Moscow Machination

The Troll thought for a while before answering. “I got a black tomcat… found him at a junkyard up in Hunchun.”

“Excellent. Take him out to that black jeep, my team leader will take him. Fast.”

“Yes Sir.”

* * *

Sniper 3 was having a hard time resuscitating Zoya despite his elite skills. Water, kicking, tail pulling, dragging, rib tickling, cooing in its ear, nothing worked. Despite clear orders to go mouth-to-mouth, he had refrained. But then nobody held it against him.

In the end, Sniper 3 was able to make out a heartbeat.

“So Sniper 3 whats the status?” checked in Hu Gong.

“Still alive, but barely breathing.”

“Well, you better pray to a god that you don’t believe in,” replied Hu, as he finalized his super sophisticated plan with the Team Leader.

* * *

As Hu and Premier Xiannian watched, the Tower Troll carried the struggling tomcat to the Team Leader’s black jeep. Soon they heard the Team Leader cursing out his mother in law. That there was one feisty little cat.

“Sir, I request we take the Tower Troll with us. The cat’s a demon.”

“Ya, whatever. Hurry the fuck up. Remember to take some lubricant. Oil, Vaseline anything… water might not do it.”

“Yes Sir.”

* * *

The seven snipers, the team leader and the Troll stood nervously around the dormant tiger. The Team Leader knelt and checked Zoya’s tracking collar. It was loose. The tiger was emaciated due to starvation. Thus the Chinese snipers were able to remove the collar, without any oils or lubes.

Next, the Troll held the tomcat down as Sniper 1 reduced the size of the tiger’s collar. He reduced it to fit the tom cat’s torso. The damage and resistance caused by the kitty in comparison to the tiger was poetic.

After securing the collar onto the tomcat, the Troll and Sniper 1 hurried to the border and hurled the cat, over the Trans-Siberian railway tracks… into Russia.

The cat, obviously landed on its feet and snarled back at the Chinese men. It had had enough with the People and the Republic and their persecution of its kin. Catty rumors swirled that the tomcat’s cousins had gone down as brunch at a Beijing bistro.

The cat said, “Adios mofos” as in “Meooow meow”, flipped off the men with its paw and walked away into Russia. It hoped to find a grandmotherly babushka and live happily ever after.

Federal Space Agency, Moscow

It was midnight in Moscow. It was always midnight in Moscow when things went sour. The Tiger Division was being monitored by a Yuri. They were currently monitoring four tigers — the females Zhenya, Zoya and the males Alexi and Arkady. Alexi, Zhenya and Arkady had been set free on the Amur, while Zoya had been sent to Primorsky Krai in the Far East.

Initially Alexi, Arkady and Zhenya had spent a lot of time together, exploring the taiga and having threesomes. But after the initial fun, they gone their separate ways… in search of meaning of life, as tigers obviously preferred solitude and deep thinking, unlike the partying idiot lions. The trio were now more than 100 miles apart, surviving and growing, as evidenced from their tracking data and the occasional sighting.

But Zoya, poor Zoya, the shyest of the ambush had lost the Russian roulette and had ended up in the cut off Primorsky Krai. With nothing to game, she had been surviving on rotten fish, dogs and other less tigery options.

Yuri noticed the alert. He analyzed the tracking data and found that after briefly venturing into China, Zoya had returned fifteen minutes later. She hadn’t gone too far. And she seemed fine now.

Yuri suddenly remembered something. There was another way to verify Zoya’s whereabouts. They had placed a second tracker on the tigers. This one though wasn’t in the collar.

Yuri ran the trace again, this time on the second tracker and to his horror, discovered that Zoya’s was still inside China. In fact, it lay motionless at the bottom of the Fangchun Observational Tower.

Yuri picked up his red phone and dialed 1800-TIGER-RUSS.

Fangchun Observational Tower, Tri-border region, China

The Chinese snipers under Hu Gong’s directives had driven the 4x4 jeep into the terrain and picked up the snoozing tiger. After injecting Zoya with some military grade opium from their sniping kits, they had hauled the sleeping tiger onto the jeep and driven back to the Fangchun Observational Tower.

Instead of dealing with the tiger in public, the Tower Troll had taken them to the parking garage under the Tower.

“Sir, whats our next move?” The Team Leader addressed Hu Gong impatiently.

“Yes, Hu, whats next?” pressed the Premier.

Hu Gong looked around. He was THE MAN right now. His men, his premier, the Troll were all helpless without his firm guiding hand.

“The way I see it, we have two options… one, we complete our mission. As in we kill the tiger, take a few selfies, maybe even teriyaki it and then FedEx it all to Moscow. That should send a message to that woman.”

Hu paused for effect before continuing his convoluted theory.