Moscow Machination Read online

  Earlier, being a meticulous consultant he had stood by and defended his views on the Waterfall Methodology. The Russian goons at the German’s orders had tied him to a raft and thrown him into the nearby Yenisei River. As he had drifted away, Primakov the prick had yelled out aloud, “There are no waterfalls in Russia.”

  But sadly, the Yenisei had turned out to be nothing like the Congo or Amazon. No crocs, no serpents, no piranhas… no nothing. What an anticlimax? Wide as a 10 lane highway with barges full of people, fish and nickel – 24x7x365, the Yenisei was more like the Interstate – 5 of Siberia.

  Initially, unsure about the Russian motives he had been fearful of starvation and dehydration. But within two hours, he realized that this was all part of yet another elaborate prank. Each time his raft passed a fishing hamlet, a bunch of Russian dudes boarded the raft and squeezed a few lemons. It was probably the best lemonade he had tasted. Every third stop the dudes were replaced by belles. Their lemonades were certainly sweeter. On his 8th hour, with darkness settling in, a Russian dude had loaded him up with vodka and some excellent beef stroganoff.

  Thus 16 hours on the Yenisei, Pulikesi was once again enjoying this new yet very creative punishment. It might not have been as fun as blitzing through the Fergana Valley, but whatever…

  At daybreak, just north of the Podtesovo village, he had a surprise visitor. This dude unlike the previous dudes brought beer and fish.

  “Hey man whats up?” said the lanky bespectacled stranger.

  “Edward Snowden?” exclaimed Pulikesi.

  “In the flesh,” said Snowden.

  “This… this is where you live?”

  Snowden shrugged, “I am here to make sure you are in good spirits. Beer?”

  “Only hell yeah.”

  Edward Snowden cracked a couple of Bud Lites and handed one to Pulikesi.

  “Fish?” offered Snowden, “you know, the Riverboat Roadhouse in Podtesovo has the best carp on the Yenisei.”

  “No shit dude, this is delicious. And the beer, the Bud Lite… it’s like America all over your mouth…”

  Edward Snowden offered his trademark, sad-yet-cocky-yet-bashful-yet-better-than-you smile.

  “I guess.”

  “Well so what do you do these days man? Heard you were working at ynadex.com or was it VK.com …”

  “Two chicks at the same time man…”

  “Two… two chicks… Respect man. RESPECT.” Pulikesi high-fived the free man.

  “Thanks Pulikesi. Just follow the right thing and the truth, the belief will follow easily…”

  “What?”

  “Oh… I’m sorry. People keep expecting me to say deep shit all the time. I throw up pseudo babble to appease. Sorry... sorry.”

  “Oh don’t worry man. Being a consultant I spew shit all day. By four in the afternoon I feel like puking too… Happens to the best of us.”

  “You do?” asked Snowden a skeptically.

  “Oh yeah. But working for the Russians has been a… a… departure. They kinda keep it real. You know what I mean?”

  “I do.”

  “Right obviously, you know the Russians better than anybody… uh oh… I didn’t mean it like that… I am not insinuating or anything… the thing you did was pretty ballsy… sorry…”

  Snowden cracked another of his trademark smiles, “Chill man. Chill.”

  Pulikesi looked around for another beer.

  “Mr. Snowden…”

  “You can call me Snow.”

  “Snow? That’s so cool… just like real snow… as in cool as snow…”

  Damn. A celebrity meeting. And unlike McConaughey at Venice Beach, Snowden hadn’t flipped him off. In fact he was now on a freaking nickname basis. Whatever messed up little game the Russians were playing, it was working and it was fun. Pulikesi surrendered to the Yenisei.

  “Snow… Snow, looks like we are out of beer…”

  Snowden looked up into the grey Siberian sky and waved his empty Bud Lite bottle.

  Within seconds, a super quiet Mi-8 attack chopper dropped off a chilled six pack.

  “That is sick…Ebola sick…”

  Snowden cocked his head, again with his trademark expression.

  “Too soon?”

  The Mi-8’s pilot opened a secure communication channel to Krasnoyarsk base.

  “Go for Primakov.”

