"That ship's our bait. It's the only thing we can guarantee that bastard has any interest in. It's killed everyone else who's got in its way. So I'm not taking any chances; I've mined the ship with more than enough explosives. There won't be anything left once I press this trigger."

Malakov held up the remote detonator and flapped back the protective cover to reveal a red button, a hair's breadth beneath his thumb.

"Careful," said Hanlon, and when Malakov and Shelby glanced at him: "Don't want to blow the thing before it even gets here." He grinned.

It was Shelby who had proposed this truce. The four of them - for Kramer came too - climbed up to Malakov's sentry tower beside the gate, shut off the spotlight and beat out a quick compromising agreement in hushed tones.

Malakov had discovered just how unaware of the precarious international situation the two Americans were: of how Khrushchev and Kennedy were both waiting for the other to blink first; of how people the world over were spending the nights in their basements, expecting war to break out imminently.

And all because of this creature: this sole alien being who, unwittingly or otherwise, had landed here, gone on a killing spree and led two blustering, paranoid world powers to take a willing step toward mutual annihilation. The four of them looked down at the alien craft: how small and insignificant it looked.

Shelby had then persuaded Hanlon that his mission would be null and void and the alien technology worthless if the creature managed to escape now, attacked again, and provoked a Russian nuclear strike on American targets. Both agents agreed that neither of them wanted war - least of all if it was a mistake.

So Hanlon and Malakov agreed to Shelby's truce, and shook hands. Then the KGB agent explained his plan: he had mined the alien ship.

"Hanlon, can you see the sentry tower on the other side of this train yard, between those two billet buildings?" he continued.

"Yah," said Hanlon, peering into the dark.

"Why don't you take your Russian friend here and man that one? It doesn't have a machine gun like this one, but the spotlight should be working."

The other sentry tower was about three hundred yards away, actually inside the base and nowhere near the perimeter - so it didn't need a gun. They could only see it because of the lights from the billet buildings on either side of it. Shelby could see why Malakov suggested they man it - it was an equal distance from the alien craft as this tower, just in the other direction.

"I want to see this thing coming, whichever way it comes in," Malakov said.

Shelby was slightly surprised when Hanlon didn't argue.

"Yeah, makes sense." He sighed as he stood up, then said something Russian to Kramer. Kramer pulled himself to his feet with a wince.

Hanlon was almost to the ladder, his pace too eager for Kramer to keep up, when Malakov called out to him. "Take this radio. Keep in contact."

Hanlon returned to Malakov, took the radio warily, turned it on to a quick buzz of static, then clipped it to his belt and returned to the ladder.

Shelby and Malakov watched them climb down and start across the near-empty train yard between this tower and the other. Kramer limped behind, and their voices dropped to the volume of whispers as they disappeared into the dark.

Malakov snorted. "I don't want that man anywhere near me or this trigger when that thing turns up," he said in a quiet but assertive tone.

Shelby chuckled. "You're still sore because he threw you off a train."

Malakov shook his head, but said nothing.

"Which reminds me: how did you manage to survive that?"

Malakov's expression lightened considerably. He turned, a wry smile spreading across his lips, and took out his packet of cigarettes. He offered one to Shelby, then lit his own. Taking a long drag, he told Shelby all about his trip from Artem to Khabarovsk, via Moscow - a round trip of several thousand miles.

After that, they sat in silence for a while. Shelby wrapped his coat further around him. The sky in the east was no longer black, but a dark grey. Morning was coming, but it was still subzero. Their breath condensed in the air. When Malakov finished his first cigarette and lit a second, Shelby asked for one too.

The smoke warmed his chest as he sucked it down. It was a long time since Shelby had last smoked - nearly twenty years, he decided. But the tickle in his throat was a familiar one, and it brought old memories flooding back.

Malakov was watching him through the rising, dissipating haze from their cigarettes. Shelby caught his eye, and frowned.

"You never did get round to telling me why you ditched America for Japan, Jack," Malakov said, smoke pluming from his mouth as he spoke.

