The sound of a bugle blowing loudly in the hallway roused the Rock 'n Wrestling Connection from their beds in the lone room Slaughter had been able to procure for them. "Oh come on!" Piper groaned out loud, stuffing his pillow over his ears, "It's Christmas Eve morning, have some respect!"

The door was flung wide open. "Rise and shine, maggots!" Slaughter ordered, ignoring the shouts of the other hotel patrons from the adjoining rooms, "We have a mission to accomplish, and time is ticking!"

"Just ten more minutes, please!" the Scotsman begged, rolling over.

"Come on you guys, you said you'd do anything for Hulk last night; let's get moving," Duggan slipped his head into the doorway as well, "We've got to get to that big important Ruskie breakfast and see if anyone there can prove anything-assuming that big ugly dope Nikita bothers showing up to help," he grumbled under his breath, "and here's hoping he didn't just turn us all in to the KGB..."

"Mr. Slaughter," came Nikita's voice from up the hallway. He was huffing as he slid to a stop in front of the door. "Make this fast; Uncle Ivan is waiting outside in the limousine the Central Committee procured for the festivities; I told him I would be meeting a friend in here who wanted to wish me luck," he told the former drill sergeant.

"This will be quick enough, soldier," Slaughter assured him. "Now," he turned towards the Western wrestlers, "Would any of you have brought a recording device of any kind with you?"

"Well, as luck would have it," Steamboat rifled through his suitcase and pulled out his tape recorder, "It served well enough back in Calgary; will it do here, Sarge?"

"I guess it will," Slaughter nodded after examining it, "Mr. Koloff, slip this on," he slid it under Nikita's coat, "Turn it on before you exit this building, and don't let anyone know you have it on you. If we're lucky, we'll get a confession off someone. Now, I'll need a volunteer," he turned back to the wrestlers, "Mr. Duggan here," he put an arm around Hacksaw, "has graciously agreed to go undercover to try and get intel as well. Who else would be willing to take reconnaissance work...but keep in mind we can't have too many moles..."

The wrestlers exchanged glances. "Guess it'll be me," Savage stood up, shaking off an initial look of reluctance, "Looking around, I guess I'd be the most likely to pass for Russian physically, yeah."

"Good for you, Mr. Savage," Slaughter commended him, "All right then, fall out everyone!" he ordered, ignoring everyone's tired groans, "Our sacred duty awaits, because the Soviet penal system certainly won't be waiting for Hogan."

"Has he cracked yet?" General Yermakov demanded his torturers, now dragging a bloody Hulk down the cellblock towards him.

"No, General," Igor shook his head, stunned, "And we gave him everything in the book."

"A real American doesn't take a fall no matter what he's put through," Hulk snarled defiantly at Yermakov, spitting in his face again. Yermakov in turn slapped him hard again. "Lock him up with the traitor who sheltered him," he ordered, jerking a finger at the nearest cell, "We'll give him another running over soon, and he doesn't confess then, he dies."

"Then I'll only regret that I have..." Hulk was briefly cut off as Igor and Georgy flung him hard through the open cell door, then staggered to his feet and shouted back as the door was locked, "...I regret only that I have one life to give for my country."

Yermakov and his men marched off without looking back at him. Clutching his ribs, Hulk turned towards his cellmate. "Viktor, how're you holding up?" he asked the apartment manager, who was slumped on the cell's bench, his face reddened and etched with a dismal expression. He turned slowly towards Hulk with an expression blending frustration, regret, and fury, and turned away. "Hey, I'm sorry if I got you into this, brother, really I am," Hulk said apologetically, sitting down next to him, "I had no idea they would come and break into your place, really I didn't. Now we've just got to figure a way to get out of here..."

"There is no escape, not from this place," Viktor mumbled weakly, "Just like Vera's father never came back from the gulag, we won't either. And what will my children do then? What will they do when I'm not there...?"

"You're be out for Christmas, I promise you that," Hulk said optimistically, "Either the U.S. Embassy here springs us in the next few hours-and Viktor, I'll make sure they take you too if they spring me-my friends'll come in to get me, or we'll break out ourselves..."

