Make Russia Great Again: A Novel Read online

  Was that going to complicate things for Oleg? I wondered. Italy is a member of Interpol. How was he going to get around that? Land in his private jet and leave the crew to shoot it out with Immigration and Customs while he legged it for San Marino? But that was Oleg’s problem, not mine. I was just grateful I wasn’t schlepping Hetta off for a romantic getaway in Pyongyang or Kiribati, wherever the hell it is.

  I was not looking forward to lunch with Oleg, for this reason:

  The day before I left, Judd came to my office with another folder marked “Eyes Only.” He pulled out a CIA document, a list of a dozen or more names, all Russian sounding.

  “What’s this?”

  “A list.”

  “I see that.”

  “The so-called Novichokkiy. People who’ve died from Novichok poisoning. Courtesy of your pal Oleg.”

  “Please don’t call him that.” The list felt heavy in my hand.

  “This one here?” Judd pointed. “Katya Anasimova. That’s the interesting one.”

  “Why?”

  “She was one of the contestants in the 2013 Miss Universe pageant.”

  I groaned.

  “Sorry,” Judd said, “but I thought you might find that useful, going in. Now, none of the autopsies for these poor sumbitches specifically state, ‘Death by Novichok poisoning.’ Langley says there’s a reason for that. Russian hospitals stopped putting that down as cause of death after the third incident. The Kremlin sent out a memo saying ix-nay on the ovichok-nay autopsy reports.”

  I stared at the name on the list.

  “Why would Oleg do that to a beauty pageant contestant?”

  “No idea. Maybe it’ll come up during lunch.”

  So after a tiring flight—three flights, actually—in the company of a very sullen wife, my mood was not at my hospitality-professional best.

  Oleg was already there on the rooftop of La Terrazza, with its—I must say—fabulous view of what must be most of San Marino, there not being much of San Marino. Befitting his oligarch status, the entourage of scowling bodyguards was impressive. Federico Fellini’s entire immigration department would have been no match for them in a firefight.

  Oleg rose to greet me with a bear hug.

  “Errrbert!”

  “Hello, Oleg,” I said without reciprocal warmth.

  “Sit. We will have wine.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Yes, we will have wine.”

  He stared at my “unremarkable” face. A broad Slavic smile spread across his meaty one. He chuckled and wagged a finger the size of a salami at me.

  “You look different.”

  “It’s been a while.”

  “You don’t look happy to see me.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “How is Paul? I like Paul.”

  “Do you?”

  “Oh yes. Is wery good fellow.”

  “How much did you pay him to lobby against the Glebnikov bill?”

  “Not enough, it sims!” he said with discrepant amusement.

  “I’ve come a long way, Oleg. Shall we get down to—”

  “How is Donald?”

  “The president of the United States, you mean? Rather busy.”

  “Am wery glad about Senate vote. I sent flowers. They arrive?”

  “I’m sure. Yes, we were all gratified. The impeachment was a disgrace from beginning to end. It seems there is nothing to which the Democrats will not stoop.”

  “Why they allow such thing? President on trial? What kind of system is this?”

  “A very poor system,” I replied. “Now, Oleg, why don’t you tell me whatever it is I’ve come all this very long way to hear?”

  But there was no hurrying Oleg along. Nyet. He stared out at the medieval cityscape of towers and churches.

  “It’s nice, San Marino, eh?”

  “Charming,” I said. “And how nice they don’t belong to Interpol.”

  He laughed. “This I wery much like about San Marino. Errbert, we must make a finish of this silly Glebnikov Act.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Make go away, of course.”

  If you have not had the experience of explaining US constitutional procedure to a Russian oligarch, all I can say is, you haven’t missed a thing. After half an hour spent mostly repeating myself, I managed to penetrate into Oleg’s skull the fact that the president cannot—I threw in an “alas,” though I don’t know why—simply nullify acts of Congress. Oleg found this a) wery disappointing and b) “stupit.”

  “So,” he said, “what’s solution?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “How do we fix?”

