Moscow Machination

“… Why?” gurgled Hu Gong.

Dong Ki Moon decided to grant the man’s last wish, “Didn’t you get the FSB memo?”

“Memo… which one?”

“The one titled ‘Our Tiger Has Two Chips’. Sweet Buddha! What kind of intelligence chief are you man?”

“What?”

“The tiger… Zoya, had two tracking chips on her.”

“… Two?” Hu was sun setting.

“According to our circular, you were also cc’d.”

“Why…?”

“Poachers. Standard stuff man.”

“Oh fuck Hu,” groaned the Premier from another end of the parking lot.

“Yeah, so the second one was attached to Zoya’s heart. Powered by electrical impulses from her heart. Haha. Ya pretty cool stuff. Our Great Benevolent Leader actually wants the same thing for him.”

“Oh…”

“Ya, so this chip is also connected to a missile system. If someone killed Zoya or her heart stopped unnaturally, a missile would liquidate everything in the kill coordinates.”

“Sir, I think a couple of rare Kobe steaks should get the tiger back on her feet,” interjected the vet.

“What the fuck you moron? Didn’t you get this circular?” cried the Premier.

“Worst part is, it’s a conventional missile only if her heart stops within Russian territory…”

Dong Ki continued, “… so if Zoya’s heart were to stop somewhere outside Russian territory, say for example, here at the Fangchun Tower in the Jinlin province of China, you get nuked… the Russians have kept that a secret.”

Gong’s last words were, “… circular… dated… April 1^st… thought F… S… B… joke… no… no…”

To ease the pain until his posse showed up, Dong Ki Moon ordered the simmering vet to administer some animal grade opiate to the Chinese Premier. The dreamy Premier Xiannian waved good bye, as the North Koreans along with the sleeping tiger vacated the scene.

Federal Space Agency, Moscow

Yuri called up the 1800-TIGER-RUSS painted on his desk and informed the situation to an SVR guy.

“… so what I am saying is that our tigress Zoya might be in grave danger… don’t you get it…?

The SVR guy while concerned, sounded nonchalant as he was put Yuri on hold, “Yuri, hang on a second. I’m getting another call…”

Sasha the SVR dude got a call from someone way up on the SVR org chart. Then Sasha got another call from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Sasha listened to both calls intently.

Five minutes later he called back Yuri and informed him that all was well and he should stop worrying about Zoya for the time being. Things had been taken care of.

“But…”

“Just keep an eye on Arkady’s bowel movements.”

Chapter 11

Kremlin, Moscow

“Madam President, I think this is a terrible idea. And I want this to go on the record… you know,” declared Mika the presidential guard. This was beyond madness.

The President was unmoved.

“At least we should check with my boss…”

“Mika, get a grip. I am like your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss. So shut the fuck up. Otto lead the way,” said Anna Petrova.

The President’s yellow phone rang. She hesitated… she was on the precipice of something here… darn it, it was Sergey Luzkhov the Foreign Minister.

She had to answer it. Probably important.

“Whats up Sergester?”

“Madam, apologize for the late call, but there was an incident in the Far East.”

“Make it fast…”

“Uh… the Chinese… they tried to go after one of your tigers… our tigers. We believe it’s a retaliation for those trains.”

“I thought we took pre-emptive measures.”

“Sure, we were thinking along the lines of Damansky Island or some silly trade embargo. Well they got creative. We can’t predict everything Ma’am.”

“Ok. Thanks for the update. I am kind of in the middle of something right now. Bye.”

“Oh. There is one other thing…” Luzkhov persisted.

“Hmm?”

“We didn’t save tiger Zoya, it was the North Koreans who saved her.”

“What? But why did they get involved? Are we even allied?”

“Err… well they didn’t want to get sucked into a nuclear blowup. Out there the DPRK also has an ICBM silo. It’s about 5 Km from ours. So if a nuke went off the Americans would jump on it and spin things to say that the North Koreans did it.”

“Even if it was a Russian nuke?” asked Petrova incredulously.

“Yep. They wouldn’t dare accuse us. Even if they did we would deny… with proof. And nobody wants another he-said-she-said quagmire at The Hague. No. That’s not their style. North Korea would be the easy bogeyman. A great chance to sell more shitbirds to Tokyo and Seoul…”

“… any casualties on our side?”

“None. Like I said we have zero assets out there… by design. But the Chinese intelligence chief was killed. Their Premier Xiannian probably won’t walk for a while.”

“What the fuck??? Why were the Premier and the Intelligence Chief out on the field?”

“Guess they took it personally.”

“Shit. That’s serious shit.”

“Yeah, nothing good comes out of stalking cats.”

After a few seconds the President asked, “So, will the Chinese go after Pyongyang now?”

“Nah. The young leadership was clashing with their old school intelligence Chief. It was just a matter of time…”

“If you say so… What about the tiger, is it safe?”