"Are you crazy!" Viktor turned and roared in his face, "No one escapes from here, I said! This is the pit of no escape for everyone who deviates from the national mission of socialist paradise on earth! I deviated by letting you in...!"

"Now come on, you don't mean that," Hulk tried to calm him down, "You know you were right to help us when we had nowhere else to go. And since you helped us, we're going to help you. There's..."

"There's nothing that can help us now," Viktor let out a low sob as he shook his head, "They'll now do everything in their power to harrass my family and make them feel inferior; Vera will be run out of town in disgrace; they'll seize the apartment and throw her and the kids out. Kostya and Marina will be ostracized and thrown out of school; we barely had enough money to send them there anyway, much less try and deal with Marina's blindness, and now..."

From across the cellblock, another prisoner started crying out desperately in Russian. Although Hulk couldn't understand a word of it, it was clear the man was desperate. "Shut up, you dog; no water for you!" Yermakov bellowed contemptuously, storming up to the cell. When the prisoner did not stop, he furiously waved for the nearest guards to open the cell and stepped out of sight. He returned moments later with a whip, which, shouting in Russian himself, he started cracking on the prisoner while the guards, also taunting him in Russian, kicked him mercilessly. "Hey, stop it, you animals!" Hulk shouted at them, enraged, "That's no way to treat anyone, you...!"

"Shut up you swine!" Yermakov cracked the whip in the wrestler's direction, "You'll have no food if you don't mind your business. Leave this garbage here; he's had enough," he ordered his men, who locked the bleeding, sobbing prisoner back in his cell and walked away. "See?" Viktor glumly remarked, having been unable to watch, "It's over. There's no hope..."

"There's always hope, brother," Hulk put an arm around him, "In a lot of my matches, things looked hopeless too sometimes. There was this one time against King Kong Bundy-well, you wouldn't know who he is-but he was giving me the beating of my life. I could barely move, and I was bleeding all over, but I wasn't going to give up, not when all the people had come to see me put him in his place. So I managed to find enough momentum to recover, and I managed to beat Bundy good, even slammed him for the first time in his career. So there's always hope, Viktor, and I'm willing to wager anything my friends are working on something to get us out of here..."

"Why are we going this way?" Duggan asked, frowning, as he and Slaughter were led down the alley towards the Polivinov's apartment complex, "We're going to be late..."

"I think we're going to have enough time for this, Jim," Bret said, frowning himself, "I think it's time you took a look at the wider situation by meeting some people who might change your view on Russians..."

"I don't need to change my view," Hacksaw said defiantly, "There's no such thing as a good Ruskie, Hitman; they're all rotten to the core. All trying to suppress our way of life and take over the world..."

"Not every Russian, pal," Savage frowned at him too, "These people might really make you think twice, yeah..."

"...but it looks like we're not the only ones paying them a visit," Elizabeth looked worried as she pointed at the apartment building, out front of which numerous cars were parked-and through a broken-open window, smashing and screaming could be heard. "Oh no you don't, whoever you are!" the Boss Man drew his nightstick and led the charge into the building. The former prison guard shoved the door to the Polivinov's apartment open, startling the knot of men inside who had been smashing all the furniture and spray-painting the walls. "Out of here, you thugs!" the Boss Man ordered.

The nearest thug yelled at him in Russian and started to draw a gun. The Boss Man knocked it away with his nightstick, then bashed the man over the head with it. With a loud, Celtic war cry, Piper, who had been right behind the prison guard, launched himself through the door and on top of another one. Soon the rest of the wrestlers jumped the rest of the men and started thrashing them hard. "HOOOOO!" Duggan bellowed at the top of his lungs, smashing two thugs at once with his two by four as they ran for the door. He whacked each of the rest of them as well as they ran out too, hitting the last one with a hard crack across the back of the head that sent him toppling head over heels down the stairs. "And don't come back if you want more of it, you dirty Commies, because I'll happily beat the tar out of you and your whole rotten empire, HOOOOOOOO!" he shouted after them.

