Moscow Machination (14 page)

Laguna Beach, Greater Tijuana
Area

Fifty year
old Ramon Estrada sat by the pool at a motel, as a bunch of unsavory ladies
paddled about. He tried to relax despite the circumstances. The last 24hrs had
been catastrophic. He had had to hide his assets and abandon Mehico.

Senor
Estrada was the head of the 9
^th
largest cartel in Mehico. Unlike the
big guns he prided himself in being a boutique operator. His business had
almost zero violence, certified Six Sigma. His clientele were eclectic. He
abhorred the word Drug Lord and imagined himself as a mere facilitator… a lowly
consiglieri… a mid-level manager.

Unlike the
big dawgs in his industry, he never got into turf wars or even attempted to
gain territory. In fact under his leadership his cartel had slipped from the 7
^th
to 9
^th
by volume. Under normal circumstances, he would have been
chopped up and fed to iguanas at the San Diego Zoo. Instead, Senor Estrada had
been commended.

Senor
Estrada unlike other cartel heads, was special man. He was a different man.
Senor Estrada was the head of the
Federale Cartel
. Federale as in the
Mehican FBI… yep, that Federale. After growing tired of protecting the cartels
and earning pennies on the dollar, the Mehican Federale had decided to float
its own outfit… the eponymous
Federale Cartel
.

Within
eighteen months since its inception, the
Federale Cartel
had literally
out gunned the other dawgs and risen to become the 4
^th
largest
cartel in peninsular Mehico. They had also gained control of the lucrative
Mehico City, which had once been free for all.

Better
equipped, better connected and still joined at the hip to the Federale, the
Federale
Cartel
had soon threatened the Big 3. A few skirmishes had resulted in
devastation for the big 3. The heroin addled foot soldiers had been blown away
by the DARPA equipped
Federale Cartel
. The writing was on the wall… the
Federale
Cartel
would easily decimate every other cartel in a matter of months.

The
remaining cartels had displayed righteous fury and accused the Federale of
nepotism. They had then got a couple of DC lobbyists to pressure the Mehican
government to rein in the
Federale Cartel
. Plus, being the 4
^th
largest cartel also brought unnecessary media attention from networks that
needed hit pieces to stuff the void between celebrity butt implants.

Eventually
under DEA pressure, the Mehican government, realizing the ‘error of its ways’
had lashed out at the Federale and accused it of racketeering, laundering and
threatened it with outright disbandment. The Federale after realizing its own
‘error of its ways’ and apparent conflict of interest, spun off their
brainchild into an autonomous outfit, whereby the
Federale Cartel
would
stop competing with the traditional cartels.

As a peace
offering the
Federale Cartel’s
operations were drastically reduced and
limited to a few safe niches. These included city officials, public officials,
the army, police and mid-level bureaucrats. The target demographic was anyone
with a steady job and an ounce of dignity. The new
Federale Cartel
went
for the sweet spot.

Despite
the spinoff and assurances, the other cartels had become paranoid, particularly
the Sinaloas and Zeta Zoneses.

Thus, when
the train with the dragon tattoo came crashing down with five hundred tons of
synthetic cocaine, the cartels assumed that the
Federale Cartel
had
played them and were now procuring cocaine from the Chinese. Apparently ‘Made
in China’ made a lot of things.

The Zeta
Zones were initially suspected of procuring this shipment. But then Zeta’s head
had offered seven of his finest bitches to the Sinaloa to prove the Zeta’s
innocence. “Free bitches? Jesus H Christ. The Zetas ARE innocent… amigos,” the
Sinaloa
Weekly
had proclaimed.

As hell
broke loose, the Federale and its
Federale Cartel
came under attack. As
the Federale bravely went at the cartels, the
Federale Cartel
ran. The
rank and file had made a beeline to the United States. The three hundred or so
FC men had caught a Delta redeye to JFK. Being a part of the Federale family
had a lot of perks.

Despite
the bloodbath the origin of the drugs remained a mystery. Looking for a
scapegoat the Federale had turned on its own Executive Estrada. Sensing the
trouble, Ramon Estrada had hopped into his Toyota Tacoma and driven all the way
to Laguna Beach. Once across the border, to maintain a low profile he had
checked into a Motel 6.

