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Praetorium Honoris

Friday, August 30, 2024

Zürich

Zürich Airport
Source
The four FSB¹ agents got off their plane at Zürich's airport and headed to Customs, as Russia was not part of the Schengen area,² they were required to go through Customs. Loshchilov wasn't worried about that, the FSB's document section was superb. Their passports were not in their own names, but one would have been hard-pressed to spot them as fake.

Two men, two women, Loshchilov liked having his team look as normal as possible, two married couples traveling together looked far less suspicious (and less threatening) than four men traveling together. He had brought Iosif Semyonovich Koltsov, Angelika Zakryatina Savelievna, and Lara Cherkashina Borisovna. Savelievna would pose as his wife, Koltsov and Borisovna were the other couple in the group.

According to their passports he and Angelika were Klaus and Johanna Winkmann, Koltsov and Borisovna were Josef and Lara Gruber. They were posing as Germans from the Berlin area. Which fit well as all had spent time in Berlin and when they spoke German, they spoke as a Berliner would.

Customs was a breeze and soon they had collected all of their belongings and had loaded up their rental car. Loshchilov had booked a very nice hotel for them, after all the FSB was paying for it. As the area was popular with tourists, they would have no trouble fitting in.


Ruben Klerk, from South African, had made his fortune in the illicit diamond trade, now he listed his profession as "financier," which was, on the face of it, true. However, most of the things his money financed were illegal and caused people to die in unpleasant ways. He was a major player in the illegal weapons trade. An acquaintance had once joked at a party that "Ruben has his fingers in more revolutions than Lenin!"

It had gotten a good laugh at the party, six weeks later when that man had died in an unfortunate boating accident, Klerk wondered if he had been laughing then.

He didn't feel a part of the group, perhaps because of all of the millionaires, three were actually billionaires, he was the "poorest" of the group, he was worth less than 350 million dollars. It angered him at times. Obrecht bossed everyone around, the man was nothing better than a thug. Claimed to be Swiss, was about as Swiss as a Kalashnikov.

He knew that Lima, Mallet, Baum, and Tahara detested the man. Haghighi he wasn't sure of, he seemed friendly towards Obrecht one moment, then he'd disparage him behind his back. Guy was two faced and Klerk didn't trust him, then again, he trusted no one.


The women had gone out shopping, there were certain things which could be obtained locally which they would need for their mission. Koltsov was on his laptop, gathering information on the target area. Google Maps, local surveys, tax data, he had never ceased to be amazed how much information could be gleaned from the Internet.

Loshchilov, for his part, was headed down to the Oberdorfstrasse to visit Russia's honorary consul in Zürich. While it wasn't much of an office, they did have diplomatic immunity and could ship things via diplomatic pouch.

Loshchilov carried a rather hefty briefcase with him, at the moment it contained a number of documents which would be normal for an arms dealer to carry about. He carried papers identifying him as a representative of the Germans arms company Rheinmetall. Moscow chose that cover as they had made a lot of money supporting Ukraine in one of the early wars. He considered it the second, some called it simply a continuation of the first. The third (or second, depending on how you counted it) had been won by Russia, though with crippling losses. Moscow felt that Rheinmetall should pay for that, this little operation would not benefit that company.

He arrived at the consulate, a fairly nondescript place sharing a building with a local architect. But he didn't care about that, the consul had a package for him, something needed to send a message to a certain group based near Zürich.


His briefcase was rather heavier when he left the consulate. He now had the weapons and explosives needed for their little task. He also had a phone number, apparently someone inside the group his team would be visiting wanted to change sides. As the lake wasn't far from the consulate, he decided to walk down there, it would be a good place to make a phone call.

When he arrived and found an empty bench, there were many as it was October and the weather, while still clear, was getting rather chilly. He set his briefcase down and pulled out the phone the consul had provided him. He hit '1' on speed dial.

"Yes?"

The voice sounded almost Dutch, with just a hint of an unfamiliar accent. Loshchilov spoke, "This is Herr Winkmann, am I speaking to Herr Klerk?"

"How did you get this number?" the voice spoke, it struck Loshchilov that the man was South African, not Dutch.

"A mutual friend, a Frau Siegler from Bern."

"Oh, that Herr Winkmann Sorry, it's been a hectic day. Can we meet? Perhaps for dinner?"

"I would like that, Herr Klerk. I am not that familiar with Zürich (a lie), perhaps you could suggest a place?"

"Yes, elmira, it's a favorite of mine, the food is exquisite. Are you familiar with it?"

"No, but I'm sure my hotel's concierge is. I'm at the Sheraton."

"Oh yes, they'll know. How about 9:00 PM?"

"That would be excellent."

"Give the maître d'hôtel my name when you arrive. I look forward to meeting with you."

The man disconnected. Loshchilov was suspicious, the man seemed far too eager. Ah well, he would bring Koltsov with him as backup. Koltsov would be armed, just in case this was a setup.


"Do you think there are more nukes out there, Admiral?" the President asked.

Admiral Choe nodded, "I do, Sir. CIA has been hearing rumblings out of the Black Sea for a few weeks now. They think the weapons came out of Tashkent. We've done some research, the Uzbeks held on to at least ten Soviet-era tactical weapons. They tried to test one in 2027, it fizzled. Seems Soviet quality control was as bad as some people thought."

"Would our nukes go off after sitting in storage for years?" Bill Aspinall asked.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Finally the President nodded, "Yes, only one way to determine that, and we agreed with the Soviets to not do that. So, that aside, even if the baddies managed to get one into a city and it fizzled ..."

