George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 129

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“The living legend says our CIA is the worst at getting things done among all public institutions!”

Living legend. It was a terribly embarrassing title that would make him squirm if he heard it himself, but what other title could be more fitting for a man named George W. Bush?

“What are the agents in Moscow doing!”

In Moscow, this was happening.

‘Damn it. It’s not like it’s the Cold War or something.’

In a basement that was disgustingly dark and had only one old-fashioned incandescent light bulb hanging from the ceiling, a CIA agent, armed with complaints, was meeting with an executive from Sukhoi [a Russian aircraft manufacturer].

Collecting information isn’t always about covert operations and grand schemes like in the movies. In the most capitalist society, the most effective and traditional method was bribery. Nothing moves people’s hearts as much as money.

Inside the bulletproof plastic black briefcase, stacks of dollars were neatly arranged. It was an amount that showed how desperately the CIA didn’t want to be on the president’s bad side. The CIA didn’t stop there and prepared several more briefcases containing the same amount. In short, the same scene was happening all over Russia.

“Excellent! All the information you want is contained on this diskette. Actually, I don’t care if the deal is with your country or you, but I hope you keep it strictly confidential. If we get caught, neither you nor I will be in good shape.”

It was too obvious considering that the current president was Putin, who came from the KGB [the Soviet Union’s primary security agency]. Fortunately, this kind of thing was too common in Russia. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was hard to find a public official in Russia who hadn’t taken bribes, and the reason why the Red Mafia [Russian organized crime] could openly do business was because high-ranking officials who had been bribed were covering for them.

“The current president is a bit more radical than the last one.”

He said that and winked. He looked like a successful fund manager on Wall Street, but he was definitely a native Slavic born in Russia.

The Sukhoi official carefully secured the briefcase, and the CIA agent carefully secured the box containing the diskette. The diskette contained information about the fighters Sukhoi had developed and the latest fighters under development. These fighters they were developing might not be superior in performance to those made in the US, but collecting information on the enemy’s forces was the basis for establishing tactics and strategies.

“In the end, our country realized it too. That the money coming from the proletariat is more valuable than the proletariat itself.”

The corrupt Sukhoi executive said that and hummed as he left the basement first, feeling good. He thought he might see him in the United States soon. Wouldn’t he want to work with that much money? Even if it wasn’t the United States, he was very fluent in English, so he could live well in any country where English was spoken.

‘It’s none of my business. At this rate, my salary will be protected, right?’

Do people only work with patriotism? Of course, there were people who really valued patriotism the most, but most people didn’t. This was also true of CIA field agents. When life becomes difficult, money becomes a priority over patriotism. Isn’t that how people become double agents? To prevent this from happening, they had to be paid adequate compensation and allowances.

Most of the field agents were locals who had been recruited, but he was a bit special. Because the matter was so important, he was a valuable person who had flown directly from the United States. Of course, that didn’t mean that local agents weren’t used in this deal. They were in charge of connecting the Sukhoi official and the CIA agent and finding a safe place for them to meet.

You could have local agents do everything, but who would want to entrust such a large sum of money to a local agent in such an important deal? Besides, it had only been a year? Back in 2001, thanks to a friend named Robert Hanssen, most of the field agents in Moscow had to be replaced.

But the craziest thing here was that Robert Hanssen’s identity was not the CIA but the FBI. Because the information he spread included CIA-related documents, he was indirectly affected.

The place where this person worked was the Soviet Analysis Division of the Information Department at the Washington headquarters, and his main job was counterintelligence. Thanks to this, three American double agents in the KGB in 1985 were dragged into prison. However, as the saying goes, if you have a long tail, you’ll get caught. He had been diligently leaking US secrets for 15 years, but a document that Russia was receiving information from the FBI was obtained by the US, and he was eventually caught.

This happened in February 2001. It was only last year’s story. In this situation, if that living legend, the flying fighter president, catches a case with the FBI or CIA, would he shake things up? Wouldn’t he? Well, let’s say he does shake things up. Then, will there be a reshuffle? Won’t there?

At least everyone working at the CIA overwhelmingly thought it would.

In a capitalist society, there was no nightmare as bad as being fired from a job for modern people living in a capitalist society. This was especially true for people who were satisfied with their jobs.

Everyone thought this. There won’t be any more complaints now, right?

In this way, all kinds of information obtained became reports and were placed on the desk in the president’s office.