  “Our asset’s shirt collar was turned up.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” asked Primakov.

  “Means our asset has turned your asset.”

  Primakov tried again, “Did my asset personally turn up your asset’s collar? Wait, who is my asset and who is your asset?”

  The elite chopper pilot swore, “I fucking hate amateurs… Your guy, the Indian guy you put on the boat, is ready to work for you.”

  “Ahh. Finally. So when can I have him back?”

  “The next extraction point is 2 hours away. A chopper ride from there to Dudinka is 3 hours. A jet back to Krasnoyarsk another 4 hours. Give or take, ten hours.”

  “Fine, bring him in.”

  Chapter 36

  Washington DC

  Jim Borland knew he had fucked up big. The list of people wanting his ass was so eclectic that it would have made guys like Imad Mugs blush. For starters there was the CIA his future-former employer, the State Department whose trust he had used to fund the Havana op. Then of course there was that large sandwich chain and finally some producer from NCIS: Havana.

  With so many people after his wrinkly ass, he decided to do the honorable thing and abscond. Abscond to someplace where extradition treaties were frowned upon. But pop history suggested that every decade could have only one traitor. There was Ames for the 90s, Hanssen for the 00s and now Snowden for the 10s. That albino at the Peruvian embassy didn’t help either. Even without shopping around, he knew that the market for a new traitor was nonexistent.

  Nevertheless, Jim got to work and created a shortlist of places by meticulously balancing the pros and cons with tequila and Adderall.

  Andalusia had been the spot during the era of cool heists and train robberies. Perhaps, if Dillinger had been euro trash, he would have picked a stylish Mediterranean villa instead of that termite lodge in Wisconsin. Despite its history, the emergence of nefarious outfits like Ryanair and Interpol had tarnished Andalusia’s status as a favored destination. These days it ranked lower than Key West. Yikes.

  Just south of Andalusia lay Western Sahara. Western Sahara with its exquisite Atlantic coast was a first-rate hideout… if one had an entourage of Uzi toting guards, a phalanx of bitches and a gold cache. Jim Borland crossed it off his list.

  Venezuela? Dick countries couldn’t be trusted. Period. Especially not after Libya and Cuba.

  Svalbard – North of Norway. Former Soviet coal town. Russians abandoned because it was too cold. Has cool new TV show … police procedural… raincheck? Wait… Too cold for Russians?

  Liberland – A slick Swede, not the sex act, had walked into a forgotten crack of former Yugoslavia and claimed his own nation. It had everything from flags to passports and stamps… everything that could be made with Photoshop. Population 30. Crazy Ayn Rand types?

  After thinking long and hard, Jim Borland disappeared.

  Krasnoyarsk, Siberia

  “Well hows it coming along?” asked Primakov walking into the work floor.

  “Hey, hey man… we are trying to work here,” faked Pulikesi.

  “Well?”

  “Well, it’s pretty much ready. There are a few bugs. But tomorrow morning you can take it out for a test.”

  “You sure buddy? Because if you and your Ukrainian friends fuck up, it will be the end.”

  “Oh yeah? What you gonna do?” taunted Pulikesi. He was friends with fucking Snowden.

  “Well, we have a bunch of expired ICBMs rusting away on the base. I could stick one up your asses and aim at Mars…”

  “Please don’t…” pleaded Ilya, who knew the Russian ways a little better.
r />   “Oooh why Mars?” exclaimed Pulikesi. Fergana Valley, Siberia, Snowden and now Mars. The intricacies of Russian pranks...

  “Coz Mars needs Morons.”

  Ilya couldn’t take it anymore, “Oh please. Please stop, Comrade Primakov. There is no need for Mars. The software is ready… trust me.”

  Pulikesi wouldn’t let go, “Hey man, can you tweak your missiles to hit Saturn instead. Damon’s been to Mars… Mila Kunis has done Jupiter… Clooney….”

  Chapter 37

  Undisclosed Location

  Jim Borland sat on his filthy couch flipping channels. After researching thoroughly, he had found the one place on earth which scared the pants off Uncle Sammy. The place was a certified hellhole. It held a -12% freshness at RottenHellholes.gov. Even dumpster diving celebrity chef, Gary Pono had circumvented the hellhole despite accusations of being elitist.

