Make Russia Great Again: A Novel Read online

  “If this is some deep state bullshit, both of you are gonna spend the rest of your lives wearing orange. Meanwhile, you—Frankenstein—you’re fired.”

  “If I may, Mr. President?” Miriam said. “What inference do you think the Russians will draw if you dismiss the head of US Cyber Command the day after Zitkin won an obviously rigged election?”

  The president considered.

  “All right. Frankenstein, you’re unfired. For now. But stay tuned to Twitter.”

  The president’s secretary buzzed to say that Secretary Pompeo was on the line. Mr. Trump picked up and listened.

  “No, goddamnit, no!” he said. “Do not fucking call him to congratulate him! He stole the fucking election!” He slammed the phone down.

  “He wanted to know if I’d called Zipkin. To congratulate him. Remind me—why is he running the State Department?”

  Judd said, “We should issue a statement of some kind, sir.”

  The president reached for the remote control and unmuted Fox News. Mr. Colonnity’s stentorian voice filled the Oval. As always, it was unclear if he was speaking to the viewer or to himself.

  What does this mean? I’ll tell you what it means. For starters, Brown Square is back to being Red Square. You want to know who’s smiling? I’ll tell you who’s smiling inside that mausoleum there. Lenin. That’s right. V. I. Lenin. His embalmed corpse is in there. Personally I find the idea of displaying the embalmed corpse of someone who died in 1924 disgusting. Would you take your kids to see that? Come on, kids, let’s go see Lenin’s rotting corpse! Imagine if George Washington’s embalmed corpse was in a glass coffin in front of the White House. What would that say about us as a nation? I’ll tell you what. Nothing good. What does it say about Russia that this revolting artifact is there in their front yard, like some grotesque Sleeping Beauty? My point? I’ll tell you my point. I’m getting to it. Today that corpse is smiling. Because Russia is Red again. And that’s exactly what President Trump warned of in his eloquent, beautiful tweet last night. Who else is smiling? Loser One. Oh yeah, big grin on that red mug. And his running mate, Krupskaya. Oh yeah. She’s grinning, ear to ear. I can hear the clinking of vodka glasses at their campaign headquarters. They’re probably all singing “The Internationale.”

  I whispered to Judd, “Who’s Krupskaya ?”

  “Mrs. Lenin.”

  “Yoko?”

  “Lenin. The corpse’s wife.”

  The TV screen split in two, showing a Fox correspondent standing outside the West Wing.

  Mr. Colonnity said, “Amber Purr is at the White House. Amber, what’s the reaction from the White House?”

  “Nothing official so far, Seamus. We’re waiting for reaction from the president. What we do know is that he is aware of the situation.”

  “Of course I’m fucking aware of the situation,” Mr. Trump growled at the screen. He reached for his iPhone, buttock muscles collectively clenched.

  Judd said, “Sir, perhaps it might be better to hold off until…”

  The president ignored him, thumbs tapping away, like woodpeckers on Adderall.

  The screen split into three, adding a corpulent, goateed man smoking a cigarette. He was identified as KGB defector Trofim Ulyakim.

  “Mr. Ulyakim, thank you for being with us.”

  “Yes, Seamus. Always goot to be with you.”

  “Tell us—what’s going on at the Kremlin right now?”

  “I woot say probably carpenters are building gallows, for the hangings.”

  “Really?”

  “No, Seamus. Am spikking in metaphor. But yes, there will be repercussings for this, sure. Putin is not happy. No. But for now, he’s having mittings with top people to discuss what is next step. Will he accept result of election?” Ulyakim seemed amused. He took a puff of his cigarette. “I woot say, no.”

  “So you… hold on… don’t go away, Trofim, I want to talk more, but we’re getting a tweet from the president…”

  The screen filled with a piping-hot presidential tweet.

  Democracy is grate but something is FISHY about these election returns! Putin has made Russia great again. Why would Russians want to set the clock back to 1719? Mystery! Meanwhile Loser One and Loser Too are rejoicing! But the fat lady has not sung yet!!!!

  Judd whispered to me, “Nineteen seventeen.”

  “What?” I said.

  “The Russian Revolution.”

  “Did he just call Loser Too fat?”

