Chapter 1
Helen was celebrated as the least agreeable woman in America. She had won the Victim Pageant nine years in a row. By year ten, she was the billionaire founder of a business empire that included media networks and fashion lines. She owned palatial properties on all three coasts. They were managed by crews of servants who had too little personality to feel victimized in their own right, so they could focus on handling their mistress’s immense, brash, but brittle self-esteem so that it never, ever teetered or tipped over and shattered into a million little pieces.
Helen’s celebrity was such that the government created a special public office for her – The Ambassador of Woke. They even provided her with security detail for life, just like they do for former presidents.
Every spring Helen led the week-long Shaming Conference in Washington DC. The event was attended by the President and fifty senators. That was followed by a three-day Woke Woman Summer Conference, which featured a twelve-member Permissible Entertainment Committee for indoctrinating and legislating against summer fun for any who still knew how to have it. Every 15th of October, the peak of nature’s rutting season, she presided over the Festival of Dis-Erection, a gaudy procession in which, perched on Venus of Willendorf floats, she assisted in the ritual flogging of the genitals of that year’s worst male offenders in various categories of toxic masculinity: mansplaining, flirting, overachieving, and such like.
“Sex with intent to reproduce” had been a crime since the end of the Second American Revolution. Since then, reproduction was viewed as too patriarchal to be left in the hands of private couples. But it was not a common offence, as most adults were not interested in disrupting their cosmopolitan lifestyles with the oppressive responsibilities of rearing children.
To breed the next generation of citizens, men who desired to procreate had their testicles milked by automated pumps in the Ministry of Procreation laboratories. The semen was swabbed in-vitro onto the ova of American women. The fertilized eggs were inserted into the uteri of third-world child-bearers for growth, birthing, and infant nursing. Finally, the children were handed back to American couples of all gender combinations. The parental burden was greatly alleviated by the caretaking and ideological conditioning the children received in the country’s education system.
There had been talks simply to get the children pre-made from the third world – in other words, to adopt them – but the idea was abandoned after a study from the University of Chicago suggested that when such children grow up, swaddled and spoiled as they may be by the unquestioning acceptance of the society around them, their loyalty to American values might be diluted with affection for the cultures of their genetic origin.
As the US Ambassador of Woke, Helen worked with many underdeveloped nations. This was a charitable role with a mission to bring light to backward cultures. Without taking anything away from her natural charisma, it must be admitted that the American military’s big guns greatly aided her in her humanitarian missions. They helped bring dozens of nations under the enlightened wing of the Land of the Free. Yet, it was an incident in this ambassadorial role that began the conflict that we are about to relate.
Some fifteen years before Helen had become a celebrity, the country of Moldova, deep inside Eastern Europe, experienced a most extraordinary turn of fortune. Previously, it had been the poorest country in Europe, landlocked and forgotten between Romania and Ukraine, a lost orphan of the Soviet Empire. For decades it was the least known country in Europe and possibly the world. The Moldovans themselves were not sure if their country even existed, or if it was merely a backwater province of Romania, a refuge for Ukrainian mobsters, or perhaps still a vassal of Moscow. Some argued that it was all these things at once.
This all changed when a Moldovan construction company, a state-owned enterprise under the country’s president Viktor Bagrayev, unearthed a man-made cavern in the mountains. The discovery was made as they were clearing the ground to build a gymnastics labour camp for four-year-old girls. The army showed up immediately to investigate the curious underground find. They discovered a vast Soviet bunker housing hundreds upon hundreds of nuclear missiles. The weapons were still functioning, still wired to control systems, still connected to the power grid, and still in hatches pointed at strategic targets all over the world. The targets were mostly the capitals and big cities of any country that mattered. The Moldovans only needed to wipe down the dust and blow off the cobwebs, and the system was ready to launch at the press of a button.
The Russians forgot about the system precisely because it was the top of top secrecy. In the last days of the Soviet Union, only seven of the highest kingpins of the nomenklatura knew of its existence. As fate would have it, they all died in quick succession in 1992: three were killed by oligarchs, two died of vodka overdoses, one died when his Lada’s brakes gave out and the car flew over a cliff in the Caucasus, and one died of a heart attack after smoking eighteen packs of non-filter “Volga” cigarettes in a single day.
