Secretary of State Dean Rusk was already sitting in President Kennedy's office when Robert McNamara pushed through the door.

"Mr President. Dean."

"Bob."

"Hello, Robert."

The pleasantries were over. There were two seats in front of the President's desk. Rusk was sitting in one. McNamara didn't sit in the other.

"I thought you'd want to know," he said. "The USS Roosevelt finally sank at a little after 0900 hours this morning."

Rusk ran a hand up and down his arm.

"What about the other cruiser we sent to intercept?" asked Kennedy. "Did they reach the Roosevelt in time, Bob?"

"No, sir. The USS Eisenhower only reached the Roosevelt's last co-ordinates approximately 45 minutes ago."

"No survivors," Rusk muttered.

"No. None."

But it hadn't been a question.

McNamara began to unzip the document wallet he'd brought in. "Shortly before the Roosevelt sank, one of our spy planes flew over the area."

He took a black and white photo out of the wallet and gave it to Kennedy. The President took one look at it and slumped in his chair.

Rusk spun it round on the desk.

"That isn't the Eisenhower, I presume?"

"No, it's an unidentified Soviet destroyer," McNamara said.

President Kennedy shook his head.

"What exactly are they doing?" Rusk asked.

"We don't know."

The President took the photograph back.

"What do we know about that Japanese fishing boat?" he said. "It was in the photo you showed me yesterday as well."

"Our contacts in the Japanese security agencies are still investigating," the Secretary of Defence said. "But the captain of the Eisenhower said they found some wreckage. The destroyer likely sunk it."

Rusk sighed. "They're not exactly walking a thin line so much as stomping all over it," he said, shaking his head.

"Bob, did you bring what I asked you to?"

"Yes, Mr President," McNamara said. Then he opened the wallet again and took out a bound document, about thirty pages long.

"What's that?" asked Rusk.

Kennedy flicked through it, briefly scanning each page. His brow furrowed the nearer he got to the end. He handed it to Rusk.

The Secretary of State looked at the pristine title page and hesitated. It had the President's Seal at the top and beneath that, the seven ominous words:

Current Nuclear Capabilities of the United States.

The hobo led them slowly along the beach. Not that it was much of a beach. It was six feet of grey shingle, and the tide was still on its way in. The tramp wore dirty brown clothes and a scarf wrapped around his face. His walk was a hobble, his ankles rheumatic. At times he walked too close to the breaking swash and the freezing water poured over his feet, but he didn't even seem to notice.

Malakov and Shelby kept their distance. Even the stench of the sea was better than that of a man who'd slept in his own urine. They left deciphering the vagrant's drunken words to the police officer that was also with them.

It was noon in Vladivostok. Malakov spent the morning listening to Shelby's story and not being too judicious about it. About an hour before, word had reached the agent that a hobo had been murdered in a storm drain a mile from the harbour. He had been impaled through the middle. The police thought they had a serial killer. Having heard Shelby's testimony, Malakov decided to investigate for himself.

The storm drain was built beneath a cliff. Brown slurry ran out of the open sewer and into the sea. The shingle was streaked green and black on either side from when the flow was heavier. Today there was just a trickle.

The hobo slurred something at the officer.

"He says it happened down there."

"How far?" asked Malakov.

"About three hundred yards."

"Do you have a torch?"

Shelby didn't need to understand Russian to know what was going on when the tramp pointed into the dark opening and the officer gave Malakov a torch.

"You're not going in there," he said.

Malakov pumped the shotgun he had commandeered. "This is the only way in or out for miles around. We have it trapped in there."

"You have it trapped. I'm not going in there without a weapon."

Malakov reached inside his coat and held out his pistol.

Shelby looked at it with some wariness.

As he reached for it, Malakov pulled it away. "Of course, this means you have to go in front." Then he offered the gun again.

Shelby hesitated before taking it. First he checked the ammunition. Malakov wasn't duping him. The gun really was loaded.

"You're giving him your gun?" said the concerned officer.

"He's a long way from home; and he's not stupid."

Shelby frowned. He may not have understood their language, but he could read the cop's dirty look. Then Malakov handed Shelby the torch as well.

"Seeing as you're leading," the agent said.

Shelby turned it on. "All right."

He shone the beam into the storm drain. It was about six feet in diameter, high enough for Malakov, but not for Shelby, who was several inches taller. About fifteen feet in there was a rusted mesh barrier with a large, old gap in it.

Ducking his head, Shelby went in.

"Not coming?" Malakov said.

The officer shook his head.

Malakov shrugged, then followed Shelby.

It took them a quarter of an hour to reach the spot where the hobo claimed his friend was killed, by which time they'd lost their sense of distance anyway.

"You never did tell me how you got the Medal of Honour," Malakov said as they walked, breaking a few minutes' silence.

"Because you were insinuating it was evidence that I'm here on some covert mission for the US military," Shelby told him.

"Well, perhaps if you'd explained, I would have ruled that out earlier. As it is, I'm still curious as to how you got it now."

