Moscow Machination (25 page)

Krasnoyarsk, Siberia

“300 for
Aral Sea?” asked Pulikesi.

Primakov
pulled up his briefing on the Aral Sea. It was a drying sea. Hardly any depth.
“Nah, make it 100.”

“100 to
Aral Sea. Great.”

Ilya
outlined the next batch of incoming ICBMs, “100 German. 30 Dutch. 15 Polish and
350 Israeli.”

“Put them
into the Lena.”

“Putting
them into the Lena river…” replied Ilya.

“Next up, 500
Frenchies. Say Volga?”

Primakov
disagreed. The Volga was a cherished river. Only a cherished enemy would
suffice. “Only Americans in the Volga. Send the Frenchies to Amur.”

“Amur –
Frenchies. Got it.”

“Yo Primakov,
your plan is real cute, but there is one little problem…” began Pulikesi.

“What the
hell is that?”

“Well,
it’s cool that we caught the missiles aimed at Russia. But to have supremacy… you
need all the nukes… even the ones with your allies, like say Ukraine… haha… too
soon?”

Rocket man
Antipin and the President stared at Primakov. He simply returned the stare.
Antipin became annoyed after the 5 sec, benefit of doubt wait period and
slammed the carbon dated table, “Forget Ukraine. What about China? Fuck, they
have like what… 700?”

“Well they
are sorta our allies…” shrugged Primakov, “we never thought about our friends.”

“Fuck your
enemies hard… fuck your friends harder… isn’t that like your KGB motto?”

Primakov
stoutly defended his former employer, “You know, technically I might not even
be KGB… I graduated in the transition years between the KGB and the FSB, and all
we did was talk about chicks…”

Korlov
looked on sheepishly as an overhead counter notified everyone that 400 British nukes
had been assigned to the Ob River.

Antipin
was now concerned about other potential ICBM challengers. “There is also India
with 100, Pakistan probably same, North Korea 2000…”

The
President interjected at the citing of Upper Korea. “I wouldn’t worry about
North Korea. We can trust our boy...”

“Madam
with all due respect…”

“Leave it
Luzkhov. No more crazy talk about the Great Leader. In fact, I think the he is
set to become our staunchest ally.”

“Pyongyang
silos totally silent. No missile launches,” confirmed Korlov.

Antipin was
unmoved, “But that still leaves us with China and the sub-continent.”

President
Petrova put her foot down, “Well, we will deal with the Chinese and Indians diplomatically…
numerically they are chickenfeed.”

The situation
room was getting balmy. Whoa, it was already happening.

Antipin
had one more question. Stealing the bulk of the western armament had been easy
enough, but now came the hard part. “Mueller, it’s great that the Americans and
the rest of the world have been rendered toothless, but… but… how long can we
hold this advantage? I mean they still have their factories, their uranium
mines, their enriching facilities, their titanium capabilities… NASA… like
whats the long-term endgame here?”

Luzkhov
added, “Plus the Americans could easily build their own
Project Catie
…
which could counteract and re-rotate the earth back to the old alignment… or
worse put us at the South Pole.

Mueller
and Otto scratched their beardless chins in mock amusement.

“Well?”

Otto
finally put up his hand and said, “Well, how long did it take for the android
to catch up to the great phone?”

“Years… but
still, not close enough,” said Mueller.
The bloody Germans were doing a canned
routine.

“And how
long did it take to get ‘close’?” asked Otto.

“Say 6-7
years.”

“Which in
the world of advanced weaponry translates to…”

“6 to 7
decades… 70 years…”

The
President seemed to buy it. Primakov wanted to take a dump. All the missile
herding had been tiring. Korlov wanted some coffee but was afraid to jinx
things.

Yuspov the
Attorney General, wanted to have his name mentioned somewhere. So he said what
he could, “Back in the day, we had our first nuke just 6 months after the
Americans.”