The Soviets had had Chukchi tribesmen brought in as forced labourers to build and maintain the underground bunker. They were chosen for their adaptability to long periods of sunlight deprivation – their homeland was on the far eastern shores of the Arctic Ocean. They were told by their elite overseers that the rockets were giant dildos built for the amusement of a local strongman. When the Soviet state collapsed, and they were released back to their polar hometowns, they swore to each other by the Chukchi blood oath that they would never tell anyone about their forced labour experience. Maintenance of dildos is completely inappropriate work for Chukchi men, and if their people back at home were to find out about it, it would bring about irreparable dishonour.
The discovery of the bunker by the government of President Bagrayev changed Moldova permanently and thoroughly. The country was now a nuclear superpower, a completely and utterly independent nation, able to do and say as they pleased knowing that any foreign force that dared to transgress its sacred borders would run the risk of getting barbequed by hydrogen bombs. They were also a small enough nation for the government to micromanage the populace and ensure its seamless unity.
Moldovans had always been a brave, proud people, who had never bent to aggressors, but now that they had nuclear weapons, their defiant, romantic spirit soared to new heights. In the first international press conference announcing his country’s newfound power, Bagrayev was very blunt: “The Americans can now kiss our ass! So can the Europeans, and so can, as a matter of fact, the Russians. Screw all y’all, we are free now!”
Shortly after discovering the nukes, Bagrayev’s government annexed the rebellious province of Transnistria, which had been a de facto independent microstate comprising the narrow strip of territory between the left bank of the Dniester River and the border with Ukraine. The province hadn’t been recognized by anyone except the Russians, anyways. With the Bagrayev government’s newfound power, those pesky Transnistrians quickly gave up on their self-governance and got with the new system.
Moldovan public displays of bravado went a long way in convincing foreigners of their willingness to resort to the nuclear option. Bagrayev would show up in public wearing the nuclear button around his neck, on a diamond-studded necklace, and tease journalists about pushing it. Once he did push it at a news conference, and when everyone began to scream, he laughed and said: “It is joke, relax! You first need to turn this key here. You see?”
The international community tried to summon the man to the United Nations Assembly in New York City to explain some of his more insensitive public statements. Bagrayev responded to the email request with an email of his own, which we reproduce here in full:
Man, I got no time for no dam [sic] United Nations! Have you ever watched a UN speech – to the end I mean?! Me neither! That shit is boring! Screw the UN assembly, we will bomb them too if they get uppity. Stop emailing me about this nonsense, bro.
The USA tried to get Russians to reach out to Moldovans and talk some sense into them. After all, Moldova was part of their former communist empire. But the Russian officials could only shrug their shoulders and shake their heads. Their chief diplomat tweeted:
Despite common negative stereotypes about Russia prevalent in the West, our country has a centuries-old tradition of enlightened and balanced diplomacy, and Moldovan impertinence shocks us as much as it does any other civilized state.
Then it was the Europeans’ turn to try their hand at charming the Moldovans. They sent a hereditary British lord to Moldova, hoping that strongman Bagrayev may be impressed with the man’s patriarchal swagger. However, the lord’s mission only ended in scandal – he was almost killed when his hotel’s staff spiked his tea with an overdose of laxatives.
Asked to explain what had happened, the Moldovan government spokeswoman stated that the hotel staff were merely trying to help. “The gentleman looked and talked as though he hadn’t passed stool in three weeks,” she said.
Finally, in desperation at their lack of options, the US State Department approached Helen with the idea that she should go to Moldova as the special ambassador, so she could interview Bagrayev in person and try to establish a beachhead upon which to build constructive dialogue. Shortly after stumbling onto its nuclear arsenal, Moldova had booted out permanent foreign embassies on its territory – all four of them.
Back in the United States, Helen was dreaded as a debate opponent. She had in fact never lost an argument to anyone. Most pundits who had the misfortune to come down on the opposite side of a debate with her ended up getting cancelled. Seeing how she had crushed so many man-balls in her illustrious career, the Americans figured she may be able at least to create a dent in Bagrayev’s.
Helen arrived in Moldova a couple of days before the interview. She was shown around the capital city of Chisinau, accompanied by an official tourist escort, as required by law for all foreign visitors. A TV crew filmed her having some fun at the local shopping mall and visiting a state-of-the-art mashed potato factory.
