From Russia, with love!
Glenn Michael Beckmann was living proof that just because you're paranoid does not mean nobody is following you. Despite his best efforts to keep his subversive (but patriotic!) activities undetected by the federal agents who had kept him under surveillance since publication of his blog entry threatening fatal harm to the Federal Reserve Board ("Serial creditor, serial predator!"), the feds were well aware that a Ukrainian woman had started living with him at Southwest Plaza. They were also aware of something he was not--that she was actually from Russia. What they could not figure out was why she spent so much time cooking.
"I swear, Darja, your cooking smells so good that you're attracting all the roaches from the floor into our apartment!" exclaimed Beckmann, neglecting his business affairs yet again to enter the kitchen and give her a squeeze.
Darja was very happy to spend all her time in the kitchen. First of all, it was a large kitchen she did not have to share with a quarrelsome mother and a deaf grandmother. Secondly, the leader of the Heurich Society (Henrietta "Button" Samuelson) had instructed her to keep Beckmann well-fed with soup, bread, and lies about Ukraine. Thirdly, the food helped decrease his voracious appetite in bed. But most importantly of all, Darja was slowly going insane from the influence of the Southwest Plaza real estate demon, and believed the roaches were her special friends. "Putin is withdrawing the Russian troops from Ukraine!" she declared joyously, even though she knew full-well it was another lie. "In a few months, maybe I take you to Ukraine, meet my family!"
"I still don't understand why we can't go now!" Beckmann pouted. "I'd love to be helping your freedom fighters and pounding it to those Russkies!" (He embellished this with finger-gun flourishes.)
"No, no! Too dangerous! We go at Christmas, maybe." She shoved a spoonful of potato into his mouth to fend off another beer-breath kiss. "Maybe I have baby bump by then, no?" she teased him.
Beckmann was still not sure how this mail-order bride thing worked, and didn't even remember ordering Darja [he didn't], but he had fleeting memories of a son living somewhere else, and thoughts of parenthood troubled him. "I thought you were taking those Ukrainian herbs so you wouldn't get pregnant?"
"Da, da, but sometimes they don't work." [They were parsley, actually, and never worked--but she was on the pill, anyway.] "You might be too much of a man for my little herbs, ha ha!" Beckmann could not help but feel an ego stroke at that, having no idea that she was dreaming of a large, beautiful cockroach growing in her belly. (Soon, she would be crazier than he was.)
Over in Dupont Circle, Samuelson was trying to get ready for the Heurich Society meeting, but the former CIA agent had shown up early, trying to make out with her. "Not now!" she kept protesting, but the man did not like giving up easily (except with Angela Merkel).
"You look so hot today!" he purred, trying to take off her leather jacket.
"Don't, I'm cold!" she said, tossing him off. (Her father had warned her never to date men from the CIA, and she was tired of this guy trying to turn it into more than a fling.)
He finally sat down and pretended to look at his phone. "How's that Ukrainian-Russian plot going?" he asked, nonchalantly.
"Perfect!" she lied. The reports she was getting from Darja were getting more and more peculiar, and she was on the verge of scuttling the secret plan. "But today we can move onto something more pressing."
"The Islamic State?" he asked, looking up.
"I know what's happening in North Korea," she said, winking.
A mile away, Charles Wu was making the same claim, and in his case, it was actually based on accurate intelligence. "My Russian source told me," he whispered to Slow Man over whiskey sours in their private karaoke room at Musette.
"Not yet--I'm not in the mood, yet!" protested Slow Man, putting down his little terrier to sing a song by When In Rome. Wu smiled obligingly, though he was not in the mood to kill a whole hour indulging Slow Man's fetish for singing-before-snitching. Slow Man caressed his own yellow suit jacket repeatedly during the song, expressing emotions that had nothing to do with the lyrics. Wu hated him and his little dog, too. Wu had paid big bucks to get this information from a Russian spy, and was in a hurry to get something from Slow Man in return, but, as usual, Slow Man was not in a hurry to do anything. Wu stole a gulp from Slow Man's drink while he was spinning, burped loudly, and thought about killing the dog but making it look like an accident.
Over in Foggy Bottom, Camisole Silk and Apricot Lily were delivering other important information from the same Russian spy, but they were insisting on speaking directly with John Kerry.
"The Secretary of State is very busy today," said C. Coe Phant, "and asked me to take the Project R.O.D.H.A.M. meeting."
Camisole Silk knew this was a lie and Phant was just trying to get lucky with the beautiful Chinese spies. "This is top-level information, and we can only deliver it directly."
Phant tapped his beer glass impatiently on the sticky Froggy Bottom table. "Do you actually know what's happening in North Korea?"
"Yes, we actually know!" said Apricot Lily,
"And we actually know the next step in Ukraine!" added Camisole Silk.
"We may even actually know that Moscow is using Islamist State targets in Syria to train new Russian agents in search-and-destroy tactics," said Apricot Lily.
"Check, please!" shouted Phant, reaching for his Blackberry to contact John Kerry.
