Moscow Machination (6 page)

So the
Russians had pivoted to drugs. Synthetic reliable drugs. The latest statistics
from the FSB suggested that, on an average, a torture session utilizing Russian
methods improved the happiness of ‘victims’ for as long as six months. This translated
into improvements in their productivity, family life, job performance (even if
anti-Russian) and a lowered blood pressure. When the effects wore off, the
plunge in wellbeing motivated over a third of the former ‘victims’ to come back
for another confession. In contrast G-Bay had a return rate of like 0.01%.

The drug induced,
painless and practically side-effect free interrogation had turned out to be a
snooze. After the first 5 ml, Otto was singing like a canary.

Apparently,
Otto’s dad the scientist Martin Fuchs had lead Hitler’s VW program. It was some
sort of a plan B, wherein the Beetles would destroy the world one cramped leg at
a time. In the last days of the Great Patriotic War, General Rokossovsky had
captured their labs and research facility located north east of Berlin. After a
few tense hours old Roko under Herr Stalin’s orders had the scientists and
their families hauled back to Moscow.

Herr
Stalin had looked at their Beetle design and felt it was completely gay. He had
then forced the entire VW team into a secret bunker under the Kremlin and
ordered them to work on an ultimate doomsday weapon. It was the fall of 1945 and
nukes were already so passé.

Stalin’s order
was simple: “Prototype or Purge.”

Being
Stalin’s ultimate secret, with his death, all knowledge of the secret VW team had
been lost.

And now
after almost seven decades this ultimate doomsday weapon was ready. Apparently.

Was the
prototype ready? No, the weapon itself was ready.

What was
the weapon? Otto wouldn’t answer that.

What was
its potential? Otto wouldn’t answer that either.

Who was
running the program now? One of the other scientists’ sons, Mueller.

Can the
Russian president use this mystery weapon? Not yet.

And why
the HELL not?
The President had to go down with Otto into the bunker.

Anna Petrova
was convinced that these scientists craved some sort of recognition, a pat on
the back. Perhaps medals.

But why
weren’t their torture drugs cracking Otto...? Apparently Otto’s gang of
scientists had developed a counter-torture drug, which made Otto forget his
life temporarily. Other than a very small subset of scenarios and topics, he
was a blank slate. After that Brezhnev incident, the scientists didn’t take any
chances.

Anna
Petrova and her guards extracted all this within thirty minutes. With nothing
left to do, the disappointed Anna allowed Otto to describe this encounter with
Brezhnev.

Otto
Fuchs’s brother, Karl Fuchs had made the previous and only visit to the Kremlin
through the fireplace. It had been at the height of the Brezhnev stagflation in
1982. That was also the year, West Germany had made it to the FIFA World Cup
finals. Three nights before the final, Stalin’s secret ‘community’ under the
fireplace had decided to request a trip to Madrid to see the game. After all,
they had a functioning prototype of ‘the weapon’ and were just a decade away
from deployment.

A terrified
Brezhnev had called in his KGB guards and tortured the man to death. The man’s
tales were so tall, that at one point, the KGB contemplated sending Karl to some
seaside resort in Sochi. Brezhnev wanted none of it.

Brezhnev
had then sent the KGB under the Kremlin to find this freaky cult, just to make
sure. The KGB, assuming that the guy was nuts, had half assed the search. They
found neither weapons nor suspects.

Still
unsettled, Brezhnev (btw who could blame him) had presumed it was a western
conspiracy to break the Berlin Wall and reunite Germany. He ordered a GRU squad
to fly into Madrid and recalibrate the West German team hotel’s air conditioning
system.

A bone
cold W Germany had lost the World Cup 3 - 1 to Italy.

After an
hour Mika gave up. “Madam I think you should
purge
him.”

“I
suppose,” sighed the President.

“But that
Brezhnev bit was pretty odd and yet, quite detailed. Maybe we could check up on
old KGB archives… to see if he is telling the truth?” suggested Vlad half-heartedly.

