

The Cynical Expat's Guide to Provoking

Street Revolutions in Central Asia

By Christian Hale

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2018 Christian Hale

Chapters

1. Humanitarian Aid Embezzling 101

2. The Cesspool of the Capital City Expat Community

3. On the Road to the Cotton Slavery Plantations

4. An Ancient and Mysterious Tourist Trap

5. Across the Open Steppes of Despair

6. A Broken and Poisoned Industrial Hellhole

7. Desecrated Graves and a Very Dead Sea

8. Imbeciles, Hypocrites and other Assorted Foreigners

9. A Small Mountain Valley with a Thousand Khans

10. Violent Shepherds and Holy Trees

11. Visiting an Evil Canadian Gold Mine

12. The Afghan Border and some Fresh Hashish

13. Disobedient Donkeys of the Heroin Highway

14. Russian Spies and Americans Scoundrels

15. A Pig Attacks and a Revolution Begins

16. Narrow Escape or Quick Death

17. A Burning City

18. The East is a Delicate Matter

Special Information Inserts

1. An Introduction to Kajbezistan

2. An Introduction to Chorshanbe City

3. The History of Kajbezistan

4. Surviving your Travels through Kajbezistan

5. Public Transportation and other Forms of Violent Death

6. The Miseducation System

7. How to (Not) Insult Kajbezistan

8. Taxonomy of the Various Expat Tribes

9. Cultural Peculiarities of Kajbezistan

10. Investor's Guide to Kajbezistan

11. Assorted Kajbez Conspiracy Theories

12. A Brief History of the Afghan Border

13. The Problem of Terrorism

14. Russian and American Foreign Policy in Kajbezistan

15. Presidential Facts

16. History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Often Rhymes

17. A Despised Minority

18. The Kajbez Civil War

Foreword

This is a work of fiction. Everything in this book is, therefore, a complete and total fabrication. No parts of this story actually happened, nor were they inspired by real events, places or people. That would be ridiculous. And Central Asia is not a ridiculous place where, for example, the manhole covers in the regional cities have all been stolen off the street by the police and sold as scrap metal to the Chinese, resulting in pedestrians randomly falling down through the sidewalk into oblivion. That does not happen; you really only fall two to five meters before landing safely on a pile of trash. Plus, the Chinese government has recently provided a loan that allows Kajbezistan to purchase Chinese-manufactured manhole covers.

Overall the author doesn't really know much about Kajbezistan. He has only been to the country once, in a 10-day haze of alcohol, food poisoning and explosive diarrhea. Most of the research for this book was done on Instagram, Wikipedia and The Daily Mail.

Acknowledgments

This book was made possible by a generous research grant from an anonymous currency speculator with an interest in Eurasia. Travel and logistics funding were provided by a charitable fund sponsored by the Masonic Temple of Kansas City, Arkansas. The author would also like to thank his local Kajbezistani research assistant and fixer, who will hopefully be released from prison soon. Please check the Twitter hashtag #FreeGulnara for updates.

Legal Notice

And, on a final note that the publisher's lawyers have insisted upon (due the outcome of a libel and slander lawsuit in British courts), the author hereby states that the Kajbez president's eldest son is not actually known as "Rizvon the Rapist," despite him being referred to in that manner seven times in various Wikileaks cables from the US Embassy in Kajbezistan.

Special Information Insert #1

An Introduction to Kajbezistan

(Facts copy-pasted from The Desolate Planet Guidebook to Central Asia)

President: Gulganberdybacha Islambaev. Married to Svetlana Petrovna. In power since 1987. Known outside of Kajbezistan as the dictator who officially turned 70 on his 80th birthday. Prefers to be called by the honorific El Olidagi, which translates to "The Supreme Protector of the People, Generous Provider of Prosperity, Maintainer of Perpetual Peace, Visionary Founder of the Modern State and Virile Father of the Nation."

Health of the president: Rumored to be suffering from the early stages of senile dementia for the last decade. President Islambaev has spent most of his recent time inspecting progress on a life-extending nomadic yoghurt serum under development at the Kajbez Academy of Science's Dairy Innovation Laboratory, a USAID-supported agro-scientific facility.

Borders: Afghanistan, China, Russia and Iran. Kajbezistan does not share a border with Estonia, despite President Islambaev's comments to the UN General Assembly in 2010 regarding "mutual commitments to the shared Kajbez-Estonian border."

Capital: Chorshanbe City. The capital city was previously known as Dzerzhinovo, named after Felix Dzerzhinsky – the founder of the Soviet NKVD secret police.

Official founding of the nation: Carbon-dated by Kajbez scientists to exactly 7,019 BC, which the president – unfamiliar with how negative numbers work – mistakenly believes makes 2019 the 9,000th year of nationhood.

Seasons: Three seasons – summer, winter, flood.

Tallest mountain: Mt. Stalinism.

Official state newspaper: Kadzhbezskaya pravda.

Most common toilet paper: Kadzhbezskaya pravda.

Currency: Official currency is the some. Each banknote features President Islambaev on both sides. $1 = 48,000 somes; $1 on the black market = 160,000 somes. In the bazaars and corner stores of Kajbezistan, small change (less than 20,000 somes) is usually given in the form of candy, matches, mini-Snickers, or birdseed (which can be fed to the ubiquitously owned fighting quails). Note that in the heat of the summer, the mini-Snickers are more like melted chocolate squeeze tubes. Locals sprinkle sugar on them and consider it a delicacy.

Government: Kajbezistan has a tricameralism system with three levels of parliament: lower house, upper house, and the assembly of village elders (known locally as the 'white-beards house'). All three levels are rubber stamps in what is essentially a presidential family dictatorship. Competition is fierce to represent the president's party in the upper house, but nobody wants to serve in the lower house of parliament, as its members are not exempt from the annual forced labor campaign in the cotton fields of the southern lowlands near the Oxus River.

Government reforms: The president has recently proposed a fourth level of parliament for youth, based on the youth organization that the government deploys to attack foreign NGO offices and the German embassy whenever Germany grants asylum to another Kajbez exile.

Torture: Yes.

Doctors per capita (DPC): Fourth lowest in the world after Kajbez nationalists chased away all the Jewish and Russian doctors in the early 1990s, resulting in a DPC ranking that puts it just ahead of Papua New Guinea, according to the World Health Organization.

Brothels per capita (BPC): Highest in the world, probably, according to Pro Operator, an Anglo-Aussie-Afrikaans-American security contractor magazine published online out of Tallahassee, Alabama.

National sport: Buzbazi, a form of goat punching combined with rugby. A live goat is attacked by barehanded players on and off horseback from two or more teams who try to drive the terrified goat across the other team's goal line (or into the other team's village in the traditional version). Towards the end of the first half of play the goat is usually dead, and players may then carry the carcass like a rugby ball. The northern version of the sport has no teams and is strictly a mêlée. The idea of goat punching as a traditional metaphor for the relationship between the state (fist) and the people (goat) is credited to an American anthropologist, who stole the credit for inventing the metaphor from the locals who relayed it to him.

National pastime: Bride kidnapping/raping (in the north), attacking Chinese businessmen (in the south), street racing and vehicular homicide (children of high-ranking government officials only), pogroms against ethnic Muskhatarians (nationwide, on a semi-annual basis), and posting risqué photos of young Kajbez women online without their permission (everybody, at all times).

Months: Same names as in Russian, except for March, May, and August, which have been replaced by the pet names of the president's daughters. Note: foreign visitors should not ask questions about Gulyoshka (Miss August), as she ran away to Syria several years ago to marry Abu-Viber al-Shishani, an Islamic State jihadi she met online who claimed to be a Chechen warrior but was actually in fact just a Dagestani who did tech support and toilet maintenance for ISIS after failing their bootcamp.

Time Zone: Daylight savings time is practiced, but unpredictably and only according to the wishes of the increasingly senile president. As a result, for the last few years the time has only gone forward and not back. For reference, as of 2019, the workday starts at 1:00pm Kajbezistani Standard Time, about one hour after sunrise.

National Motto: Up to 2013: "Kindness, honor and hospitality is the essence of the Kajbez Nation." After the treacherous events of 2013: "Kindness, honor and hospitality is the essence of the Kajbez Nation. Death to traitors."

# Chapter One

# Humanitarian Aid Embezzling 101

Date: Saturday, July 27th, 2019.

Place: Outdoor seating section at Kontraffatto's Authentic Italian Café, 24 Red Partizan Street, Chorshanbe City, former Soviet Republic of Kajbezistan.

People: Rupert, the sub-regional project manager for Presbyterian Aid Services, a humanitarian NGO focusing on civil society development, and Muhammadjoon, Presbyterian Aid Services' part-time Kajbezi translator and fixer.

"Look at those racists on the other side of the patio, dining in an expat-only group," said Rupert in a voice that was not at all hushed. "They're probably Germans."

Muhammadjoon, Rupert's local assistant, looked over at the visiting Dutch consultants for the Netherlands Development Cooperation agency and nodded in agreement, as having coffee with your translator was actually quite progressive by the standards of behavior exhibited by Kajbezistan's toxic expat community.

Muhammadjoon occasionally enjoyed the commentary that his boss Rupert provided, and he found him much more entertaining than his previous expat bosses. And so Muhammadjoon laughed on cue at Rupert's continued commentary, as a good employee should – and despite his own admiration for Germany, German products and all Germans in general.

"In the good old days it was the only the Americans who were loud and obnoxious. Now everybody except the Scandinavians is just unbearable. I hate expat hangouts. We should be at a Kajbez teahouse, not this fake plastic Italian café," grumbled Rupert.

The sad truth was that Kontraffatto's Authentic Italian Café was not authentic. This deeply angered Rupert every single time he visited, which was up to four times per week thanks to the café's vicinity to the Presbyterian Aid Services office.

Rupert now stared in total disappointment at the broken pile of crumbs on his plate.

"This has to be the world's oldest and worst cranberry biscotti," announced Rupert, who now had a specific grievance to air.

"But Mr. Rupert, they say it's made fresh in their bakery," offered Muhammadjoon in defense of the café.

"Is that what they said? It was probably taken out of a sealed plastic wrapper and thrown onto a plate. It's got to be at least three years old. And really, do you even know what a cranberry is?"

"Yes, it is...like blueberry. But cran instead of blue."

"Cran? You really lived in America for seven years?"

"No cranberries in South Brooklyn, Mr. Rupert."

The productive coffee-break conversation was interrupted by the sudden sound of wailing and crying. Startled, Rupert looked turned around just in time to see a dusty little girl with messy hair grab onto his shirt.

"Please! Heeeeeelp me!" she wailed in Russian.

The disheveled girl, whose faced showed signs of bruising – even through her dark skin – extended out an open hand in hopes of Rupert's spare coins.

Rupert, without making any further eye contact, jerked his arm away from the girl as Muhammadjoon yelled at her in Kajbezi.

With completely dry eyes she continued her hysterical sobbing and switched to pleading her case in Kajbezi.

"Bilingual beggar, huh?" remarked Rupert. "If she learned English I might be amused enough to actually give her something."

Muhammadjoon stood up and stepped towards the child, raising his hand threateningly. The little girl, from her short life experience, knew the chance of being struck was very real, and retreated off of the patio – only to slip on the café's broken stair tiles and tumble onto the sidewalk.

Rupert chuckled in amusement.

"Another one of your gypsy compatriots?" asked Rupert.

"Yeah. She's a Dzhugi. Check your pockets to see if you still have your phone and wallet."

"That's racist, you racist," joked Rupert as he patted down the outside of his pockets and found his phone and wallet still there.

"Sorry, Mr. Rupert. Most of the children beg, but some of them try to steal from pockets. Dzhugis are desperate. You would steal too if you had to live their life here in Kajbezistan."

"Dzhugi. The name sounds so ugly in English."

"It's ugly in Kajbezi as well."

"What do they call themselves?" asked Rupert.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, do they call themselves Roma here?" asked Rupert as he glanced disapprovingly at the table full of Dutchmen who were now charitably emptying out their pockets for the gypsy girl.

"The Italian football team?" asked a confused Muhammadjoon.

"Never mind. What were we talking about?"

"You hate biscotti."

"Yeah, that's right," continued Rupert. "This place was so much better when it opened last fall. Now their pastries suck and the last few coffees here tasted like instant coffee. I think they are now just buying expired baked goods from Dubai or Istanbul or something."

"You should eat bread. Kajbez bread. Fresh naan. Hot from the tandoor," suggested Muhammadjoon helpfully.

"You people think eating bread is the solution for everything."

"It is the solution for most things, yes. Better than your rock-hard Italian sugar biscuit."

"You want another biskati?" chirped the Kajbez waiter, who materialized out of nowhere after managing to be invisible for the last half-hour – including when Rupert actually needed him.

"No, thanks. This one is absolutely terrible. And I don't want a replacement biscotti for the low, low price of two biscotti," answered Rupert politely.

"It is better or badder than biskati in America?" asked the waiter, curious but not actually caring about the quality of the biscotti, nor the customer's satisfaction.

"I wouldn't know. I'm from New Zealand," said Rupert with a shrug.

"Oh! Australia?"

Muhammadjoon chuckled just loud enough for the waiter to notice.

"Yes. It's part of Australia," replied Rupert. "Everybody in New Zealand is Australian."

"Oooh, interesting. I studied geography in ninth form," added the waiter.

"I'm sure you were a good student and in great form," said Rupert, nodding with completely insincere approval.

Muhammadjoon interjected curtly and spoke a few quick rude sentences in Kajbezi to the waiter, who turned quickly and returned inside the café where he could continue to hide from providing any sort of service to the other patrons.

"What did you say to him?"

"I told him that we didn't come here to be asked dumb questions by some stupid kid. I'm so sick of these idiots from the 96th mikrorayon."

"You think he's from that neighborhood...why?" asked Rupert.

"He speaks Kajbezi with that ugly northern dialect. I can't understand a word they say. When they talk to each other it sounds like dogs eating cats alive. I hate it. The 96th mikrorayon is full of northerners. If you walk through that neighborhood, you will think that you are in a zoo-park full of screaming animals."

"Isn't your wife from the north?"

"Yes, but she is ethnic Tatar. So it's OK," replied Muhammadjoon in his own defense.

"Fair enough."

After a short pause in the conversation, Rupert looked across the street from the café and saw something that caught his eye: a police officer with a full grill of gold teeth and a very large pot-belly was yelling at a middle-aged woman squatting over a large bowl of sunflower seeds that she had been trying to sell. The woman, wearing a conservative hijab that fully covered her hair, was pleading in a desperate and submissive manner, despite the cop having no gun and, for whatever reason, no belt to contain his too-short shirt that could, in better circumstances, hide his bare stomach from public view.

"Muhammadjoon, do your job. Translate what that fat fucker is saying to the gypsy lady. Or rather the Dzhugi lady...or whatever you call them."

"She is not gypsy. She is definitely Kajbez."

"Fantastic ethnology skills, Muhammadjoon. What's the conversation about?"

The small side street was quiet, and their conversation was free for the eavesdropping. Muhammadjoon listened for about a minute and then sighed.

"What? Why the long sigh?"

"He is demanding she pay him money," answered Muhammadjoon. "She is saying she has none yet. She says maybe on Monday she will sell some seeds when the street is busier."

"Shouldn't there be a standard street police payment amount? This street or the block belongs to him, right?"

"Yes. There is a standard price for everything. But there is problem. The lady selling the seeds is saying that there was only one police officer on this street before, and she already paid him. The policeman is telling her that there are now two police officers, on for each side of the street. She must pay them both."

"The fuck why?" asked Rupert.

"My friends who have relatives in the police told me about it last month. They said that the Ministry of Interior is working hard trying to raise more money for the new top minister. He paid a huge bribe to get his position, and he's been trying to force his ministry to take in more revenue. And now President Islambaev told him that the Ministry of Interior must raise even more money on its own and become what you NGO people say: sustainable. So the high-level police commanders are selling more positions to raise the money. The people buying these new police positions – like this asshole here – must collect bribes and money from people to pay back the loan they borrowed to buy their position. But these idiot police don't understand that they are already taking too much from the people. You can't double what you are already taking in this neighborhood. You will be taking 100%. These men did not do good in mathematics in school before they dropped out after grade nine."

"Greedy fuckers," observed Rupert astutely.

"Yes. Greedy and stupid. But mostly stupid. We have a saying in Kajbezi: 'You can't fuck your chicken and eat it too.' This is what the police are trying to do now."

"Muhammadjoon, local facts and information and cultural background anecdotes like this are why I hired you – and it's why I have not yet fired you."

Muhammadjoon smiled.

The police officer across the street apparently had enough and decided that his only course of action was to kick the woman in the ribs. Luckily, the police must buy their own footwear, and so the woman took a swift kick from a cheap pair of soft loafers, not boots. Still, the woman fell hard to the side from her squatting position and into the dirt. After a brief pause she regained her breathe and began to quietly sob while lying on her side.

"Mr. Rupert, don't take a picture. We will go to jail."

"Don't worry, I'm not that stupid."

Satisfied with his handiwork, the officer reached into the huge bowl of sunflower seeds and dumped the makeshift newspaper cones full of seeds back into the bowl and crumpled them up, tossing them in the woman's direction. He then grabbed the entire bowl of seeds and waddled across the pot-holed street.

Rupert took a good look at the officer's face. His jaw was hanging open and he breathed heavily through his mouth, almost panting – like a really obese jackal. His mouth was grotesque, with gold teeth across the top row. And his eyes were dead. Completely dead. He gazed ahead with a dull predatory stare as he hopped up onto the crumbling curb, with his belly jiggling and spilling over the top of his pants. He then disappeared around the back of the building with his loot.

Looking back towards the woman, Rupert could see that she was now sitting on her ass in the dirt – a position you never see a local woman assuming. Her arms hung down by her sides, completely limp. She made no attempt to cover up her contorted face as she wept uncontrollably.

"Well, that was fucked up," noted Rupert in an unconcerned tone. "That sort of thing should make you Kajbezistanis want to start a revolution."

Johnny didn't reply to what was a very dangerous statement to make in public in the capital city of an authoritarian police state.

After a pause for thought, Rupert added, "No. Never mind. A revolution will just give the country something just as bad – or worse. If the president was replaced in a revolution by any random citizen, that person would probably just enrich themselves and their own family while killing and torturing anybody who didn't kneel down in front of them."

"If you learned Kajbezi and spent time with normal people, not government people, you would have a better opinion of us," replied Muhammadjoon with his usual level of tolerance and patience. "If we got rid of Islambaev, we would not be so greedy and cruel as his family."

"And in the meantime? You live like this? Like this lady over there?"

"Yes. 80% of my country lives like that woman. But you know, the police didn't used to beat women, just men."

Muhammadjoon paused and then added, "Although, of course, they have always raped women. But, you know, at least they did not beat them in public. Just in private. Or behind the building where nobody can see. Not like this – on a street where everybody can see. My country is changing."

"Well, she won't be eating for the rest of the week now that the fat pig walked off with her wares. But she looks chubby enough to last at least that long," remarked Rupert compassionately as he pushed aside his plate of uneaten, stale biscotti.

"And speaking of not eating anymore," continued Rupert, "let's talk about you."

"Me? I don't need a diet regime."

"You sure don't, Muhammadjoon. But what you do still need is a salary."

"What do you mean?"

"So...Presbyterian Aid Services has no more budget remaining for this year. It's gone. You will find upon arrival at the office on Monday that you no longer have a job, or at least not a paying job."

"Oh, yeah. Why?" asked Muhammadjoon.

"Because the budget has been spent already."

"But why? It's only July," said Muhammadjoon as he tried to suppress a smile.

"Aren't you just a little pochemuchka," remarked Rupert. "And what's with that stupid grin?"

"Only little children can be pochemuchka. I am..." Muhammadjoon fiddled with his smartphone's translation app and then looked up and completed his sentence: "...inquisitive."

"Same thing. You are like a nosy little child who asks too many questions. The exact definition of a pochemuchka. Now listen to me..."

"Fine. OK. Tell me something I don't know."

"You have no more job. And no more salary," announced Rupert. "But I can give you a job for the next three months – at double the rate the Presbyterians were paying you."

"But you said that they have no more budget."

"The poor Presbyterians have no more budget left, true," replied Rupert. "But I don't work for them anymore. I quit on Friday. And I have my own budget now. So, are you interested?"

"From where did you get your own budget?" asked Muhammadjoon.

"I picked the president's pocket. Who cares where I got it from?"

"OK, I am interested. And I don't care where the money is from."

After four years in Kajbezistan, Rupert had learned to never unnecessarily give anybody any information that could be used against him. And how Rupert was now unemployed but flush with cash was certainly something that could be used against him. Just 24 hours earlier the director of Presbyterian Aid Services was shaking with barely controlled rage as he opened the office safe and handed over the equivalent of one-quarter of the NGO's annual budget, as well as six month's salary, six month's travel and housing expenses, plus six months' worth of per diems and incidental expenses to Rupert.

The director, a short, fat and angry little man who claimed to be from San Francisco despite being from Sacramento, was not the type of person to hand over such a generous severance package. However, the director loved to drive, and he refused the services of the very safe and reliable office driver in favor of the freedom of the open road and his own hands on the wheel. But unfortunately for local pedestrians, he was a terrible driver who had recently killed his third pedestrian in his seven years in Kajbezistan. While this may be less than average for the son of a Kajbez minister, it was unacceptable for foreigners.

So Rupert, being forced out of Presbyterian Aid Services for many reasons, decided to use the director's driving record as blackmail on his way out: Rupert gets a glowing letter of recommendation, continued visa support, and a not-insignificant amount of cash in exchange for no Russian journalists being told all about how an evil American is slaughtering innocent peasants of the brotherly post-Soviet nation of Kajbezistan with his 4-wheel drive Nissan Patrol. And if this wasn't enough leverage, Rupert threatened to just dump all the information online by the end of the day. Even if the director could again, like he had before, bribe mid-level law enforcement officers with money embezzled from his own NGO, this wouldn't guarantee that he would not be targeted by an honest and patriotic law enforcement officer looking to make a name for himself, or by a vigilante nationalist group looking to do the same.

"So you interested?" asked Rupert. "Three months. Double salary. You travel with me doing the usual translator and fixer work. But mostly tourist stuff. I cover all of your regular expenses, including alcohol and dope."

"OK, agreed. But please stop calling me Muhammadjoon. I don't like that name. It is my work name. All of my real friends call me Johnny."

"Is that the name they gave you in South Brooklyn before Donald Trump arrested and deported you?"

"Yeah, I got the name in my college dorm. And yes, Trump sent ICE to kick me and my friends out of America."

"Well deserved, I bet."

"No. I didn't break any laws in America."

"You broke the law by overstaying a four-year university student visa by three years. You don't see me breaking any laws here, do you?"

"No. You have not broken the laws of Kajbezistan. Except for drug and prostitution laws."

Rupert frowned and thought to himself for a second.

"Well, nobody here obeys those laws, plus the drugs and prostitutes are run by the police anyways," countered Rupert.

"Also, you break organization rules by trading Presbyterian NGO grants for sex."

Rupert was shocked, but then immediately unshocked – he was living in Kajbezistan where everybody knew everybody else's dirty secrets. This is why you collected your own dirty secrets on other people – so that they can't use your dirty secrets against you. And Johnny now knew Rupert's secret: he had been distributing women's economic empowerment grants to women who slept with him. It was inevitable, given Rupert's lack of success with the female expats, and given the tendency for local women's NGOs to have some extremely attractive young women on staff. A multi-year grant from Presbyterian Aid Services or any other large- to medium-sized NGO meant a steady salary for desperate locals, plus they could do their own embezzling from the funds. The arrangement was unsurprising to the locals, but shocking to any expat who had just arrived and not yet culturally acclimatized. And it was certainly shocking to the head office of Presbyterian Aid Services, who were pretending to be completely clueless about what happens in the field. Head office, upon seeing email evidence from an unhappy Kajbez woman, instructed the Kajbezistan country director to terminate Rupert immediately but quietly.

"So where did you hear that?" said Rupert, in an attempt to sound casual.

"From the KGB officer that helped you to steal all that money from the Presbyterians. He interrogated me, but at the same time that he was drinking. So he was talking a lot."

Rupert realized that Johnny had him mostly cornered. But he would try to squeeze out regardless.

"It's called embezzlement...or blackmail, rather. It's not theft."

"Yes, blackmail. That sounds like something good and honest," offered Johnny, having become semi-competent with American sarcasm after three years in New York.

"So what else do you know, Johnny? I knew that weird smirking grin meant you were up to no good."

"The director paid the KGB officer twice as much as he paid you."

"Bastard."

"The bastard is the KGB officer or the director?"

"Both, I guess," shrugged Rupert. "The KGB guy came to my place all casual and laid out all the names and locations and dates of all the women. Well, most of the women. Like half, maybe. I didn't care, as I was being fired anyways. But I will have to work in the same field somewhere else eventually. It would hurt my career if it became public, and he knew it. But that's not profitable for anyone. So we negotiated. And he suggested that we extort the director. He would pretend that I was under arrest, and that all of the Presbyterian dirt would be exposed, including the director's habit of running over and killing villagers and then bribing road police officers to get out of trouble. The deal was that I would get the money that was coming to me until the end of the year, plus some extras, and the KGB guy could take as much as he could. Nobody gets kicked out of the country. Nobody goes to jail. And we all make some money...except for the director. But I didn't know the KGB dude would get that much. He must have really scared the director."

"You know, the KGB officer will come for you when he runs out of money after building his stupid new dacha," warned Johnny. "And he knows how much money you have. Maybe you should leave the country?"

"I know, but I won't leave the country yet until I find a job elsewhere. In the meantime I want to do a road trip. They are terrible at tracking people on the move. They get lazy, and they give up. There's no money in a chase. Plus, I need a real vacation, and I want a road trip that is, for once, not a work trip."

"Road trip! Yes!" exclaimed Johnny. "I hate Chorshanbe City so much in the summer... And also in the winter, and when it rains. I hate it all the time, actually."

"OK, beg permission from your angry wife and then pack your bag. We leave in five days. And quit calling me Mr. Rupert, I'm not your schoolteacher or your mom's new boyfriend."

Rupert stood up to fish money out of his pocket to pay his bill that was, for reasons unclear, about the same as what one would pay in Washington or London for a cappuccino and a biscotti. It was roughly the same as the weekly food budget for a family in the Kajbez village.

On the other side of the street the sunflower seed vendor had moved out of the sun to a shady spot, but she was still softly sobbing. Rupert did not notice, having completely forgotten about her already.

Rupert put down his money on the table, plus a 30% tip.

Rupert and Johnny didn't bother to look back as the waiter appeared out of thin air and scuttled towards the table, just ahead of the little Dzhugi girl.

The waiter retreated with his money and the gypsy girl with her cranberry biscotti.

Special Information Insert #2

An Introduction to Chorshanbe City

(Excerpted facts from The Desolate Planet Guidebook to Central Asia)

The Pearl of Central Asia? Not Chorshanbe City. Expats and visitors know this town as the worst and most boring capital city in the region. But a good argument could be made that it is the worst city in the region – capital city or not. Chorshanbe's quirk lay in the fact that the city was actually just a village when the Bolsheviks arrived and decided to create a Kajbez capital city on the spot. 'Chorshanbe,' as every expat knows, is Persian for 'Wednesday,' so named as that was the day of the week that the town had its Persian boy brothel open in a rotating weekly schedule with six other villages nearby that now roughly correspond to the suburbs of Chorshanbe (the other brothels were where one could find women if one was so inclined). Not much has changed since this time, except that Chorshanbe now has direct flights to Kabul and New Delhi to accommodate all the sex tourists who can't afford Dubai.

Western Expat Community: Roughly 350. Famous for their alcoholism, infidelity and amoral behavior. This is frowned upon by the locals, despite local men being famous for their alcoholism, infidelity and amoral behavior.

Largest employer of expats: The OSCBE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation Beyond Europe), a multinational international organization that focuses on women's livelihoods, human rights, and training the secret police via PowerPoint seminars.

Meddling foreigners: One large Russian military base in the outer suburbs of Chorshanbe, plus a rotating crew of eight American Special Forces soldiers who train the presidential bodyguard and hold very exclusive parties at their mansion ("No Dudes" policy strictly enforced). Law enforcement training is the domain of the American contractor DymCore, and Kajbezistan is where they send their employees who were expelled and blacklisted from Kosovo and Sierra Leone.

Days since a drunk Russian soldier murdered a local woman: 156.

Days since a drunk American contractor beat a taxi driver unconscious: 48.

Average yearly number of locals killed, manslaughtered or negligently homicided by drunk-driver American Embassy employees: Four (or a total of six if unborn babies are counted as a person as demanded by the senior US Senator from Utah).

Most Common Mental Illness Among Expats: 'Khareji Collapse Syndrome,' when a foreigner switches from progressive anti-imperialist to raging colonial racist in one single temper tantrum.

Warning for female travelers: Street harassment of unaccompanied women and girls in Chorshanbe begins in earnest at 6pm, but excludes women 28 years of age or older, as it is considered the age of grandmotherhood in Kajbezistan.

Under construction: All the Kajbez drug traffickers, money launderers and corrupt government officials who could not figure out how to offshore their money have turned instead to real estate investment. A bubble quickly formed and then promptly popped. Chorshanbe is now stuck in a frozen state of reconstruction, with the result being a city littered with concrete skeletons of unfinished buildings and apartment blocks that claim to be completed yet whose dark windows at night show that nobody is home. There are numerous stranded construction cranes as well, though these will disappear when the price of scrap metal gets high enough to justify knocking them down, cutting them up, and sending the parts to China (where they will be melted down and made into new construction cranes that will get sold to Kajbezistan construction contractors during the next real estate boom).

Best place to party for expat men: Humanitarian relief and development NGOs in Central Asia are, shockingly, not actually staffed by celibate and sober saints who work selflessly to lift up the impoverished locals. So the best sex parties in Kajbezistan are, by far, at the mansions rented by Oxfam and Save the Children.

Best place to party for expat women: American Special Operations Forces do not actually hold sex parties in a mansion in the Kajbez capital – that's just a silly rumor. It's more like a really large guesthouse with a modestly sized swimming pool. Expat men are most definitely not allowed, but all expat women who are under 30 years of age and who can pass a basic face-control screening are welcome to party here.

# Chapter Two

# The Cesspool of the Capital City Expat Community

Date: July 32nd, 2019. [Note: President Islambaev has decreed an extra day for July so that apricot pickers may increase their monthly quota. The year is balanced by subtracting a day from February].

Place: Patrick's Irish Pub, also known as 'The Fake Irish Pub.'

People: Rupert and John Kylie, a US government contractor and known pederast who works for DymCore, a law enforcement training firm that is struggling after seeing its work in Iraq and Afghanistan dry up.

Rupert, like most people, hated Chorshanbe. Rupert actually had a long list of things he hated in Kajbezistan, including the majority of local people and almost all other fellow expats. But what he hated more than anything else was the fake Irish pub at which he spent four to five nights per week. This particular fake Irish Pub was previously known as Patrick's. But new strict national language laws forced it to change its name in line with authentic Kajbez language norms to Vodkakhanaserayi Irlandiyadagidan bilan nom-e Patrik-Agha, a title that locals found to be linguistically nonsensical. A brand new extra-long plastic sign with the new name had recently been glued over the old wooden Patrick's sign.

Patrick's was the sort of place that was sad when there was a small crowd, and even sadder as it became more crowded throughout the evening. So there sat Rupert in Patrick's, ready to complain about anything and everything. It was a modest beginning, with Rupert accompanied by only one friend, it being only 3pm and other expats actually having to stay at work until 4pm. The one friend was, however, more than enough. This man's name was supposedly John Kylie (possibly a pseudonym as he was alleged to have been fired under a different name by three different law enforcement agencies in Michigan for corruption, racism, brutality and drinking on the job). Here in Chorshanbe, John's job was as a State Department contractor, working to make local law enforcement more professional, mostly through PowerPoint presentations and drunken toasting sessions with local police majors and colonels.

Rupert liked John for one main reason: John made Rupert look good by comparison. Rupert was certain that all the women who slept with him did so voluntarily and with some enthusiasm, as they were either paid generously or they would soon be receiving a generous Presbyterian grant. John, however, was a predator as far as Rupert was concerned. John went after his own employees, who were suspiciously young, attractive and poorly qualified. These poor women would need to provide extra services in order to keep their jobs, as it were. The alternative was impoverishment. And impoverishment in Kajbezistan actually meant something.

After a round of silence to allow for the downing of their first beer, Rupert opened up a new line of inquisition.

"So who was that fourteen-year-old girl you were in the café with the other day?"

"Fourteen? Probably sixteen, but she says she's eighteen," said John. "I found her working at the electronics import place on Stalinskaya Street. I was buying a blender. I don't think she even knows what a blender is. She just kept referring to it as a smoothie-machine."

"And what will you be using it for?"

"Smoothies...and cocktails."

"I've never seen you drink a cocktail – ever," said a skeptical Rupert.

"The cocktails are for the girls from my office. Sometimes I have to call them in to my place on the weekend to help finish off projects that are behind schedule."

"Yeah, that's..."

"An efficient workplace with dedicated workers who are motivated to keep their jobs," said John, cutting off Rupert.

"Uh huh. And do you..."

A loud yell interrupted Rupert.

With a crash and confused cry, John fell forward into the table. The beer and the condiments slid into Rupert as the table flipped over. Rupert fell onto his back in a complete state of confusion.

Looking over at the cause of the table spill, he could see a young local man on one knee, leaning over John. It looked like he was punching him.

As suddenly as it had started the young man stood up and ran out of the pub and disappeared.

"What the fuck, John! Who was that?"

John did not answer, he just moaned quietly.

"Fuck, are you hurt? Did he land a punch to your head? Or did your face hit the table on the way down? John?"

John moaned louder.

"Everybody move back," a confident voice said clearly, but not too loudly.

A well-built man with a bad American haircut who had been sitting across the pub brushed past the onlookers and kneeled down over John and rolled him onto his stomach. The man calmly lifted up John's shirt. Blood was slowly oozing out of what looked like a half-dozen stab wounds in his lower back. He grabbed one of the cloth napkins and pressed it down on the wound that was bleeding the fastest.

John started to moan loudly.

"Is he American?" asked the man calmly.

"Yes," said Rupert.

"What's his name?"

"John Kylie."

"The DymCore contractor?"

"Yes," replied Rupert.

"I need the manager or a waiter to call an ambulance! And I need someone to confirm that the call was made," the man called out loudly.

A waiter leaned in through the crowd and said, "My manager, he is calling now."

Rupert felt useless. And he was starting to resent the confidence and authority of the strange man.

"What should I do?" asked Rupert.

"Do you have a car here with you?"

"No," answered Rupert.

"Does he?" asked the man, nodding down at John.

"Yes."

"Find his keys."

Rupert was now shaking, but he managed to quickly find the keys in John's back pocket.

"OK, he's going to bleed out," said the bad-haircut man plainly. "Forget the ambulance. We need to drive him to a hospital. Get the car now and bring it to the front of the pub."

Rupert moved quickly out of the pub and down a side street to John's car. He now felt surprisingly calm – and unworried, even though he still felt that John's life was in serious danger. Still, there was no panic or fear. Rupert did not feel anything. The shock and the shaking was from having a table dumped on him suddenly. But John's stab wounds didn't seem to register with Rupert.

Arriving in front of Patrick's Irish Pub, Rupert saw the mysterious man and a small crowd waiting with John, who was lying on the ground. The man quickly opened the back door and pulled John in across the seat. He immediately continued to apply pressure to the worst wound on John's back.

"Alright, I need you to give the driver's seat to my friend," the man said to Rupert.

Rupert immediately got out, somewhat relieved to be stripped of responsibilities as another fit American with a slightly different but still bad haircut got into the driver's side of the car.

Rupert went around the other side to get to the passenger's seat.

"Sorry, not you," said the mystery man. "You stay here. I need a translator who can do both Kajbezi and Russian. The pub manager is coming with us."

"If the doctor speaks only Kajbezi, then he's as good as dead," protested Rupert. "The real doctors speak Russian."

"Thanks for the tip," replied the man. "I'll try to find a surgeon who speaks Russian."

And with that, the Kajbez pub manager took the passenger seat and pointed down the street, saying, "The hospital is that way."

The car doors slammed shut and the car sped away.

Rupert felt even more useless, but equally relieved that he did not have to do anything. He went back into the pub and asked for a free drink to make up for the one that was lost when his table was tipped. He then, ten minutes later, asked for a second free drink to make up for the beer that John had lost when their table was flipped.

The pub had returned to normal.

Thirty-five minutes later the ambulance arrived at Patrick's. The ambulance crew argued with the pub employees, clearly very annoyed. They had been called out with the expectation of money, as it was an injured foreigner who would surely have insurance for them to bilk. Now they would get nothing for their valiant efforts.

The ambulance sped away, with the medics still loudly cursing in both Kajbezi and Russian.

One hour later Muhammadjoon/Johnny arrived to find Rupert sitting by himself.

"Muhammadjohnny, what's up?" said Rupert.

"Just Johnny," said Johnny, not getting the lame attempt at a joke.

Sitting down, Johnny asked, "Why are there KGB officers outside talking to the waiters?"

"I was here with a friend and some local guy came up to our table and stabbed him."

"Like, with a knife?!"

"Yup. Not a carrot; a knife," replied Rupert.

"Why?"

"He didn't say. He just started stabbing."

"Fuck! And you are OK?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm good. Just really hungry."

"Who was the bad guy? He was Kajbez?" asked Johnny.

"Yeah, he was definitely a local: tight shirt, cheap blue jeans and a Clint Eastwood glare in his eyes."

"Fuck! That's crazy, man."

"Sure is. At least in Afghanistan they didn't let locals into our hang-outs," reminisced Rupert.

"Is your friend OK?"

"I don't know. Some dude in the bar seemed like he had some decent emergency first aid training. He saw his wounds and said that John might be bleeding internally. A lot. The knife wounds were near his liver, I guess."

"That's no good. We have no real surgeons here. We did, but they emigrated a long time ago to Israel, Moscow, New York..."

"Well, tough luck for him. But brought this upon himself."

"Really?"

"Yes really, Johnny."

"Should we go to the hospital? I'll come with you to translate."

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure the doctors are busy. There's nothing we can do, so let's have something to eat. And then after that we'll go to the hospital."

"I can't go later. I need to go find a driver for our trip tomorrow."

"You don't have one yet?" asked Rupert, now clearly annoyed.

"No. Sorry. But don't worry. There are many unemployed drivers who wait around for business. Or maybe you want to cancel, because of your friend in the hospital?"

"Nope. We are going as planned. Let's plan on a circle tour of Kajbezistan. Tomorrow we do a short drive to our first stop: Shim-Kurgan"

"Shim-Kurgan is a boring town," said a very unimpressed Johnny, "and it's just as hot as Chorshanbe. But I will have a driver tomorrow morning for us. I'll find him after dinner."

"OK. Whatever," said Rupert. "Now...let's order that dinner. I'm getting a bacon cheeseburger. You want one also?"

"Bacon? Like pork bacon?"

"Yeah, pig. Pig on cheese on cow on a bun."

"OK. Why not!"

"Because it's haram? And you are a Muslim?"

Johnny shrugged, obviously not too worried about violating Islamic dietary law with beer and bacon.

"Are these two haram food items like negative numbers? You multiply them and you get a positive number? Does booze cancel out bacon?" joked Rupert.

Fully confused, Johnny just shrugged again silently.

Forty-five minutes later the cheeseburgers finally arrived. After a few bites of his burger Johnny looked up and asked, "Why did the crazy guy knife-stab your friend? Did he have an argument with him?"

"I have no idea. The Kajbez guy didn't say anything. And my friend didn't say anything. But he went straight for my friend and only him. It seemed very personal. If I were to guess, I would say angry husband, brother, boyfriend or fiancé. But too young to be a father."

"I don't understand," interrupted Johnny.

"My friend John, he's a bad guy. He goes after way too many local girls. Good girls, not streetwalkers or gold-diggers. It's only a matter of time before some pissed-off male relative comes hunting for him. That's my guess."

"Haha! Sounds like you, bro!" said Johnny jokingly.

"I have mutually beneficial transactions with all the women here. With independent adult women. I'm not a bad guy. But my friend John is."

"Well, maybe you are a little bit bad?" suggested Johnny jokingly. "Maybe the second most bad foreigner in Kajbezistan after your friend who is now at the hospital?"

"So I'm the second worst? Not even close. Do you know about the Dutch guy? The fat old pervert?"

"Nope. Too many fat old foreign perverts in Chorshanbe City to know them all," said Johnny as honestly as he could.

"Well, there is nothing worse than a divorced middle-aged German or Dutch expat in a third world country. They are disgusting. Even worse than the Brits and Americans. This particular disgusting Dutchman works at Trans-Global Rescue Committee. You know it? The anti-human trafficking NGO?"

"Yeah. They are useless."

"OK. Now where do you think the Dutch guy gets all those young women? The ones that live at his house?"

"He rescued them?" asked Johnny innocently.

"Yes, exactly. There are so many women that need rescuing, and he just happens to be interested in personally assisting the ones that are nines out of ten and above on the hotness scale. Yeah...he rescued them," replied Rupert sarcastically as he threw up scare quotes with his fingers as he said rescued. "Just like stray cats or street puppies. And don't get me started on how these fucking expats are always adopting street animals."

"Please start. I am curious," said Johnny. "But first, how bad is it compared to this Netherlands guy locking up women in his home?"

"I didn't say he locked them up. They stay because they have no other options."

"That sounds like a Kajbez marriage, bro."

"Yes it does. He's adapted to local customs, obviously."

"Very smart man," observed Johnny.

"Yes. Very. But let me start with the street animal kidnapping."

"OK."

"If you're friends with these idiot expats online, you have to suffer through their Instagram or Facebook posts showing off what a humanitarian they are. But they secretly hate the local people, so they would never do something like rescue a little gypsy kid from one of those street begging rings."

"Never let a gypsy in your house!" blurted out Johnny.

"Thanks, Johnny. I'll take that advice."

"Because my aunt let a gypsy into her house once to fix the plumbing. It was very bad."

"What happened?"

"The gypsy did not fix the plumbing."

"And...?"

"And what?"

"That's it?" asked an annoyed Rupert.

"Yes."

"Amazing anecdote. Totally worth interrupting my story. Thanks, Johnny," said Rupert in a deadpan manner, which was confusing to Johnny and his eternal striving to recognize irony and sarcasm.

"OK," remarked Johnny, in the most neutral manner possible.

"So these expats attempting to be humanitarians, they focus on animals because they like animals better than the people of Kajbezistan. And in the city, the most available animals are stray cats and dogs. But westerners hate adult pets."

"Yes, they have no respect for their elders," said Johnny earnestly.

"Exactly. So they kidnap stray puppies and kittens, which are probably not even actually stray. They just see one on a side street, toss it in their bag and bring it home. They bathe it if it's a dog, and then they are ready for showtime."

"Showtime?" asked Johnny.

"They take a bunch of photos and upload them to their social media of choice. They let the world know that they have rescued a wretched creature from certain death and nursed it back to health, by which I mean they give it a bowl of milk or cream."

"That's nice!"

"No, it isn't," said Rupert as he shook his head. "These expats eventually get bored of their pet. Or they realize that they don't know how to stop the little bastards from shitting inside their apartments. Or they keep the pet, but then realize that it's too expensive or time-consuming to bring the cat or dog back home to Belgium or Connecticut or wherever. So these fuckers, do you know what they do?"

