Make Russia Great Again: A Novel Read online

  But wait—there’s more. He then had the nerve to call me back the next day, to tell me he “felt bad” about calling me a “Jew bastard cocksucker.” As well you should, I thought. He then said that he could “see [his] way through to accepting the Treasury job.” Talk about gracious.

  I replied that I’d be happy to take that up with the president. As soon as the next ten-thousand-year-long ice age had thawed.

  He didn’t like that. That bought me another anti-Semitic-themed tirade.

  And what do you know: a few days later, L’Osservatore Romano, the Rome paper that covers the Vatican, ran a photo of “Il Mysterioso Monsignore,” namely me, next to the iPhone photo someone had snapped of Oleg. Oleg’s mug was now very recognizable, owing to the massive news coverage his death had generated.

  Miriam had gotten Italian Immigration to “misplace” the photo they’d taken of me when I arrived for my meeting with Oleg. Now—miracolo!—it had resurfaced. And wasn’t my new friend Bob Woodward fascinated by that development.

  Meanwhile, the Post’s rival paper, the Washington Examinator, whose Moscow bureau chief, Peter Glebnikov, had written the series that got him smeared with Oil of Oleg, was intensively covering Squiggly’s and my efforts to get the Glebnikov Act repealed.

  I won’t rehash the whole sorry saga. It came as no great surprise when my old friends FBI special agents Winchell and Wheary paid me another visit. I thought it was a bit dramatic, taking me away in handcuffs. Caramella cried. Hetta saw it on TV and collapsed and had to be taken to the ER. Nice going, fellas. But you can’t be too careful. I might have tried to shoot it out.

  There was a TV in the DC detention center. It wasn’t set to Fox, so I wasn’t able to see Mr. Colonnity denounce me. (I watched the tapes of it later.) How gracious of him to say that I was “in way over [my] head,” and that Mr. Trump “should have kept me handing out towels at Farrago-sur-Mer. Yet another case,” he told viewers, “of no good deed goes unpunished. Once again, Donald Trump tried to help someone. And how did Herb Nutterman repay him? With perfidy.”

  Thank you, Mr. Colonnity. It would be nice to think that he didn’t get those talking points from Mr. Trump himself. I prefer not to dwell on that.

  The next day, while I was persuading a large man with swastikas and other Third Reich–themed tattoos on two-thirds of his body that I really did not want to have sex with him, I looked up at the TV—while groping for some blunt instrument—and there was Squiggly. He was scampering down a corridor in the Capitol, pursued by a mob of reporters with boom mics and TV cameras. And he did look like a penguin on an ice floe trying to escape a sea lion.

  I read his—I don’t want to say “outrageous lies”—quotes in the newspaper about how he’d been taking his orders from me, that he didn’t realize I’d “gone rogue” and was acting entirely on my own, and that the president had no idea at all what I was up to. Mendacity, thy name is Squigg Lee Biskitt. At the risk of sounding bitter, I hope when Secretary of State Singh retires from diplomacy she’ll challenge him for his Senate seat and trounce his little gerbil behind.

  That sounds bitter. So as we say in Washington: I would like to revise my prior statement. Allow me to wish Senator Biskitt all the best. What a shame it would be for South Carolina if he were, say, run over by the trolley in the US Capitol. Or eaten by a sea lion.

  Allow me also to say what an honor and a privilege it was to serve in the Trump White House. I may have left in handcuffs—suboptimal optics indeed—but with head held high. At least until Agent Winchell shoved it down as he put me in the car.

  Epilogue

  Tempus does not fugit in federal detention. I cannot say that these past four years have sped by.

  But then along comes Friday, which is Pancake Day, and somehow another week has passed. We on the inside also get that TGIF thrill. Then it passes, and we confront the reality that although it’s the weekend, we do not “have plans.”