“True but
you gotta remember, back in the day, the Mac was thoroughly defeated by
Windows.”

“What the
hell does that even mean?”

“It means
we learn from our mistakes. Despite ganging up, the great phone has maintained
the edge – technically and economically. Trust me, no one is going to make another
Project Catie
for a long time. Plus this isn’t like the nuke which was
built in 2 years with 0.05% of GDP. This… this
Project Catie
was built
over 70 years with like 50% of Russo-Soviet GDP.”

The
situation room nodded doubtfully.

Dalian, China

“Comrade Secretary,
the US 7
^th
fleet just fired over a 100 missiles – ICBMs. They are
all headed north.”

“Well…
fire our missiles at Taiwan, Japan, Seoul and Vancouver.”

“Did you
say Vancouver…?”

“Yeah, the
fucking Canadians rejected my uncle’s investor visa... he paid a million freaking
dollars. Can you believe this bull shit?”

“Oh…”

“Yeah,
let’s burn them.”

Delhi, India

“It seems
like there is a war, Mr. Defense Minister. Everybody is firing on everybody.”

“Has
Pakistan fired?”

“Well Sir,
our intel suggests that they have only one missile in flying condition. They
are also short on missile fuel. So at the current state it can only make it as
far as Lahore.”

The Indian
Defense Minister howled with laughter, “It can’t even cross the border.
Hahaha…. Classic Pakistan.”

“Sir… Sir…
this is kinda serious.”

“Haha… well…
to tell you the truth, we also have only one.”

“Whaaat…?
But… but… Jane’s Period says we have a 100.”

“Well,
Jane and her gal pals also said that Pakistan has 110. All bull shit. Straight
from the bull’s anus.”

“Oh… ok so
should we send it… our one missile?”

“Young
man, you see… once you send a missile… it’s never coming back… that’s it… gone…
forever…”

“I don’t
know Mr. Minister, but the entire world is sending theirs somewhere. If we
don’t, we will look weak.”

The
Defense Minister was growing tired of this chit chat about missiles. The Indian
cricket team was out touring Jamaica, where there was a 12hr time difference.
He needed to be fresh for the late night viewing.

“Ok enough
of this crap… we are not wasting our missile on some enemy that’s not Pakistan…
now get lost… wait get me some tea first…”

Kremlin, Moscow

“Hahaha…
China just emptied their arsenal. Taiwan, South Korea and inexplicably 10 to
Vancouver,” roared Korlov. Primakov was relived.

“The
Albatross already has them. We are golden…” said Pulikesi.

“So where
do you want to allocate them. We are pretty full everywhere,” informed Ilya,
“unless you want them in the Volga.”

Primakov turned
to the President and said, “Madam I think these Ukrainians and their janitor friend
should all get a medal or something… for services to Russia.”

Pulikesi had
other plans, “Nope. No shitty medals. I want a dacha… outskirts of Moscow…”

“Me, I am
fine with St. Petersburg” said Ilya.

“No one is
getting a dacha…”

“Bet you
gave Snowden a badass dacha… with a covered pool and SUVs… and… ” prodded
Pulikesi.

“Snowden
lives in a dilapidated khrushchyovka in Ulyanovsk. He drives an 80s Lada… and
his day job is at a sausage factory.”

The
President raised her hand for order, “Sure, whatever. When this is over, we will
see.” She had real Presidential stuff to do. She had a speech to write… one
declaring world domination by Russia.

“Well thanks
Madam President. But we still need a place to put the incoming Chinese,” said
Ilya.

“Not
Volga. Remember Volga only for Americans. So… let’s see… ok send them to Lake
Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan,” said Primakov.

“Is it
deep?”

“It’s very
deep.”

Pulikesi, had
a follow up question.

“So dude,
is it safe to like dump so many nukes into your fresh water reserves…?”

Primakov
smiled and said, “My simple friend, you can nuke a nuke… and nothing will
happen to it. They are made of titanium. Solid.”