"No."

"They put up a post on Facebook or send out an email to that stupid expat mailing list. They want someone else to adopt their beloved pet: 'Please someone take care of the problem that I created!' they say. They try to get some other expat to take ownership of Mr. Fluffy-pants, the incredible indoor diarrhea-spewing cat. Of course, the other expats either have the same problem, or the good common sense not to adopt strays. So you know what happens next?"

"No."

"They throw the animal back on the street the day before they go to the airport. But now the animal has no idea how to survive on its own. It's been eating food that the nice expat has been feeding to it. Now it has to eat rats and garbage while fighting other street cats and dogs to the death. But it doesn't know how to do that. And it doesn't know how to deal with rain and snow. It's a death sentence. This city is full of burning dumpsters and mini little Saddam Hussein Kajbez children who love to torture animals. These cats and dogs are sentenced to a horribly slow and painful demise by the foreigners. Fuck these expats! They are selfish narcissistic bastards. All of them!"

It was now obvious to Johnny that Rupert was drunk.

"Shit," said Johnny. "That's terrible."

"Yes it is. But enough about animal adoption gone wrong. Back to the women. Most of the foreigners here treat local women just like the pets they temporarily adopt – like garbage."

"Yes, I have heard many stories about bad foreign men."

"Well, anyways, expats are bad, sure," noted Rupert. "But local men are the worst...except you, Johnny."

"Thanks!"

"But the worst of the worst are definitely the Indians and the Afghans."

"Yeah, for sure! The worst!" agreed Johnny.

"You know that direct flight from India, right? Why would that exist? There's no business for Indians here. The only reason is for sex tourism. Same for the Afghans. They are just horrible. They can't help themselves. They go straight to the hotel and hit the booze and the prostitutes immediately."

"Yes! They are hitting the prostitutes all the time."

"They sure are, Johnny."

"The worst!"

"But I have to say, the best of the worst are the Afghan government nitwits that the UN and the Americans and the OSCBE brings in for training seminars. They have to book an early morning flight and start the trainings right after they arrive. If they give them a day off and a free evening, the Afghans will all end up hung-over or in jail, or dead in a ditch after being robbed by prostitutes."

"Yeah, my friends rob those Afghans," said Johnny matter-of-factly.

"Seriously? How does it work?"

"The Afghans go out for vodka, beer and shashlik. My friends use bad women to pick them up and take them to their apartment. The women pretend that they are prostitutes. But no luck for the Afghans. One minute after the Afghans arrive, my friends knock on the door. They pretend that they are police or KGB, and they rob the Afghans. Money. Phones. Watches. Sometimes even shoes."

"Hilarious," laughed Rupert. "I had heard that story before, but I always thought that it was the real police doing the robbing."

"Oh, yes. Them also. The real police also use prostitutes to rob foreigners."

"Of course they do," said Rupert with a smile.

"The police have no real salary, so they need to rob."

"Poor guys," remarked Rupert. "There should be some sort of charity organization to help them out."

"Hahahaha! That was sarcasm!"

"You bet it was...."

"What do you think about the Afghans and the Indians, Rupert? Are they all bad people?"

"I like them at home and the ones I knew at university, but the ones that come here are disgusting perverts."

"But...you also do this."

"I do what, Johnny?"

"Buy prostitutes."

"Well, it's different when I do it."

Johnny grinned, having cornered Rupert with his own words.

"Wipe that look off your face. It is different for me. I only use three different women here in Chorshanbe. I treat them well, and I pay them even better."

"Yes, you are a good man," stated Johnny plainly.

"You people are genetically incapable of deadpan humor or irony, so I know you are being genuine. But I still want to expand on this. With Altynainurakyz – she's the main girl – she's divorced and she needs to support her two children. Nobody here will marry a divorced woman with two kids. What I pay her is more than enough. I don't promise her anything special. I'm honest. I don't lie like these other weasels who tell the girl that they love her and promise to bring her to America or Denmark or Scotland or wherever and then dump her on the way out, leaving her disgraced and brokenhearted. For me it is an honest business transaction."

"Business. Yes I like that. Business," said Johnny.

"Exactly. Business. And with one of the other girls, Guldukhtar, I'm one of many guys for her. I know it. But she likes to buy expensive things...like the newest iPhone or nose surgery and lip augmentation, from the looks of her face. The income I provide gets her part of the way there. She's not capable of working in some shop or in an NGO office or as a schoolteacher. She's living the dream, and I help her realize that. I even took her to Dubai once."

"I've never been to Dubai," said Johnny sadly.

"Because you don't work hard enough... Like Guldukhtar, for example."

"Well, I don't like dirty work."

"Yeah right. Speaking of dirty work. The youngest of the three women I see is a university student, and she's expanded her repertoire by educating herself online. She watches all kinds of videos."

"Oh yeah, Aliya."

"What. The. Fuck. How do you know her name!?" asked Rupert, once again shocked when he should not be shocked.

"Chorshanbe is a small city, Rupert. She is a client at my sister's hair salon. You dropped her off there with your Presbyterian work vehicle. My sister recognized you from one of my photos."

"Well, I don't know why I was surprised. I hate Chorshanbe so much."

"It's OK, Rupert. We all do."

Special Information Insert #3

The History of Kajbezistan

Book excerpts with permission of Indiana State University Press:

Stalin's Ethno-Cartographic Disaster: A Brief History of the Creation of the Kajbez Nation, second edition (767 pages), by H. Bartholomew Czerniak-Gonzalez (South Indianapolis Community College Adjunct Assistant Online Instructor). $193 hardcover on Amazon.

Who are the Kajbez?: As President Islambaev claims, "The historical truth is that our great and ancient nation was founded by sedentary nomadic farmer warrior scholars who built many great cities and monuments, which were stolen or destroyed by others, including Persians, Turks, Afghans, Russians, British and Chinese."

Ethnogenesis of the Kajbez: Official Kajbez theory (i.e., President Islambaev's beliefs) of ethnogenesis claims that the Kajbez nation has nearly 10,000 years of racial purity as Mongolo-Aryans who were organically created within the exact borders of modern Kajbezistan. This competes with a less-favored ideology espoused by President Islambaev in the early 2000s that claimed 7,000 years of racial purity as Turko-Persian Scythians. This ideology in turn competes with a popular online theory of Kajbez historiography based on President Islambaev's writings in the 1990s that emphasizes 5,000 years of Uralic-Tokharian tribal continuity.

Famous Kajbez people: Kajbez historians claim that most famous historical figures in the broader region were ethnic Kajbez, including Avicenna, Tamerlane, Al-Farabi, Firdousi, Baburlane, Rumi, Yuri Gagarin, Genghis Khan, and Babur. A more recent addition is the claim that most companions of the Prophet Muhammad were Kajbez.

Father of the Nation: Josef Stalin is still widely acknowledged as the father of the Kajbez nation. After Vladimir Lenin's suicide by potassium cyanide in 1921 (to spare himself any further suffering from his rampaging syphilis), Stalin set about to rapidly create new republics to constitute the USSR. Finding himself pressed for time, Stalin decided that Central Asia and its various administrative units, khanates, emirates, tribal areas and many empty spaces should be combined to constitute one single republic: The Kajbez Soviet Socialist Republic.

Disputes over true ethnic identity: Western and post-Stalin era Moscow-based researchers claim that the people in Central Asia are mostly Turkic, with some Persian mixed in for good measure. But Stalin, being paranoid about Turkish Basmachi rebel leader Enver Bacha, had created a great republic in Central Asia that denied the existence of any Turkic ethnic group. As for those of Persian stock, Stalin was paranoid that they would look to their Persian cousins across the border in Afghanistan or Iran for reactionary counter-revolutionary inspiration. The result was Stalin's invention of the Kajbez people, based on an obscure multi-ethnic and multilingual tribe whose sole occupation was slaving. All of this is denied by the government and their loyal academics at the Kajbez Academy of Sciences and Historical Facts.

Stalin and other national heroes: Statues of Stalin litter the country. Local people hid them starting under the tenure of Khrushchev, and re-erected them after independence. A new and unpopular campaign by President Islambaev has seen many of the Stalin statues in Chorshanbe having their heads replaced by that of Baburlane, despite this 13th century Turko-Mongol despot not being ethnic Kajbez and having based his empire outside the territory of Kajbezistan. This ignores the only two mentions of the Kajbez tribe by Baburlane in official Baburlanid texts wherein he calls them "poorly dressed bandits" and "unwashed infidels."

Peak of Kajbez Civilization: The Minister of Culture and Sport recently announced the beginning of a "New Golden Era," the old golden era being the peak of the Kajbez tribe's slaving raids into the Russian steppes and Persia for Cossack women and Persian boys (circa 17th century CE to 19th century CE).

Alternative historical views: "We are not pure! We are a mix of ethnicities, and this is a good and healthy thing according to scientists," stated an exiled Kajbez dissident academic, shortly before he was arrested in an Interpol warrant for terrorism and extradited back to Kajbezistan where he was simmered to death.

# Chapter Three

# On the Road to the Cotton Slavery Plantations

Date: Thursday, Gulyoshka 1st, 2019. [Note: Foreigners are strongly advised not to ask why President Islambaev has renamed the month of August.]

Place: VokzalGovBazaar (Southern Auto and Bus Terminal/Livestock Bazaar), sometimes referred to as GovBazaarVokzal.

People: Rupert, Johnny and local driver (to be determined).

Rupert had a hangover and a headache, as usual. The coffee and painkillers were slowly doing their job, but not quickly enough. And what he saw on the street outside was not helping any at all. Rupert guessed that the two unibrowed men in the car down the street from his house were probably off-duty Kajbez KGB officers here to relieve him of his neatly arranged stacks of $20 and $100 bills, or at least they were there to follow him.

Rupert's first guess was correct: the two officers in the car were here to rob him...unofficially. They had been surveilling Rupert's Presbyterian boss for no good reason beyond paranoia when one of their wiretaps picked up the exchange of a large amount of cash in what sounded like a successful extortion. They now wanted their share.

The two, both holding the rank of captain, were barely distinguishable from each other, except that one was ugly and the other was even far more ugly. Both of them wore blank stares behind their cheap aviator sunglasses and, in near unison, chewed and spit out sunflower seed shells onto the street. These two were reasonable well-informed enough to know that Rupert had money, but not informed enough to know that he was planning on skipping his way out of town with his bag full of cash that very day.

Rupert took one final look at his little bag full of cash, still surprised at how compact such a large amount of cash could be. The bag was small enough to fit into his larger travel bag. Rupert checked over the clothing and toiletries, deciding he had enough. After pausing for thought, he opened a drawer and pulled out his binoculars and his trusty Russian birder book: Khelm Field Guides: Birds of Central Eurasia, Third Edition. Most birds in Central Asia were extinct due to the rampant environmental devastation, but the book was a welcome respite from the long periods of boredom on the road.

Rupert casually stepped through his gate and walked up the street in the opposite direction from the KGB officers. Luckily, Rupert lived in a traditional mahalla-style neighborhood with numerous alleys that were far too narrow, muddy or rough for a car to pass. The world's worst secret police officers got out on foot and speed-walked with the highest degree of buffoonery that one would expect from the Kajbez State Committee for National and Presidential Security (universally referred to by locals and expats alike as the KGB – their old Soviet-era name).

After a series of narrow alleys and convoluted twists and turns, the two officers then watched helplessly on the first major street as Rupert hailed a taxi and sped off. The two officers quickly jumped in a car that had been idling at the curb and barked "Follow that car, boy!" to the driver.

"What car?" asked the young bearded driver wearily.

"You can't see it anymore, just go fast and we will catch up to it!" yelled the ugly officer frantically.

"Give me $50, and I'll consider doing it."

"What!? How dare you!" screamed the uglier officer as he pulled out his ID. "I'm a KGB captain. Do what I say now! Or we'll take you in for having an illegal beard, you filthy Wahhabi!"

"Go jump on a dick!" replied the driver – in Russian and with the utmost disdain – as he pulled out his own KGB identification that read State Committee for National and Presidential Security; Rank: Major.

The two officers were taken aback that someone who appeared to be in their early twenties was a KGB major. This could only mean that he was from the hometown of the president, and maybe even a semi-distant blood-relative. The uglier one attempted a feeble response and said, "Brother...I mean Uncle, sir, we are working undercover. We have to follow that car."

"You are not undercover," said the major calmly as he pulled out his gun and pointed it at the two pathetic officers in the back seat. "If you were, I would know you, as I work with every single undercover officer in the city. So that means that you are undercover without permission. Or maybe this is some other sort of lie. Perhaps you just want a free ride? I don't know. Now get out before I arrest you, kick your ass, or have you fired."

The two ugly officers, now kowtowing in the lowest possible manner, retreated to the street with groveling apologies and hands over their hearts, staring straight at the ground. Utter humiliation and anger seeped in as they slowly walked back to find their now-vandalized car, but only after having had to ask for directions three times. The less ugly officer looked at the deep horizontal scratches that lined the body of the car and then looked around the street, hoping to see a child that he could beat. But the child vandals were long gone.

*****

Now safely standing in the dried sheep and cattle manure that stretched out endlessly in every direction, Rupert cursed Johnny for being slow to find a driver. He was, however, thankful that at least the auto/bus terminal still had trees to stand underneath, providing shade that was becoming increasingly rare in Chorshanbe City. Glancing around at his fellow refugees from the sun, Rupert tried to imagine what horrible long-distance minibus ride they were set to venture on. Giving brief thanks that he was not in their situation, his mind quickly strayed towards the hope that Johnny would return with a mute driver and a quiet car. This led Rupert to think nostalgically upon the Presbyterian Aid Services fleet of cars: new model SUVs with air conditioning and a professional driver. God only knew what Johnny would be returning with.

Of course, Rupert had his own private car, but he loathed driving it in Kajbezistan. So why hire a car and driver when you have a perfectly good 4-wheel drive Toyota parked in your courtyard? Well, not everyone has diplomatic immunity, and Johnny did not like the idea of facing a local judge on vehicular manslaughter charges. His now-former boss at Presbyterian Aid Services had great connections in the Ministry of Interior and was therefore able to get away with running people over, but Rupert had no such get-out-of-jail free card.

Those that Rupert was most envious of were the employees of the American, Russian and Chinese embassies, who could, if they wanted to, drive like maniacs every day on the streets of Chorshanbe with zero consequences. Of course, the Chinese were extremely disciplined and careful, so it was the Americans and Russians who usually caused the worst damage. Nobody was officially counting the bodies of pedestrians left in the street, but they were taking note of the tendency.

The honor for claiming the most recent killing of a pedestrian belonged to the US Embassy, with bonus points for being drunk at 2pm on a Saturday. The guilty party was a mid-ranked US embassy employee who was technically without diplomatic immunity. He got drunk before, during and after a dash with Rupert's running club, referred to by members as the 'Hare & Hounds.' The American Foreign Ministry apparatchik decided that his state of inebriation may have been far too illegal for any of the 50 American states (except for perhaps Montana and North Dakota), but perfectly acceptable for Kajbezistan.

It wasn't.

Just one mile away from the running club's meeting point, the drunk American managed to run a red light and kill a Kajbez man, whose name, occupation, family or life story is known to absolutely nobody. Witnesses stated to the police that the white SUV with red diplomatic plates dragged the crumpled Kajbez pedestrian for some distance down the road before a shrieking and hysterical foreigner wearing only 'underwear' (i.e., jogging shorts) pulled the body out from the wheel well, only to vomit on the corpse before getting back in the vehicle and speeding away. And in Kajbez culture, vomiting on dead bodies is extremely offensive.

The American ambassador, a joyless and below-average creature who feared nothing more than Washington finding out that her embassy was full of drunks, nitwits and out-of-control contractors, went into full cover-up mode and hid the still slightly drunk offender in a safe house before the Kajbez KGB whisked him out of the country in exchange for future considerations.

Washington, of course, was aware of how bad the US Embassy staff in Kajbezistan could be, as that was where they sent the people they could not get rid of. The State Department had a slippery slope for the lazy, the stupid, the drunk, the perverted and the criminal, and that slope ended in the cesspool that was the US Embassy in Kajbezistan. A young Foreign Service officer in their first few years of employment was there because they needed some experience (and some hardship). They had no choice in their posting, despite usually being bright, energetic and full of potential. But those older embassy dwellers were there for a different reason, and not a good one. Far too many Europeans and locals came away confused from meetings with the Americans: where did they find such dim-witted and immoral people?

The US embassy drunk drivers and their accidents never made it into the news in Kajbezistan, as the US trains the secret police and funds local media (and that media does not bite the hand that feeds it). In contrast, the US-funded media is, of course, quite glad to report on the most recent Russian outrage, whether it be a traffic accident or yet another Russian soldier beating a prostitute to death in a vodka-induce rage. The Kremlin-controlled Russian new outlets should be prime candidates for reporting American outrages in Kajbezistan, but the Kremlin has decided that it is far better to let the wild local rumors about the US embassy circulate instead. These rumors, which range from 'torture dungeon beneath the US embassy' to 'Americans are kidnapping children and selling them to pedophiles in the US,' far outshine any American dirt that Russian journalists could dig up.

Rupert was abruptly pulled from his thoughts by the frantic bleating of a sheep. He looked up to see something that appeared to be somewhat like a kidnap scene: two men hurling a sheep into the trunk of an old Lada. Its feet were bound with what was probably rusty wire from a scrap heap. The pathetic sheep looked directly at Rupert and bleated even more frantically.

"Muslim sheep-sacrifice day must not be too far off...," thought Rupert to himself, not able to remember the name of the holiday despite almost a full decade working in Muslim countries.

The sheep, still appearing to have not accepted its fate, looked out through a wide crack in the trunk that refused to close. More wire was used to hold down the trunk so that the space was not wide enough for a sheep to escape through. Now Rupert could see only eyes rimmed by wool and darkness. But he could still hear the frantic cries of the sheep.

Despite the terrible heart-wrenching cries, Rupert remained utterly unaffected by the sheep's suffering.

Rupert thought to himself, noting that this was likely yet another great metaphor for the relationship between the Kajbez state and its citizens. He saw more and more metaphors every day. Or were they analogies? Or symbols? Rupert couldn't say for sure, and he wasn't worked up enough to Google the literary terminology.

Thankfully, Rupert would not be suffering through any such similar vehicular hardships or summary execution by a rusty and dull knife today. A newer model white Toyota Corolla came to a quick stop in front of the tree behind the sheep-filled Lada. The rear window rolled down, revealing a grinning Johnny wearing his favorite Brooklyn Nets ball cap.

"Hey tourist! Wanna go to Shim-Kurgan? Worst city in the south!" yelled Johnny jokingly.

Less thankfully, Rupert could now hear the music playing. Maybe he had briefly forgotten where he was and expected that the driver would have a selection of classic 1970s rock music. He did not. After about fifteen minutes it was clear that the driver, like most Kajbez, appeared to have an almost infinite capacity to listen to the same three terrible songs on a loop.

The compensation for the bad Kajbez pop music was the fact that the mustachioed Kajbez driver looked to be in his early 60s, meaning that he probably got his driver's license during the Soviet period. Younger drivers, on the other hand, were not just aggressive and reckless, but unlicensed – in the sense that they just handed over $20 for a license with no testing whatsoever.

"Hey, Johnny, tell the driver to swing by a place where I can exchange some money before we leave the city. I need more somes."

"No problem."

"And when I go to get the money, negotiate a lower volume for the music, OK? Just tell him whatever you need to tell him to get the volume to a tolerable level."

"No problem. I will say you have a hangover, and that the music hurts your head."

"Perfect. Destroy the reputation of foreigners with your lies," said Rupert flatly.

"Now let's go find a money changer."

The best place to exchange foreign currency was at the quail fights from one of the many bet-takers, or from the Salafi moneychangers behind the Chinese bazaar (after the last pogrom the Chinese vendors moved to the safer Korean Bazaar, named for the Koreans who dominated that bazaar before a pogrom chased them out, but the name remains). The Desolate Planet travel guide recommends avoiding the Salafi moneychangers, as profits may go to terrorism. However, a recent 3-day long investigation by the Bratislava-based online news outlet Eurasiaweb found that the industry most penetrated by terrorism financiers was the quail fight gambling sector.

All that Rupert was concerned about was that neither the Salafis nor the gamblers cared about what condition the American bills are in. The money exchanges in the banks and in the center of the city were full of cheaters and liars who wailed that they couldn't possibly exchange the bills that the tourist had just handed over, as they were in such bad shape (i.e., with small wrinkles or something written in ink on the bill, or just not perfect mint condition). Of course, they would graciously take them at a greatly reduced exchange rate. If a foreigner had the luck to have bills in perfect mint condition, then the money exchanges would doubt the veracity of the surely counterfeit bills, despite every moneychanger having a UV light counterfeit-detector. The moneychangers' solution? A new exchange rate that is most unfavorable to the tourist.

Very soon Rupert was back in the car with his Salafi money and an illegal SIM card in his new throwaway phone. In Kajbezistan it is a completely normal thing to go to a small kiosk for an illegal phone and SIM card purchase (forbidden without full registration that includes passport and visa details) and then to walk half a block to find a moneychanger who gives an illegal black-market rate. It's all quite illegal, but these enterprising businessmen pay off the police whose job it is to enforce this sort of thing.

"New burner phone and new unregistered SIM card. Just like the drug dealers I knew in Brooklyn. You are paranoid," observed Johnny.

"I've got good reason to be. I'm flush full of American cash, and the KGB likely wants to either rob me...or maybe interview me about John Kylie's stabbing. Whatever the case, either way I would end up in some KGB interrogation room. And no matter what the supposed reason, they always want the same thing: however much money it is that they think you have."

"John Kylie, he is OK now?"

"Oh, he's dead. He bled out at the hospital," said Rupert with a shrug.

"Holy shit man! How?!"

"The evening shift doctors refused to operate on him because they didn't want the blame for killing an American. And the daytime surgeon wouldn't come in either. Same reason. So he's dead."

"Oh...sorry. You are sad?"

"Not really."

"He was your friend? Wasn't he not?"

"I drank with him sometimes," shrugged Rupert. "Pass me some of those sunflower seeds you got."

"Will there be trouble?"

"For who?"

"For...I don't know. At least for the crazy Kajbez guy who stabbed him?"

"Crazy? That guy was 100% sane," countered Rupert. "Turns out he's the brother of some girl that works for Kylie. Kylie demands extra duties from the local women that work for him, if they wish to continue cashing paychecks. So I can imagine a few scenarios where the dude would have reason to stab Kylie a few times. And supposedly he's already on his way to Russia or Afghanistan, depending on who you believe. Or maybe he's still here. I can't imagine the local police will work very hard on this case, given the unsympathetic victim – if you can even call him that. And the US Embassy would rather there not be a serious investigation of something this embarrassing, as he's a contractor that works for them."

"Your embassy and my government, they are the same, sometimes."

"Yup. Shining lights in dark places does not benefit dirty people."

"Nice! Was that poetry? Or literature?" asked Johnny, doing his best to get off on a good start to the trip.

"Yes, that was Shakespeare. He was big on flashlight metaphors."

"Cool. Cool," remarked Johnny, grinning widely.

"Shut up, Johnny. And pass me the sunflower seeds."

"OK," offered Johnny, smiling the exact same meek smile as before being told to shut up.

The taxi then returned to silence, except for the now lower volume Kajbez pop music that was still repeating on a loop of three songs.

After passing through the far outskirts of Chorshanbe, the three travelers saw something that demanded their attention. The tail section of a Boeing 747 cargo plane could be seen towering over a village where it had crashed several years before, falling far short of the runway and incinerating half of the houses in the middle of the night. The rest of the plane was nowhere in sight.

"I can't believe that thing is still there... They've even built up homes around the wreckage," observed Rupert.

"I still don't understand how a plane with all that modern technology could crash so close to the airport in perfect weather. Every government explanation sounds like a lie," added Johnny.

"Ask the driver which of the insane conspiracy theories he believes. Taxi driver conspiracy theories are usually epic."

Johnny switched to Kajbezi and relayed the question to the driver. Johnny seemed far less stressed out than he usually was when Rupert asked him to ask a controversial question.

The driver switched to broken Russian for Rupert's benefit and stated, with confidence, "The airplane secretly belonged to president's family. It was loaded with stolen Land Rovers and BMW X7s from Germany, through a Belarusian cargo airport. The cars were for the presidential family, to sell for profit – they already have enough cars for themselves. It is not efficient to take cars by airplane, but the point of this trip is that it is not about cargo from Belarus to Kajbezistan. That doesn't matter! They don't care very much about that cargo. They just have the cars so that the flight is not too suspicious. The true cargo is what goes from Kajbezistan to Belarus – heroin! Millions of dollars' worth! Tens or maybe even hundreds of millions every flight. But the cars broke their straps and were moving around inside the plane. This cargo shift, it was a catastrophe! The plane, it could not control...it went down very steep like a diving warplane – straight into the ground!"

Switching to his own broken version of Russian, Rupert asked jokingly "Aren't you afraid that we are spies, and that we'll tell the KGB all the terrible things you said about the President's airplane?"

"No, of course not. You are foreign. Foreigners hate the President. And your translator has an Eshakdeki accent. Everybody from his region hates the President. And he is not worried about me being undercover KGB, because I am also from the Eshakdek region."

"Johnny, is that true?"

"Yes, it is true. Why would I hire a driver who is not from my home region?"

Switching to English, Rupert replied, "Because a different driver may be safer, more competent and cheaper?"

Johnny shrugged, and that was the end of that.

Looking up into the sky, Rupert could see a huge plane approaching for landing. Even through the road noise they could hear the roar of the engines. The huge lettering on the plane revealed it to be a budget Russian airline that services the type of cities with names that few outside of Russia would recognize. The passengers inside were likely 100% returning Kajbez labor migrants – those lucky enough to be able to afford a plane ticket instead of a multi-day bus or train ride. The village under the flight path looked – aside from a few cars – like it was out of the 12th century. Rupert noted the contrast of a modern airplane and the broken mud-walled village below, but he did not have the energy at the moment to annoy Johnny by pointing out this observation.

Soon enough the first GAI roadblock came in to view. GAI, as far as Rupert remembered, stood for 'Government Automobile Inspectorate.' The name had long ago been officially changed, as GAI was its Soviet-era designation, but nobody used its new name. GAI were, more specifically, the universally hated road police who extorted drivers on every highway, road, street and alley in Kajbezistan.

"GAI-shniki assholes!" cursed the driver. "This is a new roadblock. This means that we will go through three GAI checkpoints today."

The GAI officers were sweating like obese hogs as they waved over every third car to a wide shoulder where a swarm of pot-bellied officers in monstrously large-brimmed Soviet-style police hats waited patiently to collect a cash fee from each driver. Nobody argued. And if they did? A full inspection of the car and the driver's documents. And then a very big fine was guaranteed.

Unfortunately for Rupert and Johnny's driver, they were car #3.

The payment of the fee of passage was brief, and utterly ridiculous in the pathetic attempt at plausible deniability. Each driver held the universally known 'fee' under their driver's license as they handed it over for inspection. The GAI officers then ungracefully took the cash with their other hand and stuffed it into their huge pockets that were bulging with small bills.

The driver returned to the car and exclaimed loudly, "Bloodsuckers! We had only two checkpoints on this road since Brezhnev's time. Now this week they added a third. And do you know how much the local GAI chief pays for ownership of this road? For a two-hour long stretch of road?"

"Nope," replied Rupert.

"$200,000 per year. He pays the bribe directly to the Minister of Transportation, who is the president's cousin. And do you know how much he makes for himself by stealing from drivers?

"Nope."

"Triple that! $600,000!" yelled the driver. "And then his men get a percentage of what they take on this road. They probably steal almost a million dollars from the drivers and delivery trucks on this road. And look! There are not very many drivers here. We are driving to a small city. For a local person to pay one bribe hurts; to pay two bribes on the same trip is very painful. And we pay that money just to drive on a road that was paid for by a grant from the Japanese government! It's already paid for! And look! Look at the people you see who live along the road. They are poor. Everybody here is poor. They are sucking blood from a dying cow. Bastards!"

"That's terrible," said Rupert, with as much sympathy as he could muster.

"Terrible? But what about in America? You have GAI in America also, right?" asked the driver.

"American police prefer to shoot people rather than collect bribes, so GAI is not a problem. But I'm not too sure. I'm not American."

"English?"

"No, Jamaican."

The driver laughed out loud and replied, "Jamaican? They are black people! Like Bob Marley."

"Bob Marley is half white. And he's half white because there are white people in Jamaica. We are a minority, but we're proud to be Jamaicans."

"Huh. White people in Jamaica? Really?" asked the surprised driver.

"Yeah, it's true."

"The white people in Jamaica, they are formerly imperialists from England, yeah?"

"Exactly. Just like the Russians who still live in Kajbezistan."

"Well, they are not imperialists," said the driver indignantly on the Russians' behalf. "They are... I don't know the word in Russian. It is like guest, but not a guest you invited."

"Uninvited guest?" suggested Rupert.

"No, that is not the correct word. It is a word for a guest that you did not invite, but that is welcome because he helps you defeat fascism."

"Fascism? Really? Did you know that in 1939 Russia and Nazi Germany entered into a..."

"No way, man!" yelled Johnny, rudely interrupting – in English – what was sure to become yet another argument between Rupert and one of many Kajbez who remembered Russia's over century-long occupation of their lands with nostalgia and pride.

Johnny held up his smart phone displaying an image of an odd-looking old-timey white man sitting atop a very unhealthy horse.

"This is Bob Marley's father! He really is white!"

"Exactly. Why would I lie to you?" asked Rupert sarcastically.

"Because you tell so many lies for fun, that's why," replied Johnny bluntly.

"Yeah, I guess I do that."

For a time quietness again returned to the car as the conversation died, leaving only the same three Kajbez pop songs playing on repeat to fill the air. But soon the three travelers were upon yet another GAI checkpoint, this one taking money from every second driver from what could be seen in the line ahead.

"Every second driver? Are they crazy!?" yelled the driver in frustration. "It really used to be just every fifth driver. This is fascism!"

The driver's luck was better at this checkpoint, and it was to be the car just ahead and behind him that would be paying a fee today. The line of cars narrowed through makeshift wooden and plastic fencing resembling a cattle chute that funneled cows towards the slaughterhouse's bolt gun. The GAI officer was leaning inside the car windows for his bribes, a very unusual move as this was usually done on the side of the road after the driver got out. But this new chute system seemed more efficient for the officers and their bulging pockets.

The car ahead of Rupert and Johnny's ride was an old Volga that was laden with assorted farm produce, including a cage stuffed full of chickens. And as the officer leaned in the open window to solicit a quick extortion payment, a second officer walked out of the shade of the GAI road house and straight to the chicken cage on the back of the Volga. Opening the cage, he grabbed two chickens by the legs and smiled broadly, revealing the full set of gold teeth that seemed almost mandatory for Kajbez law enforcement officers. As he turned to walk back to his hut with his feathered loot, a sweaty middle-aged woman in standard Kajbez peasant woman wear (loose-fitting, long short-sleeve dress covered in floral prints that, overall, resembled a shower curtain) burst out of the side door of the Volga, cursing loudly and waving her hands. Apparently her chickens were not free for the taking.

A third GAI officer appeared from the hut like a rat out of a hole and did his best to help resolve the situation, which he did with one quick vicious slap to the side of the woman's face. The woman retreated in shock to the car, holding her hand up to her face.

"Bastards," muttered the driver as the GAI team waved him through. "GAIshniki, they have no honor. And they are dumb as donkeys. Law enforcement in this country has become lawless! We used to have real police here. When we said militsiya in those days, we said it with respect. I should know. I was a police officer."

"Really, GAI or the militsiya?" asked Rupert.

"Militsiya. I was a regular police officer."

"Did you retire?"

"Yes, but not because I wanted to. I am from the Eshakdek region. About fifteen years ago the new Minister of the Interior started forcing out Eshakdekis from the police and replacing them with his countrymen – Kharvoris!"

"That minister, he was relative of the president?" asked Rupert.

"No. He was from the president's home region but he wasn't family. Of course, he was eventually replaced by someone who married into the president's family. So now the new guy is replacing the officers from the Kharvor region with Kharvoris who are specifically from the president's hometown of Aryanabad. Aryanabadis!"

"Sounds like what I've been told about other ministries," remarked Rupert.

"It's not just ministries!" replied the driver sharply. "It's in the business world as well. And the army. The bosses and the ministers are all vultures, and they are all from the same region, and now from just Aryanabad. It's not easy to live in Kajbezistan. That's why my two sons work in Russia."

"No good work for them here?"

"There's work in Kajbezistan. But it's not good. In fact, it's terrible. For example, look at those women," said the driver as he pointed to a dozen women spread out across a field full of cotton. "They are removing weeds by hand in a field full of chemical fertilizer. And do you see some of those women? They have babies on their backs! It's too hot to stand in the sun for ten minutes! And these women are working in a field. And the worst is to come in the fall. They will spray the field with a poisonous chemical that will weaken the cotton plant and make it easy to pick the cotton. I don't know what to call the process in Russian. Chemical defolizatsiya, maybe."

The driver let go of the steering wheel and put his two hands together opening and closing them like a clamshell.

"Like that! The chemical makes it open up and you can take the cotton out. But all these people will be walking in this poison and touching it with their hands and breathing it in. The chemical is probably the same as what the American invaders used to kill the jungle in Vietnam! I don't know. Maybe. I'm not an agricultural specialist. But I do know that it is poison, and that these women will be using their bare hands to harvest it," said the driver confidently as he put his hands back on the steering wheel before the car had drifted too far into the opposing lane.

"I hear that a lot of people are forced to go to the fields to pick cotton during the harvest. Is that true?" asked Rupert, who already knew the answer.

"All the peasants are forced into the fields to pick, of course. But they need extra hands. So the teachers are forced to pick cotton. And their students! Little children. And doctors, also. Low-level government workers too. Many others. You go to the fields and work there, and sleep there. For a full month or more. And if you don't go you will be beaten severely or put into jail on false charges. And for those in the fields, they have a quota. If they don't meet the quota, then punishment! And God help the girls that get sent to the fields. Everybody knows what happens to young girls who are far away from home. If they are lucky, their brothers are nearby. If no brothers, then...I don't have to say. You know."

"Terrible," was all Rupert could say.

"And these cotton bosses, they are rich like you cannot imagine. They are rich even compared to you westerners. They are millionaires who live atop starving peasants."

"Sounds like slavery," observed Rupert.

"Oh, no. These people are paid. Very good money!" said the driver sarcastically. "These peasant women you see, their pay is the cotton sticks."

"Cotton sticks?"

"Yes, the leftover cotton sticks and branches from the cotton plant are used to heat homes and boil tea in the winter. Maybe only enough to heat one small room. So, these women are paid with this useless firewood. It's a joke. I think the black slaves in America probably got to keep the cotton sticks as well."

"It seems difficult to be a little person in Kajbezistan," observed Rupert.

"It's difficult to be anybody but a presidential family member. Everybody else suffers, and has to pay bribes for everything: hospital, school, business, military service..."

"Military service?" asked a confused Rupert in English as he turned to Johnny.

"Yes, he is talking about the mandatory military service," started Johnny. "They come searching for young men, and they grab them. It's called oblava. You have to pay a huge bribe to get out of mandatory service."

"That's right, oblava!" said the driver, recognizing the one Russian word.

"That's what you call the kidnapping of young guys for military service?"

"Yeah," said Johnny. "What's it called in English?"

"Forced conscription," replied Rupert. "Does the forced conscription campaign overlap with the forced cotton labor campaigns? Do you have the choice of slavery in the cotton fields or, like, death by freezing after your commanding officer steals your winter clothes and rents you out as a laborer? I've heard stories of how shitty life is for army conscripts."

"I do not know. That's a good question. I'll ask the driver."

There was a brief exchange in Kajbezi, or rather yelling back and forth with Johnny feigning incredulity.

"OK, the driver says that the fall oblava season and the forced cotton harvest do overlap, but that you should run towards the slavery of the cotton field and away from the slavery of the army. Because in the army your commander will make you pick firewood on an island in the Oxus. In the river. On the border, you know? And the bad Afghans will catch you. And if you are young and handsome...they will, uh,...make you lie down like a woman. Bachabazi!"

"Sounds delightful. I think I'll choose the cotton fields and one month's worth of chemical defoliant in my lungs over however long you have to serve as the dancing boy for some Afghan police chief."

"Both are bad, Rupert. There are never any good options here. Only bad choices and worse choices."

"Speaking of no good options, here's the final GAI roadblock!" observed Rupert.

The driver appeared to catch a break as the car ahead of them was the lucky #3. But then the GAI officer looked through the windshield and ordered Rupert's driver to pull over as well.

"We're not the third car," protested the driver through the open window.

"Yes, but you are the fifth car," replied the GAIshnik.

"Brother, how is it possible to go from third to fifth with no car in between? Are you doing every fifth car, or every third car?"

"We are doing both."

"Then it's clear that I am the fourth car. Why am I being pulled over?"

"There are two different lists for counting. The car ahead of you was on the list for every third car. You are being counted on a different list, the one for every fifth car, in a system that counts each alternating car on a different list. You are the fifth car on that list. Now pull over to the side with everybody else or you will get a full document and vehicle inspection."

"That doesn't make any damned sense," muttered the driver as he pulled over to the parking area with all the other unfortunate drivers.

"Don't worry, I'll pay the fee," said Rupert, trying to console the agitated driver.

"Hold onto your money," replied the driver. "I think these GAIshniki may soon be too busy to worry about taking money from us."

The driver then pointed to a truck full of scrap metal that had been pulled over several cars in front of them. Four men had gotten out of the truck's cab and were pulling metal bars out of their load of scrap metal. They had a grim look of determination on their faces.

"Dzhugis!" said the driver.

"Gypsies?" asked Rupert as he looked over at Johnny for confirmation.

"Yeah, gypsies."

"What are they doing?" asked Rupert.

Rupert's question was answered immediately as the four Dzhugis began to swing their metal bars wildly at the road police.

"I don't think that they want to pay any bribes today," said Rupert with a laugh.

Immediately the GAI officers, having no guns, were thrown into a panic and stampeded down the road in the opposite direction like chubby toddlers. The slowest of the officers, with a limp and a huge belly, ran by the car huffing and puffing, his face as red as a Kajbez face could get.

The cars that had been pulled over took their cue and accelerated away without having paid their mandatory road bribe. Rupert looked back and laughed as he saw that one of the GAI officers had not escaped the Dzhugis. The officer was crumpled in the dust as the Dzhugis beat his ample buttocks with their improvisational metallic weapons.

"Does that sort of thing happen often down here?" asked a grinning Rupert.

"No. Never," said the driver. "Not since the anarchy of the 1990s."

"I haven't seen anything like that. But people in Chorshanbe have been getting more aggressive with the police recently," added Johnny. "The police and the government, they are taking too much from us. I think maybe the people are losing their patience."

2 hours later at the Ram's Hotel in Shim-Kurgan:

Rupert woke up from his brief nap as Johnny returned to the room loudly.

"Bro! I asked at the front desk. Breakfast is tomorrow from 7am until 10am. And they have whores downstairs from 6pm until about 3am. They have a full bar as well. But they don't have weed or hashish here. The concierge said we can buy some easily down at the Children's Park named for Yuri Gagarin."

"That's fucked up."

"Which part?"

"The Children's Park. Do we have to buy drugs with a bunch of little kids running around?"

"Oh, don't worry. It's not a children's park anymore. The local government sold it to a businessman who set up an amusement park...for profit," said Johnny. "And then he sold the Yuri Gagarin statue to a Russian collector. Now there are also a bunch of outdoor restaurants where you can sit next to the canal. It's very nice. Blue water. Very clean. That's why the businessman wanted it."

"So we are buying drugs at a children's park, but it's not a children's park because you now have to pay for rides?"

"Yes. We will find the drug dealers behind the statue of Stalin. Nobody would dare sell that statue."

"OK, let's go."

Six hours later Rupert and Johnny walked back into the hotel lobby, returning with red watery eyes and silly grins. The sound of music coming from the hotel's bar/club caught Rupert's attention and he veered towards the darkened entrance. Surely there would be women in there, thought Rupert.

After his eyes adjusted to the dark, Rupert observed a grand total of four customers. All of them were at a single booth. One of the men was receiving a lap dance and the other three looked on and cheered. The lap dancer, who was obviously also a prostitute, appeared to be about fifteen years old. The girls lined up against the wall while waiting their turn appeared to be in about the same age bracket.

"Nope," said Rupert, as he turned around to leave. "Nope."

Johnny, who had been hassling the concierge about something unimportant, turned around and asked "No good?"

"No good. Unless you are into lap dances from crying fourteen-year-olds. And I'm not running for political office in Alabama. So let's call it a night."

"Well, this place is exactly as the driver described," said Johnny as the two walked towards the elevator. "He said the hotel is a sex slavery operation in disguise, but that the rooms are the best in town."

"I guess that's why the UN people are staying here."

"Yeah, I saw the two white United Nations SUVs outside parked in the VIP zone," said Johnny.

"And I saw the UN guys in the club with those thirteen-year-olds. Specifically the UNDP."

"The United Nations Development Programme? Bro, what do you think they are developing here?"

"HIV, probably."

"Ha! Probably..." agreed Johnny. "Did you recognize any of them?"

"No. Three European-looking dudes I don't know. And an Indian or Pakistani I don't know either. The UNDP has always been too cool to work with Presbyterian Aid Services. But seriously, the United Nations people are the worst offenders when it comes to brothels, prostitutes and sex slaves. They spent their thirties fucking up Africa, and now that they are in their forties they have been banished to Kajbezistan. Shit, it's so bad that the high-end pimps in Chorshanbe are tipped off by airport customs and immigration when a sizeable UNDP delegation arrives."

"Well, fuck them!"

"Yeah, fuck those guys," said Rupert in agreement. "United Nations delegations and experts single handedly inflated the cost for high-end prostitutes in Chorshanbe. I can't really afford them anymore. Now let's go to bed."

"OK, but Rupert, I need to know what is our plan tomorrow, exactly? I know we are driving a circle around the country, but what do you want to do?"

"Don't really have a plan. I just want to see the country... But we're not doing a circle tour anymore."

"No? What then?"

"A zigzag. So let's go straight north in the morning. But on our way out, please mention to the people at the front desk that we are going east to the mountains tomorrow."

"Why lie?"

"So that they will tell that lie to anybody who asks them where we are going."

"OK," said Johnny, who understood completely.

Date: Gulyoshka 2nd, 2019.

Place: Chorshanbe.

People: Two ugly KGB officers.

24 hours later in Chorshanbe, the two ugly KGB officers had finally gotten lucky after some basic detective work. Since Rupert was carrying a large backpack and a duffle bag, they assumed he was headed for the airport or one of the several bus terminals to find an intercity shared taxi or minibus. Rupert's name did not appear on any of the passenger lists at the airport, so they headed to the bus terminals. Their assumption was correct, and they eventually found a driver who saw a foreigner – the only foreigner that day – get into a taxi. The livestock bazaar was positioned in the south of the city, where only one road led out of town. The officers got back in their car and started to drive south. They had only one destination: Shim-Kurgan.

Special Information Insert #4

Surviving your travels through Kajbezistan

(Via The Desolate Planet Guidebook to Central Asia)

Greetings: Expect to be greeted with most the most friendly exuberance in the villages and in the mountains. In contrast, when visiting the cities and larger towns of Kajbezistan, expect to be met with utter disdain by hotel clerks, waitresses, airline employees, store clerks, etcetera. Soviet-style customer service is the norm. If you smile at any of these people, they will consider you to be at best a simpleton, and, at worst, a complete imbecile.

