Moscow Machination

Three hours later he arrived at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on an unescorted Sukhoi-30. The Moscow air traffic controllers had thought it was some German CEO burning rubber up until the last moment when they heard the Sukhoi’s sweet thunder. By the time the air traffic controllers had found the toll free number for the Russian Air Command, the Chinese Sukhoi had already gated next to a Lufthansa.

When Xiannian and his pilot jumped out of the jet, the Lufthansa crew had shook their collective heads, “Moscow… such a circus… ja…”

Under normal circumstances such a breach in air defense would have led to commanders and other air dudes getting new airholes. But unlike the Mathias Rust fiasco, the Russians had been watching this time. Mathias Rust, a West German bro, landed a Cessna on the Red Square. True story brah.

Ever since the events in Mexico City the Russians had been expecting the Chinese Premier to freak the fuck out. FSB psychologists had given him 72 hours. The Premier arrived on the 84^th hour.

As expected, the Chinese while adept at bullying Lilliputian neighbors had been completely blindsided by the Mexico City plane-train fiasco. The Chinese intelligence services, relatively new to the game, kept forgetting that the KGB had never loved Audis.

President Petrova sent a Camry to pick up the Chinaman. She was all set to make an accord. Throughout the hour long unescorted ride to the Kremlin, the Premier had chanted ‘Sweet Baby Buddha… So, so sweet… sweet lord… ’ The Chinese Sukhoi pilot a Han, after a ‘slip’ at the Vnukovo men’s room, concurred that the premier had chanted the same stuff during the flight to Moscow.

* * *

“Sweet Baby Buddha… Sweet, sweet baby Buddha… Sweet Baby Buddha… Anna? Petrova? President?”

“Xiannian,” looked up Anna Petrova as the Chinese Premier was ushered into her office.

“Oh thank you baby Buddha… it’s you… Madam President…”

“So… you seem to have come to your senses.”

“Yes Madam.”

“So what did the Americants say about your Russian problem?”

“They… they accused me of cutting out the cartels and dipping into the DEA’s profits.”

“Haha DEA… classic.”

“Madam what do you want? Anything. Please tell me. Triple the price for gas? Sure… pipeline to Sakhalin? Absolutely… anything Madam anything…”

“For starters stop selling the damn trains. That’s all we want.”

“Done. But that’s it?”

“Yes. Stop peddling your cheap ass trains. Get to work on those pipelines. That’s really all.”

After assuring Xiannian for five more minutes, the Kremlin bundled him back into the beat up Camry and shooed him away to Beijing.

Langley, Virginia

Sarah McAllister rushed into Jim Borland’s office in Langley.

“Xiannian just announced a major gas deal with Russia. The dimwit even offered to build a pipeline from Sakhalin to Beijing, via Sapporo.

“Sapporo as in…”

“Sapporo, Japan. What’s gotten into that man? And why are the Russians doing all this? And again why Sapporo?”

“Well that confirms our suspicions. The Chinese just aren’t hard enough. A lack of toughness — badass-ness — hardness — cojones-ness… or rather cojones-less-ness.”

“Yeah thanks. I get the idea Jim,” said Sarah hastily, “But why this game of Russian Roulette? Crashing a plane carrying a train that’s filled with cocaine…? Jesus.”

“Sanctions.”

“Please. We sanction them and they take off their shirts and ride ponies. That’s what they do. But this… this new MO just doesn’t make any sense.”

Sarah continued to pace Borland’s office.

“Wait. What about our assets in Moscow our moles?”

“Nothing. The SVR and the FSB assumed that Petrova was just lipstick on the pig for the previous regime. So they mollycoddled her and kept her out of the loop. I guess they went too far and she flipped out.”

After twiddling her Blackberry, the Undersecretary of State sighed, “Ok fine. What about the drugs?”

“We pulled everything the NSA could lay their hands on and so far we have nothing. That Antonov 225 took off from Guangzhou with the train and nothing but the train. We have video footage, eyewitnesses and a ton of paperwork to prove it.”

“Are we sure there were no drugs on that plane? I mean Guangzhou is close to the Golden Triangle and Kunming… both restive.”

Jim Borland replied flatly, “Absolutely nothing.”

That left only one option and Sarah was afraid to broach it. “So… where does that leave us?”

Jim voiced it, “An old fashioned switcheroo…”

“The Russians switched planes… switched the only AN-225 in existence with a phantom AN-225?”

“Yep.”

Sarah digested the switcheroo theory before moving along, “Ok let’s get back to the drugs.”

“Well the cocaine was synthetic. As in factory made. Not grown in Burma or Thailand or Afghanistan.”

“So Chinese factories?”

“tl;dr it’s Japanese.”

“Whaaat? Give me the whole story, Jim”

“Well, turns out there are a ton of perfectly good yet abandoned factories all over the Fukushima Prefecture. Not dangerous, just stigmatized.”

“So?”