  My principal lawyer—I accumulated a total of seven, at an average of $950 an hour—has spoken to Blyster Forkmorgan, chief White House counsel, a number of times about the pardon that Mr. Trump promised me. The reasons for why “this isn’t a good time” vary. Once or twice, they sounded plausible.

  But there’s one thing Herb Nutterman values, even above his freedom, and that is his integrity. I would never—we’ve stressed this to Mr. Forkmorgan again and again—rat on Mr. Trump. Herb Nutterman will take his Trump secrets to the grave. And there are quite a few of those.

  I don’t know it for a fact, but my sense is that Donald Jr.—here’s a harmless secret for you: his Secret Service code name was “Doofus”—along with Jored and Ivunka may have had a hand (technically, three hands) in keeping Mr. Trump’s hand (for a total of four) from reaching for the pardon pen. Why? Because I told them they couldn’t use Marine One to fly to the Hamptons. Smart move, Herb. Would it help to say I was only following orders? Not really.

  Now that the end of Mr. Trump’s second term is approaching, I remain hopeful that he will fulfill his promise to his favorite Jew. But if it doesn’t happen, I’m at peace with that. Since I haven’t shanked or sexually assaulted anyone, and because my napkin-folding classes have been a vocational success helping our “graduates” get jobs, I’m eligible for early release in eighteen months. How excited am I? Answer: very.

  Miriam came to visit me, and how lovely of her was that? She looked tired. She’d lost weight, and she was never heavy. She said she’s been working her tail off, flying back and forth between DC and some city in China whose name I didn’t catch. (Wonder how their last election turned out.)

  It wasn’t a social call. She’d heard that I’d decided after all to write a book—this book.

  I was impressed. How did she know that? She smiled and said once a spook, always a spook.

  She said she was sorry about how things had turned out for me. She didn’t think it was fair, or right. I shrugged and said, “Feh,”I though my actual feelings were more complicated than I let on.

  She said she was glad I was writing a book. In fact, that was why she’d come. She wanted to help. To provide context. Might help with sales, she said.

  Okay, I said, I’m all ears.

  (I’m not putting all this in quotes because I wasn’t taking notes. But this is what she told me that day in the visitors’ room.)

  The shooting in St. Peter’s, she said, you remember that?

  Do I ever, I said.

  That was me, she said. I arranged that.

  What?

  Out it all spilled. By that point, she’d had it with Trump. The lying, the deceit—all this is her words, I emphasize—denigrating his own intelligence services, who knew that Putin had something on Trump. His refusal to accept their word that Putin had interfered in 2016. Everything. The whole horrible enchilada (again, her words). She’d decided: enough.

  I’m not saying what I did was right, she said. But at the time, it sure felt right.

  That’s why you tried to have me killed in Rome? I said.

  No, no, no. She smiled.

  When she learned I was going to meet Oleg, she arranged for my monsignor disguise. (Not my best-ever idea, she said; I agreed.) She also arranged for her people in Rome to stage a nonlethal—she emphasized nonlethal—shooting.

  Why? To make Oleg think that the meeting was a setup. That we were trying to kill him, to prevent him from releasing his Trump tape. That would piss him off enough to release it. And that would doom Trump. Right?

  Wrong!

  As it turned out, the base loved watching Trump hump beauty queens. How stupid was I? she said. She should have known. If a critical mass of people weren’t offended by the “grab ’em by the pussy” tape, why would adult movies of him doing a lot more than grabbing them by the pussy move public opinion?

  She said that US intelligence actually was starting to pick up indications that the Russians might trace the hack to Placid Reflux.

  That’s why I called you, she said, to tell you we had
to tell Trump about Placid. Not to protect him. But if the shit hit the fan, Trump would shut down CyberCom and God knows what other US intelligence operations. Not good for the country.

  But that turned out to be my second big mistake, she said. Because all it did was put Trump into a state of high freak-out. And what does he do? He proactively placates Putin by inviting him for a sleepover at the White House. So if Putin does figure out about Placid, maybe he’ll shrug and say, fuck it, let’s move on. He’s getting feted at the White House. He’s won, big-time.