Her interview with President Bagrayev was broadcast live on NBC. So confident were the Americans in Helen’s debate skills that they decided to forego the usual confidentiality of diplomatic missions and to put Bagrayev in the hot seat in front of live cameras, where they hoped he could be goaded into saying something self-incriminating or offensive, and thus expose his folly to the whole world.
The interview was held in a baroque hall of the Presidential Palace. The walls and ceiling were painted with naked cherubim and Greco-Roman warriors. The two interlocutors were seated directly opposite each other, but at a respectful distance. The president was manspreading in an elegant, upholstered chair, wearing a blue-and-black tracksuit with horizontal yellow stripes running from shoulders to elbows. He was a baby-faced fellow of middle years, possessor of a massive head, broad shoulders, and a considerable gut. His facial expression communicated a mix of easy confidence and painful indigestion. Ten steps behind him stood two motionless bodyguards wearing the same tracksuits as the president, except theirs lacked the yellow stripes. One guard was standing on each side of a pair of twenty-foot-tall white doors carved in wooden bass relief. Helen, to accommodate her voluminous girth, had been provided with an upholstered sofa; it and the president’s chair were both placed on a resplendent Persian rug.
Helen kicked off the interview on a friendly note: “Mr. President, I came here in the hope of establishing a meaningful connection. After all, Moldova is not that isolated. As a matter of fact, I’m personally involved in the US-Moldova trade: one of my fashion companies imports used potato sacks from your country. We use to make our designer dresses.”
“Of course,” said Bagrayev. “We are happy to provide potato sacks in exchange for Supreme brand vapes and fanny packs. But I must have you understand, Moldovan people do not need Supreme merchandise. We don’t need any trade with anyone, really. Trade is kinda gay; it implies dependency on others. Weakness. We only do it as an extra thing. For fun.”
“Sure, it’s in the very nature of trade that it be voluntary,” concurred Helen. “Otherwise, it would not be trade, but extortion, right?”
“Right. And you Americans know all about extortion, ha-ha!” laughed the president.
“You’re right! America’s history is steeped in extortion, racism, sexism, exploitation, slavery, and genocide. We are proud of constantly acknowledging that in our country. Don’t you think that all countries should be acknowledging these universal crimes? Don’t you think that it is a basic gesture of participation in the modern world?”
“Moldova never did anything wrong in its entire history,” said Bagrayev. “Our nation is glorious.”
“But how can you say that?!” Helen was taken aback. “There’s endless evidence that your country, right now, is engaged in racism, sexism, and violence against its minorities.”
“Look, you can call us whatever you want. Sure: I’m racist, sexist, fascist. This isn’t really the question that I need to address. The main question is for you guys: what are you going to do about it?”
Helen was visibly shocked: “What are we going to do about it! Listen to yourself! How can you say these things! You should get sued! You should feel lucky if a social justice mob doesn’t rip you to shreds!”
“What mob? In Moldova, public opinion is on my side. I have a 99.98% approval rating. And the 0.02% was from the clan of my in-laws; they did it only as joke, ha-ha!”
“Well in America sir, your opinions are abhorrent!”
“What? Did you just call me a whore? Fatty.”
“Abhorrent means… never mind!” Helen lost her patience. “Mr. President, I know you may feel like you have unlimited power, and that you answer to no one in this little kingdom of yours, but if I were you, I would be worried about the reaction of the international community.”
“Okay, so America – or ‘international community’ –,” Bagrayev used air quotes, “would then have to invade Moldova. Let’s see how that goes, with our thousand nuclear missile tips staring you down.”
“Don’t you have a conscience though? Don’t you care about the poor, the people of colour?”
“I don’t care about the people of any colour other than my own, poor or rich. Any more than they care about me, at any rate. I’ve been to a few poor countries and quite frankly, I wasn’t impressed. In fact, they disgust me. If my country was so poor, I’d fucking kill myself. The idea of asking foreigners to love me instead is mind-boggling.”
“So you are saying that in Africa they should…”
“Man, fuck Africa. We don’t care about Africa. We don’t need to think about Africa because we don’t need their resources. We have enough nuclear weapons to wipe out the whole planet. We can eat our potatoes and cabbage, and feast on the glorious Moldovan mutton, and if anyone has a problem with that, we will vaporize their asses. Rare earth metals, diamonds, land – I don’t even know what they are trying to steal from Africa anymore – we don’t need any of that shit.”
