PRIVATE AIR TERMINAL, HELSINKI-VANTAA AIRPORT, FINLAND
Tatiana preferred to travel VIP. It was one of the creature comforts she had become attached to when flying as a special envoy or under unofficial cover as a wealthy businesswoman.
She recognized that her allegiance to the GRU was out of necessity, but she was growing weary of the ineptitude and the dispassionate brutality they employed. How many times had its operations been exposed by amateur sleuths, geolocation experts, and hobbyists alike, not to mention proper intelligence agencies? Poor tradecraft was only half of it. At times, it was almost too embarrassing to endure.
But that is not what motivated her to turn against her country. It was not disloyalty she felt. In fact, it was quite the opposite. She loved Mother Russia. It had raised her with a sense of duty, purpose, and belonging. She was a part of something bigger than herself. But it was and had always been a struggle to stay relevant in an age where young people no longer felt any real purpose.
Conversely, for all its faults, America wasn’t the evil empire the Kremlin professed it to be. She saw it as misguided and corrupted by rich and powerful men, yes. Marx and Engels asserted that capitalism was marked by the exploitation of the proletariat by the ruling bourgeoisie. But as bad as Tatiana believed American capitalism to be, the solution wouldn’t be found in a nuclear holocaust that would destroy her country and, quite likely, the entire planet and civilization forever.
Seated on the private jet bound for Budapest, she scrolled through her phone. A breaking news notification popped up, and she opened it. A reporter who appeared to be standing on the deck of an American aircraft carrier spoke amid a flurry of background activity, wind, and noise.
“In response to the sinking of a passenger ferry off the coast of Finland, now presumed to have been caused by a torpedo from a Russian nuclear submarine operating in the area, the United States has raised its security level to DEFCON 2, the highest it has been in more than thirty years, and one step away from nuclear war.
“Russia continues to deny any involvement in the sinking of a Finnish ferry called the Esmerelda, but, in response to Washington’s actions, they have raised their own alert status to their second highest as well. Moscow has scrambled fighter jets into the Gulf of Finland to challenge NATO’s presence so close to the Russian border and to protect strategic points around St. Petersburg.”
Tatiana looked up from her phone and gazed out the window as the private jet climbed above the Baltic Sea, dotted with warships and danger.
The reporter continued. “Tensions between the superpowers have not been this high since the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
Come on, Alexandra. I’m counting on you—do something.