"That's still going to generate radiation and other bad things. It wouldn't look good." Aspinall said.

Beth Chapman looked at Aspinall, she looked angry.

"You have something to share, Commander?" the President asked.

"Well Sir, if you were nearby when it 'fizzled,"' you'd be dead. There is a lot of high explosives in those damned things. Even if it didn't compress the nuclear material sufficiently to set off a reaction, that's still a big bomb." Chapman explained.

Choe nodded, "A big dirty bomb."

Nakagawa stood up, "Whatever you need, let Mr. Aspinall know, we have to stop this. By any means necessary. Is that understood?"

Three voices said, "Yes Sir," nearly in unison.




¹ The FSB is the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the successor to the KGB (Committee for State Security).
² See here.

22 comments:

  1. Maybe I should not read your muse before coffee.

    Looking too much like real world(tm).

    Still a good solid tale, with twists and turns.

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  2. FSB, SVR, KGB ..... FBI, CIA, DOJ.....there's a common denominator somewhere . Your Muse has got me wondering what the next surprise will be and to who Sarge, good stuff!

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    Replies
    1. Alphabet soup loves 3.
      Except for French, they have DGSE...

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    2. Nylon12 - Official types love acronyms.

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    3. Pawel - The French like to be different.

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  3. Me: "I should check Sarge's blog before the actual news to see what is coming up the day after tomorrow...."

    Fine writing Sarge.

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    Replies
    1. Heh, if I could predict the future, I'd buy lottery tickets.

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  4. I used to love listening to Fremden trying to speak Berliner Schnauze.
    Please request of the muse if she would, ever so kindly, provide a Dramatis Personae I can get to easily;
    while I don't think my mind is going, my OL tells me otherwise

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    Replies
    1. Well, in order for the characters to be realistic, they have to have authentic looking and sounding names. (If that's what you mean.) I know it's a pain the butt, but not every German is named Hans and not all Russians are named Ivan, or Sergei. I try to keep them as minor characters, but if they do something "interesting," I keep them around.

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    2. when I was a kid (1952) one of my father's cousins (a v E, related to my grandfather's first wife) from Germany would take me aside to try to teach me the difference between someone posing as a Berliner (he'd call them ein Pfannkuchen) and someone who came from/grew up in Berlin
      NNo. I need (or I think I do) list of people (and their other/assumed names in what chapters); I think I'd need much the same were I to start reading the Hobbit at this point in my life.
      Although I still remember how to drive to the doctor's office, but there are times I wonder why I went to the kitchen (or was it the bathroom - I forget).
      BTW: in case I didn't mention it, the story line is becoming more and more enjoyable.

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    3. I really should come up with a roster of the major players. Make things easier for me as well!

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  5. "By any means necessary" is a huge statement coming from that source!

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    Replies
    1. Plausible deniability and all, but everyone knows what that means. Kill 'em if you have to.

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  6. The U.S. Navy's WW2 era Mark 1A fire control computer on destroyers and larger ships was about the size of a large office desk, and in those pre-digital days was strictly electo-mechanical, with dozens of knobs, dials and switches. Inside were a maze of gears of all sizes, connected by shafts, cams, differentials, synchros, servos and clutches. Into this mammoth contraption sailors or external sensors would enter own ship's course, speed, and the course, speed and elevation of the target, and the calculated muzzle velocity of the ammunition. From that, the Mark IA computer would generate a firing solution with the correct range, bearing and elevation for the gun, and time of flight for setting the mechanical time fuze in order to hit the moving target from a moving ship.
    https://i.ytimg.com/vi/x9YEPw7_YTk/hqdefault.jpg

    So, what the heck does that have to do with Sarge's story?

    It should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. Sarge's Muse operates in precisely the same way with the story as the output.

    But, she does not just give us the solution [the good guys usually win], but teases us along, gradually revealing the internal calculations in the process as the various characters, events, places, devices and thoughts enter into the process. How they mesh with each other, and change from current to future are sometimes surprising, and unpredictable to the outsider. We know that the results are amazing, and most appreciated when the process is done.

    Nope, I never understood how the Mark IA computer worked, or how Sarge and his Muse make this stuff up, but the results are great!
    John Blackshoe

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    1. My brain has now been compared to the Mark IA fire control computer. Having worked in a related area for 25 years, that tickles the cockles of my heart. It also makes me wonder if all that hardware is still functioning as designed.

      There are days I wonder ...

      Anyhoo, thanks JB. A good explanation of how my mind works.

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    2. Not a bad comparison. And the Mark 1A was quite accurate.

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  7. Most nukes are a two-stage nuke explosion, initial nuke and then the enriched by Tritium explosion. So you can have two levels of fizzling. One where the explosive charges fire and the nuke material doesn't go off, creating a big non-nuclear boom full of dirty material. The second is when the charges go off, the first base nuke goes off but the tritium-enriched explosion doesn't. Much bigger boom, less dirty material. Or someone knows what they're doing and properly replaced the tritium and everything works quite well and the 2-stage nuke goes off, at ground level, making lots of dirty fallout.

    All suck.

    Let us hope someone comes along at just the right moment and stops the insanity. Please. Hopefully leaving a helluva lot of people with a third eye in their forehead.

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    Replies
    1. There are folks working diligently to stop the madness. But will they be in time?

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    2. If the good guys stop the trigger at 00:00:01 then I'll know this is fiction. Until then, I read this as factual. Only the dates, places, and names are different.

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    3. Let us hope then, that this remains a work of fiction.

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