Social courtesies: Many people (i.e., taxi drivers) in Kajbezistan say things that westerners would only say on the anonymity of the internet. Be prepared to discuss the following topics in a manner that at home you would only expect from your unmarried racist drunk uncle's anonymous online persona, including: homosexuality (why beatings are in order), Jews (global conspiracies), black people (criminal and sexual characteristics), Islam (why you may want to consider converting), World War II (how the Americans and British were Nazi collaborators against the great Soviet peoples), America (why it is the main cause of all war and suffering in the world), taxi drivers in America ("How much money do they make?") and America again ("How can I immigrate to America?").

Queues/Lines: These do not form in a single file, but rather in a pulsating mob of no particular shape. Fights are almost guaranteed, as is the fondling of women unwise enough to join the "queue."

Abusing hospitality: There is a traditional system of hospitality in Kajbezistan known as rooftar. According to this code, Kajbez people are obliged to offer completely insincere hospitality. For example, "Hello, dear foreign guest! Please come in for tea! Please!" can be translated from this direct translation to a more nuanced and contextual translation of "Hey foreigner! Just wave back and keep moving down the street. Serving a total stranger tea right now would be a very annoying imposition on me and my time." Note that rooftar is not practiced in the north, where people are more rudely honest and don't waste their time offering tea to strangers when they are not actually prepared to serve it up.

Food: Most dishes in Kajbezistan are fried or are heavily infused with oil. Since there is no vegetable oil in Kajbezistan, most people use the bi-product of the local cotton-industrial complex: the far cheaper and far worse cottonseed oil. If in need of constipation relief, note that the cheaper brands act as a quick laxative.

Navigation: Every province and district has been renamed multiple times and have had boundaries redrawn to kill regional and/or ethnic identities and unify the nation. But the old regional identities have remained. Nobody uses the new names. If the person you are talking to appears to be above the age of 50, use the late Soviet era names. If they appear to be in their early forties, use the province names from the early 1990s. And if they are above the age of fifteen but below their mid-30s, use the province and region names that were in effect until the treacherous events of 2013.

Maps: Google Maps is now illegal after the KGB discovered the satellite imagery version of the app. Believing that the map was a live feed from outer space, the Kajbez government immediately banned it and ordered citizens to delete the app, leading to the app temporarily becoming the most popular app download in Kajbezistan until it was dethroned by Tinder. All other legal maps in Kajbezistan are of the distorted (false) Soviet maps style, with a 1:10 million scale, roughly what you would find on a large wall map of the world.

Stay on the trail: Tragically, four Israeli backpackers fresh out of their three years of mandatory military service drowned in a mountain river after attempting to avoid the bridge where tourists need to pay the $1.50 entrance fee for the Kyzyl-Surkh National Park. Elsewhere, a French couple wandered off-trail in the mountainous Opasno-Badakhshyan region, hoping to get an authentic and wild experience. The end result was an authentic Chinese border guard prison experience for a full two weeks until they were expelled back into Kajbezistan where they were promptly arrested for being in the country on tourist visas that had expired two days earlier.

Be careful in the bazaars: The bazaars in Kajbezistan burn down quite regularly, so be aware of the direction you need to stampede towards in order to escape. The bazaars most prone to fire are those that the government or mafia are hoping to shut down in an attempt to convince vendors to move out of the bazaar and into a brand-new shopping complex owned by the government and/or mafia.

Electricity: At any one time, about 60 to 70% of electrical plugs and power points are out of order. Usually, about 20% will work but will do so while the crack-pop-fizz of a very dangerous-sounding malfunctioning electrical contact can be heard. Another 20% will work, but with the appearance of smoke, and the next 20% will completely fail to work. Of the remaining 30-40%, most will be in use and unavailable to guests and visitors. If you do find a free and safely working outlet, note that the regular power surges will destroy most sophisticated electronic devices and many of the cheaper brands of Chinese electric teakettles.

Showers and toilets: Showerheads will never point the flow of water at you. They will point in every conceivable direction but at you. There is nothing you can do about this. All new showers in the region are of the handheld variety, with a mounting bracket on the shower wall that will probably be broken. The temperature of the water will be either "freeze" or "burn." There is no in-between. As for toilets, Kajbez plumbing will not handle toilet paper. So put the used toilet paper somewhere else. If there is no rubbish bin, then use your imagination. Toilets themselves are often not very useful, as many will just mix and blend whatever is in the toilet rather than flushing it. There is usually a minimum of four flushes required.

Lack of available toilets: There are almost no public toilets in Kajbezistan, hence this quote from a seasoned traveler quoted in The Desolate Planet Guidebook to Central Asia: "Spend long enough in Kajbezistan, and you will shit your pants."

Internet: Technically, internet access is illegal for foreigners who do not have police registration and a document of temporary access permission from the State Committee for Communication. The more expensive hotels can safely ignore this rule, but elsewhere you will need to buy an illegal SIM card.

Internet download speed: Stone-age, 1990s' speeds – or, just fast/slow enough to make you really, really mad. Internet in Kajbezistan doesn't not work, but it doesn't work either. It usually downloads just enough of a website to make you angry – adverts first. At this point it usually disconnects...

You are under surveillance: Every phone and internet connection is potentially being monitored. The surveillance hardware is Chinese, the software is Canadian, the in-house advisors are Russian, and the funders are the United Nations Development Programme. Most security agents spend their time listening in on and monitoring young Kajbez women and teenage girls, trying their best to discover material that they can use for blackmail-sex (referred to by these agents as "rape").

Shade, or the lack thereof: Throughout Kajbezistan, city governments seem to be engaged in a war on trees. Whenever they find an excuse, they cut down the old shade trees that were planted during the Soviet era. What is left behind is usually just a very hot and unpleasant sidewalk or deforested park. The reasons for this are unknown, although it is noted that each tree can yield up to $80 in firewood that the mayors can pocket. The exception here are the private dachas, villas and mansions of government officials. These usually have a wonderful selection of trees.

Local romantic relationships: Beware. You might not survive the courtship process. Flowers, groveling, 27 ice cream dates in a row at the central park, and what sounds like stalking behavior is what is expected from male suitors, whether local or foreign.

Tinder is frowned upon: Recently, six intrepid British lads sought to travel across Eurasia separately in a race from Amsterdam to Beijing by land. The rules were that they could not depart a country until they had gotten lucky with a local date on Tinder. By the time the two leaders had gotten to Chorshanbe, The Daily Mail had harvested their social media accounts for a hilarious story on the adventure. Soon enough the story made it into Kajbez social media, and a large public hunt for the Brits began. The laddish lads bribed their way out of Kajbezistan and across the border back into Russia, where they promptly posted proof of their Kajbez conquests on Snapchat, to the great outrage of the Kajbez people. Within a month of this event, Tinder was the most downloaded smartphone app in Kajbezistan.

Suspicion of foreigners: Whatever an NGO or humanitarian aid organization claims to alleviate, locals and government official will say it is the original cause of. For example, an HIV/AIDs prevention NGO? They must have spread AIDS in the first place. A foreign agricultural NGO that seeks to improve soil fertility? They are probably destroying the soil of the lands for purposes unknown. A medical charity campaigning for awareness and distributing free medicines? Probably scaring people about diseases that do not exist and selling fake medications under the table for massive profits. A youth education NGO? Pedophiles. Etcetera... Don't say you work for an NGO, unless you want to be alternately viciously condemned or begged for a job.

Banned items: Valium, drones, Swiss Army knives, foreign-produced tampons, bacon, books in any language but Kajbezi, the Koran in any language but Kajbezi, the bible in any language, Islamic State flags, and The Desolate Planet Guidebook to Central Asia.

# Chapter Four

# An Ancient and Mysterious Tourist Trap

Date: Saturday afternoon, Gulyoshka 3rd, 2019.

Place: A restaurant serving traditional cuisine in Shamkand, a famous Silk Road historical city.

People: Rupert and Johnny.

"It's not Shamkand, you know. It's Chamqand," asserted Johnny.

"Well, yeah," shrugged Rupert as he slowly chewed on a piece of what he had hoped would be meat, but was instead apparently a combo of gristle, skin, and bone. "The people here speak a different language than they do in Chorshanbe and in the south and east. So they say the name of the city differently in their language."

"No. It's just a Kajbezi dialect," asserted Johnny.

"Well, have you ever thought that maybe they're a different ethnic group? I mean, starting here from Shamkand and out through the north and west? There seem to be a lot of words that are different. And we need a different translator when we come north."

"But I've come here before as a translator for Presbyterian Aid Services!"

"Yeah, but you mostly spoke Russian with the locals. What sort of language is Kajbezi if people from different regions need to use Russian to understand each other clearly? I think you guys should accept that this country is composed of several different ethnic groups."

"No! That would destroy Kajbezistan, we need to stay united," said Johnny sternly.

"I didn't mean divide the country up. I meant just acknowledge that there are different ethnic groups in this country."

"There are no different groups, bro."

"OK, then why can Turkish businessmen learn western and northern Kajbezi so easily, but they take forever to learn the eastern mountain dialects of Kajbezi? And why can Afghans easily converse in their own language while they are working in the eastern highlands and the nearby valleys? And why do Afghans have to speak Russian if they want to trade in the west and north? What explains that difference? And why can't you Kajbez patriots just acknowledge that?"

"We can't. What you just suggested is the same as destroying the nation."

"Huh. That escalated quickly," noted Rupert.

"Sorry. But your suggestion sounds very dangerous. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a disaster. The collapse of Kajbezistan would be even more terrible."

"Well, for now, what's terrible is this dish of...meat? Is it meat? What am I eating? I'm not sure. It might just be tendons, fat and connective tissue."

"The locals call it altybarmak," said Johnny helpfully. "It's what you order if you want lots of meat."

"I did! But not this sort of meat. This meat, if you can call it that, is grey. The flavor is like cardboard. And the noodles on the side are swimming in cottonseed oil."

"I didn't say it was any good. It's the typical cuisine of undeveloped people who would call Chamqand Shamkand," said Johnny with a sniff.

"I wish I had asked for rice instead of the noodles, not that rice is done any better in Kajbezistan."

"Our rice is very good! It's delicious."

"I only trust an Afghan chef to cook rice properly," said Rupert plainly.

"No!" yelled Johnny in shock.

"Yes!"

Over one hour later Johnny was still hurt and offended that Rupert had insulted the rice-cooking skills of Kajbez chefs and mothers. As they walked down the streets of Shamkand, Johnny continued his spirited defense of Kajbez culinary traditions while Rupert continued to counter by naming various foreign restaurants in Chorshanbe and the amazing food they served: Indian, Georgian, Korean, Japanese, Afghan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Chinese, etcetera... He demanded that Johnny eat at every one of these restaurants if he wants to continue defending Kajbez cuisine. Rupert did not, however, mention that the Japanese restaurant 'Furasuto' has a hidden seating area that allows only whites and Japanese.

Finally, Rupert saw something that he figured should be completely without controversy: a large pile of watermelons for sale under a tree.

"Watermelon! We need a watermelon for the road," barked Rupert.

"Yes!" agreed Johnny, as if the suggestion of a watermelon purchase needed any convincing.

The watermelon purchase went exactly as Rupert knew it would. For the tenth time in their working relationship, Rupert had to tell Johnny that he was tired of his haggling, and that he should just give the watermelon seller the money he was asking for.

"Dude, just pay the man. That's my money in your pocket anyways. And the price is still only about a tenth of what I would pay at home."

The watermelon man took the money from Johnny with a smile and looked over at Rupert.

"You speak Russian?"

"A little," replied Rupert.

"Do you have watermelons in America also?"

"I'm not from America. But, yes, they have watermelons in America."

"Then where are you from? England?"

"No. I'm Rhodesian."

"What? What's that?"

"It's a person who is from Rhodesia."

"Ru-DEE-zha? Never heard of it. Is it in Europe?"

"It's a country in Africa."

"But you aren't black."

"My family were white colonialists. Imperialists. Just like the Russians in Central Asia."

"That's not true!" replied the watermelon man in apparent shock.

"No, it's sadly true. My family came to Africa and stole black people's lands and ruled over them for over a century, just like the Russians here."

"No, I was talking about the Russians," replied the watermelon seller. "It's not true that they were imperialists or colonialists. The Russians came as friends!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I thought that the big army full of Russians from Russia that destroyed your armies and ruled over you for 130 years were imperialists. I'm not sure why I believed that. It must be because of the lies I was taught in school in my homeland. My apologies!"

"Oh, that's OK. No need to say anything else!" said the watermelon man in complete sincerity.

"So what was it you were asking me?" queried Rupert.

"About watermelons! So, if you are from Africa. How do you know that they have watermelons in America?"

"I visited America once. And I ate a watermelon there."

"In which country are the watermelons better, Kajbezistan or America?" asked the seller.

"They taste the same. But in America the watermelons have no seeds. So it is easier to eat them."

The man burst out laughing, "That's not true. How can you have a watermelon without seeds?"

"I don't know. I'm not an agricultural scientist," shrugged Rupert.

"A watermelon without seeds is like...tea without sugar!" remarked the watermelon seller with a confused analogy.

"It's quite possible to have your tea without sugar," replied Rupert, who completely failed to see the applicability of the old man's comparison.

"No it isn't."

Johnny eventually nudged Rupert away from his productive conversation with the watermelon man, relieved that he had not got into any serious sort of argument about the Soviet Union as Rupert was wont to do.

"Rupert, bro, I had a watermelon in New York," said Johnny as the two walked off down the street. "It had no seeds, like you said, but it was not very sweet."

"A supermarket melon – probably shipped from the southern hemisphere so that you could eat it in February. I'm not surprised it wasn't sweet. But in-season watermelons from California or the Deep South are the best in the world. They are the best and the sweetest."

"No. It's not true. I've had watermelons in the summer as well. Kajbezistan's are better."

The argument was still in full swing 20 minutes later as Rupert and Johnny walked into the historical tourist district. This area was much more friendly to tourists than the rest of the country. Elsewhere, tourists were treated like sheep to be slaughtered. But here they were spared from robbery and extortion until they ventured too far outside the tourist bubble.

In Kajbezistan, tourists have to worry about not just extortion, but about accusations of espionage as well. The evidence is obvious to Kajbez law enforcement. A tourist wants to visit a reservoir? They couldn't possibly be interested in the lake. They must be interested in sabotage or industrial spying, especially if they try to photograph the dam – a dam that was built in the 1970s with 1950s technology. Travelling near the border? The tourist must be CIA, trying to collect compromising information on our border guards despite the US government funding and equipping the Kajbez border guards. Did a European tourist take a photo of a government building? They must be doing reconnaissance for the terrorist group that they secretly fund in Afghanistan. They couldn't possibly have taken the photo out of an interest in Soviet neo-classical architecture.

And who is best to go after these tourists and their cameras? Ideally police officers whose IQs would put them at a level where, if they were American, the US Supreme Court would rule they don't have the mental capacity to be given the death penalty. So, in a stream of dialogue that sounds somewhat like grunts of an angry animal, the golden-toothed buffoons who pass as street police interrogate their quarry. At one end of the spectrum, the Russian and Israeli tourists respond with a quick look of disdain and wave them off. At the other end, the Afghan and Indian tourists shake in their boots and hand over the required cash fine for their alleged law breaking. As for the European backpackers, they argue endlessly while pretending to call their embassy on their SIM card-less phone. Eventually the police give up with the Europeans.

Anyone who wishes to see such a sight need only go as far as the giant statue of the classical Eurasian despot Baburlane in the central park of Chorshanbe. The police hide behind trees and around corners waiting for a tourist to take a photo of Kajbezistan's most recognized non-Stalin monument. And when the unfortunate tourist is so impudent as to actually take a photo, a police officer will appear out of nowhere, bellowing "Dokumenty! Passport! Passport!" The passport, of course, will be returned for a fine of however much cash the tourist is stupid enough to carry around in their pockets. If the tourist does not hand over their passport, then the police will increase in numbers and yell "Shtraf! SHTRAAAF! Dollars! Dollars!" However, only white tourists and Japanese can get away with not handing over a passport. Iranians and South Asians who are uncooperative will be given a quick beating.

Soon Rupert and Johnny were walking through the heart of Shamkand's main tourist attraction, a square surrounded on all sides by old mosques, madrassas and shrines. The mosques no longer had worshipers, and the madrassas no longer had Islamic studies pupils, but the shrines still had holy men buried in them. Only the tourists took much interest, with locals only ever visiting this area if they had foreign guests visiting Shamkand.

The locals who did frequent this area were the souvenir vendors and the pickpockets. The pickpockets were laughably incompetent, as the skilled thieves long ago moved to Russia to pick richer pockets there. The souvenir sellers, however, were better at their job. Recently they had come to the realization that a fat, aggressive 50-year-old Kajbez man was not the best person to try to strike up conversations with foreign tourists, and so began the practice of hiring American University graduates, none of whom were able to find employment with their bachelor's degrees in political science, anthropology and gender studies. So now Rupert was doing his best to resist the attractive twenty-something year old women who attempted to strike up conversations with him. Johnny was usually the decisive factor, waving off the souvenir sellers with a 'No, girl. No.'

Rupert expressed his displeasure at Johnny for chasing off the young women, while Johnny insisted that Rupert would be doing the girls no favors at all by talking to them while not buying anything.

The two quarrelling travelers eventually found something that they could both agree on after leaving the tourist zone behind: an old babushka selling kompot juice by the glass. The idea of boiling fruit in a giant pot and then throwing away the fruit seemed strange to every foreigner until they took a sip of the chilled fruit-water that remained. It was a welcome break from the hot tea that Kajbez people inexplicably still drank during the hot summer. Foreigners loved the drink enough to order it from street vendors despite there being no obvious way that the kompot ladies were able to clean the glasses between customers. And this particular apricot-cherry kompot was so good that Rupert decided to order a large bottle to take with him. The smiling babushka nodded in approval and praised Rupert like he was a small child: "Molodets!" she exclaimed as she slowly poured the clear golden-brown purple apricot-cherry juice into an empty 1-liter plastic Fanta bottle.

While Johnny haggled with the babushka for a lower price on his own take-away bottle of kompot, Rupert looked up at the residential monstrosity that had gone up next door. The luxury apartment building was built in the style of a low-rent Mafioso money laundering construction and was clashing with the residential neighborhood that surrounded it.

A welder caught Rupert's eye as he worked haphazardly to weld new security bars over the first-floor windows. His ladder shook and threatened to either collapse or fall to the side as he stretched out with his acetylene torch to weld two more bars together. The young worker looked somewhat absurd, wearing only a casual outfit of tight jeans, a t-shirt and sandals, as sparks and red-hot molten iron cascaded down to the sidewalk. As for the eye protection, he wore only what appeared to be a pair of fake Ray-Ban sunglasses.

Rupert looked at the window to the left that the welder had just finished welding. Signs of smoke were starting to drift out.

"Is that guy setting the building on fire?" asked Johnny as he walked up next to Rupert.

"Um...I think he might be."

The welder stopped as someone ran out of the building and yelled for him to stop. The window that he had just finished welding bars over now had light smoke billowing out. The panicked welder looked over from his perch on the top of the ladder at the neighboring window and immediately went into action. He dropped his torch and scuttled down the ladder and...ran away down the street.

"Think he's going to get the fire department?" asked Rupert.

"I think he is running away to hide," answered Johnny as the smoke turned thick and black. Flames were now flickering through the thick smoke.

Within a few minutes the fire could be clearly seen on the bottom two floors as people ran out of the building in a panic. A crowd seemingly formed out of nowhere on the street as young men ran to the scene from every direction. But it wasn't a rescue; instead they pulled out their phones and began taking photos and videos.

The real excitement began as a barefoot woman appeared in a third-floor window, coughing and choking. Without the slightest delay she jumped to the concrete below and crumpled into the sidewalk. A group of hollering young men quickly grabbed her, dragging her away from the building. She screamed in pain as the crowd pointed their cameras in her direction.

Up above in the higher windows people stuck their heads out and yelled for help. The fifteen-story building was being rapidly consumed by fire.

Once the fire had turned to being completely uncontrollable, the fire department arrived. The firemen got out of their truck and immediately got into a screaming match with a man who appeared to be claiming that he was in charge. Confusion reigned, and the now-huge crowd started to whistle at and boo the firemen. Johnny could offer Rupert no explanation for any of it.

The young men who were obviously from the poorer neighborhoods were enthusiastically flashing imagined gangsta rap signs for group photos and then uploading them to the Russian social media site NaKontakte, while the cool kids who had wandered over from the nearby American University of Kajbezistan's Shamkand extension campus were busy uploading selfies to Instagram, trying to appear concerned and sympathetic while making sure to work themselves and their pouting faces into the frame.

Soon the people on the top floors began to jump to a certain death rather than burn alive.

The first person hit the ground. A collective 'Oooh!' was emitted by the assembled crowd. A lone religiously-minded voice yelled out "Allahu akbar!"

"OK, fuck this. I've seen enough of Shamkand. Let's get out of here, Johnny."

"Chamqand. It's Chamqand, not Shamkand."

As the two walked away they passed a steady stream of young Kajbez onlookers making their way towards what would surely be the most entertaining thing they see all year.

*****

A couple hours outside of Chamqand/Shamkand, also known in Russian as Shchamkent....

Rupert and Johnny were packed and back on the road, having decided that a full visit to the ancient mosques, madrassas and tourist traps of Shamkand was not warranted. Rupert felt that a drive across the open steppe would be far more interesting, and Johnny once again shrugged his shoulders and agreed with something that he didn't actually agree with. Johnny was even less impressed by Rupert's choice of transportation: what was sure to be a tortuous experience with public transportation in a wretched mini-bus known locally as a marshrutka.

But Rupert was now bored. Very bored. He pulled back the curtains in the old Mercedes mini-van and looked out the window at an array of sad-looking parched fields that appeared to have no source of irrigation whatsoever.

"Johnny, what are they planting in those fields?"

"I don't know. It's not my field," said Johnny.

"Take a guess."

"I'm not a farmer. It will be a bad guess."

"Go ahead, give it a try," said Rupert in encouragement.

"We are in the foothills and there is no irrigation. No canals. No streams coming out of the mountains. That means it is rain-only irrigation. So probably wheat."

"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

Johnny gave a brief half-smile and turned his attention to his phone.

Rupert decided to give Johnny a break, and turned his attention to the passing scenery.

Not a minute had passed when Rupert again yelled Johnny's name.

"Johnny! Are those guys soldiers?" he asked as he pointed to a large group of men in the middle of a field.

Johnny peered out the window and took a brief look at the men in uniform who appeared to be digging up and collecting rocks.

"Yeah, they are wearing regular army uniforms."

"What are they doing?"

"Collecting rocks."

"Why? Are they rock farmers?"

Johnny thought that this was probably sarcasm, but he decided to ignore it rather than laugh or ask a follow-up question about rock farming. He had been asked dumber questions by foreigners.

"They look like young soldiers, the ones who are forced to join. They are clearing a new field by removing the rocks. Lots of rocks here, I think," said Johnny.

"So why aren't they training?"

"Because their commander is making money from them. He is renting them out as farm laborers."

"Oh yeah, I remember someone else telling me about that sort of thing. Hilarious. Poor soldiers. It's hot enough outside to get sunstroke in under an hour."

The soldiers were now out of view, and out of mind. Rupert decided that he would quit bothering Johnny for the next little while.

Rupert soon stopped staring out the window at the passing landscape, as it was giving him slight motion sickness. So instead he stared straight ahead at the oncoming scenery of the low foothills. The land was starting to flatten out.

Soon half of the passengers were attempting to take a nap, while Rupert was now regretting his decision to have drunk his second 600ml jaguar-themed Russian energy drink. He was wide-awake, but still feeling tired. And his hands had developed a slight shake.

The legal and illegal ingredients in the jaguar drink had left Rupert with a heightened sense of awareness, and he began to narrate in his head the oncoming traffic and roadside objects: 'Car, car, mini-van, Kamaz truck, car, cow, cow, sheep, concrete bunker of indeterminable use, empty canal, scrap metal debris, roadside, fast-approaching tank.'

Fast approaching tank.

The driver yelled out loud in Kajbezi and stepped hard on the brake pedal. The passengers fell forwards, slamming into the seats in front of them or getting tossed into the narrow center aisle.

Rupert looked to his right at about a ninety-degree angle. It was in fact a Russian military tank about to cross the road on a path that would have hit the mini-van.

Plowing through the grass and then through the dirt, the tank hit the rise at the edge and seemed to get a few inches of airtime as it jumped up onto the road and crossed about ten meters in front of the van. Rocks sprayed everywhere, and a billowing cloud of dust followed.

As the dust lifted, Rupert and the driver could see a car in the oncoming lane at the end of a long black tire-skid, where it came to a stop at about the same distance from the tank's path as had the mini-van.

Rupert looked to his left, searching for the tank. All that could be seen was a huge cloud of dust.

"What the fuck was that?" asked Rupert in Russian out loud and to nobody in particular.

"Tank," said the driver, who was strangely calm.

"Yes. But...why?" asked Rupert.

"Why what?"

"Why did it go straight across a civilian highway in the middle of nowhere where there is no crossing?"

"It is an off-road vehicle. It can go anywhere," said the driver as if it was a normal thing to have happened.

"Why do you seem to be OK with almost being hit by a Russian tank?"

"Maybe it was Kajbez tank?" said the driver with a shrug.

"It had a Russian flag on it."

"Well, that is OK, because I think nearby is the Polygon."

"The Polygon?" asked Rupert.

"Yes. The Polygon."

"The Polygon," said Johnny as he interrupted the conversation. "The area where the Kajbez military and the Russian military do training. I think we are close."

"Yes, I think so as well. Perhaps a little too close," suggested Rupert, who was still shaking a little.

"Well, you know, the military needs to do training. And not all of them are needed to clear rocks from fields."

"Yeah, sure... I guess the Russian are protecting you, huh?"

"Yes. From the terrorists," said Johnny with certainty.

"Yeah, sure," said Rupert in mock agreement. "The tank is a notable counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency tool."

Johnny nodded in clueless agreement.

The driver engaged first gear and the marshrutka started its journey again, with not a single other person in the van thinking that almost being hit and killed by a tank on the nation's main highway was an incident worth discussing any further.

"Kajbezistan," muttered Rupert.

He then reached into his bag for a plastic Fanta bottle that he had earlier filled with cheap vodka and his third and final energy drink.

Special Information Insert #5

Public Transportation and other Forms of Violent Death

Vehicular manslaughter: Regarding homicidal drivers and bad behavior on the road, the locals, as with most other things, are usually the worst. Street races in Chorshanbe begin at 11pm. Any pedestrians or night-time commuters killed are considered negligent and at fault, as all the racers are children of the elite, a list that includes bankers, drug traffickers, and the president's extended family, which itself is comprised mostly of drug traffickers and bankers.

Presidential racing: Regular car races are held at a track just outside the capital city. President Islambaev is a regular participant, winning every single race against a field of others drivers comprised completely of his bodyguards who do their best to hang far back from the president's car. Foreign visitors are advised to politely agree whenever they are told that the President is the world's greatest horse rider, car racer, falconer, electronic music DJ and melon grower.

Vehicles of the elite: All the luxury cars driven by high-ranking government officials and their family members were stolen from the streets of Germany. One minister's son was quite pleased to find out from Germany's Bild newspaper that his Range Rover was stolen from a famous Bayern Munich footballer.

Vehicles of the common man: Only white vehicles are permitted in the capital city. Everyone with a non-white car had it confiscated during late summer 2017. The cars would only be released from the impound lot after it was agreed that the car would be repainted for the rather extortionist local cost of $800 – at a massive car painting facility in Chorshanbe rumored to be owned by President Islambaev's niece's husband's brother. In a show of wisdom, the president decreed that non-white cars in the other regions of the country would be allowed on roads until mid-2020.

Blocking the intersection: Cars sneak into the intersection right before the light turns red, blocking cross-traffic. Nearly every intersection in Chorshanbe is blocked in this manner. Those with the green light who are then blocked from driving through the intersection usually roll down their windows and howl out loud in outrage at those blocking their way. But then at the next intersection they themselves do the exact same thing.

Death by public bus: Driving during the day is, despite what one would think, more dangerous than venturing out at night. The buses of Chorshanbe are well known for electrocuting passengers and for leading the world in urban drowning deaths, owing to the tendency of drivers to attempt fording flooded underpasses. The buses themselves have the general appearance of a broken Soviet industrial death trap. A quarter of the buses are electric trolleys, whose electrical contact poles are always coming detached from overhead electric wires and flailing dangerously in every direction. The fix is to have a teenage boy permanently hanging off the back of the bus, guiding the spring-loaded poles by hand with ropes. Occasionally the poles flail and the unfortunate young man must choose between being vaulted upwards to possible electrocution, or letting go of the ropes and falling to a certain smack on the pavement.

Chto delat?: In Russian this means, literally, 'What is to be done?' but in Kajbezistan's government circles it is often used to convey 'What is to be done about a certain problem that can, at the same time, benefit the family of the president?' As an example, a plan is afoot to purchase second-hand buses from China using a generous loan from the EU-funded European Bank for Construction and Redevelopment, in a deal that is being brokered by one of the president's nephews. Critics point out that commuters are already well served by a system of marshrutkas – a fleet of vehicles comprised of private mini-buses and off-duty government ambulances. In response, the government has attempted to outlaw as many types of marshrutkas as possible – implausibly on safety grounds, as if a used Mercedes Sprinter van is more dangerous than the motley array of used cars and Soviet deathtrap buses that ply the streets of Chorshanbe.

How to ride the bus: The United Nations Development Programme (in cooperation with the Kajbez KGB) created an electronic swipe-card system for bus fares in order to maximize transport efficiency, increase government profits, and deepen KGB tracking abilities. In order to ride the bus, you will need to purchase a plastic swipe-card from an automated kiosk. But to buy the card you must enter in a local SIM card number. To get a Kajbez SIM card with a local phone number, you must register with the Ministry of Interior's office of registration that still bears the Soviet era acronym OVIR. To get to the registration office in the outer districts you will need to catch bus #7 and then transfer to bus #13. Here you will likely have to stand in line in the sun or rain for several hours before you get to the window where you can request the necessary forms to fill out. From here you need to take the completed forms and your passport to another office on the other side of Chorshanbe via bus #18. The registration process takes about three of four days in total. Once this is done you will be able to purchase a SIM card for your phone and then a swipe-card for the bus system. Note that none of the buses listed above take cash. They only accept the new swipe-cards.

Taxis: Any car can be a taxi. But note that some taxis are not actually taxis but instead muggers, undercover police or bride kidnappers.

Rural and regional taxis: Rural town-to-town taxis that are driven by undercover police or KGB officers are the safest, while those driven by the non-law enforcement types vary in quality and chance of death. Kajbezistan is inflicted by a unique phenomenon in that accidents happened again and again in the same few spots, even though all the locals are aware of these extremely dangerous locations ("our fate is in God's hands"). One of the worst spots is next to a graveyard in the foothills between Chorshanbe and Shim-Kurgan City. Pious drivers, seeing the cemetery, insist on taking their hands off the wheel to throw up a quick Muslim prayer with their hands, which they need to draw over their face. Unfortunately, there is a dramatic bend in the road by the graveyard and, as soon as the drivers take their hands off the steering wheel, the wheels straight out and the car veers towards a rock wall (northbound lane) or a steep drop into a gorge (southbound lane).

Uber: The Uber app is banned in Kajbezistan, as it is, according to state-controlled media, 'contradictory to the traditions, mentality and morals of the Kajbez people,' and because Uber would not pay a sizeable bribe to the president's cousin who runs the Ministry of Transportation, Tobacco and Tourism.

Walking in Chorshanbe: Don't. Most of the Soviet-era trees that lined the streets were cut down, meaning that there is no shade to walk in. Walking is easier during cooler months, however the danger of deep holes appearing in sidewalks is a regular danger, as is electrocution by power lines that sag down near street-level (for reasons unknown). Also, it should be noted that mugging of both foreigners and locals (by the police) is quite common. Walking in smaller cities is somewhat safer, as long as one does not take in to consideration the roaming packs of vicious feral street dogs.

The World's Worst Airport: The new Chorshanbe airport was supposed to be shaped like an eagle, but was somehow accidentally based on clipart of a vulture. The end price of the airport was more than what a major western country would pay for an airport that serves as a large international hub. But the Chorshanbe Islambaev International Airport sees less than 2% of the traffic that those airports serve. A totally unrelated fact: the construction contract for the airport was won by the president's brother-in-law.

Surviving the landing: Arrival by plane will seem insane for first-time visitors. Usually, as soon as the plane touches down, all the Kajbez passengers immediately jump up, grab their cabin baggage, and force their way towards the exit door as the plane is still braking down the runway. They remain stuck in this manner until the door opens up 20 minutes later. They then exit onto the tarmac and repeat the same process with the airport bus.

Departure: When leaving from Kajbezistan, local passengers take any seat they want, regardless of what is printed on their tickets. The Turkish stewardesses always enforce the seating assignments, leading to at least 5-10% of the most recalcitrant Kajbez passengers being dragged off the plane by Chorshanbe Airport security forces (who also have to work hard to keep livestock off of the runway).

# Chapter Five

# Across the Open Steppes of Despair

Date: Gulyoshka 8th, 2019.

People: Rupert and Johnny and a very fat driver.

Place: Well into the steppes.

Rupert had finally come to agree with Johnny on the terribleness of the marshrutka mini-van experience. At the next crossroads Johnny quickly found a car and a driver who claimed to know the route. The new driver was a jovial and obese man who loudly narrated every mundane sight to their left and to their right: "That's the Path of Lenin Collective Farm, now renamed Ak-Safed Private Enterprise Farm!"

"Take that turn to get to the Kara-Chyorny River!"

"That petrol station closed ten years ago!"

"In this spot I ran over and killed a fox last winter, poor creature!"

The car crossed a small river and Johnny whispered, "Welcome to southern Siberia."

"It might be Kajbezistan, it might be Russia. Nobody knows," replied Rupert. "Maybe, just perhaps, Vladimir Vladimirovich? He knows."

Johnny did not reply.

"Is this area going to be the next Crimea?" Rupert asked of the driver as Johnny choked on the question, not sure of the driver's sympathies and loyalties.

"Oh, no. No chance! This is Kajbezistan for sure. Look at all of these billboards!"

The driver was right. The billboards firmly announced that all passers-by were, in fact, in Kajbezistan and that all thanks were due to the great leader of that state. The billboards all featured President Islambaev.

The president was standing in a photo-shopped wheat field with the text: 'The mere shadow of our leader the great El Olidagi brings fertility to our fields!'

The president was surrounded by fawning schoolchildren: 'All knowledge flows from the grace of El Olidagi G.G. Islambaev.'

The president was on a bulldozer wearing a hardhat: 'El Olidagi is constructing our nation with his bare hands by the grace of God!'

The president was surrounded by old men with big white beards: 'El Olidagi President Islambaev – God's shadow on earth, but also God's light on earth!'

And then finally a billboard that did not feature the president, only the words: 'The unity of the nation is derived from the strength of the people's trust in El Olidagi!'

"Yes, this is certainly Kajbezistan," declared the driver. "And it is guided by our great leader, the Supreme Protector of the People, Generous Provider of Prosperity, Maintainer of Perpetual Peace, Visionary Founder of the Modern State and Virile Father of the Nation!"

Johnny elbowed Rupert and spoke safely in English, "I don't think this is...uh...."

Johnny realized that he was about to say a word in English that was also used in Russian without any difference in pronunciation. So he tapped out 'He is not using sarcasm' on his phone and showed it to Rupert.

Rupert nodded in agreement, pretending that he had not, just seconds earlier, fully believed that the driver was jokingly mocking President Islambaev.

"Of course. This is Kajbez land, obviously," remarked Rupert, hoping to bring an end to any discussion of possible Russian claims over the territory of northern Kajbezistan.

The chance of a crisis was averted, or so thought Rupert. Johnny and the driver were now deep in discussion in Kajbezi, which suited Rupert just fine, as he considered occasional ignorance to be bliss.

"Oh! And see that factory?" yelled the driver in Russian as he pointed at a derelict-looking facility.

"Yeah," replied Rupert in a tone that hinted his disinterest.

"They caught an American spy there, did you know? And you're American, aren't you?" laughed the driver.

"I've heard the story, yes. But I'm not American. I'm Ellicean."

"What?"

"I'm from the Ellice Islands."

"Are those islands near England?"

"No. They are in the Pacific, halfway between Australia and Hawaii."

"Do you have pineapples there?"

"Yeah, sure. We have all sorts of fruits."

"I love pineapples. My brother bought one at the Turkish supermarket in Chorshanbe. I had a piece. So...you know the story about the American spy?"

Rupert did know the story, as did most of the long-time expats in Kajbezistan. It used to be one of the first cautionary tales told to new arrivals from overseas. The new and often very naïve expats needed to be warned about what sort of hallucinatory paranoid police state they had decided to work in.

The poor American who was the subject of this cautionary tale was a volunteer who had no secret double-life: he was neither an evangelical missionary nor a spy nor a sexpat. He was really and truly just a volunteer who taught English in an orphanage in a far-flung region of Kajbezistan – an obvious cover for a devious super-spy as far as the local KGB officers were concerned. It should be noted here that KGB officers in the capital city are rather below average in terms of intelligence. But in the provinces, KGB officers were somewhere between imbecile and cretin. In comparison, the average taxi driver or potato-seller in the bazaar seemed like a depository of wisdom and intelligence.

The American, who was not a spy, was coming to the end of a year-long volunteer commitment and was preparing to start graduate studies (Master of Arts in Digital Folklore at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette). He was a curious fellow and had seen most of the far-flung and cripplingly boring province that was his temporary home. In his last week in Kajbezistan, a friendly local man struck up a conversation with him at one of the local teahouses – a conversation that ended with an offer to take a tour of the strange man's place of employment. The American volunteer was the eccentric type, and he had always wondered what it was like inside of the off-limits potassium carbonate refining plant. The facility had been designated a restricted top-secret zone during Soviet times, as were all other fertilizer refineries. And independent Kajbezistan kept alive the Soviet tradition of unwarranted paranoia.

The American found the potassium carbonate refinery fascinating, as would any young weirdo who chooses to work for free on the frozen post-Soviet steppes. The personal tour of the factory went quite well, and the volunteer felt that he was now an expert on agricultural fertilizers. The tour, however, faced one small difficulty. The security guards had closed the massive front iron gates at the end of the workday, necessitating the use of the back exit. This led to another problem: the small gate at the back was locked and there was no security guard in sight. The friendly guide did, of course, have a solution: climb the tall chain-link fence.

The Kajbez guide – the first over the fence – left his bag with the American with instructions to throw it over the fence. The clueless volunteer was just about to toss the bag over the fence to his new friend when suddenly the Kajbez man turned around and sprinted away into the bushes, never to be seen again. The American was dumbfounded, but was just seconds away from having all of his questions answered. The answers came in the form of two brutish-looking men who had quietly walked up behind him. They identified themselves as KGB officers and asked him what was in 'his' bag.

The bag contained ten moldy kilograms of a type of explosive usually only used for road construction in the mountains. His protestations that the bag belonged to his guide did him no good at all, as every witness at the teahouse and at the refinery swore that they never saw any Kajbez guide. A subsequent raid of the volunteer's apartment turned up a Soviet-era road map of the province – further proof of his spy status (no rural Kajbez people used maps, and assumed that only a spy would possess one). The local KGB also took a look at his phone and were shocked to find the Google Maps app complete with satellite view, which they believed must be a 'top-secret satellite imagery' tool of the CIA. Furthermore, they believed that the imagery in the Google Maps app was actually a live feed from a satellite.

The local KGB presented the evidence publicly on regional TV so that all would know the guilt of the American spy. The TV clip was quickly shared widely online accompanied by derision and mockery from the urban, educated Kajbez viewers who labeled the counter-intelligence officers the 'village idiots KGB.' The leadership at the KGB's national headquarters, all of whom had actually advanced past the eighth grade, were mortified by what their clumsy rural cousins had attempted to pull-off. This, of course, was only because the operation was being mocked publicly, and it was ridicule and shame that was the problem, not the attempt to jail an innocent person.

The KGB leadership explained to the American embassy that there had been some sort of mix-up, and that they would personally drive the terrified American to the airport to catch his flight home. The KGB then consoled itself by arresting a Pakistani Christian who was visiting Chorshanbe on a visa-run from Belarus where he was enrolled in medical school. They charged him with being a recruiter for the Khorasan Province branch of the Islamic State. The Pakistani is still in jail, having served three years of his twenty-year sentence at the Jizlyk penal labor colony in the Oqkum desert.

Rupert thought over the incident briefly to his own amusement.

"Yeah, I've heard the story about the American spy. You never know which one of these foreigners is trying to steal secret information about your advanced potassium production technology."

The driver nodded in approval.

Johnny sensed that Rupert had tired of the driver, and so intervened by starting a conversation in Kajbezi. Rupert was relieved to be no longer burdened with the unwanted commentary.

But soon the collective mood began to change and Rupert could sense the tension in the conversation. It wasn't long before he recognized the source of the tension as Johnny and the driver seemed to be dueling back and forth with different pronunciations: Chamqand versus Shamkand. Soon the driver began to yell.

Ten minutes later, Rupert and Johnny stood by the roadside with their bags as the fat driver sped off, still visibly angry.

"That is a first for me. I've never actually been kicked out of a car," laughed Rupert.

"Congratulations," murmured Johnny as he looked up and down the road, slightly relieved to see that they had stopped not too far from the vague outlines of what might be a village.

After a ten-minute walk they arrived at the turn-off to the village. The turn was complete with the mandatory sad plastic table full of junk food, lukewarm drinks, and toilet paper for sale.

Johnny walked up to the table as a little girl ran out of the bushes to tend to what was probably her first customer in hours.

The girl was wearing what appeared to Rupert to be a white princess dress. On her hair she wore a large white ball of lacy material that hid where her loose hair met her braids.

"Do you have Kent brand cigarettes?"

The girl responded with a mean, almost ridiculing, laugh.

"How about Winston? Camel?"

She shook her head impatiently.

"So then, Pine brand cigarettes?" asked Johnny sadly as he looked at the shaky plastic table full of gum, chips, warm Fanta and packs of instant Chinese noodles.

The girl reach under the thin plastic table and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of seemingly thin air.

The girl scowled as she barked the non-negotiable price.

"Since when do you smoke?" asked Rupert.

"I always smoked. But when the Presbyterians hired me, they said that I could not smoke while working. But I don't work for them anymore."

"So you gave up cigarettes, but it was OK for you to smoke dope while you were working for Presbyterian Aid Services?"

Johnny shrugged and didn't reply – for what was probably the twentieth time since the trip began.

The little girl interrupted her two customers with a short, curt-sounding sentence in Kajbezi, prompting Johnny to suggest that they go to the other side of the street.

"What did she say to you?"

"It was hard to understand, but I think she said that smoking will kill me, and that I can't smoke in front of her table. And then she said that if we want to catch a ride, we should go stand on the other side of this road."

"It sounded a lot shorter than that when she spoke," noted Rupert as they walked across the road.

"Well, it was like 'That'll kill you. Can't do it here. Go stand there for a ride.'"

"Seems rude."

"That's just how they talk here. No time for fake manners, that's what they believe."