  “No. Opera reference.”

  Mr. Colonnity said, “There you have it, folks. Straight from the top. I say thank God Donald Trump is at the helm of the ship of state. At a time like this, we need his firm hand on the tiller of state. As he has just told us, something is stinky in Moscow.”

  Mr. Trump reached for the phone.

  “Put me through to Putin.”

  Judd looked horrified. For a moment I thought he might wrestle the phone away from the president.

  I signaled Miriam to say something. She was the senior government officer present. She shrugged.

  Mr. Trump watched Fox as he waited to be connected.

  The screen showed ancient footage of Lenin speechifying from what looked like lobnoye mesto in Brown/Red Square; people being denounced at the purge trials; starving Ukrainian kulaks; labor camps; Stalin smirking as nuclear missiles on trucks rolled past; the Berlin Wall going up; Khrushchev, banging his shoe at the US and hugging Fidel Castro; Brezhnev smirking beneath bushy eyebrows as even bigger nuclear missiles rolled by; CIA traitor Aldrich Ames, wearing orange, shuffling to court in leg manacles; Reagan in Berlin shouting, “Mr. Gorbachev—tear down this wall!”

  The secretary came in.

  “They have President Putin for you, sir.”

  “Vlad? Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck is going on over there? This can’t be right. No way those assholes could have won. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah? Good. That’s what I’d do. Throw their Red asses in jail. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Right. Say, Vlad, could Ukraine be involved? Maybe they used the same servers they did to help Hillary. Motherfuckers. What do you bet Biden’s kid is mixed up in this? Collecting fifty big ones a month from some company that steals elections. Absolutely, I think you should consider that. In fact, it would be great if you would say so publicly. So you’ll say you’re looking into that? You’re the best. Uh-huh. Yeah? No kidding…”

  Miriam was shaking her head. I was pretty sure she was thinking, Oh God, not again…

  The call ended. Mr. Putin wasn’t in the mood for an extended chat. But then he had a lot on his plate today.

  Judd asked, “What did he say, sir?”

  “Number one, he’s not going anywhere. Number two, they’re gonna arrest whatshisname and the other Commies. Three,” he added in tone of satisfaction, “he agreed with me that Ukraine’s gotta be involved. I saved your sorry ass, Frankenstein.”

  None of us spoke.

  “What? I knock it out of the park, and you all sit there like it’s a funeral parlor?”

  Judd said, “Well handled, sir.” Someone had to say something.

  Much as I wanted to praise Mr. Trump, I was—I don’t want to say “aghast”—concerned that he’d blamed it on Ukraine. Though it had probably already occurred to Mr. Putin to do just that. Rather convenient, casus belli–wise.

  Disgusted at our failure to fete him with confetti and huzzahs, Mr. Trump turned to his most dependable aide—his cell phone. His thumbs tapped away. A moment later, up on Fox came his tweet:

  Just had perfect talk with present and future President Putin. Fake election! Zipkin and his fellow Reds will soon shiver in Siberia! Ukraine likely in cahoots with the commies. Used same computer servers that helped Hillary in 2016! Lock them all up!

  I called Miriam.

  “I know Zitkin’s a Communist,” I said, “but he didn’t steal the election. We did. It doesn’t seem right he should spend the rest of his life wearing orange.”

  “Orange is the new red?”

  “Miriam.”<
br />
  “Sorry. Bad taste. Oh, Herb, what can I tell you? The intelligence biz all too often boils down to a choice between shitty and shittier.”

  “Shouldn’t Murphy’s computer have anticipated this? That Putin would simply ignore the election results and throw his opponent in jail?”

  “Yes. Unless Placid Reflux is playing a longer game. Putin can void the election and throw Zitkin in jail. But there may be consequences for doing that. It could weaken him. Make him look like what he is—a dictator.”

  “Not much comfort for Anatoli. What about your quote-unquote asset, Huggybear? He must be shitting himself about now.”

  “He is. As we speak, a very intense discussion is taking place at Langley.”

  “Are they going to exfilate him or whatever you call it? Get him out of there?”

  “Well, there are those who want to do that. And those who want to leave him in place.”

  “Where do you stand?”

  “Above the fray.”

  “Miriam.”