“I’m sure I said an interim report?”

The number of reports piled up on one side of the office was comparable to a skyscraper.

“That’s the interim report.”

‘Damn it.’

Bush felt his head go numb and pressed his forehead. If this was an interim report, he could easily guess how many reports would be submitted for the final report. Even at this moment when Bush was horrified by the doubled number of reports, wouldn’t more information be gathered?

Seeing this terrible sight, he thought he knew why the interim report hadn’t been submitted. It seemed to have taken a long time to collect all this information. In fact, it was more like a list of information than a report. Even if you read just one page, it was clear that it was messy and not organized.

‘I told you to do an interim report, but you’re bombing me with reports?’

Bush intuitively felt that he wouldn’t be able to get along with the CIA very well during his term.

The reason? Of course, it was the enormous amount of documents piled up in front of Bush’s eyes. Swear words lingered in Bush’s mouth several times before being swallowed back into his throat. He swallowed only abstract words, but Bush felt uncomfortable, as if he had eaten something he couldn’t eat.

It took more than 5 minutes to read just one page, and there was no nutritious content, so he didn’t feel like reading it. As a result, the speed of processing documents gradually increased, and eventually Bush decided to reject this damn mountain.

“Tell them to organize the contents and come back. No, just brief me or at least rewrite it to a level that people can read and bring it back. How many reports do I have to read and how many approval documents do I have to sign now? When am I going to look at all this!”

He wanted to blow them all away, but he suppressed his anger, thinking about the agents who had worked hard in the field to get these things. Seeing him being unnecessarily sensitive about nothing, he intuitively felt that his stress cycle had returned once again.

“I’ll have them collect and submit only the urgent ones first. Frankly, it’s great. Based on this information, we can catch double agents. There’s also a lot of information about the Russian military’s military equipment. I don’t know if it’s all real, but if we investigate it, we’ll find out.”

“No, when did you figure all that out?”

“I haven’t seen it all. I just read a few at random.”

It was definitely valuable information. The problem was that there was so much information that it was too much to read all of it in one day, and it was messy. What Bush wanted was a neatly organized report.

Imagine going to a restaurant and ordering a hamburger, but they give it to you disassembled without assembling it. They put it on a tray without cooking it. The fries still have good soil on them, the patty is so fresh that it can run around in the field right away, and they even bring a cow so you can squeeze the cheese yourself. What would you think?

In short. It is recognized that this information is a valuable raw stone, but it has not been processed at all. You can’t carry around gold ore as a gold ring.

“Still, I got something.”

Even so, as he continued to read, he realized that this information was more valuable than he thought. In addition to the traitor and military-related information that the chief of staff mentioned, there was also information about the political situation inside Russia and the weaknesses of politicians.

“And things like the fact that China and Russia are gradually falling apart are very useful.”

To be exact, it wasn’t so much that Russia was abandoning China, but rather that China was falling away on its own. The information was that the administrative power that Russia had allocated to support China was gradually decreasing day by day.

“I know you’re uncomfortable with this situation, but please bear with it for now. If you’ve collected this much, the interim report is likely to be delayed. And although it’s hard to see because it’s covered up, you can see the effort to organize it into a report even in form.”

Originally, flexibility should not be involved in national administration, but this was a special case.

As if sensing Bush’s complicated feelings, White approached and kept hitting his leg with his tail. Despite being a cat’s tail, he felt a considerable weight beyond his clothes.

“You know people’s hearts and you’re a very mystical creature.”

“Mystical creature?”

“But why do you keep hunting these things?”

He had hunted something again tonight, and this time he had hunted a rat. Oh, is it too ordinary? There’s no way. He hunted a nutria [a large, semi-aquatic rodent] that was 60cm long, not just any rat. It was surprising that there were nutrias in Washington D.C., and the size was bigger than most nutrias.

“If this guy was a tiger, he would have wiped out the creatures in the mountains.”

“I think he’s already doing that enough?”

“That’s true.”

Because the things that White hunted and brought were too precious to just throw away, he was making them all into taxidermy, so there were enough taxidermy to hold an exhibition soon.

“Well, that’s that. Is Africa doing well?”

“Elections are scheduled to be held soon under the supervision of the UN. The AU [African Union] didn’t seem to like it.”

“Well, that’s right.”

That’s because every country on the African continent had the potential to split. It was because the great powers forcibly tied together tribes with their own characteristics and traditions.

“So what did the AU say?”