[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/MD7UhKA.jpg?1[/img][/center] [sub][b][indent][i]Priozersky village, Chairman Granatov's summer cottage. 10:20 PM[/i][/indent][/b][/sub] Nadia was his personal masseuse. It wasn't a professional relationship, in the sense that they slept together; often and passionately. They could converse about many a thing, and in not just one language. After all, she finished Yerevan's philological institute with excellence and could easily serve as an interpreter for him. Granatov did not want to put her in the spotlight, though - it was the reason that she had traveled in a black sedan with a mute driver supplied by the federal security agency, Gerasim. He wanted her to be safe, even if she was in the safest bastion there could be; and yet, was it? Philip knew well how his predecessors thought their power to be absolute and found themselves either discredited or dead. By his hand, too. He mentally sized up the board of directors, trying to find men of cunning and men who could dare. 'Nadenka,' he cooed, outstretched on the bed with the busty Armenian's feet gently pressing down on his back, massaging the knots away with her soles. 'Mm?' she echoed back, just as brief. 'What is better,' he sighed, bones cracking under her toes, 'to have a council full of yes-men,' he continued, 'or men who aren't afraid to speak their mind?' She chuckled, toes shifting over his pelvis. 'Is this a rhetorical question, or did you make me your new advisor?' 'I could, if you wanted to.' He regretted the phrase as her methodical motions ceased for a moment, only to continue a moment later, trying to formulate a response. 'I think that job would be.. too high profile.' 'High profile my ass, Nadia. You're basically my psychoanalyst at this point, you don't think someone would want to have you tell what's inside my head?' He felt the weight of her body taken off his back as she knelt down beside him and kissed his forehead. 'Even I don't know, baby.' ----------------------------- [sub][b][indent][i]Saint Petersburg, GAZPROM General Shareholders Meeting 9:56 AM[/i][/indent][/b][/sub] The room was of a corporate spirit, sterile and laid with grey carpeting, generic calendars and boring cactus plants on the walls and windowsills. The men seated around the table were dressed in crisp, black suits. As was the custom, everyone arrived ten minutes before the schedule. 'You saw? Karimov bought a tie for three k's.' 'Ha, that chump. I know a place where you can buy one for five.' Another man dropped his pen, bending down under the table and brandishing an elongated silver spoon, pressing it to his nostril and getting a whiff of some Nicaraguan coke. Philip entered, finally. 'Good morning, gentlemen. Don't stand up.' He assumed his seat at the head of the table. 'You saw the news, I hope.' The men nodded. Granatov continued, glancing to the head of FSG, Vladislav Korotayev; 'What intel have we gathered?' 'Little to none. It's all kept at a too high level for our european operatives.' The stocky man answered. The PR Manager, Boris Kuptsov, an aging man meticulous in his demeanor, perked up. 'We can set up some charity, for a good image.' Philip smiled, sipping black coffee from an oriental ceramic cup. 'I've got a better image in mind. Do you know the history of the modern world?' The shareholders looked around uneasily. Granatov smiled bigger. 'See, Bush and Putin, amongst others, orchestrated or at least used terrorist attacks as a reason to fuck someone.' 'We could do that,' Korotayev agreed, 'but whom?' 'Romanians.' 'Why Romanians? The Balkans are a shit land. They don't have any resources, although Romania has some oil.' 'I'm more interested in the Danube.' -------------------- Afanasy Akulov was a seasoned director, now the chief editor of Rosmedia by the big guy's grace. He walked through a white corridor side by side with an aide and a teenage actress, already dressed in an ethnic eastern european dress. 'So, you mean I can't put this on my resume?' 'No, and you can never tell anyone about this. Sign this.' She did, confused more than ever. The aide opened the door to a soundproof, professional studio, revealing a one sided mirror to the back and remotely controlled film cameras gazing at the greenscreen. The aide gave her a bag of potato crisps. Akulov bent down slightly to be face level with her. 'I want you to go the edge of the room, and run toward the camera with this bag in your hands, as if you were holding a baby. I want you to look frightened.' The girl did as instructed. ------------------ Philip stood beside the screen as a team of footage editors carefully executed commands. Conrad Bruwer, Granatov's head of security, was smoking a tiny joint behind them. 'Zoom into her face. I want to add tears and scratches. Yeah, that's good. Now, zoom out.' The screen was now a running, crying girl with a bag of crisps in her hands, the landscape around her a blank slate. 'I want a village behind her. Make some buildings burn, and place some dead bodies on the ground.' Black smoke billowed in the distance, and bleak oak huts materialised soon after, along with vector images of dead people. 'Now, about the bag. I'm thinking a brown puppy. Hm.' 'Maybe a white kitten?' Bruwer croaked, passing Philip the blunt. '.. Yeah, make it a white kitten.' -------------------- [center][img]http://i.imgur.com/Ixu6Nn9.png[/img][/center] [quote] Just in, the terrorist trail leads to the Balkans; deputy chief of FSG Prokhorov - 'These bastards are Romanian.' Gazprom has reasons to believe that the insurgents may have transported bomb making devices by boat on the river Danube. Combat footage recorded by a drone shows a young Romanian girl clutching her kitten and running from the village where extremists have killed her friends and family. These images shocked people across the world as millions pray for a peaceful resolution. 14th and 53rd Motor Divisions have mobilized and are passing through the Ukraine-Moldova border. I am Maria Panina, Rosmedia TV. Over.[/quote]