Hrabove turned out to be a tiny village with only two streets. A platoon of Cossacks were already going from house to house, banging on windows and gates: “Where’s the pilot? Did you see where he ejected?”

As the wind blew through, K. could smell the burning of metal and felt a sour, strange taste on his tongue—it was either blood or mown grass. Fumes drifted over the village. Messages were now coming across the radio in an unceasing torrent.

“What have you got to report?”

“We’re in Rassypnoye, we’re looking at a cockpit. It’s a civilian aircraft. One hundred percent. That’s all I can work out though.”

“How many people?”

“Fuck knows! They’re everywhere. In the gardens, in the streets, there’s one out on the football field.”

“What’s the aircraft, Greek, what is the aircraft?”

“I can’t work it out. We’re not near the main bit of the plane.”

“Understood. Weapons?”

“Nothing. Just civilian things, medical stuff, towels, toilet paper, chairs, bodies. Some of them are naked. That’s it.”

“Any documents?”

“Yeah, they’ve found one. An Indonesian student. From a university in Thompson. Fuck.”

Silence on the radios. K. quickened his pace. People were running ahead with buckets, shouting something. More talking over the radio.

“I don’t understand. They said on Twitter that it was an AN-26 transport aircraft. Lifenews is reporting the same, and they’re saying Number One is their source.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. Here’s another passport. I found a ticket. It says Malaysian Airlines. What the fuck was it doing here?”

Silence.

“Bringing in spies maybe, I don’t know.” Silence. “Why the fuck would they be flying here? Don’t they know there’s a fucking war going on.”

A crowd thronged around bright orange flames at the end of a street running into a field. Half-naked men in shorts and caps and women in colourful summer dresses and slippers ran through the vehicles parked along the road and tried to put out the burning haystacks by the fences.

“Come on, come on, bring over the buckets!”

“There aren’t any buckets.”

“Did you see that? Rags flying down?”

“What rags? Grandma Lida’s roof caved in. A body fell onto her bed.”

“Stop fucking around.”

“And what’s that? Another one there. Are there two of them?”

“No, it’s just the one. He broke into pieces.”

“He got blown to bits?”

“Well yeah! Jesus. Fuck.”

Nobody knew what was happening. Some were even laughing about it.

Grumpy was lost in the confusion. Emerging from the crowd by the burning haystack, K. walked along the tarmac toward the burning field. Ahead in the distance, about five hundred metres away, a giant wing protruded out of yellow waves of rye—a sharp, angular detail out of kilter with the landscape. K. did not make it as far as the wing. He stopped by a smoking, shapeless pile of debris about ten metres high. Wreckage was scattered across the field, but there was a large concentration around this area. Possibly a part of the plane that hit the ground intact.