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 13th 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.”
Chapter 24
Bodo Airbase, Arctic Circle, Norway
In the 3AM Arctic glare, six F-35 jets leapt off the tarmac in unison. After hovering for a few seconds, the cool looking jets shot out into the Nordic sea. The sortie, unlike their regular missions had nothing to do with the Russians. Today, the Norwegians F-35s were headed to the Paris Air Show — to justify their existence to the American Congress.
Being a field trip, they had dispensed their ammo with extra fuel and several pounds of coffee. All they had to do was, take off and head to Paris while tapping away to Ke dollar sign ha’s stimulating message to young pilots.
Murmansk — Arctic Circle, Russia
“Boss, the F-35 Lightnings are in the air,” Korlov announced.
A few hours earlier Primakov and Korlov had caught a redeye to Murmansk. There, their point of interest was the Severomorsk air base, home to a squadron of the supersonic Tu-160s, aka the Bear Bombers. On arrival at Severomorsk they had handed over their cargo to a couple of Tu-160s.
When the Norwegian F-35s took off, Primakov gave the go ahead, “Alright, send out the bombers.”
“Sending out the Bears….”
“And tell them to make as much noise as possible. I want every Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian kid to miss school tomorrow.”
“Haha, that’s so cool. Wish someone had done that for me in school,” reminisced Korlov.
“Ya, ya sure.”
“I mean think about the odds…” added Korlov.
“Odds of the mission?”
“No. What if some Lapland boys actually scheduled a fake threat for tomorrow… to skip exams… midterms… and all their planning would be wasted… I mean you can’t repeat a fake threat for like a semester and… and even if you did…” ploughed on Korlov.
Primakov couldn’t take it anymore, “What the fuck do you care about the academic challenges of a bunch of reindeer blowers? Just, keep your eyes on the mission ok? Make sure everything is in place.”
The Atlantic Ocean
The Norwegian F-35s leisurely hit their allotted altitude of 45,000 ft. To avoid civilian traffic they had to loop around Iceland, before turning south.
Three hundred nautical miles into the Atlantic, the F-35 pilots were thoroughly hypnotized by Ke dollar sign ha’s thumping message. If not for the caramel macchiato piped through their hi-tech helmets, the entire squadron would have abandoned the fjords for sunny Hollywood.
Just as Ke dollar sign ha repeated her feelings for Mick Jagger, the Norwegian pilots heard massive boom. Moments later their incredibly expensive helmets went dark. Frantic jiggling of the touch controls did nothing to revive the unit, forcing the pilots to remove their helmets. At 45,000 feet and 0.6Mach they were allowed to do that.
BOOM!
A second boom.
“Bodo base this is Spread Eagle. Our helmets just blacked out.”
After some static, Bodo base responded, “Spread Eagle. This is Bodo Base. Repeat your message.”
“Bodo base, this is Spread Eagle. Our helmets just blacked out.”
“WTF? Did you spill macchiato into the helmet again? Jesus man grow up.”
“Bodo Base this is Squadron Leader Aas. All our helmets have blacked out.”
“All six at the same time?”
“Affirmative, Bodo base.”
“So you are saying… that all six of you spilt your macchiatos? Hows that even possible. Just the probability…”
“No! No one spilt anything.”
“Aha… so you guys puked… It’s that air sickness thing again isn’t it? Jesus, I thought we fixed it with the Ram’s piss. This is beyond ridiculous… way beyond ridiculous. No wonder we don’t get invited to the annual bombing campaigns…”
Squadron Leader Aas swore. He slowed his breathing and channeled his inner Ke dollar sign ha before resuming the tug of war with Bodo base. “Bodo base. I repeat no one puked or jerked off into the precious helmets. There was a loud boom from the outside and then we all just blanked out.”
“Oh… ok Spread Eagle… so what do you think it was… is someone shooting at you?”
“Nope. Radar is clean. Probably a bug in the onboard computer.”
“No, no… remember, no talking shit about the F-35s.”
“Perhaps an EMP.”
“Whaaat…” began the dude in Bodo base before switching tones, “Spread Eagle. Fuck me.”
“Spread Eagle, we just picked up 6 Bear bombers, Tu-160s. They are headed for you… already very close… Deploy evasive measures.”
“Bodo Base,” replied the frustrated Squadron Leader Aas, “Dude, nothing other than the fucking million dollar macchiato maker is working… Plus how can the bombers attack us? Do they plan to ram into us? What the freak are they thinking?”