  Putin accepts the invite. But then Oleg stops posting the dirty movies. To fake—that word!—the appearance of a quid pro quo. So it would look like it was Putin who was posting them, and he stopped because he got his White House visit.

  Why would Oleg do that? Because he was pissed that Trump had failed to deliver on the Glebnikov Act repeal. So he agrees to meet with you.

  You order up an air force jet to fly you from Anchorage to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. And google the fine-dining spots there for your rendezvous.

  Yes, Herb, Miriam said, I was monitoring you. From the air force plane reservation, I knew where you were going. From monitoring your computer, I knew that you’d narrowed your choice of restaurants down to three. Just in case, we wired up all three. Thank God you didn’t meet him in Paris.

  So I was able to listen to your entire conversation with Oleg. By the way—kelp-infused vodka? Yuck. And now I knew about the other shoe Oleg was threatening to drop. The “take care of” Katya part. I like to think that would have been lethal for Trump. On the other hand, who the fuck knows? The Trump era has proved that Americans are capable of the most extraordinary moral elasticity.

  When you got back to DC, your breath still smelling of kelp—poor Hetta!—I asked you to come to my office. And asked you what the fuck was going on.

  That was a test. I already knew. But I needed to know if you were going to be honest with me. You passed the test.

  Then Murphy’s jack-in-box reactivates and elects Zitkin. Placid Reflux is a Terminator. If someone won’t retaliate against Russia, it will.

  So it’s a Red dawn over Moscow. The Commies are back. Now the fan is so covered with shit the blades can’t move.

  But Putin’s not going anywhere. Are you kidding? He’s not going to accept this bogus result. He tosses Comrade Zitkin with his fellow Bolshies into jail. Including Huggybear. Our quote-unquote asset.

  I knew he’d sing within about five minutes. So before the FSB can turn his apartment upside down, I have our people plant a few items. Notes, in a facsimile of Huggybear’s own handwriting. Stuff about procedures in case we need to exfiltrate him in a hurry. Phone numbers. And a vague but revealing note about a US cyberpenetration of their electoral infrastructure.

  Why would I do something like that? To make Putin go ballistic. So he’d think that Trump had double-crossed him. And wouldn’t interfere again on Trump’s behalf.

  So there you have it, Herb—the alpha and omega of the deep state’s dark op: to get Russia not to interfere in an American presidential election. Pretty nefarious, huh?

  For a while I thought it had worked, she said. That I’d finally gotten it right. Putin canceled the visit, wouldn’t take Trump’s calls. He’s pissed. Mission accomplished.

  Then Oleg called you. And yes, Herb, I was listening in on your phone calls. Which was completely illegal. Enough to land me here in FCI Wingdale. You could teach me napkin folding.

  By now I was past caring. But some small part of me that hadn’t rotted away from cynicism warned me that the president might be in danger.

  Now I learned that Oleg was done waiting for you and gerbil-man to repeal the Glebnikov Act. And was going to release the “take care of” Katya tape on Facebook. On Halloween. Perfect.

  You told me about it. The tap on your phone wasn’t necessary.

  The rest you know, she said. What I told you that day in the Sit Room, after we watched Putin take out Oleg. Crafty old Putin. He swallowed his anger and did the smart thing. Four more years.

  She touched my arm.

  And you, poor old Herb, what did you get? Nine years.

  I told her about early release. She started to cry. She shook her head and muttered something unflattering about Mr. Trump. I gave her a napkin folded in the shape of a swan, to dry her tears.

  She got up to leave.

  I said, Miriam, if I put all this in a book, won’t you get in trouble?

  She smiled. Write it, she said. She gave me a hug and left. And died a month later. She obviously knew about the cancer when she visited me. Dear Miriam. She was past caring about legal repercussions.

