On Getting to the Bottom of this "Equestrian" Business

by McPoodle

Interlude: The Enemy of My Enemy

Interlude: The Enemy of My Enemy

A television with attached VCR had been dragged into the meeting room of the Soviet Politburo.

“I know we need to discuss the fallout from Comrade Ustinov’s defection—”

“That man is no ‘comrade’ of anyone in the Soviet Union!” bellowed Grigory Romanov.

“—But I thought you’d want to see this first,” Andrei Gromyko concluded meekly. “It was inadvertently recorded prior to the start of an American talk show, and was never meant for broadcast.” He inserted a tape into the machine and started it.

The video showed a small set with two chairs facing each other. Sitting in the right-hand chair was President Far Shooter, being attended by a makeup woman. He looked to be fully recovered from his assassination attempt of only three days prior. There was the sound of laughter from crewmembers not visible on screen. From the smug expression on Shooter’s face, it appeared that he just successfully delivered a joke.

“Unbelievable!” exclaimed Nikolay Tikhonov. “The man’s in his seventies, and he’s just been shot! How can he be sitting there like nothing’s wrong!”

“Quiet! You’re going to miss the worst part,” hissed Gromyko.

“If I could have your attention, I have a vitally important statement to make,” Far Shooter said with a twinkle in his eye. “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia and all other Demoness-spawned nations forever. We begin bombing in five minutes!” The tape ended after that.

Silence descended upon the Politburo.

“And this is the President of the United States?!” demanded Romanov.

“You do all know that he was joking,” Viktor Chebrikov said dryly.

Heydor Aliyev rose to his feet. “Of course we all know that he’s joking! The point is that he considers our annihilation to be funny in the first place! I don’t know about you, but this is the last straw! With the deliberate provocations surrounding the Kuriles and the Pershing II missiles—which will arrive on Europe’s shores in four days—it has become abundantly clear that this buffoon is a threat not only to the Soviet Union, but to his own country and the rest of the world!” Aliyev was the head of the regional K.G.B. for Azerbeijan, and as such he reported to Union K.G.B. chief Chebrikov.

Mikhail Gorbachev leaned back in his chair. “And what do you propose we do about it?” he asked. “According to Gromyko’s latest report, he has a nearly ninety percent approval rating among his own people. The only thing we can do against him that would have long-term advantage to us is to discredit him, and we don’t have anything left to tar him with.”

“We might not,” countered Aliyev, “but I think we all know someone who can.” He walked over to the VCR and switched the Far Shooter tape for one in his possession before returning to his place at the table. “I have anticipated this moment for a long time…”

The video showed a windowless room, with the sound of air conditioning in the background. There was a clean executive desk and a cushy chair behind it. The man behind the camera walked around the desk to sit down, and fix the screen with his gaze. “Good day, comrades,” he said in perfect Russian.

It was Muammar Gaddafi.

Aliyev sat back in his chair, ignoring the glares of the others.

“I do not believe I need to introduce myself to your illustrious company,” said the Libyan leader. “You all know that I and I alone have humiliated President Shooter in the past, and I have a plan to utterly destroy him in the eyes of the world and his own people. I believe I can get him, if not outright impeached, then marked so strongly as the coward”—with this word the hatred Gaddafi bore towards Shooter truly shone through—“he truly is that he will be a ‘lame duck’ for the remainder of his days in office. And all I need is two little things from you, two things that not even my riches can buy. I am confident that you can provide me with these items in a way that is untraceable, so that what I am planning could never be tracked back to you. I am willing to take the entire risk for this operation. And just in case you doubt my abilities, look to the headline on the world’s newspapers and television networks for June 23rd, to see what I am capable of even without your assistance.

“I have sent the complete details of my plan along to my dear friend Aliyev, and I eagerly await your reply.” He sat there for a few seconds, looking presidential, then got up with a shrug and walked over to the camera to turn it off.

“Well, what do you think?” asked Aliyev. He passed around copies of the typewritten plan Gaddafi had supplied him with.

“This…this is suicide!” exclaimed Gorbachev, pointing at the page.

“Do we truly have no other options?” asked Tikhonov.

Aliyev gestured to Chebrikov, who opened a report he had been carrying. “This year’s Able Archer exercise is slated to begin in a week, just as the Pershing missiles get into position. According to our spy within NATO, the Pershings will definitely be included in the exercise. Furthermore, President Shooter will be in Brussels in time for the traditional conclusion, to be met by Prime Minister Thatcher and West German Chancellor Kohl.”

Able Archer was the name of an annual training exercise carried out by NATO forces, to test readiness in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. The “traditional conclusion” was the simulated launch of the West’s entire nuclear arsenal at the Soviets.

“The Americans and British have been sending an unprecedented number of coded messages across the Atlantic in preparation for these exercises,” Chebrikov continued, “using an encryption that we have yet to crack. Knowing of our suspicions, they have never done anything like this prior to an Able Archer. The only reason for all three Western leaders to join together during this operation instead of wiring in their fake launch authorizations is to make it clear that this is not in fact a fake authorization. It is the opinion of RYaN, to which I concur, that Able Archer ’85 is intended to be the cover for a nuclear first strike on Soviet installations with their Pershing II missiles, a strike that we will be helpless to respond to unless we strike first, and thereby show ourselves as the villains to history. Therefore our only hope of staving off the end of the Soviet Union is the plan that Comrade Gaddafi presents to us.”

Tikhonov sighed in defeat. “All in favor of investigating the feasibility of Gaddafi’s plan, and our chances of not being implicated in it?”

All hands but one rose.

“All against?”

No votes.

“And one abstention by Gorbachev. Now then, to move on to this Ustinov matter—have we gotten all the necessary codes that he had access to changed? What about any other knowledge that he can now use against us?”

The meeting proceeded on from there, with Aliyev—and later Gaddafi—left grinning in triumph.

Comments

[shallow15]

This can't be good.

[Ms_Fruit_Bat]

Real world Gaddafi was a giant bag of dicks, so I can't even think of what even worse fictional Gaddafi could be planning.

[Jordan179]

8871323

Yeah, Kadafi is one of the few people who came to a horrible end who I think wholly deserved it.