Plus a good majority of the Kremlin’s previous tenants hadn’t vacated by choice. Even when they did, they had ended up on the Kremlin’s Wall Necropolis.
President Petrova tried to breathe deeply. Six deep breaths usually did it. One. Two. Three. She forgot about the breathing.
Plus there had been zero nightmares or ‘incidents’ since the departure of her cats.
Crrrank. Fuck there it was again. Anna Petrova contemplated making a dash for the main door. The door was almost 30 feet away. The ambient Moscow lights, and the lamps from the Kremlin grounds presented reasonable visibility. Or maybe she could just pick up the phone…
“Good evening Ms. President.”
“Who’s that?”
A light came on near the fireplace. A short rotund, man in a long white coat climbed out of the fireplace.
“Good evening Ms. President. Sorry to disturb you at this hour.”
He looked old but well kept. Non-threatening.
The unsure President asked, “Are you part of my security detail?”
“Madam, my name is Otto Fuchs and… I am the Messenger.”
Anna Petrova woke up with a start. What a freaky dream. Even the fine Afghani kush on during her ‘aid’ trips to Ashgabat had never made her hallucinate about old men crawling out of fireplaces. Even that Iron Felix-Yezhov nightmare had depicted them as young sexy revolutionaries. This psycho Santa was a first.
She opened her eyes and found herself in a Lazyboy facing the fireplace. On a nearby Lazyboy sat the rotund dude of her dreams. Seemed like he was sampling her beer collection.
“Oh God! I’m still in that dream… oh no. Who the hell are you? The guards never appear in the dreams…” Anna whimpered softly.
Ms. President, or shall I say Anna… you are back. You fainted and fell. I moved you to these fine chairs. Here have a Corona. Corona, almost as good as Bavarian.”
“What?”
“Just have a beer Madam. Trust me I am not the enemy. I am just a Messenger.”
“A Messenger? Ok whats the message?”
“The Weapon is ready.”
“The Weapon is ready? What weapon?”
“Sorry. That’s all I can say.”
“Wait… are you that scientist from Izhevsk that defected to France? Didn’t you…?”
“Oh. No. Like I said I’m just the Messenger.”
“Wait a minute…. you said your name was Otto? Are you German?”
“Yes.”
“Oh god. The nightmare hasn’t ended… can I have another Corona?”
“As you wish, Madam.”
After chugging the Corona, President Petrova tried again… the only way to come out of the dream was to indulge it, “Ok whats the purpose of this weapon? Wait why are we employing German scientists? This isn’t 1945 anymore… Which facility do you belong to? Who’s your Minister?”
“Sorry Madam. I can’t answer any of those questions. Like I said, I am just the Messenger, and the message is: The weapon is ready.”
“So whats the point of telling me it’s ready, you creep? Wait this beer tastes awfully good… this mustn’t be a dream… I think I am going to call my guards.”
“Sure. But you can’t hurt me. No one can hurt me.”
“Eww why is that…? Please don’t tell me you are a ghost or a half dead werewolf or something like that… please…”
“I am very much alive Ms. President. Don’t worry, I won’t eat your brains out. It’s just that we have taken the necessary precautions this time. Not after that incident with Leo.”
“Oh… Leo… of course, Leo…. who the fuck is Leo?”
“Leonid Brezhnev.”
If she had been on a chair instead of the Lazyboy, the President would have tipped over. “You have met Brezhnev? Wait ‘We’? There are more of you lot…? Are you some surviving Old Bolshevik?”
“No Ma’am. We have no political ethos. Last time, my brother Karl was picked to deliver the message. He had an encounter with Leo… that awful unibrow and his guards…” Otto shuddered before continuing, “they… they killed Karl…. ugh… ya long story short, they fucking killed him. Since then it was decided to always go in with the safety on.”
“You met Brezhnev, dead Karl, more of you… Oh god… I think I know what this is…it’s the Chinese revenge… the Chinese have drugged me…”
“No madam… Anna… Just finish your beer… oh ok good… here chug another one… ya.”
In the Corona fueled swirl, Anna Petrova wondered how the Chinese had bribed an Old Bolshevik to kill her. Because the Bolsheviks didn’t believe in money… so had to do with ideology… but ‘Otto’ the German had just said… no political ethos… ethos… German… Lebowski… Nihilists… Nazis… ah… they weren’t called the National Socialists for nothing… Socialists… Karl Marx… the Father of all Reds… but how did the Chinese fit in… oh yeah they were Reds too… Must have something to do with Mao… and his Old Chinese Politburo… the one that was into purges…. aha… so the Soviet Reds, the Chinese Reds and the German Reds had all gotten together to Assassinate her… oh god… why… why… why…. that’s it… she knew why… because the old geezers couldn’t stand a woman on top… aha… noooooo….
Anna Petrova’s usual somniloquy lasted anywhere between 45-183 seconds. At 389 seconds and counting she was on a tear tonight. At the 450sec mark when they heard the loud ‘Nooo’, the guards had had enough. The Federal Protective Service aka the President’s’ body guards entered the bedroom.
“Madam is everything all right?” asked the leading guard Mika. He immediately saw the old guy in the white coat seated next to Petrova. “Shit there is someone else in the room… looks like that chicken guy… hey who are you…?”
“Looks more like Santa…” screamed Vlad one of the other guards on the detail.
Otto Fuchs waved at the three Presidential guards. “Hola. This time the safety is on.”
Seeing Otto the rotund guy, seated next to their sweet, sleep talking President, the guards almost went America over Otto’s ass with the ‘Sir… hands where I can see them… lie down on your tummy… slowly spread your legs…’ routine. Almost.
But then, Mika and his men weren’t some inner city blues, they were Russian Special Forces, the best in close-quarter hand to hand combat.
So Mika the main guard, ran and punched Otto in the face. Hard. Otto blanked out. But his safety was still on.
The commotion nudged Anna back out of her mind bending assassination plot. She was fully awake in about 87.6 seconds and wondered whether the nightmare had ended. She then noticed the unconscious Otto sprawled under Mika.
“Madam are you alright? Did this man hurt you?”
“Yeah. I think I am ok. A little bit drunk though.”
“Ma’am do you know this man?”
“No. He said some strange things about a weapon.”
“A weapon? Don’t worry ma’am. We will extract all information within the hour.”
President Anna Petrova ordered the guards to start interrogating Otto then and there, right in her room. The guards had suggested calling in the bigger guns from the FSB, but the President had been adamant. She needed to know first-hand. The Russian public and world leaders had often assumed/accused her of being soft and lacking experience. So she really wanted to see one of these things in person… see an old man spill out his bloody guts. A sort of an initiation.