“And West
Germany did lose to Italy that year,” added another guard.

The
President made up her mind. “Nah. Forget it. I got a better idea.”

Fangchun Observation Tower,
China

“You sure…
this… whatever it is that you have planned is our best approach?” queried the
Chinese Premier.

“Trust me.
My analysts know what they are doing,” assured Hu Gong, the head of Chinese
Intelligence.

“Ok, explain
to me again, why I’m here on this God forsaken tower on a Sunday, instead of
sipping green tea with my family?”

“I wanted
it to be a surprise.”

“Can’t
believe I let you drag me here,” Premier Xiannian shook his head.

“Let me
explain…” said the Hu Gong.

Premier Xiannian
and his intelligence chief Hu Gong stood on the observation deck of the new Fangchun
Tower. Located on the tongue of the tri-border area with Russia, it was a typical
Chinese tower, with sweet curves and sharp edges.

This
tongue of Chinese land was wedged between the Tumen River to the west and the
Trans-Siberian
railway to the east. Some Yale returned twerp, son of a party official, had
done a SWOT analysis and concluded that a tower in this forsaken place had a
huge potential for tourism. Ten years and counting, the crowds had never showed
up while that twerp had returned to Yale for an MBA.

The Fangchun
Tower wasn’t even that tall, as the Russians had objected to anything over 100ft. 
Something about being in the line of sight of their ICBM silo. Boo freakin hoo.

“I am still
waiting…”

Hu Gong
began, “Ya ok. So the Russians hit our trains and damaged several of our factories.
Right?

“Right.”

“The
Japanese put them to it.”

“I thought
it was the Germans…”

“Oh yeah right,
Japan and Germany. Both. The question is why?”

“Yes,
because of the whole IP theft allegations, UN voting… Hu I know this part quite
well.”

“Yeah and
now our own high speed rail manufacturing program is in danger… or at least delayed…”

“Come
on…Hu, get to the point,” said the Premier as he trained his high power
binoculars on a freight train chugging along the
Trans-Siberian
. He
wondered what was in its cargo hold.

“Yes, I’m
getting to the point, Mr. Premier. Just give me a second.”

“Fast.”

The
Premier felt a breeze. It smelt of sea weed. Sweet. The breeze grew stronger.
Sweeter… and then unexpectedly a dick punch… a pungent disgusting odor…

“Sweet
Buddha… what the hell is that smell?”

Hu Gong
took in a deep gulp, “Good old fish.” Unlike his Premier he savored it.

“Ughh.
Give me your whisky,” ordered the Premier.

Hu Gong passed
over his flask.

“Relax
Premier. It’s just dried fish… very delicious.”

“You eat
that shit? I thought we paid you well? Are we paying you enough?” smirked the
42 year old Premier.

“Don’t
tell me you have never tasted that…”

“Never.”

“You
Beijing pretty boys…” said Hu Gong, “… You are all soft. Just because people
want to build their phones and cars here doesn’t mean we have to give up on our
simple pleasures.”

“Enough. Don’t
patronize me. Get to the point. Where is this action you promised?”

Satisfied
with the Premier’s outburst, Gong continued, “Two months into Anna Petrova’s
presidency a British tabloid ran a story accusing her of being a crazy cat
lady. The photos they published showed Petrova seated next to a samovar and two
cats.”

“Two is
not too many…” countered the Premier.

“Well an
American tabloid ran a closer analysis and found hair on the carpet. Black
hair.”

“So?”

“The
pictured cats were both snow white.
There was a third cat.
”

“Okay
three cats. But that’s probably the line between genius and genocidal.”

“That’s
not all. The meek Russian tabloids finally got bold and found two more cats, bringing
the total to five.”

“Ok I’m
intrigued, but what the fuck does all that have to do with us… here in this
shithole?”