"Actually, I can live with that," said Rupert approvingly. "I would rather what that girl did than to have to deal with some overly-friendly Kajbez hospitality-monger who won't go away or get to the point."

"Uh-huh," replied Johnny, signaling that he didn't understand all of what Rupert had said, but that he was also not interested in finding out.

After about half an hour of being passed by completely full cars, an empty late-1990s model Mercedes stopped right in front of Rupert and Johnny and gestured for them to get in, as if they had called for an Uber.

Johnny handled the negotiating while Rupert stood back, bored but not yet exasperated with the haggling session.

Sooner than Rupert expected, Johnny turned to him and announced, "OK, about $5 will get us to Kolkhozkent."

"That seems really cheap."

"Too cheap," said Johnny as he nodded in the direction of the little girl's table. "Let's go get some snacks for the road."

At the table Johnny bought a conspicuously large amount of junk food and then engaged the girl in what sounded like a very casual conversation. At the end of the chat, Johnny handed over a few extra dollars' worth of somes after having already paid.

"What was the extra cash for?" asked Rupert as they walked back towards their ride.

"Information."

"What did you find out?"

"That our driver is a KGB guy."

"The little girl knew that?"

"In the village, everybody knows everything," said Johnny, as if it was an obvious fact.

"So is our driver an employee, or just an informer?"

"Employee. So you know what to do."

"Yep. I'll let you handle as much of the conversation as possible. And all my replies should sound like they come from President Islambaev's propaganda department."

"Exactly. And remember: no amount of praise is too ridiculous," stressed Johnny. "This is not North Korea, but our leader is second only to God. OK?"

As they drove off, Rupert tried to size up the driver. He looked very non-descript, like a regular driver, but nowhere near as friendly or talkative. The driver was asking only questions, and not doing what drivers usually do: gossip and give entertaining monologues.

After the driver had gotten their organizational affiliation and a quick lie about their activities (assessing a Presbyterian-funded project in the town of Kolkhozkent), he moved on to more sensitive questions.

"What do you think of our president?" asked the driver as he looked back through the rear-view mirror.

"Well, I worked in Afghanistan, and I now know what happens to a country without such a wise and strong leader as your president, El Oldagi Gulganberdybacha Islambaev."

The driver nodded in approval, yet also seemed disappointed.

Johnny then went through a long recitation of fulsome praise for President Islambaev. It seemed to Rupert to be more an exercise in submission to authority than a commentary that anyone on either side actually believes to be true.

After a few more minutes had passed, Rupert pretended to fall asleep – a trick that worked only until the driver came to a stop again next to a broken-down vehicle on the roadside.

The lone stranded Kajbez traveler walked up to the driver-side window, trying to negotiate a ride – but in Russian, not Kajbezi. The driver refused to accept money and insisted that the stranded motorist sit down in the front seat.

"He's a southerner," whispered Johnny. "That's why they are talking to each other in Russian."

"So are you. Why aren't you talking in Russian as well here?"

"I'm better at the northern dialect that this guy, I guess."

As the now full car drove off, the driver started an animated conversation in Russian with the new passenger.

To Rupert's shock, the driver's personality had completely switched. He was extremely talkative and started to tell stories full of salacious gossip about corruption in the local and national government.

The new passenger did not appear to be taking the bait, so the KGB undercover officer went straight to the top.

"We were just talking before you got into the car. We agreed that the corruption that is destroying our country..." the driver said, lying comfortably, "...it goes right into the Presidential Palace. Islambaev is the most corrupt person in this country. His family is taking everything!"

"No, that's not true," replied the passenger.

Rupert put on his earphones and started to listen to music. He then shut his eyes. Johnny, for his part, faked falling asleep. Neither man wanted anything to do with the driver or the front-seat passenger.

After 90 minutes of pretending to be asleep, the car arrived at its destination. As Rupert and Johnny walked away with their bags, the third passenger followed them and attempted to engage them in conversation.

"What a jerk that driver was, trying to trap us like that!" remarked the fellow passenger.

"Yeah," agreed Rupert.

"But it was true what he said, President Islambaev is a criminal!"

Rupert opened his mouth to speak, but was immediately cut off by Johnny.

"That's not true. We owe everything we have to El Olidagi!" said Johnny sternly.

The passenger grimaced and then grunted in disgust. Without saying a word, he turned around and walked straight back to the car.

Rupert watched in initial confusion as their former fellow traveler opened the car door without saying a word. The two men then drive off together.

"Fuck, bro," said Johnny as he shook his head. "You need to be more paranoid. You were just about to agree with him, weren't you?"

Rupert was surprised, but he then quickly filed the incident as a normal, regular occurrence for Kajbezistan.

"These two idiots actually wasted an entire day trying to catch us criticizing President Islambaev?"

"No, not us. Just me," said Johnny.

"Well, that's a relief."

"Yeah, I'm happy for you, Rupert," replied Johnny, giving sarcasm a try.

"So...let's grab a car that is definitely not driven by an undercover KGB officer?"

"Sure, no problem. We can do the next section by marshrutka. They are never undercover KGB."

"Oh, great. Mini-vans of certain death and/or suffering. I was hoping so much to be once again hot-boxed in a sweaty peasant-filled 1987 Mercedes Sprinter van..."

"Well, even worse than that actually. No old Mercedes vans here. Just those," said Johnny regretfully as he gestured towards a Chinese micro-van that looked like a slightly larger than average can of sardines with a whitewash paint job and comically small wheels.

"Hell, no. What the hell kind of marshrutka is that?"

"It's called a Tengram. If you want to leave now, that looks like the only transportation available," replied Johnny regretfully. "It's just until we get to a larger town. Then we'll find a car."

"OK, whatever. I guess it's better than standing here in the sun with no shade. Go do your negotiating thing. Try to get us three seats so that we don't have to soak in somebody else's sweat."

Johnny returned quickly from his short conversation with the marshrutka driver. He had a frown on his face.

"Johnny, I don't care how much the driver is asking for. Let's just pay him and go."

"It's not that. He asked for the normal fare that local people pay. The problem is these fucking northerners and their stupid dialect. He switched to the Chorshanbe dialect, but he kept using local pronunciation for names of cities and towns. He did it on purpose to annoy me."

"OK. I don't care about the subtleties of regional dialects or languages or whatever in Kajbezistan. It was funny getting kicked out the first time, but we need to actually get somewhere before dark, so could you just take it easy on this driver's dialectical oddities?"

"Fine, we'll go. But we are the last two passengers. So we can't pay for an empty seat between us."

"Can we pay somebody to get off so that we can have an empty seat between us?" asked Rupert.

"Are you joking?"

"I'm not sure, honestly. I would be open to the idea."

"This is the north. That sort of thing would just make people angry, even if they needed the money that you offered."

With some further grumbling, Rupert squeezed himself into the micro-van that was probably best sized for bussing ten-year-old school children. And Rupert was to be further aggravated. The driver did not drive in a direction out of town, but rather into the sad and derelict local bazaar. Rupert grumbled again.

Twenty minutes later the marshrutka driver and one of the passengers were busying themselves tying a large cardboard box to the roof, with the load being secured by mangy lengths of ropes going in through the windows and back out the other side.

The passenger with the large rooftop load, an old and fragile-looking man, got into the micro-van and, upon seeing Rupert, apologized for the delay.

Rupert nodded in a conciliatory manner while taking a second look at the very short and very skinny older gentleman who was inexplicably decked out in an old tweed suit jacket that was too large for such a small man, and too hot for such a day.

The old man quickly demonstrated his perfect command of Russian.

"Were you a Russian teacher?" asked Johnny, trying to assess his fellow traveler.

"Oh, nothing quite that useful," he said jokingly. "I was a professor."

"Really? Where?" asked Rupert, who was wondering where the nearest university might be out in the wastelands.

"Back in Shamkand, or Chamqand as your friend would say," the old professor said in an unintentional pre-emptive strike against Johnny. "I was head of the Department of Ethnology and Historiographical Sciences at Shamkand State University."

"So you are retired now?" asked Rupert.

"Yes, but not voluntarily."

"Oh?"

"All the department heads at our state universities were removed about a decade ago. The positions were given to...other people. Those people. You know?"

"Yes, he knows how it works here," said Johnny.

"Of course, you know. You are from Eshakdek. You are in the same situation that we are in."

Johnny and the old professor successfully managed to discuss favoritism in state hiring practices without mentioning the name of the president's home region. Saying the president's name aloud, or even just his home region, would be cause for great discomfort. It was as if the Kharvor Province did not exist.

"Are you a trader now?" asked Johnny as he nodded upwards towards the micro-van roof.

"Yes, the box is full of Soviet light bulbs."

"Soviet light bulbs?" asked a confused Rupert in English.

Johnny fumbled with a translator app on his phone and then replied, "Incandescent light bulbs. The old ones that were warm, and that had a nice natural light."

"Yeah, what's the deal with Kajbezistan and these shitty fluorescent, energy-efficient light bulbs?" asked Rupert.

"The old type of light bulbs were declared illegal, in order to save energy," stated Johnny.

"Well, that's bullshit."

"Obviously, yes."

"What was the real reason?" asked Rupert.

"One of the president's daughters had a monopoly on the importation of energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs. But everybody hated them. So she had her father make the old light bulbs illegal."

"So every light bulb sold in the country is bought from one of the president's daughters?"

The old man sat by patiently, assuming correctly that Johnny was Kajbezsplaining to the foreigner.

"Yes," replied Johnny. "Everything can be turned into a monopoly for the family."

"That's hilarious."

"Yeah, but it's not completely enforced. As you can see with this old guy, there is a role for black-market Soviet light bulb sellers."

"Huh."

Turning his attention to the old professor, Johnny switched back to Russian, "How's the light bulb business?"

"Good. Everyone wants one for their kitchen, and for their bedroom."

"Making more money than you were as a professor?" asked Johnny.

Rupert assumed that Johnny was joking. He was not.

"Oh, now I make about double," replied the ex-professor. "I should be thankful that I was replaced at the university by...a certain important person's cousin's wife's brother."

"So why would that guy want the job?" asked Rupert.

"Just for prestige. He shows up to collect some bribes from the students once a month, but it's not very much. Not everybody in that family gets rich. Too many family members, and not a big enough economy in Kajbezistan."

After the conversation rambled about for a while, Rupert decided that he was going to make use of the professor's expertise.

"Can you tell me something about Kajbez history?"

"Of course."

"Most everybody is ethnic Kajbez, but people in different parts of the country look racially different, and the dialects are so strong that they seem to be separate languages. Why is that?" asked Rupert.

"Oh...well, the fact of the matter is that...it's not my area of expertise," replied the former professor who university career declared loudly that he was an expert on both Kajbez history and ethnic identity.

Johnny nudged Rupert's leg.

"Under different circumstance I could, well...you know?" said the professor apologetically.

"Of course, no problem. It's clear enough," replied Rupert.

Rupert's interrogation of the professor reached a dead end, so he turned his focus on Johnny.

"Johnny, what's with Kajbez identity? You're not even full Kajbez, right? Aren't you one-quarter Russian or something?"

"My father is full Kajbez, from the Eshakdek region. You know that. But my mother is not Kajbez. She's half Ossetian and half Ukrainian. Her mother was from Ossetia and her father was from Odessa in Ukraine. My Ukrainian grandfather was a medical doctor. He came here because his skill was needed to build communism in the Kajbez Soviet Socialist Republic."

"That's quite a mix. You're a bit of a mongrel," joked Rupert.

"Mingrelian? No, Ossetian."

"Right, sure. Ossetia, is that in Russia or Georgia?"

"It's complicated," said Johnny.

"I know, I was just wondering what your feelings are."

"Russia controls North Ossetia, Russia controls South Ossetia. The map shows South Ossetia inside Georgia, but the Russian military does not use that map."

"Do you know any relatives in Ossetia or Ukraine?" asked Rupert.

"No. We lost touch during the Great Patriotic War. Ossetia is not possible to visit, but one day I may take a vacation to Ukraine and visit Odessa. I know my grandfather's name – Lev Shtern – so maybe I can do research there and find some living relatives."

"Your grandfather's name was Lev Shtern?"

"Yes. Lev Yakovovich Shtern."

"You're Jewish?!" asked a now smiling and incredulous Rupert.

"What are you talking about?"

"Lev Yakovovich Shtern is a Jewish name."

"No it's not!" objected Johnny.

"Yes, it is. It's 100 percent a Jewish name. There is no way anybody but a Jew would have the name Lev Yakovovich Shtern. Plus, all the best doctors in Kajbezistan were ethnic Jews. Everybody knows this."

"It's a Ukrainian name!"

"So he was a Ukrainian Jew then."

"He wasn't, though."

"I don't know what else to say other than that you are one-quarter Jewish. You are probably the world's only Jewish Muhammad!" laughed Rupert.

"I'm not Jewish!" protested Johnny.

"Well, sort of, I guess. Jewish identity is inherited from the mother. So your mother is not considered a Jew in Jewish tradition because your grandmother wasn't Jewish."

"There! Then you can see I'm not Jewish."

"You know what? If your family admitted this in the 1980s or 1990s you all could have immigrated to America – as Jewish refugees. In fact, I bet while you were living in Brooklyn you walked by your cousins on the street and didn't even know it."

"I'm not Jewish."

"Dude, give it a rest. I like you way better now that I know you're Jewish."

"I'm not," protested Johnny, sounding somewhat resigned to the accusations of Judaism.

"OK, let's ask someone else then."

And with that Rupert switched to Russian and turned to the ethnology professor, asking "Professor! Sorry, we are having a disagreement about the name of a famous medical doctor who worked in Kajbezistan many decades ago. His name was Lev Yakovovich Shtern. We aren't sure about what sort of name that is. What do you think the ethnicity of a person with that name would be?"

"Jewish. 100 percent," said the professor authoritatively. "All the best doctors and surgeons here were Jewish. Now most doctors are – God help us! – from the president's hometown of Turkabad. That's what we used to call Aryanabad. These new doctors have received their training at the prestigious Kharvor State University Faculty of Medicine and Historical Philology. If it was my choice, I wouldn't even let them operate on a stray dog."

Rupert turned to Johnny and smiled smugly.

"I miss them!" continued the professor. "They were good people, the Jews. But with the troubles of the early 1990s they decided to leave. I can't blame them. And to be honest, the nationalist-chauvinism that certain people exhibited in the 1980s already had them scared. My neighbor from many years ago was Jewish. He was an engineer in charge of production at the light bulb factory. He left when the factory closed in 1992. He was a good man. Everybody in our building had free light bulbs thanks to him! Now he is retired and living with his children in New York, I think. And now incandescent light bulbs are illegal! We must buy these terrible and expensive Chinese fluorescent light bulbs. Of course, a certain family monopolizes the import of these new light bulbs. Energy efficient? What a lie! They give me a headache!"

"There you go!" said Rupert even more smugly as he turned back to Johnny.

Johnny did not reply. He plugged his ear-buds into his phone and began to listen to music as he stared out the window into the distance. The steppes stretched on for as far as you could see. Or, rather, until the dust blowing up from the overgrazed and wind-eroded steppe grassland killed the visibility.

*****

One day later, still on the steppes...

The next morning Rupert was saddened to find out that the only taxi available was a shared ride. Rupert looked into the car disappointingly to see that there was already another passenger. He sighed. He regretted the decision to cross the steppes by car.

Johnny was also not too happy with the other passenger.

"Look at this guy's beard. He's too young for a beard like that. In Chorshanbe he would be in trouble for looking like a Wahhabi."

"Yep. That's a bushy villager beard. I couldn't care less. Let's pay for an empty middle seat in the back and let's go."

After Rupert paid for the three back seats, the mute driver nodded and immediately got into the car, muttering, "We go."

To Rupert's delight, the driver – a worryingly skinny young man – had no interest in small talk. But the front seat passenger had other plans.

"Welcome to Kajbezistan!" the thickly bearded man said with a smile. "Are you tourists?"

"Yes."

"You should go to Shamkand! It's very beautiful. And very historic!"

"Oh, we were just in Shamkand," replied Rupert.

Johnny winced at the mispronunciation.

"Oh, wonderful!" said the black-bearded traveler with a gentle smile. "I hope you have a good time in my country. There are many beautiful natural places and historical sites to visit."

"Thank you, I look forward to my trip through your homeland," said Rupert, who was pleasantly surprised that the passenger in the front seat had not yet asked an annoying question.

"Do you travel on this road often?" asked Rupert.

"Oh, no. I never travel. But I must travel today. The people in my village have given me money so that I can buy a new water pump for our well. We have repaired our old Soviet pump so many times that there is nothing left of the original pump. It just won't work anymore. And we need enough water for about 80 people and 130 animals. 90 head of sheep and 40 head of cattle! We have no more water from the canal anymore."

"No?"

"There are some new fields nearby that need more water. Cotton, of course."

"Your village's fields?"

"No, unfortunately," replied the villager. "The fields used to be ours as part of our collective farm before they were privatized. A businessman from one of the big state farms bought them."

"And you got the money from the sale?"

"No. The government told us that that is not how privatization works."

"Sorry to hear that."

"Oh, it is I who should apologize! Telling you about problems in a far-away village when you are on vacation. You should be relaxing and thinking good thoughts," said the villager with a sincere smile.

"That's OK," countered Rupert. "So will you bring the pump back in this car?"

"No. The pump is a little too big to fit in the trunk. I will return home with the pump in the back of a Kamaz truck. Of course, the truck driver will want extra money to go so far off of the main road. But I will negotiate hard for the price of the pump. Then I will have enough money to get the pump delivered right to my village's well."

The villager took a break from his story to insist that Rupert and Johnny take a handful of dried mulberries and almonds that he had brought along as a snack for the road.

"So you don't often come into town for supplies?" asked Rupert.

"No. Usually my father does that. But now he has a bad heart. He can't work or travel. So it is now my responsibility to buy supplies for our farm. I have only been to this town a few times before. And that was with my father. Everybody in my village knows that he is the best negotiator; they always say 'We should let Imamali-Agha speak for our village!' So it was his responsibility to buy the important supplies that we need. This is my first trip by myself," he said, seemingly excited and optimistic.

"Well, I hope you find a good pump!"

"I'm sure I will. And if I don't, then I will have to go back to Russia for work again, because there will be nothing left to do but sell our animals immediately...and at a loss!"

"What did you do in Russia?"

"Any work that is available. For my last job I helped sort potatoes. It seemed to me that I sorted and lifted enough potatoes for all the French fries in all of Russia!"

"Hard work?"

"Oh, not too hard compared to farm work at home. But it's a cold, miserable life. Sometimes I did a job and the boss refused to pay me. They would threaten to deport you if you complained. And then sometimes they would insult you and complain about how badly you speak Russian. Well, we lost all the teachers who could teach Russian in the village. So we learn in the bazaar in Russia. I know my Russian is bad. It's not good like yours!"

"Thanks!" laughed Rupert. "But don't worry, Russians also tell me that my Russian is terrible."

"OK, good. Then we can be in the same Russian class. For beginners!" joked the happy villager.

Rupert laughed in reply.

The bearded villager reached his hand back to Rupert and Johnny.

"My name is Rustam," he said as he shook Rupert and Johnny's hands.

"I'm Rupert and this is my friend Muhammadjoon."

"Where are you from, Rupert?"

"I'm from Canada."

"Oh! It's a big country! Like Russia!"

"Yes, and sometimes just as cold."

"So do you have to use a pump to get your water at home in Canada as well?"

"No. There is more than enough rain falling from the sky."

"You must have very productive farms!"

"Well, it's pretty cold, so the growing season is short. The sun is very cold, you know. Just like Russia."

"Then we should trade some of our hot sun for some of your rain!" he said with a wide grin, inasmuch as you could see a grin through such a thick beard.

"Ahh! Look at all the GAIshniki!" said the driver, interrupting the conversation suddenly.

Rupert and Johnny peered forward and saw a busy road police checkpoint ahead. No doubt GAI would be collecting a fee today.

As the travelers approached the checkpoint, it became clear there were also at least a half-dozen regular police from the Ministry of Interior.

"What could this be about?" asked the driver out loud in Kajbezi.

"What's up?" Rupert asked of Johnny.

"Seems like there are a bunch of regular police at the GAI road police checkpoint. I guess that's unusual. These guys seem surprised. But don't worry, it doesn't look like there are any KGB."

The driver quickly paid a small fee to the road police, but he didn't drive off.

"What are we waiting for?" Rupert asked as he nudged Johnny.

"Not sure. We'll see."

Soon enough they did see.

One of Ministry of Interior police officers came over to car and looked inside. Specifically, he looked at Rustam, the bearded villager.

The police officer barked a command and Rustam got out.

Soon Rustam was surrounded by all six police officers. Three of them began yelling at him. Rustam seemed like he was now pleading.

"Johnny?"

"It's his beard."

"His beard?"

"I've never actually seen this before. But I think it is an anti-beard chistka," replied Johnny.

"Chistka? Cleaning?"

"Yes, that's what it means. But not in a good way. In English, it would be more like a campaign...sort of, but worse. Like a cleansing. These police are going after beards today."

"What do you figure Rustam will have to pay to get out of this?"

"We'll see..."

As if on cue, two of the police officers grabbed Rustam from behind and pushed him down into the dirt as a third officer kneeled down and put his knee into Rustam's back.

"For fuck's sake!" said Rupert.

"Rupert, this is none of our business."

"I know, but..."

Then, clear as day, everybody watching could see one of the police officers reach into Rustam's pockets and fish out a large wad of Kajbez somes. The officer smiled broadly as he eyed his takings: it was Rustam's fellow villagers' cash that was meant for the purchase of a new pump. The commanding officer then grabbed it out of his junior officer's hands and stuffed it into his own pocket with a gleeful look on his face.

Rupert glanced at the driver and noticed that he was surreptitiously recording video with his phone. He then looked back towards Johnny and noticed that he was now looking straight forward and doing his best to not watch the scene.

Rustam's face was pushed down into the dirt, but he could see what was happening out of the corner of his eyes. He wailed loudly, begging the police to return the money. He kept yelling that the money was not his.

"Johnny, can we do something?" asked an agitated and angry Rupert.

"You can't help him. Not here in this province. We are both foreigners here. Just wait..."

Rupert was just close enough to see that Rustam now had tears streaming down his cheeks.

It was about to get worse. Two officers grabbed Rustam by one leg each and pulled him across the hot asphalt towards the road police checkpoint hut. The others followed, with one going inside and coming back out trailing a power cord with electric hair clippers attached.

"They are going to shave his beard," said Johnny.

"You can't be serious?"

Johnny was serious. Two officers held back Rustam's arms and a third put his arm around Rustam's throat, holding him in a headlock.

Rustam continued to squirm and struggle.

The commanding officer had had enough of their victim's resistance, so he stepped up to Rustam and punched him as hard as he could in the face. He punched him several times. Rustam's head went limp and nodded forward briefly before he regained consciousness.

The electric clippers started up. One of the officers swore loudly at Rustam as the blood that flowed out his nose got into the police's electric beard clippers. Rustam started to cry again.

After a few minutes the job was finished. Rustam was still bleeding out of his nose, as well as from several cuts on his face where the rusty clippers had cut his skin. There were also many patches of beard still remaining.

Rustam appeared to be mumbling.

"Seriously. Can we help him?" asked Rupert, who was now shaking with anger.

"How? I told you, there is nothing we can do."

"What is he saying? He keeps repeating something."

"It's Arabic. He's just saying over and over again: 'There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.'"

The police officers looked down at Rustam. His face was covered in blood, tears and dirt. All of the officers were grinning like hyenas and laughing about as enthusiastically.

Rustam sat on his knees and stared straight down into the dirt.

The road police waved aggressively at the driver, motioning for him to leave.

The car drove off without Rustam.

Special Information Insert #6

The Miseducation System

Modern Kajbez alphabet: For the letter E, the local Cyrillic alphabet has seven variants: e, è, ę, œ, ә, ө, э, and sometimes ë. Variants of A, I and O are even worse, and cannot be listed here as they have mostly not been accepted as Unicode characters. Readers are advised to check online for alphabetical changes, as the government regularly adds new letters upon 'discoveries in ancient texts' by esteemed linguistic historians at the Academy of Sciences – a confusing phenomenon, as the Kajbez nation had been overwhelmingly illiterate before the Soviet occupation.

Alphabet reform: President Islambaev has plans to switch from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet. However, since the Kajbezi alphabet has 63 letters, the 26-letter Latin alphabet to be used for writing Kajbezi will be supplement with apostrophes, the result of which will be that most words in the Kajbezi language will be written with more apostrophes than actual letters. The completely inconsistent apostrophe alphabet was chosen personally by the president in a manner that ensured his own name would not be spelled with any apostrophes.

Pronunciation: Note that there are no equivalents for most Kajbezi vowel sounds in English, but that the Kajbezi "œ" followed by "ө" combines to sound like the "u" in the East Coast rural Canadian "about," combined with a slight Los Angeles Valley Girl vocal fry register and the Chinese shǎng dipping tone. Even more confusing for non-Kajbezi speakers is that if the first vowel in a word is a monophthongal close-mid front rounded vowel, then all vowels that follow must counter-harmonize in diphthongal open-mid back unrounded vowels (exceptions to this rule vary by region).

Primary education: An American-supported muckraking media outlet has reported that this education sector is currently being rocked by a scandal that involves regional Ministry of Education officials renting out kindergartens and primary schools at night for use as brothels and gambling dens. The Ministry of Education released a statement of denial, complete with numerous Kajbezi grammatical mistakes, starting with this sentence (a rough approximation): "This is much lie! Radio Freed Europe only want not truth but humiliate to Kajbezistan!"

Secondary education: The only decent high school education available is at a couple of Russian-language private schools in the capital that serve the children of the elite. Previously there was a network of non-profit Turkish high schools that had a presence in the regional cities and towns. However, the Kajbez government shut them down under pressure from Turkish President Gulen, after the Turkish government presented evidence that the schools were connected to the exiled Turkish terrorist Erdogan.

Tertiary education: There are ongoing negotiations between Cornell University and Kajbezistan for a joint Cornell-Islambaev University annex campus in the president's hometown. All of the emirates, Qatar, Singapore, Libya (pre-Arab spring), Kuwait, Brunei and seven different Chinese cities all rejected Cornell's proposal for a campus, not believing their claim to be an Ivy League university.

The American University of Kajbezistan: The institution is often jokingly referred to as the Anti-American University, home to leftist European and American professors who take eighteen-year-olds who are in love with the idea of America and turn them into kids who believe that America is a land of genocide, slavery, racism and hate for Muslims. The young fervent anti-Americans on campus subsist on a diet of Russia Today, Al Jazeera, Youtube conspiracy videos, and a variety of Facebook meme pages that locate the United States at the center of the world's ills. Still, it is estimated that over 90% of students apply every year to the US Green Card lottery.

American University graduates: This college is known for producing a surplus of unemployable English-speaking kids with a degree in anthropology or sociology and strong sense of self-entitlement. The stream of angry and/or disappointed 22-year-olds graduating from the university almost never find any sort of decent long-term employment, leaving Chorshanbe with a surplus of unemployed liberal arts majors. However, seeing that the men who graduate from the university would lose a fight to pretty much any Kajbez village girl, the authorities do not consider the university and its many unemployed graduates to be a potential source of unrest.

# Chapter Six

# A Broken and Poisoned Industrial Hellhole

Date: Gulyoshka 16th, 2019.

Place: Yomonganda, central Kajbezistan.

People: Rupert, Johnny and the hotel breakfast lady.

Battle: 8th clash of Rupert versus a hotel breakfast babushka over the ideological fault-line of 'fried eggs versus omelet.'

"Unbelievable. Fried eggs again," complained a very hung-over Rupert. "The word for omelet sounds exactly the same in English, Russian and Kajbezi. And that breakfast lady is pretending she has no idea what I'm saying."

"What's the matter with just fried eggs?" asked Johnny.

"I'm sick of them. I've had them 10,000 times. They are fried in a full inch of oil. They are disgusting. And everybody in Kajbezistan insists on force feeding me this oily pile of white and orange vomit."

"Maybe it's too much work to make an omelet?"

"It takes maybe an extra 30 seconds."

"I think this breakfast is OK."

"No, it's not. You just don't know any better. Central Asian breakfast is the worst breakfast on the planet. Your people do lunch well, I give them that. But not breakfast."

Johnny shrugged.

"Screw it, I'll wait until lunch," grunted Rupert as he pushed his plate away. "I'm still too hung-over from last night anyways. I'll stick with the coffee, which is also terrible, by the way."

Johnny happily took Rupert's gift of a plate full of oily eggs.

"By the way, Rupert, eggs aren't our only problem. The driver called, our car is broken."

"It's not our car. But what's the matter? 24 hours after hiring this guy, his car decides to die?"

"I can try to find a new driver," suggested Johnny.

"I like this driver, and I like his car. Can he get it fixed quickly?"

"I don't know, it's a Toyota, so only the Afghans know."

"The Afghans?"

An hour later Rupert and Johnny stood in a garage full of Afghan mechanics. Afghans were universally recognized in the region as the best mechanics, and the larger garages in the big towns and cities would sponsor work visas for Afghan mechanics. The Afghans had 40 years' experience working on Toyotas, about 25 more years than their Kajbez equivalents, the competent ones of which had long ago left to go work in a garage in Russia. Some Kajbez garages even lied and claimed that the car would be worked on by an Afghan before handing it off to a hapless Kajbez mechanic. The best of the Afghan Toyota mechanics had even worked on the Taliban Toyota Hilux fleet in the 1990s before taking up work with the American lackeys of the Afghan National Army before the influx of American-gifted Ford Ranger pick-ups trucks and their computer-based diagnostic systems put them out of work.

Rupert looked at their driver's car. It was parked outside, seeming forlorn but, hopefully, fixed and ready to go.

"Hello, mister!" called out a voice in English.

Rupert turned around to see a smiling Afghan (obviously not Kajbez due to his stylish haircut) with a nameless nametag that read manager.

"American? Britisher?" asked the Afghan in English and in an inquisitive but friendly manner.

"Neither. I'm Singaporean."

"Singapore? But people there are Chinese and Indian, right?"

"Malaysian as well. But a few white people still remain."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. After independence most British emigrated. But my family stayed and chose Singaporean citizenship."

"You have Chinese wife? They make great Chinese food in Kabul," noted the Afghan with a wink and a grin.

"No Chinese wife right now. But maybe in the future, inshallah."

The Afghan laughed.

"So...this is my driver's car," said Rupert, changing the subject. "He said it would be fixed later today. Has it been fixed already?"

"Today? Oh, no. Your driver is dreaming. It will be finished after three more days. We ordered a part. The part will come in two days, maybe three."

"You hear that, Johnny?"

"Yeah, so we need a new driver..." said Johnny.

"Y'all need a new car? We sell cars," offered the Afghan helpfully, with his use of the second person plural pronoun revealing that he had spent considerable time around American soldiers from the South.

"No, we are only hiring drivers," said Johnny apologetically.

"Wait, let's see..." said Rupert. "Do you have anything normal, like a Toyota Corolla, or an Opel Astra?"

"I have two Astras, and three Corollas. I buy them when they are broken, and I fix them. Quality work, mister!"

One hour and $900 later, Rupert and Johnny drove out of the garage in a 2004 Opel Astra, complete with three bumper stickers: one supporting Nykøbing FC, a second-tier football team in Denmark, a DK oval decal, and a Danish-themed gay pride flag that nobody in Central Asia seemed to recognize as such. It was considered cool to leave the original stickers on the used cars from Europe, and few bothered to investigate what they stood for.

Rupert, while not being behind the wheel, still felt a great sense of relief and freedom at not having some stranger driving. And he could now order around Johnny – his new driver – even more. He decided to use his new freedom almost immediately in the city outskirts.

"Yoghurt!"

"What? Where?" asked Johnny.

"On the right."

"That sign says kefir."

"Yeah, I can read," said Rupert. "But it also says milk, yoghurt and cream. Let's stop and I can get a late breakfast."

Exiting the car, Rupert noticed the sad-looking factory behind the dairy vendor. A rusted sign atop the building read 'MolokoSirJogurt.'

"MolokoSirJogurt?" asked Rupert as he turned around to look at Johnny.

"In Chorshanbe, you eat luxury Russian yoghurt and kefir from Turkey. Everybody else in the country buys the old state-owned dairy brand, MolokoSirJogurt."

Rupert didn't seem too bothered as he bought three bottles of raspberry-flavored kefir and twelve mini-containers of peach yoghurt.

Rupert was already eating his second container of peach yoghurt as Johnny pulled back onto the road, and past the obligatory statue of Stalin in a secondary city park, before passing an even more rusted and Soviet-looking factory.

Seeing no sign, he inquired of Johnny, "What the hell is that collection of junk?"

"That? That is very a famous industrial place. It is, uh..., VostokRedmetUraniumKombinat.

"Uranium?"

"Yes, this factory supplied one-third of the uranium used in nuclear bombs during Soviet times."

"And now?"

"It processes uranium dirt," replied Johnny.

"Uranium dirt? What's that supposed to mean? Uranium ore refining? Or are they cleaning up contaminated soil?"

"Oh, I don't know. I asked the last time I was here for work, and the Kajbez guy I asked said that it's not a good idea to ask questions."

Rupert ignored Johnny and tapped away at his phone for a minute before announcing, "Uranium ore refining. They produce uranium hexafluoride."

"All of you foreigners are spies! You know everything," laughed Johnny.

"Yes. Google is a top-secret tool only available to us top spies," said Rupert as deadpan as possible. "And Google tells me that these guys also produce yellowcake."

"Cake? Is that a joke?"

"Yeah, sure," replied Rupert as he looked down at his yoghurt disapprovingly.

"You maybe should not eat that yoghurt," suggested Johnny. "Or is uranium hexafluoride good for you?"

Rupert shrugged and continued to dig away at the peach yoghurt with his plastic spoon. Not much in Kajbezistan could bother Rupert at this point. But then Rupert saw the uranium refining facility's neighbor.

"Johnny, is that a hospital?"

"Yeah, the Yomonganda DetskiMedInstitute."

"It's a children's hospital?"

"Yes. And it is also a pediatric medical school."

"Next to some place that is playing with uranium?"

"In Soviet times, Yomonganda was a center of progress and industry, but there were also many children here. So they have a uranium factory and a children's hospital."

"But right next to each other, really?" asked an incredulous Rupert.

"Well, ten years ago a local journalist did write about the health problems in Yomonganda, and he blamed the factories. Because they are right next to where people live."

"Did anything change?"

"Yes, some men beat up the journalist with metal sticks. Now he is an invalid. His brain does not work. His daughter has to feed him and clean him. So nobody criticizes the uranium factory anymore."

"Well, great. That solved that problem," commented Rupert, who could have guessed the ending to the story, as could any expat who lived in Kajbezistan for more than a year and who paid even just a small amount of attention to how local affairs are resolved.

*****

Hundreds of kilometers later...

Rupert and Johnny's haphazard zigzagging around Kajbezistan had now become completely random and unpredictable, both by design and by chance. This all led to a place that was a candidate for the most unfortunate spot in all of Kajbezistan. After a quick and not inconsiderable bribe payment, the two travelers entered the Quasipalatinsk nuclear testing ground. Quasipalatinsk was now Qusey, in authentic Kajbez language naming standards. And while there were no longer any nuclear bomb tests, there was still misery all around as could be seen in the villages that led from the city to the test site. Everybody had heard the stories: horrible birth defects, antelopes with radioactive horns, blowing dust filled with radioactive particles. It was recommended to spend a maximum of two days in the area. And people lived here their entire lives.

The first environmental group in the Soviet Union began here in the 1980s, but disbanded soon after independence owing to the fact that at the time, environmentalist criticism of Moscow was Kajbez patriotism, while post-independence environmental criticism of the Kajbez government was treason. So the locals were left on their own. Misery seemed to be without limits here.

The first stop was an obvious place for the curious tourists. A vast and bizarre array of gigantic concrete monoliths of unknown purpose rose up out of steppes at about 100 to 200-meter intervals. Spread out in no determinable pattern, the solid concrete rectangles and triangles stood at heights of about a 6-story building. Their facades appeared to have taken a few indirect hits from a nuclear strike. Rupert decided that this would be a great place to stop for a drink.

After finishing off a few beers and smashing the bottles against the monolith, Rupert moved to the vodka and multi-fruit juice, while Johnny decided that his own drinking was done for the day – it would be babysitting from this part forward.

Eventually Rupert found a relatively clean and smooth concrete platform next to one of the huge monoliths. He figured it was time for a nap.

How long he had been passed out and/or asleep, Rupert did not know. But the sun was still shining. He touched his neck and felt the sting of a sunburn. His mood immediately swung for the worst. The headache and the thirst now made their presence know. Rupert was grumpy. And what a grumpy drunk does not need is the sudden intrusion of unwanted companions.

Looking back towards the car, Rupert saw an old Soviet 4-wheel drive Bukhanka van parked close by and six people completely covered in white biohazard suits talking to Johnny.

Soon five of the white-clad people had spread out and started to take photos.

Tourists. Rupert was annoyed. Nothing worse than other tourists, he thought to himself.

Thankfully the group seemed to be on a well-scheduled itinerary and quickly departed in their bread loaf-shaped van.

Slowly walking and occasionally stumbling back to Johnny, Rupert yelled out, "Tourists?"

"Yeah, from France and the Czech Republic. They are on a full tour of the nuclear test site."

"In full protection suits like they are in the middle of a nuclear power plant meltdown?"

"Yes. But I talked to their tour guide, and he said it is not necessary. Radiation is not a problem in this area. He said they only do it so the tourists can pretend that they are on an adventure."

"Ha! Losers..." laughed Rupert.

"But the guide says that we should still not drink any water or cook food or get dirt on us or stay for more than a few days."

"Well, I've heard that alcohol can protect against radiation poisoning, so I should be OK," said Rupert.

"I don't know," said Johnny. "The men in this area are all drunks, and they have pretty bad radiation poisoning, so it might not be true."

"Well, I'll have some more vodka just in case it does actually work."

Rupert finished off what remained of the bottle before deciding that he should have another nap.

Waking from his nap, he noted that he was laying across the back seat of the car. The car was moving.

Sitting up, he saw that they were on an open highway.

"Did we leave the Quasipalatinsk nuclear dump?"

"Yes. Fourteen hours ago," replied Johnny.

"Fourteen hours?"

"Yes."

"Huh."

"Where are we?"

"We just left where you said to go," said Johnny.

"Where is that?"

"You don't remember?" laughed Johnny.

"Nope. Not a thing."

"You said you wanted to see a rocket."

"Well, that sounds like something I would say. When are we going to see a rocket?" asked Rupert enthusiastically.

"We already did."

"Really?"

"Yes. We saw a Soyuz rocket in Stalinsk last night."

"We were in Stalinsk?"

"Yep. Check your phone. You took a bunch of selfies in front of the rocket."

"How did we get into the Stalinsk stellardome?"

"We didn't. It's an active launch area, so we can't bribe our way in like we did in Quasipalatinsk."

"So how did we see a rocket?" asked a confused Rupert.

"There's a monument in the town. It's a full-size rocket with engines and everything."

"And we were there?"

"Yeah, bro. I swear. Check your photos."

Rupert then looked out the window as the car passed over a long bridge.

"What river is this?"

"The Jaxartes River."

"Where are we going?"

"Some guy back at a supermarket told me that there is a place where you can sit in the grass alongside the river. So we are going for a picnic," replied Johnny enthusiastically.

"Did you grab some food?"

"Yup. Chips, fried chicken, sausage, samosas, watermelon and a bottle of vodka," replied Johnny triumphantly.

"Nice. I'm starving. I don't feel sick at all."

"You were already sick last night. You threw up quite a bit."

"Where?"

"At the rocket monument in Stalinsk. I had to pay the police a bribe because you puked on the rocket."

"Like, literally on the rocket itself?" asked Rupert, who seemed somewhat impressed with himself.

"No. It's too high off the ground. You puked on the base of the monument."

"Good times. I don't remember a thing."

The riverbanks were as promised, and there was a nice grass patch that had been mowed down by the sheep, leaving what seemed like a nice but lumpy green lawn. After Rupert attacked the food he turned his attention to the watermelon and vodka, turning the two items in to an obvious mix. Johnny decided that he would join in, with the watermelon being the deciding factor.

Rupert quit after he was too full to down yet another cup of his watermelon-vodka mix.

"I'm going for a swim..." announced the now slightly drunk Rupert.

"Don't, bro!"

"Don't worry. I can swim when I'm drunk. And look at this river: it's flowing so slowly that it's almost a lake!"

"No, I mean the water is poison," warned Johnny.

"Poison?"

"Yes. The Jaxartes River is carrying all of the industrial and agricultural pollution for five northern provinces. If you swim, your skin will burn, probably."

"Well, fuck. This place is horrible. Nuclear waste, spilled rocket fuel, chemical pesticides, erosion. Shit," grumbled a disgusted Rupert.

"Life is hard here, yeah. This place needs to be cleaned up."

"Your government should get on that right away."

Yeah, right," laughed Johnny. "It won't be cheap and easy."

"Maybe you could ask us westerners for a loan or a grant to fix this place up."

"Sure, give us a $10 billion grant and we will start."

"We'll start by sending you a few interns and volunteers, how about that?" joked Rupert.

Johnny laughed and took another drink of his watermelon-vodka slurry.

"Nah. No. It wouldn't happen," continued Rupert. "This place... This place is the bottom. No foreigners would want to work here even though it's the place most in need. Fucking NGOs. There is no big sexy war or famine here. And no cool capital city with hipster cafes."

"Would you work here?"

"Hell no," replied Rupert. "I've put in my time in already. The young NGO workers should come here. Or at least the high-paid ones. Or the volunteers and interns, those dirty little shit-bags."

"You don't like interns and volunteers?"

"Oh my God, you have no idea. Interns and volunteers are the scum of the earth. They are supposed to be working and learning, but they just spend their time uploading pictures of themselves with brown children to Facebook – at least for the first few days in-country before they become bored or repelled by the locals, and then they retreat to their compounds for their summer-long drunken sexual exploits with volunteers and interns from other NGOs and humanitarian aid organizations. Or even worse are those intensive language course students. Those kids are the weirdest; they seem to fit the profile of white suburban school-shooters or kids whose hippie parents don't believe in vaccinations. They should come to Stalinsk to learn Kajbezi."

"But then they wouldn't be able to speak Kajbezi with people in Chorshanbe. It's a weird Kajbezi dialect here."

"Yeah, they stick to Chorshanbe, those fucking junior sexpats."

Johnny laughed, proud of himself for recognizing the combination sex and expat.

"And a tip for those with boyfriends or girlfriends volunteering overseas in Kajbezistan," continued Rupert, "they are having sex right now. You are so far away, they are lonely, and Javier, the intern at Catholic Relief World, is such a good listener."

"I don't know Javier," said Johnny in all seriousness.

"Well, no. Of course not. He's not real. He's just, like, you know, an accurate fictional representation of real people."

"So you lied just now?"

"No! Transcendental truth through fiction!"

"I don't understand anything you are saying. Speak normal English, please."

"I hate interns and volunteers."

"OK, that I understand," said Johnny. "But what about our intern from this spring, Annika?"

"Oh, she was great. Wonderful girl. She's the exception."

"And how about the intern who was here last fall, Femke?"

"She was great as well."

"So there are interns and volunteers who are good people then?" asked Johnny with a grin.

"Dutch girls don't count. Everybody else is terrible."

