccurate stories. This book, the result of five years of research, presents an accessible but comprehensive account of what really happened-from the desperate...