“Those
Presidential cats have vanished…”

“She is a
cat strangler now?” smiled the Premier, “It was probably the FSB. They must
have sold them off to some crazy cat lady in Idaho.”

“We are
not sure. But our intelligence did find something…”

The
Chinese Premier was horrified. “Cat graves…? No, no… are your men digging them
up right now? Please stop! Just leave them alone Hu.”

“No Sir.
We would never dig up a cat cemetery” Hu Gong winked as he pulled out a second
whisky flask.

“You carry
two flasks?”

“This is
my Sunday flask.”

“Sweet.
Continue.”

“Ok, when
these allegations about Petrova being a cat lady surfaced, someone in the
Kremlin or the FSB, decided to spin it, you know what I mean?”

“Yes I am
perfectly aware of ‘spinning’ news.”

“They spun
it from ‘Crazy Cat Lady’ to ‘Big Cat Lady’. You see?”

“No.”

“Well they
made a huge fuss and put out a news conference saying she believed in
preserving Russia’s great cats, particularly the almost extinct, Siberian Tiger.”

“Siberian
Tigers? Ah… like a gay beard… I see… nice,” the Premier seemed to get it.

“Yes so…
now she is no longer a crazy cat lady, but a preserver of Russia, a conserver
of wildlife. Plus now, everybody has forgotten her catty past. She also has
these cool pictures to prove it.”

“Interesting.
Maybe we should do something similar for me?”

“You?
Really?” Hu Gong looked the Premier from top to toe. There wasn’t much.

“Yeah, I’m
getting tired of the dragon and the panda. One is imaginary and other eats
shoots. Not manly enough. Not powerful enough. Find me something almost extinct
in China… it has to be manly though.”

“Well, why
don’t you ask your diaper wearing interns to do that?”

 “Yes,
good idea. I will tell my assistant… wow… I think this was a seminal move in
Russian policy... and when my interns find a worthy Chinese beast, it will be
ours too.”

“Semen?
Yeah we could steal some tiger semen… cross it with a Chinese Panda or lemur or
something… very direct… I already like it.”

“NO. STOP.
Just no. Where do you… how do you…”

“Okay. Ok.
Carry on… you were saying something about policy.”

Premier
Xiannian shook his head before continuing, “Yeah, by identifying herself with
the Siberian Tiger, Petrova is also changing the Russian image, the brand… from
the slow brooding bear to an agile cunning tiger. So the next time the
Wall Street
Journal
or
Calamity News
wants to ‘cry bear’ they gotta, cry tiger. You
see?”

Gong
couldn’t care less. This was political bs. He enjoyed the simpler stuff…
digging up dirt, creating plans, putting out hits in a brand new country… he still
had East Timor and Faroe Islands on his bucket list…, blackmailing politburo
members on behalf of other politburo members, that kind of stuff. Not sprucing up
images.

The
President finally stopped talking, “… Ok Hu, the more you reveal, the more I
like your plan… whatever it is. Please proceed.”

“Premier,
a couple of months ago, to prove her love for tigers, Anna actually released four
grown Siberian Tigers into their natural habitat... And that natural habitat
happens to lie in Far Eastern Russia… particularly the Primorsky Krai… which
is?”

 “Which is
what we are looking at right now… the Russia we are seeing is Primorsky Krai.”

Hu Gong
flashed his yellow teeth at his Premier Xiannian. Muhahaha.

The
premier trained his binoculars on the Russian side. “God HU, don’t tell me we
are going to grab the tigers.”

The international
border between Russia and China was less than 800 meters from the Fangchun
Tower.

“Sort off
yes.”

“God I
would love to have some Tiger Teriyaki right about now. I will send her a
picture of me savoring it. That will show her the difference between Chinese
and Japanese cooking… Making a deal with the Japanese? What the fuck was she
thinking?”

“Women
huh?”

“Even
then. What the fuck was she thinking?”