"The Dutch are special?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Then why don't you have a Dutch girlfriend?" asked a genuinely curious Johnny.

"Too tall."

"I remember!" laughed Johnny, "Annika and Femke were so tall! They scared the Kajbez boys on the street."

"Yeah, it's a good defense again you guys. You're all sort of smallish."

Johnny pretended to not understand the insult.

Then he decided he needed to shift into patriotic mode.

"You know, Annika and Femke both said that everybody here was hospitable to them," said Johnny proudly.

"Yes, we just discussed this. It was because they were tall, athletic Amazons who scared away the street perverts."

Johnny had no idea what Amazons were, but he was not going to let the slight against Kajbezistan go unanswered – at least not in his drunken state.

"Rupert, we are a friendly country. You know this."

"Why does everybody in Kajbezistan waste so much time telling foreigners how friendly the Kajbez people are? Turks, Iranians and Afghans are friendly – that's obvious. But they aren't always in your face telling you that..."

"We have a long history of hospitality!" said Johnny.

"What, like the Kajbez slave raids? Or the attacks on Silk Road caravans? Or the execution of British and Russian travelers?"

"That was 150 years ago. And they were spies!"

"You people think everybody is a spy. Am I going to be tortured and executed as well?" asked Rupert.

"No. You are a guest. We are hospitable to guests."

"That's some sort of logical fallacy you just executed."

"I just said no guests will be executed!" yelled a now very drunk Johnny. "Kajbezistan is a very hospitable. Guests are treated very well here. But... fucking spies, we will kill them!"

Johnny tried to stand, but instead just fell over backwards. After some struggle, he righted himself and sat up as straight as he could.

Rupert laughed at the sight, greatly enjoying the whole scene.

Johnny thought for a few seconds, and then reached over and grabbed what remained of the fried chicken.

Rupert was not willing to let the drunken debate end.

"Seriously, dude. Why the hell does everybody here tell me what my personal experience is? What sort of pathology is that? Everybody says that Kajbezistan is hospitable and that foreigners have a wonderful time here, but pretty much every expat has been robbed by the police, or at least vigorously fought them off – usually by lying and claiming to be a diplomat at the US embassy. And when a local hears us complaining about it, they claim that we are mistaken, that no such thing is possible in Kajbezistan. They say we are confused or that we are creating a provocation in order to defame the Kajbez people. It's insane. Local people see with their own eyes that some foreign women are being harassed and they do nothing to help them, and then later they deny that Kajbez men would ever do such a thing. When a tourist goes to the central park and takes a photo of the world's fourth tallest flagpole, the police will promptly grab their camera and return it for nothing less than $20. Everybody knows that the police do this, including to locals who need to pay $1 or $2 to get back their camera or phone. And when a famous travel blogger claimed that this happened to him, the comments were filled with outraged Kajbez who argued that he must have broken some sort of law, as if a foreigner can commit some terrible act of espionage in the central park of Chorshanbe with their digital camera. What the fuck is going on? Seriously, Johnny, what the fuck? Imagine me telling Muslims what their experience is visiting Europe or the US or Australia? Imagine me saying 'I as a non-Muslim will tell you what your experience is as a Muslim.' This is bat-shit insanity. Fuck, man!"

And with that tirade accomplished, Rupert flicked the empty bottle of vodka into the rocks that lined the riverbank.

"Um, well...Kajbez people don't like criticism," shrugged Johnny, now entering his quiet drunken phase. "It hurts."

"But does the lying make it better, especially when it is obvious to the entire world what is happening?"

"You know that lying is normal here," admitted Johnny.

"And why is that?"

"Well, the government knows it's a lie when they say it, and they know that you know it's a lie. But they want you to repeat the lie that you know is a lie. That's how you show that you know they own you."

"I'm not talking about those lying imbeciles in the government. I'm talking about the Kajbez people and their own lies."

"I think they feel OK if they can believe their own lie," said Johnny in an attempt to be conciliatory.

"Yeah, so it's some sort of mental illness."

"You people drag Muslims off of airplanes for praying! What about that?"

"That's wrong. The passenger who reported them is an idiot. The police officer who removes them is a fascist. And the airlines are staffed by morons. These Muslims should sue and be given compensation. Now you Kajbez should do the same thing."

"But...you admitted you people are wrong. I won't admit that we are wrong."

"Why are you now going back on your admission? Jesus Christ," exclaimed an exasperated Rupert.

"In Islam he is considered a prophet. Did you know that?"

"Johnny, never mind Jesus. Is it wrong that Kajbez police rob and harass foreigners?"

"They must have proof. Then I would admit that the Kajbez police are wrong. But they don't have proof."

"What the fuck? Are you two different people? Sometimes you go on and on about how corrupt and cruel the Kajbez government is, and then at other times you will defend it to the death from criticisms of corruption and cruelty."

"Maybe we are all mentally ill, just like you said," said Johnny angrily as he again attempted to stand before once again falling backwards.

Rupert laughed.

"I'm going for a swim," announced Rupert in an even more authoritative tone than the first time he announced this same plan.

*****

24 hours later, after sobering up...

Rupert and Johnny were parked at a crossroads outside Stalinsk, where the road signs advertised three terrible destinations even worse than the town of Stalinsk itself. Johnny fidgeted nervously, but he wasn't thinking about travel options. He was about to meet his uncle. When Johnny's father found out where he was, he set up a meeting for him with his uncle who was nearby on business. So, with three hours' notice, Johnny had begged some time off so that he could see his father's brother. Rupert was quite suspicious, as Johnny had not invited him to come along for tea. Invitations to foreign guests were universal, even if they were not always sincere. So Johnny asking for Rupert to remain behind was, by Kajbez cultural practices, highly unusual and even quite rude.

"So your dad just says 'Go visit your uncle that you haven't seen in over a decade!' and you have to just follow his orders?"

"Yes. I am his nephew. I must do it. Plus, my father has other reasons, not just for me to have tea with his brother."

"Such as?" asked Rupert.

"My father told my uncle that I am going to be unemployed after a few months, so my uncle said to come talk to him."

"What does your uncle do?"

"Import-export."

"Of what?"

"Cigarettes, vodka, auto parts, other stuff."

"He sounds like a smuggler."

"Oh, no! Nothing like that. He is mafia."

"Oh. That's much better! For a second there I thought he was working as a smuggler."

"Yeah, his nickname is Black Alimzhan. But he is not top-level mafia. He is only big in the Eshakdek region. But he's not a boss there either. He works for a guy named Bakha Junior. And that guy used to be much stronger, but the mafia from the president's hometown has taken the best parts of Kajbezistan."

"There is a presidential mafia?"

"Yes. They are greedy and won't share with other smaller mafias."

"Bastards! There is no longer any honor amongst thieves," said Rupert sympathetically.

"Mafia, not thieves," objected Johnny.

"Of course."

And as if on cue, a mint-condition mid-2000s model black Mercedes S-Class with tinted windows pulled up next to Rupert and Johnny. Rupert noted that the car was nice by Kajbez standards, but it was hardly what the children of the Kharvori mafia drove around in Chorshanbe (i.e., brand new Range Rovers and BMW X-8s). Plus, black cars were banned in Chorshanbe as the president considered them to be, like crows, bad luck. But such was the income stream for the provincial mafia versus the mafia that dined with the president's family. They could never hope to drive their car into Chorshanbe.

A rough-looking and heavy man stepped out of the passenger side of the Mercedes. He wore the universal uniform of the post-Soviet small-timer mafia figure: black leather jacket, dark wool driving cap, optional moustache, gold watch, and a full set of gold teeth to match. He walked straight to Johnny and gave him a bear hug while laughing.

"Vovchik! My little Vovchik!" Johnny's uncle bellowed in Russian. "Look how tall you are! But why are you so skinny? Didn't they feed you in New York? And who is this? Your friend?"

"This is my colleague, Rupert."

"Hi! I'm Alimzhan."

And with that brief greeting, Rupert extended his hand out to meet Alimzhan's. The uncle's grip was strong, far too strong for foreigners or city Kajbez. And his hands were not just strong, but also covered in long-ago faded tattoos. Rupert guessed that they were prison tattoos.

"So you work with my naughty nephew? I hear he is soon to be unemployed. Was he sleeping with the boss' daughters?" jokingly bellowed the now somewhat likable uncle.

"Unfortunately, our organization has run out of money. We are both soon to be unemployed," said Rupert truthfully.

"Poor Vovchik! He will starve to death on the streets!"

"Vovchik?" asked Rupert.

"I gave him that name. It's usually the nickname for kids named Vladimir, but it also means terrorist! Or extremist. Wahhabi!" exclaimed Alimzhan with a big grin. "He was a tough little guy, always wrestling with my two little boys in the street. Like an angry little terrorist! Damned hooligan! So that's his name now."

"Vovchik. I like it," said Rupert agreeably.

"So, Rupert, come with my Vovchik and I. We will get something to eat and maybe have a quick drink. I have just enough free time before I need to go do some business."

"Unfortunately I also have some business for the next few hours. My organization has a project back towards Yomonganda that I need to check up on," lied Rupert regrettably.

The invitation was insincere, and Rupert's excuse was fake, but it was for the best in order to avoid an awkward situation. Rupert sensed that the two men needed their family privacy.

"Well, I'll have my nephew back to you in a few hours!"

And with that, Johnny and his uncle left with a quick "Bye!"

Rupert had nowhere to go, and nothing to do after buying some snacks at the small crossroads shack. He settled down into wasting time on his phone, watching Liveleak videos of shipping security contractors shooting Somali pirates. Rupert became bored soon after migrating over to videos of drone strikes in Afghanistan. He decided that a short walk was probably better than sitting in the car. This led Rupert to the top of a very small hill that overlooked the crossroads. He had the area to himself. It was just Rupert, the boy who was trying to sell junk food to drivers from his small shack, and a solitary donkey that was grazing near the road.

Rupert's wish for the boredom to end was soon answered by a solitary Lada Zhiguli that made a suspicious U-turn after driving through the crossroads. Driving back, the Lada, even more suspiciously, stopped at the intersection and idled while the passengers stared out the window at...something.

They weren't looking at Rupert, nor at his car. And they weren't looking at the junk food shack. They were looking at the donkey.

Rupert found this disconcerting.

And then Rupert spotted it: there was a donkey in the backseat of the car. It wasn't moving at all, it was just staring out the window into the distance.

This sort of thing may seem strange to an expat who is new to the country, or to an expat who had never ventured outside of Chorshanbe. But for Rupert, he had learned to just accept every single insane absurdity. And the situation was about to get even more absurd.

The driver revved the Lada – as much as an underpowered Lada could be revved – and made a beeline straight for the grazing donkey, off the pavement and onto the dirt and through the field. The donkey at first did not notice, but when it finally sensed that one of the hundreds of cars that had driven by today was heading straight for him, it was too late. The Lada crashed into the donkey's hindquarters, sending it to the ground with a twisting spiral of dust and hair.

The donkey immediately began to bray loudly in distress and pain, unable to get its two broken hind legs to move on command. For the donkey, it was too late. Two men jumped out of the car and pounced on the poor creature while a third man casually walked up to the donkey with a length of rope. The men then bound the donkey's legs and lifted it up, carrying it like a wounded soldier towards their car.

The third man opened the trunk and there Rupert could see yet another passenger: there was already another donkey in the trunk. The three men efficiently stuffed the new donkey in with the previous kidnapped donkey and slammed the trunk shut. The donkey in the backseat of the car remained expressionless.

And with that, the three men and their three donkeys sped off slowly in their over-weighted Lada.

"Huh," said Rupert out loud. Nothing in Kajbezistan could shock him anymore. All he could think of was that there was a probably a very good reason for what the three men had just done, even if he could not think of a single possibility. Who does vehicular kidnappings of donkeys? And does it matter? Probably not, thought Rupert.

After another hour or so Rupert came back down the hill and wandered over to the snack shack. The boy inside could not speak any Russian aside from yelling out the prices of his chips and candy. The donkey mystery remained unsolved.

Johnny's return by shared taxi was exactly on time – to Rupert's great surprise.

"Anything interesting happen while I was gone?" asked Johnny.

"Nope. Nothing at all."

*****

Date: Two weeks earlier.

Place: Ram's Hotel and Brothel, Shim-Kurgan City.

People: One ugly KGB officer, and another even uglier KGB officer.

The two KGB officers stood in the hotel lobby with their usual angry faces, which they thought did a good job of giving them an air of authority. The concierge had told them that he had not been working on the days during which the two security officers said a specific foreigner had been seen at the hotel, but that he would summon his manager and get them the information they needed.

After a 20 minute-minute absence – an unusually long amount of time to make a KGB officer wait – the shifty-looking concierge returned from his back office and stated meekly that, "My manager will be here within ten minutes. He is coming as fast as he can. He said to show you into our deluxe VIP private room to wait."

"Who is he to think that he can make us wait!?" barked the less ugly of the two KGB officers.

"I am so sorry. He was having a meeting in another part of town. He will be here very soon."

"We have been waiting for 30 minutes already!"

"I am so sorry, captain. Please," the concierge said again as he gestured towards a door marked 'VIP Deluxe' in English, "have a seat. I will have someone bring you some tea. Please..."

"Black tea. Sugar and lemon. Hurry!" grunted the uglier of the KGB officers.

The two officers were to grow even angrier as they waited another 30 minutes.

Their tea never arrived.

"Who are these people to make us wait so long!" the ugly one complained to the uglier one. "I'm going to make life hell for this idiot hotel manager."

Finally, after over an hour since they arrived at the hotel with their simple query, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in, God damn it!" yelled the ugliest one.

The door opened and a line of four men waddled through the doorway. None of them had the appearance of a hotel manager. All four of them were wearing the exact same outfit: black slacks, dark shirt and heavy black leather jackets – despite the hot weather. Three of the four were grinning like hyenas, showing off their full grill of gold teeth.

The less ugly of the officers stood to challenge them.

"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice dripping with disdain.

The reply from the black leather jacket man in front was a quick and very hard punch to the officer's throat. The officer crumbled onto the floor. The other three men quickly moved to grab the second officer, holding him up against the wall by his face.

The officers would soon find out who exactly these men were, or more exactly, who they worked for. The two officers' haste to invade the hotel with their perceived authority was very unwise, as the hotel was owned by a childhood friend of the president. And the fact that there was so much alcohol being sold by the hotel restaurant, combined with the fact that the entire fourth floor was used to house/imprison sex slaves, necessitated the hotel having some very rough men on call to take care of any problems that may arise.

"Nice gun," remarked the black leather jacket man in charge as he pulled the officer's gun out of the hidden holster. "Do you think maybe I should stick it up your ass?"

The uglier of the officers, still writing in pain on the floor, could not reply as he continued to gasp and choke. His assailant laughed and looked over at the second officer, who was having problems breathing with somebody else's hands tightly gripping his throat.

"OK, it looks like you two have made an honest mistake," said the puncher in a friendly but menacing tone. "You seem to be interested in harassing this hotel's very dear foreign guests. But I guess you didn't know that this place was owned by Nusrat-without-underpants."

How Nusrat-without-underpants had gotten such a strange mafia nickname had something to do with him arriving at school one day as a ten-year old, for reasons unknown, with sagging pants and no underwear. And thus was born, from the cruelty of his classmates, a lifelong nickname. That information is usually relayed to people for the sake of amusement, but the real important piece of information is that Nusrat was not only from President Islambaev's hometown of Aryanabad – then known as Turkabad – but he was also from the president's neighborhood. Here in the president's hometown was where began the friendship between a young Soviet black-market racketeer named Nusrat and a young apparatchik of the Communist Party of the Kajbez Soviet Socialist Republic named Gulganberdybacha. The friendship continued as both climbed the ladders of their respective professions in the province of Kharvor and then upwards and onwards to the capital of Chorshanbe. Gulganberdybacha Islambaev was now a presidential demi-god, and Nusrat was untouchable.

"You do know that your Chorshanbe KGB rank is worth shit here, right?" continued the young mafia enforcer. "You could be a Colonel and we could still shove a rake handle as far down your throat as we like. But we won't – at least not this time. I won't kill you, out of respect for the fact that you are a fellow Kharvori."

The KGB officer on the floor whimpered quietly.

"You should leave town now. And don't ever think about coming here again with stupid questions about our hotel guests."

The Mafioso handed the fully loaded handgun back to the KGB captain, knowing that the officer had been completely neutered.

"Now...shoo!" yelled the scowling enforcer, using an imperative verb usually reserved only for stray dogs and very naughty children.

As the two traumatized KGB officers walked back to their car, their feelings slowly shifted from shock to a burning sensation of complete humiliation. Then a feeling of sheer, impotent anger started to spread throughout every part of their bodies. That feeling stayed where it was, festering. It was to be a very silent and unpleasant drive back to the capital.

*****

Date: Gulyoshka 20th, 2019.

Place: The western oilfield town of Yangi-Uzen.

People: Rupert and Johnny.

After a depressing drive through the oilfields, Rupert and Johnny passed through the small regional city of Yangi-Uzen, site of the Yangi-Uzen Massacre (as the western press described it) or the Yangi-Uzen counter-terrorist operations (Kajbez government terminology). A strike by oil and gas workers here in 2011 was put down by Kajbez army special forces under the command of President Islambaev's son Rizvon, who killed up to 64 of the Kajbez strikers within an hour of his arrival. KGB investigators then poured into the region, arresting labor union leaders as well as anybody who voiced either criticism for the government or support for the striking workers. A favored tactic was to arrest and torture the family members of arrested strikers, in a usually successful attempt to persuade them to testify in court that the man of their family was in fact attempting a terrorist overthrow of Kajbezistan's constitutional order. If a targeted man had teenage daughters or a young wife, then it was very easy to find KGB volunteers for the torture session, as most looked forward to the rape portion of the interrogation. Finally, with too many workers to punish with jail time, security forces resorted to the summary execution of those they thought might cause a scene while in court. Rumors circulated of a further death count of at least 200 more labor union members.

Within a few months of the Yangi-Uzen massacre, Rizvon Islambaev – now promoted by his father to the rank of general – had scheduled a lavish birthday celebration for himself in Chorshanbe, with paid/invited guests featuring Sting, Kanye West, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and, for reasons totally unknown, the washed-up turn-of-the-millennium actress Hillary Swank. Sting, despite having sung and performed in numerous states with horrific human rights records, backed out after Amnesty International threatened to publicly shame him in the British tabloids. Hillary Swank did not get the memo and showed up to awkwardly take the microphone on stage and congratulate Rizvon, whose name she pronounced Rev-Zone. Kanye West and JCVD stood their ground despite being warned, and showed up to collect their paychecks. Kanye received a rumored $3 million in cash while the Belgian action film superstar Van Damme received $60,000 and as much free cocaine and as many pre-paid Kajbez prostitutes as he could manage over the three-day period he was in the country. One source at the birthday party provided photos of another 'celebrity' identified as Jennifer Lopez. However, no journalists working the Central Asian beat recognized the name.

Since then the riches of the Kajbez oilfield have been left under the ground as the lowest bidder installed pipes that corroded when in contact with the especially acidic Kajbezistani crude. The Economist mentioned the incident, mocking the Kajbez project while noting that any first year petro-chemical engineering student could, in their classroom laboratory, do an acidity and corrosion test with the highest degree of accuracy. As for other unexploited fields, Western companies have been reluctant to make bids after the recent clumsy nationalization of the Oldmont Oil & Gas Company. No company was willing to risk building an entire project and training the Kajbez to work it just to have the government expropriate their investment. Kajbez oil riches remain elusive.

The natural gas sector had more Soviet-era infrastructure still in place than did the oil sector. However, China just cancelled a new pipeline project, and Iran pulled out of buying Kajbez gas amidst a pricing dispute that was completely Kajbezistan's fault. The alleged plans for a pipeline through Afghanistan – a favorite of Afghan war conspiracy theorists – were on hold, as they have been since 1995. The Pakistani and Afghan signatories to the trans-Afghan pipeline deal occasional met with their Kajbez counterparts to sign memorandums of understanding and to pledge eternal friendship, but nobody actually started building the pipeline. This left Russia as the only transit route, and Gazprom just made a terrible offer to expand the capacity of the existing pipeline route. Kajbez enthusiasm was low because Russia wanted to pay the same price it had for its original deal: 17% of current world market price.

"Your president killed a lot of your people here, huh?" asked Rupert.

"It was not the president, it was his son. He came here with a group of killers and massacred the workers. He is a criminal."

Rupert decided it was time to berate a Kajbez.

"Your leaders should do a better job of protecting your people – even if it's from the president's son."

Johnny did not reply.

"Your president must think he is a good guy, right? He thinks he is something other than a malevolent, cruel bastard."

"What do that mean?" asked Johnny, taking the bait.

"This family of assholes who run this place really actually think that they are like some sort of benevolent dictators. Your president even praised the Singapore model. As if Kajbezistan is anything even remotely like Singapore!"

"It's not?"

"Well, the prime minister of Singapore did hand over the reins of leadership to his son."

"Well, then we are the same. Everybody in Kajbezistan knows that the son will follow the father here."

"Yeah, but it's not the same. Singapore invests in infrastructure and its people, for example, not secret offshore bank accounts for the presidential family. And the police on the street in Singapore do not rob people. And customs at the airport don't steal from courier packages and tourist luggage."

"But then how do they make a living?"

"Everybody pays their taxes. Including the wealthiest people. And then the tax money is used to pay the salaries of police officers. The salaries are enough to live on and support a family."

"Oh? So just like in New York?" asked Johnny.

"Well, sort of. But the rich people in New York don't pay their fair share of taxes. And a lot of the taxes collected go towards settling lawsuits against the police for beating up black people."

"The police in Singapore don't also beat black people?"

"Well, no. Least not because there are no black people living there. Just Chinese and Indians. And Malays or whatever. Plus some sort of temporary foreign white underclass that works in PR and advertising."

"So who do the police in Singapore beat?"

"Drug dealers. With a big stick. A guy, like a dude dressed as a ninja, he uses a heavy stick and beats them until they bleed."

"Well, it's the drug dealers' fault for not paying bribes to the police," said Johnny bluntly.

"No. The police don't take bribes there. Jesus! How do you not understand this?"

"But why not? Why don't the police take bribes?" asked Johnny, who was slightly confused about the situation in Singapore.

"Because they have a salary. And they don't want to destroy their own country."

"Oh, OK. Now I understand."

"No you don't. I really don't think you do. But I am definitely done with this conversation," muttered Rupert.

Rupert and Johnny could now see Yangi-Uzen in the rear-view mirror.

Special Information Insert #7

How to (Not) Insult Kajbezistan

It's really quite easy to anger the Kajbez government and/or people. You are probably insulting Kajbezistan without even realizing it. Here are some ways that you can do it, and a few successful examples from the recent past:

Insult Stalin: Josef Stalin is an unofficial hero in Kajbezistan. Most recently, the Kajbez KGB arrested three Italian backpackers in retaliation for the British film The Death of Stalin. The Kajbez Foreign Ministry soon after demanded from Italy the extradition for trial of the film director Armando Iannucci who, despite his name, is a British citizen born in Scotland.

Write an article about Kajbezistan: Be careful, almost every article not written by the patriots of the official government 'Golden Age' press agency is considered to be a provokatsiya – literally an anti-Kajbez provocation meant to destroy the nation's honor and the state's constitutional order.

Mention the Olympics ban: The International Olympic Committee has banned Kajbezistan from both the Winter and Summer Olympics for its state-sponsored doping regime, including the forced injections of testosterone into its female athletes. However, if you are in Kajbezistan you should agree with the Kajbez version – namely that Kajbezistan is boycotting the Olympics for its discrimination against their athletes.

Criticize the presidential family: A dissident's former lawyer's lawyer's wife had her legs broken in custody because her husband's client's former client is an exiled dissident who wrote an article alleging that the Islambaev family is expropriating businesses and harassing their competition out of business.

Write about the opposition: Journalists and opposition activists are increasingly being charged with corruption and polygamy, more so as a pretext than for the crime itself, as the president's relatives are famous corruptioneers and polygamists.

Share the most recent corruption scandal on social media: One of the president's sons-in-law uploaded an Instagram selfie of himself in Dubai wearing a Richard Mille Tourbillon Split Second Chrono wristwatch, which retails for £640,287. How he came to purchase a million-dollar watch on his $400 per month salary as the deputy head of the Anti-Corruption Agency is still a mystery. He has offered his old watch as a reward (a Richard Mille RM016 Ultra Flat in White Gold with Diamond Bezel) for the identity of the person who took a screenshot of the Instagram image and shared it online elsewhere.

Engage a Kajbez intellectual in friendly conversation: Kajbez intellectuals almost uniformly suffer from narcissistic personality disorder. The slightest criticism of their views will send them in to a rage, as their entire identity is wrapped up in being smarter and knowing more than others about both their narrow field of expertise, and in everything else in general. Whatever you do, do not mention how in the 1991-1993 civil war the intelligentsia were the first to scream for war and the last to fight (they fled the country immediately and continued to shout from their perch in Moscow or Istanbul). This incident is still a sore point for their collective pride. Furthermore, they have been downgraded by President Islambaev's attacks on academia and the arts. Their status is now low, but their ego is at an all-time high. Avoid them at all cost.

Mention the war: WWII is even more extremely sensitive. A female Finnish expat on Facebook posted a link to a magazine article on the Soviet Red Amy's mass rape of German women in Berlin. She was immediately charged with inciting racial hatred and insulting the historical memory of Kajbezistan. Worrying that somebody would make good on the public demands for her corrective rape, the German embassy hid her for two months and then created false documents that gave her a German identity and a German embassy employee profile. She was then driven to the Chinese border and handed over to a Finnish diplomat on the other side. The sassy Finn then navigated the Great Firewall of China to post a link on Facebook to a different article, specifically one about how so many Kajbez soldiers in the Red Army deserted and joined the Turkestan Legion – Muslim Nazi battalions that fought against the Americans and the British on the Western Front. Facebook was subsequently blocked, and Finns are now banned from travelling to Kajbezistan.

Tell them about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: The Kajbez Ministry of Information has demanded that Wikipedia remove its Kajbezi-language article on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (AKA the Soviet-Nazi Pact, or the Stalin-Hitler Pact). The idea that the Soviet Union started the war by invading Poland alongside Nazi Germany is just too much for Kajbez citizens to handle.

Mention the other war: The people of Kajbezistan alternately hate or fear Afghans. Kajbez people love to note how backwards and broken Afghanistan is ("Thanks to the Soviet Union, we are not like Afghanistan"), while neglecting to acknowledge that they were the ones that broke Afghanistan in the 1980s while still a part of the Soviet Union, and later as an outside supporter of warlords during the 1990s. You are only allowed to mention this war as a resounding Soviet victory against terrorism.

Say nice things about Afghans: Kajbez locals love denigrating Afghans. Whatever you do, do not break the bad news that Afghans are often more educated, more cosmopolitan, more hospitable and generally more fun to be around.

Question the hospitality: Kajbez hosts love to tell foreigners about how hospitable they are. Seldom a day passes where a Kajbez doesn't tell you once again that Kajbezistan is a very hospitable country. Any suggestion that the hospitality may be merely formal and not always genuine will be met with extreme anger, threats and an expulsion from whatever roof you are under at that exact moment.

# Chapter Seven

# Desecrated Graves and a Very Dead Sea

Date: Gulyoshka 23rd, 2019.

Place: Ghamabat City (known locally as Proletarsk), located in the Karpetdag Special Border Zone that protects Kajbezistan from lost Iranian shepherds.

People: Rupert, Johnny, and a small boy busying himself with sorting a pile of human bones.

"So, could you ask the kid why he's got a pile of half-decayed human remains and bones all randomly jumbled together in a pile next to the street in the middle of a major city?" asked Rupert.

Johnny was both appalled by the sight of partially decayed body parts, and by the idea that he would have to get information out of a local kid in the Kajbezi dialect of this particular region.

The conversation went about as badly as Johnny expected. But he persevered through the interrogation and eventually got the information he needed after about five minutes or so and back and forth.

"OK, so see the empty field?" asked Johnny as he gestured to the empty lot next to the street.

"Yep. It's a bunch of dirt mixed with garbage. Typical Kajbez urban desert scene," scoffed Rupert.

"Well, it used to be a cemetery. But someone important bought it for, like, $100 and..."

"$100? Seems cheap for a city lot, even by Ghamabat City standards."

"It is government property that is being privatized."

"They are privatizing graveyards?"

"Yes," said Johnny as if it was a normal, everyday fact. "And privatized state land is usually sold to relatives or friends of government officials at a very low price."

"Right. So...what explains the pile of decomposing body parts and skulls?"

"They came in here with dump trucks and heavy machinery and scraped away all the graves. They said they were relocating the graves to a better place, but who knows where they dumped the dirt they took from here. So these bones were what was left over. The construction guys are paying these kids to collect the rest of the bones that they missed."

"Hmm," was all Rupert could offer in response.

"Weird, I know," said Johnny. "Kajbez people are Muslims, and in Islam it is a considered offensive to dig up bodies and rip them apart with heavy machinery."

"I'm sure it is."

Johnny nodded in return.

"What are they building here now?" asked Rupert.

Johnny had another quick conversation with the kid who was now busying himself with tossing some stray ribs and a severed hand onto the pile of bones.

"A business center and some sort of huge restaurant or cafeteria, that's what I think the kid is trying to say."

"Think there's a restaurant nearby?" asked Rupert. "I'm hungry, and this restaurant built on a graveyard doesn't seem like it's going to be open for business anytime soon."

Twenty minutes later Rupert lifted his forearm off of the sticky plastic restaurant tablecloth in disgust. His arm pulled the plastic up until the tension was strong enough to overcome the power of whatever organic substance it was that was providing the stickiness.

Rupert was already in a foul mood as he had nearly fallen on his face when he slipped on the restaurant's ultra-low-quality marble-capped stairs that were cracked and in no state to stay in place firmly.

Johnny and Rupert agreed on having an outdoor lunch under what seemed to be a cheap tin roof that creaked in what was the most gentle wind possible. The view from the restaurant veranda could only be described as Soviet. A statue of Stalin occupied the small park across from the restaurant, having been long ago removed from Ghamabat City's central Stalin Park, now renamed Unity, Independence and Prosperity Park. A very new statute of President Islambaev now occupied the place of honor in the old central park.

The 8-story apartment blocks that surrounded the new home of Stalin were classic Soviet Brezhnevian monstrosities, each painted a different pastel: green, pink and blue. The washed-out tones of the buildings mixed surprisingly well with the dust that collected everywhere.

On the side of one building a mural with a chipped and fading bottom was in clear view. The scene depicted was of heroic socialist scientists with the bodies of athletes, busying themselves with something very, very important. Star rays burst out of laboratory microscopes and lightening was emitted by books. The scientists (all male) overlooked the project with stern and determined faces, while the serene (and female) lab assistants looked on with equal, but feminine, resolve to solve the mysteries of the universe. The view of the scientists' feet was lost to the fallen and vandalized tiles at the bottom of the mural.

The meal was as unsatisfactory as usual, and Rupert was quick to lobby for a hasty exit from the predictably mediocre restaurant. Their next destination would be whatever local supermarket had the best liquor selection.

Predictable, Rupert was left disappointed by the booze offerings, and so he compensated by buying copious amounts of RC Cola and Fanta to use as a mixer in a vain attempt to cover up the terrible taste of the low-quality liquor that he had been forced to purchase.

Rupert cursed regularly on his way back to the guesthouse as the plastic supermarket bags holding the booze and soft drinks were in a constant state of disintegration. Finally the two liquor porters turned the corner onto the side street that was their temporary home. But instead of relief, Rupert and Johnny immediately saw a scene that was more than a little disconcerting. Just down the street from their guesthouse, numerous police officers were standing around several police cars and an ambulance as a very angry-looking grandmother pointed her finger at the cops and loudly cursed at them.

"The hell is this all about?" asked Rupert.

"I'm not sure," replied Johnny, "but we should get off the street just to be safe."

"OK, let's get the guesthouse guy to open up the gate as quickly as possible so we can get our car out of here and hit the road."

Rupert and Johnny made good on their intentions, and quickly packed their bags. After haphazardly tossing their bags and liquor in the car, they pulled out onto the street and took a quick glance at the scene still unfolding. The back of the ambulance had been opened and young police cadets were loading bags.

"I asked the guesthouse manager. He said that the police are doing a surprise flour inspection on this street," said Johnny.

"Flower inspection? What's the hell could that possibly be?"

"There is a flour shortage in this region. The government monopoly is not very efficient, of course. So they are blaming the people for stockpiling extra flour for all the bread they bake. The police do random flour inspections every day. Today it is the turn for this neighborhood. If you have more than five kilograms of flour, it will be confiscated."

The scene disappeared as they turned onto the main street and sped away.

"Well, that would explain why the people in this city are so skinny," said Rupert as he happily snacked on a bag of crab-flavored Russian potato chips.

"So, we'll go directly north now?" asked Johnny.

"Yes. I think I've seen enough of Ghamabat City."

*****

Date: Gulyoshka 25th, 2019.

Place: Darweezow Crater Eternal Rubbish Fire, Geko-Tyube Province

People: Rupert and Johnny and nobody else.

"What did you expect?" asked Johnny.

"A gigantic, bottomless glowing hole in the desert filled with burning garbage. Like, the worst vision of hell straight out of some crazy medieval painting."

"And? Does it meet your expectations?"

"Well, it is burning... But I thought that there would be more garbage. I imagined a pyramid of burning garbage at the bottom of a huge crater. This is mostly just full of burning rocks with minimal garbage."

"Yes, that's the point," said Johnny. "The burning rocks burn up all the garbage. That's why this is the rubbish dump for the entire Geko-Tyube Province."

Rupert tossed his empty RC Cola bottle over the precipice of the crater. The strong wind blew it right back at them. Rupert didn't even turn around to see where the wind-borne plastic bottle ended up.

"You know," said Johnny, "some people say that the natural gas that keeps the fire going is starting to run out. They say that it used to be a much bigger, crazier fire."

"They should compensate by throwing in more rubbish."

"But maybe if they didn't throw in garbage, it could become a tourist attraction just for the burning natural gas," said Johnny.

"Seriously? That doesn't seem likely."

"No, really, Rupert. Imagine coming here at dusk and watching the fire as the sun sets and it becomes dark."

"That's stupid."

"I would like it."

"Alright, I'm done. This place smells like burning diapers," said a visibly disgusted Rupert.

"Where to? We are up against the Iranian border to the south and the Caspian sea to the west, so you need to choose a road that goes east or north."

"Let's go further north to Pushtikumshahr City."

"Really? Pushtikumshahr?" asked a disappointed Johnny. "We might as well just dive into the burning garbage. There is nothing there. There is nothing to do. There is nothing to see."

"Trust me, Johnny. You will like what I have planned for us to do there."

'What is that?"

"It's a secret."

"OK."

And with that agreement, the ten-minute visit to the Darweezow Crater Eternal Rubbish Fire ended.

*****

Date: Gulyoshka 26th, 2019.

Place: Pushtikumshahr City, Kyzylkalpak Autonomous Disaster Zone.

People: Rupert, Johnny, and an old babushka selling snuff tobacco.

"No. I don't want any snuff tobacco, thanks," said Rupert firmly as he tried to fend off the over-enthusiastic Kajbez babushka street vendor. "Just the RC Cola, thanks."

"Actually, Rupert, we should buy some so that we can use it for bribes. Cigarettes also. Out here the police will take one dollar in cigarettes in place of five dollars in cash."

"OK, fine. So how the hell do you use this stuff?" asked Rupert as he looked down at the plastic bags filled with a strange, almost glowing, green powder. "Is it snorted or do you stick it in your mouth?"

"How do you not know this?"

"Presbyterian Aid Services banned its workers from using this a long time ago. And outside of work, I don't hang out with people so low class that they use this junk – whatever its name is."

"Nazway. Or just plain naz," said Johnny.

"Right. OK. Nazway. How much for these twenty little packets."

"Maybe, uh...$10?"

The babushka was quite happy to make such a sale: ten packs of cigarettes, twenty plastic baggies full of snuff tobacco, four large bottles of RC Cola and one pack of gum.

As they walked back to their car, Rupert was already reading online about Kajbez nazway. He was disgusted.

"Johnny, listen to this shit. It can cause hypertension by impairing cholinergic and dopaminergic neurotransmission – whatever the hell that means – and it can also cause sudden tachycardia, reflex bradycardia, arrhythmia or cardiac arrest. I don't even know what those things are, except for the cardiac arrest."

"Don't worry, bro. Half the local men use it here. And they aren't dropping dead."

"But listen, it gets worse," started Rupert. "You know how they make this crap? You grind up dried tobacco leaves into a fine powder, and then you put it into a cement mixer along with calcium hydroxide and some other chemicals – no idea why – and the ash of burnt Juniper tree bark. At this point it's supposedly already full of lead, formaldehyde, cadmium and arsenic. Then you dump in some indigo coloring and....fiberglass. Fiberglass! What the hell is the matter with you people?"

"The fiberglass pieces are very small, but very sharp. It makes little tiny cuts in the skin inside your mouth, and the tobacco can easily go into your blood. You get a buzz quickly."

"That really doesn't seem very healthy," said Rupert.

"It gets worse, old men in the south used to add raw opium to the nazway. But now the Afghans don't send us raw opium anymore, they only want to sell us refined heroin."

"Well, that's just good business. The Afghans know what they're doing."

"Yeah, the Afghans can get you anything – aside from raw opium," said Johnny. "I got something special from the Afghan car mechanics in Yomonganda. We can use it at the lake."

"Tell me it's not heroin."

"It's not. The Afghan mechanic I bought the stuff from is not really an Afghan. He is a from a different ethnic group that lives in only one mountain valley."

"And they have what...like some crazy special drugs there?" asked an intrigued Rupert.

"Yes. Definitely crazy. I bought us some Raven's Bread."

"Raven's Bread?"

"Yes."

"I'm guessing that it has nothing to do with either ravens or bread?"

"You are right," replied Johnny. "No birds, and no bread. It's a mushroom."

"You got us magic mushrooms?"

"Something even better. It's...um...in Russian it's called mukhomor. The Kurlikian people in eastern Siberia toast it over a campfire and mix it with honey, blueberries and fermented reindeer milk. Then they drink it and get high. They go on crazy trips and fly around the Taiga talking to animals and rocks and spirits."

"So everybody up there in Siberia is just getting wasted and flying around on mushroom power?"

"No. The poor people can't afford the mushroom. So they drink the piss of shamans who recently ate the mushrooms, and you can still get high that way."

"OK, now you are just making shit up," said an incredulous Rupert.  
"Seriously, a Russian guy from Siberia told me all about it."

"This is all bullshit. But I'm going to look it up online anyways."

"OK, but don't look for Raven's Bread. You won't find it," warned Johnny. "It's a secret mix that only the people in that one mountain valley in Afghanistan know. And don't look for the piss-drinking thing in Afghanistan. It's not halal for Muslims to drink urine."

"Yes. OK. This is a normal conversation," said Rupert dryly as he searched online.

Within a couple of minutes on the frustratingly slow internet, Rupert had his answer.

"Mukhomor is...Toadstool! It's just a fucking toadstool mushroom. Amanita muscaria. This is poisonous shit, Johnny."

"That's very unscientific, bro."

Rupert kept reading.

"The mushroom is full of muscimol, muscazone, muscasophine, and ibotenic acid," read Rupert aloud. "Not sure if those are toxins or vitamins..."

Rupert was not going to quit researching until he found out what sort of poison he was going to be ingesting.

Then he found the relevant information. To Rupert's shock, Johnny was right. The lethal dose of the mushrooms was estimated at fifteen to twenty large mushrooms, a nearly impossible amount to eat.

"Huh. It says there are no documented deaths from this mushroom in the last 100 years. And it also says that the Church spread false rumors that it was poisonous because the pagans and their shamans used it in their religious ceremonies."

Johnny was quite pleased with himself.

"Oh, wait!" exclaimed Rupert. "It says there is no proven death from toadstool, but people do die from the closely related yellow and green-topped cousins of the red toadstool. And from another mushroom of the same family that is known as the Destroying Angel. Great. I hope these Afghans know what they are doing."

Johnny just smiled.

"So how do you use this? Is it just dried mushrooms and we eat them? Or boil them in tea, or put them in a cheeseburger or what?"

"It's already a liquid. It's been mixed with orange mountain berry concentrate and some other things that I don't know the translation for."

"Things?" asked a concerned Rupert.

"Yes, things. Some kind of plants."

"And I'm supposed to trust this little bottle full of hallucinogenic elixir? We don't even know how many mushrooms have gone into that bottle."

"Oh, it's fine. The Afghan mechanics working on the cars were a little bit high on small doses of Raven's Bread while we were there. One of them said that it opens a third eye that can see into other worlds. They said it helps them to see inside the engine and diagnose the problems."

"Ah yes, the eighth plane of inter-dimensional existence where the Toyota Corolla dwells," remarked Rupert flatly.

"What does that mean in normal English?"

"It means that I'm worried about our car," replied Rupert as their Opel Astra drove smoothly down the street.

The streets of Pushtikumshahr City were not Rupert's concern, as they would soon be at their desired destination. Here in the city there was a special, secret museum that Rupert had always wanted to visit. And Johnny needed little convincing, as their destination was the Museum of Avant-garde Soviet Pornography. This unofficial museum was a former KGB repository for all the pornography that was confiscated during the Soviet era. The belief at the time was that the 'artwork' should not be destroyed, but rather studied in order to determine the manner in which the capitalist-imperialist societies were trying to destroy socialist values with their perversions. By the 1960s the archives were closed to new additions, and KGB officers throughout the USSR were told to destroy any pornography that they came across – a decision that led to impressive private collections in the homes of low-ranking KGB officials.

Of course, this underground museum was not exactly something that the Kajbez government wanted to publicize. Fortunately, the local government decided to quietly protect the museum in exchange for a suitable bribe from the archivists who made regular sales online from their collection to Swiss collectors and Japanese perverts.

The location was a well-kept local secret, and only Google Maps could tell you where it was. Within fifteen minutes, Rupert and Johnny pulled up to where the museum was allegedly located. In front of them was a whitewashed wall and a single blue wooden door with a huge polished metal padlock clamped tightly.

With immense disappointment, the two would-be voyeurs read the small sign next to the door that informed them of the museum's open hours: Thursday to Saturday only, 1pm to 5pm.

"Well, what now?" asked a disappointed Johnny.

"Let's go see the sea."

"The sea is all gone. It's dried up," said Johnny regretfully. "We used up the water for all the cotton. The rivers don't make it this far west anymore. The seaside town of Yo'qnoq isn't near the sea anymore."

"I know. I want to see the stranded ships in the sand and maybe drive into the salt flats where the seabed use to be."

"The Ak-kum. The White Desert. It's poison. And sand. And salt," warned Johnny.

"Sounds like a great place to get high on Raven's Bread," countered Rupert.

"OK, let's go!"

The drive was quite depressing, as what remained of a once great river delta had been turned into dried mud flats, devoid of any plant life. The ancient delta civilization that once thrived here was long gone. The Soviet settlements were on their way out. Everything was decaying and fading. Dried canals and rusted irrigation equipment dotted the landscape. Nothing else could be seen aside from the occasional small flock of sheep or cattle. What they were finding to eat on the parched, lifeless ground was a mystery.

"Rupert, I know the air conditioning does not work very well, but we should really roll up our windows."

"Why?"

"The dust in the air," said Johnny as he gestured down the road into the hazy distance. "It's bad for your health."