"Well, now that you've seen the dark side of the U.S.S.R., Jim, let's take a look at the not-so dark side. Mrs. Polivinov?" Davey took Duggan's hand and looked worriedly around the apartment, "Vera?"

"In here, amigo," Tito pointed at the closet inside which the photos of the last tsar were located, from inside which frightened sniffling could be heard. The Mexican-American threw the door open, revealing a terrified Vera cradling her children close. "You!" she was far from glad to see them, however, "I told you to get out...!"

"We saw something was going on here; we felt we had to help," the British Bulldog bent down to her level, "What was going on here?"

"Standard KGB post-arrest procedure; they harrass the families of the people they arrest, make them feel like less than human," she glared at him, "They did it when my father was taken, and now, thanks to all of you...!"

"Well thanks a lot, lady; we save you, and this is what we get with gratitutde? Nice non-evil Soviets, Smith," Duggan frowned at the Bulldog, "They're all heartless..."

"Jim will you just look and listen for once!" Bret thundered at him, storming over. "Vera, 'Hacksaw' Jim Duggan; he loves America more than the next person, but sometimes it blinds him. Jim, Vera Polivinov; her husband was wrongfully arrested with Hulk last night. And these are Kostya and Marina, just two ordinary kids just like in America. These are real people, Jim, no different from any other in the West, except they just suffered injustice from the KGB last night..."

"And I've been fired too," Vera said bitterly, "When I showed up at work this morning, the foreman fired me; said someone with ties to a Western spy couldn't work there. Now I have no money at all for my children, and no future, thanks to all of you!"

She turned away from them. "Vera, listen, I know it's been extremely rough on you these last twelve hours, but it's not going to do the situation any good taking poison berries, at least in the figurative sense," the Hitman told her calmly, "I can understand you being upset at us, but we never meant to cause any trouble for you. We can still help make this better..."

"How?" she glared at him, "Viktor will be executed within the next forty-eight hours, I know it! No one will hire me, any aid will be beyond us due to his conviction...!"

She stopped as Marina started sobbing softly. "See?" she pointed at the girl, "She knows her father's never coming back, and that now we won't have any food; I had to steal from the plant to supplement what little we had here-half of what we produced was sent to the army depot across the street, and...!"

"Hey, hey, easy there, little girl," apparently, Vera's story had touched a nerve with Duggan, as he was bending down to her level with a concerned look of his own and stroked Marina's hair, "It's going to be all right, little one," he comforted her softly, "We ain't gonna let them lock your daddy up for life."

"There, you see, Jim, not every Russian is a fanatical Communist flag-waver," Bret told him firmly, "These people are as far removed from that as possible. And yes, Vera, we said we'd help and we will," he told the woman, "We've already called the U.S. Embassy, and we told them Viktor was arrested too..."

"It would make no difference," she shook her head, now looking tearful, "By the time your government would do anything, they'll have shot him..."

"Then maybe we need to take things up a notch or two," Slaughter stepped forward, having casually listened to the entire conversation. "No need to be afraid, madam," he told Vera when she recoiled at the sight of his fatigues, "I'm not with the secret police. Sergeant Bob Slaughter, U.S.M.C., retired," he extended a hand to her, although she did not shake it, "Now, I've been doing some plotting, and I think we might be able to pick up where the U.S. Embassy might come up short. Now, you'd said there was an army depot across the street from where you work?"

"USED to work," she corrected him glumly, "But yes."

"Did they take your access card to the plant?"

"No, but they wouldn't let me in now..."

"We'll see about that. It happens I'm fluent in many languages, and Russian is one of them," Slaughter in fact rambled out something in Russian that none of the wrestlers recognized, but made Vera and her children perk up in amazement. "If it's all right, I'd like you to take me over there," he told the woman, "If they think I'm part of the KGB-and I think I know how to arrange it to look like that-then I think we can set in motion a plan to get Hogan and your husband out of the gulag."

"I don't know if I should..." she looked very hesitant.

