Returning to the helicopter, Remo said, "You know what this looks like?"
"What?" asked the Russian.
"Like a giant magnifying glass was focused right on this spot."
Colonel Rushenko laughed at the thought.
Chiun said, "And you scoff at sun dragons."
"Well, that's what it looks like to me," said Remo.
The helicopter carried them to the operations building, where Colonel Rushenko found the Kazakh official who nominally controlled the site. In fact, it was a joint Russian-Kazakh command now that the former Soviet Union had found itself in the embarrassing position of having their primary space center sitting in a foreign country.
The Russian representative refused to accept Colonel Rushenko's request for information. But the Kazakh was only too happy to cooperate with a fellow Kazakh national.
They were shown to a windowless, soundproof room, and Colonel Rushenko spoke urgently as Chiun monitored the exchange of Russian and Kazakh for dark glimmerings of impending treachery.
Colonel Rushenko asked fewer and fewer questions as the exchange wore on. He got noticeably paler, though.
"This is unbelievable," he said as he faced Remo.
"Spit it out."
"According to this man, the Buran payload was not a Russian or an American satellite, but the product of a third country entirely."
"What country?"
"Paraguay."
DR. HAROLD W SMITH was shouting across more than a dozen international time zones.
"What?"
"Paraguay," shouted Remo.
"What did you say?"
"I said the Paraguayans hired the Russians to launch that thing up there!"
"What thing?"
"The space thing!" Remo shouted.
"Perhaps you should redial," Colonel Rushenko suggested helpfully.
"It took me an hour and a half to get this connection," Remo shouted back. "I'm sticking with it."
"Sticking with what?" Harold Smith yelled.
Remo bellowed, "Listen, Paraguay launched that thing!"
"Remo, you are breaking up."
"It melted the Soviet shuttle fleet."
Colonel Rushenko smiled nostalgically at the American's lapse.
Smith's voice grew shrill and nasal. "What?"
"The shuttles are all vaporized."
Harold Smith's reply was drowned in the cannonading boom that followed.
All eyes went to the nearest window.
Off to the north stood the spidery launch gantry, where the big Energia rockets lifted the Buran fleet aloft, approximately once every eight years.
The gantry stood in the column of searing light. It hurt the eye to look at it. The air made a dull boom, then the light seemed to withdraw back into the heavens.
There was no gantry on the spot where it had stood.
Instead, there was only a grayish haze of smoke that was being pushed outward by a spreading heat wave.
Even through the sealed window, they could feel the heat wave overtaking the operations building. Window panes crackled in their frames.
"That's never happened before," Remo said worriedly.
"What are you saying? It happened only ninety minutes ago," said Rushenko.
"It's happening twice in the same place. It's never happened twice before."
Chiun allowed a flicker of worry to touch his seamed visage. "This is not a good place to be. The dragon seems especially angry at us," he intoned.
"I do not accept the existence of dragons," said Colonel Rushenko bravely.
"Believe it or not, that thing up there is trying to wipe out all trace of Baikonur," said Remo.
"Leninsk. And I agree with you. We must go."
The helicopter shuttled them back to the Yak. The crew was back inside the aircraft, hiding in assorted lavatories.
Remo got them out and into their seats, and they took off into the sky ahead of a third white-hot column of sizzling heat from the sky. It was followed by another thundering boom that shook the aircraft.
Out the windows they could see what remained of the sprawl that was the Baikonur Cosmodrome complex.
There were three patches of blackness. All of identical size. In a staggered row.
"Almost makes you believe in angry Martians," said Remo.
"Perhaps they are spelling out a message," said Chiun.
"Get off it."
"I am only glad to be out of it," sniffed Chiun as the Yak screamed for higher altitude and more distance from the smoking cosmodrome.
They watched through the window as long as it was possible to watch.
There was no fourth cone of light. No one was disappointed.
"Sure hope Smith understood what I was saying," said Remo.
"Who is Smith?" asked Colonel Rushenko conversationally. "Your Mr. Waverly, perhaps?"
"Remind me to kill you later," said Remo.
Colonel Rushenko subsided. But he made a mental note of the name Smith. Probably an alias. But Americans were so devious it was best not to discount anything they said.
Chapter 31
The destruction of the Baikonur Cosmodrome and the Russian shuttle fleet hit the Kremlin with all the force of a nuclear detonation.
In the old days, it would have led to the highest state of alert. The old Strategic Rocket Force would have been placed on alert, their SS-20 and Topol-M missile crews put on prelaunch posture.
But this was post-Soviet Russia.
It took an hour for the first report to reach the Kremlin. Another hour to bring the leadership up to speed. A third to argue over a response.
By that time, everyone from the president of Russia to his defense minister was thoroughly drunk.
"We must have someone to blame," the president said, pounding the table with his hammy fist.
"America!" an adviser bellowed.
"Da. America."
So it was decided America was to blame.
Then the call was put in to the Strategic Rocket Force to go to maximum alert and to be prepared to launch a retaliatory strike at an instant's notice.
"At whom?" the general in charge wanted to know.
"Who else? America!" the defense minister bellowed drunkenly.
"But they will strike back with overwhelming force, obliterating us all."
This was considered on an open line with another bottle of Stoli being the only casualty.
"You make a good point. Target a portion against China, too."
"Yes, General," the Strategic Rocket Force commander replied, gulping.
With that settled, the Russian leadership went back to drowning their sorrows. Somewhere in this, someone remembered to call Major-General Stankevitch at FSK.
"General Stankevitch, I regret to inform you that Baikonur Cosmodrome has been obliterated by the same superweapon that has struck America two times this week."
"Then the U.S. is not to blame."
"You are mistaken. There is no one else."
"What?"
"There is no one else to blame but the US. They have the technology. We do not. Your task is to prove this."
"What if it is a lie?" asked Stankevitch.
"Prove that, too. But you must hurry. The fate of mankind and the Motherland depend upon learning truth. Go now. Learn things. Assemble facts. Report immediately."
And to Major-General Stankevitch's utter horror, the phone went dead with an audible bonk. No one hung up. The handset had simply fallen from a drunken fist.
Quietly the General replaced the butter-colored receiver on his end and sank into his chair.
He had the most difficult decision of his life to make. And if he made the wrong one, mankind was doomed.
Clearly, he thought, reaching into the locked bottom drawer of his desk, it was time for a drink.
Chapter 32
The President of the U.S. received the report from the National Reconnaissance Office of the National Security Agency by telephone.
"Sir, it appears that Baikonur Cosmodrome has been destroyed by the same power that obliterated our shuttle."