Brukhanov worked around the clock. His superiors could usually expect to find him somewhere in the station at almost any time of the day or night. If something went wrong at the plant—as it often did—the director often forgot to eat, and would subsist for a full twenty-four hours on coffee and cigarettes. In meetings, he withdrew into inscrutable silence, never offering two words when one would do. Isolated and exhausted, he had few friends and confided little, even to his wife.