"So I can tell."

They walked a little further. Shelby shone the torch along the floor ahead of them. Water seeped through the ceiling and either dripped or ran down the walls. All the surfaces were slippery with algae. Their progress slowed.

"Was it in the war?"

"Yes," said Shelby.

"I was in the war, too. I didn't get any medals, though."

"America's always been very forthcoming about giving shiny pieces of metal to people who do exactly what they want them to do."

"You sound quite cynical about it."

Shelby just grunted.

"Do you still have the medal?" Malakov asked.

Shelby paused. "I never went and got it in the first place."

"Oh? Now I'm even more curious."

Shelby slipped and righted himself. As he picked up the torch and shook it dry, Malakov spotted something in the dancing beam ahead.

"I guess this is three hundred yards."

The man-sized form lay across the bottom of the storm drain, head and feet both raised by the curve of the tunnel like he was asleep in a hammock.

They approached slowly, Shelby resting his gun hand on the wrist of his torch hand and Malakov holding the shotgun against his shoulder.

This hobo was dressed much like his friend, except he didn't have a scarf around his head. His eyes were shut, his mouth agape: his filthy black face twisted and frozen into an expression of perpetual terror.

"Shine the light on me."

Malakov bent down, shifting the cadaver into a seated position against the tunnel wall. Though emaciated beneath many layers of clothing, he was sodden and heavy to lift. But now he was easier to examine.

Shelby watched with distaste as Malakov coldly, clinically undid the tramp's clothing and ran his hands over the body.

He found a large puncture wound near the man's groin, now congealed and black. He stood up and wiped his hands on his knees.

"Yeah, he was definitely killed by the same thing as the others."

Shelby nodded and checked the tunnel was clear in both directions. The end opening out onto the beach was just a very small white circle in the distance.

"I just don't know why," said Malakov.

"Maybe it's killing randomly."

Malakov shook his head. "I don't think so. I think it's more intelligent than that. It's obviously not killing for food, because it leaves the corpses."

"Most of them."

"What?"

"Have they found the police chief's head yet?"

Malakov frowned. "No."

"Captain Rikhalin never found my first mate's either."

"Why would it take their heads?"

Shelby shrugged. "Maybe it wants a souvenir."

"But this vagrant still has his."

"Well, who'd want it?"

He shone the light on the corpse. The hobo was unshaven, his scabby skin taut across his cheekbones. From behind his crusty lips there protruded the blackened stumps of gnarled old teeth. His eyes were sunken into his head.

"Not exactly trophy material," Shelby said.

Malakov sighed. "So why kill him, then? He hasn't been eaten; his head hasn't been taken as a trophy. Maybe he disturbed it."

"Or got in its way."

"I want another look round."

Shelby didn't mention it when Malakov pushed in front. He didn't entertain serious thoughts of killing his captor - even though he would much rather have had the agent's shotgun were Shun Li's killer to return.

"Hey, look at this," said Malakov.

Shelby splashed through the water to reach him. The hobo's body had formed a sort of dam, and the water was several inches higher behind him.

"I saw some of this in the barracks."

There was a large green smear on the wall.

"Lower your torch."

Shelby lowered it. The smear was luminous.

"I think it's that thing's blood," Malakov said, getting it on his fingers. "There were splatters of it on the wall and floor after I shot it."

Shelby nodded slowly. "So it's hurt."

Malakov looked at him in the darkness. "The question is how badly."

Shelby lit their faces with the torch. "If it was still bleeding after walking a mile here, I'd say it was pretty badly hurt, wouldn't you?"

"Perhaps that's why it didn't kill the other vagrant. It was too badly injured to go after him." He paused. "Which would be no bad thing."

Shelby nodded. "Then the question isn't how badly it's hurt, but what's it going to do about it. Perhaps there's your key to its motivations."

"Yes. Yes!"

"I'm just speculating, of course."

Malakov nodded. "Then let's keep looking." He rested the shotgun's barrel against his shoulder. "With any luck, we'll find it dead down here."

"Or mightily pissed off," muttered Shelby.

But Malakov didn't hear him.

They proceeded deeper into the storm drain, side by side as far as possible. It got colder and wetter the further they went and all the little sounds - the dripping water, the scuttling of rats - were amplified by the emptiness of the tunnel.

"You were telling me what you did in the war."

Shelby sighed. "No. You were just asking. I wasn't telling."

"Fair enough." He let it go for perhaps half a minute. "I was in intelligence, even then. Code breaking, mainly. And not just German ones, either. One of my main duties was monitoring communications between you and the British. After Hitler's betrayal in '41, Stalin didn't put much faith in American loyalty."

"He wasn't entirely crazy, then."

Malakov chuckled. "No."

They walked for a while in silence.

"I was a marine," Shelby said finally.

Malakov listened without interruption.

"Joined straight out of college, a few years before the war. Got my first rank in late '39, after the Brits declared war on Germany and there was a flood of new recruits. People knew we'd join in sooner or later, I guess."