"Nice. How bad?"

"This is where the Oxus River comes to die. This dried delta is full of the chemicals that it brings downriver. The defoliant chemicals from the cotton fields are the worst. But there are also some other chemicals and pollution. It's all mixed together with the dust, the salt, the dried shit and everything else. The wind picks it up and blows it everywhere. It's on your clothes, it covers your hair, and it's in your lungs."

Rupert rolled up his window.

"So how do these people live here?" asked Rupert.

"Badly. They are sick. Their children are ill. They all die early and their lives are miserable."

"Why not relocate? Are they too poor?"

"Well, even if you have the money, the propiska system forbids you to move to a new town or region. And even if they had the money to pay the bribe for a propiska, they speak a weird dialect here. They would have problems to find work in another city."

"So they are basically in a big, open-air prison?" asked Rupert.

"Yes. A poison prison."

Rupert looked out the window at a young boy moving an emaciated cow down the road with the occasional swing of a stick.

The boy quickly disappeared in the rear-view mirror.

After another one hour or so of driving, Rupert had nearly lost his mind with boredom.

"When will we get to this dried seabed?" asked Rupert.

"We are in it right now."

"What?"

"We entered the dried sea as soon as we left Yo'qnoq."

"We drove through Yo'qnoq?" asked a confused Rupert.

"Yes. Didn't you notice the old fishing ships sitting in the sand?"

"Nope."

"They were on our left, in the distance. I thought you saw them. Sorry," said Johnny.

"I thought we would be on salt flats first."

"Well, we will see the ships on the way back. This is a dead end."

"No, it's not," said Rupert.

"It's a dead sea, bro. And there is nothing on the other side."

"My map shows a track on the sea bed all the way to an island."

"It's not on my map app," said Johnny in disagreement.

"Mine is an offline map app for crazy people and explorers. Looks like someone added a GPS track based on a trip they took recently. It has notes too. It says that the track can be navigated by a two-wheel drive. It's a hard, salty surface."

"How are these people allowed to add roads to the map without permission?"

"It's a map on the internet. How can the Kajbez government ban it?" asked an annoyed Rupert.

"OK, what island is it?"

"Uh..."

"What?" asked Johnny, sensing that something was wrong.

"On the map it gives some bullshit Russian name, but in English it is labeled as Anthrax Island."

"Oh, yes. Of course. I know about it. Let's go," said Johnny casually.

"Seriously? You're OK with this?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because it's called Anthrax Island."

"It only has that name because it used to be a secret Soviet biological weapons test site. It shut down when the Soviet Union shut down," said Johnny matter-of-factly.

"That's reassuring. How long does anthrax last?"

"I'm not sure. Is it a virus or a chemical or a bacteria?" asked Johnny.

"I don't know. And my phone is out of range. So I really don't know."

"Well, if it is really bad then there will be a warning sign or guards or something," said Johnny hopefully.

"And will we run out of fuel for the car?"

"Nope. Full tank, plus an extra can in the back."

"I see your NGO training has paid off," observed Rupert approvingly. "Every other driver in this country likes to drive around with their tank 15% full at all times."

"Yeah, it saves fuel that way."

"No, it doesn't."

"But it does."

"Johnny, it's not up for debate. None of the dumb shit that drivers in Kajbezistan believe is true. One guy who took us to the mountains last year refused – while it was snowing – to put his vehicle in 4-wheel drive. He thought that 4-wheel drive uses twice the fuel that 2-wheel drive uses."

"Yeah, bro, every Kajbez knows that."

"Just keep driving, Johnny."

Rupert and Johnny eventually settled into the vague outlines of a track that pointed towards the horizon. The sandy sea bottom soon turned in to a white salt expanse and there was no track at all, leading to Rupert vaguely suggesting course corrections according to the GPS course he followed on his phone.

After two hours of Johnny driving and Rupert navigating, a few small algae-green ponds came into view. It was all that remained of an inland sea that was, until the 1980s, the size of Switzerland.

"Pathetic," observed Rupert as he stood at the water's edge.

"There are some bigger areas of water at the other end, where the Jaxartes River still sometimes makes it to the sea in late spring," noted Johnny. "The Oxus River never comes to the sea on the south side anymore."

The salt flats continued with no end, but the two travelers figuring that the algae ponds were the low point in the basin that they had to cross in order to get to Anthrax Island. It was, however, taking them longer than they had expected. The sun was getting close to the horizon as the car pulled onto what seemed to be a permanent road on land that appeared to have never been submerged. They were on the island.

"Welcome to Anthrax Island!" announced Johnny.

"Well, no security I guess," said Rupert.

"You don't need security. The only people who come here are probably just a few crazy illegal tourists each year."

"And I'm betting that merely being here is the punishment for entering this security zone."

"Do you feel punished yet?" asked Johnny.

"I don't know the early symptoms of anthrax poisoning, so I can't say."

Rupert no longer had access to the internet since leaving Yo'qnoq, so he wasn't aware of the full range of dangers on Anthrax Island. Aside from the anthrax, the Soviets had also done weapons testing with botulism, smallpox, bubonic plague, Q-fever, tularemia, brucellosis, typhus, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis.

Soon the first man-made objects were seen: metal poles of uncertain purpose sticking out of the ground, arranged in huge outward spirals. After this the ground was littered with piles of broken concrete and other construction debris.

Looking out his window, Rupert spotted several large pits filled with rusted barrels – some open and some still sealed shut. A sign nearby was too faded to read the Russian.

After another 30 minutes of driving, an abandoned town came into view.

"I think this is where the scientists lived," said Johnny.

"Are they all dead?" asked Rupert.

"No. They packed their bags and went back to Russia, leaving us this mess."

The houses all stood with their walls and roofs in good condition, but with not a single door or window remaining. The few windows remaining were just shards of glass jutting out from their frame, having been long ago broken. It was too dry for much to grow here, so no part of the town appeared overgrown. It had the classic look of a post-apocalyptic desert town.

After a long empty stretch, what looked like an old military base came into view.

A strange hellscape of decomposing buildings lined each side of the road. There was a menacing silence as Rupert and Johnny attempted to peer into the darkened buildings while still managing to remain inside their car.

Johnny pulled to a stop and turned off the engine. They rolled down their windows. All that remained was a menacing silence.

Rupert got out and announced his intention to check out the inside of one of the buildings. Johnny decided that he would rather remain outside and take a short walk.

Rupert walked through the doorless entryway and up the first flight of stairs. As he turned a corner he saw a hallway filled with broken laboratory equipment. He took a quick glance at the hundreds of glass vials and test tubes and decided that this may not be the safest place on the island. Rupert turned around and descended the stairs.

As Rupert exited the building, he heard the first sound on the island that didn't appear to be caused by the wind. A metallic clanking could be heard nearby. And there was no sign of Johnny.

Rupert slowly walked towards the sound as it got louder and louder. He could now also hear voices.

As he turned the corner, he saw the source of the noise. Johnny stood in conversation with three dusty men with very dirty hands who were throwing an assortment of metallic scraps into the back of an old Soviet Gaz-66 utility truck.

One of the scrap metal collectors was the first to see Rupert. Gesturing with a nod, he asked in Russian "Scientist?"

"No. Tourist," replied Rupert before asking in jest, "You? Tourist also?"

"No. Thieves. Metal thieves," he answered, bursting out in laughter.

The three men turned their attention back to tossing metal into their truck.

"That's all the Russian they speak," said Johnny. "They are collecting metal to sell for recycling, obviously. But they say it is a prohibited zone for them and for us."

"Yeah, that's what we figured, huh?"

One of the men turned his attention back to Johnny and asked a few questions in Kajbez while pointing across the street. On the other side stood the only brand-new thing on the island: a giant USAID propaganda sign in Kajbezi. It looked quite expensive, compete with a concrete foundation and strong metal poles.

"The guy is asking if you would be bothered if they cut apart that sign for the scrap metal."

"Not at all. It would be a shame to let the sign go to waste," said Rupert.

"Yeah, that's what I said you would say."

"What does the sign say?" asked Rupert.

"It just provides information about a US-government funded cleanup project. I don't really understand the words. It's a bunch of technical scientific stuff in Kajbezi."

One of the Kajbez looters said something aloud and then chuckled along with the other two.

Rupert looked at Johnny.

"He says the sign gives information about the lab where the CIA created AIDS," said Johnny with a frown.

"Is he joking?"

"I really can't tell. These guys don't really speak Russian, and I definitely can't speak their dialect. I can barely understand the one guy who is trying to use the Chorshanbe dialect."

"Well, sounds like a joke. I hope..."

Rupert took a look at the pathetic collection of iron in the back of the Gaz-66.

"If they go to the trouble of cutting up that sign, and if they are taking such crappy pieces like this," said Rupert as he gestured towards the load of metal, "then why don't they cut up the metal poles we saw earlier? The ones in a big spiral?"

Johnny turned to the men and had a long and difficult conversation with them. Finally he appeared to understand what they were saying.

"They don't want that metal, because those iron poles you saw were where they tied up the monkeys when they released the biological weapons."

"They bombed monkeys tied to metal poles?" asked an intrigued Rupert.

"No. They released the anthrax and other biological weapons as a spray into the air. Then they would find out the distance at which the weapons were deadly based on how far out you could kill the monkeys."

"Fuck. Poor monkeys," said Rupert sadly.

"They say that this island is home to probably 10,000 dead monkeys."

"So they don't want to cut up those metal poles because that's where the monkeys were tethered to test aerial bioweapons deployment effectiveness?"

"That's right," said Johnny. "And they said that we shouldn't have been there."

"So are we gonna die?"

"I doubt it. But the guys just said that they believe that cutting the hollow metal poles would release something deadly from the old Soviet tests."

"Well, I don't know enough about the longevity of Soviet biological weapons to dispute that," said Rupert with a frown.

The men then started another poorly communicated Kajbez exchange with Johnny.

"OK, these guys think that you are a scientist, because the only foreigners that come here are scientists," started Johnny. "They don't believe that you are really just a tourist. And they want your opinion on whether or not it is safe to cut up those monkey-poles."

"How could I possibly have the answer for that?"

"Just tell them something," suggested Johnny.

"OK, fine. Tell them that there is no way anything biological could survive thirty years in the desert sun. I'm sure those poles are fine to cut up."

Johnny relayed the information to the looters, who seemed quite pleased to find out that the metal poles were safe for the plucking.

"They also said that we can follow them out north to Aridsk," said Johnny. "Their friend works at the only checkpoint, and he can let us out as well with no problems."

"Aridsk?"

"It's not a big town, but the road should be decent once we get to the town."

"And Aridsk is to the north?"

"Yeah. It used to be on the sea, but it is now just like Yo'qnoq."

"Sounds wonderful, but I don't know," said Rupert with some consternation. "Look to the north."

"Oh, damn!" said Johnny in surprise as he took a quick look.

To the north rose a giant wall of sand and dust in the far distance.

"Looks like a haboob," remarked Rupert.

"What's a haboob?"

"Giant dust storm."

"I've never heard this word before," said Johnny.

"It's Arabic. Everybody in Iraq was using the word, and it just sort of stuck. It sounds scarier than dust storm."

"So you don't want to drive into the haboob?"

"Hell, no," said Rupert unenthusiastically.

"These guys says they will try to drive through it after they get those monkey poles. We can follow them."

"No. Hell no again."

The scrap metal looters offered their gruff goodbyes to Rupert and Johnny as they got into their lumbering diesel truck and departed back the way they came.

On the way out Rupert, being satisfied that he was not in the early stages of some sort of viral outbreak, had now grown fully bored with a repeat of everything he had just seen earlier in the day. So he turned his attention to the mini packets of nazway tobacco, deciding that he should give it a try – this probably being his last chance to experience traditional Kajbez culture.

"You want some, Johnny?" asked Rupert as he tucked several pinches worth of nazway under his tongue – in the manner that he had seen recommended online.

"Yes, but I won't take it Afghan style."

"So what's Kajbez style?"

"Under the lip or next to the cheek, not the tongue, usually..." said Johnny. "It depends on the region."

After another half hour of driving the car was once again on the flat, open salt flats.

Rupert asked Johnny to stop the car.

Rupert got out and walked in circles on the salt.

"You OK, Rupert?"

Rupert leaned forward and put his hands on his knees.

"What's the matter?" asked Johnny.

Rupert vomited onto the salt flats.

"How do you like nazway?" Johnny laughed.

Rupert continued to vomit a few more times.

"Fuck your Kajbez nazway," grumbled Rupert as he walked back towards the car.

With the giant dust storm seeming to have gotten closer, Rupert made the decision to press on even though it was getting dark. There were no ravines or rivers to drive into, and no other traffic to speak of. Follow the GPS and they would be OK, reasoned Rupert.

But soon after that, Rupert began to ignore the glowing blue GPS dot on his map app. Instead, he rolled down the window and looked out at what remained of the sunset.

"Stop. Johnny. Stop."

"Are you going to puke again?"

"No," said Rupert as he exited the car.

"You want to take a photo of the sunset?"

"No. I want to touch it," replied Rupert matter-of-factly.

"Rupert, what's the matter?"

"I don't know... I... uh..."

Rupert looked alternately towards the west and north in deep confusion.

"Is it the nazway?"

"No. Nope. Definitely not."

Johnny thought for a second. And then the realization hit.

"Wait, Rupert, did you take any of the Raven's Bread?"

"No. You...you have the little glass container."

"I put it in one of the bottles of RC Cola. Did you drink any?" asked Johnny with great concern.

"Yeah. Full bottle."

"Why?!"

"I was thirsty after I puked up all that disgusting nazway."

"Rupert! You drank all of the Raven's Bread!" yelled Johnny in a panic. "Force yourself to throw up!"

"No. I'm good. I have to touch the sunset."

Rupert then looked to his right and saw the dust storm, which appeared as a slowly moving black void in the northern sky.

"There's something inside that storm."

"Just dust and wind, bro."

"No. There is something hiding in the dust clouds. It's big," said Rupert in a dead-serious tone.

Johnny just frowned.

"We need to leave," said Rupert as seriously as he had said anything the entire trip. "Now!"

"Alright, take it easy," said Johnny in a calm voice, as if he was talking to a scared puppy dog.

"The sunset will protect us. It will fight the storm," said Rupert authoritatively. "But it's not safe here."

Rupert took one last look at the sunset, which was now – in his mind – vibrating with increasing intensity and emitting a melodic, repeating tone.

Johnny decided to take control of the situation. He gently guided Rupert back to the car, put him in his seat and strapped on his seatbelt. Without any further discussion, Johnny put the car in drive and set off due south.

Rupert was no longer sure where or what he was, or when it was. The view ahead appeared as a winding white and blue vortex of spinning salt flats and open sky.

Rupert couldn't remember anything after this point.

Johnny kept driving as the sun disappeared.

Sometime after midnight, Rupert woke up. The car was parked and it was completely silent. He was lying across the backseat. After some searching he found Johnny lying on the salt flats, using a jacket as a pillow.

There was now a three-quarters moon in the sky, and the salt flats were lit up brightly.

Johnny woke up and opened a bottle of Raven's Bread-free RC Cola.

"Did you see any fun colors?" asked Johnny "Strange shapes? Electric butterflies?"

"Nope. Nothing like that."

"So, what happened?"

"Well, from what I can remember, I had a talk with the sea," said Rupert.

"Uh-huh. And what did the sea say?"

"It said that it's not dead, it's just lying dormant, but..."

"But what?" asked Johnny.

"The sea said – not in words, but in feelings – that it wants to kill you all."

"Seriously?" asked a bemused Johnny.

"Seriously. After you are all dead, it can be reborn. The sea is hiding and waiting for its opportunity."

Rupert then looked straight into the moon as it appeared to increase in size over ten-fold.

"Thanks, moon."

"What?" asked Johnny.

"I'm going for a walk. I'll be OK. The moon will follow me."

Johnny shook his head and went back to sleep almost immediately.

Special Information Insert #8

Taxonomy of the Various Expat Tribes

The dominant local view of the expat community is that the foreigners can be easily broken down into two groups: 1) mentally unstable women and 2) men who are total losers back home. This is, however, misleading. The expat community of Kajbezistan is, in fact, far more diverse in unimaginably appalling ways.

Expat caste system: Upon arrival you will be sorted into an appropriate caste. The main sub-divisions are (1) expat with full western salary, (2) expat on local salary, and (3) unpaid western intern/volunteer. Note that it is possible for young women to transcend this system and move up (or down) according to a beauty score on the scale of one to ten.

Mental illness: Expats can also be scored on a craziness scale, from moderate personality disorder at one end, to completely insane at the other. The most common conditions are narcissistic personality disorder, paranoia, extreme compulsive promiscuity, delusions of grandeur, persecution complex, melancholia, antisocial personality disorder, and histrionic personality disorder. At home these problems are kept in check by medication, counseling and social norms. But in Kajbezistan they are free to blossom and rampage through an expat's social circles and workplace, as locals figure that any strange behavior is just how foreigners behave. As for other expats, they don't intervene, as they are just glad that there is someone worse than themselves to deflect attention away from their own behavioral peculiarities.

Choose a clan: Expats decide what sort of tribe they want to join soon after arriving in Kajbezistan. About half of newly arrived expats are repulsed by the drinking and partying tribe, and they wander off in search of something less debaucherous. Usually they end up finding something even more debaucherous.

Perverts and spies, probably: Most locals view all expats in the same way: as rich, immoral meddlers. It does not matter how well behaved an expat is, most everybody will just assume that he or she is a depraved and over-sexed spy with a pocket full of dollars.

Spies, definitely: Expats and tourists photograph everything: people working, children playing, the KGB building, police taking bribes on the street, military maneuvers, etcetera... The foreigners' photography of local children seems normal enough until one imagines a Kajbez man walking into a French or American playground and taking photos of children. A related phenomenon worth noting is that the average skin tone of Kajbez children in tourists' photos is several shades lighter that the actual average skin tone of Kajbez children.

Gone native: A tiny percentage of expats are friends almost exclusively with locals. These oddities are occasionally seen deep in conversation with locals – and usually in Kajbezi or Russian. Who they are, what they do, and why they do it are all mysteries to most other expats.

Humanitarians: NGO apparatchiks fall into three categories: 1. "Our organization is a joke." 2. "Our organization is a joke but I'm not going to admit that to others and maybe not even to myself." 3. "Our organization is great and good" (also known as 'development cult brainwashing').

Tinder for expats: Expats use it to hook up, despite the tiny pool. However, Kajbez women have started to join. About 20% of the Kajbez ladies of Tinder are working girls who only want foreign clients, 20% just really, really want sex – and with a foreigner only as he won't destroy their reputation by gossiping and sending her nudes to every other Kajbez male in the country, and the remaining 60% want to find a foreign man to marry. This only covers the actual real Tinder profiles. At any one time, probably half of the profiles are traps being set by Oltmish Choro, the second most popular ultra-nationalist street vigilante group in Kajbezistan. When not attacking Chinese businessmen, they enjoy beating western expats into a coma for attempting to date Kajbez girls. The regional affiliate organization in the southeast of Kajbezistan is referred to as Shast Choro, but Chinese and western expats have nothing to worry about as these particular south-eastern Kajbez nationalists are not very good fighters and have thus lost almost every street fight they have been in.

The romantic life of an expat woman: As for the expat women on Tinder, they can look forward to western male tourists, as this anonymity doesn't trash their reputation among the very judgmental and jealous expat men (who in turn do not care about their own reputation). Foreign women, if they so choose, can do far better with dating locals than do the foreign men. The reason for this is that it is quite easy to get a local boyfriend. Local men – from teenagers through their early thirties – are free to do what they want, while local women need to be home by 6pm every day.

The temporary Euro princess: Occasionally a tall, beautiful European girl from a highly ranked university arrives in Kajbezistan for an internship or study-abroad program. The pattern that is usually followed is that she will at some point be invited to an expat party, but upon arrival she sees that the party is populated mostly by the sort of expat male who looks like he should be living under a bridge and eating the occasional passing goat. She quickly makes her exit and you will never see her again, unless you sign up for yoga classes or go to one of the occasional shows for local folk artists that the Swiss government sponsors. There is no male equivalent.

The visiting academic researcher: Truly unbearable intellectuals of the nomadic variety who attempt to lecture everybody as if they were a first-year university student. They often spend an entire year researching a question for which the average person would give a correct, one-line answer. Instead, they spend an entire year collecting information in order to deconstruct that sentence into a 100,000-word dissertation that they will submit four years later.

Election observers: Elections are a joke, obviously, but the Organisation for Security and Cooperation Beyond Europe (OSCBE) sends election observers to Kajbezistan's pointless parliamentary and presidential elections in which several fake political parties (referred to as "pocket parties") praise the president and encourage voters to join them in casting a vote for President Islambaev and his party. There is fierce competition to join the ranks of the OSCBE's roster of elections observers, as each (male) observer is given a budget to hire a (local female) translator, who will then be coerced into a full ten days of sexual services for, example, a fat, wrinkled old German who was long ago forced out of the German development organization JIZ for attempting to do the same there.

The ladder of NGO demotion: If you do something reprehensible (as an expat male) in Botswana or Nepal, your organization will send you to Cambodia or Guatemala, screw up in Cambodia or Guatemala, and you will be sent to Kajbezistan, where at least half of the expat community who work for NGOs are drunks, criminals and/or perverts. The only places worse than Kajbezistan are Somalia and South Sudan, but the higher salaries there require the fiction of 'progressively responsible' advancement through NGO and international organization bureaucracies. Rupert, for example, has been stalled at regional project manager for some time, and is therefore stuck in Kajbezistan.

The ladder of promotion: Enthusiastic, beautiful and youthful female NGO apparatchiks with degrees from prestigious universities desire nothing more than quick one-year tours of duty in Latin America, Africa and someplace in Asia before ascending to the NGO's ivory headquarters in New York, London, Paris, or some other large cosmopolitan western city where most of the organizations' budgets are spent anyways. However, many of these women are usually stymied in the quest for advancement by male co-workers who get their promotions thanks to their social connections that they made through drinking, whoring, totally unwarranted confidence during interviews, and other male specialties.

Marmot Rescue International: A crowd-funded NGO that nurses injured marmots back to health. Mostly it is just a front for expats who want to go trekking and climbing in the mountains of Kajbezistan for an entire summer. The Ministry of Health, Sanitation and Punitive Psychiatry is in the process of shutting down the marmot-lovers NGO in response to an incident during which a rescued marmot spread bubonic plague to four local employees.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation Beyond Europe: The OSCBE is a sad, low-rent regional version of the United Nations for western Eurasia. Their staff is made up mostly of the assorted riff-raff of seconded European government employees with nothing better to do. Some actually enjoy their posting. For example, the Bulgarian OSCBE field officers in Kharob City get a heads-up from the GAI road police whenever there is an unexpected OSCBE car passing through. They shower, shave, hide the hookers and go to the office and do their best to pretend that they are working. They are in quite good with the local mafia as well, spending most of their time in the mafia's brothel.

# Chapter Eight

# Imbeciles, Hypocrites and other Assorted Foreigners

Date: Gulyoshka 31st, 2019.

Place: Kara-Kök Province, known for its large herds of delicious meat-horses and its thriving bride-kidnapping industry.

People: Rupert, Johnny and a German PhD student named Stefan who they picked up hitchhiking.

"Wait, let me get this right...You say you were in a jail for two weeks but you don't know where, and your jailers didn't tell you who they were?" asked a skeptical Rupert.

"I assume that they were KGB, and that maybe they didn't have permission to detain me for that long, because some different guys showed up one morning and released me quite suddenly with no bureaucracy or paperwork," replied Stefan.

"You are serious?"

"Yes."

Stefan did not welcome Rupert's interrogation after having endured so many during the last two weeks.

"If they were KGB, then they should have informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who would have informed your embassy almost immediately," interjected Johnny.

"If they had informed my embassy, a German consular officer would have come to visit me. But they didn't. And when a guy in the town you picked me up in let me use his phone yesterday, my embassy was shocked. They never heard a thing about me. I told them that my money, passport and phone were all taken from me and not returned. That's why I was hitchhiking. My embassy was quite angry."

"Then you were in some sort of black site," suggested Rupert.

"Yes, a Kajbez Guantanamo for short-term visits," replied Stefan. "But they didn't torture me. They just asked me over and over again what I was spying on and who paid me."

"Crazy," commented Rupert.

"Yes, it was."

"Honestly," said Johnny, "I think it was just some idiot KGB officers with low education. They can be quite stupid out here. They probably thought that you would turn out to be some sort of super-spy."

"I suppose I disappointed them."

"I have another disappointment, but for you this time," said Rupert. "I'm sorry to tell you that we are not going to Chorshanbe. We are going as far Kolakand, then we are making the turn up to Sari-Qarodagin Province."

"That's perfect. A friend is delivering my temporary travel documents and some emergency cash to Kolakand."

"They didn't even give your passport back to you?" asked Rupert.

"No."

"So why are the Germans delivering your passport instead of driving out to pick you up? Are you not going back to the capital?"

"No, the entire embassy is too busy. A big German industrial company, Wasserkraftfabrikwerke AG, is here to make their sale offer of turbines to the Kajbez Ministry of Hydroelectricity and Cement."

"Turbines for the Upper Nyran hydroelectric project?" ask Rupert, incredulously.

"Yes, I believe so."

Rupert and Johnny both laughed out loud.

"What?" asked a confused Stefan.

"Well, while you were in jail," started Rupert, "there was a little scandal with that project. It turns out that the Czech company with the contract to build the structural part of the dam has an industrial manufacturing history that does not extend beyond glass beer mugs and fake crystal chandeliers. The project is going to be delayed by years. Nobody will be buying turbines anytime soon. It's not public yet, but from what my friends tell me, the story will be in the local media quite soon. Anyways, everybody is talking about it."

"Well, then I suppose they will be in for a rude surprise," shrugged Stefan.

"A rude surprise for everyone," suggested Johnny.

"That industrial fiasco could have been avoided," said Stefan with a sudden air of confidence and authority, "by the simple adherence to the organizational precepts of anarcho-syndicalism!"

There was no reply from either Rupert or Johnny.

Johnny looked over at Rupert with a confused look on his face. Rupert had no explanation for their fellow traveler's radical pronouncement – only a shrug.

Stefan sighed. Yet again he would be compelled to lecture the ignorati. Unfortunately for them, the KGB officers at the black site had confiscated, crushed and snorted Stefan's Haloperidol and Risperidone pills on his first day of detention. Stefan's mood would not be controlled by medication today. It was going to be a rough ride.

"I won't bother asking if you are familiar with the writing of Rudolf Rocker, so instead I'll set the bar much lower and ask if either of you have even heard of Noam Chomsky?" asked Stefan in a condescending yet agitated tone.

"Oh, fuck," muttered Rupert, realizing what he had gotten himself into.

"What do you mean by that?" asked a now even more agitated Stefan.

"Oh, it's just that I was really into anarchism when I was fourteen. But it was a phase I grew out of," said Rupert in what was definitely not an attempt to diffuse the situation. "I think now that all normal functioning adults recognize the prosperity that has resulted from neoliberalism, American hegemony and the current global capitalist system."

The descent into hysterical madness was, due to the absence of his medication, now past the point of no return for Stefan.

Forty-five minutes later Johnny was doing his best to coax Stefan down from the roadside willow tree that he had, in a manic fit, climbed up. The lit cigarette and the bottle of RC Cola that Johnny held out, like Jesus at Bethsaida, were key to convincing Stefan to descend. Rupert, meanwhile, refrained from any sort of direct action, and watched from the comfort of the car with great satisfaction, having broken the rather fragile Stefan with the modest tools of sarcasm and indirect ridicule.

For the next 20 minutes Stefan remained mute while lying across the back seat, doing his best to ignore the fact that Johnny kept hitting the numerous potholes in the road.

Finally, his energy returned.

Sitting up, Stefan returned to his earlier train of thought that he abandoned when he had threatened to jump out of a moving car: "So, like I said, a federated, decentralized system of free associations as the labor base for the industrial economy is..."

Rupert quit listening almost immediately, while Johnny – bored out of his mind – decided to make the best of a bad situation and use the opportunity to learn some new vocabulary.

Stefan was, in Rupert's opinion, still far from the worst German he had come across. Rupert, as his close friends knew, was a bit of a Germanophobe. And in Kajbezistan, almost all the Germans worked at JIZ, formerly known as JTZ – an acronym known only to the Germans. This large German government humanitarian aid agency served as a warehouse for middle-aged German men with no social skills and abnormally attractive young German women who were notably smarter and more capable than the men they worked under. For a few years this included even their gender program, which was run by a male director, who insisted to a wide variety of confused and befuddled Kajbez NGOs that he was a male feminist, a very confusing concept locally.

As with his anti-Kajbez sentiments, Rupert's prejudice towards Germans really only extended to German men and women above forty years old, something that he would probably happily admit if anyone had ever confronted him on the matter. But he made an exception in this case for Stefan, who appeared to be well under forty years old.

"Of course," continued Stefan fifteen minutes later, "to hope for true, impartial societal relations in a capitalist plutocracy is probably too much to ask for."

"Not much justice here either, huh?" noted Rupert as he returned to the conversation.

"For the locals, there is none," said Stefan. "I, as the very rare foreigner to be jailed, have recourse to the bullying of a powerful western state."

"Well, you are not very rare, actually," replied Rupert.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you are hardly the first westerner to be temporarily jailed in Kajbezistan. There were plenty before you."

"Really? Who?" asked Johnny, who was suddenly interested in the conversation.

"The American trekkers who trekked into the forbidden zone," replied Rupert.

"Which forbidden zone? There are many," was Johnny's follow-up question.

"The one around Lake Kharez. There was a big landslide there a hundred years ago that formed the lake, and the government thinks that foreigners might go up there digging with a shovel and cause a giant tsunami, or some such silliness."

"Ok, yeah, I remember you telling that story. But who else?"

"Some Danish tourist who was flying a drone near the border. Drones are illegal now. So, off he went to prison until the Danes asked the Germans to get him out of jail. No Danish embassy in Kajbezistan, can you imagine? Anyways, the Danish guy never did see his drone again. I guess the KGB commander in that border district is now a drone enthusiast."

"More!" demanded Johnny.

"The British oil workers who got caught with prostitutes and didn't pay the police their bribe."

"But the police are the pimps for the prostitutes," said Johnny in a very concerned manner.

"Yeah, but when they think the clients are ignorant, they decide to go to the next level and steal everything they have. The prostitutes at the brothel called in their police pimps to rob the Brits. These idiots could have gone back to their hotel for a hundred dollars at most. But they refused, so Kajbez rule of law had its way with them."

"Prison?"

"Only for a few days. Then they were kicked out."

"Haha! Idiots!" laughed Johnny.

"Don't worry, they came back two weeks later. Their company really needed them to weld something that the Kajbez workers couldn't."

"Who else?"

"The Canadian girl who had sex in the street with an Italian and a Russian tourist."

"Girl-guy-guy?" asked an intrigued Johnny.

"Yeah."

"Just like online! So it does happen!"

"Yeah. But the two guys didn't go to jail. Just the girl."

Johnny laughed even harder than before, while the German remained silent and unamused.

"More!" demanded Johnny.

"The Spaniard who mistakenly urinated on the memorial to the war widows and orphans of the Great Patriotic War. It was dark, he was drunk. You know... And then there were the Czech streakers."

"Streakers?"

"Streaking is running while completely naked – and usually drunk."

"Hahah! Perverts," laughed Johnny.

"That's nothing. There was a drunk Canadian who was arrested for masturbating at his hostel."

"Why is that a problem?" asked Johnny. "Would other travelers even care if he jerks off in his room?"

"Yes they would, Johnny. Foreign travelers understand jerking off, but not if it involves some guy they just met and in the same room. It was a hostel, not a hotel. Anyhow, the real problem is that the guy did it a fully lit room while looking at his reflection in the window while it was dark. The neighboring house belonged to some Ministry of Interior official. His family had a great view. He called in OMON special forces to arrest the guy."

"What's the matter with Canadians?"

"Oh, they think everyone likes them," replied Rupert plainly.

"Ahaha! They're not all nice people, those Canadians. Their gold mine destroys our environment. Who else!?"

"There were the American kayakers who got drunk and beat up some police officer. And all he was doing was telling them to go back to their hotel."

"The same kayakers who were rescued by the government after getting lost in the mountains?"

"Yeah, those ones," confirmed Rupert. "And then there was the gay Austrian dude who picked up a honey-trap at the Fake Irish pub. KGB got him on video. He was charged with sodomy, hooliganism and reducing the virility of the Kajbez nation because he wouldn't pay a bribe. He worked for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation Beyond Europe, so he only spent a few days in jail."

"Hmm. Yeah. I see alcohol is a cause of many of these problems," noted Johnny.

"Well, not for the creepy older German guy who worked at JIZ. He was sober when the KGB honey-trapped him with a fourteen-year-old girl. She was probably seventeen in real life, but whatever... Her documents said fourteen. It could happen to anyone."

"So all the other people who spent time in jail were not drunk?"

"Well, there are the drugs as well. Numerous people have been in prison for a few days because they tried to enter the country with valium, anti-depressant pills or some sort of medication that is illegal here. And there was that Bosnian expat who is actually probably still in jail for trying to bring a big bag of ecstasy through the airport."

"Can a Bosnian be an expat?" asked Johnny.

"Oh, yeah... No. No they can't. You are right."

The German student, until this point limiting himself to the most passive form of participant observation, joined the conversation and asked, "Why is a Bosnian not an expat? In your mind, aren't all foreigners who work here classified as expats?"

"Bosnians are too poor to be expats," stated Rupert bluntly. "Americans, Western Europeans and Japanese are expats. As for central Europe, it depends: Czechs yes, Slovaks maybe, Serbs – probably not. Bosnian Serbs – definitely no."

"What are the other criteria? Ethnicity?" asked Stefan, who was now once again agitated.

"Sometimes. I would say that, in general, the Iranians, Turks, Afghans and Indians here are not expats. They are...I don't know. Labor migrants, I guess," replied Rupert.

"So expats have to be white, with an exception made for Japanese? Is that what you are saying?" asked the German in a tone that was becoming somewhat indignant. "You do see that your criteria of income neatly coincides with race, don't you?"

"I just said that Serbs don't count, and they are white. My criteria are income and education. The Indian doctor who works for UN Health is an expat, for example. But the Indian servant he brought with him is a labor migrant. You see? Also, any black American who shows up is an expat. Same goes for any South Asian from the UK."

"Also, hotness," added Johnny.

"What?" asked the confused German.

"Expats will be friends with hot girls of any race and nationality," stated Johnny. "So hot girls join the expat crowd as soon as they arrive, and their nationality is not important."

"That is true," admitted Rupert. "Now that I think of it, those Indian dudes who work as concierges at the hotels aren't really expats. But that gorgeous Indian girl who works as an assistant project manager at Save the Kids is definitely an expat in my mind. And the hotel guys are probably making more money than her."

The German didn't have anything to say in reply.

"So that's my criteria," said Rupert. "Income, education, class, country of origin, and hotness. But not race."

"The Eritrean girl as well!" yelled Johnny, in sudden realization of a great example.

"God, yes!" agreed Rupert. "That girl is amazing. She's an expat, definitely."

"What does this woman do here for work?" asked the German.

"The Eritrean girl? Education development. Some sort of program through the American University office in Chorshanbe. I dunno," shrugged Rupert. "She's so hot. She could be a model, or a high-end escort."

"You two have strange ways of talking about women for people who work in gender programming," remarked the German. "It's very demeaning and misogynist language."

"I though you anthropologists were just supposed to listen, and not talk back?" countered Rupert semi-jokingly.

"Well, I'm not doing fieldwork at this exact moment."

"No?"

"Well, you two are not going in my dissertation. If you were, I would have started the conversation by getting your consent."

"And how do you get consent from some illiterate shepherd boy who has zero understanding of what a university researcher does?" asked Rupert.

"There is a very clear process. There are ethical guidelines that are common to cultural anthropologists who..."

"No. That's OK," interrupted Rupert. "We believe you."

"Me too," added Johnny. "I believe you. But I don't understand consent."

Rupert burst out loud laughing, "Typical Kajbez dude you are!"

Both Johnny and the German stared back blankly – Johnny being clueless about the joke and the German being offended by it.

"Anyways... So, Stefan, what will you do with your degree, since they don't really hire professors anymore at universities?"

"I will hopefully secure a lecturer or postdoctoral researcher position somewhere in Europe."

"Can you work for the UN, or something? Maybe they have a trainee or an internship program?" suggested Rupert.

"Well, I wouldn't want to work at an international organization like that, but..."

"Because your skills are irrelevant outside of university?"

Stefan was deeply insulted.

"What do you mean?" he asked indignantly

"Well, governments, NGOs and international organizations seem to ignore you guys," replied Rupert bluntly.

"Policy-makers ignore academia at their own peril. We are a source of information that would help the US, the UN, the EU and others to fix their broken foreign policies and aid programs."

"So the UN and the Americans and others should consult academics?"

"Yes. Exactly."

"What's your research on, exactly?"

"It's sort of difficult to describe..."

"To a non-academic, you mean?"

"Yes."

"So you are unable to communicate with people outside of academia?" asked Rupert with a smirk.

"No, I can. It's just that...uh..."

"Well, how about we start with the working title of your dissertation? Do you have one yet?" asked Rupert.

"Yes, of course! The title is Restructuring Normative Masculinities in the Oral Traditions of Kajbezistani Mountains Herders: From Crypto-Queer 14th Century Epic Poetry to 21st Century post-Socialist Dialectics of Kajbez Gangsta Rap."

"Shepherds are rapping now?" asked Rupert after a long awkward pause in the conversation.

"No. They watch videos and listen to MP3s on their phones."

"They get a signal in the mountains?" asked Rupert skeptically. "Because I don't."

"No. No signal. They share with each other by Bluetooth, from phone to phone. If someone from a village has been to a regional center, then he'll probably come back with some new stuff he downloaded to his phone. It gets shared onward."

"Yeah, that's how porn is shared here," interjected Johnny.

Rupert laughed while the PhD student failed to react.

"These kids watch the most insane porn. Like crazy extreme stuff that no real woman would do," added Johnny. "These guys are going to be disappointed when they get married. Seriously, bro...this is new stuff. Only in the last five years have these village kids got their hands on porn. It's going to destroy their sex life."

"You sound like a feminist, Johnny," stated Rupert with a sarcastic tone that only a German could fail to detect.

"I work for the gender program at Presbyterian Aid Services. Of course I am a feminist."

"Doesn't matter. Our programs don't work," shrugged Rupert.

"I know, but it is the thinking that counts."

"It's the thought that counts," countered Rupert.

"Uh-huh. Yeah."

The German was now thoroughly perplexed.

Sensing his mild discomfort, Rupert decided to make it worse. He asked, "Stefan, you're an expert on Kajbezistan. How would you fix our broken programs?"

"Well, I'm not a gender specialist," confessed the German.

"Women aren't all we do. We do men and boys as well."

Johnny did his best not to laugh.

"I suppose I would need to study a particular project before I could offer any solutions," said Stefan.

Stefan, unlike Johnny, would not take the bait that was being offered. Rupert was deeply disappointed.

With Johnny driving, and Stefan being a bore, Rupert decided that the best thing to do would be to start drinking. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a small bottle of tequila, a spirit available only from one store in the capital. It was his favorite, as he enjoyed the contrast to the locals who seemed to despise tequila. He had been saving this bottle for a particularly desperate or boring situation such as this.

Luckily, the German, like the men of Kajbezistan, also hated tequila. But Rupert likely could have spared a few drinks, as he was not even halfway through his bottle when they pulled into the non-descript regional town of Kolakand later that day.

In front of the restaurant that Stefan's friend had set as the meeting place was an unpleasant surprise for Rupert: an oversized white Toyota SUV with a red diplomatic plate. The number at the beginning matched the US Embassy.

"That's not your friend, is it?" asked Rupert as he gestured towards the embassy vehicle.

"Yes, that's him," replied Stefan. "Do you know him?"

"No. I just have a general dislike for everybody at the US embassy."

"Well, you don't have to stay long."

"I won't, don't worry," replied Rupert.

The State Department employee was predictably boring, so Rupert used the opportunity to work on his tequila before moving on to a couple pints of the local draft beer.

The American and Stefan had an animated discussion, with the American pumping him for information, but in the process revealing that he didn't actually know much about Kajbezistan.

Rupert had been sizing up the American. He looked like a Mormon. Or, at least, Rupert figured he was a Mormon – specifically the type of Mormon who let his dreams die when he got rejected by Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Business and, as a backup, chose a career as a State Department Foreign Service officer.

Rupert had a vague idea who the Mormon was, and the Mormon had heard about Rupert, particularly the worst stuff.

"Have you found the killer yet?" asked Rupert, interrupting the discussion.

"The killer?" asked the American.

"Of John Kylie. The guy who was stabbed in the fake Irish pub."

"Sorry, I can't comment on..."

"Fuuuuuucking useless," slurred Rupert.

"Excuse me?!"

"You people are fucking useless," repeated Rupert as he took another drink of his beer.

"What?!"

"US State Department," stated Rupert with drunken disdain. "I can see why Trump eviscerated your department."

"Are you drunk?" asked the Mormon.

"Yes, in vino veritas."

"I know who you are, and who you work for!" stammered the very angry State Department diplomat.

"I don't care. Nobody cares," continued Rupert. "Everybody at Presbyterian Aid Services says that the US embassy in Chorshanbe is full of morons and failed State Department nitwits."

Johnny was now laughing out loud after doing his best to hold it in.

And with that, the junior diplomat stood up and brusquely walked away, quickly followed by the German.

Rupert joined Johnny in laughing out loud.

"OK, let's pay up and get outta here as quick as we can," announced Rupert.

"So that the American will have to take the German with him, right?" asked Johnny.

"Nope. It's against State Department rules to give rides in their cars in Kajbezistan. The German is back to hitchhiking, which suits me just fine. He is boring as shit."

"He is. He has no sense of humor," said Johnny.

"That's funny coming from a Kajbez."

"What do you mean?" asked Johnny as they stood up and walked towards where the waitress was probably hiding.

Ten minutes later the conversation about the Kajbez people's sense of humor was still in full effect.

"All of your examples you just gave are examples of Kajbez people not understanding a joke because of language problems," objected Johnny. "Imagine you or any foreigner understanding a joke in Kajbezi! It would never happen."

"It's not just language. It's also for funny situations that go beyond language."

"Like what? Give me an example!" protested Johnny.

"The dog in the hat."

"The dog in the hat?" asked Johnny as the two men got into their car.

"The dog in the hat at that dog show in Chorshanbe last winter. That was hilarious. But your people didn't think so."

The incident that Rupert used as an example was infamous, especially as it had made its way into the tabloid pages of The Daily Mail. Many Kajbez had demanded hate crime charges for a local dog show participant who had put a traditional kök-kölpök hat on her dog. Word spread on social media that there was a Shi-Tzu doggie in a Kajbez hat at a small venue downtown. An enraged mob quickly surrounded the place, led by the ultra-nationalist street vigilante group Kirkakmaq – an organization that usually spent its time beating up Chinese businessmen, as well as Korean Baptist missionaries and Japanese tourists that they had mistaken for Chinese. Fortunately, the dog escaped – but with its hat still on. Hysterical police then tried to shoot the terrified dog over the next three days as it ran helter-skelter around the city, offending national culture as it went.

"Rupert! I thought the dog in the hat was funny," said Johnny in vigorous objection. "Many Kajbez people thought it was harmless, and not an insult. You have mistaken the view of a few Kajbez idiots for the entire population."

