In the Vienna branch of MI3b, Station Chief Arvo Thorp complains to Alf and Pip Quarrender about Vassily Midoff. Since fleeing Budapest, Thorp says, intelligence reports point toward Vassily joining certain Soviet elements of the Trans-Trianon 2000 rally, possibly in search of “some idea of mobile asylum” (233). Since Thorp is now sending other agents after Vassily, the Quarrenders are upset that they are losing control over their source. Alf speculates that trying to keep track of Vassily’s various, shifting allegiances has made it easier to simply have him killed. Later, Alf intercepts an encrypted message which notes that Vassily may have been “promoted to deputy operations officer of an unacknowledged narkomat” (235) in the Far East. With rumors of Stalin indulging his chief crypto officer’s interest in the paranormal, Alf can only crack parts of the encrypted messages. Though he knows the dangers, Alf continues to try to reveal a “secret so grave, so countersacramental, that more than one government will go to any lengths to obtain and with luck to suppress it” (235). The innate mysticism of the Russian people, the messages suggest, means that they will never successfully believe entirely in Karl Marx’s concept of dialectical materialism, with communism only a passing phase in the Russian society. If Stalin were ever to believe himself threatened by supernatural forces, he would “probably go after Jews first” (236). Alf suspects that the confusion between the visible and invisible, between fiction and reality, may have driven Vassily over the edge. Alf and Pip join up with the motorcycle tour. They manage to locate Vassily, only for him to escape on a zeppelin painted like a watermelon which is bound for Brazil. He is “out of [their] jurisdiction at last” (238).

Hicks, Slide, and Zdeněk arrive in a parts depot deep in the Transylvanian forest, searching for Hop, Daphne, and Bruno on the Trans-Trianon 2000. In Transylvania, the “vampire motherland itself” (239), the geography itself seems invested with a supernatural air. Slide has his camera to cover anything supernatural, but all his pictures come out blank. Among the many strange events facilitated by the motorcycle rally is the spontaneous rescue of a pig, which ends with the pig, wearing helmet and goggles, riding in the sidecar of a motorcycle, “posing like a princess in a limousine” (241). As Hicks wanders around a compound, he hears an old Irish song being played on piano. He finds Pip Quarrender singing an English version of the song. Then, Hicks runs into Terike. She is worried about the missing Ace Lomax, still “on the run” (243) from Bruno. Meanwhile, Zdeněk the golem hears that Hop is at a Croatian guerilla training camp near the Hungarian border and decides to check it out.

Hop Wingdale and a busload of musicians travel deeper into Vladboys territory. The uneven roads make cocaine consumption aboard the bus difficult, so they mix their cocaine with morphine to take speedballs instead. They find a “towering wooden cylinder” (244), a Wall of Death in which motorcycles perform dangerous stunts by riding around the inner loop. Ace Lomax is raising money by riding the Wall of Death. During a break, he recognizes Hop, whom Bruno tried to pay him to assassinate. This offer was the sign that Ace needed to leave Bruno’s employ. Now on the run, he explains that the Wall of Death is “safe long as you keep moving fast enough, something about centrifugal force” (248), just like the Trans-Trianon 2000. Ace leaves the camp, asking Hop not to tell anyone about their encounter. Meanwhile, Terike learns that Ace has not checked in any time recently. She decides to search for Ace, whose motorcycle runs out of fuel as he is being chased by wolf-like Vladboys.

Ace is being held by the Vladboys at a Hungaro-Croatian terrorist training camp located on the border. The camp trains fascist troops, “quivering in readiness to be deployed anywhere” (251), attracting young men from across Europe and beyond. When Hop arrives to play a gig, he is told that the fascists are currently preparing to invade Fiume. Vladboys from many places gather in a ruined limestone amphitheater to listen to the concert. Amid allusions to vampires and Vlad the Impaler, the 15th-century Wallachian ruler who inspired the legend of Dracula, the Vladboys are “out on another massive prowl” (253), which is how Ace was caught and brought to the camp on tenuous antisemitic accusations by Csongor, “an apprentice vampire doomed never to develop past journeyman” (254). Csongor’s conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the pocket-size golem, Zdeněk, and Hop Wingdale. Zdeněk’s arm has been modified into a light machine gun, which he points at Csongor to free Ace. As Hop, Ace, and Zdeněk flee the camp, Zdeněk throws an improvised explosive behind them.

While searching for Hop, Daphne has blundered into a place where “the political situation has changed to something unrecognizable and poisonous” (257). She has been searching for Hop across Europe by retracing the old tour dates of the Klezmopolitans, only to discover that Hamburg is now a hotbed of Nazi activity. She stumbles into a bar that is now filled with “amateur Nazi choir music” (258). Young male fascists proposition her; as they encroach unwelcomely on Daphne, she is rescued by the unexpected appearance of Glow Tripforth del Vasto on her autogyro. They escape together in the flying machine, passing low over the terrain. Glow is headed for Spain, but she drops off Daphne in Fiume. Glow warns Daphne about the rising levels of violence and fascism; she plans to get hold of a Tommy Gun and “start shooting Fascists” (262) as soon as she can, though she admits that her nearsightedness makes her a terrible shot.