Meltdown Read online

  Gayle Roper and I came up with the original idea of a Special Forces Explosives Ordnance Disposal unit during a brainstorming session at her cabin in July 2004. The plot was influenced by real-life events and stories of the battles being fought by our troops in the war on terror.

  In struggling to make the story authentic, I learned very quickly that I never wanted to write about a place I hadn’t actually visited personally. I decided to go to Ukraine before writing book three.

  In the summer of 2006 I went to Kiev and met with George and Sharon Markey, two young American missionaries living there. They welcomed me into their home, which they shared with a wonderful Ukrainian couple, Stepan and Olenka Mankovska. Olenka was such an incredible help in writing this book that I memorialized her efficiency and skill in the story by naming the Ukrainian CIA agent after her. In real life, Olenka is the mother of two and runs her own translation company.

  My time living with the Mankovska family gave me great insight into Ukrainian culture, especially when Olenka sent me to visit her grandparents for a few days in the village of Peremyshl. I had the privilege of being one of the only westerners to ever visit this village. The scenes in this book that take place there accurately describe what it was like, except that Olenka’s grandfather was still alive. He made it a point to teach me how real Russian men hug. Apparently, in Ukraine, nothing says, “Good to see you,” like several crushed vertebrae.

  My hosts didn’t have a car. Like most of the other villagers, they got around on foot or on bicycles, or by riding simple horse-drawn carts.

  My presence was a real curiosity. The neighbors kept coming by to see “the American,” as curious about me as I was about them. One offered me a ride on his horse cart and very proudly drove me out to the edge of town to see the paved road—apparently a real sign of modern progress.

  The man grilled me with questions about my life and looked with great interest at all the pictures I’d brought of my home and family. Looking at a photo of my front yard, he couldn’t fathom the concept of a lawn. “You don’t harvest it for anything?” he asked, scratching his head as if growing something just to cut it down was quite silly. And I suppose he was right.

  On Sunday we attended not one but three separate Eastern Orthodox services at small churches in surrounding villages. Upon entering, the first thing I noticed was that everyone was fanning themselves. Or so I thought. Then I realized they were making the sign of the cross—over and over and over and over. If one could make it to heaven simply by genuflecting (which isn’t possible, by the way), these people would be at the front of the line.

  The Orthodox tradition is filled with mysterious and ancient traditions, one of which has to do with church pews: there aren’t any. I wondered if they had been removed to make room for the icons-there were so many of those that the church would feel crowded even if you were the only human being present.

  Having an American at the services became something of a distraction, though everyone was very gracious. I got a fascinating lesson in Orthodox culture.

  After church we went walking in the woods looking for mushrooms—a favored activity among the locals in the summer. After an hour or so we had several pounds of mushrooms, all of which I was convinced were highly poisonous. The one thing my guidebook said that you should absolutely, positively never do in Ukraine is eat the mushrooms. So when the aforesaid mushrooms showed up as the main course for dinner that night…Let’s just say supper was scarier than my visit to the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. But I ate them, and they didn’t taste half bad. Besides, I have all the kids I need already.

  I signed up for a tour into the dead zone around Chernobyl. A tour company in Kiev offered a half-day venture, and I was surprised to find there were five other people who had signed up. We drove into the dead zone, our tour guide explaining the story of the tragedy that had happened twenty years earlier. Many villages around the reactor had to be buried, and we saw the mounds marking some of them.

  Nature is thriving in the dead zone, and there are actually a few people who, like Alexi in the story, have moved back in and continue to farm there. We met one of them and asked him what his secret is for surviving in the dead zone. Among other things, he said to drink plenty of water and get lots of sleep. Sounds like a good plan pretty much wherever you live.

  We toured the ghost town of Pripyat. It was one of the most amazing places I’ve ever seen. Imagine entering a fair-sized city and finding that all the people had suddenly vanished—leaving behind dishes in the sink and calendars on the walls, all the things we surround ourselves with every day. It was surreal. Among the everyday things, however, were scattered remnants of that terrible night when the reactor blew. I especially remember the gas masks—some of them obviously for children.

  The greatest thing about writing fiction, for me, is the experiences you must collect in order to make your writing authentic. I hope that you were able to share in them with me by reading Meltdown. For photos of Ukraine, visit www.ukraine.livefire.us.

  And visit www.livefire.us to continue the adventure.

  MELTDOWN

  PUBLISHED BY MULTNOMAH BOOKS

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  Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

  Scripture quotations and paraphrases are taken from the King James Version and the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Charles W. Holton

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

  MULTNOMAH and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Holton, Chuck.

  Meltdown / Chuck Holton.—1st ed.

  p. cm.—(Task Force Valor; bk. 3)

  eISBN: 978-1-60142-264-4

  I. Title.

  PS3608.O4944344M46 2009

  813′.6—dc22

  2009014671

  v3.0