She moved toward him with her right hand out. There was a gun in his, and the look on his face indicated that they were not about to share a hearty handshake. Mrs. Claus stepped past the gun, threw her arms around the Russian, and gave him an enthusiastic hug. The spymaster stiffened like he’d been given an electric shock.
“Unhand me, voman,” he spat.
“Oh, come now. Everyone needs a hug from time to time.”
“Let me go!”
Mrs. Claus stepped back, shaking her head sadly. “Alright then. But you really shouldn’t be afraid of a little human warmth.”
“Ho ho ho! She’s right, you know! You look like a man who could use a few hugs!”
“Zilenze, zimpleton!”
There was a comfy-looking armchair near the fireplace, and Mrs. Claus walked over and took a seat. All the guns in the room pivoted to follow her as she moved.
“Don’t you worry, Santa,” she said, folding her hands primly in her lap. “We’ll have you out of there soon.”
“Wonderful! Time’s a-wasting! I’m not even halfway through my route! So many toys to deliver! So many notes to read! So many cookies to—”
“Yes, darling, of course. We know.”
“No one iz going anyvhere!” the spymaster barked. “A threat far away could not penetrate your thick zkull, Zanta. But now fate haz delivered uz a new hoztage — one you can zee with your own eyez.” He brought up his gun and pointed it directly at Mrs. Claus’s forehead. “Perhapz now you vill underztand that ve mean buzinezz. Vow to zerve uz, or your vife diez.”
“Well, now... that’s... I...” Santa stammered, finally beginning to grasp the situation. “You wouldn’t really do a mean old thing like that, would you?”
A malevolent grin slithered across the Russian’s lips. “Yez,” he said. “I vould.”
“I think he really would dear,” Mrs. Claus said. “But he won’t.”
The spymaster cocked an eyebrow at her. “Oh? And vhy vouldn’t I?”
“Because we returned your bomb.” Mrs. Claus pulled out the control mechanism she’d slipped from his jacket after giving him a hug. “And I have this.”
One of the turtleneck men blurted out a Russian phrase so foul it would have made a reindeer blush.
Mrs. Claus looked at him and shook her head reprovingly. “Such language,” she said to him in perfect Russkij. “What would your mother say?”
“Sorry, ma’am,” the henchman mumbled.
“Vhat do you mean vhen you zay you returned the bomb?” the spymaster asked, eyeing the remote control in her hand nervously.
“We took it back where it came from.”
“Took it back? You mean... Mozcow?”
Mrs. Claus nodded. “The Kremlin.”
Two of the Russians burst into tears. Another threw himself down and began kicking and pounding the floorboards. Another, the tallest and palest of all the turtleneck men, simply rolled his eyes and sighed loudly as if he’d already been through the exact same experience a hundred times before.
“Zteady, comradez,” the spymaster said. “She iz bluffing.”
“Oh, I assure you I’m not bluffing,” she bluffed.
“Yez, you are. If you vere telling the truth, you could tell me vhere the bomb vaz hidden.”
“Why, in the star at the top of our Christmas tree, of course.”
There was really no of course about it. It was a guess. That little assassin Giftwrap had been up to something in the tree, hadn’t he? If she were wrong, at that very moment Jingle would be dumping a perfectly good star in the Arctic Ocean while a bomb sat in the workshop, ready to blow the place to peppermint-scented smithereens if the Russians got their hands on the remote control again.
The spymaster laughed.
It took Mrs. Claus a moment to realize that it wasn’t a gloating, “You old fool!” laugh. It was a bitter, “Why me?” laugh. Then she saw the slice of fruitcake he’d drawn from his black trench coat.
“Oh, come now,” she chided him. “You don’t have to take it that hard.”
But it was too late for the spymaster. Within seconds his chin was covered in crumbs, and he was dead.
The tall, sighing spy moved quickly to the cage around the fireplace. He pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the door.
“Go,” he told Santa. He turned to Mrs. Claus. “Hurry.”
He followed them out to the sleigh and helped them both up into the front seat.
“I have to azk you,” he said once Santa had the reins in hand. “At the North Pole, do you have... how you zay? Political azylum?”
“A xylowhat?” Santa asked.
Mrs. Claus smiled. “Get in.” She waited for the tall Russian to get settled into the back seat, then swiveled around to face him. “So tell me, young man. What can you do?”
The secret agent shrugged. “I have been a zpy for zo many years. All I know iz thiz Cold Var.”
“You don’t have any skills?”
“Vell... I do know one hundred and thirty-zeven vays to kill a man.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Claus stroked her chin for a moment. “Well, maybe Rumpity-Tump could use some help in the stable.”
“Ho ho ho!” said Santa.
The reindeer knew what to do when they heard that. So they did it.
A Crust of Rice
by Martin Limón
The soft flesh of Kim Ji-na’s pudgy fingers shook as she poured steaming barley tea into an earthenware cup.
“He beat me, Older Sister,” she said. “And then he stole my money.”
Kimiko lifted the cup to her nose, savoring the aroma. Ji-na, the much younger woman, knelt on the warm ondol floor on the other side of a short serving table. The man Ji-na was talking about had been her boyfriend of almost six months, an American soldier by the name of Greene. His first name Ji-na didn’t know, something difficult to pronounce. His rank, however, was corporal. One of his tattered fatigue shirts still hung in the wooden armoire. What unit had he been assigned to? Ji-na only knew 8th Army, which didn’t narrow the possibilities much. Less than a mile away from this village of Itaewon stood the huge 8th Army headquarters, Yongsan Compound, teeming with over five thousand American GIs. He worked with engines, Ji-na told Kimiko. That much she knew because almost every night when he came home his fingers were cut and bleeding and covered with grease.
“Why did he leave you?” Kimiko asked.
Demurely, like a well-trained Confucian child, Ji-na lowered her eyes.
“He’s returning to the United States,” Ji-na said. “In a few days. He said we have to finish.”
“But why did he beat you?”
Ji-na stared at Kimiko, black eyes flashing with indignation. “He said he wanted his money back. For the final month he wouldn’t be spending with me. I refused.”
Kimiko nodded her head sadly. She’d heard such things before. Since the end of the Korean War some twelve years ago, the people of Korea had been poorer than they’d been in living memory. Even poorer than they’d been under the Japanese occupation during World War II. And people had been forced to do anything to survive. For a young girl like Ji-na, a young girl from the countryside, to land a rich American to take care of her was thought of as a great victory. A victory against hunger. A victory against begging on the street. What with their steady paychecks and their access to the PX — with its cornucopia of imported American-made goods — GIs were rich. Much richer than the average Korean.
Through a cloud of rising steam, Kimiko studied Ji-na. The young woman’s eyes were blackened and her nose had swollen red and angry to almost twice its natural size. Her entire face was round, flushed with blood, and puffier than Kimiko remembered seeing it before.