The Scorpions Nest

The Scorpions Nest. Chapter 6

6. Russia

Outskirts of St Petersburg

16.00 GMT/18.30 AFT/20.00 MT

Romanov walks through the elegant entrance into his brothers living room, in one corner sits an antique Bechstein Grand piano made of a golden red rosewood, as he enters he nods to his brother who is standing by the fireplace, the log fire within is roaring and the flickering glow from the flames casts shadows dancing across the room, he walks straight over to the wooden globe drinks cabinet and lifts its top, thumbing through the bottles he picks up a bottle of russky Standart, he shares his brothers taste in quality vodka. After mixing his drink, he joins his brother by the fire, as he sits in the red leather button back arm chair he sips his drink.

"Well Sergi what’s this news? Is it yet more gloating on the many millions you have made on the misfortunes of others?" he says with a slight air of contempt.

"No, you know I’m out of that now!”

"You say you're out of it, but you still get a cut from the people you left running it."

"I don’t get a cut; you know that money goes straight into preserving our Army."

"Your army" his brother snapped slamming down his drink on the small oak table next to his chair.

"Our army Romanov, OUR army" Sergi replies standing up straight and staring at his brother sternly.

"This pet project of yours to build an army and bring the great nation back as one is a pipe dream, believe me I want this as much as you, but wishing and wanting don’t get things done, this is why I am in politics, I have more chance of getting us back to the old soviet ways than you ever do with your hundreds of soldiers."

"Well that’s where you're wrong, very wrong" he replies his voice getting louder "in fact you’re wrong on both those statements, you see my army hasn’t been hundreds for many years, in fact it’s now over a thousand. This is why you need to believe me when I say all the drug money goes to the army, and it’s barely enough to equip them all."

"What are you talking about? A thousand? How can that be possible?”

"I’ve never stopped recruiting since the Latvian disaster, if you promise a man three decent meals a day, uniformed clothes for his back, a sense of belonging, of being a part of something good, you will find no shortage of men lining up to join you, the difficulty lies in picking the right ones from the huge swath of volunteers."

“We don’t talk about the Latvian disaster Sergi, never must we speak about that again" Romanov stands then turns in frustration to face the fire.

"Brother I have put things in motion that could secure Latvia."

"Give it up Sergi you will get yourself and hundreds of other people killed."

"It's too late to stop now."

"What do you mean it’s too late now, what have you done?” he replies sliding back down into the chair again.

"I'm going to get you your wish of being president of this great nation of ours, as first deputy of the presidential administration, you will be given power if anything happened to the president, and then we are going after Latvia."

"What do you mean if anything happened to the President? Sergi you don’t understand the way of the world, it’s not us versus Latvia, the moment Latvia is taken by force there will be uproar and the world’s biggest nations will rise against us, and secure Latvia back."

"Just listen to my plan, don’t interrupt me, just hear me out" he stops pulls up his sleeve and notes the time from a standing clock near the entrance,  "As of about an hour ago our great leader President Mager would have already consumed  a poison laced meal, by tomorrow morning he will be violently ill and no cure will save him, unfortunately I couldn’t make it look natural or like an accident, so I have left hidden clues to the assassin's identity, that although not easily discovered, will be discovered by our crime forensic teams, these clues will lead them back to Estonia."

"Estonia?, how ?" Romanov feels his lips tightening.

"Don't concern yourself with these details Rom, in fact the less detail you know the better and easier for you to appear as clueless as everyone else. You will be the placed in charge of our country, I will then take Latvia by force with our army, but not in the name of Russia but under the flag of Estonia, there will be anger within Europe and the UN, then You as president will condemn it and send tanks into Latvia to drive out the enemy, and then assume control until a new Latvian government can be assembled, we have seen from the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan that this takes years, then we will attack Estonia claiming they attacked our troops in Latvia, during this time we will put our own Latvians in place ones that will want to dismiss Europe and join back with Russia, of which we will accept with open arms."

“But it won’t be long till someone will want their troops to help us, either the UN, or the USA; they won’t leave us in there alone."

"We will have the British Army with us."

"What, how is that even possible, have you gone mad?”

"No brother, the good news I wanted to tell you is that we have successfully kidnapped Great Britain’s Prince Harry, today in Afghanistan."

"Oh My God Sergi please tell this is a joke, you cannot blackmail the British government or sovereignty into helping you, this is ludicrous" says Romanov standing up, with beads of sweat trickling down his face " there will be a trail leading back to you somewhere and from you it leads to me, stop this madness now."

"It is too late, the British forces will agree to help police Latvia in the eyes of the world, and when they do I will release their precious heir."

"And then they will simply pull out of Latvia and tell the world what has happened."

"No they won’t" says Sergi walking over to his brother and slowly easing him back into his chair, crouching in front of him to make eye contact he continues "they cannot admit to the world that they negotiated with terrorists, the worst they will do is pull out of Latvia decreeing Russia is doing a suitable job, yes they will have one eye on us waiting for us to slip up so they can join the rest of the world in condemning us, but that won’t happen, the plans are set, the wheels are in motion, and Latvia will be the first to come home, followed by Estonia, the only problem we have is time, we will have to move quick, I had assembled my troops close to the Latvian border, but it appears our government had already spotted them via satellite, however I am assured there has been a delay in that information reaching the right people in the Russian command chain."

"It’s still crazy" he's brother says now in softer tones, sitting staring at the floor with his eyes darting left to right uncontrollably as his intelligent brain works out all the permutations of what could and couldn’t happen "it’s just crazy enough to work, are all these plans in your head Sergi ?"

"Of course not, I have them here, every meticulous step and a few members of my elite team know anything of the plan and they only know the parts that affect them."

"Ok get me all you have worked out I want to see it all" swallowing his vodka in a single gulp, "and get me another one of those" he says handing his brother his empty glass.