A few miles to the east, Sebastian L'Arche had discovered his own Russian mole--or, rather, Russian dog--who had sneaked into his house. The Samoyed was curled up asleep in the basement, next to the hot water heater. The Samoyed was a beautiful creature covered in white fluff, but the Dog Whisperer knew something wasn't quite right. "You're not a dog," he whispered, and the Samoyed opened his eyes without arguing the point. L'Arche reached out his hand and found actual fur to stroke. "Who are you?" The Samoyed, in fact, was the ghost of a Russian diplomat named Anatoly Malenkov, who had died of mysterious circumstances a year earlier. "Men don't get reincarnated as dogs," said L'Arche, still petting the dog, and the dog made no argument about it since he was still finding the whole ghost thing very confusing. "Ghosts don't have fur," said L'Arche, rethinking his own sanity.
Then the pot-bellied pig which L'Arche was keeping over the holiday weekend (Petro Pig!) sauntered over to have a sniff, grunted approvingly at the Russian creature, and turned to L'Arche. "That's Anatoly Malenkov," grunted Petro Pig. "He likes it here."
Back at the Heurich Society meeting, Condoleezza Rice was crackling over the speaker phone, casting serious doubt on Samuelson's North Korean source. "Believe me," Rice crackled, "my Russians will tell me as soon as there's anything we need to know about Korea."
"Of course," said Samuelson, rolling her eyes at the former CIA agent, who smiled and winked at her. "Anything else."
"It's time for us to revisit Operation Cajun Rice," crackled Rice over the speaker phone.
Samuelson had never seen anything about Operation Cajun Rice in the official records, nor in her late father's records; she looked around for a clue, and saw that most of the men in the room were groaning.
"The NFL is a doomed enterprise if it doesn't get new leadership," continued Rice. "The media is turning on the owners like rabid dogs, slamming them with political correctness which amounts to nothing more than re-branded Southern plantation concepts of gentility. With my, that is, our leadership, the NFL will be rife with opportunities for serious financial gain, as well as additional influence in business and political circles." ("She wants to be NFL Commissioner," said the note passed to Samuelson from the investment banker. "She has a void in her heart ever since Pippin her cat died," said the note passed to Samuelson from the former U.S. Congressman. "She just likes seeing men slaughtering each other," said the note passed to Samuelson from the international arms dealer.) "This goes perfectly with our mission statement: maximize wealth, power, and freedom. I've already taken the liberty of launching steps one through four, but I'll need help with steps five through ten," said Rice.
"But the Buffalo Bills will NEVER win a Super Bowl, right?" asked a former FBI agent from New Jersey.
"Of course not!" crackled Rice over the speaker phone.
A mile away, the White House butler began putting up Halloween decorations, and the White House ghosts started going into overdrive.
*******************************************************
COMING UP: Luciano Talaverdi, economist extraordinaire.
"I swear, Darja, your cooking smells so good that you're attracting all the roaches from the floor into our apartment!" exclaimed Beckmann, neglecting his business affairs yet again to enter the kitchen and give her a squeeze.
Darja was very happy to spend all her time in the kitchen. First of all, it was a large kitchen she did not have to share with a quarrelsome mother and a deaf grandmother. Secondly, the leader of the Heurich Society (Henrietta "Button" Samuelson) had instructed her to keep Beckmann well-fed with soup, bread, and lies about Ukraine. Thirdly, the food helped decrease his voracious appetite in bed. But most importantly of all, Darja was slowly going insane from the influence of the Southwest Plaza real estate demon, and believed the roaches were her special friends. "Putin is withdrawing the Russian troops from Ukraine!" she declared joyously, even though she knew full-well it was another lie. "In a few months, maybe I take you to Ukraine, meet my family!"
"I still don't understand why we can't go now!" Beckmann pouted. "I'd love to be helping your freedom fighters and pounding it to those Russkies!" (He embellished this with finger-gun flourishes.)
"No, no! Too dangerous! We go at Christmas, maybe." She shoved a spoonful of potato into his mouth to fend off another beer-breath kiss. "Maybe I have baby bump by then, no?" she teased him.
Beckmann was still not sure how this mail-order bride thing worked, and didn't even remember ordering Darja [he didn't], but he had fleeting memories of a son living somewhere else, and thoughts of parenthood troubled him. "I thought you were taking those Ukrainian herbs so you wouldn't get pregnant?"
"Da, da, but sometimes they don't work." [They were parsley, actually, and never worked--but she was on the pill, anyway.] "You might be too much of a man for my little herbs, ha ha!" Beckmann could not help but feel an ego stroke at that, having no idea that she was dreaming of a large, beautiful cockroach growing in her belly. (Soon, she would be crazier than he was.)
Over in Dupont Circle, Samuelson was trying to get ready for the Heurich Society meeting, but the former CIA agent had shown up early, trying to make out with her. "Not now!" she kept protesting, but the man did not like giving up easily (except with Angela Merkel).
"You look so hot today!" he purred, trying to take off her leather jacket.
"Don't, I'm cold!" she said, tossing him off. (Her father had warned her never to date men from the CIA, and she was tired of this guy trying to turn it into more than a fling.)