Shelby took a long, slow drag. He supposed it was time for this story. He had never told anybody before, but it felt right that Malakov should hear it. He doubted any of the others from the mission had ever spoken of it either - they'd got their medals to keep them quiet. But Shelby, in charge at the time and awarded the greatest medal of all of them, had never gone and accepted it.

His nose was running. He sniffed. "You remember me telling you that twenty miles outside Tokuyama, our commanding officer was gunned down?"

Malakov nodded. He was frowning now.

Shelby took a deep breath. "Well, I might have given the impression that we were ambushed. That was certainly the official line. But it's not what I wrote in my report when we were picked up a week later. By the time the squad was debriefed, a fictional version of events had superseded what actually happened. And the men were all too willing to swallow it. Even though they knew it was bullshit."

"What happened?" Malakov murmured.

"The mission actually went surprisingly well. We didn't meet any Japanese military resistance until we reached the Tokuyama airfield. Indeed, I doubt the guy who shot the captain had ever been in the army, or at least, not in the previous forty years. About eighty, he was. Had this ancient rifle, the type you have to reload before you can take a second shot. The captain got him. He'd been shot before. Once you've been shot and know how it feels like, it doesn't totally incapacitate you. So he took off the guy's head. His corpse was still twitching when we reached it.

"I don't know. I guess we got cocky. It was nearly dusk, and we had been lying low in a ditch all day. And this was a hot day. August, in Japan. We were restless, so we thought we might as well make a move. We hadn't seen anybody in days, and we thought we were in a wood, and there was nobody around. But when this guy took out the captain from the edge of the trees and we went to investigate, we found we were just seven hundred yards from this village. There was just a field between it and us. And the old guy hadn't been alone."

Malakov didn't say anything when Shelby stopped. He took a couple of long drags on the cigarette. His hand was shaking.

"There were two younger guys in the field. The old guy's son and grandson, perhaps. They'd heard the shots and came running too. The guy's son had another rifle and when he saw us he was going to shoot, so we shot him first. The boy turned and ran then, back toward the village, screaming. We didn't shoot him.

"I returned to the captain, told him what had happened. It was then that he told me the specifics of our mission, about the a-bomb, and how important capturing the airfield was to winning the war. He said nothing could be allowed to get in the way of our completing that mission. But he never ordered me to do what we did. Never once did he suggest it. I was damn sure he was implying it, but he never said it. I went back afterwards. I wanted him to tell me I'd done the right thing. But it was too late by then. He'd shot himself. Got his pistol and shot himself right here."

Shelby was pointing to his temple.

"What did you do?" Malakov asked.

Shelby took a deep breath. "Well, the boy went and told the villagers what was happening, and you can imagine their reaction. They were peasants, just farmers. I doubt they cared much about the war, who was winning, what their countrymen were doing, what ours were doing back. But here we were, foreign soldiers, on their land, shooting dead two of their fellow villagers. I mean, even if you hated your country, if someone came and invaded it, you'd defend it on principle, right?

"So of course, half a dozen more villagers came at us. They never had a chance, really. And we didn't feel what were doing was unjustified. They attacked us first, and we were just defending ourselves. Yeah, we kept telling ourselves that, even when we went into their village. We were looking for telephones, but these people didn't even have electricity or anything. They could have been living a century before. But as we searched, driving these people out of their homes - there must have been about seventy of them, maximum - one of my squad caught a couple of them on mules, trying to make a break for it. They didn't have guns, so our guys didn't shoot them, but they roughed them up a little, and dragged them back."

Shelby swallowed. "We had our Japanese translator. He wasn't a regular member of the squad, but we finally found a use for him, and we got him to interrogate the two caught escaping. Turned out they were riding to the next village, where they did have a telephone. One of them spat in the translator's eye. Then the guy translated and said the villager was going to summon the whole Japanese army to come and kill us. We found that pretty funny at first, the thought of the whole Japanese army giving up the fight for the Pacific and coming here just for us. But that wasn't the point, was it? If word got out about our presence, the mission was fucked, over, and there would be Japanese troops searching for us."

He snorted. "So we killed them."

