"What about the others?"
"They have their secret exits," Rushenko hissed. "Or their cyanide pills. Come."
Rushenko led the other into the tunnel, and the desk began returning to its spot, dropping back into place, its shadow overwhelming them.
"Are there no lights?" the security chief complained.
"The tunnel goes in one direction. Just follow my voice."
From behind them came a fierce splintering, joined with the complaint of gears and machinery under terrible stress.
A crack of light appeared back the way they came.
Rushenko turned. The light elongated and began chasing them.
"Hurry!"
They ran. They didn't hear any pursuing footsteps, so when the security chief happened to look back over his shoulder, he was shocked to see a tall man, the blur of his face like a death's-head, just three paces behind.
A thick-wristed hand took him by the back of his neck and dissolved his eyes with a two-fingered blow that penetrated his brain.
Colonel Rushenko heard the ugly death thud and decided against looking back.
It didn't matter. A cool hand arrested him by squeezing the back of his neck. His still-running feet made futile whetting sounds, then stopped.
"I told you I'd be right with you," a cool voice said.
Colonel Rushenko reached for his side arm. He got it out, but it was snatched out of his clutches. He next reached for the cyanide pill in his inner blouse pocket.
A hand clamped his wrist, got the pill and powdered it before his disappointed eyes.
"Nice try," said the taller of the two interlopers. His face was still a blur. It made Rushenko's eyes hurt to look at it.
"What is wrong with your head?" he asked.
"Oh, sorry." And the man shook his head once. Miraculously the features cleared. Deep-set eyes looked at him without mercy.
Colonel Rushenko realized the truth then. The man had been vibrating his head somehow at a speed that defied the human eye and TV cameras to read it. It was wonderful technology, whatever it was.
"How did you know that was a poison pill?" Rushenko asked as the cyanide powder finished dropping from the man's open fist.
"That's where my superior keeps his."
"You are US. agent, obviously?"
"You are head of Shield."
Rushenko quailed inwardly. Shield was known!
"I do not know these Shield. It is an American word," Rushenko insisted.
"Suppose I say Shchit?"
"Then I would tell you you are a vulgar Amerikanski. We say govno. "
The American gave Colonel Rushenko's cervical vertebrae a squeeze, and Rushenko found himself walking backward. His legs were moving involuntarily. No, that was not it. They were moving voluntarily.
But it wasn't of the colonel's own volition. It was the American's.
He was walked back like a puppet up the wooden steps to his ruin of an office. The desk was a shambles. Somehow the bapping light continued to signal its now-useless warning.
"This is the headquarters of Shield," the American said flatly.
"This is Radio Free Moscow. We are Communists."
Then the American began peeling Colonel Rushenko's fingernails off, one by one. He did it with casual cruelty.
"We want to know about the thing that hit our shuttle."
"I know nothing of this!" Colonel Rushenko sobbed, amazed at how swiftly he was reduced to blubbering.
"Kinga told a different story."
At that point, his left thumbnail came off. The false one. Under it was the real one, and under that his Shield tattoo. A tattoo that should have meant nothing to anyone who wasn't a Shield operative.
The other interloper stepped into the room then. Colonel Rushenko saw that he was Asian. His nationality was unclear. Dressed as he was, the man might have been from one of the former Asiatic republics. Remembering Kinga's last report, the colonel felt the saliva in his mouth dry like warm rain on a hot rock.
"You are the Master of Sinanju."
The little old man bowed serenely.
Rushenko addressed Remo. "And you are-what?"
"Tour guide. What about the thing that got our shuttle?"
"This was not our operation," Rushenko said with a trace of regret.
"Then whose was it?"
"This is unknown to us. We are investigating."
"Why would you investigate a U.S. problem?"
"Because someone is attempting to blame Mother Russia for this matter, of course. Why do you think?" A finger and a thumb reached out and squeezed Colonel Rushenko's thumb. The tip turned red, then purple, then popped like a Concord grape. It was exceedingly painful to behold, never mind endure.
"Lose the attitude," the American agent requested.
"Da. It is gone," Ruskenko gasped.
"I want to hear about Shield."
"It does not exist," Colonel Rushenko said.
The squeezing fingers drew additional blood.
"It has no official existence, I meant to say," Rushenko gasped. "The Kremlin does not even know about us."
"That's better. Who sanctioned it?"
"No one. I created it."
The Master of Sinanju came up, his hazel eyes interested. "Why?"
"To safeguard Mother Russia until Soviet rule is restored."
"You could have a long wait," the American said dryly.
"But it will be worth it," said Colonel Rushenko fervently.
"Okay. Enough of Shield. We gotta get to the bottom of this thing."
"I agree. I have operatives at Glavkosmos and Baikonur looking into this even as we squabble."
"We will await these reports," said the Master of Sinanju.
And Colonel Rushenko found himself sitting back in his red leather chair, into a gooey mess that he belatedly realized was a puddle of red caviar. He was relieved. He thought he had soiled his trousers.
The old Korean sifted through the desk papers, reading classified telexes with a casual air before ripping them to shreds and wastebasketing them.
"How did you find this place?" Rushenko asked at one point. "Kinga did not know its location."
"We traced the e-mail back."
"It has no listed address."
"We got the street. After that, it was easy."
"How so?"
The American jerked a thumb at the preoccupied Korean. "He recognized the cover."
"I have watched American television, too," said the old Korean blandly.
"What show was that, by the way?" Remo asked.
"Ask Uncle Vanya."
Remo snapped his fingers. "I get it now. I never watched that one much. Too farfetched."
While they waited for incoming reports, the American with the thick wrists passed the time by stacking the bodies of defunct Shield agents about the room.
"What killed them?" Rushenko asked.
"Sloppiness," sniffed the Master of Sinanju.
And Colonel Rushenko understood. They were liquidated by the finest assassin of the modern world. It was no wonder his security levels were so ridiculously pregnable.
The calls poured in over the next two hours.
The American lifted the receiver to Colonel Rushenko's mouth each time, squeezing his neck threateningly with his free hand. Colonel Rushenko felt obliged to answer in his normal tone of voice.
"Comrade Colonel, there is news out of America."
"Yes?"
"Our mole in the American CIA reports that SPACETRACK has isolated the orbital device responsible for the strange accidents in America."
"Yes?"
"It is dubbed Object 617 in their catalog of objects in the near cosmos."
"Yes, yes."
"It went into orbit a month ago. The orbit is polar."
"Who launched this infernal thing?"
"We did."
"Again?"
"It was the payload of Buran 2."
"The Kremlin launched this thing?" Rushenko roared.