He stood up and pointed at the rooftops below. They were covered with sleigh tracks, hoofprints, and discolored snow — telltale signs that Santa had already come and gone.
The reindeer veered to the east then, changing course so suddenly Jingle lost his balance and nearly toppled over the side. The only thing that kept him in the sleigh was Mrs. Claus’s hand reaching out to snag a handful of his green tights.
“Thanks,” Jingle squeaked. “But where are we?”
“Look! Up ahead!”
In the distance, a pinprick of light gleamed through the gentle swirl of snow. As they got closer, they could see shapes in its soft red glow.
Antlers, a rooftop, a chimney.
And an empty sleigh.
“Take it easy, everyone,” Mrs. Claus told the reindeer. “Let’s try to make this a very quiet landing.”
The reindeer slowed to a flying trot, then a gliding amble, and Mrs. Claus’s sleigh slid into place next to her husband’s almost without a sound.
“Well done, my dears,” Mrs. Claus said as she stepped carefully onto the roof. There wasn’t much room to move around. It was a small house, dark and forlorn, with no neighbors in sight other than a decaying factory half a mile up the road.
“Keep it steady there, buddy,” Jingle told Rudolph, whose nose was beginning to strobe with excitement. “Where’s Santa?”
Rudolph grunted and sneezed simultaneously, making a wet, snorting noise that, translated roughly, meant “I dunno.” Comet and Cupid and the rest grunted and sneezed in agreement.
“Deary deary dear,” said Mrs. Claus.
She was peering down into the chimney. Jingle crept over and pulled himself up to see what she was looking at.
A few feet below, metal bars gleamed in the moonlight. Mrs. Claus cleaned her glasses with her apron and leaned in to give them a closer look.
“They’re mounted on some kind of spring mechanism,” she said. “So when Santa got to the bottom of the chimney—”
“He couldn’t get back out!” Jingle blurted. “You were right. It is a trap!”
Mrs. Claus shushed him. “Listen.”
She turned an ear downward and bent over the chimney. Jingle imitated her.
Voices echoed up from inside the house.
“Me? Work for the KGB? Ho ho ho! Ridiculous!”
There could be no mistaking who it was. Santa was all right — for the moment.
“What could I possibly do for you?”
“Vell, you know vhat they zay,” a heavily accented man replied. “ ‘He zeez you vhen you’re zleeping. He knowz vhen you’re avake. He knowz if you’ve been bad or good, zo be good for goodnez zake.’ ”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be denze, fat man! You are the greatezt zpy the vorld haz ever known!”
“ ‘Zpy’?”
“Yez, zpy!”
“I don’t—”
“There iz no zecret our enemiez could keep from uz vith you on our zide!”
“On your what now?”
“Our zide! Thiz cowboy the Americanz have elected — Reagan. He planz to zpend hiz vay to victory over uz. Vell, let him try! Ve vill have zomething money cannot buy. You!”
“Wait now. What’s all this about a cowboy?”
“Zoon you vill be zmuggled to the Zoviet Union in one of our zubmarines. And then... imagine the propaganda value vhen Zanta Clauz — the living embodiment of Veztern materializm — renounzez hiz vayz and zayz, ‘At lazt, thiz red zuit of mine really ztandz for zomething!’ ”
“Fez turn materialism? My red zoot? Ho ho! Goodness, lad! I can’t understand a word you’re saying!”
“Here iz all you need to underztand. Our operative at the Pole haz hidden a bomb — a very powerful bomb — in your vorkshop. If you do not cooperate, ve vill reduze your toymaking elvez to zo much zmoke and duzt.”
Mrs. Claus and Jingle locked eyes on each other, each of them stifling a horrified gasp.
“Zmoke and duzt?” a baffled Santa mused.
“Da! Zmoke and duzt! You know — boom!”
“Hmmm. I’m sorry. You’re just not getting through. Maybe one of you other fellows can tell me what your friend’s so excited about.”
A string of Russian curses bounced up out of the house. “I vill blow up your caztle! It iz that zimple! Thiz iz the deztruct button here in my hand!”
“Oh! Ho ho! A bomb! I thought you said a very powerful bum. Now I see! Clever! Naughty, but clever! Ho ho ho! But let me tell you something, my friend. You’ll never get anywhere in life with bombs and threats. Generosity and good cheer! Those are the things that really matter! Now why don’t you let me out of this cage so I can be on my way? I’ve got toys to deliver! Ho ho!”
Santa’s ho-hoing was cut off by more curses. The Russians were learning what Mrs. Claus and everyone else at the North Pole already knew.
Santa Claus was the sweetest man on the face of the Earth — and he was nowhere near the brightest.
At that moment, the real mastermind of the Claus clan was whispering quick instructions to Jingle. The elf gulped, nodded, hopped into Santa’s sleigh, and told Rudolph and the other A-list reindeer it was time to fly their furry butts off. They were careful to take off quietly, but once they were airborne they streaked out of sight like a red-nosed rocket.
“Get it through your thick zkull, Clauz!” the Russian spymaster was screaming as they left. “Ve are not letting you go!”
“Really? My my my. That’s a wee bit selfish, wouldn’t you say? Think of the children.”
“I am thinking of the children! The children who vill grow up in a better vorld because ve have overthrown decadent capitalizm and freed them from the grinding boot heel of the bourgeoizie!”
“Well, I don’t know about all that. I just know how those good little boys and girls love their toys! Ho ho! And if they don’t find them under the tree tomorrow — goodness! We can’t have that, can we?”
Mrs. Claus heard a strangled cry that was, no doubt, “Oh, shut up!” in Russian. Santa didn’t get the message.
“If you let me go now I’ll still have time to stop and eat all the treats the kids have left out for me. You wouldn’t believe how disappointed the children are if I don’t eat those cookies! And all those glasses of milk to drink! Speaking of which, I should probably make a quick pit stop before I get going. Ho ho ho! So if you’ll just let me out of here...”
Mrs. Claus couldn’t wait any longer. Another minute and the Russians might kill her husband out of sheer frustration. So she hopped in her sleigh, brought it around for a landing on the ground below, walked up to the front door, and knocked. A minute passed without an answer, so she knocked again. This time the door opened just wide enough for a tall man in a black turtleneck and black leather trenchcoat to peek out at her.
“Yez?” the man said.
“Hello,” Mrs. Claus replied pleasantly. “I’m here about my husband. May I come in please?”
The tall man frowned. “It iz late. You should go home. There iz no—”
Pac-Man the reindeer sneezed. The man poked his head out the door and saw the sleigh for the first time. A hand poked out the door too. There was a gun in it.
“Inzide, if you pleaze.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Claus said.
In the house were four more men in black turtlenecks and black leather coats. They were all wearing berets and sunglasses. And all of them had guns.
Santa was on the far side of the room, standing in a cage that surrounded the fireplace.
“Gladys!” he called out when he saw her.
“Gladyz?” one of the turtleneck men said. Mrs. Claus recognized the voice immediately. It was the spymaster.
“No, dear. Gladys,” she corrected him. “With an s. But you can call me ‘Mrs. Claus.’ ”