  “Herb. The DNI’s role is not to micromanage. Langley will make the right call. Which is to say, choose between the shitty choices.”

  Miriam detected the note of dejection in my voice. She asked me to come to her office. She had something to show me.

  “I obviously don’t need to point out how sensitive this is,” she said, placing the transcript in front of me.

  She pointed to the letters “XMHUG/B” on the top page.

  “That’s our guy Huggybear,” she said. “ ‘Z’ is Zitkin. This was recorded just after the results came in, around 2 a.m. Moscow time.”

  “And these blacked-out bits?”

  “Redactions where Zitkin said Huggybear’s name.”

  I read:

  Z: Well, [REDACTED] we’re fucked for sure now.

  XMHUG/B: How did this happen? Who did this?

  Z: I don’t know. No one seems to. It appears we have a guardian angel.

  XMHUG/B: Guardian devil, you mean. They’re going to arrest us all.

  Z: Yes, I expect.

  XMHUG/B: Why are you so fucking calm?

  Z: I don’t know, [REDACTED]. You know the saying, “Where there are no alternatives, there are no problems”?

  XMHUG/B: No, I don’t. And it seems to me that there are alternatives. We could renounce the results ourselves.

  Z: Not a very glorious ending.

  XMHUG/B: Fuck glory!

  Z: Shall I tell you a secret, [REDACTED]? Part of me—not a big part, mind you—has always felt that you haven’t really paid your dues as a Communist until you’ve—

  XMHUG/B: Shat yourself in the middle of a speech in Red Square?

  Z: [Laughs] Well, yes, I paid those dues. But Lenin was in jail for one year, plus three years of exile. Stalin got—what?—eight months, and two years exile. Trotsky, four years in Siberia. Then the ice ax in his skull. Solzhenitsyn was eight years in the Gulag. He parlayed that into a Nobel Prize.

  XMHUG/B: [Exasperated] What are you saying, Anatoli Ivanovich?

  Z: Only that if we do get sent away, it’s not the end, necessarily. We’d be heroes. We’d have respect. Come back sanctified.

  XMHUG/B: I’ve got a better idea. Leave Russia—quickly. And continue the struggle from there. Paris is—

  Z: [Laughs] I don’t see them writing ballads about us if we do that, [REDACTED]. Come, old boy. Courage! We’ll have time to write our memoirs. We’ll be best-selling authors when we get out. Maybe we’ll get a Nobel. I call dibs on the title One Day in the Life of Anatoli Zitkin.

  Miriam said: “He’s rather likable, isn’t he?”

  38

  In due course, the Kremlin announced that the election results were “nullified in consequence of malevolent and criminal interference with the organs of electoral democracy.” It was further announced that given the “grave nature of the situation,” President Putin had “graciously consented to continue in office until such a time as another election can be arranged.”

  Poor old Anatoli and other top Communist Party officials were taken into “protective custody.” The Ministry of Justice issued a statement that they were “cooperating with the investigation.” Ominously for Ukraine, a further bulletin announced the discovery of “involvement by anti-Russian elements tied to the Kiev regime.” Buttocks were clenching in Kiev.

  Mr. Trump approved of these developments in a fusillade of tweets. He was looking forward “more than ever” to the upcoming Putin visit.

  The liberal mainstream media was, needless to say, outraged. Putin had just nullified a national election without presenting so much as a shred of evidence that it had been rigged. And still Trump was rolling out the red carpet? Katie might yet get to unveil her brilliant “How many presidents can claim to have been impeached twice?”

  Loser One and Loser Too found themselves between the proverbial rock and hard place. On the one hand, they didn’t want to look pro-Commie by defending Comrade Zitkin’s victory. On the other hand, the international community was loudly ahem-ing and tut-tutting about the “interminability of the Putin regime.” Not a lot of gratitude for Mr. Putin for his gracious consent to stay on.

  Further complicating things: the Dems were desperately trying to attract the disappointed postconvention Socialist millennials. The kids regarded Comrade Zitkin as a Russian version of their own beloved grumpy Uncle Pinko. They were denouncing the nullified election on Facebook and Instagram with taunts of “OK Putin.” And wearing “Free Zitkin” T-shirts and hats. In France, people went about with “Je Suis Anatoli” buttons. (Arguably the least compelling political slogan in history.) At home there was talk of a concert in Madison Square Garden. Bruce Springsteen was rumored to be involved. (It turned out he was not.)

