Moscow Machination полностью

Blow Jobbs from Calamity News continued, “… in other business news, as expected the new Russian airliner, the Tupolev — 420 has met with lukewarm responses. Despite the Russian claims of a quiet supersonic jet, western airlines seem to have shied away. An anonymous American airline executive had this to say… ‘They did it with the Tu-144 which was a copy of the Concorde… and now thirty years later they are at it again… Plus research shows that the public… American public, in particular enjoys slower planes and smaller seats. Plus these days the focus is on Wi-Fi, cell signals and entertainment.’ Meanwhile, Russia leaning experts have accused Washington of protectionism and general Russophobia. To get more on this story, let’s go to our own… Jack Jizzer who is outside the FAA, ‘Thanks Blow, my sources in the FAA tell me that, this thing… the Tu-420 is a flying coffin. Did you know that 90 % of airlines operating in Russia and the FSU are banned by the FAA, EU and Japan.’ … 90 % wow… why is that Jizzer? ‘Blow, in one word, its safety. Old planes, very old planes, lack of spares, drunk flying, letting your kids into the cockpit, archaic procedures… you name it Blow.’ So I assume, these airlines, because they are banned internationally just fly within Russia? ‘That’s right Blow they stay within Russia and its republics the — five Stans, Belarus, the Russian South and also… wait for it… Cuba and North Korea.’ Get outta here… Cuba and North Korea? Well that completes the trifecta. ‘Yes Blow, aviation out there is a joke. In fact they got an airline named Scat?’ Please be serious Jizzer, perhaps SCAT stands for Socialist Communist Air Transport. ‘No it doesn’t Blow. I checked.’ Perhaps SCAT means air or flying in Russian… ‘The last thing I want my Scat to do is fly man… ’ Hahaha… always with the classics… that’s our Aviation Correspondent Jack Jizzer everyone… thanks Jizzer.”

“Whoa. Are these guys serious? They have a SCAT in the air?” asked the stunned Undersecretary of State, Sarah McAllister.

“I guess… but then again, this is Calamity News. So whatever,” replied Jim.

“Ok getting back to this Tu-420 being an ICBM, it doesn’t make sense. I mean they already have the largest pile of ICBMs, which by our estimates is still very good. So… why?”

“For starters these things are airborne. Being a commercial jet they get to go anywhere freely. For example if they do Moscow to Vegas they get to fly over places like Area 51 and other critical areas. And once they get there, they can go kaboom.”

“But to even get to that stage… they need to be certified by the FAA and I guess the NTSB and the EU. During those inspections it should be pretty easy to see if this thing is for real… like if it can hide a warhead or if it’s an ICBM… also what about the seats, you can’t have a missile and seats and inflight entertainment and fool the FAA…”

Jim Borland shrugged, “Yeah, I guess it’s just baloney.”

“It’s time we did something… to counter the Russkies.”

“Cuba?”

“You sure this is not a prank?” asked Pulikesi for the 19^th time.

Ilya lost it, “Fuck’s sake man, NO. It’s not a prank. The Russian FSB or whatever they are, abducted us… the entire Albatross team. During transit they tossed you out… thinking…”

“… thinking I am the janitor. Right, but it was so much fun. The Tajiks, those guys are off the rockers. I had the best pot-plov ever. The Fergana Valley is insane. And the Kyrgyz… they say you can ‘take’ any woman you want and marry her in Bishkek…”

“Dude, its barbarian and misogynist. Those nomads… and before you start again, NO. This isn’t a prank.”

Pulikesi held up his hands in mock surrender. “So I took a look at the specs and it’s got nothing to do with our Albatross.”

Ilya was miffed, “Well I am just the code monkey. Throw your questions at the business owners.”

Without preamble Primakov and a pale older dude walked into their mini office. The older dude was Mueller the mad scientist from Under Russia. He had taken a superfast elevator up from underground Krasnoyarsk.

“You boys have any questions about the spec?” asked Primakov.

Pulikesi cleared his throat and started, “Is this still not a prank?”

Ilya groaned. Primakov said with finality, “Nope.”

Pulikesi made a smug face that implied, they were all in on the prank. “Ok. So about the specs, it’s got nothing to do with the Albatross. I mean usually there are some fundamental modules but this… this thing, whatever this is…”

“We don’t have all day. Mueller,” Primakov looked at the older guy, “here is a super busy guy. He is a heavy hitter.”

Pulikesi dived in, “For starters this is a nationwide, in your case, Russia wide air traffic management system.”

Mueller nodded.

“Plus there are all these requirements about landing on frozen lakes… in fact Lake Baikal, hope I am pronouncing it right, seems to be the main ‘repository’.”