Johnny's argument was not without merit. Rupert's opinion here of the Kajbez people as humorless Asians in a permanent state of outrage at some minor affront to their honor was not quite accurate. The dog had, in fact, become an online celebrity and the latest photos of the be-hatted dog on the run were greeted with cheers from those Kajbez citizens with a sense of humor. The local nationalist group that attempted to use this outrage to boost their profile found themselves the object of ridicule by their fellow countrymen. And in a show of how the government does occasionally take into account public opinion, state-controlled media refrained from commenting on the cheeky dog until their masters gauged public opinion. Finally, state-controlled media declared that city employees had been ordered to safely and humanely capture the harmless dog so that it may be reunited with its owner. The government did not, however, comment on the acceptability of dogs wearing the kök-kölpök.

"OK, maybe with an incident like that there are a few Kajbez with a sense of humor. But still, the Kajbez just don't get sarcasm, which is a basis for humor in most of the rest of the world."

"Rupert, we have no problems with sarcasm."

"Ha! Scientists should come here and study you people on account of your genetic lack of an ability to produce the enzymes that break down and process sarcasm."

"I don't know what that means," said Johnny, trying his best to concentrate on the road ahead.

"It's sarcasm."

"Maybe. Maybe it is. But I wouldn't know because of language and cultural differences. How many times have you failed to understand a joke in Russian, for example? Maybe it was sarcasm that you didn't understand? So now imagine trying to learn Kajbezi and then sitting all evening with a bunch of Kajbez guys drinking tea who are making jokes non-stop."

"Wow. That sounds like a wonderful time."

"That was sarcasm!" yelled out Johnny.

"Sarcasm for beginners, yes. Even a child could detect the sarcasm."

"And you aren't even at a child's level of understanding sarcasm in any language but English," replied Johnny.

Rupert pulled the bottle of tequila from his backpack and threw it out the window after drinking the last few shots that remained.

"Complete fucking idiots," mumbled Rupert.

"Who?"

"The German and the American."

"They don't seem too stupid by comparison to other expats."

"The German was in KGB lock-up. He was locked up because he was an idiot asking stupid and dangerous questions. I bet all his informants in the field are being jailed, tortured, extorted or harassed right now. And he just gets to walk right out of the country. Back in Germany he will probably tell an adventure story about how he was so daring in some random dirty third world dictatorship."

"Yeah, I guess," said Johnny in agreement.

"And the America is equally stupid for bringing the travel documents – probably without permission from the US embassy. Now the KGB probably thinks that the US embassy was directing this guy's activities."

"Yeah, they are paranoid," agreed Johnny. "The German guy was probably doing nothing. Just his boring research. Sitting around some village hanging out with young guys who listen to rap music on their $10 phones."

"I think he probably spent more time with the young girls."

"The dream of every expat," laughed Johnny.

"But it's not his dream. It's his reality."

"How do you know?"

"Google his name, plus 'Kajbezistan photo gallery,' or something like that," said Rupert casually as he handed the PhD student's card to Johnny.

Johnny fumbled for a while with his phone while also trying to keep an eye on the road.

He made an angry face.

"Slow internet..." grumbled an annoyed Johnny.

"Just try not to crash and kill us both."

Johnny's expression soon changed, and he laughed out loud.

"Holy shit bro. This guy is a professional!"

Johnny scrolled through the German's online photo gallery, marveling at the collection of photos. Every single photo was of a Kajbez girl of varying levels of beauty. Some were clearly taken by telephoto lens. Some were close-ups.

"See what I mean, Johnny?"

"Yes. Now I do."

"How old do you think these girls are?" asked Rupert.

"I don't know bro. Maybe, from twelve to eighteen? So that means no married girls. Nineteen is too old to be single for a girl. Especially for a mountain girl. These girls are all from the mountains."

"So what do you think?"

"He is a pederast. Definitely."

"Maybe he just likes taking photos of young girls? You know, in a non-sexual way," laughed Rupert.

"No, bro. He is a pervert. Definitely. And he puts this on the internet for everybody to see. You know that could be a big problem for these girls if their brother or father or cousins finds out that anybody can see their photo, right? Big problem, especially for a village girl. He is an idiot."

"Exactly."

"How did you know he did this?" asked Johnny, who had no idea whatsoever.

"He was at the fake Irish pub a few months ago. I was at a table nearby. One of the people at my table knew about what he was doing and pointed him out. They showed me his photos. We were all making fun of him."

"But you didn't meet him before?"

"Nope. I just barely recognized him. But I won't forget his face now," said Rupert emphatically.

"Doesn't matter. He is being expelled. One less pervert, right?"

"Yeah, one less pervert expat," agreed Rupert. "But he's far from the worst. He wasn't even a racist..."

"Expats are racist? Really?" asked Johnny, giving sarcasm a try.

"Johnny, trust me, all of the expats here are racist. All of them. Some of them are in denial, but it's just a matter of time before they accept it."

"And you, Rupert, are you also a racist?"

"No. A bigot, maybe. But not a racist," replied Rupert. "It's not possible for me to be a racist because, you know, I date Kajbez women all the time."

Rupert paused to think for a short while and then added, "But yeah, OK, I guess I'm a bigot. Sure...I'm alright with that."

Johnny was pleased with this assessment after tapping 'bigot' into his translator app.

"What's the difference between a bigot and a racist?" asked Johnny after seeing that 'racist' was given as one of the synonyms for 'bigot.'

"Honesty, Johnny. Honesty. A bigot just tells it like it is. He is open and happy about how he feels. A racist is a sneaky and miserable liar who hides how he feels," said Rupert, who was now just making it up as he went along.

"Give me example, Rupert."

"Um, OK...let's see... These expats I know had a house party. I'm invited. I show up alone. But a couple of other expats showed up with two of their local male friends. The hosts said you could bring a friend or two, so they did. The hosts are the typical over-educated left-of-center western progressive types. But these hosts were quite upset to see local men at their house party, even if those Kajbez men were well-educated and could speak some English."

"Just like me!"

"Yeah. Sure," said Rupert with zero enthusiasm. "Moving on... The hosts had another party a couple of months later. For this one they made it clear that while you could bring locals with you, those locals can only be women. No local men. And all the expats seemed OK with this rule, especially the ones who used to work in Afghanistan before the money ran out. They are all secret racists."

"That's not so bad. Maybe these foreigners just don't like strange men? I wouldn't invite extra men to my party – that's extra competition," offered Johnny, playing Devil's Advocate.

"Well, OK. I have a better anecdote. Do you know the story about that Scandinavian expat named Henry?"

"Nope."

"OK, this was about two years ago, after I had been in the country for a while already. And this new expat shows up to trivia night at the fake Irish pub. It's this Swedish-American girl called Henry. She's from Brooklyn, or at least she lived there recently. Nobody is actually from Brooklyn anymore."

"Brooklyn!" interrupted Johnny. "I live there for three years."

"Yes. I know. You tell every person you meet that you used to live in Brooklyn. Everybody knows. You've told me numerous times. You are wearing a Brooklyn Nets hat right now."

"Brooklyn, what!" hollered Johnny.

"Do you want to hear the Goddamned story or not?"

"OK, sorry. Swedish or American woman from Brooklyn with a man's name. What about her?"

"Swedish-American. Father is Swedish...or whatever. Henry is her nickname. I have no idea why. She thinks she is a journalist. Mostly she just lived in Brooklyn – probably on her parent's cash – and wrote online for random magazines about her own sex life. Instagram profile says she's also an anti-fascist activist and an anti-imperialist. Right? So she says she's doing a story for VILE News."

"VILE! Sick."

"Yes. Sick. Bad sick, not good sick."

"OK," replied Johnny, with 'OK' being his way of avoiding an argument.

"But turns out that's not quite true, that she's a journalist. Seems she's a self-funded independent investigative reporter whose story pitches have consistently been rejected by VILE and other magazines. She refused to blow the hipster-douchebag sexual predator editors at VILE News, so they wouldn't hire her after publishing a couple of her short articles. Her goal in Kajbezistan was to write an expose on the debaucherous lifestyles of western expats and finally get a long-form investigative article published somewhere decent. Sounds hilarious, right?"

"I would read it."

"I bet you would. And you can, just not written by her."

"So...what happened?" asked Johnny.

"Well, the idiots she was hanging out with pointed her towards me. They said I was the quintessential drunk pervert racist expat. Obviously, that's a problem for me, as I've got a reputation to protect."

"Ahahahahaha!" laughed Johnny.

"No, Johnny. I don't mean my actual reputation based on my real behavior. I mean my public, online reputation."

"Oh, of course."

"So, anyways, I find out about this because everybody knows everything here. There are no secrets. I'm expecting her to approach me to do...whatever: introduce her to Kajbezistan, guide her through the nightlife here, tell her all about what the expats are up to in Chorshanbe. That sort of thing. But I'm not stupid. I knew what would happen. I knew that I would end up being a major character in her story. She would feed me alcohol and then bait me into saying dumb shit. Fuck that. I hate journalists. Guaranteed I would have ended up being the racist asshole expat who is a horrible person in her report. Journalists are all sneaky liars who will screw their sources. So I turned the tables on her."

"So you stabbed her in her back?"

"Yes! Your use of English idioms kicks ass," noted Rupert approvingly.

"How did you stab her in her back?"

"Well, what almost nobody here knows is that a VILE reporter showed up during my first year in the country. The guy was doing a story on bride kidnapping and raping."

"Zanak ala catchoo."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever euphemism you people use for it. You can see it online. It's fucked up."

"I did not kidnap my wife," offered Johnny.

"I'm sure you didn't."

"I mean, she's ethnic Tatar. If I had kidnapped her, she would have grabbed a knife and cut off...well, you know what she would cut off."

"I can imagine. But more to the point, I met the VILE reporter while out drinking with Muhammadbek, the translator that you replaced. This VILE guy doesn't speak Kajbezi or Russian, and he's not doing too well with his story research because he's just sitting around Chorshanbe, the idiot. So Muhammadbek and I take him with us to the north. I had to do some monitoring and evaluation there for a gender empowerment program we were funding."

"Nice!"

"What?" asked Rupert suspiciously.

"Nothing."

"So back to my story, which is far more interesting than your interruptions. We start to ask around, and Muhammadbek quickly finds some young guys who were planning a bride kidnapping. And they invite the VILE guy to hang out for the festivities. So I lend Muhammadbek to him when I go back to Chorshanbe. It works out great. The kidnappers didn't have to end up murdering the girl. The girl marries the kidnapper. Maybe she commits suicide later, who knows? But anyways, the VILE guy gets some insane photos and videos. He was super happy, as he was totally failing just a week before."

"So you are friends with VILE?"

"No, just with this guy. I see him again in Chorshanbe and show him a good time and then he leaves. I figure that I will never see him again. But would you believe it? He turns up one year later doing language studies at the Oxford School of Russian in Chorshanbe."

"They are not really associated with Oxford University," offered Johnny helpfully.

"No shit? Really? I didn't know," replied Rupert, increasingly annoyed with Johnny interrupting the flow of his story. "Do I have your permission to continue?"

"Yeah, sorry bro."

"Right. So the VILE guy wants to stick around the former Soviet Union and become the next Semyon Ostrov."

"Who's that?"

"Bad-ass reporter."

"I thought that you hate reporters and journalists?"

"I do hate them. I hate them all. Except for the cool ones," replied Rupert.

"So what percentage of them do you hate?"

"I don't know. Lots of them," said Rupert with a dismissive wave of his hand. "So anyways, this dude is still on contract for VILE, but he's way too busy with intensive language classes at that exact moment to do much more than make plans. We were talking semi-regularly about what sort of stories he could do here, and I'm knocking down most of his ideas, as it's all stuff that will get him kicked out."

"Yeah, foreign journalists are stupid."

"They sure are."

"Wait, does the angry Swedish woman Henry know that there is a real VILE reporter in town?" asked Johnny, who was now genuinely intrigued.

"NO! Not at all. The VILE guy didn't want any drama while he was still busy with language classes. Plus, he was on a tourist visa. So he didn't tell anybody that he was a journalist. But he eventually switched to one-on-one tutoring, and his schedule got really flexible. That's when I had a good story for him."

"What story?"

"About how shitty the expats are. The racist expats. The drunk expats. The belligerently mentally ill expats. You know, those people... In particular, I pitched a story that included a central character: a wannabe VILE reporter named Henry. An angry anti-imperialist who has...well, she has started to party with the US Army SOF guys."

"Nice! Special Forces!"

"No. Dude. No. Why would you say that?!" asked a clearly annoyed Rupert.

"They are handsome. They are cool guys. They are Special Forces."

"OK, I'm gonna forget that you said that... Gross. No."

"I mean that it is nice for a woman," replied Johnny, defending his earlier comment.

"What I'm getting at is this... Do you understand how weird it is for a really super left-wing woman who hates the American military to sleep with them?"

"I hate prostitutes. But I still have sex with them. And I'm sure that they hate me also."

"I...." Rupert was actually at a loss for words. "...it's not quite the same."

"OK."

"Yes. OK. Johnny, we'll talk about this later. You are going to derail my story. Which is an awesome story, by the way. So listen."

"OK."

"Right. OK... Crazy woman Henry is partying hard with the military, and she has become quite the loudmouth racist. It was a quick transformation."

"Most foreigners become racist here after a while."

"Exactly! And the ones who show up loudly pretending to be the most anti-racist are actually just closet racists. It just takes a few weeks or a few months for it to come out."

"Closet racists?" inquired Johnny.

"Closet. C-L-O-S-E-T. It's the small room where you hang your clothes. You can hide in there. It's an idiom. Like, a guy is secretly gay. But he's pretending he's not gay. So he's in the closet. Hiding. Got it?"

"Yeah, easy. I know what a closet is. Gay men like hiding inside of closets."

Rupert paused, sensing that Johnny has failed to grasp the closet idiom.

"So she's a closet racist," continued Rupert. "And I can see it."

"It takes a racist to see a racist!"

"Almost there, Johnny. It takes a racist to know a racist. Not that I'm a racist or anything like that."

"Oh, OK. Got it."

"Yeah, it's actually quite easy. The people who get the maddest and always accuse others of being racist are usually just compensating for the fact that they are a secret racist. If someone seems way too mad about something, like gays or drug use or racism, they are probably a secretly racist gay drug user."

"Like mullahs!" said Johnny enthusiastically.

"Mullahs?"

"Yeah, they say that sinners will burn in hell. That we must be good Muslims. But many mullahs just drive their car to a different town where nobody will recognize them and they drink vodka there and have sex with prostitutes. And they also try to get sex from married women who have a husband working in Russia."

"Yeah, America has people like that also."

"Mullahs?"

"No. Evangelicals."

"Christians?"

"Not really in the living-the-Gospel sense..."

"What about Henry? And the VILE reporter?" inquired Johnny.

"Yeah, my story... I let the VILE guy in on everything. I'm 100% honest. I pitch the story of the disgusting expats of Chorshanbe, particularly Henry and her not-so-secret life of racism, hypocrisy, booze and hook-ups with baby-killing imperial stormtrooper soldiers from Arkansas. Plus, her pathetic failure to become a VILE reporter. Angry white hard-libertarian alt-right losers in America who hate women would love this story. And the VILE guy knew it. That's VILE's core audience. So he goes undercover."

"Like an undercover cop?"

"Exactly."

"This is what KGB does! They find dirt and secrets."

"Yes! Exactly. But I didn't do anything. I just introduced the VILE guy to the circle of people that were hanging out with the Swedish chick. He doesn't mention VILE. He just said he was studying Russian and applying for grad school. Totally believable for a white kid in his late twenties who's failing at life. And Henry fully got along with him, because he's the edgy artsy hipster type. She wouldn't sleep with him of course, she prefers military muscle, obviously."

"Poor guy."

"Yeah, poor guy. But he got the story, and it was spectacular. It's a full multimedia project: The Leftist Expat Party Girls of Kajbezistan and the Redneck American Soldiers They Love. Henry featured prominently. Photos and everything. Even a drunken conversation with boastful soldiers describing what she was into, which was anything and everything. There were so many racist and Islamophobic quotes from drunk Henry. It was vile. It was disgusting. It was the best thing ever. And that's what she wanted to do to me!"

"Nice!" exclaimed Johnny, before opening his smartphone and searching for the title. "Found it! Bookmarked it! I will read it tonight."

"Yeah, it's a fun read."

"So what happened to Henry?"

"Eventually she wrote a blog entry on The Huffington Gazette about the Oxfam country director in Kajbezistan having sex parties at his house with trafficked girls from one of the local anti-trafficking programs Oxfam supported. I can't remember his name, Roland van Waterwing or some such stupid name. Total perv. He had earlier been fired from Anti-Hunger Action Committee in Niger for trading food for sex. You know, with starving girls."

Now fully bored after sharing his heroic anecdote, Rupert turned his attention to more important matters as he pulled out the last bottle of Kajbez cognac.

"None for you Johnny, sorry. We need a sober driver."

Johnny's smile disappeared.

Special Information Insert #9

Cultural Peculiarities of Kajbezistan

Wretched towns, splendid mosques: Small Kajbez towns are generally infected with wretched poverty, but still manage to have several ornate mosques, thanks to a foreign Islamic charity that never seems to have money to donate for education, agricultural or health projects.

Locals' Opinion of the Islamic State (Daesh): At an early point there was much enthusiasm in Kajbezistan for ISIS. Many believe that this enthusiasm ended after the group began to be featured more and more in Russian TV reports, complete with the allegation that ISIS is an American-created and controlled group. However, it is possible to more accurately trace the decline in support for ISIS in Kajbezistan to the moment when the terrorist group began to be routed in Syria and Iraq.

Kajbez Christians: An elderly Kajbez Baptist Protestant woman who had converted to Christianity a decade earlier passed away in her southern hometown. However, local Muslims and their imam were outraged that a Christian had been buried in the local cemetery. So the locals dug up her rotting corpse and threw it back into a ditch nearby – safely away from the sacred burial site. Her family attempted to rebury their grandmother two more times in different areas next to the village, and each time the body was dug up and tossed into the dirt outside of the village's territory. Finally, the townspeople tried a new tactic. They paid a taxi driver to drive the corpse three towns over and dump the unidentified bag in a landfill. The hired driver didn't know what he was dumping, but local rubbish collectors saw him dump the mystery bag and checked out what was being deposited. They promptly informed the authorities. This led to a big KGB investigation and a variety of insane rumors circulating. Everyone was relieved when they found out that it was just a disinterred Christian being dumped, and not something nefarious.

Nationalist vigilante groups: Among these groups, Uyat Naqurystar is the most well-known. They are an organization that campaigns on behalf of impotent, failed and bitter Kajbez men. Their main activity is shaming women whom they believe behave improperly. The most popular Uyat Naqurystar clip on Youtube is of their founder, the mediocre street rapper known as Arystanbuk, who declares, while waving a Kajbez horse whip, that, "We will protect the honor, dignity and virginity of all Kajbez women. They are gentle creatures that must be protected. We Kajbez have a saying, 'If a man is a man-whore, it is his own business, but if a woman is a slut, it destroys the nation!' We volunteer our time so that we may guide and shelter our weak sisters, daughters and mothers. So, if any Kajbez woman behaves immorally in a way that contradicts our culture and traditions, we will beat her severely!"

Uyat Naqurystar's current focus of rage are two different Chorshanbe women, one of whom complained on Facebook about restrictive patriarchal Kajbez traditions that hold back women from their full potential – while posting a photo of herself dressed only in underwear with her arm across her bare breasts. The other woman, a postgraduate student in the Netherlands, committed the grave crime of carrying a Kajbez flag at a gay pride parade in Amsterdam. The men who volunteer with the group spend most of their time sending death and rape threats online to these women and their supporters.

Honor is everything: Local men define honor through the concept of namooslig, wherein a man's honor is entirely invested not in his own actions, but in the virginity of his teenage and twenty-something year old daughters. His son of the same age may have contracted gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV, plus Hepatitis B and C from the local hookers, but that's not a problem... It is, however, a problem when his daughters-in-law mysteriously contract various debilitating STDs and must be expelled from the house for bringing shame and harming their reproductive capabilities.

The most wretched creature: The killeen, or daughter-in-law, is expected to do roughly 100% of all housework and yard labor. She is the basic equivalent of a house slave, so all mothers dream of the day that their son marries a girl who will take over for all of their household duties. When the first son marries, the mother can retire to the position of daughter-in-law supervisor. Every mother's nightmare is that her son will marry a university-educated girl with a career (who will obviously decline the offer of working in her mother-in-law's house as a slave).

The alpha women of Kajbezistan: The president's daughters are held up as the ideal model for all women. As a reward for their hard work, Islambaev's daughters are given various import exclusives – from energy efficient light bulbs to gasoline to air conditioners. According to the presidential press service, the presidential daughters provide a true example of women's empowerment. This obviously does not include the daughter who ran away to Syria and joined ISIS. She has been photoshopped out of all presidential family portraits.

White is in: Skin whitening cream is a big seller in the city, but poor girls who work outside can't afford it, and hence get tanned "like a peasant." Women put their photos through a filter and wash out the photos, leaving their faces quite white, but now almost featureless. Both men and women post photos of beautiful Kajbez models, and almost always go for the 1% whitest possible model with the most European possible facial features. A Google image search for "Kajbez Woman" returns photos of a very white nation, but a walk on the street reveals a far darker skinned and often Asian-looking population, with those in the mountains of the southeast appearing to look more like Persians. The main shopping center KajTsUM has, for the last year, has had an entire side of the building decorated with an impossibly white Turkish model selling a line of "traditional" Kajbez cloth worked into European fashion. Even the religious types go for the white washing, with their favorite hijabi models and praying kids usually being the whitest of the white. All of this usually ends with a slap in the face in Russia the first time a Kajbez is subjected to someone calling them a "black-ass" to their face.

# Chapter Nine

# A Small Mountain Valley with a Thousand Khans

Date: September 4th, 2019.

Place: Sari-Qarodagin Province, known for being an alleged hideout for bearded Wahhabi Muslims and angry Islamists. Also known for its honey and walnuts.

Scenario: Rupert, Johnny and yet another Afghan auto mechanic stare at an unfortunately failing engine.

"The last mechanic to work on this car was an idiot," said the Afghan mechanic regretfully.

"He was also an Afghan," replied Johnny, slightly annoyed at the Afghan's stilted Russian.

"Then he was an Afghan idiot," was the Afghan's retort.

"I thought all you Afghans were supposed to be the best mechanics?"

"Yes, we are. But some garages are hiring Afghans who have bad training, or even no training. And then they use the claim of having Afghan mechanics to get business. Or maybe you talk to a good Afghan mechanic, but then he gives the car to his idiot cousin for repairs."

"So will you or your cousin be fixing this car?" asked Rupert.

"I will. It will be fixed by the end of the day. $40. And dollars, not somes. I'll need it now so I can buy the replacement part first."

"It's illegal to take payment in dollars," warned Rupert as handed the Afghan his pay in advance without bothering to negotiate.

"Everything is illegal in Kajbezistan, but anything is possible with dollars," said the Afghan with a smile and a wave of his hand.

"Good, OK. We're going now," said Johnny, who had enough of the foreigners criticizing his country.

Johnny and Rupert decided to walk back to the center of what passed for a town in the mountainous Sari-Qarodagin region. Rupert spent his walking time making rude comments about the local infrastructure, houses, livestock and people, while Johnny did the best to filter out Rupert's voice.

"I know it's only 11am, but let's find a lunch place that also serves beer and vodka," suggested Rupert hopefully, as he was quite hungry after having refused to eat the greasy fried eggs that had been prepared that morning in the guesthouse.

"No alcohol here. These are religious people."

"You can't be serious," said a bewildered Rupert.

"I am. No alcohol."

"Then how do people here get drunk?"

"Gas fumes, fuel vapor, petrol huffing, cleaners, mouthwash, medical disinfectant, moonshine. That sort of thing," answered Johnny.

"Uh-huh. So you are saying that there's not even one store that maybe secretly sells decent liquor?"

"The police in the provincial center sell alcohol from the back of their station, but that's still an hour away by car."

"So we're screwed?"

"Yes. No drinking today," said Johnny sadly.

"Why are the people here so religious? Why can't this region be like everywhere else in Kajbezistan where there are at least a few local drunks and one supermarket that sells liquor?"

"Because the people here are special."

"Special, how exactly? Like they actual follow Muslim law?" asked Rupert.

"Yes, they are strict about the sharia. They have to be, because of their ancestors, and because of what they are now," replied Johnny vaguely.

"What does that mean?"

"Many people here, their families are Khojas, Sayyids, Turas, Ishans, Qattaqalons, Sheikhs, that sort of thing."

"Sheikhs? Like the Arab kind?"

"I don't know how the Arabs use it, but here it means you are the son of a Sufi Sheikh, or because you studied under a Sheikh and have become, like...a sort of master of Islamic knowledge. So a sheikh here is like a Sufi master."

"Sufis. I know what those are at least," said Rupert.

"Yeah, and here they are Raqsbandiyya Sufis. The Raqsbandiyya sheikhs must be good Muslims because everybody is watching them and asking them for Islamic advice."

"So no drinking?"

"No. None," replied Johnny emphatically.

"And the other groups you mentioned? What's their deal?"

"Sayyids are descended from the Prophet Muhammad's family."

"You forgot the blessing thing," said Rupert.

"What?"

"After Muhammad's name."

"I don't care, bro."

"OK, and the other groups?"

"Khojas – there are not many of them – are like Sheikhs, but only the Sunni Khojas. Obviously, there are no Shia Khojas here."

"Of course. It goes without saying," noted Rupert.

"And the Turas, they are like Ishans. Basically the same."

"What's an Ishan all about?" asked the clueless Rupert. "Just remind me."

"They are, uh...they are like Sufi Sheikhs who inherit their title and respect from their ancestors, but they don't have the Islamic knowledge that a Sheikh does."

"Is that it?"

"Well, I forgot about Mirs."

"That's OK. We can skip them," suggested Rupert. "The important thing is that none of these people drink alcohol, nor do they allow it to be sold in their communities."

"That's right."

"I don't like these people, and I don't like their dislike for alcohol – even if they know all about Islam and have some special status."

"No, only status. Just a few of the Sheikhs and Ishans still have any real knowledge of Islam."

"So these guys are the same as those weird kids in those shitty illegal settlements outside Chorshanbe that have their beards forcibly shaved by the police?"

"You mean the guys in the New Constructions? The squatters?" asked Johnny.

"Yup."

"Those guys are Salafis."

"And they are special also?"

"No. They are idiots. I hate them all," said Johnny with conviction. "They are just angry kids who have memorized a bunch of stuff from the Koran without understanding it. They have no special ancestors. But they are here now also, I saw a few of them walking down the street this morning."

"How did you know it was them?"

"They have ugly beards like a wild animal, and they wear stupid short pants."

"They wear shorts?" asked Rupert, who was more than a little confused.

"No. Like pants that you wear when the ground is wet. The pants don't go down past their ankle."

"Why?"

"Because in the Koran or somewhere it says not to wear pants that touch the ground."

"That's stupid," observed Rupert.

"Yes, exactly."

"And are they troublemakers?"

"They were. But now mostly they just avoid politics after the police tortured some of them to death in jail."

"So they are not special here?"

"No. Nobody likes them. I'm sure that the locals also hate them. They always try to tell people that they are bad Muslims."

At this moment Rupert understood completely.

"Like angry Evangelical Christians."

"Sure, I guess," said Johnny.

"Are they the ones going to Syria?"

"No. The Islamic State recruits are Kajbez kids who never went to a mosque and who have low education and no jobs. I know more about Islam than they do. They are losers. And one day they decided that they wouldn't be a loser if they joined the Islamic State. But they were losers there as well. Islamic State cooks and toilet cleaners, all of them!"

"Yeah, there were lots of cooks in the Islamic State," said Rupert sarcastically.

Johnny nodded.

"Any other special people here?" asked Rupert. "Like, Islamically special?"

"Hajjis."

"Isn't that an insult?"

"Why would it be an insult?"

"Some of the American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq kept calling the locals that."

"It just means that they went on pilgrimage to Mecca," said Johnny. "That may not be a big deal for Arabs, but very few Kajbez can afford it, and it is difficult to get permission because Saudi Arabia gives a quota for pilgrims to each country, and Kajbezistan secretly sells part of their quota to wealthy Russian Muslims who want to do a second or third pilgrimage."

"So pretty much everybody here in this mountain valley is some sort of Brahmin-caste alpha-Muslim with a cool title?"

"Yeah, something like that. Whatever that is. Having these types of titles, it can give you prestige – to be descended from a saint or from the Prophet Muhammad."

"Peace be upon him."

"Who?" asked Johnny.

"Jesus Christ! The Prophet Muhammad. You are supposed to say 'Peace be upon him' whenever you mention him."

"This is Kajbezistan, bro. What am I, an Arab?"

"Afghans say it as well," protested Rupert. "I remember that much from my time working there. Well, at least my fixer said it all the time in English."

"Only very religious people say that here. And also, the people who are descended from the Prophet Muhammad's family also say that."

The conversation then revolved around Rupert's skepticism that the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad's family somehow ended up in an obscure Central Asian mountain valley. Rupert didn't know what he was talking about, as usual. But his skepticism was warranted. A recent in-depth study of blood haplogroups and DNA from this region revealed that there was zero possibility of any Arab ancestry amongst the local population – just the usual Persian, Turk and Mongol lineage with the occasional rare blip of Slavic, Indian or Chinese ancestry. How people who claim lineage back to the prophet's family had zero Arab ancestry was not information that made it from gated $45 academic articles to the pious people of Sari-Qarodagin Province.

"So religious people have this place on a total lockdown?" queried Rupert.

"What does that mean?"

"Like, they have all the power?"

"Oh, no. The khans, arbabs and begs have most of the power here."

"Of course. But what is a beg?"

"Same thing as a bai in the north."

"Right. Sure," replied Rupert, who was now losing interest.

Rupert had heard about enough new words for the day.

"And the Islamic Reintroduction Party of Kajbezistan tried to challenge the power of the khans here before they had their legal status as a political party revoked," added Johnny.

"That's too many people at the top in this valley – not enough to lick their boots and do their work, I would guess. But seriously, is everyone in this mountain valley some sort of power-broker?"

"Yeah."

"Too many chiefs, not enough Indians."

"No. No Hindus here," said Johnny.

"Well, that's good. Hindus would just add to the confusion," observed Rupert plainly, having no energy to add a sarcastic tone to his reply.

The town, carved out of a mountainside, was not meant for soft, urban pedestrians like Rupert and Johnny. Seeing a sunlit bench outside a high mud brick wall, they took the opportunity for a break.

After a few minutes of silence, a wooden gate creaked open and an elderly couple walked out – stopping in their tracks when they saw Rupert and Johnny.

"Do you mind if we sit on your bench?" asked Johnny in Kajbezi. "My foreign guest is a little tired."

"Oh, this is not our house," answered the white-bearded old man. "You are of course welcome to sit on that bench. But you may end up paying for it..."

Rupert ignored the Kajbezi conversation that ensued, as it seemed to be a friendly one.

"What was that all about?" asked Rupert after the elderly couple walked off.

"Do you know the room where people sit and wait for a doctor or dentist?"

"The waiting room, yeah."

"That's where we are right now. This bench we're sitting on is where people wait for the folk doctor."

"The folk doctor?"

"In Russian, it is called shaman," replied Johnny.

"Same in English. Does this shaman put evil spells on your enemies?"

"Oh, no. She does the opposite, she gets rid of evil curses that other people put on you."

"She?" asked Rupert.

"Yes. It is usually an old woman in Kajbezistan."

"What does she do? Cut open a cat and look at its guts? Or make us drink the cat's blood?"

"That's stupid, Rupert. It will be a chicken."

"Well, that's good. They are cheaper and easier to catch."

"And you can eat them afterwards," added Johnny.

"Who gets to eat the chicken? The shaman or the customer?"

"That's negotiable in the price of her services."

Rupert paused to think.

"Hey! Can we see her? It sounds hilarious. I wanna do it."

"Rupert, you don't believe in any of this, and neither do I."

"No, Johnny, you don't seem to understand... I have problems that only a witch doctor can fix," joked Rupert.

At that exact moment the gate opened again and an old, non-descript lady stuck her head out and looked at the two strangers. Out of her mouth flew a long string of barely comprehensible Kajbezi.

Johnny engaged her in conversation before turning to Rupert and saying, "She asks what your problem is. What do you need help with?"

"Uh, just say that we have had problems on our journey, and that we think someone has cursed us, or that maybe an evil spirit is following us and turning everybody we meet into an annoying jerk who asks us stupid questions."

"I'll skip that last part," said Johnny, in one of the rare times that he let Rupert know that he was selectively translating.

After some further confusing exchanges, Johnny turned to Rupert and said, "OK, she says she has had enough chickens this week, and that the more chickens she sees in a single day, the less powerful her cure is. So she says we should go get her a pizza."

"Yes. That makes total sense. A pizza."

"I know, it is strange. I have never heard this before."

"Is the pizza the payment?" asked a befuddled Rupert.

"No. She will read a secret message in how the meat appears on the pizza. Then she will know what our problem is. But we also have to pay her a few dollars."

"Who gets to eat the pizza?"

Johnny turned to the shaman again and asked the absurd, yet total rational question.

"She says that her grandchildren will eat it. It's lunchtime and her daughter is sick today. Because we are here, she does not have the time to prepare lunch for them."

"Right. OK. And where the hell are we supposed to get pizza from?"

"She says there is a pizza place two blocks away."

"I only see goat pens, mounds of manure and piles of hay," said Rupert. "And seriously, does this town even have blocks? It's more like meandering lanes."

"She says we will find it easily. And she said that it must be a large deluxe meat pizza, otherwise there won't be enough meat to find a secret message."

One hour later Rupert and Johnny walked out of the shaman's courtyard with the source of their curse diagnosed (a mysterious jealous man), the method (a ghoul that stalks travelers), and a cure (a carved leather amulet with Sufi inscriptions wrapped around a thrice-buried and partially burnt marmot bone that was washed in holy spring water). Much to Johnny's horror, Rupert paid almost $10 for the amulet without even letting him attempt a negotiation. The shaman reassured them that they had made a wise purchase, as the amulet would ensure a safe and uneventful trip back to Chorshanbe.

A chorus of giggles erupted from the five small children sitting on the bench outside. The kids, with messy hair, sunburnt cheeks and feet dangling without touching the ground, looked up at Rupert and Johnny and grinned. Each one of them held a large slice of pizza in their hands.

"Do you kids get to eat pizza a lot?" asked Johnny.

"Only when a city person visits our grandma!" answered the oldest.

Rupert and Johnny promptly returned to the pizza place for their alcohol-free lunch.

Two hours later the two city persons sat – at the maximum level of compression with seven other people – in a miniature Chinese micro-van on their way to a nearby settlement that had, according to a helpful local, a shady walnut forest that they could walk through.

Next to Rupert sat a young Kajbez man with a truly terrible beard. It was the pathetic sort of an effort that one would expect from a man capable neither of growing a beard nor of owning a mirror and having the ability to critique one's own appearance. It was, in fact, a neck-beard only. Rupert was repulsed.

Seeking to avoid conversation and to amuse himself, Rupert pulled out his amulet.

The tactic backfired.

"That's against Islam," said the strange young Kajbez neck-beard in heavily accented Russian.

Rupert sighed.

"Well, I'm not a Muslim. So it doesn't matter, does it?"

Johnny decided to let Rupert take care of himself.

"That superstitious witch doctor thing you have is an insult to Islam," continued the young man aggressively. "It should be destroyed. Islam needs to be purified."

"I paid a good price for it. It's a souvenir. I'm going to take it with me when I fly home. It's my travel protection. You won't have to worry about it polluting Kajbezistan after that."

"You Americans shouldn't come here and insult Islam!" yelled the Islamist neck-beard.

"I'm not American, I'm from Iceland."

"Oh," said the young man before pausing for reflection. "And why are you here?"

"I came here as refugee, because of our war with Greenland."

"Oh."

Johnny was now quite amused with the exchange. The other passengers seemed tense.

"Are Greenlanders unbelievers?" asked the neck-beard with a serious scowl spreading across his face.

"Yes."

"And what are Icelanders?"

"Uh...we are pagans and we worship the Norse gods."

"Gods?!" exclaimed the young man in shock.

"Yeah, gods: Thor, Odin, Loki...the Incredible Hulk. We are polytheists."

"Shirk al-Akbar! Koofar!" yelled the young man while pointing his finger at Rupert.

"Johnny, the fuck does koofar mean?" asked Rupert as he turned to Johnny.

Johnny did not have the chance to reply.

"The Islamic State will conquer the world!" yelled the young and possibly mentally ill Islamist.

He continued his yelling, but now in Kajbezi as he had run out of Russian and Arabic vocabulary to express his rage.

The mini-van driver slowed down and pulled over to the edge of the road.

The screamer changed his tone immediately and quickly started to plead and apologize in the general direction of the driver who was now walking around the front of the van. But it was too late for that.

The driver, a bulky middle-aged man with a traditional, well-groomed thick beard, slid the van door open and grabbed the young man by the scruff of his neck, pulling him out head first into the dirt.

The driver then laid down a series of open-handed slaps to the Islamist's face, easily overcoming his feeble, weak-armed defenses.

"Why are you not in Syria? Huh?" asked the driver between volleys of slaps. "Why not, you big strong, brave jihadi? Why are you here, sitting in the village like a woman waiting for her husband to return from work?"

The squealing would-be jihadi begged for the beating to stop. He then started to hyperventilate.

"And now you will walk home!" announced the driver as he let go of the fully-thrashed young man and walked back around to the driver's seat.

"That was my nephew," said the driver, who was clearly speaking now to Rupert and Johnny.

"Please, don't mention this outside of our village," the driver continued. "It would cause trouble for us. He is harmless. Please know that our family is friendly to Christians and Jews and all foreign guests. But the boy, he is mentally ill. We thought he would be strong enough to do some simple work in Russia. Unfortunately, when he went to work there, people filled his head filled with strange ideas. Chechens brainwashed him! I'm sure of it."

"It's no problem, sir," replied Rupert. "There is no need to mention such a small incident. After ten minutes of walking in the walnut forest we will have forgotten all about it."

"You will love the forest! It will be very peaceful and quiet. We don't start to collect nuts until the fall. The forest will be all yours today. Maybe only a few other tourists!"

The driver was right. The walnut forest was perfectly peaceful. And Rupert and Johnny did forget about the incident. Of course, they were reminded of it as soon as they exited the forest and saw the same driver waiting for passengers to go back to town.

Rupert and Johnny paid for the full mini-van and departed as the only passengers.

The driver seemed to be very knowledgeable of the region, sharing his advice for where to go and what to see on their planned route out of town.

"You seem to know a lot about this area," said Rupert politely. "Your family must have been living here for a long time."

"Oh, yes," replied the driver. "My ancestors have been in the same village for probably forty generations. The men in my family have been Ishans here since the beginning of Islam. I don't know how to translate it to Russian. You know what an Ishan is?"

"Of course, it's just like a Tura," replied Rupert with his newfound knowledge.

"Exactly! You know a lot about our culture and traditions! Excellent!" hollered the pleased driver.

The wise Ishan imparted further knowledge as they drove, but was eventually interrupted by a very casual roadblock consisting of a dirty old ribbon stretch across the road from tree to bush, and two very bored police officers.

A short exchange of yelling ensued between the driver and the police before Rupert made the executive decision to abandon the mini-van and go the rest of the way on foot. The Ishan gave the two a very friendly farewell and apologized for the unexpected road closure.

"What did he say about the road closure?" asked Rupert as they started their walk past the roadblock.

"The local government is organizing a practice for the presidential visit. Islambaev is coming to this area very soon. They want to make sure that the kids that wave at his car and throw flowers and sing will do it properly. So they are practicing every day this week..."

The press-ganged students soon came into view. Rupert and Johnny walked by the school children lining the road, all in matching uniforms. At the command of various angry adults they began to sing and wave, but mostly they were crying – at least the younger ones. Most of the rest were clearly suffering from heat exhaustion and dehydration. Towards the end of the line, closer to the town's welcome sign, there were several kids passed out on the ground. A government minion was dragging them off to the side and out of view.

An adult stepped forward and greeted the students. A boy stepped forward and began to shout enthusiastically at the random person roleplaying for the president.

"What is that boy shouting?" asked Rupert.

"Praise, in poem form."

"Translate some of it."

"Um...he says 'you are God's shadow on earth,' 'you healed the wounds of the nation with your grace,' 'your hands built the country,' 'you protect us from alien ideologies,' 'you put bread on the nation's table,' 'you guide us like a wise father.'"

Then Johnny burst out laughing.

"What? What did the boy say now?"

"I think he meant to say that the president's power is so great that he makes the people more fertile, like maybe he made us prosperous so that we could afford to have more children, but the way he said it makes it sound like the president is personally fucking all of Kajbezistan's mothers and making them pregnant."

"He sort of is fucking you people, isn't he?"

"Yes, but in the ass," replied Johnny.

They soon left the children behind and came upon a work crew transplanting flowers into the hard, gravelly ground. Others were inspecting what appeared to be newly painted houses along the road. One government apparatchik in a suit pulled a stray dog along with a short piece of wire. Another followed behind with a steel pipe. It appeared to be covered in blood at one end. The president would be greeted by a perfect town.

"We should leave this town very soon," announced Johnny somberly.

"Before the fun starts? Why?"

"Based on those new flowers, the president will be here probably tomorrow or the next day. The flowers will be dead after that. We are probably the only foreigners here. Do you want to be hassled by the KGB guys that will be inspecting the town right before Islambaev arrives?"

"Good point. Let's check out of the guesthouse as soon as our car is fixed. They can keep the two night's payment I gave them."

The drive out of town was a hassle, as the entire main street was closed, requiring a bewildering navigation of the nonsensical backstreets.

Passing through the outskirts, Rupert and Johnny passed the final stop for the local marshrutkas, and there spotted a sad-looking western hitchhiker with a backpack.

"Pull over Johnny, let's pick that guy up."

Johnny had been alternating between being bored and exasperated with Rupert, so he welcomed the chance at new company.

Johnny pulled over and signaled for the hitchhiker to get in. But he got more than he expected as coming in right behind the nerdy bespectacled hitchhiker was a local. They now had two extra passengers, to Rupert's great annoyance.

"Hey, I'm Rupert, and this is Muhammadjoon."

"I'm Jeremy. Hi!"

"Where are you going, Jeremy?"

"About 10km up the road, to the village where I'm doing my fieldwork."

"Which NGO?"

"I don't work for an NGO," replied Jeremy. "I'm a PhD candidate."

"From where?"

"Indiana University."

"Well, we can't all get into Notre Dame, can we?" joked Rupert.

Jeremy did not laugh at the joke.

"So, is this guy your local guide or something?" asked Rupert, deciding to change the subject.

"No. I just met him a minute ago."

"Oh, shit. Well it's too late to kick him out," observed Rupert, as they were already speeding well past the outskirts.

"He won't be going far," noted Jeremy. "The village I'm going to is the last one on this road before the mountain pass. He's probably going to one of the other villages in between here and my place."

"Cool," said Rupert, who was clearly not cool with the disheveled stranger.

Then, at about the same time, Rupert and Johnny got a whiff of the Kajbez local. He smelled of medical-grade disinfectant alcohol and body-odor.

Rupert rolled down his window.

