Anton Malakov woke up with a soft pillow beneath his head and glaring sunlight blazing through a window onto his eyeballs. It wasn't a hot sun, but it was bright enough to send bolts of lightning into the back of his brain - and it was that which finally woke him up properly.

He didn't know where he was. The last thing he remembered was flying through a glass window that shattered before his weight. No, that wasn't the last thing; he also remembered walking along a train track. Yes, he had started walking, but he hadn't known where he was heading, and he didn't remember ever getting there, but presumably he had.

He tried to lift his head. He wasn't in much pain anymore. Indeed, the throbbing aches he did feel felt distant, like they existed in phantom limbs, detached from his body, but not completely, so that he still felt the twinges, even though his arms and legs felt halfway across the room.

And what kind of room was this? Malakov couldn't see, but he could smell the vomit, the disinfectant, the artificial cleanliness smell. It wasn't too different from the smell of Captain Tchlinksy's hospital ward in Nakhodka.

Malakov couldn't lift his head, couldn't move his neck. It felt stiff, paralysed, but as he lifted tremulous fingers to his throat to see if he still had any feeling, what he found was a neck brace. He wasn't fully lucid yet, but as he concentrated hard on reconnecting with his various extremities, he began to feel the cushion of the neck brace hot around his spine, and the edge chafing his chin.

"Let me help you," said a voice.

A pretty woman, round-featured but not fat, drifted into view, wearing plain clothes and a headscarf. A nurse, Malakov thought.

He tried to speak, but only a hacking sound came out of his throat. She put her hands around his chest, under his arms, and with a surprising degree of strength, shifted his weight up against the pillow. Then she reached over to a side table, poured a glass of water from a jug and fed it to him.

"Where am I?" he eventually managed.

"You're in Moscow, Agent Malakov."

Moscow! And then it all came flooding back: Vladivostok, Nakhodka, the train to Ussurysk, Shelby, the severe-looking man.

"You wandered into the town of Artem late last night and collapsed. The local doctor found an envelope in your pocket that said you were a KGB agent, and your agency had you transferred here by jet a few hours ago."

Malakov nodded, and drank again.

"You've fractured your arm in two different places and have a bad case of whiplash, but you're going to be okay, sir."

"I need you to contact someone at the agency."

"A man named Gharkov is coming to see you in a couple of hours."

Malakov shook his head. "This can't wait that long."

Malakov sat in bed and told Gharkov everything. From first meeting Captain Rikhalin to losing his prisoner, via the shoot-out in the Vladivostok barracks and the theories he and Shelby had formulated down in the storm drain.

Gharkov listened quietly, nodding, but his eyes, averted, betrayed a deeper scepticism. When Malakov had finished, it was Gharkov's turn, and he filled Malakov in on everything that had happened whilst he was in the field. Malakov hoped the drugs were still warping the processing channels of his brain, but feared that wasn't the case - Gharkov seemed to be suggesting they were on the brink of war.

"I want to believe you, Malakov," he concluded. "God knows there's nobody who's done as much to avert this crisis as me. But it's been all I can do to stave off the hawks this long. They have the better case now. The Americans are matching us step for step, mark for mark. And all you're offering me is a worrying sense of doubt that maybe, by blaming the Americans for what this creature of yours has done, we're entirely responsible for sparking this crisis off to begin with.

"I need proof, Malakov. Proof!"

"Then go to Nakhodka, sir. Captain Sergei Tchlinsky, he's in the hospital there. He's the only one who's seen this thing and lived."

"Captain Tchlinsky's dead, Malakov. He died last night. I got sent the post mortem results by telegram this morning."

Malakov's jaw fell open against his neck brace.

"So you're the only one who can claim to have seen it, Malakov."

"B-but I haven't seen it, sir."

"You said you fought it! How can you have fought it and not seen it?"

"Because it's invisible, sir. I did say."

Gharkov pushed a hand through his thinning hair and sighed. "You're going to have to give me something more than this, Malakov. There are too many holes in your testimony. The Politburo will tear it apart, and if they don't tear it apart, they will turn it around, use it as incontrovertible evidence they are right. Because trust me, half of them want this war to happen, and your story can be one hundred percent accurate, but if there's a single gap in it, they will use that to debunk it."

"But there aren't any gaps in it, sir."

"Oh, come on, Malakov. Just off the top of my head I can recall two. Your American prisoner, for starters. If the Americans aren't responsible for these attacks, why did they go to the effort of rescuing one of their own?"

"We don't know they did."

"But you don't know they didn't. So in fact that's another gap."

"Shelby's not an American anymore, anyway. He's a Japanese national."

"And why is that?"

"I don't know. He wouldn't say."

"So yet another gap! He sounds like an American spy now."

Malakov shook his head.