Helen’s sparse curls of greasy brown hair seemed to be standing on ends from rage. Her toadlike face swelled to the point where her beady eyes almost disappeared under purpling rolls of her cheeks – only a gleam of shock still radiated from them, through her bottle-bottom eyeglasses.
“Ah! Ooh!” she huffed and puffed. “This interview is over, sir!”
Upon her return to the US, Helen was summoned to the Pentagon to brief the US army brass. She was ushered into a control room with shadowy lighting and floor-to-ceiling monitors showing maps beep-booping with real-time location trackers. Seated around the table were military generals with salt-and-pepper crew cuts and sharp uniforms of olive green and navy blue and grey. Their chests were decked out with military medals.
Except one of the generals was a tranny referred to simply as Tzey. Tzey refused to accept any pronouns when Tzey was addressed, as well as titles such as “General,” as in “General Tzey,” because according to Tzey, titles were elitist. Tzey had blonde shoulder-length hair with bangs. Tzey wore a grandmotherly pair of winged reading glasses and bright red lipstick. The feminine touches of the makeup were counterbalanced by an otherwise fatherly face that had a tall, lined forehead and an aquiline nose. Tzey wore the same style of uniform as the other generals, but it was brown, and from the waist down it consisted of a brown skirt and violet stilettos. While the cisgender generals looked concerned but serene, Tzey had puppy eyes that made it look like Tzey was about to start crying. And isn’t it terrifying when your dad is about to start crying? Now picture your dad about to start crying while wearing red lipstick, and you can begin to understand why everyone walked on eggshells around Tzey.
Helen’s own lower bulk was held together by a vast pair of yoga pants, stretched to near the point of elastic collapse. They were on the brink of what civil engineers call “catastrophic structural failure” – they threatened to explode in a top-to-bottom tear and whiplash into a bystander, potentially inflicting serious bodily injury. On her upper body, she wore a loose black fleece with a brightly coloured leopard pattern.
She put her cherry-flavoured Big Gulp, size extra-large, down on the conference table in front of her and got straight to the point.
“I am still shaking from shock, you guys. The nerve on that man! The arrogance, the lack of filter, the utter disregard for others was something I could never have expected or prepared for.”
“We are all tremendously sorry that you had to suffer through all that,” said the general in the olive-green uniform. “Perhaps it was sexist of us to send a woman to a meeting that could so easily turn into a misogynistic environment. But then again, it could also have been sexist of us not to send a woman… In any event, we are truly, deeply sorry.”
“That monster called me fat!” said Helen as she broke down into sobs.
Others murmured: “Unspeakable!” “Felonious!” “The pig!”
The navy blue general comforted Helen with a rub on the back. “The man has no soul. He’s an animal.”
“Animals have souls!” said Tzey.
“I’m sorry,” said the navy blue general. “Yes, they do.”
After some back-and-forth discussion, spoken in hushed voices out of consideration for Helen’s volatile emotional state, the general in the grey uniform put forth an idea. He was in his mid-forties and the youngest of the men at the table. He had a wonderfully masculine jaw that culminated in a powerful butt chin. His steel-blue eyes shone with controlled anger as he began:
“It’s difficult to admit, but it must be said: that son of a gun Bagrayev has a point when he says that we can’t invade him. We must not lose our heads – any conventional military intervention against Moldova would result in mutually assured destruction. However, we cannot let him get away with such belligerence. He’s undermining everything that America has worked for and bled for in the last hundred years. I’m talking about basic human rights, things like the right to play the victim, or the freedom to complain one’s way into political power.”
“So, Womack, what are we to do?” asked the olive green general, who was the oldest.
“I do have an idea, General Patterson,” resumed Womack. “Bagrayev pretends that his people are incorruptible, that it’s inconceivable that any of them would stoop to desiring American desires, and especially the American dollar. Yet, our intelligence operatives in Moldova inform us that there is a vast black market there whose currency is our greenback, and where American consumerist staples are in high demand. We are talking blue jeans, athleisure apparel, iPhones, vapes, Hollywood movies, Netflix – I mean, everything. The market’s so big and so dynamic, you get a sense that the whole nation is made up of Orange County teenagers. Even Bagrayev’s daughter listens to Cardi C and eats gluten-free fish tacos.”