  Amnesty International had lasted three years before packing up. Médecins Sans Frontières had lasted two. Even the Mormons had been like, “Yo Church, can I repeat Haiti?”

  Jim’s research suggested that the key to survival in this anal hole was to out weird the weirdos. Hence he got super weird. Or at least tried to. The first week he had been a hippie. Someone had shot him. Then he had tried a yuppie. Police thugs had accused him of being a tranny. Only a treaty involving Ben Franklin had saved the night. Eventually he had settled onto a look, inspired by Walter form the Big Lebowski. Somehow, holding a tire iron and a bag of dirty undies at the same time was just too darn weird for these wannabes.

  “Madam Undersecretary, this is Snoop Team Six. We have located our target.”

  “Great. Whats he doing?” asked Undersecretary Sarah McAllister.

  “He is in the house. Alone. Curtains drawn. Watching TV. Football.”

  “Snoop Team, can you turn on that camera on your helmet? I want to see how this plays out…,” said the Undersecretary. She gestured an intern to take a selfie of her watching the big screen.

  Snoop team leader responded, “Madam Undersecretary, our cameras are on. It’s just so darn dark out here. Brown outs.”

  “Well don’t you have that green light thing?”

  “You mean IR?”

  “Yep.”

  “Night vision is only for the elite Seal Teams Madam. Sorry about that.”

  “Fine, I guess we will just listen in.” Despite her arguments about national security, her boss, the Secretary of State had vetoed against the use of better teams. She had mumbled, “Low priority”.

  “Roger that Madam Undersecretary.”

  Snoop Team Six surrounded the single storey house. Two guys went to the back while a couple took the sides. The rest took a battering ram to the front door.

  Suddenly the feed from the Snoop Team’s helmet brightened. They were inside the house.

  The team surrounded a guy sitting on a couch. His back was turned towards them.

  He was holding a beverage in his left hand and doing the most natural thing with the other.

  “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

  “Hands up in the air!”

  The guy slowly raised his beverage.

  “Both hands Mr. Borland.”

  “Man, come on man… at least let me finish.”

  The Snoop Team’s leader hesitated. The Undersecretary spoke quietly, “Let him finish...”

  In the background some commentator was praising the tenacity of the football team.

  “John, the Detroit Lions are back… a team that went 0 and 16 just a few years ago… absolutely, tonight the entire country hears the Lions roar… Damn straight Matt, it’s time to restore this once proud city…”

  Jim Borland finished.

  “Sir, turn around slowly. Slowly.”

  The dude turned around.

  Sarah shrieked as Doug Sanders dived under the desk.

  Jim Borland had a clown face painted on.

  “So, what took you so long?” asked the clown.

  After securing the house south of the 8 Mile Road, Snoop Team Six bundled the clown into their armored carrier and sped away to the safe harbors of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

  Ann Arbor, Michigan

  They sat the clown, still handcuffed, across Sarah and Doug.

  The Snoop Team Six saluted the Undersecretary, “Here you go Madam.”

  “Thanks a ton guys. I will see what I can do about those night vision goggles. Thanks.”

  “What took you so long?” repeated the clown.

  “Jim, enough. This isn’t the appropriate time…” protested Sarah, “…plus Russia is about to boil over…”

  “Or freeze over… it’s getting cold out there you know…” supplied Doug.

  “Thanks Doug,” said Sarah sardonically.

  Doug Sanders thought he heard something odd. “Wait… did you just say ‘appropriate time’?”

  Jim Borland, still bearing the clown paint, giggled uncontrollably.

  “It’s… it’s… this thing… it’s called Clowning the CIA…” offered Sarah apologetically.

  Doug didn’t catch it, “You sure he isn’t a Juggalo.”

  “Despite what Hollywood says, the straight male hooker industry is tiny… Plus I don’t think Jim has the tenacity to make it out there.”

  “Juggalo, not gigolo… Juggalo, the fans of the awesome rock band, Insane Clown Posse - ICP.”

