Luger was losing his carefully regimented programming. After years of hard work, the effects they had so wondrously achieved were being nullified. This was the third incident in just two weeks. Gabovich wondered if Luger wasn't getting addicted to the pain to which he was being subjected, because it always took more and more of a booster to get him through a day's work.

"You must not get so excited," Gabovich said patiently. He snapped his fingers for some nearby guards, both known personally to him- Luger was too valuable to be entrusted to an uncleared person. "Come,

ivan. Go back to the dormitory with these men. You've had a very long day." To the guards, Gabovich hissed, "Take him to the Zulu facility immediately. No one is to speak with him-no one.

Luger seemed steady enough on his feet, so the two ex-Soviet guards began escorting him to the back exit and a waiting car outside which would take him to the security building, also in the compound. Luger looked downtrodden, as if the pain in his stomach was nothing compared to the hopelessness he felt as he thought of all the months of work that still lay ahead.

As they proceeded down the corridor, they noticed a Lithuanian Self-Defense Force officer, with a sergeant at his side, standing nearby watching them. "You. Come here," Gabovich ordered. The two soldiers walked over to him. "You are?"

"Major Alexei Kolginov, deputy commander, Iron Wolf Brigade headquarters," the officer replied. "This is Command Sergeant Major Surkov, Brigade NCOIC. I was-"

"Kolginov? Surkov? You are Russians?" General Gabovich asked with an expression of surprise and amusement.

Kolginov nodded.

"You are officers in a Lithuanian Boy Scout army. . .

"We are part of the Lithuanian Self-Defense Force," Kolginov asserted.

"Ah yes, the Iron Wolf Brigade," Gabovich said derisively. "Such a tough name for such a playschool army."

Kolginov let the insult roll off his back. "We are on a facilities inspection, checking for treaty compliance as part of the deactivation of this facility, when I noticed you taking this man out of the security conference room. He appears to be ill or disoriented. Is there a problem here? Is he all right?"

Gabovich made an expression of undisguised exasperation. The security problems here at the Fisikous Institute were becoming a joke.

When the facility, and Lithuania, belonged to the old USSR, security at the Fisikous Research Institute was handled by the MYD, the Soviet Troops of the Interior. From the MVD

troops stationed in Lithuania, a special detachment of highly trained troops was formed specifically to handle security here in Fisikous and in other critical Soviet offices in Vilnius.

That unit was called OMON, or Otriad Militisija Osobennoga Naznachenaia, meaning