Antipin
agreed, “They say diamonds are forever… I say nukes are forever.”

Someone
added, “Also tight buttholes…”

“Uh oh…”
said Pulikesi.

“Whats
wrong?” asked Primakov who was about to sip his Tall Americano.

“Irish
missiles… 3 Minutemans… Coming in fast to Moscow…”

“Reroute
it… let the Albatross handle it.”

“Well we
did some trial runs at Vnukovo Airport and they have a beta version of
Albatross. For some reason that beta version is overriding our version of
Albatross.”

“Oh dear… a
beta version… were there any bugs?” asked Yuspov the Attorney General. The
recent update on his candy crushing game had serious performance issues.

“No bugs… but
it had this one extra feature…”

Vnukovo Airport, Moscow

“This is
Vnukovo ATC… I repeat reduce speed to 100 Knots…” The ATC crew at Vnukovo
couldn’t understand. First the Russian government had shut down their airport
and now they were sending in fighter jets. But for some reason the jets just
couldn’t be identified. They were as big as a wide body, yet moved like a Mig.

“This is
Vnukovo ATC… pilots identify yourself…”

The 3
Irish missiles had joined the war at the last moment. Some quality control creep
had insisted on repainting the tail as it ‘wasn’t the right kind of green’.

Kremlin, Moscow

“Oh man
this is going to get ugly,” said Ilya, “You guys should take the President to
some bunker.”

“How far
is Vnukovo from the Kremlin?” asked Pulikesi.

“Not too
far,” said Primakov. “Madam perhaps we should…”

“So what
was the extra feature?”

Vnukovo Airport, Moscow

Following
orders from the Vnukovo version of the Albatross, the three Irish missiles
headed to Vnukovo in the south western extremities of Moscow.

The first Minuteman
with its green fins gradually descended, 40ft… 30ft… 20ft.

At 10ft
above the ground, the missile lowered its rear and performed the first ever
ICBM ‘touch down-landing’ in history. It was a hell of a leap.

20 seconds
later the missile parked itself at Vnukovo’s Gate 13. The second and third
missiles went to the unoccupied gates – 18 and 29.

Other than
the slightly charred tarmac, Vnukovo seemed operational.

Krasnoyarsk, Modern day Siberia

It was a
warm humid January day in Siberia. President Anna Petrova and Primakov were up
in a Mi-8 chopper exploring the new flora and fauna of Siberia.

“Bears. To
the right Madam, on the banks of the Yenisei.”

A bunch of
polar bears and grizzlies were out sunbathing and sharing a dolphin.

“Perhaps
it’s their Thanksgiving.”

This was
the new Siberia. A Mediterranean paradise where everyone had fun. A place where
new alliances were made every day. Plus every day was balmy. Moscow was Madrid,
St. Pete was Barca and New York… lolz was the Novo Novosibirsk.

As the
chopper rose again, something on the horizon caught the President eye. A large circle
of SUVs and a bunch of people were cheering something. In the middle of the
circle, something large and violet was twisting and turning. The President wanted
to get a better look.

“Do you
see that?” she asked Primakov, who immediately extracted his binoculars and
checked it out. The large spindly violet octopus-like creature was fighting something.
Its opponent was equally weird, almost like a ball of barbed wire.

“Oh yeah, it’s
the Ebola vs Anthrax fight,” exclaimed Primakov. “Those are super fun.”

“Ebola as
in the virus?”

“Yes
Madam. When we, you know… tilted the earth a lot of things changed. Like all
bears are now friends. There is no discrimination among pandas and grizzlies
and polars. As we saw earlier…”

The
stunned President couldn’t take her eyes off the mangled … viruses … virii… things.
“But how did this happen… aren’t they dangerous?”

“Super-fast
Evolution.”

The Mi-8
flew closer to the action.

“So all
these people… what are they doing?”

“Betting.”