“This may all be true,” said the older general, “But all our soft influence don’t count for nothin’, because Bagrayev has the nuclear arsenal. That means that, while his people superficially adapt our lifestyle, their government openly undermines the most sacred values of our culture, chief among them being tolerance.”
“My idea is to move beyond our usual type of soft influence – you know, Hollywood, pop music, that sort of thing,” said Womack, “and onto a deeper kind of soft influence. The US dollar has currency in Moldova, and we have an infinite supply of it. So, we can get a few cash suitcases to our agents in the country. We use it to incentivize influencers to promote American values and, once they create a suitable public atmosphere, to speak up against government insolence and help free the Moldovan people to complain about their victimhood to their heart’s content, like everyone else in the free world.”
“You guys are so right,” Helen pitched in, “I noticed that too when we walked around the shopping mall in Moldova. Everyone kinda looks and acts the same as in America. Everyone speaks English. But I didn’t really think of that as significant at the time. I just thought, ‘Of course the whole world should look and speak like Americans, we’re the best country in the world!’ But now that you mention it – yeah – there is also something very different. Whenever I’d exercise my right to complain about all the oppression I live through every second of my life, people would just kinda blush and look down on the ground. Like they were trying to laugh it off without saying anything. I asked my guide to explain this behaviour to me, and she tried to introduce me to this strange aspect of Moldovan culture called ‘shame,’ or ‘being ashamed of yourself.’ But I didn’t really get it. It sounded quaint but also a little backward, to be honest.”
Brent Womack’s idea of “deep soft” influence was later fleshed out into a detailed plan, which was eventually approved under top secrecy by the Pentagon and assigned to Womack himself to lead. The general accepted the role with zeal, for he was a man imbued with heroic dedication to defend not only the widow and the orphan, as the Good Book puts it, but anyone else who felt marginalized, misunderstood, or offended in any form or manner whatsoever. And Bagrayev struck him as imbued with the exact opposite ideals, as a loathsome and dangerous villain.
As part of the plan, the Americans engaged one of their spies in Moldova, a twenty-four-year-old Australian named Stephen Dixon, who worked locally as an ESL evening academy tutor. He was tasked with discreetly approaching a certain Vaseline Glatski, the wealthy owner of the biggest chain of hair salons and beauty studios in the country. Glatski owed his fortune to the graces of Bagrayev’s vast mixed martial arts organization, the Imperial Potence Entertainment (ImPotEnt), whose fighters Glatski groomed and waxed. This was no small service, for Moldovan men are famous for having unusually hairy backs and chests.
Back in the West, Glatski would be universally taken for a flamboyant homosexual. His powerful unibrow was permanently plowed above the nose. He had gelled bangs carefully strung down to the middle of his powdered forehead. He wore an eighties-style technicolour track top tucked into tight stone-washed jeans and secured with a studded belt. But in Moldova, he was not a homosexual because, according to the official census data, there were no homosexuals in Moldova, and there had never been.
Stephen liked to visit Glatski’s flagship massage parlour, located in the fashionable heart of Chisinau. He usually opted for the traditional “femur massage.” Glatski had a soft spot for the young Australian, and whenever he was available, he would massage Stephen himself. This was the case when Stephen came in to make a proposition on the secret bidding of his Pentagon handlers.
“Say, Vaseline,” said Stephen while Vaseline was oiling down his thighs, “You remember that one time when you told me how you had a dream of moving to America and starting a gluten-free restaurant?”
“Yes,” said Vaseline, “I still fantasize about things like that.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure if I should tell you at the time,” said Stephen, “but then I decided, why not? My friend in Australia is a famous gluten-free entrepreneur, a millionaire. He’s gotten so rich, his only mission in life now is to spread the blessings of a gluten-free diet far and wide across the globe. I mentioned you to him, and you know what? He wants to invest in you. He’s willing to put up a significant investment of US dollars to help you start a restaurant right here in Chisinau.”
Vaseline stopped oiling Stephen’s buttocks for a moment, then continued: “Unfortunately, my sexy friend, we are not allowed to deposit US dollars in domestic banks.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” said Stephen. “I know a way to bring cash into Moldova.” He then turned around to face his interlocutor and whispered: “I have a false bottom in my suitcase. I use it to smuggle in some Vegemite every time I go back home for holidays.”
“Vegemite? Is that a drug?” asked Vaseline.
“No, it’s a savoury vegetable spread we like to put on our toast down under.”