“Or like I
said before, she probably fell off her cycle.”

“Stop.
Please. Enough with your theories on cycles. Just when I think you aren’t a
complete…”

“… a
complete...? Go on.”

Premier Xiannian
sighed. “Nothing. Whats our next move?”

“Well, over
the last week my team has been spying this area. Of the four tigers released, a
female codenamed Zoya, has been spotted here. According to my men, she comes to
the
Trans-Siberian
rail line twenty to thirty minutes after the dried
fish passes by. Can you guess why?”

“Eat fish?”

“Good, you
aren’t a complete… ah never mind…”

“We are
even. Carry on.”

“As you
can imagine these old Russian bogies don’t seal well and the fish tend to fall
out. So our Zoya… or their Zoya, comes out when the coast is clear and goes for
the easy pickings.”

“But don’t
tigers eat gazelles and other living things. I thought they liked to hunt. Not decayed
fish.”

“I don’t
know about that. I think Zoya has a good taste, even great. Those dried fish
can be sublime.”

“Ah. Again
with the dried fish. Fine, I will try your fish when I get back to Beijing.”

“Muhahaha.
Muhahaha. Muhahaha,” the intelligence head guffawed with evil earnest.

After a
few more minutes, Hu Gong plodded again, “I was kidding. Tigers don’t like dead
fish. It’s just that these were urban Moscow tigers. All pampered and soft. They
never learnt to hunt.”

The
premier stared sullenly through the binoculars. The tiger talk was beginning to
bore him. Hu Gong was pulling storylines from
Madagascar
now. Didn’t
intelligence chiefs get liquidated all the time?

Suddenly
he saw movement across the railway line. A large Siberian tiger peeked out
furtively from under a bush.

“Hu… Look.
Is that Zoya?” exclaimed the Premier.

Even before
Hu could lift his binoculars, his ear piece began buzzing with chatter between
his field commander and the seven hidden snipers.

Zoya the
Siberian tiger cautiously approached the train tracks. Her tail twirled. Having
observed the border for decades, the Chinese were well aware of Russian
sentries and posts in the vicinity - There were none. Zero.

There was of
course the Khasan Railway Terminal about a mile north, the last point on the
Trans-Siberian
.
But Hu and his men weren’t worried. This was the boondocks of the Russian
Federation. For that matter, the tri-border area was also the boondocks of the
People’s
Republic of China
, the only country with an apostrophe in its name.

Zoya knelt
down and smelt the mackerel strewn alongside the tracks. Premier Xiannian was
quite sure the majestic beast wiggled her nose. She didn’t seem to like it. The
tiger then walked along the track and checked out a few more of the fallen mackerel,
before making up her mind.

After
making sure that no one was watching, Zoya gobbled a couple of fish. Midway
through her eighteenth chew, her jaws froze. She seemed to look straight up at
the Fangchun Observation Tower. Straight up into the Premier Xiannian’s eyes.

Zoya
the tiger stormed the international border.

“Oh shit
the tiger is coming towards us,” yelled the alarmed Chinese Premier.

“Quick.
Take it down. Don’t let it cross the border,” Hu Gong screamed into his
headpiece.

The
magnificent beast was already across the border.

“Sniper 6,
WTF?” Hu heard the commander scream in his ear piece.

“Locked
and loaded,” replied Sniper 6.

Caught off
guard, Sniper 6 finally took aim. Just as he fondled his trigger, the beast belly
flopped and stopped moving.

“Oh shit… is
it dead?” cried the Premier.

Hu relayed,
“What just happened? Is the tiger dead?”

“No sir.
No one took a shot. The tiger… it just collapsed…” the team leader took a closer
look at the tiger before announcing, “Also… it might have barfed…”

“Ah ha… That
smelly fish! She just couldn’t take it,” offered the Premier triumphantly.

“Sir what
do we do?” asked the Team Leader to Hu Gong.