  The next half hour was spent in much the way as the previous, this time explaining how you have to introduce a bill to—sorry, but I simply can’t bring myself to type the rest of this sentence without screaming. And they don’t like us to scream here in the library at FCI Wingdale.

  By now I wanted to reach across the table, yank him by the tie, and smash his Why-kink face into his scampi, the way they do in the movies. But as I am a person of peaceable nature and had no desire to annoy seven Uzi-armed bodyguards, I refrained. I waited for the other shoe, as it were, to drop.

  “Errburt. Have ever I telled you about Miss Universe contest 2013?”

  “No, Oleg.”

  “The girls? Fan-tastic. But it’s Miss Universe contest, so yes of course they are beautifool. You want to eat them.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Donald was wery happy, I tell you.”

  “The president is known to enjoy the company of beautiful women. Of beautiful people, generally. Women and men.”

  “Donald also like men?”

  “No, no, no. I meant—never mind. He admires beautiful people. It’s an expression. Glamorous people. You know…”

  My left leg chose this moment for some reason to go numb. My brain had been numb for an hour.

  “As you were saying, Oleg?”

  “Donald, he want to”—Oleg mimed coition—“with all the girls.”

  “Well,” I said, “it’s only natural that as chief judge of the pageant he would exercise due diligence.”

  I explained the concept of due diligence. Oleg found it wery mirthful.

  “Yes, Errbert. He make doo dilly-chintz with every girl in contest. Eighteen girls.”

  “That is due diligence,” I observed.

  “The girls, they are not wanting”—Oleg re-mimed coition—“make boom-boom with Donald. So he tell them: ‘Okay, make boom-boom, you win contest. Guarantee.’ ”

  When I say that I was beginning to have a bad feeling, I mean: a bad feeling like the one you get when the doctor tells you, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more we can do. Or when the pilot comes on the PA system and says, Brace for impact. That kind.

  Oleg continued: “So Donald have wery good time with eighteen girls. But of course only one girl is winnink. Because there only can be one Miss Universe.”

  “That is, yes, how these things work. Generally.”

  “So after winner is announce, now we have seventeen not-happy girls.”

  “Well, that’s life, I’m afraid.”

  “Maybe. But girls are not saying ‘that’s life.’ Some are saying, We will make a noise. Big noise. Noisy noise. So Donald say to his good friend Oleg, ‘Oleg, make girls to understand, yes?’ And because Oleg is good friend, he tell Donald, ‘Okay. Oleg take care of.’ ”

  “Well, that’s what friends are for. Isn’t it?”

  “So!” he boomed with a vertebra-snapping, adverbial exclamation. “What shall we have for dessert?”

  10

  Judd listened in silence to my account of lunch with Oleg. I had to tell someone. His comments consisted mostly of serial first-name invocations of the Christian deity. I left out the detail of the thumb drive.

  “Maybe you should come with me,” I said, “when I brief the president.”

  “I think he’d be more comfortable if it was ju
st you. You two have history.”

  Yes. And doubtless, more “history” in our future.

  Walking to the Oval felt like an inversion of being sent to the principal’s office. I would be telling the principal that he was in big trouble.

  “So?” Mr. Trump said.

  “Oleg sends his warmest wishes, sir. He especially asked me to congratulate you on the Senate acquittal.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, our, uh,I conversation was largely focused on the 2013 Miss Universe pageant…”

  The president frowned, his lips forming a tight moue, the labial equivalent of crossed arms over the chest. It’s his default expression when hearing something that displeases him.

  “He told me that prior to the voting, you… canvassed the eighteen contestants individually. And further suggested that you provided each of them with… incentive.”

  The presidential moue tightened.

  “And that after the winner was announced, some of the contestants felt that the incentives they had given were not reciprocated. And that they expressed disappointment. And that you asked Oleg—as a friend—to ameliorate the situation.”

  “So? That’s it?”

  “Essentially. There was one further detail. Namely that one of the contestants in particular felt aggrieved.”

