Moscow Machination

“Stalin had great foresight. No doubt. But this… this Project Katie would have been cool in the 80s and maybe even the 90s. Who knows, it could have even helped Gorbachev. But… but not today. I mean we could shoot off a handful of fake liveried missiles before anyone suspects anything. But its… just not…”

“What?”

“Elegant… or effective.

“So?”

“Plus I am not super comfortable with wiping out cities — ours or anybody else’s. The entire point of a WMD is to use it as a threat. A hedge. A defensive mechanism. Not offense. The second we or someone uses it… it’s not cool anymore…”

“Alright. You are hired.”

“I am sorry?”

“Yes. This is exactly why I want you to oversee Project Katie. Or pretend to.”

Primakov wondered if the secretary had spiked his Americano. “Ok Madam, my head is spinning. Why exactly are we threatening Washington with a fake WMD?”

“Welcome to my web, Primakov… or rather, help me build my web.”

Primakov looked around cautiously. Perhaps the rumors about the President being a crazy cat lady were true. Was Sergey Luzkhov her first victim?

“Primakov relax. There is a second secret project. Project Catie… Catie with a C… like… Catherine the Great.”

“What? A Katie and a Catie?”

“Yeah, the airline thing is going to be the decoy.”

“A decoy WMD…? Sweet baby Jesus.”

“The real Project Catie, the one with the C, is the most innovative weapon in the world. And it’s ready to deploy in three months. Unlike a typical WMD it’s not going to harm anyone.”

Primakov while outwardly spellbound was extremely skeptical of this Katie vs Catie bs. He continued to chug his Americano and pretend to take notes.

As if on cue the President requested her guard Mika to come in.

“Primakov, you are going to meet a couple of sweet gentlemen named Otto and Mueller. They will give you a tour of Katie and Catie. Both — real and fake. From here on out, you are to work closely with them. Ok?”

Primakov nodded.

* * *

Six hours later, Primakov was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“So?”

“Madam, this is beyond beautiful. This is the real shit. This is it… This is the thing that’s gonna return Russia to its glory.”

“There you are, I knew we were kindred spirits.”

“Absolutely Ma’am. Plus it’s so clean… so elegant… no silly EMPs… no dirty nukes and none of that bio bs. It’s almost… poetic.”

“Great. I am off to a BRICS meeting. I plan on doubling the gas prices to China… heck I might even triple it.”

Primakov saluted his President, “This has been a honor Madam.”

Chapter 17

Johannesburg, South Africa

Like high schools, international politics was split between the cool nations and the freaks. The cool kids got together and formed cliques like the G7, NATO, World Bank and the IMF, where dudes did ludes, dudes and strippers.

This pissed of a great number of cool nations like Cuba (before Castro sampled bat shit), Argentina (before groping the Falklands), Ireland (despite Guinness), Morocco (despite Burroughs-Tangiers), Congo (during the rumble in the jungle) and Israel by the sheer magic of its existence.

Over time through realignments, non-alignments, dissolutions, wars and reincarnations a new middle class of nearly cool but not cool enough nations had developed. These new age nations fell somewhere between Anarcho-Social Sweden and the Anarcho-Libertarian Somalia. After getting rejected yet again by the cool kids and failing to find common cause with the freaks, these nations began forming new groups like the SCO, OPEC, GCC, TPP, SEATO, FIFA, NFL, CIS, SAARC, AU, DEA, MERCOSUR, ADB, ASEAN, OSCE, APEC, TED and NAMBLA.

Still unsatisfied a few nations got together and formed yet another group — A new group to rule them all, a new group to bind them and pound from behind. The group involved Brazil, Russia, India and China and hence was called BRIC.

But at the last moment, South Africa was tacked on to make the acronym kinda pronounceable for disatxploitation journalist Amanpour, who made Michael Bay seem like Woody Allen.

Some of Amanpour’s news hit titles included — Blowing up Belgrade, its sequel Honey, Who Blew up Belgrade, Sigh! Am I in Sarajevo? its sequel Sarajevo Sucks — Even on Speed, Bender in Baghdad, Return 2 Baghdad, Debacle in Damascus, Debacle in Damascus 2: State of the Union, Oops I did it in Beirut, the Award winning West Bang Story, Cuddling with Castro, Mogadishu Diaries, B&B Rwanda, Tel Aviv: The Teargas Diaries, Tickling Tehran, Tickling Tehran II, Tickling Tehran III, Aloha Abbottabad, the unauthorized biography — Tripoli Tart and the latest hit Getting Down in Greece.

Before ‘roping’ in South Africa, the BRIC had gone after Kiribati. But Kiribati’s kumbaya had been shattered by an MI6 plot whereby a bunch of brits were caught trying something called the ‘synchronous-lay-a-brick’.