Estrada
was well aware of the tendencies of all parties involved – the Federale, the
DEA, ICE, CIA, Cartels, FBI, ETC. – all bad.

After
chilling for a bit, he planned to escape to Andalusia in Spain.

A failed
actress or perhaps a cage cleaner at the San Diego Zoo smiled at him. She
wasn’t bad looking but for some reason melded with the motel’s depressing
decor. Ramon Estrada lifted his Budweiser at her. She seemed to have high
cheekbones. Sweet.

Kremlin, Moscow

“Madam,
are you sure about this scumbag?” prodded Primakov.

“The
Japanese are having trouble with their supplies and chains… something to do
with Yakuza clans… apparently product is piling up,” the most powerful woman on
the planet replied, “Plus Foreign Minister Yamazaki thinks a face that’s
familiar to the DEA would mean more business.”

“Sure…
yeah, but can’t we just lend them one of our Chechens. They know this kind of
stuff… they might be Chechens but they are still Russians.”

“Minister
Yamazaki was adamant. He doesn’t need henchmen. He needs someone with business
acumen… someone who has a sense of… knowing where the puck is going to be… Estrada’s
dossier states that at one point he was running the 4
^th
largest
cartel in Mexico. And when things went south, he successfully navigated the
quagmire and repositioned the
Federale Cartel
as a boutique cartel.
Trust me, this guy is a winner.”

The idea
of acquihiring a D-List Drug Lord for the Japanese didn’t sit well with
Primakov. “Ok. But what about diplomacy? What about the Mexican and US
governments. There might be consequences.”

“Dude,
grow a pair. What are they going to do? More sanctions?”

“At least
we should make him an offer. Maybe, make this thing into a defection instead of
an abduction.”

“It says
in the dossier… that he spoke to some maid in Andalusia to tidy up his villa. This
guy has no plans of returning to Mexico… or even the trade. And that will be a
huge loss for all parties… Just grab him already.”

Laguna Beach, Greater Tijuana
Area

“Hola…
thirst?” said Ramon Estrada.

“I am” offered
the probably failed actress.

“Would you
like a Corona or a Bud Lite?”

“Hmm,
sure.”

Tatiana
got out of the pool and wrapped herself in a towel. She ruffled through her bag
and brought out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Ramon.

After
casually inspecting the cigarette for telltale signs, Ramon Estrada lit one.

“Ramon.”

“Tatiana.”

LAX Airport, Los Angeles

Three
hours later, Tatiana and Ramon Estrada were strapped into an Aeroflot, aimed at
Moscow. Ramon was having a roofied riot.

Kiev, Ukraine

31 year
old Airline-Consultant-Indian-at-Large Pulikesi stood up and stretched. Standing
at his Soviet era steel desk, he made a casual 180 degree sweep of the office floor.
Unlike Bay Area tropes, this was a Stalinist-Brutalist set piece. There were no
bicycle racks, coffee machines or lava lamps. Judging by the ancient steel
furniture and ominous lighting, someone suggested that it had once been the Kiev
franchise of the Lubyanka. But after the first 176hrs on the job, the forty two
Ukrainians and the Indian couldn’t care less about the prehistory of their office
space.

Being the
leader of the team, Pulikesi commandeered an entire 7ft by 7ft iron table while
the forty two Ukrainians huddled and exterminated bugs like it was 1941. Pulikesi
and his team of software engineers were doing their best to salvage the
Albatross
,
a brand new airline management system.

Lunch had
been cabbage, cucumber, sauerkraut and fried chicken. It was four in the
afternoon and they had been at it for three straight hours. Pulikesi was itching
for a smoke.

“Ilya,” he
called out to his Ukrainian counterpart and pointed outside. Ilya nodded and took
a morbid look at the bug list before getting up.

Like many bad
things, the Albatross had come out of an innocuous building on the outskirts of
Berlin. The purported goal of the Albatross software was to replace American airline
systems with a pro-European system that would integrate Russia and the FSU with
the EU.

