Disloyal Opposition

The narrative Prologue depicts General Boris Feyodov’s 1986 particle-beam test as the cause of the Challenger explosion and shows him ordering the bunker scientists shot. In the present, Remo’s disillusionment with CURE is interrupted by satellite and rocket failures. Smith sends him and Chiun to Barkley, where the city council’s secession plan depends on a weapon Feyodov brought from Sary Shagan. A Russian intelligence mission to capture Feyodov associate Yuri Koskolov turns fatal at the Buffoon Aid benefit, and the Institute director is revealed as Anna Chutesov, whom Remo and Chiun had believed dead. The new U.S. President sends former CIA analyst Mark Howard to Smith as CURE’s assistant, after the outgoing President selected him.

Mark and Smith trace the operation’s financing to media executive Ted Schwartz, who funded the weapon and used Barkley’s council as a cover. Feyodov’s beam attacks satellites and sends a MirCorp supply rocket into Mir, killing cosmonaut Sergei Sagdeev and the rocket’s pilot. He then plans to fire at a U.S. shuttle sent to rescue the remaining Mir crew, risking a wider U.S.–Russia confrontation. Remo and Chiun rescue Anna; Remo redirects the beam mirrors, and the redirected beam detonates bombs inside the hollow Huitzilopochtli statue, collapsing the tunnels, statue, and Barkley city hall. Feyodov wounds Zen Bower, and Oleg executes him; Anna later shoots Feyodov, who dies from the wound.

The other council members and the three Buffoon Aid hosts may have been inside the collapse, but their fates are not confirmed. Smith later confirms that the surviving Mir crew has been rescued and Schwartz is in custody. Remo marks the unnamed retired Soviet premier but leaves him alive. In the Epilogue, Anna finds the Institute’s sealed garage open and fears the return of an unidentified “Mactep.”