Shelby stubbed out his cigarette. Malakov offered him another.

"We killed them all," he continued. "We killed them all and we didn't have much choice. We herded them all into one of their own barns, locked the doors and then shot them all. All of them, the men, the women and their children. But there weren't many of those. Seventy people in total. God, I don't know, there might have been more. Maybe we killed five hundred that day and I've just been convincing myself I counted wrong. So we killed them, we killed them all. And when it was done, we set fire to the barn. And nobody escaped."

Malakov didn't say anything. A cigarette plugged his mouth, gripped tightly between his lips. He didn't seem to notice it was unlit.

"I mean, if anybody from that village had got out and got word to the army then we would never have been able to complete our mission, right? So that's how we justified it to ourselves. That these seventy people were a worthwhile price to pay for the end of a war that had killed millions. And we kept on believing that, as we seized the Tokuyama airfield a couple of days later. And when the Hiroshima bomb went off, and then Nagasaki, further away, we were resolute we'd done the right thing. It was only when those first American planes touched down, and told us the war was over, and that this airfield hadn't been necessary after all, that some of us - and only some of us - began to have doubts about what we'd done.

"I guess that's why they gave us the medals. That's like your country reassuring you that what you've done is good and important. And who amongst my platoon was going to tell Uncle Sam he was wrong? Well, only me, it would seem."

Shelby laughed, which made Malakov jump.

"Oh, I don't know." Shelby sighed. "Maybe it was the right thing to do. That war wasn't won by being the nice guy. We only won because we were prepared to do whatever it took to win. Anything. And I doubt what we did was isolated. Indeed, I've heard it wasn't. Not that that makes it okay. But wasn't the world better afterwards? Would it have been any better if those seventy had lived and Japan had won?

"I never did any of the shooting that day. I just ordered it. So I'm still more responsible than any of those who pulled the triggers. They can still sit at home in Tennessee or Nevada, living on their veteran's pensions, going on parades and telling everyone they're a war hero. Because at the end of the day, they just followed orders. But I can't help but think, if I'd ordered that squad to shoot each other rather than those villagers, would the outcome of the war have been any different?"

Shelby didn't finish the cigarette. Maybe it was that making him sick, or maybe it was the memories. He flicked it out of the sentry tower and watched its glowing tip fall into the darkness. He began to feel the cold again.

"Jack, I don't know what to say." Malakov sighed.

Shelby ignored him. "The truth is, I live in Japan because in America I am a criminal. There's a reason Hanlon down there knows who I am; it's because the CIA have me on record as a deserter. I was at an American base for several weeks after the war ended. I was called before a general personally to be told I was being awarded the Medal of Honour, and that all my men who survived the Tokuyama mission would be getting medals too. I was supposed to be the one to tell them. But I never saw them again. I walked off that base then, AWOL, and that was it. I suppose the military had better things to do than come searching for a wayward marine."

"Would you go back to America if you could?"

Shelby looked up, sniffed, but wasn't sure if it was just the cold making his nose run - or something else. "And be lauded for what I did?"

Malakov shrugged and finally lit his cigarette.

"No. I think I'd rather stay in Japan."

"And be forgiven for it instead?"

Shelby stared into the distance - toward Japan, in fact, though he didn't realise that at first - but he didn't answer the question.

"You don't have to worry about Hanlon, Anton," he said instead. "If I thought he didn't want to kill this thing I wouldn't have stayed with him."

"You didn't have much choice," Malakov murmured.

Shelby glared at him. "I've managed to survive in a country where I'm supposed to be the enemy and I can't speak the language before."

Malakov raised a palm apologetically.

"I only stayed with him because I thought you were dead - and that he was the only other person who knew enough about this thing to want to kill it."

Malakov blinked. "I don't trust him."

"Then trust me. Here, I'll show you. Hand me that radio."

Malakov passed it to him. Shelby turned the dial, and when the diodes lit up and the radio let out a burp of static, he thumbed the transmit button.

"Hanlon? Mark, you there?" he said.

But it was a Russian voice that replied.

"No. Hanlon. Put Hanlon on."