  The Zitkin groundswell, such as it was, was creating pressure to denounce his jailing. But that risked alienating moderate elements of the Loser Coalition, short on sympathy for Commies caught with their pinkies in the cookie jar.

  It was also complicating things for Mr. Trump. Was it appropriate, under the circumstances, to honor Mr. Putin with a state visit, red carpet, twenty-one-gun salute, and all the trimmings? The optics were not ideal.

  Loser One was on surer ground, here. His campaign was messaging: “Rescind the invite!” Slogan-wise, a bit thin for the Socialist millennials, who preferred more caffeinated slogans like “Capitalism sucks!” and “Down with heteronormativity!”

  The Trump campaign capitalized on “Rescind!” by framing it as “Communist sympathizing.”

  Lots of moving parts.

  * * *

  The president always kept Miriam waiting. Rather than humiliatingly twiddle her thumbs in the West Wing reception area, she would come to my office to “hang.”

  I’d grown fond of Miriam, and she, perhaps, of me. I knew she disapproved of Mr. Trump, and as I always took his side, she surely must have disapproved of me; but she was always sweet to me.

  My office TV was as usual on, sound muted, to Fox. Not because I didn’t want to miss a word of Mr. Colonnity’s Ciceronian monologues, or Mr. Fartmartin’s baby-faced harrumphings about deep state coups—poor lamb; if only he knew—but because I needed to know what they were Trump-whispering, in case I had to manage it.

  Fox showed Anatoli and his fellow Bolshies shuffling into the glass defendant’s box in the Russian courtroom. He wasn’t smiling.

  I said to Miriam, who was knitting as she watched with one eye, “Is one of those Huggybear?” It was an indiscreet question, I realized.

  “Funny you should ask,” Miriam said, continuing to knit and purl. “Not that it’s in the least funny. But that’s what I’ve come to discuss with the president. We may have a problem.”

  By now a half dozen very glum-looking Communists were crowded behind glass in the courtroom, listening to a glum-looking prosecutor read out the charges.

  Miriam did a head count.

  “Looks like the full politburo,” she said. “Minus Huggybear. That’s the problem.”

&nb
sp; “How do you mean?”

  “They’ve got him in the deep freeze.”

  “Barbaric.”

  “In isolation, Herb. Not an actual freezer.”

  “Ah.”

  “That means they’re interested in him. And that’s not good.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “Are they onto him?”

  “Possibly. Huggybear is… well, there’s no reason I can’t tell you, for heaven’s sake. He’s just a tired old Marxist professor. Not the type to hold out when they attach the electrodes. If it comes to that, he’ll start warbling before they even get him strapped in.”

  “Do you think he’s told them?”

  “Sure hope not. Maybe he’ll distract them by reciting his favorite bits from Das Kapital.”

  I groaned. Outwardly. I no longer groaned inwardly.

  “The president won’t like that at all, Miriam,” I said.

  “No.”

  “Shouldn’t we have given him a cyanide pill?”

  “He’s not high-level enough. Like I said, just a tired old Commie. It’s not like he has access to nuclear launch codes or is up to speed on their biowarfare programs. We only turned him so he could identify promising students for recruitment.”

  “Then he wouldn’t have much to give them, would he?”

  Miriam seemed to hesitate. “No. But as the CP just won a rigged election, and as he’s on the CIA’s payroll… there’ll be some dot connecting.”

  A secretary came to say the president would see her now.

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “Thanks. Tell my husband and the children my last thoughts were of them.”

  * * *

  Caramella buzzed to say that Senator Biskitt was on the line. I hoped he was calling with good news on the Joint Chiefs/Molybdenum Gap front. But probably not. Why? Because that would be good news. And no one ever called me with good news.

  “Say, Herb, a bunch of us senators were talking. They all got their invitations to the Putin dinner. Then Cricket Singh called me about something, all chirpy, but she’s always chirpy, and she mentioned as how she’d gotten her invite. I checked with my office. Mine seems not to have arrived.”