"And then there's an even more glaring omission," Gharkov went on. "The American weapon. You didn't even mention it in your testimony, let alone account for the fact that most of the attacks have occurred in locations it's been in."

Malakov frowned, puzzled. "I'm sorry, sir. The what?"

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Malakov! The American weapon. The thing salvaged from the USS Roosevelt by one of our destroyers."

Something in Malakov's brain clicked. An almost audible click that was accompanied by a hot flush and then a sudden chill, which shot along his spine.

"Where did the destroyer take it?" he asked in a low, flat tone.

He already knew before Gharkov answered.

"Nakhodka."

"And the destroyer, was it the Jaldysh?"

He already knew that answer, too, just wanted to confirm his suspicions.

"Yes," said Gharkov. "I thought you said you spoke to Tchlinsky, Malakov. Didn't he tell you about his mission, what his cargo was?"

Malakov could hear Shelby's words ringing in his head as clearly as if Shelby were perched on the edge of the bed, feeding them to him. He remembered Shelby's description of what his crew had found in the Roosevelt's hold.

And he remembered his own original mission brief. It was only three days since he'd read it, destroyed it, last thought about it, but the words were burnt into his memory; he could see them. He had been sent to investigate Captain Rikhalin and his submarine crew, a crew that had been sent to intercept an American cruiser suspected of testing a weapon. A weapon the Jaldysh had later retrieved.

But it wasn't a weapon. And it wasn't American.

"In Nakhodka it was put on the back of a freight truck," Gharkov said. "And taken to the Ussurysk train-yards." He paused. "Are you seeing the similarities yet, between places that it was taken to and the places that have been attacked?"

Malakov barely heard him. He pulled the covers off his legs and swung his feet over the side of the bed.

"What are you doing?" said Gharkov.

"Where's the thing from the Roosevelt headed next?"

Malakov's nurse, Klara, who had been busying around the ward tending to the other patients, most of them comatose, turned and saw him getting out of bed.

"It's currently on a train to Khabarovsk," said Gharkov.

"Khabarovsk?"

"It's a couple of hundred miles north of Vladivostok, Malakov. There's an airbase there. They're going to examine the weapon."

A couple of hundred miles, thought Malakov as he put his weight on his feet and took a few wobbly steps. The creature could do that in a matter of days.

And it already had a head start.

"What are you doing out of bed?" said Klara sternly.

Malakov waved her away, but back came the same strength that had lifted him up in bed, and she forced him to sit back down on the mattress.

"I need to go to Khabarovsk," he told Gharkov.

"Why? You're in no condition."

"That's where the next attack will be."

"That has already been anticipated. General Gurov has called up reserves in case of an attack by American forces. They're prepared for anything."

"Not for this."

Klara pulled the sheets over his legs and he kicked them off. He tried getting out of bed again and she grabbed him by the shoulders. She looked to Gharkov for some assistance, but he gestured for her to back off instead.

"Do you know something about this weapon after all, Malakov?"

Malakov panted, exhausted from his fight. He truly was in no condition to go to Khabarovsk, he knew it, but he also knew he had no choice.

"It's not a weapon. It's an alien craft. It came down near our waters, and we thought it was an American missile. But the Americans thought it was one of ours. This is how it all started, don't you see? The Roosevelt picked this craft up, and the alien slaughtered the crew. Then when Captain Rikhalin turned up, it hitched a ride on his submarine to Vladivostok. But it left its spaceship, or whatever you wanna call it, on the American ship, where it was retrieved by the crew of the Jaldysh."

Klara backed away from the bed, her face white.

"In Vladivostok I shot the creature, I hurt it. Pretty badly, I reckon, if it decided to give up and leave. We knew it had stopped hunting, but didn't know what it was doing instead. Captain Tchlinsky knew, but he was in no state to tell us. He said it was searching. It was searching for its own spacecraft, of course! But it was too late. It was no longer in the hold. But the creature was trapped. It had to sink the Jaldysh to escape. And when it tracked the craft to Ussurysk, it was gone from there, too. The creature will follow it to Khabarovsk, sir, I know it will!"

Gharkov looked blank. "How's it tracking the craft?"

Malakov shrugged. "I don't know. But it is somehow. Look, sir, I don't expect you to believe me, not yet, but you must let me go."

Gharkov frowned, chewed his tongue.

"Sir, think about it. If the Americans were the ones after this thing, why would they attack Vladivostok? The craft was never there. But if it's my creature, then it makes perfect sense, because it came here on that submarine."

Gharkov stared through him for a long time. Then he shook his head, sighed, and held his hands up in defeat. "Give me an hour to sort out a flight."

Malakov smiled broadly.

"You better be right, Malakov."

"I am, sir."

Klara checked there was nobody about before picking up the phone. She dialled the number she had memorised several days before. Her heart pounded as she waited for someone to pick up, but she didn't have to wait long.