“Interesting,” said Vaseline. “I don’t know what the authorities will think about gluten-free dining here, though.”
“Authorities? Are you kidding me?” said Stephen. “They love you, mate, you are their favourite barber!”
It took Stephen more than one visit to convince Vaseline, but the latter’s infatuation with healthy diets eventually got the better of his habitual caution. He accepted a cash briefcase from Stephen two months after that first talk. He then applied for a permit at the Ministry for Private and Other Irrelevant Businesses, and it was approved with minimal hassle. Of course, to smoothen the process, Vaseline had to hand over one-third of his Australian dollar investment to the official who processed his application. When the official finally handed over the red-stamped license, he smiled and gave him his warm wishes. “It’s nice to see Moldova catching up to the latest global fashions,” he said.
A few weeks after that, Vaseline had finalized the restaurant concept and set a date for the opening party. It would be a keto- and gluten-free eatery named Berries & Blubber. It would be on Chisinau’s main shopping street, not too far from his main massage parlour. The opening gala was a fancy affair on the restaurant’s premises, attended by big-wig fashionistas and government officials. The first group wore Italian designer brands, tight trousers, and noosed shawls, just as such people would in any other country. The government officials came in grey and beige suits, porn mustaches, and an entourage of incredibly hot women in cocktail dresses. Stephen could not stop wondering how a bunch of greasy dad-bodies like them could command the attention of blonde bombshells that made Hollywood divas look like convenience-store clerks.
The party space was a spacious restaurant hall decked out in white marble, with big round tables and chairs all covered in white cloth. There was a lot of white everywhere that, with the glistening polish of the marble from the floor, walls, and ceiling, caused a great deal of glare. A DJ blasted turbo-folk, an upbeat genre of music that fused traditional Moldovan instruments, like the gasul, a two-string goat-hair fiddle, ‘80s deep techno, and piercing, yodelling vocals. Some of the officials started doing an enthusiastic line dance to the music, kicking their legs high into the air while bracing each other’s shoulders.
When the party heated up, one of the leading officials, a tall, grey-haired man with a big round head crowned with a broad crow’s nest, stood up at his table and held up a vodka bottle made of crystal and porcelain. He also produced two silver cans of genuine black-sturgeon caviar.
He waved at the host of the party and his Australian friend: “Vaseline, Stephen, let us celebrate with traditional Moldovan diet, ha-ha!”
His suit jacket had random discoloured patches from the sweat he had secreted on it while performing the line dance with his friends. Nevertheless, he was confident and festive. The beautiful ladies at his side walked over to Vaseline and Stephen and dragged them over to the official’s table.
“To the best barber in Moldova! Noroc!” said the official as everyone around the table drained glittering shot glasses of vodka.
Then the official used a tiny golden teaspoon to smudge sour cream and caviar onto some crackers, which he handed out to people around him. Then he poured another round of shots. Stephen and Vaseline clicked their glasses as they looked each other in the eyes, took the caviar spreads in single bites, and washed them down with the vodka.
Their bodies reacted immediately. The two men gripped their throats and began to turn deathly pale and blue as they stumbled and collapsed on the floor. Vaseline pulled down a tablecloth as he gripped it in an attempt to pull himself back up on his feet. Within fifteen seconds they were both as dead as the sturgeon whose roe they had just swallowed. The turbo-folk music was promptly shut off. A confused crowd looked on in deathly silence at the incident, but no one dared to approach.
“The party is over!” The bald chinovnik announced coolly, and the fifty or so guests began quietly but rapidly filing out of the banquet hall. “Gluten-free diets in Moldova. Abomination!”
His colleague looked at the corpses and shook his head: “That’s what you get when you try to do be ‘creative,’ to undermine the sacrosanct mediocrity of your fellow men.”
“And with decadent Western ideas to boot!” joined another official. “Who did this faggot think he was? Thought he could get away with making the rest of us look like peasants.”
“How can we be a united people if everyone is not more or less equally stupid?” the first colleague added.
All the regular guests were now gone. The bald official then said, as he kept looking at the dead bodies: “He got the devil in him. And this Aussie idiot thought we didn’t know about his Vegemite false bottom. Whatever – the president will be glad to hear that the devil has now been exorcised.”
Several of his colleagues sniggered at the comment and shook their heads. Four among them rolled the two bodies into floor rugs.
