"It is written on your brutish face."
"Thank you. Kazakhs belong to the same ethnic family as Turk and Mongols and Koreans. There may be some of your blood in my veins."
"I may search for it after I have slain you," said Chiun in a thin voice.
Colonel Rushenko shut up. He grabbed for his armrests. One broke off in his hand. He hid it under his seat in shame.
The plane was lifting on one wing as it banked into a steep approach turn for the extremely long Cosmodrome runway.
"We will be using the same runway the Buran uses," Rushenko said expansively. "For our shuttles land at the same place they are launched from-a feat the West is incapable of."
"At least our shuttles carry live people," said Remo.
"Which is unnecessary, for robots are capable of most shuttle operations."
A moment later, Rushenko's eyes were drawn to the western horizon.
"Look. A sun dog!"
Remo and Chiun jerked their heads to their respective windows, Chiun taking care to touch Colonel Rushenko's throat with a deadly fingernail in case this was some Russian trick.
In the high sky, a hot ball of yellow light burned.
"I do not recognize this," said Chiun.
Rushenko said, "It is what is called a sun dog. A reflection of the solar orb upon ice crystals high in the atmosphere. I have never seen one like this, however."
A column of intolerably incandescent light sizzled past their ship a second later. It struck the ground with a dull boom.
Buffeted by a blast of heat, the Yak actually turned over once. Only their seat belts kept them from bouncing off the ceiling.
The ship righted itself with agonizing slowness, then came level. The engines found their normal pitch after an uncertain blooping.
"What has happened?" muttered Rushenko, holding his throat.
"Looked like a big beam of light," said Remo.
"The breath of the sun dragon," said Chiun, his wrinkled face touching the window to peer below.
"You mean sun dog," said Colonel Rushenko.
"He means sun dragon. And don't ask."
"Proklyatye!" Colonel Rushenko exploded. "Look!"
Below, there was a round, smoking hole where a long blue hangar building had stood a moment before. Remo had been looking at the building before the sun dog appeared. Now it was thoroughly obliterated.
Smoke rose from the black patch, but not much. It was as if whatever had burned down from the daylight sky had so scorched the earth that there was almost no natural fuel left to give off smoke.
"I am without words," Colonel Rushenko said thickly.
"What was it?" asked Remo.
"Mother Russia has been attacked."
"This is Kazakhstan," Chiun reminded him.
"Yes. I am sorry. I forget. It is my home soil, but no longer part of Russia. Still, the impossible has happened. The United States have launched a terroristic strike at an ally of Russia. This can have one certain consequence. Total war. We are mortal enemies again. Not that we were not before."
And Colonel Rushenko turned completely pale under the weathered Kazakh skin. He looked like a man no longer concerned about preserving his own life because no one's life had any value now.
Chapter 30
There was an Mi-8 helicopter waiting with rotors turning slowly as the Yak-90 came to the end of its rollout. The crew piled out as fast as they could and ducked under the fuselage, where they waited with chattering teeth and shivering limbs for another bolt from the endless blue sky of Kazakhstan.
Remo, Chiun and Colonel Rushenko stepped off casually, their eyes fixed on the same unthreatening sky.
"No clouds," said Remo. "Couldn't be lightning. Though it boomed like lightning."
"It was a sun dragon," said Chiun.
"I saw a sun dog," insisted Colonel Rushenko.
"A sun dog's never been known to burn a building down like that one," Remo argued.
"No," admitted Colonel Rushenko.
"Then shut up."
"It looked solar."
Remo looked at him. "What?"
"I said solar," repeated Rushenko. "A great but terrible beam of sunshine."
Remo's eyes went to the sun. It burned as it always had. "It's one theory," he admitted.
They were waved into the helicopter by a man in an insignialess Russian uniform. He had a side arm.
Remo relieved him of it by the simple expedient of yanking his belt off and throwing it and the holstered weapon as far as he could.
When it landed, a tiny puff of dust almost two miles west, the Russian soldier decided not to object to his uncavalier treatment. Meekly he climbed aboard, and the helicopter lifted off in a clattering halo of sound.
"What has happened here?" Colonel Rushenko asked the man.
"The shuttle complex is no more."
"Both shuttles?"
The man nodded grimly. "Nothing but burning dirt remains."
Colonel Rushenko looked to Remo and said, "I do not comprehend this."
"I do. Somebody's covering up."
"Nonsense. A cover-up would not require the destruction of the Russian shuttle fleet."
"Some fleet. They fly once and are mothballed forever."
"Overfly the site," ordered Colonel Rushenko.
"I will allow this," said Chiun.
The helicopter skimmed low. Emergency crews were moving toward the blast site with all speed. As they came to the zone of scorched area, they slowed, then slewed to a rolling stop.
"The ground must be real hot," said Remo.
"Of course it is hot," Rushenko flared. "Everything that stood upon it is now gone."
"I mean really hot. The tires on their trucks are melting."
Colonel Rushenko peered through the Plexiglas and saw the tendrils of gray smoke curling up from the front tires of the vehicles that had ventured into the charred zone. Soldiers were jumping from their trucks, running a few paces then hopping back, their boot soles smoking.
"Better not land," Remo warned. "Unless you want a serious hotfoot."
"We do not need to land. It is obvious what has happened here," Rushenko said tightly.
"Not to me."
"A solar weapon was used. Obviously the West is more advanced in their Star Wars technology than we dreamed."
"It wasn't us."
"You are the only superpower remaining. Except, of course, Russia. Who else would have the technology and the will to attack Russia?"
"Kazakhstan," corrected Chiun.
"Thank you. My question remains unanswered," said Colonel Rushenko.
"No way would we hit our own shuttle to test a superweapon," Remo said flatly.
"Hah! The contrary. It is a brilliant maneuver. A masterpiece of Western disinformation. No one would suspect Washington of complicity in its own disaster."
"You sound like an old Cold War rerun."
"I live for the next Cold War," Rushenko admitted.
"Don't count on seeing it," said Remo. "Put this thing down," he added.
Colonel Rushenko gave the order in Russian, which Chiun verified.
The helicopter dropped down at the edge of the charcoal zone. Remo got out, and the waves of residual heat brought sweat popping out on his face and bare forearms. No sooner had they broken through the skin than the same heat waves turned them to faint wisps of steam curling up lazily.
Feeling the body moisture draining from his body at an alarming rate, Remo retreated a few paces and, as the heat began to abate, he approached again.
The area of scorched earth was a perfect circle, the edge sharp as crop circles. Concrete lay fused and cracked, riddled with glass specks and bubbling patches of tar here and there.
There was no sign that a giant hangar had stood here, housing Russian's grounded shuttle fleet. People had died here. Remo could detect the faint smell like burned pork-only it had human constituents. Whoever had been burned, they left behind no bones and no mark of their passing other than a pungent vapor.