  “Oh…” Sarah was stumped for a second. She turned to Jim and asked if he was a part of this ICP’s posse. Jim shook his head violently. He seemed insulted. What a sad clown.

  “There are no ICP’s posse… Juggalos are fans of the ICP… they paint and party…”

  “Oh, a modern day Kiss…?” Sarah wriggled her nose in distaste.

  “NO…” began Doug, before letting it go. “So what’s this, Clowning the Employer bullshit?”

  “Right, yes, it’s a privilege the CIA offers its tenured employees… the tenured employee… after a screw up, can completely disappear... no consequences… it’s like a lifelong paid holiday…”

  “What…?”

  “Working for the CIA can be taxing.”

  “So the CIA doesn’t try to find you?”

  “They may or may not… but if caught the tenured employee get his/her old job back. No consequences.”

  Doug pondered, “So this Jim is our Jim… again?”

  “Yes moron,” said the sad clown.

  “You can hide anywhere?” persisted Doug in disbelief.

  “You need to be tenured.”

  Once the ruckus related to Clowning the CIA had been settled, Jim repeated his question, “What took you so long?”

  “Oh… you know the world’s a large place…and believe it or not Liberland is actually quite big…” began Sarah.

  “What… I thought we just didn’t care,” said Doug in disbelief.

  Sarah gave him the, ‘Doood you were supposed to make him feel like he was wanted…’ look.

  Reading the exchange, Jim smiled, “Hahaha… classic… I still love you guys…”

  “So we good?” asked Sarah doubtfully. The Clowning the CIA program had a 90% success rate. In the other 10%, clowns became trolls. The whole Abbottabad thing had been a text book case of clowns gone trolling. If only that asshole had turned around… everyone would have seen his painted clown face.

  During secret congressional hearings, the CIA had vehemently defended its Clowning program by suggesting that the program had produced more good than bad for the country.

  “Absolutely, totally good. And don’t worry, I will do my psych eval tomorrow.”

  “Well okay Jim… welcome back…”

  “Hit me with Russia...”

  “The Russians just ordered a million barrels of Beat-It from a South African company.”

  “Beat-It, the second best mosquito repellant?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, EU trade embargoes ban the sale of the German Himm’s…”

  “That’s not the point… Russia has never had a mosquito problem. Th
is ain’t Wisconsin…”

  Jim snapped his fingers, “Siberian mosquitoes. Global warming. Hotter climate. Every day more and more mosquitos are migrating to Moscow. Bet they latch onto the Trans-Siberian trains… I know I would.”

  Perhaps they should have waited till the psych eval.

  “Ok, what about the Russo-African summit in Kaliningrad?”

  “Konigsberg, the Russian exclave? Pretty obvious isn’t it. It’s like what, 10 miles from Berlin? Rankles the EU. Plays the whole bear at your doorstep card…”

  “Ok… what about the Tu-420s? They have scheduled a test flight in two weeks... that secret ICBM plane…”

  “You sure?”

  “Yep… my esteemed NATO counterpart from Lithuania…” began Doug.

  “Flight path?”

  “Nothing specific. It says it will fly from Komsomolsk to Moscow.”

  “Don’t worry about it. If it’s supersonic it won’t get beyond Moscow. If it does, our ICBMs go off.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. We have silos in Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn on top of the traditional ones in Berlin, Gibraltar and Malta… and that’s just our first line.”

  “We have ICBMs in the Baltics?”

  “Oh yeah. Funny thing is the missiles, silos, etc. are all Soviet. We just sent in a few mainframe programmers and tweaked their destination coordinates.”

  “And the Russians know all this?”

  “Oooh yeah… the programmers were Russian… lolz.”

  Chapter 38

  Kremlin, Moscow

  Primakov was in a grand looking room from the Tsarist era. He was seated at the head of an ornate 30ft table that carbon dated back to the good years of Catherine the Great. Historic events like coups, assassinations, wars, revolutions and invasions usually started here. The last major decision in the room had been the approval of Moscow’s first ever McDonald’s in 1989. Since then, Yeltsin and his dapper successors had abandoned the great tradition in favor of a conference room at the Moscow Hilton. ‘The commute is easier da?’