After a long inspection, the FSB guy gave the nod, “We’ll take your car. Get out.”
Primakov waited with the fifteen other distinguished men. None spoke. There was a lone FSB photographer. No media or fanfare. This was the Oscars of high stakes defense.
On the dais sat the chiefs of the FSB and SVR. Their expressions mirrored those of Cossacks undergoing coffee colon cleanses. The third chair was empty. Apparently the Foreign Minister was running late. Something about Latvia and gas pipes. If the Latvians Ukrained-out, he could always resubmit his rejected, white paper ‘Tunnels under the Latvian SSR: A scholastic guide to Soviet Union 2.2.3’.
After about fifteen minutes, there was a shriek outside the hall. 2 seconds later, another Russian male shrieked. There were sounds of boots slamming and guys going into attention. As the commotion got closer the FSB guards rushed out. At the sight of something they too freaked out and parted away.
On the dais the SVR and FSB heads gasped and sprung up.
In walked Anna Petrova, the Russian President.
41 year old Anna Petrova had arrived at the Kremlin under extraordinary circumstances. The previous president, despite every western analyst’s prediction had stepped down at the end of his second term. On his retirement speech, President Val had said, “…after all these years I have found my true calling… a call of the wild… I want to become the Crocodile Hunter 2.0… what a great man… as our cold Russia is no place for these noble beasts, I have decided to go to Brisbane… where I can learn from the best… and catch some of the best crocs… dammit… one day, one day I will even have my own TV show on Discovery… Spasibo Bitches.”
Hoping for a clean change, the Russian people had barfed at apparatchiks and voted in the fresh faced female professor from Volgograd State University. Some thought it was a CIA conspiracy.
And then Crimea had happened.
Trying to catch the new President off guard someone had set off the Kiev Maidan. Uncowed, the naïve President had foolishly sent in the Spetsnaz to take ‘back’ Crimea. In the process she had lost Ukraine. But then again, Ukraine was already a basket case… a parasite… it was no Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania where an easy turnaround was possible. Let Brussels deal with them. Whatever.
The western backlash and the frosty stances from friendly Beijing and Minsk had forced the new President to seek out brand-new-old friends… aka friends with benefits… aka frenemies — Japan and Germany. The Japanese going through their own lost double decade had been more than willing to mix it up.
Primakov along with everyone, rose to attention as the Russian President took the dais.
She began, “I apologize…” wow, a first for a politician thought Primakov. His other brain quickly evaluated her and wondered why she was unmarried.
“I apologize… Sergey Luzkhov our Foreign Minister had to go from Riga to Vilnius. Suddenly the Lithuanians want assurances and guarantees. Ah… what can I say? So I thought I might step in and surprise you all… hope you all aren’t disappointed…”
Of course not. Fuck that conniving Luzkhov. This was an honor. Award from the President… ooh.
“…as you all know, we are in unchartered territory. And we are going to have to use every unorthodox tool… to preserve what’s rightfully ours. So I would like to congratulate you all… for the service you do for the Motherland.”
As the group applauded, an assistant began calling out the awardees. When Primakov was called up, he walked up to the President. The President shook his hand and pinned the ‘Defender-General Badass’ medal to his shirt. She then proceeded to shake his hand.
“Pyotr Primakov, the Japanese are extremely happy with what you did. Thank you.”
By the time he had uttered his own “Thank you madam…” he found himself at his seat. Some anal security guy had whisked him away. Whatever.
Back in his seat, he looked around and noticed the Japanese Minister Yamazaki and his interpreter Yuki were seated in a plush corner. As the Minister raised his drink at him, Yuki smiled emoji style….
Chapter 5
Ministry of State Security, Beijing, China
“Waterboarding?… hmmm… lie detectors?… Ok, what about labor camps for their cousins? Even distant cousins?… hmmm… interesting… deputation to the Congo?… did you try Pyongyang?… still nothing? Hmmm… tough cookies.”
Head of State Security Hu Gong, was running out of options. In his forty years of service to the party, he had come up against some freaky shit. But the incident on the Shenzhen — Guangzhou high speed line had been something else. It was brash, idiotic and pointless. Only a dimwit-poindexter/wannabe-Joker could have come up with that. Tripping up two trains with a steel cord to unleash havoc… Hu Gong shook his head.
Hu Gong was the head of the all-encompassing Ministry of State Security (MSS), Beijing’s counter intelligence arm. It had been three weeks since the incident in Guangdong. Despite initial fears, the world’s confidence in China’s stability as a business partner hadn’t changed. Everyone knew Beijing was ruthless towards internal bs. Yet for some reason, the Tokyo Tentacler and the Berlin based, Marx Monthly, had run identical hit pieces dissing ‘Made in China’.
Initially, railway security had discovered a scapegoat, a maintenance engineer who had turned up fifteen minutes late for work on that day. Despite the railway authority’s insistence, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), China’s internal security arm had come away unconvinced. There were no traitors in China, unless of course they were Tibetans or Uighurs.
Even after ‘thoroughly’ interviewing the CRH400A’s pilots, Ms. Zhen Zhao and Chang, they hadn’t find anything amiss. Chou Chang though was fined 1000 yuan for playing games on her unregistered cell phone. After this lack of progress and pressure from the Politburo, the Ministry of Public Security had turned over the investigations to the MSS.
MSS chief Hu Gong knew that he was the last stop on this deadly game of passing the parcel. There was no one after him and his MSS. He had to do something. So he had gotten hold of the suspected maintenance engineer, the pilots Zhen Zhao and Chang, and put them through his own version of Chinese Horror Story.
Everyone including himself knew that it was just a just sham… a charade to show, that the MSS was doing something. Deep down, Hu Gong knew that there were no bad people in China, unless of course they were from Hong Kong. He preferred Uighurs over Hong Kongers… even on the day of his daughter’s wedding.
“…so in your opinion?… mostly harmless?… hmm… have any of them travelled to Hong Kong in the past year?… no?… ok… well, let them go… release them all… wait… that pilot… give her some medal, she did figure out the escape hatch… I guess… ok.”
Hu Gong, returned the pink phone to its cradle and returned his gaze to the two squirming men. They were from the State SIGINT satellite division.
“Are you absolutely sure?” Gong goaded.
“Yes sir. There were three satellites over the area of disaster. Ours, an American and a Russian. The American satellite has been doing its rounds for over forty years now, we don’t think it caused anything. It’s most likely the Russian Koba…”
“Koba huh, weird name for a satellite. What do we know about this Koba?”
“Not much. It was launched two months ago from their old Soviet era Cosmodrome — Plesetsk up in Arkhangelsk.”
“Not Baikonur?”
“No Sir. Baikonur has been relegated to feces transports from the International Space Station.”