But still it was Kramer gabbling back.

Shelby shook his head and handed the radio back to Malakov. Malakov spoke to Kramer in their shared tongue, his brow knitting as they spoke.

"He says Hanlon went for a vegetable."

"A vegetable?" went Shelby.

"Yes. A leek."

"A leak? You mean a piss?"

Malakov went white, said something else to Kramer. Then he let go of the radio, just dropped it, and was on his feet a second later.

"What is it?" Shelby cried.

Malakov went to the spotlight. "Hanlon's been gone five minutes." Then he turned the spotlight on. A powerful beam of light shot across the darkened airbase and a perfect white circle chased across the ground as Malakov aimed the beam.

"It doesn't mean - " But Shelby trailed off.

The spotlight found the alien ship. Sure enough, a second later, both Malakov and Shelby saw one of the explosive packages fly out through the opening.

And then another. A third in quick succession.

Malakov tore his gun from the holster. He abandoned the spotlight, swung his legs over the top of the ladder and started climbing down.

"No," Shelby said under his breath as he stood there, staring in disbelief.

Malakov got three or four rungs from the top.

Suddenly Hanlon's face appeared from the opening in the side of the alien ship, looking whiter than snow in the beam of the spotlight. He obviously realised he'd been rumbled, but Shelby didn't expect what happened next.

Hanlon leaned out of the craft. He had his gun. For a second, Shelby thought he was aiming at the spotlight or Shelby himself right behind it. He ducked back, but when the shot went off, it hit neither him nor the light.

There was a dull thud, and Hanlon disappeared back inside. Shelby came forward again in time to see another explosive package fly out. He looked down the ladder - and realised what that thud had been.

Malakov was lying at the bottom of the ladder, motionless.

All of a sudden, Shelby could move again.

The radio crackled with Kramer's distraught voice.

Shelby ran to the ladder. But he didn't climb down. Curling his feet around the sides, he shuffled down and was at the bottom in seconds.

Malakov had been hit in the shoulder.

His pistol was inches from his hand. Shelby snatched it up, quickly checked it; only a few rounds left. And each had Hanlon's name on it, he thought.

The marine inside Jack Shelby woke up as he side-stepped silently across the train yard to the spot-lit alien craft. He held the gun sideways on, the opening in the alien craft targeted in case Hanlon poked his head out again. He cradled the wrist of his gun-hand in the other hand for perfect, steady aim. He would not miss.

Shelby reached the freight carriage as Hanlon tossed out a couple more of the brown wedges of explosive. They scuffed across the dirt.

Shelby edged along the side of the carriage, his heart beating faster than it had in years. But he kept his mouth closed, though his lungs roared for air. He knew the need to be stealthy. But surely Hanlon would be expecting him anyway?

"Hanlon!" he called.

He hadn't even planned to. But there was no further he could go. He was just yards from the opening. He could hear Hanlon inside. But Hanlon could be standing there, waiting for Shelby to come into range too.

"Hanlon!" he hollered again.

Best to make Hanlon come to him.

"It's too late, Jack," Hanlon's voice drifted out to him. "That was the last of the pinko's bombs. You can kill me, but you can't kill it."

"Well, you're half right," Shelby sneered.

He heard a muffled chuckle.

"Why are you doing this?" he cried.

"It's my mission, Jack. I told you. I was even willing to let you try and kill it, as long as I could take back the tech. That's all I wanted out of this."

"If this thing doesn't die, it'll start a war!"

"Spare me your simplistic grasp of nuclear politics, Jack." Hanlon sounded quite angry now. "This war is inevitable. It has been for twenty years. It's surprised even our most pragmatic military strategists that it's not happened before. This thing, this alien: it's just another scapegoat - something external that can be blamed for starting a war. It's just a walking, talking Pearl Harbour. An excuse. Men have been wanting this war for decades. It's in our hearts, Jack. There's the true cause; it's what's caused every war throughout human history. The weapons don't matter. It didn't stop us going to war when someone invented the gun and we stopped using swords. Nuclear weapons were never going to change the nature of man. The only deterrent we could think of against using nukes - was more nukes!"