  * * *

  Today is the second Saturday of the month. Hetta’s coming. She’s been terrific these years. Brings me nice things to eat. The food here is not what you’d call “fine dining.” I can always tell if she’s been stewing in one of her you-shoulda-listened-to-me moods because she brings borscht. I pretend to enjoy it, because she’s been so great. I’ll say this: it beats the shit out of kelp.

  I’ll end with the most recent letter I have from someone I’ve grown fond of over these past four years. He and I have to phrase things in a certain way, but we’ve both learned to read—and write—“between the lines,” so to speak.

  Friend Nutterman, greetings!

  Thank you for your ultimate letter, which reached me here a mere two months after you wrote it. A new record! Imagine what voluminous correspondence we would accumulate had we access to emails. But there is something to be said for old-fashioned letters, don’t you think? I do, though I wish they supplied us with better quality paper and implements of writing. As you see, they allow us only dull pencils. So we cannot assault the guards with sharpened pencils and escape!

  I exult that you have decided to write your memoirs. I have been writing mine. The superintendent here, a fine fellow named Feliks Mussachevki, confiscated my first chapters. At first I was upset with him, but now I see that he was right—brevity is a virtue. We literary Russians—I refer of course to my fellow writers Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Solzhenitsyn—are in truth not known for our brevity. But with Superintendent Mussachevki’s guidance, I will continue cutting and editing until it is just right. Fortunately, there is no rush, as three years remain on my sentence. Meanwhile, what do you think of my title: I Demand a Recount.

  How exciting, this news we hear that Trump Junior will take over the presidentura of the USA from his father. And without a normal election! Certainly he will keep America great. Just as our own dear Vladimir Vladimirovich continues to keep Russia great. I am in awe of his continuing energy. How fortunate are we to have such great leaders, eh?

  Of course young Trump will have large shoes to fill. In his place I would tremble. Alas that he will not have you for his chief of cabinetry, to give wise counsel. But probably by now you have had your fill of public life. And you have your book to write. I look forward to reading it. Perhaps someday we will meet. I would like that.

  I shall close there. I send you fraternal greetings, Herbert Abrahamovich. Write me again. The address remains the same!

  Anatoli Ivanovich Zitkin

  23-8949

  Lefortovo Detention Facility No. 2

  Ulitsa Lefortovskiy Val, 5

  Moscow, Russia

  I. Yiddish expression for “Whaddya gonna do?”

  Acknowledgments

  Kind thanks—and then some—to Dr. Katherine Close and comrades John Tierney and Gregory Zorthian. Kind thanks, too, to Maria Mendez, Faren Bachelis, and Sherry Wasserman.

  The Order of Lenin, first class, to Jonathan Karp and Amanda Urban. And to Natasha Simons for not smearing me with Oil of Oleg for that deplorable first draft.

  More from the Author

  The Judge Hunter

  The Relic Master

  But Enough About You

  About the Author

  © KATY CLOSE

  Christopher Buckley is the author of nineteen books. His first nati
onal bestseller was The White House Mess, published in 1986, a fictional memoir by a presidential chief of staff. Buckley renounced political satire some years ago on the grounds that American politics had “become self-satirizing.” As they say in Washington, he wishes to revise his prior statement. Now, thirty-four years later, he returns to the scene of the crime (as it were) with Make Russia Great Again, another fictional memoir by a White House chief of staff. If enough people buy it, he promises to retire permanently from political satire.

  SimonandSchuster.com

  www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Christopher-Buckley

  @simonbooks

  Also by CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY

  The Judge Hunter

  The Relic Master

  But Enough About You

  They Eat Puppies, Don’t They?

  Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir

  Supreme Courtship

  Boomsday

  Florence of Arabia

  Washington Schlepped Here

  No Way to Treat a First Lady

  God Is My Broker (with John Tierney)

  Little Green Men

  Wry Martinis

  Thank You for Smoking

  Wet Work

  Campion (with James MacGuire)

  The White House Mess

  Steaming to Bamboola: The World of a Tramp Freighter

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