  “So?”

  “Well, she… died.”

  The president stared.

  “Died? Of what? Drug overdose? All those girls take drugs. To keep the weight off. Backstage was like Central Park after it snows. Coke, everywhere. Disgusting. It’s a very bad drug, cocaine.”

  “Well, no. Not coke. The precise cause of her death remains a bit vague. The difficulty is… once again it comes down to optics.”

  “What optics?”

  “Well, sir, Oleg is associated with a number of incidents involving—you’ve heard of Novichok?”

  “No.”

  “The nerve agent. His company makes it for the Russian government. Unpleasant stuff.”

  “What’s this got to do with me?”

  “Well, sir, you see, Oleg asserts that you asked him to ‘take care’ of the problem. So it could be inferred… well, you see the difficulty.”

  “No, I don’t. Are you telling me Oleg says I asked him to rub out some disgruntled bimbo? What a bunch of crap.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, sir. Disgraceful.”

  “Is that it?” Mr. Trump seemed eager to return to watching Mr. Colonnity. Which I thought—and think still—bespoke his innocence in the matter. A guilty person would hardly have shrugged at such an odious accusation.

  “He asked me to give you this.” I handed Mr. Trump the thumb drive.

  “What’s this?”

  “Well, sir, he claims it’s a recording. Of the two of you discussing the situation. At the time.”

  “Fucker was taping me?”

  “So he alleges, sir.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “I mean that I don’t know what’s on it.”

  “You didn’t listen to it?”

  “I didn’t think it polite to, sir.”

  Mr. Trump picked up the thumb drive, stared at it, and placed it at arm’s length on his desk, as if concerned it might explode.

  “Oleg did mention that it contains, in addition to the aforementioned alleged recording of your conversation, films.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of yourself. And the eighteen contestants. He complimented you on your extraordinary vitality.”

  Mr. Trump considered.

  “It was a great Miss Universe,” he said. “Maybe the best. But they’re all great.”

  I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. And here I’d been a near nervous wreck headed into the Oval. I felt a surge of “Vitamin T” in my veins. Mr. Trump can have that effect on you.

  “You haven’t seen these movies?”

  “No, sir.” I silently prayed that he wasn’t about to insert the thumb drive in his computer.

  “Okay,” Mr. Trump said, unmuting the TV. Mr. Colonnity was shouting at the camera, angrily pointing his finger. “Good job, Herb. Thanks.”

  Good job, Herb. Thanks! I could count on one hand the number of times I’d heard that in twenty-seven years. My feet barely touched the ground as I exited the Oval.

  “How did it go?” Judd asked anxiously.

  “I’ll tell you, Judd. It reminded me yet again why people love and admire that man.”

  Judd seemed confused. But given Mr. Trump’s obvious innocence, I made the spot decision that I could safely tell Judd about the thumb drive. Ever since the ridiculous Stormy Daniels business, Mr. Trump’s extracurricular activities in the Casanova Department had ceased to matter, insofar as his approval ratings went. No one cared. Not even his evangelical supporters. As one of them preached from the pulpit of his megachurch, “Did our Lord not instruct us to love one another as we do ourselves?”

  Instead of looking relieved, Judd looked—I don’t want to say “aghast”—concerned.

  My elation turned out to be short-lived, for the next day, Mr. Trump called me in and ordered me to work closely with Senator Biskitt of South Carolina on repealing the Glebnikov Act; and with Treasury Secretary Minutian on unfreezing Oleg’s US assets.

  I must have stared at Mr. Trump rather too long.

  “Do you have a problem, Herb?”

  “No, sir,” I stammered. “Might I ask—is this in connection with what we discussed yesterday?”

  He shook his head.

  “Nothing at all. Nothing. Zero. We’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do. Obama should never have signed this fucking Glebnikov Act into law. It’s a disgrace.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. Say what you will, Mr. Trump was being consistent with his agenda, namely nullifying the Obama legacy. The fact that he was willing to nullify this in particular, despite very suboptimal optics, speaks volumes about his integrity.