A crazy, insane laugh exploded inside the craft.

"But what if we could stop it, Jack? I know your military record. I know you were in Japan. You saw Hiroshima. We had the perfect advantage over the Nips, and their resistance crumbled at the thought of it. We won that war and we didn't even have to slaughter them all. What if we could do that here, Jack? What if we could get an advantage over the Ruskies? Can't you see what this technology offers us? It gives us that advantage. It makes their nuclear capabilities redundant. We will have the power of invisibility, Jack, fucking invisibility! This won't just turn the Cold War; it will win it. Can't you see that, Jack? Surely you must agree with me!"

"Hanlon," Shelby said. "You're a fucking loon."

Suddenly, Hanlon leapt out into the opening. Shelby wasn't ready. He missed his chance, missed his shot. And now the pair of them were at a stalemate, just standing there, each with a pistol aimed directly at the other.

"No, I am an American patriot," said Hanlon.

"No. You're a liar, and you're a murderer, and you're a fool. That's what you are. You just said it yourself: the progression from clubs to swords to guns to bombs never stopped a war. So what makes you think this technology will?"

Hanlon's brow twitched, as did the barrel of his gun, but he didn't fire and he didn't answer. Shelby just backed away slowly, not blinking.

"So what do we do now, Mark?" he asked.

Hanlon didn't get a chance to answer. Though neither of them took their eyes - or their guns - off each other, their attention suddenly went to Kramer. The Russian had climbed down from the other sentry tower and was running toward them.

"What's he hollering about?" Shelby said.

Hanlon's eyes flickered off to the left for a fraction of a second. Even in the white light, his face suddenly looked altogether more drained.

"What's he saying?" Shelby asked again.

When Kramer was twenty yards away, he saw the pair of them - Hanlon on the edge of the freight carriage, Shelby on the ground - and froze.

"He said it's here," Hanlon relayed slowly, his lopsided grin perverse.

Something suddenly whistled through the air, so fast none of them saw it. It struck the side of the freight carriage with a twang.

It was a metallic disk, the size of a dinner plate; the bright light glinted off its shiny surface. Its sharpened edge was buried an inch into the wood.

Kramer crumpled to the ground. As his chest flopped forward, his head rolled off his shoulders and stopped a couple of feet away.

"Take your gun off me," Shelby hissed.

"Take your gun off me first," Hanlon retorted.

Hanlon didn't move. So Shelby couldn't either.

Suddenly the creature gave an almighty howl.

NOTES:
Once again, the longest chapter, at just a few words shy of a 4000 count (taking the total to almost 50,000), and once again, part of this chapter was bumped to the next to accommodate. In some ways an awkward chapter to write. I didn't imagine it being so talky. Originally I was going to have Shelby tell Hanlon about his experiences on the train from Nakhodka to Ussurysk, but that was just after Hanlon told Shelby the potted history of the Predators on Earth, so that would have been information overload. I think it nicely rounds off the Shelby/Malakov relationship - that he now trusts Malakov, his former captor and interrogator, more than anyone else in the world.

Most of the anti-nuclear polemic I wrap up in ironic terms for crazy mad CIA loon Hanlon to come out with is lifted from arguments to be found in "Ende: A Diary Of The Third World War" by Anton-Andreas Guha (note there have been characters called Anton and Andreas in this story). I wanted to make this not just about the Cold War, something that's long gone, but relevant today. Hence Shelby's sorry tale of his adventures in wartime Japan, actually based on something that American soldiers did in the Vietnam War - after this story takes place. This comment: "I mean, even if you hated your country, if someone came and invaded it, you'd defend it on principle, right?" is meant to be an allusion to Iraq. I don't know if all that was well placed here or not.

Similarly with the humour regarding the leek/leak misunderstanding, but hey, Shakespeare always threw such things in at the most inopportune moments as well. So not my favourite chapter overall, but it's cleared the way for a final chapter that's largely going to be a three-way fight between Shelby, Hanlon and the Predator (which isn't really spoiling it).