"You'd do anything for Viktor, wouldn't you?" Savage leaned over Slaughter's shoulder, "I know, because I'd do anything for Elizabeth, and you'd take any chance to make sure they're safe, right?"

Vera thought it over for a moment, then nodded softly. "Anything for Viktor," she nodded, "But I don't want to get arrested too...I can't leave Kostya and Marina alone in the world..."

"You won't get arrested, we'll fight to the death to prevent that," the Boss Man delcared, gently helping her up, "I'll go too, Sarge, just to make sure we can dish out some law and order should things go south."

"Same here," Piper stepped forward, grinning, "If this involves military action, I think I want a piece of it."

"Now Roddy, don't get too far into this," Bret cautioned him, "Caution is still the preferred route to go here."

"Indeed, Mr. Hart. I'm placing you in charge of the reconnaisance mission with Mr. Koloff," Slaughter instructed him, "We'll rendezvous here at twelve hundred hours and see where we stand from here."

"But I cannot leave Kostya and Marina here alone..." Vera protested.

"We'll watch them for you," Elizabeth volunteered, scooping both children into her arms, "Nothing's going to happen to them, Vera."

"Absolutely," Andre agreed, joining her, "We'll take good care of them."

"You sure you'll be OK here by yourself, then?" Savage had to enquire to his bride.

"Of course I will, Randy; it's you I'd be worried about," she told him.

"Well, if anyone tries to break in while we're out, don't be afraid to just kick them where it hurts," he told her, "Especially if it's Luger again..."

"Randy, we'd better get going," Bret took him by the arm, "Elizabeth will be fine like she said. Meanwhile, we don't want to be late..."

"Let me just say this ain't the best idea; we could get recognized too easy," the Macho Man protested about twenty minutes later, slipping on a caterer's suit outside the back entrance to the conference center where the Soviet wrestlers were to be feted.

"You've got any better ideas, pal?" Duggan inquired, slipping on a pair of dark glasses. "Sorry to have to do this to you guys," he said to the two men sitting bound and gagged in their underwear in the back of the catering truck with the other wrestlers, "But it's in the cause of freedom."

"Now remember, have your cameras ready for anything that looks suspicious," Bret informed them, fiddling with a hand radio, "Whatever we can get in conjunction with Nikita's recordings, if he can get some, will be big. Just don't blow the cover."

"We'll do our best, yeah," Savage assured him, "Well, let's get going them, Hacksaw."

A frown crossed his face as the two of them pushed a pair of catering carts through the back door. "I ain't too sure about leaving her alone, even if it's just with the kids..." he mused out loud.

"Not to intrude, Macho, but sometimes it seems like you care for a little too much," Duggan offered, "She seems to have done well enough without you at her side 24/7 in the first place..."

"I love her, Hacksaw; I worry," Savage insisted, "You heard what Luger did to her last night; who knows what else might happen when I'm not there...?"

"I think you're overreacting, Macho; we've got more chance of being recognized in here than something else going wrong with her," Duggan predicted. It was at that moment, however, as they were passing the ladies' room, that Sherri stepped out. She came to a stop, staring right at Savage. "YOU!" she roared at him.

"Shut up, witch, I'm on a...!" Savage warned her.

"GUARDS!" Sherri shrieked as loud as she could, climbing up on her former charge's back and whaling away at him, "INTRUDERS! GUARDS, IT 'S SAVAGE! GET...!"

Duggan quickly clamped a hand over her mouth, then yanked the cloth off Savage's cart and stuffed that into her mouth to silence her. "It's a wonder Macho ever bothered staying with you, you loudmouthed hag," he grumbled at her, yanking the cord off a phone nearby to bind her hands.

"Yeah, and for all her shouting that I stole from her, I ain't apologizing until I get back all the money she stole from me," Savage glared at his former manager, "Back into the bathroom with her."

"Right," Duggan dumped Sherri into the ladies' room, slammed the door shut, and pushed a table up against it to block it. The two men glanced around, but apparently no one had heard Sherri's shrieking. "That was close," the Macho Man sighed, "Let's hope she holds long enough..."

