Chapter 192

Morning was tough to get started with all the time zone changes in the last few days, but morning it was. Breakfast was fried ham, eggs, coffee, and biscuits - a lot better than tea and muffins.

My mates entertained the wives of a group of high level politicians while I was in meetings with the politicians. We had a good meeting while talking about the progress on the agreements and other things of interest.

A committee had been formed with American businesses in the search for suitable manufacturing that could be put in place for the factories making military equipment. The goal was to increase the manufacture of products for export.

My secret goal was to reduce our imports from China as much as I could to punish China for the arms sales to Iran. The meetings ran into lunch. Lunch was a private low key affair with me and my mates, Orbatch and his wife along with Anton and his wife.

After lunch and plenty of private conversation, we went to the Russian air base where the teams were disassembling the final short range nuclear missiles and war heads.

The final missile fuel tank was mounted on a stand. In front of hundreds of media from Europe and America, President Orbatch and I cut the tank in two with a big band saw.

We then cut off two, two inch wide sections that were like a giant ring. We presented the rings to each other as souvenirs in front of the media as an end to that series of weapons and the completion to that part of the treaty.

We each gave a short speech about the cooperation and progress of the agreements. The naysayers that said it couldn’t be done, or the treaty would not be complied with, had lost round one.

After the press conference, I finally got my promised tour of the Kremlin by Anton and President Orbatch. I was expecting there to be some excuse.

I was introduced to the Russian Generals who had offices neatly tucked into corners. Doors were opened and no attempts were made to cover the maps on the wall and on tables.

They were interested in the war plan against Iran - the regional power in the Middle East - was so effective as to neutralize the million man army, how it was put together and created in such a short time.

‘‘It’s simple; there was no million man army, it was an elaborate deception. If you repeat a lie long enough and loud enough with enough people wanting to believe and not question, it becomes fact. We have only captured fifty thousand soldiers while capturing two thirds of Iran’s territory,’’ I said.

‘‘In that territory were three quarters of Iran’s military bases including several very large ones. As of yet we have not found that many bodies,’’ I said.

I didn’t lie to them; I never expected that many bodies to be found. I doubted anyone was going to dig up all the known bases hit by MOABs and seismic bombs trying to find bodies. At least not anytime soon. I expected the massive depressions where they once were to filled and covered over with concrete, sealing them forever.

The tour was interesting. I saw a lot of things that were similar to ours and I knew we did all of them better.

The organization that ran the doomsday clock announced the minute hand had been moved back fifteen minutes for the first time in decades.

Tonight there was a state dinner for me and my mates. It was the normal political gathering and by now I was used to it. There were plenty of Russian big business leaders there. All of them wanted to be seen with me and talk a few minutes about their business with a new interest in international trade.

I played the game; I knew how it worked. There would always be international trade. My interest was to change the playbook away from the Chinese dominance in trade with the US.

It was morning again and we were on our way to St. Petersburg. We toured the Catherine Palace and the reproduced Amber room. It was almost beyond belief, it was that beautiful. If the reproduction was so beautiful and crafted then the original must have been breathtaking.

The original was disassembled by Nazi soldiers and shipped to Berlin. It has never been found. Another of the great works Hitler and his henchmen had destroyed all over Europe and Asia or looted to never be found.

Air Force One flew east Friday evening. I pondered changing plans and going to Saudi Arabia then taking a Greyhound flight to the Thomas and to the Boxer to have a face to face talk with war command staff. Unfortunately there wasn’t time; I needed to be back in Washington.

We had left Moscow’s international airport at 1700; we would first land at Andrews at 0900. Jet lag after this trip was going to be a bitch.