  I. For editorial reasons, I have removed seventy-four instances of “uh” from this conversation. The reader will be able to fill them back in.

  11

  Sen. Squigg Lee Biskitt of South Carolina was an unlikely Trump champion. He certainly didn’t start out as one. Prior to the 2016 campaign, he was calling Mr. Trump just about every unpleasant name under the sun, from “kook” to “damn lunatic” and “lower than alligator poo.” Strong words, indeed.

  Then, when it appeared Mr. Trump was going to be the nominee of the Republican Party, “Squiggly” had a classic “road to Damascus” moment.

  The expression derives from the story of the future Saint Paul, at the time known as “Better Call Saul.” While on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians, Saul was knocked off his horse and blinded by God—who else? God said to him, “Schmuck! Enough with the persecuting!” Saul got the point.

  So did Squiggly, who now declared that Mr. Trump was “the Second Coming—maybe even the Third and Fourth.” Squiggly’s ability to adapt was beyond even Darwin’s imagination. This made him either laudable or despicable, depending on your point of view. He attached himself to Mr. Trump like a remora fish. Mr. Trump was not unsusceptible to flattery, but in Squiggly’s case, he knew the score, as they say in Queens. That is, he knew perfectly well that the chipmunk squeaks of praise were motivated solely by shameless, unapologetic, “slap yo mamma” level ambition to get reelected to a fourth term. Mr. Trump’s true feeling for Senator Biskitt was evident in his private nickname for him: “Buttplug.” As previously noted, normally the more debasing the nickname, the higher you stood with Mr. Trump. Buttplug was the exception.

  South Carolina was Trump Country, God bless it. You couldn’t throw a stone in the Palmetto State without hitting someone wearing a MAGA hat. And then God save you, because that person was almost certainly armed.

  In his own small way, Squiggly was consequential. His folksy rhetoric earned him titles like
“Li’l Cicero” and “Tiny Titan of the Senate.” He cultivated an aura of down-home aw-shucksiness, of bourbon and balderdash: “Seems to me we oughta be talking about locking up the criminals instead of making it harder for decent folks who just wanna shoot raccoons with AR-15s and high-capacity magazines. But I could be wrong.”

  He was adept at “making nice” with the liberal mainstream media, whom he knew loathed him. He always made himself available for an on-the-fly interview, scampering on little feet across the polished floor of the Capitol Rotunda. One observer likened his gait to “a penguin on an ice floe trying to escape a sea lion.” He’d pause in midscamper to greet politely the enemy of the people from CNN or MSNBC; never mind that the night before, someone on those networks had denounced him as “an invertebrate” or “a Vichy Republican.” (See “civility, decline of.”)

  With his native southern courtesy, he’d cheerfully provide a nice, chewy sound bite, and even tease the correspondent: “Now don’t y’all choke on that aroo-gula y’all like to eat. Back home we call ’em collard greens.” Then he’d look at his wristwatch in mock horror and say, “Uh-oh, time to get this loco in motion,” and scamper off, one step ahead of the sea lion. If it hadn’t been for his—I don’t want to say “sycophancy”—allegiance to Mr. Trump, Squigg Lee Biskitt might have been an admired, even beloved, US politician.I

  I watched the senator’s face as Mr. Trump told him that he wanted him to take the lead in overturning the Glebnikov Act. I thought: This will be the test.

  His round, boyish face remained impassive. He always had a bad haircut. I decided that this must be deliberate, part of his faux-naïf non-arugula-ness, so he could boast he’d never spent more than ten bucks on a haircut.

  “It’s very important we do this,” the president said.

  Squiggly’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

  “Why, exactly, sir? I’m not saying I disagree. But we are—both of us—in the middle of a reelection campaign. And something like this is—”

  “Squigg,” the president cut him off, “people want this.”

  “They do?”

  “Are you kidding?” Mr. Trump said. “We’re getting flooded with calls about it. Isn’t that right, Herb?”