He finally sat down and pretended to look at his phone. "How's that Ukrainian-Russian plot going?" he asked, nonchalantly.
"Perfect!" she lied. The reports she was getting from Darja were getting more and more peculiar, and she was on the verge of scuttling the secret plan. "But today we can move onto something more pressing."
"The Islamic State?" he asked, looking up.
"I know what's happening in North Korea," she said, winking.
A mile away, Charles Wu was making the same claim, and in his case, it was actually based on accurate intelligence. "My Russian source told me," he whispered to Slow Man over whiskey sours in their private karaoke room at Musette.
"Not yet--I'm not in the mood, yet!" protested Slow Man, putting down his little terrier to sing a song by When In Rome. Wu smiled obligingly, though he was not in the mood to kill a whole hour indulging Slow Man's fetish for singing-before-snitching. Slow Man caressed his own yellow suit jacket repeatedly during the song, expressing emotions that had nothing to do with the lyrics. Wu hated him and his little dog, too. Wu had paid big bucks to get this information from a Russian spy, and was in a hurry to get something from Slow Man in return, but, as usual, Slow Man was not in a hurry to do anything. Wu stole a gulp from Slow Man's drink while he was spinning, burped loudly, and thought about killing the dog but making it look like an accident.
Over in Foggy Bottom, Camisole Silk and Apricot Lily were delivering other important information from the same Russian spy, but they were insisting on speaking directly with John Kerry.
"The Secretary of State is very busy today," said C. Coe Phant, "and asked me to take the Project R.O.D.H.A.M. meeting."
Camisole Silk knew this was a lie and Phant was just trying to get lucky with the beautiful Chinese spies. "This is top-level information, and we can only deliver it directly."
Phant tapped his beer glass impatiently on the sticky Froggy Bottom table. "Do you actually know what's happening in North Korea?"
"Yes, we actually know!" said Apricot Lily,
"And we actually know the next step in Ukraine!" added Camisole Silk.
"We may even actually know that Moscow is using Islamist State targets in Syria to train new Russian agents in search-and-destroy tactics," said Apricot Lily.
"Check, please!" shouted Phant, reaching for his Blackberry to contact John Kerry.
A few miles to the east, Sebastian L'Arche had discovered his own Russian mole--or, rather, Russian dog--who had sneaked into his house. The Samoyed was curled up asleep in the basement, next to the hot water heater. The Samoyed was a beautiful creature covered in white fluff, but the Dog Whisperer knew something wasn't quite right. "You're not a dog," he whispered, and the Samoyed opened his eyes without arguing the point. L'Arche reached out his hand and found actual fur to stroke. "Who are you?" The Samoyed, in fact, was the ghost of a Russian diplomat named Anatoly Malenkov, who had died of mysterious circumstances a year earlier. "Men don't get reincarnated as dogs," said L'Arche, still petting the dog, and the dog made no argument about it since he was still finding the whole ghost thing very confusing. "Ghosts don't have fur," said L'Arche, rethinking his own sanity.
Then the pot-bellied pig which L'Arche was keeping over the holiday weekend (Petro Pig!) sauntered over to have a sniff, grunted approvingly at the Russian creature, and turned to L'Arche. "That's Anatoly Malenkov," grunted Petro Pig. "He likes it here."
Back at the Heurich Society meeting, Condoleezza Rice was crackling over the speaker phone, casting serious doubt on Samuelson's North Korean source. "Believe me," Rice crackled, "my Russians will tell me as soon as there's anything we need to know about Korea."
"Of course," said Samuelson, rolling her eyes at the former CIA agent, who smiled and winked at her. "Anything else."
"It's time for us to revisit Operation Cajun Rice," crackled Rice over the speaker phone.
Samuelson had never seen anything about Operation Cajun Rice in the official records, nor in her late father's records; she looked around for a clue, and saw that most of the men in the room were groaning.
"The NFL is a doomed enterprise if it doesn't get new leadership," continued Rice. "The media is turning on the owners like rabid dogs, slamming them with political correctness which amounts to nothing more than re-branded Southern plantation concepts of gentility. With my, that is, our leadership, the NFL will be rife with opportunities for serious financial gain, as well as additional influence in business and political circles." ("She wants to be NFL Commissioner," said the note passed to Samuelson from the investment banker. "She has a void in her heart ever since Pippin her cat died," said the note passed to Samuelson from the former U.S. Congressman. "She just likes seeing men slaughtering each other," said the note passed to Samuelson from the international arms dealer.) "This goes perfectly with our mission statement: maximize wealth, power, and freedom. I've already taken the liberty of launching steps one through four, but I'll need help with steps five through ten," said Rice.
"But the Buffalo Bills will NEVER win a Super Bowl, right?" asked a former FBI agent from New Jersey.
"Of course not!" crackled Rice over the speaker phone.
A mile away, the White House butler began putting up Halloween decorations, and the White House ghosts started going into overdrive.
*******************************************************
COMING UP: Luciano Talaverdi, economist extraordinaire.
posted by washingtonwaterwoman | 5:48 PM
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