There came a loud shouting behind them. The head waiter, apparently, came running up and screamed something in their faces in Russian. Lowering his head to avoid any chance of recognition, Savage rambled out a stream of Russian-sounding gibberish, and started pushing the cart away. "Any idea what you said?" Duggan had to ask.

"Not the slightest, but I hope it was a good insult to him," Savage said. They entered the main conference room, where all the Soviet wrestlers were seated on a raised dais, just at the moment Menzhinsky was tapping his microphone next to the podium in front of the dais. "May I have your attention?" he spoke into the microphone, "Ladies and gentlemen, comrades of the press, I welcome you all to this celebratory breakfast for our great wrestling heroes of the Soviet Union. Let us begin by rising and singing our national anthem together to the glory of the Motherland."

Everyone in the room rose up and started singing in unison. Duggan's fists clenched, and his face contorted with rage. "Calm, calm," Savage squeezed his shoulder, "We can't do this if you blow up; just like Elizabeth said last night..."

"I hate that song, I hate that song...!" Duggan jammed his hands over his ears to block the Soviet anthem out. Fortuitously, the song lasted less than an minute. "That felt good," Menzhinsky declared to the group once they had finished and applauded each other, "Now, assembled before us today are some of the best of the Soviet Union's wrestlers," he gestured at everyone on the dais, which included the Koloffs, "In a few moments, we shall be awarding them the medals they have earned. First, however, I have the announcement for all of you that haven't heard it yet: last night, the American dog Hogan was arrested by our great and noble police for murder. As he will be held until such time as he can be brought forth for trial, he has therefore through his criminal actions forfeited tonight's match to his opponent, and therefore by default annointed as the new world wrestling champion, our very own Comrade Nikolai Volkoff," he stepped over and raised Volkoff's hand high to loud applause. "Listen to this rubbish!" Duggan muttered disgustedly, gripping his cart's handles tightly, "I ought to shut them all up...!"

"Hey, we're observing and listening, remember!" Savage begged him, laying a coffee cake in front of an important-looking man at another table and babbling some more gibberish towards him. "Comrade Volkoff, in a little while, we shall be retrieving the world title belt from Hogan's possession so it can be presented fairly to you at the conclusion of this afternoon's Summit Series," Menzhinsky told Volkoff, whose chest was swelling with pride, "To all the viewers out there, how does it feel to have finally reached the top of the mountain?"

"Let me answer that first, pal," Blassie took the microphone off him. "Let me just say, for all you Ruskies out there who can understand what I'm saying," he looked straight into the camera, "I was fooled by Hulk Hogan at first myself, so I know how good it is to see him fall at last. I thought he was going to be the best there ever was. But then he turned on me, ruined my shot at the gold, and then when I did finally get it, stole it off the very-deserving Sheik here," he pointed to the Iranian in the chair next to him, "Well, Hogan, what goes around comes around, and you're going to be serving hard time for a long time."

"But I thought you said Comrade Yermakov said he was going to kill Hogan off the moment the belt was in our hands, Comrade Blassie?" Volkoff asked, confused.

"What?" Duggan turned pale, "Kill Hulk...?"

"Ooooooooh boy," Savage looked numb himself at this revelation. Blassie quickly clamped a hand over Volkoff's mouth. "I said keep quiet on that, you idiot, or the U.S. government might just force them to let him out!" he whispered furiously into his charge's ear. "Uh, for all you at home, Nikolai was just kidding there, of course," he hastily said into the camera, "I know as much as you do that your government and police would never harm a hair on anyone's head..."

"You lying parasite!" Savage clenched his teeth in disgust, "How can you support their terroristical policies?"

"And I'll say a word about Hogan too," Volkoff now rose up (as Blassie sat back down and mumbled out loud to his fellow managers, "Where the hell'd Martel get to? A bathroom break doesn't take this long."). "Hogan epitomized everything decadent and pathetic about the American people," the Russian declared contemptuously, "He was a pompous, arrogant, cheating, conniving dog, who hogged the title and kept truly worthy persons like myself from having it. Like all Americans, he rolls around in money he didn't earn, warmongers against Mother Russia, cheats whenever possible, and acts like pompous, arrogant bourgeois stooge. It is devine justice we set him up for murder; he is too stupid to figure out Pyotr was..."

