“Don’t go on. I get it,” said Jeremy, holding up a palm.
“Bloody hell,” said Julie.
“Bugger me,” said Dennis.
Barry blew out his cheeks and stroked them.
“And you’re here to…?” he asked Maurice, who hung his head and kneaded at it before replying.
“To deny Wibbly Wobbly her pleasure. I didn’t sign up with the Secret Service with this sort of nonsense in mind. Was rather hoping to keep the world in some kind of order. For the general good, you might say. In pursuance of which objective I have a little ruse in mind for giving some of our leaders, Ripurpantzov in particular, a bit of a headache. For irony’s sake, shall we say?”
Barry smiled. “Ah, irony. I remember it well, old fellow. Always something of a Socratic, were you not? Otherwise I would never have written you the glowing reference for the spooks. And what, may one ask, is this little ruse of yours? As it is to us you have come, one can only assume our participation might be required.”
“Indeed,” said Maurice, yawning. “But might I crave your patience until full daylight before I go into the details? It’s been something of a hard day’s night and…”
“No problem,” said Barry. “I’m sure we could all benefit from a little shuteye.”
So it was that Maurice, Barry, Dennis, Jeremy and Julie bedded down for what remained of the night although, with OO17’s delayed explanation on their minds, sleep did not come easily. Even on the sofa bed they came to share either by accident or design, Jeremy and Julie were restless.
Shirley, Pete, Hans and Colin, by contrast, slept the sleep of the innocent. Such is the advantage of bestiality.
Seventeen
From his majestic chambers on the top floor of the Kremlin, Igor Ripurpantzov looked out over the nighttime Moskva River, rubbed his hands, sipped at a glass of Cobetckoe Ntpnctoe champagne and marvelled at his power. From his days as a small fry KGB officer, he really had done rather well. The old Soviet Union was dead and buried with all its oil and gas assets safely sequestered in his various beneath-the-radar banks and companies, and the new Russia was safely under his control for the better part of two decades, during which he’d either been president or prime minister with a puppet president speaking his words. Such a clever—and rich—chap he was. And… how… good… that felt. The tsars would have been proud of him, although of course he had done a lot better than any of them, and certainly better than their Soviet replacements. Whenever before had Russia ruled the world? Never, that was when. Until Igor took command, that was. And now the world was his oyster; he could do anything he liked and nobody had the cojones to stand against him. Invade Crimea and suck it back into the Russian union, easy peasy. Ensure Syria went on singing from his hymn sheet by pretending to rid the country of its “terrorists.” No sweat. And so on, and so forth. It was even better now he had the dork in The White House in his pocket and a number of European governments were jittery and crumbling just the way he’d planned. And none of this with any effort or expense. No cold war missile stand-offs required. Just some little low-cost pieces of code fed by his IRA (Internet Research Agency) into the right places at the right time, and hey presto, zhizn’prekrasna (“life is wonderful” in Russian).
Igor sipped down a little more of his Cobetckoe Ntpnctoe and toasted his achievements. Yes, he’d had to have poisoned or shot a few dissidents who’d made their way from the homeland with anti-Igor messages, but, hey, casualties were an inevitable part of any bold strategy, weren’t they? And no judge in Russia would have the temerity to raise an eyebrow, not when the entire judiciary was in his pocket. From where else would they get their fancy 4x4 Mercedes, and their dachas on the Black Sea, and the billions of rubles to flush through sad little old London? No, no, Igor Ripurpantzov had no worries on that front. Or any other.
He strolled away from his window, humming to himself a Western song called “If I Ruled The World.” Only, in Igor’s case, the hypothetical had become redundant. There had just been another presidential “election” which he had won hands down as expected. As things stood, he would be president forever. Oh, what joy it was be alive in these wondrous times! After a quick workout in his gym to maintain the alpha-male-with-big-pecs image, Igor reckoned he deserved a long, hot, unguent-rich soak in his marble-tiled, Roman-type, sunken bath in the company of his currently favoured concubine, Ludmilla.
So that’s what he did.
At much the same time—minus the three-hour difference, of course—PM Clarissa was in Brussels for a European heads of state summit, before the commencement of which she was getting an ear-bashing from the president of the European Commission, Bastien Duchamps, during a sub rosa meeting in a locked antechamber well away from the waiting TV cameras and microphones outside on the rue Wiertz.
“Now listen up, Clarissa. And listen up good,” Bastien kicked off with while Clarissa smiled one of her gormless smiles. “No way can you keep on with the Bregshit bullshit you’re peddling, okay?” he continued in the fluent American he had learnt during his exchange year between the Sorbonne and Harvard Law School.
“No way,” he stressed.
“Um… erm…” said Clarissa, adopting what she thought of as a steely look. “Let me be clear. What exactly are you saying here, Sebastian?”
“Bastien.”
“Pardon?”
“My name is Bastien.”
“Ah,” said Clarissa, twiddling, she hoped sexily, her left long-drop silver earring with the single diamond inset. “And your point is?”
“You want the trade deal you say you want, you gotta give us: Number one, a whole lot more dough than is currently on the table. Number two, a legally binding assurance on EU citizens’ future rights after Bregshit. And number three, an equally legally binding solution to the Ireland border business agreed by all parties. No watertight answer to those little problems, no deal on trade or anything else.”
“Oh,” said Clarissa. “Look, Bastiano, let me be clear. Point taken. I’ll get my top chap on it straight away.”
“Not if it’s the dingbat you keep sending, the Bregshit secretary dude you got along with you today for back-up.” Bastien winced. “Guy’s a banana skin waiting to be slipped on.”
“Peter Peters?”
“That’s the bozo.”
“He tells me he’s been making splendid progress in the talks over here.”
“Splendid, my ass.”
“No need for obscenities, Mister Ducheese.”
“Duchamps. And, for the record, it’s Doctor.”
“Golly. And you gave up a lucrative medical practice for…”
“I am a doctor of philosophy, Clarissa.”
“Oh.”
“And could we puh-lease get back to the point? You Brits mightn’t have noticed, but it is the future of the European Union I am responsible for here. And I do not mean to let it flounder and sink in the wake of your dumbass Ruskie-rigged referendum.”
“Good thinking,” Clarissa was saying as a press aide called Maxine knocked on the door reminding them the media were outside on the street, eager for any hint of developments in the private talks before the summit meeting itself began.