"Metzkin," said the voice on the other end.

The hunter headed across country. The landscape was bare, the weather cold, the terrain rocky, uneven and hard going. He didn't stray far from the twin metal rails that snaked across the icy vista, and maintained a brisk pace.

He hadn't stopped or even slowed down since leaving the last slaughter. He had walked all through the night, and now it was day again.

Glancing periodically at the panel on his arm, he found the spinning green circle no longer spinning so fast. There was a notable perforation; the circle was no longer complete. He had been so close, but now he was so far.

He felt a rage stir in his chest, but knew he couldn't act upon it. He saw many humans, humans he could easily have cut down, but there was no time.

Another of the panels had started to light up. A red spike flickered across the tiny screen, faintly at first, but getting stronger, more frequent, until it was almost matching his heartbeat in its rhythm.

It represented how much charge remained. Or rather, it represented how little charge remained. Soon he would be without power.

Without power. Without cloak.

He would be visible to all these humans he was currently able to pass without notice. Then he would have to fight them all.

And his ship would just keep on getting further and further away.

The hunter had been on this planet long enough to understand the amount of time it took to turn on its axis. It had a much shorter day than his world.

He suspected his power would last until nightfall at least, and given that he could pass uncloaked in the dark, that gave him until sunrise the next day to reach his ship. After that, he would be visible, and would have no choice.

It took only a spark of charge to self-detonate.

The hunter increased his pace.

Gharkov took Malakov to a nearby airfield and then drove himself all the way across Moscow to the Kremlin. The Premier had to know.

He turned onto the drive and stopped at the barrier. A sleepy-eyed security guard in a flat-topped red hat came to his window, holding a torch as if to stab with it, then shone it inside. It was the standard routine. Gharkov held his identity papers up to the glass, but he had been here enough to recognise the guard, and the guard probably recognised him back. The man spent more time going around the car, shining his torch into the backseat and under the vehicle.

Eventually, he waved Gharkov through.

The barrier came up and Gharkov drove beneath it. The palatial splendour of the Kremlin was to his right, but he turned left into the covered parking lot. It didn't have any walls, but it had a roof, supported by concrete pillars, beside which Gharkov parked his car. He shut his door and the bang echoed. The parking lot appeared empty. Gharkov headed toward the exit.

"Gharkov," called a voice.

Gharkov stopped, turned and peered into the shadows. When he saw it was Metzkin, climbing out of his own car, he continued on his way.

"Hey, Gharkov," Metzkin called again.

Gharkov didn't stop. He was a foot taller, and the spindly little man had to almost skip to catch up - and keep up.

"What do you want, Metzkin?"

"A little intelligence swap, perhaps?"

Gharkov snorted.

"I've got the scoop on a man arrested in Ussurysk for being involved in the attack," Metzkin said. "A Russian, but they think he's a spy."

Gharkov grinned and shook his head. Could he resist this? They were almost out of the parking lot now. No, he couldn't resist it. He stopped.

"Fair enough, Metzkin. You're going to hear sooner or later anyway. I'm on my way to see the Premier with information that will end this crisis and crush your warmongering ambitions for good. How's that?"

Then he smiled beatifically and continued on his way.

Metzkin stayed put. "You mean your UFO?" he called out.

Gharkov froze, and slowly turned.

"Oh, yes," said Metzkin glibly, approaching. "I know all about that. It's in Khabarovsk, isn't it? By way of Nakhodka and Ussurysk. And it came to us from the USS Roosevelt, via the Jaldysh. Don't look so shocked, Gharkov."

Gharkov sighed, then waved Metzkin out of his way.

"Like I said, it doesn't matter," he called back. "Soon everyone will know."

"Are you sure about that, Gharkov?" Metzkin was following.

"Yep."

"Funny, that."

They were the last words Gharkov ever heard.

NOTES:
Only slightly less personally disappointing than the last chapter, this one's not quite as talky, but isn't edited around any major developments to distract from what exposition there is. Tried to keep as much to indirect speech as possible, but this chapter really does involve a lot of summing up, putting things together to explain why, thereby clearing the paths for a more action-orientated final few chapters. I just hope the twist - the revelation of what the Predator has been hunting - isn't buried within the wealth of chatter, and remains clear. There are probably 101 more exciting ways to reveal it than having someone in a hospital bed have a revelation, but that's what happens when you pen yourself into a pre-planned corner (pun appropriate).

Not much else to comment on apart from the fact that Klara's phone call to Metzkin is almost word for word the same paragraph as the one several chapters ago where Khrushchev's serving girl Ana also called Metzkin to tell him what she'd heard. I was going to write in a rather brutal lovemaking scene between Metzkin and Ana to show why these women are more loyal to him, but in the end it only really got in the way of what else was going on.