Malakov nodded in the darkness.

"The same happened in '41, after the attack on Pearl, just more so. By then I was a corporal. Saw active duty in the Pacific in '43 and '44. Got made lieutenant New Year 1945. I was second in command of my platoon."

"What did you get the medal for?"

Shelby didn't respond.

"I'm sorry. Please continue."

"In late July, my captain told me our platoon had been selected to take part in a crucial pre-invasion mission on the Japanese mainland. On the first of August we landed on Honshu, just outside Shimonoseki. We were to head inland, moving at night and lying low during the day. There was an airfield at Tokuyama, and we had to get there within four days. Then wait for a signal."

The torch flickered out. In the darkness he got a flash of the same thing happening on the Roosevelt. He shook it, and it worked again.

"Go on," said Malakov.

"We weren't told what this signal was going to be before the mission, just that when it came, we had to take the airfield in preparation for landings by American aircraft." He paused. "But there were complications."

"What kind?"

Shelby took a deep breath. "As it turned out, our captain was briefed about the nature of the signal. Yeah, he was one of only a couple of dozen men who knew we were about to drop the a-bomb. And before he died, he told me."

Malakov was silent.

"We were about twenty miles from the Tokuyama airfield, another day's trek, and he was shot. He could have made it, but not that far behind enemy lines. So he ordered us to leave him, gave me command, and told me about the bomb. They were dropping it on Hiroshima. We'd see it from Tokuyama, he said. Anyway, we took the airfield, with a mere lieutenant in command. So I got a medal."

He shrugged; end of story.

Malakov was quiet for a while, as he digested Shelby's tale. "I didn't think the Americans landed in Japan until after the surrender."

Shelby snorted. "Got that right. We held that airfield for over a week before the first plane touched down. The war was over, and we'd missed it."

Malakov nodded. "Well, for what it's worth, I think you deserved your medal, Lieutenant Shelby. You're a regular old war hero."

Shelby grunted.

"Though I'm curious why you disagree."

Shelby stopped, frowning, and lowered the torch.

"And why you renounced your American citizenship and emigrated to Japan, for that matter." Malakov kept going for a short distance.

"Look." Shelby pointed ahead.

Malakov stopped, looked back then followed Shelby's finger.

There was another light source down here.

"What is that?" he said.

The light was dim. It seemed to come from above. When Shelby shone the torch forward, it completely overwhelmed this new light. But when he turned it away again, the light reappeared, glistening off the wet tunnel walls.

Malakov took his shotgun in both hands.

"Let's go slow," he said.

They made their way forward, both of them aiming their guns ahead and up, and moving to sidle along the tunnel walls as they got beneath the light.

As they got close enough, they found the light was coming from a vertical drainage chute, some twenty feet deep, and that in fact, the light was daylight.

"No way out for miles, huh?" said Shelby.

There was a ladder just above their heads, which led all the way up to the surface. A grill at the top looked like it had been shredded.

"It smashed its way out," said Malakov.

"Not so close to death's door, after all."

Malakov glanced at him. "After you."

Shelby looked between him and the ladder. Then he sighed, stuffed the pistol into his belt, gave Malakov the torch and jumped to reach the bottom rung.

It wasn't raining, but run-off from last night's storm was still trickling down into the drain. The rungs were wet and Shelby almost slipped as he climbed up.

It took Malakov several jumps to reach the bottom rung. With the shotgun on its strap over his shoulder, he started up after Shelby. When he surfaced, Shelby was standing next to the shredded manhole, watching an approaching truck.

The drain was beside a wide highway.

"Oh, god," Malakov said.

Shelby turned and helped him to his feet. Then they stepped out of the road as the truck roared past, spraying water from the streaming gutters.

They were about three-quarters of a mile from the sea. Most of Vladivostok lay to the west. The highway went north around it, toward the grey horizon.

"Where does this road go?" asked Shelby.

Malakov sighed. "Anywhere."

NOTES:
The shortest chapter so far, being the only one less than 3000 words, and perhaps my favourite from a character perspective. It was something of a risk, going off at a tangent from the main plot to develop some back story, hence why I had them go and investigate a seemingly random killing we never saw the Predator commit. I was aware that this could end up turning into a sort of murder mystery, which is cheat on the readers because they know exactly what's going on, so don't care for time spent on characters fumbling around, trying to find out. However, this chapter always was going to be a bridge between the first half of the story and the second, and as such, I consider it a success.

Incidentally, as with Robert S McNamara, Dean Rusk really was a member of John F Kennedy's administration, I just don't know if he was Secretary of State at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Actually, in my research, I discovered that the Americans knew about the missile silos on Cuba months before the crisis erupted, and Dean Rusk went around South American countries whipping up alliances by giving them this open secret. So that got me wondering what the sudden spark was for the crisis to develop in October 1962. Hey, maybe it just was an alien killer from another world, after all.