‘So then we’re not agreed,’ she intoned the code phrase and collapsed to the floor.
I viewed this palace as a fairground of vanity: hookah lounges, aqua-discos, bad taste in marble. But I held a secret trump: a smart security system no one knew about. I received the chief guest, traded compliments, summoned a correspondent for cheerful photos, then spoke the code phrase and lay down on the tiles. The system did the rest. Not a single shot was fired.
I arrived with a thousand fighters and a report on the mosque, national projects, and the fight against COVID. I answered that I’m no padishah, that the guilty will be punished, that I’ll release that woman. I was told to go in her place to the Olympic opening in China and stab my own aide there. I reminded her of the pact between my father and her husband.
It was I who called him padishah, and I who dreamed of his seat. To the empress’s question I answered evasively: “For the good of the people I’ll do anything. A Georgian once ruled Russia best. Tonight we take the country for ourselves.” It went badly.
The news spread: an important meeting, economic matters, a request for funding. The real picture is different: Russian and Georgian armies blockaded Chechnya, and the Belarus exercises abruptly changed character. For the defeated, the night of the great victory was cold and empty.
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