To
showcase collaboration, cooperation and good will, the Albatross development
had been splayed across several stakeholder nations. The blueprint had been
developed in Berlin, while the actual magic happened in Kiev. Trials were
carried out both at Amsterdam Schiphol as well as Moscow Vnukovo.

But like
any ambitious project… or any project, the Albatross soon ran into a myriad of
issues like cost overruns, politics, dick moves, pussy footing, visas, pissing
matches, currency fluctuations, scope creeps and the inevitable scope reductions.
Realizing that the Albatross was shit, the great powers after a lot of hand
wringing, decided to hand over the development to the one people who took shit 24x7
and incredibly, shit out passable shit. The Albatross was handed over to the Indians.

Under the
stewardship of Bangalore, the thousand plus number of bugs were soon whittled down
to just 93. The competent software engineers that they were, the Indians had followed
industry best practices and fed the smaller bugs to the larger ones. This guaranteed
their million euro retainer. Some of the remaining bugs became so large that
they began frying and devouring actual bugs that flew near the servers. In
other words, the Indians had delivered.

Consultant
Pulikesi played point man between the dudes in Kiev, the dudes in Berlin and the
several more dudes in Bangalore. He was the de facto head of this multinational
sausage party.

Out of a
stable of one hundred and thirty consultants in his Bangalore firm, Pulikesi
ranked dead last at 130. He blamed it on work pressure. His peers blamed it on his
love of the dried herb. Sixteen months ago, the Albatross job had come down to
two guys. 130
^th
Pulikesi and the 129
^th
ranked Cooomar,
one of the sixteen Cooomars in the firm. Unfortunately for Pulikesi, 129
^th
Cooomar had precedence and was leaning towards Kiev, thus leaving Pulikesi with
the Monrovia job in Liberia… home to the largest Ebola outbreak. The Monrovia
job’s billables were astronomical.

After
googling Kiev, Pulikesi had become enamored with the city. He discovered three things.
One, the law on herbs was cool. Two, Kiev according to the Urban Dictionary had
the third highest per capita of belles in the world. Only Rosewood, PA and Wilmington,
NC ranked higher. Lastly, the Neo-Nazi fatality rate was negligible when compared
to the Ebola.

While
Pulikesi troubles hinged on substances, the Cooomar’s troubles were more
visceral. It involved gray matter, or the lack of. Like any high functioning substance
utilizer, Pulikesi was pretty good at conniving. Thus, over a couple of beers, the
130
^th
ranked Pulikesi had convinced the 129
^th
ranked
Cooomar that the Ebola was ‘basi-cally a braggable std… girls love it… trust me’.
The next morning the Cooomar had shipped out to Liberia as Pulikesi boarded an
Aeroflot to Kiev. The rest as they say was history.

Six months
later, out of the blue, the Cooomar had popped up in a company newsletter. The
Cooomar, according to the bulletin, had gone to Monrovia for managing the
Liberian President’s fleet of Gulfstreams. Three weeks on the job, he had
contracted the Ebola during a back-alley-DNA-swap. Despite all odds, after a brief
stay at a French run shithole, the Cooomar had walked out spry and healthy.

 Left for
dead at the hands of the ill equipped, yet super cute French nurses, the
Cooomar had defied logic and renounced all treatment. He had then gone on a
liquid only diet of 100% Liberian tap water.

On the third
watery day, the Cooomar had resurrected.

The French
doctor had cried out, ‘Un M
é
dical
é
Miracl
é
… Oui.”

The
Cooomar had survived Ebola the old fashioned way… a self-induced Indian style
diarrhea. Whatever the Ebola schemed, it soon found itself outside the Cooomar,
often accompanied by swooshing and gushing sounds. According to the nubile
French nurse from
Médecins Sans Frontières
,
the Ebola had ‘
ran un train
’ on him before giving up. She thought his Maverick
method deserved a French award.

Being a
fellow countryman, Pulikesi begged to differ. Diarrhea as a deterrent? Fuck
that shit. It was child’s play. He knew that shit about shit in like middle school.
How dumb were the French?