Looking pale, Blassie yanked his charge back down into his seat. "YOU IDIOT; THIS IS GOING ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND YOU JUST GAVE THE WORLD A CONFESSION WE FRAMED HOGAN!" he hissed murderously at Volkoff. "Ah, Nikolai was just joking again, everyone," he quickly apologized into the camera, "He was just saying that Hogan was so stupid, he thought he could get away with it unscathed."

He laughed uncomfortably to try and force home the image of a joke. Duggan and Savage exchanged excited glances. "I can't believe he actually gave the smoking gun right to us," the former proclaimed softly.

"But do we got it?" Savage's eyes turned to Nikita, who shook off his own surprised expression that Volkoff had essentially just blurted out a spontaneous confession and gave the Macho Man a subtle thumbs-up. "Ooooooh yeah, he got it," Savage nodded, "Let's get out of here and get the American embassy on the line, yeah; they can..."

"Wait, what's that idiot doing now?" Duggan was frowning, seeing Volkoff now walking over to a large pile in the corner of the conference room covered with a sheet. "...tonight, the stupid bourgeois American children will go to sleep dreaming of fat, ugly, bearded capitalist gift-bringing Claus, who flies through air in sleigh to give bribes to children to continue following evil capitalist path," he was ranting, pulling off the sheet to reveal a pile of Christmas presents, Hulk merchandising, and a few American flags, "In America, when they have had enough of music, they blow it up in sport stadiums. In honor of Mother Russia's final triumph over American dog Hogan, it is honor to do the same now and kill Hulkamania and Christmas, plus drive stake into America itself. Are charges ready?" he asked a man in coveralls behind it.

"All set, Comrade Volkoff, but I wouldn't advise..." the man tried to dissuade him.

"Nonsense, what could go wrong? All right," Volkoff trotted to a large plunger in the middle of the dais, "All together, let us debase false American holiday together: three, two, one, CHRISTMAS ROTS! CHRISTMAS ROTS! CHRISTMAS ROTS!"

He pressed down on the plunger, and the pile exploded in a large fireball, taking out half the wall with it. The building's fire alarm went off, followed by the sprinklers activating. "All together, grab nearest presents and burn them up: CHRISTMAS ROTS! CHRISTMAS ROTS!" Volkoff grabbed another large stack and flung them onto the flames. Following up his chant, several other guests did the same, even as frantic officials ran into the room, panicked at the blaze, which was starting to fill the room with smoke. "Come on, now!" Savage tried to drag Duggan off, "we got a smokescreen; let's use it...!"

"Oh no, he will not...!" Duggan's eyes were wide with rage as Menzhinsky, now chanting, "CHRISTMAS ROTS! CHRISTMAS ROTS!" himself, callously flung a larger American flag onto the bonfire, where it quickly caught fire. "All right, that does it: HOOOOOOOOOO!" rage plastered all over his face, Duggan grabbed the nearest cup of coffee on his tray, charged towards Menzhinsky, and poured the steaming hot coffee down the Soviet athletic director's pants. Menzhinsky's scream of agony immediately stopped the chanting by the Russians, whose heads swung towards him in unison. "You idiot, you're blowing the cover...!" Savage tried to dissuade him.

"HOOOOO!" clearly not caring in the least, Duggan pulled his two by four from under the cart and swung a wild blow at Menzhinsky who just ducked in time. Two guards grabbed him and tried to wrestle him still. "Who are you, you wrecker?" one demanded.

"Wait a minute," the Sheik rose up in his seat, squinting hard at Duggan, "That looks a lot like..."

The door to the room slammed open. "There they are, Jim Duggan and Randy Savage!" a now free and furious Sherri, flanked by a pair of guards with machine guns, pointed a cold finger at the two men, "Get them!"

"Kill the American spies!" Menzhinsky ordered the guards, who rapidly cocked their rifles and aimed them at Savage and Duggan...