The
recovery had been so darn unprecedented that a bunch of US Seals had burst through
the seams and bagged up pounds and pounds of the Cooomar’s produce for research.
Three weeks later the Americans had a new vaccine.

A month
later the largest Ebola outbreak ended.

For
Pulikesi, other than the missed spot on the monthly newsletter, things were
going swimmingly in Kiev. Obviously the Crimea heist and the circus at the Maidan
had come close to killing off the Albatross. But eventually, the American
intervention had booted out Russia and put the Albatross under Kiev’s firm control.

During the
few dicey weeks, Pulikesi unlike his German counterparts had opted to ‘ride it
out’ and stayed back in Kiev. He had spent the entire two weeks cooped up in
his apartment with Katya, his night-night friend. The Kiev fortnight was hands
down better than his
Rita
fortnight in Mobile, AL. Back then, he had ridden
out the storm in the comforting arms of Jack Daniels and Amber… or Mercedes… or
was it Desire… Anyways, whats her name, had abandoned him after the first week.
His retainer was much smaller back then.

But since
then, things had been sweet in Kiev. For starters with Russia out, dick moves
were down by 80%. Pissing matches by 90%. However pussy moves had increased by
10%, but whatever. The reduced number of stakeholders, tremendously improved
the development process. The bug count had again diminished by 92.8%... guaranteeing
yet another quarter’s retainer.

Bangalore
loved him… not as much as it loved Ebola Cooomar, but fuck him.

Berlin
loved him. The Germans had finally found someone who could shepherd the
Ukrainians without getting into Nuremburg.

As for the
Ukrainians, they were more than satisfied. Steady paycheck and productive work?
They were in 13
^th
heaven.  

Cheap
vodka, smuggled cigarettes, Afghani kush, hanging out with Ilya and the occasional
visit from Katya provided the perfect balance for the fourteen hours Pulikesi
spent away from his Kiev-Lubyanka. On the rare occasion when Pulikesi found the
social scene unappealing, there was always a Natalia or a Svetlana or the rare Natalia-Svetlana
combo.

But the
only thing Pulikesi loved more than Natalia and Svetlana and Katya was the
Hryvnia
.
Despite the American-IMF-Berlin-ECB interventions, the Ukrainian currency had
remained unsalvageable. And Pulikesi’s retainers were in euros.

Other than
the odd sauerkraut snafu, Pulikesi was living it up in Kiev.

Ilya blew a
Marlboro as Pulikesi lit.

“So, apparently
we forgot to submit the time sheet reports.”

“Haha, you
mean you forgot…” guffawed Ilya.

“If you
dipshits hadn’t dragged me to that E party, I would have turned it in.”

“Haha.
That was some real good times. Plus what are they going to do? Fire us? Good
luck trying to get another firm to even sniff the RFP.”

“Ya, but
still… someone’s gotta dot the t and cross the i.”

A group of
vibrant protesters marched by chanting something about how the Russian President
was a feline abuser.

“What’s
riled them up today?” asked Pulikesi.

“Something
about the Russian President’s cats.”

“Right,
now that the new guy has fixed the economy and found shale gas, he wants to go
after Russia’s first cats?”

“As
trivial as it may seem, at least we aren’t apathetic anymore. Cats, dogs… it
doesn’t matter. If I wasn’t working on the Albatross, I would probably be there
with them right now…” gushed Ilya.

“Ya, me
too… see that redhead…”

“Redhead in
the Cat Riot T-Shirt? Way ahead of you my little friend. Have been checking her
out for the past two hundred yards.”

“She seems
bored, maybe we should catcall her… SWEET EARS…” yelled out Pulikesi.

“Wow…wow… Jesus
man, cut it out,” seethed a mortified Ilya.

The
redhead flashed a smile and pushed back her hair, thus exposing her left ear.

“See… she
likes that.”

Ilya couldn’t
believe it. “She liked that??? That creepy catcall…”

“Dude, you
are overthinking it.”

“Aww fuck
it. Let’s just go fix those darn bugs.”