"So you are living in a village. Are you an ethnologist or something like that?" asked Rupert.

"No. Anthropologist."

"Like the people who play with chimpanzees?"

"That's biological anthropology. Or primatology."

"Well, I'm sure a monkey scientist could bring great insight to the study of Kajbez villagers."

Johnny, harboring a strong dislike for villagers, laughed at Rupert's probably racist joke. Jeremy did not laugh.

"So, um...you know a German PhD student named Stefan?" asked Rupert.

Jeremy did not reply, and Rupert was not sure if he was angry about the joke or the mention of Stefan.

"Don't like the guy?" asked Rupert.

"He's a fascist."

"Uh huh, yeah. We had a long chat with him about how Europe should only be for white people."

"Really?"

"No," laughed Rupert. "He just mentioned his weird research on rapping Kajbez shepherds."

Jeremy seemed disappointed.

"He's a complete asshole. Every other Central Asianist in academia hates him," continued Jeremy.

"He picks a lot of arguments, I'm guessing?" asked Rupert.

"Yes. Once at a conference, he said that my work was merely a series of normative statements stripped of empirical evidence!"

"OK," said Rupert, failing to understand what it was that Jeremy had just said.

"My research juxtaposes how Western neoliberal practices neuter Kajbez migrant men discursively, and Stefan is so stupid he thinks that my meta level analysis was essentializing the research subjects to the point of othering them."

"OK."

"He also started a rumor that I was sleeping with girls in the village."

"Well, we all know that getting in bed with a village girl is impossible," said Rupert, as Johnny finally understood something and nodded in agreement.

"Exactly. And that lie shows something about Stefan's own orientalist gaze. Do you know about his photography?" asked Jeremy.

"His pederast photo gallery, you mean?" replied Rupert.

Jeremy jumped up and down in his seat in excitement.

"Yes! Exactly! He is an obvious predator. And at the very least he is sexualizing young Kajbez girls."

"Yup. He's out on the prowl for Kajbezistanis," said Rupert in agreement.

Jeremy's smile disappeared. His brow furrowed and a deep scowl grew.

"That's now how you refer to the Kajbez people in plural," said Jeremy, who was suddenly very angry.

"Kajbez people. Kajbezis. Kajbezs. Kajbezistanis. It's all the same for pluralization of Kajbez," protested Rupert.

"No, it is Kajbezholaron in this regional dialect, with many other dialectical variations that are equally valid across the country," countered the indignant PhD student. "Anything else is racism, especially the English language plurals you tried to form."

"Racism, seriously?"

"Yes!" replied Jeremy, who was now very, very angry.

"You know, Johnny here is my best friend. And my favorite girlfriend is Kajbez. So how could I be racist?"

Johnny reached over and high-fived Rupert. Both men laughed in unison.

The PhD student had become so angry so quickly that he could only sit in place and shake with rage.

"So while speaking English we should call Germans Deutsche, or we are all racist?" asked Rupert rhetorically. "And the locals here should not say Amreekoyiholaron? They must say Americans while speaking their own language?"

"NO NO NO!!! There is an implicit colonial and imperialist hierarchy of power and dominance here! This system needs to be dismantled. The weak must be given the choice. You, as a product of an inherently imperialist and racist upbringing don't deserve one!"

Rupert and Johnny both laughed.

"Why are you laughing?! You think genocide is funny?"

"Genocide? Really? Of what?" asked Rupert through his laughter. "You've lost me."

"Yes! The continuing cultural genocide that people like you aid and abet! Of Africans! Of indigenous peoples! Of Muslims! Of homosexuals!"

The mystery and smelly Kajbez hitchhiker finally decided to join the conversation, and he did so with great animation and excitement.

"Khomoseksual?! Gey?" asked the Kajbez passenger.

Jeremy attempted to talk to the Kajbez drunk in Kajbezi, but he was interrupted by Johnny, who said, "He doesn't understand you. You are speaking in the local dialect. He's obviously a northerner."

Switching to the northern dialect, Johnny informed his fellow Kajbez that they were discussing homosexuals. He then added that Jeremy is sympathetic to them to the point of advocating for gay marriage and whatnot.

"Pedarast! Pedofil!" yelled the angry local as he started to pelt the American with half-hearted hammer punches. "Stay away from our children!"

Johnny decided that it was time to pull the car to the edge of the road.

As soon as the car stopped, the livid Kajbez drunk open his door and dragged out the squealing PhD student by the pant-leg.

What followed was probably the worst wrestling match in the history of Kajbezistan, as apparently neither western intellectuals nor life-long Kajbez street drunks have much in the way of hand-to-hand combat skills. The Kajbez was without a belt and kept pausing from his striving for domination to pull his pants back up, while Jeremy kept pausing to find his glasses in the dirt and put them back on his face – from where they promptly fell off once again. Both men kept doing this on repeat while at the same time wrestling and slapping to the best of their meager abilities.

Rupert and Johnny watched the match for a few minutes, occasionally laughing at the pathetic grunts of the Kajbez and the piercing shrieks of the American PhD candidate.

"Look at the little dust cloud they're making!" laughed Johnny. "It's just like an old cartoon."

Rupert figured that he had seen enough. He grabbed Jeremy's bag from the back seat and tossed it onto the road.

"OK, these people can stay here," announced Rupert. "We're going."

"Is it OK to leave the guy by himself?" asked a slightly concerned Johnny as Jeremy once again let out a shriek.

"These two won't hurt each other, no matter how hard they try. They look like two fat little puppy dogs play fighting. Let's go."

The longer Rupert and Johnny talked about the incident, the funnier it became. And 30 minutes later they were still discussing it with some enthusiasm, even after crossing the provincial boundary into Johnny's home region of Eshakdek.

"So advocating for gay marriage in not cool in Sari-Qarodagin?" asked Rupert jokingly.

"Bro, it's not cool anywhere in Kajbezistan."

"Do you people really think that gays are secretly planning on crawling in through your open windows at night and anally buggering all of you?"

"People here, they watch Russian TV. They think gays will get their children. And they think people like you spread gay propaganda," said Johnny in way of an explanation.

"Well, that's true. I do. The more gay propaganda, the better. Gays are fun."

"You know, Rupert. When a Russian or a Kajbez says gay, what they really mean is pedophile."

"Ok, then what do you people call a couple of thirty-year-old men in a consensual relationship with each other?"

"Pedophiles."

"You believe that?"

"No. I lived in Brooklyn, man. And that was after four years in an American university. I'm not afraid of gays anymore. But people here... They hate gays."

"People in Kajbezistan hate everything – including themselves," said Rupert rudely.

"What does that mean?" asked a slightly annoyed Johnny.

"I mean that the people from the city hate the people from the village, and vice versa. The people from this region hate the people from that region. This town hates that town. The people who say they are descended from the Prophet Muhammad say that they are better than everybody else. Your country is full of divides and prejudices and hatred, aside from merely just being scared of gay dudes."

"Hmm," replied an unconvinced Johnny, doing his best to end the conversation.

Rupert had lost the will to bait Johnny any further, and switched his focus to more productive activities. Reaching around to the back seat, Johnny grabbed a bottle of RC Cola and then, with a sudden realization, threw it right back when he remembered that there was no cognac, rum or whiskey to mix it with.

Rupert sighed. He no longer wanted to be in the dry, alcohol-free province of Sari-Qarodagin.

Special Information Insert #10

Investor's Guide to Kajbezistan

*Reproduced without permission from the overseas business consulting firm Uncontrolled Risks, Inc.*

Official Economy: Cotton, cottonseed oil, unfinished cotton products, chromium, raw wool, metals, and remittances from labor migrants.

Unofficial Economy: Heroin, re-export of Russian weapons to the Taliban, scrap metals, and remittances from migrant sex laborers in Dubai and Istanbul.

Cross-border economy: Items going to Afghanistan include precious gems, kidnapped girls, and Kajbez vodka. Products coming from Afghanistan include opium and tax-free cigarettes.

Oil & Gas Sector: Described by The Economist as "initially promising reserves that inexplicably transitioned into a disaster run by clowns, imbeciles and thieves." The unnamed Russia & Central Asia correspondent for The Economist has been banned from Kajbezistan, and if you know his/her name please call the Kajbez GKNB at +994 0987 87 276 8543, ext. 156, and ask for Mukhamet Vladlenovich.

Investing for idiots: Because only an idiot would invest in Kajbezistan, as noted by one of the more frank US Embassy cables amongst those released by Wikileaks.

Governance: Most everything is a façade in Kajbezistan, especially democracy. The country has all the appearance of democracy, but none of the substance. The elections are fake, the constitution is ignored, and the laws are only applied when a powerful government official can make money off of it. This means you, foreign investor.

How it works: You start a business in Kajbezistan. The government welcomes you with open arms. You run your business for one year. The tax authorities then raid your business and torture your accountants. You are assessed a massive fine for violating one or more of the seventeen different tax codes that regulate your business. The government expropriates your business. A relative of the president takes over the business. The business is then run into the ground by whatever imbecile second-cousin of the president owns the company now.

Nothing is real: Everything is an imitation. A building may look like a hospital, there may be a sign outside that says it is, and the people inside appear to be doctors and nurses. But if you go in there looking for help, you will die. And those clothes for sale in the bazaar? They are an imitation of real clothes. You can put those $2 Chinese pants on, but they will feel extremely uncomfortable and will soon fall apart, starting with the zipper. Many buildings in the capital have a fake façade that attempts to hide the rot of what is supposed to be a new construction. Kajbezistan is especially famous for its fake Coca-Cola, which is just RC Cola put into fake Coca-Cola bottles and cans. Just go with it. Don't try to produce any quality products or services. If you do, see the section above for reference.

Don't talk about international rankings: Kajbezistan really cares about random international rankings with no apparent methodology. The government is busy trying to sue a travel site that listed Kajbezistan in the bottom ten countries for tourism. A business environment ranking index with better methodology (that puts Kajbezistan twelfth worst worldwide, and third worst for countries not at war) is the subject of a lawsuit in London.

Invest in fruit, but don't insult it: The Ministry of Agriculture, Tobacco and Tourism has unilaterally declared its delicious pomegranates to be a Kajbez invention and, still, the sweetest in the world, despite what the liars in Iran claim about their pomegranates. Anything less than full praise for Kajbez fruit is taken as an attack on Kajbez agriculture and farmers, and is therefore governed by Kajbezistan's strict libel and defamation laws. It applies especially to foreigners. Do not make the suggestion that you can, in any way whatsoever, improve the pomegranate sector.

Be Chinese: If you are Chinese, the Kajbez police and government are required to treat you like a visiting dignitary. Chinese drivers and trucks do not need to stop at road checkpoints, nor do they need to hand over their passport for inspection under any circumstances. This situation is expected to last until the government of China decides that it has given enough predatory loans to Kajbezistan (at this point 78% of Kajbezistan's external debt belongs to China, with the previous debt being settled with a land swap in a strategic border area).

Banking: Local banks are usually owned by men who married one of the president's many daughters. These banks exist only to defraud depositors and forgive loans to friends and family of the president. They survive only because international donors keep bailing them out, and because all government employees, foreign investors, NGOs and international organizations are forced to go through these banks. Kajbez banking for depositors who aren't suckers (the family of the president) is done in the British Virgin Islands.

# Chapter Ten

# Violent Shepherds and Holy Trees

Date: September 5th, 2019.

Place: The provincial border between Sari-Qarodagin and Eshakdek.

People: Rupert, Johnny, and 300 sheep.

Johnny slowed down to accommodate the latest of the obligatory once per-thirty minutes sheep crossings that drivers in the eastern highlands of Kajbezistan must suffer through.

Rolling up the window to protect against the dust from the flock of sheep, Rupert and Johnny continued another one of their very unproductive conversations while patiently waiting for the endless stream of sheep to cross.

The car that had pulled up behind them had a much less patient driver. He pulled around Johnny and Rupert's car and pushed towards the huge moving mass of wool and hooves.

"What is this idiot doing?" asked Rupert.

"He's going to try to push through the sheep."

"What a moron. Why not just wait a few more minutes? What could possibly be so important out here that he needs to save three minutes?"

The impatient car cut into the huge flock, with a few sheep taking very rough bumps from the car. The rest of the sheep were pushed helplessly from behind by other sheep and rammed up against the side of the car in a panic. Some of the sheep became disoriented and started to turned around and reverse their direction. A few others, even more confused, started to head down the road instead of across it. The flock was started to disintegrate.

The rear passenger side window of the car rolled down and revealed a grinning young Kajbez man. With his three fellow travelers loudly hooting encouragement, he reached down and grabbed the nearest sheep by the wool. After securing a firm grip, he tried to lift the ewe off the ground.

"What the fuck is this guy doing now?" asked Rupert.

"Stealing a sheep," replied Johnny.

A second Kajbez man, also grinning widely, squeezed his torso through the same open window and joined his friend is trying pull the sheep into the car.

The sheep bleated loudly in a series of panicked cries.

All four of the Kajbez men in the car were now hollering loudly with much enthusiasm as some terrible Kajbez dance music played on their stereo.

They were all so focused on the sheep that they did not see the shepherd coming.

Rupert didn't see the teenage shepherd until the boy had reached the car full of sheep rustlers at what seemed to be a full sprint.

The shepherd did not slow down at all as he rammed his heavy wooden shepherd's staff into the jaw of the lead sheep thief. Rupert and Johnny could see a large number of teeth fly out of the rustler's shattering jaw.

The thief, with his body hanging halfway through the window, went limp immediately and started bleeding profusely from the mouth soon after.

"Nice!" exclaimed Rupert.

The three other thieves starting yelling in a panic, with the other rear seat passenger trying his best to pull his friend's limp body back through the window.

The front seat passenger, having gathered enough courage to confront a kid half his age, stepped out of the car in a fake rage. He did his best to scare off the shepherd with his shouted threats and bravado.

It didn't work.

The shepherd swung his stick without any hesitation towards the rescuer's head. The sheep thief put up his arm to block the blow, resulting in the heavy stick immediately breaking both bones in his forearm with a dull cracking thud.

Wincing in pain, he collapsed into the ground and started to softly whimper. The shepherd, who was nowhere near punishing the thieves, swung down again with his staff, dealing a direct blow to the thief's unprotected head. He did this again and again, until the fully unconscious man went into violent convulsions in the ground.

"Jesus Christ," exclaimed Rupert. "These shepherds do not fuck around."

The sheep thief getaway driver had decided to join the fray, and surprised the shepherd from behind, pushing him down onto the crumbling road surface. He started to kick the downed shepherd, but was quickly thwarted when the boy crawled under the car. The driver reached under the car and grabbed onto a foot, doing his best to pull the kid back to where he could give him a good beating.

"Horse!" exclaimed Johnny.

The horse arrived at an even higher speed than had the shepherd boy. The shepherd on horseback stuck out his leg and kicked the driver in the back of the head, which then promptly bounced off the car in a double-concussion blow. The driver crumpled onto the ground.

The last conscious sheep thief looked up in a panic, still trying to squirm out from where he was pinned halfway out the window by his sleeping and bleeding friend.

The shepherd on horseback, a very stocky and serious looking gentleman, reached down and grabbed the thief by his hair, pulling him out just far enough to get a grip on the belt around his waist. The horseman then effortlessly rotated the screeching Kajbez and held him upside down by one of his ankles.

"This guy is like Genghis Khan on steroids!" laughed Rupert.

"This is a classic nomad warrior move," observed Johnny. "The bad part is coming next."

Johnny was right. The horseman quickly looped a short piece of rope around the ankle and dropped the man towards the ground. After some quick adjustments, the nomad was happy with the length of the rope that secured the upside-down man to the saddle. The thief's shoulders reached the ground, but just barely.

The rider then slapped his horse on the rear and yelled loudly. The horse bolted quickly and settled into a half-trot, half gallop. The upside-down Kajbez did his best to protect his head as he bounced up and down with the horse. It was futile. Within thirty seconds both of his arms were hopelessly broken and he lost consciousness as his head was knocked into the dirt again and again. The horseman was, however, not satisfied. He continued to let out piercing nomad cries while encouraging his horse to ride up and over the roughest roadside terrain that he could find. The body now flailed around like a ragdoll.

The rider returned to the car and untied the ankle-rope, letting the body drop limply down onto the road. All four sheep thieves were now unconscious and bleeding.

"Do you think any of them are dead?" asked Rupert.

"Maybe..." started Johnny.

He quit speaking as he noticed the rider was coming towards the driver side window, gesturing with his fingers.

The horseman put two fingers to his mouth and said "Cigarette?"

"Give the man a fucking cigarette," said Rupert happily. "And give him the car as well if he asks for it."

The rider leaned down to accept the cigarette that was quickly offered by Johnny. He then leaned down even further as Johnny reached up and lit his cigarette.

"Ot kuda?" asked the horseman, who looked at Rupert with some curiosity.

"America."

"Shtat?"

"Texas," replied Rupert.

"Oooh, Texas! Cowboys. Thieves. What they do?" asked the horseman in very rough Russian.

Rupert made a shooting-gun motion with his hand.

"Good! Very good!" laughed the horseman. "Here I have gun. But only for wolves. Thieves... I must..."

The horseman made a clenched fist and then gestured towards the four sleeping men.

"Clear enough!" said Rupert with a smile. "It looks like you don't need a gun."

Rupert then turned his head to look out his open window as the shepherd boy joined the conversation.

"Hello mister!" said the boy, using up all the English he knew.

"Hello!" replied Rupert in English.

The shepherd boy turned his attention to Johnny and asked him a few questions. Johnny and the shepherd then both pulled out their phones.

"You guys are exchanging numbers? You need a violence-prone shepherd in your list of contacts?" asked Rupert.

"Nah. The kid is bored of the music on his phone. He asked if I had any new rap tracks. So I'm sending him some new stuff through Bluetooth."

After a few minutes of casual chatting the shepherd yelled out "Finished!" and started to play his new rap music.

"You thirsty?" asked Rupert. "That looked like hard work."

"Easy work!" answered the kid.

Rupert then leaned into the back seat and grabbed a plastic bag with one large bottle of Fanta and an even larger bottle of RC Cola. He handed it to the shepherd boy.

"I cannot!" said the boy.

Johnny then said a few friendly sentences in Kajbezi. The boy was going to continue resisting the drinks that he really, really wanted to accept, but then he saw that the stray sheep needed to be rounded up and pushed back towards the flock. So he took the bag with a smile and gave his quick thanks before running off to catch his sheep. His new rap soundtrack slowly faded into the distance.

The rider gave a quick wave with his lit cigarette and spurred his horse towards the runaway sheep.

The road was now clear, except for the unconscious, bloodied and broken thieves. Johnny started the car and put it into gear.

"Welcome to Eshakdek," said Johnny.

*****

2 hours later:

Johnny looked at the map on his phone, noting that they were just cutting through an upper corner of Eshakdek province.

"Looks like we have two options. Which one do you think we should take?" asked Rupert as he saw different roads heading to the same end destination.

"We can take the longer route. We will lose a bit of time, but we can stop by my favorite place."

"A hashish factory run by prostitutes?"

"No, man!" countered the slightly annoyed Johnny. "Something pure. A holy place."

"Making your first lifetime visit to a mosque?"

"No. It's a tree."

"A tree? Really?"

"Yes. It's a holy tree," replied Johnny. "It's a special place for the Eshakdeki people. If you follow the river from my hometown up into the mountains to its source, you will eventually come to a pistachio tree that grows by a spring. Isn't that crazy?"

"What's crazy? A tree?"

"Yes! It's a pistachio tree growing up high in the mountains! That shouldn't be possible. Pistachio trees are only found in low areas and hills where it is hot. So this tree is probably magical. Or maybe it's blessed by God. It depends who you ask."

"So, what do you believe?" asked Rupert. "Is it magic, or God's work? Or global warming?"

"Well, there is a mullah that guards the tree, just like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather. So it's been there since before global warming started. Of course, he says it's God. He harvests the pistachios and you can buy them. One at a time! Each pistachio is only for one person. You eat the pistachio and then drink from a spring nearby. It is also magical, the spring... And then your health gets better or you get pregnant if you're a woman. The usual magic nature stuff."

"And all Kajbez people believe this?"

"No. Only Kajbez from Eshakdek. Other Kajbez people just take photos and selfies by the tree. Some people tie good-luck ribbons to the juniper trees nearby. It's very beautiful. In the fall, people take its leaves as souvenirs. You can buy those from the mullah as well. He sells them inside a little plastic cocaine baggie."

"You've been to the tree before?" asked Rupert.

"Three times! Once when I was a little kid. Once when I was a teenager. And then again a few years ago. I love it. After I visited, I felt that I had energy and I felt better. My mood, that's what felt better. I love this tree. I feel like the tree is my friend and that it cares about me. You will be sarcastic and laugh, I know. But maybe the tree really is magic."

"I'm not laughing. I wanna see this tree now. It better make all my wishes come true."

Johnny had lied about how much longer the drive was, and Rupert complained for the full two hours it took to get to the tree. But Johnny did not lie about the tree. It was amazing. The rocky terrain of the surrounding area was mostly covered in grass – now sunburnt and dried out – with the occasional cypress tree growing amidst the more numerous juniper trees. And amongst these was a lone pistachio tree next to a small spring and surrounded by an impressive rock outcropping. It was no giant, and it was no different from any other healthy-looking pistachio tree in Kajbezistan, but it did look alien and completely out of place with its bright green leaves and unripened pistachios hanging in clusters from every branch.

It was surprisingly close to the occasionally loud road, a fact that should have annoyed Rupert. But that did not register at all. Nor did the fact that there were some lazy-looking police milling about by a checkpoint where the trail started at the roadside. The police did not, however, attempt to collect any sort of fee whatsoever, which was a surprise.

"Why aren't those police collecting bribes or selling tickets to the magic tree?" asked Rupert.

"Because people pay the mullah. And then the mullah pays the police. And then the police leave the people alone."

Rupert was sober and not in the mood to be mean, so he behaved himself as he went through the rituals with Johnny. Rupert joined Johnny in eating one of last year's pistachios and drinking water right at the source of the spring as it welled up from under a large boulder. Rupert, sensing that this really meant something to Johnny, refrained from sarcasm and criticism the entire time. Johnny then ripped two strips of cloth from his least favorite shirt and led Rupert across the hillside.

"Choose a juniper tree that you like and tie your cloth ribbon to a branch."

"For good luck, right?" asked Rupert.

"Yeah, I said that. But what I really meant was that the ribbon is like a prayer. You ask for something when you tie the ribbon to a tree."

"I make a wish then?"

"Exactly."

Almost every juniper was decorated with cloth strips like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Rupert quickly made his choice and tied his prayer offering to an easy-to-reach branch.

Rupert then noticed that Johnny had found a spot to sit and watch the setting sun. He decided that Johnny could use some alone-time. Rupert, spotting a flat boulder in one of the many rock outcroppings, made his way to his own sunset vantage point.

Johnny finally decided that he had had his fill of Zen about thirty minutes after the sun disappeared below the horizon.

As Rupert and Johnny walked back past the pistachio tree, the mullah called out to them from his mini-veranda where he was lying on a roll-out mattress against some colorful cushions.

The mullah reached into a wooden box as he spoke in Kajbezi and handed a string of dried holy pistachio leaves to Rupert.

"He says that we should hang these from the car mirror. It will keep us safe," said Johnny in translation.

"How much should we pay him for these?" asked Rupert.

"No money! He says that these pistachio leaves are free. You are a guest here in Kajbezistan. He says that when you return home, he hopes you will tell everybody about how generous people in Kajbezistan are."

"Cool. Tell him I said thanks. And then add a bunch of other stuff that you think he would like to hear. I'm not good with these long elaborate compliments and thanks. So just translate whatever... I'll just say a few more things to make it seem like I am saying a bunch of thankful things and, uh, I guess you should now go ahead and tell him whatever."

Rupert then placed his hand over his heart and said thanks in Kajbezi. This was followed by Johnny relaying – in, finally, his home region dialect of Kajbezi – fulsome thanks and Rupert's non-existent over-the-top praise for Kajbezistan.

The mullah seemed quite pleased, and did his best to get the two travelers to stay for tea, but Johnny and Rupert resisted his offer twice – stating that they needed to get down the pass and find a guesthouse for the night.

After an hour of driving downhill, Rupert's patience for the road had faded.

"No need to get to the bottom of the pass. Let's just go here..." announced Rupert as he spotted a faded blue sign advertising a guesthouse.

"Well, let's see how much the rooms cost," added Johnny cautiously.

"I really don't care as long as they don't ask for a ridiculous price."

Johnny winced a little, still not able to go along with Rupert's tendency to pay the asking price without even negotiating.

But, once again, Rupert won out after using the trump card of the fact that he was paying, not Johnny.

Johnny soon forgot about his latest defeat once the host – a matronly great grandmother – showed them from their bedroom to the dinner room. There awaited the usual sit-on-the-floor roll-out mattresses formed in a square around a tablecloth held down by numerous trays. But instead of the trays holding cheap candy and ancient nuts, there were trays full of fresh fruit, recently dried nuts, and hot naan flatbread. And instead of cheap supermarket cream, there was fresh farm yoghurt along with freshly picked orange mountain berries and local honey to flavor it. Rupert and Johnny were quite pleased. Then the first course came: large bowls of thick soup full of noodles, meat, veggies and potatoes. Rupert tasted the soup and was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the soup was not over-salted.

"Obviously, the French trained these people," observed Rupert.

"The French?"

"A French NGO trained guesthouse owners in the mountains on how to care for foreigners and tourists. You know: don't dump a shitload of salt into their food, let them choose how much sugar to put in their tea, don't give them shitty candy, give them fresh fruit and veggies, and don't force them to eat when they don't want to. That sort of thing."

"Yeah, I was chatting with the father and he said that some NGO had given them western-style hospitality training a couple of years back," noted Johnny. "And I was thinking that this soup doesn't have enough salt."

"Dude, the saltshaker is right there," countered Rupert. "And that's how it should be: let your guest decide."

Rupert looked out the open door and saw a few smiling children in the courtyard peering in. They were suddenly shooed away by the grandmother as she walked through with the main course: chicken and boiled rice.

"Nice. This rice has been steamed or boiled, not fried," said Rupert with some satisfaction.

"I would prefer fried rice," complained Johnny. "It has better flavor."

"That's the attitude that gives your countrymen big bellies and bad hearts."

"Hmm," replied Johnny.

The curious children soon returned to observing Rupert. Clearly, foreign guests were the main source of entertainment for these mountain kids.

Rupert waved them in and gestured for them to sit. All three of them eyed the single bowl of candy.

"Think they want the candy?" asked Rupert.

"Probably. That's the really good Russian candy, not the garbage Kajbez stuff."

Rupert held the bowl out to the kids. They grabbed several pieces each with no hesitation. Then they giggled and ran out into the dark with their bounty.

"You think the rest of the family will join us?" asked Rupert.

"I think the French told them to let the foreigners eat by themselves."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because that's what they said when I talked to the father. He said that they were told to let the NGO people eat by themselves because they aren't interested in spending time with local people. But for tourists they should all dine together because tourists are friendly and want to spend time with locals and see Kajbez culture," said Johnny bluntly.

"That's some very honest guesthouse-training they were given. And they're right. But this family seems really cool. They're not annoying at all. I like them."

"You like Kajbez people now?" asked Johnny with a smile.

"Well, this family at least."

Johnny took the cue from Rupert and suggested to the grandmother that it would be nice to eat alongside the grandfather, father and the two sons that had not yet joined their other brothers working in Russia.

The father and his sons all spoke Russian reasonably well, and an enjoyable conversation was had. To Rupert's amazement, not a single annoying question was asked. He never had to give any answers to queries about his salary, his lack of a wife and family, Russia's relations with the west, his religion, or how to migrate to Europe or America.

Eventually one of the sons excused himself and disappeared for twenty minutes. When he returned he had good news: that night would be unseasonably cold, so he had taken the initiative and started the fire that heated the mini-sauna.

"The banya will be fully heated in another ten minutes," the son announced with a smile.

The night only got better from there once Rupert found how comfortable the traditional roll-out kurpechaki mattresses in their bedroom were. After returning from a toilet visit before bedtime, Rupert waved at Johnny, indicating that he should remove his headphones.

"The outhouse doesn't smell at all," said Rupert in amazement. "It has some sort of ventilation system that... Well, I'm not sure how it works. But seriously, this place is better than any hotel I've stayed at in Kajbezistan."

Soon enough the two travelers drifted quickly off to sleep thanks to the absence of the sound of barking dogs, honking cars or yelling street drunks.

Then, for the first time in ages, Rupert fell asleep without once wishing that he had a few drinks of alcohol under his belt.

After getting the best night of sleep since the trip began, Rupert and Johnny woke gently to a perfect sunrise and quickly prepared tea – as if the grandma had a kid on watch for when their guests awoke.

Once again fresh fruit, hot bread and yoghurt appeared. Rupert was quite satisfied, but then the grandmother came in and asked Johnny a quick question.

"She says sorry that she doesn't know how to ask it in Russian – she only knows the word for eggs and would you like eggs. She wants to know how you would like your eggs cooked. What style?"

"Are you serious?" asked an incredulous Rupert.

"Yeah, she said she can boil the eggs, she can fry them, she can make an omelet, or she can scramble them."

"She won't just force me to eat fried eggs like every other breakfast babushka in Kajbezistan?"

"Yeah, it's your dream come true, bro."

"Well, then I would like my eggs scrambled," said a very pleased Rupert.

Johnny relayed the instructions to the grandmother and she disappeared as quickly as she appeared.

"Are you getting yours scrambled as well?" asked Rupert.

"No. I want mine fried."

"Damn it, Johnny. I almost thought you weren't a real Kajbez anymore."

"Sorry to disappoint you bro. I love fried eggs. The hot oil gives them a good flavor."

Rupert was soon happily eating his scrambled eggs along with the tomatoes and very tasty, but mysterious, sliced root vegetables that came as a garnish.

Halfway through his meal Rupert stopped and pulled out his phone.

"You hoping for a signal to magically appear?" asked a bemused Johnny.

"Nah. I'm adding this guesthouse to the offline map that all the foreigners and the tourists use. It will automatically be added to the map as soon as my phone connects again."

"I don't understand," said Johnny.

"I'm putting this place on the map and adding a recommendation."

"That's nice of you."

"Yeah, I know. It's out of character. But I will praise things in Kajbezistan when they deserve to be praised."

"You should add more positive reviews of Kajbez things that you like," suggested Johnny.

"Unfortunately, I don't think there is an app for rating drug dealers and prostitutes."

Johnny wasn't sure if this was sarcasm or not. He chuckled just to be safe, while also being slightly offended deep down inside.

Special Information Insert #11

Assorted Kajbez Conspiracy Theories

Taxi drivers: The taxi drivers of Chorshanbe happily believe the most common international conspiracy theories, although a world control by Freemasons is a way more popular belief than the idea that Zionist Crusaders run the planet. The taxists of course believe that 9/11 was an inside job, but they disagree on who actually ordered it. But they are definitely sure that whoever it was, they were not Muslims. As for Islam in general, Kajbez taxi drivers make sure to tell their American passengers that Obama is a Muslim, as is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They are, however, certain that Trump is not a Muslim, but that he is definitely under the control of the Russian GRU.

America: America runs the drug trade, from a base in Afghanistan where their soldiers still fight, through Kajbezistan where the US Ambassador is the kingpin of the local heroin trade (white US embassy SUVs are said to be heroin transports), to Russia where America encourages the use of drugs in order to weaken the solidarity between Russia and Kajbezistan.

The Great Patriotic War: Zero Americans died in World War II. Rather, the USA spent its time sabotaging Soviet military equipment and selling poisoned food to the Red Army.

Melania Trump: A Russian agent who controls her simpleton husband.

The Wily British: The British ambassador is a spymaster with devious designs on the territorial integrity of Kajbezistan. His regular horseback trips in the mountains are when he regularly meets with a wide range of terrorist groups who have infiltrated the territory of Kajbezistan.

Russian false flags: The Kajbez militias that killed people during the brief civil war of the early 1990s were Russian soldiers dress up in Kajbez disguise.

Female Tourists: Traveling prostitutes, most likely. In Chorshanbe it is believed that the more attractive backpackers are high-end, expensive call girls. This belief came about because the European and American girls reject local men at a rate near 100% – without even negotiating. So Kajbez men reached the conclusion that they must only be available to the richest men who frequent the elite clubs in the capital. There is just no other plausible explanation for women traveling alone without a husband.

Male tourists: Nobody cares enough about them to come up with any sort of vaguely entertaining conspiracy theory.

The expat community: Spies, all of them. But some are likely Christian missionaries seeking to steal the Muslim faithful from their nation.

Foreign NGOs and International Organizations: The most popular belief is that their exorbitant salaries (which only a few actually have) come directly from the Kajbez taxpayers. They refuse to believe that any foreign country would pay for humanitarian aid or development projects in Kajbezistan.

China: All Chinese businessmen and road builders are advanced Chinese government surveyors who are mapping out a planned new Chinese province to be named the 'Kajbez Autonomous Region' or, alternately, the 'Chinese Special Administrative Region of the Far West Newest Province.' It is believed that only Russia can save Kajbezistan from this fate.

Ethnic Russians: The Kajbez government was very, very quiet in regards to Russia's annexation of the Crimea as there is a significant ethnic Russian population that live in the regions along the northern border with Russia. There are currently seventeen different conspiracy theories that relate to possible annexations of Russian-majority areas in the far north. But usually these theories end up with NATO or George Soros somehow being to blame – sometimes in tandem with each other.

The Moon Landing: Many Kajbez (university educated) believe that only an idiot would believe that the Americans landed on the moon. Others (taxi drivers) believe that the Americans did land there, and that they have a moon-based earthquake-generating weapon that can strike any country on earth that is disobedient to America.

Note: Kajbez people in rural areas do not believe in any of the abovementioned conspiracy theories. They feel that city dwellers have feeble minds that can be fed any sort of stupid story, from communism to atheism to moon landing conspiracies to the benefits of a Bachelor's degree in the Arts and Humanities. However, they do have two conspiracy theories that they accept....

Wasps: Many Kajbez in the rural south claim that there were no wasps before the arrival of the NGOs and the UN in the early 1990s. Therefore, it is widely accepted that foreigners imported wasps. Why? Nobody can say what the exact malicious reason is.

Cross-Eurasia cyclists: The strange Europeans who ride their bicycles across Kajbezistan are believed to be gold prospectors and gem smugglers. A minority believe them to be impoverished Christian pilgrims on their way to a shrine in Japan.

# Chapter Eleven

# Visiting an Evil Canadian Goldmine

Date: September 6th, 2019.

Place: Eastern shore of Suuk-Kul, Kajbezistan's largest and most-boring lake.

Weather forecast: Grey and dreary.

"Sort of scenic, I guess," shrugged Rupert as he looked out across the lake from the rocky beach. "Not as much plastic garbage on the shore as other lakes in Kajbezistan, so that's nice. But it's no Sashakul Lake."

"I think it's nice," said Johnny in defense of the pearl of Suuk-Kul province. "Plus, we can drive right to the shore. Sashakul Lake is very difficult to reach on a very bad road."

"I thought there would be a place down here to eat at," added Rupert with some disappointment.

"This is not that kind of beach. The popular beaches with restaurants and clubs and hotels are on the other side of the lake, on the north shore. I told you that when we were deciding which side of the lake to drive along."

"I remember. But you also said that the other side is full of Russian and Kajbez tourists. I would rather starve than hang out with that vacation crowd."

"So, should we go to the small food store we saw on the main road?" asked Johnny.

"No. Let's drive until we get to the next town. Hopefully they have some less depressing options than that."

Soon enough the two tourists were back on the road, with Rupert vetoing every lunch option they passed – usually just based on the outward appearance of the establishment. At the edge of every town Rupert saw another sight that angered him: European hitchhikers who felt that they should not have to pay $2 for a 100km ride in a local mini-bus or a shared car.

Driving past a solo blonde western hitchhiker, Rupert felt the need to let his feelings known.

"Look at this idiot. She probably also does this helpless girl act when she wants a free place to stay for the night. And when she needs food. I bet she probably has a bank account with 10,000 Euros in it back home. She's literally stealing food from the children in the houses where she stays for free. What a sociopath."

"Sociopath?" asked Johnny. "What does that mean?"

"It means that she only thinks about herself and what she needs, and she does not care for the needs and feelings of other people – even if it's her actions that are harming them."

"Oh yeah, I know people like that," said Johnny as he nodded his head.

After driving out of yet another unsatisfactory village, Rupert pointed out a large Canadian mining company's propaganda billboard, featuring smiling locals and Canadian engineers in bright orange hardhats.

"What does the sign say?"

"Uh... just bullshit," replied Johnny. "It says they are building Kajbezistan together with the local people. And then it says something about one of their charity projects nearby."

"A charity project? How generous. The local people must love them."

Johnny did not miss the sarcasm. Nobody loved the Canadian gold mine. In fact, everybody hated them. Most people hated them because they failed to secure employment at the mine (where you could earn triple what you would make working anywhere else in the region). But the rest hated them for everything else.

The Kumystor Mine was owned by Tiyinerra, a Canadian mining firm, in a 60-40 Kajbez government-Tiyinerra split in favor of the government. It used to be an 80-20 split in favor of Tiyinerra, but the Kajbez government forces a renegotiation of the contract every five years through a variety of strong-arm techniques. Tiyinerra's objections that it had a signed long-term agreement are always ignored by the Kajbez government, who accuse them of a variety of heinous offenses – offenses that the Russian and Chinese mining companies in Kajbezistan are never accused of. The Kajbez government was, of course, merely attacking a cash-cow with no patron. If such attacks and renegotiations were attempted with the Russians or Chinese, there would be retaliation. The Kajbez government needs remittances from its labor migrants in Russia, and it needs the loans from China, so it must submit to them. But Tiyinerra must submit to Kajbezistan, as it was weak and had no powerful friends. It was the way of the steppe, as the Canadians sadly admitted.

The Canadian mining company was despised locally for many reasons. The most recent reason being that the most beloved Kajbez national dish is horse penis, ground up into a mince and mixed with sheep tail fat, and finally, put into a sausage shaped like a horse penis. Known locally as cho-chok, it is universally referred to as 'chewy-cock' by the expat community. An unfortunate Scottish mining engineer, during a visit to the local cuisine section of the mine's cafeteria, noted the humor in this dish in a photo he uploaded to Facebook captioned 'The locals seem to love getting stuffed with GIANT Kajbez HORSE COCK YUM YUM YUM GAG GAG!!! LOL.'

The rude Scot was promptly arrested and charged with inciting ethnic, racial and/or religious hatred towards the Kajbez nation. The engineer spent a week in jail before the British ambassador returned early from one of his many horseback riding expeditions in the mountains to negotiate a deal whereby the Scot apologized and was promptly expelled.

A prominent local newspaper known for its maximum levels of patriotism welcomed the Scot's expulsion, but complained that the issue of the Canadian company stealing all the gold remained unsolved, as were other problems such as the environmental devastation wreaked by the foreigners (environmental devastation wreaked by Kajbez companies were a non-issue, as those were taken up by the small liberal newspaper in Chorshanbe whose offices were always mysteriously burning down). Another Kajbez-language newspaper, this one known for being written by Kajbez State University graduates, asked a more vital question: 'Why was the English ambassador helping out a Scottish prisoner? What were the Englishman's interests in this whole Scottish affair? What is the connection between England and Scotland?' They never received a satisfactory answer.

Rupert and Johnny could not care less about the politics and history surrounding the mine, but they were intrigued by what the guesthouse manager proposed: a guided tour of the notorious mine. The two bored travelers immediately accepted.

With business hours in the small town coming to a close, Rupert dispatched Johnny to stock up on groceries and supplies, an arrangement that suited both Rupert's laziness and Johnny's deep anger at Rupert vetoing his attempts to negotiate better prices for items in the bazaar.

Rupert was too hungry to wait until Johnny returned with groceries, and so he set off in full adventure mode to find something to eat in what passed for the center of town. After a ten-minute walk, Rupert figured that he must be in the center, as there was a very well maintained statue of Josef Stalin standing proudly amidst a dilapidated town park.

Soon enough Rupert was looking up at a sign that read merely Khotdogkhana. Rupert used his superb Kajbezi translating skills and said to himself silently, 'Hotdog House.' Rupert hoped that they would have half-decent hotdogs, but he knew that they might just have single shots of vodka and bags of expired Russian lobster-flavored chips.

Johnny entered confidently to find a single fluorescent light bulb illuminating a bare concrete room with a sagging plastic poster of Mecca strewn up on a wall. A few locals sat around looking miserable and eating hotdogs. He was at the right place.

"KANADETS!" an angry voice shouted out.

Rupert turned around to see a belligerent-looking Kajbez man. The man was clearly drunk. At 5pm.

"A Canadian? Oh no. Where?" asked Rupert wryly, knowing full well he was the only possible candidate.

"YOU!! CANADIAN BITCH! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH OUR GOLD?! WHERE. IS. OUR. GOLD?! YOUR COUNTRY IS RICH! YOU HAVE STOLEN OUR GOLD AND NOW WE ARE POOR!"

Rupert couldn't remember ever hearing any Kajbez scream this loudly before.

"Sorry. I don't know what the Canadians have done with your gold. I wouldn't know. I'm American."

"But you work at Kumystor? At the mine?!"

"No. I'm a tourist. And I don't know what you are talking about, sorry."

The drunk grunted in disappointment.

The Kajbez audience seemed let down as well, as they were likely hoping to see a fist fight. But they were to be further disappointed as an older man who was sitting at a table by himself got up and grabbed the screamer by the arm. He said a few rude words in Kajbezi to the angry man and turned him towards the door.

"Go home! And if you try to come back here today I will talk to your father about this!" the old man said in Russian for Rupert's benefit, as if he was scolding a small child for an audience.

The now sulking Canadian-hater exited the restaurant in total defeat.

"Thanks," say Rupert, nodding at the old man.

"No thanks necessary," the old-timer said as he returned to his table.

Rupert turned his attention to the menu on the wall and made his selection: "I think I want a deluxe hotdog, but I have a question: what makes the hot dog deluxe compared to the regular hotdog?"

"The deluxe has a better hotdog sausage," said the teenage boy behind the counter.

"Oh, you mean that I will get a Canadian sausage in my hotdog?"

"No."

"I can see empty hot dog packages in your rubbish bin. They have a red Canadian leaf on them."

"No."

"So those plastic Canadian hotdog packs didn't have Canadian sausages in them?"

"No."

The hot dog seller was not going to admit to using hot dogs that were produced by the enemy. But it made good business sense, as the Canadian wieners were the cheapest and the best of the imports (compared to the local abominations that passed for sausages), plus they had a halal certification from some enterprising Pakistani immigrant in Mississauga, Ontario who sold halal certifications online with the lowest of standards. How Canadian sausages came to dominate the Kajbezistan hotdog market, Rupert did not know – despite bringing up the issue several times with other clueless expats. It was one of the profound, unanswered mysteries of Central Asia as far as Rupert was concerned.

"OK. I'll have the deluxe non-Canadian hotdog, please."

"Would you like carrots on your hotdog?"

"It's not an authentic Kajbez hotdog without shredded carrots, so yes please," said Rupert with enthusiasm. "But please hold the mayonnaise. I'm not Canadian."

"And a drink?"

"Black tea with lemon, no sugar."

"No sugar? Why? The sugar is free."

"I prefer my tea without sugar."

"Why?"

"I don't like sugar in my tea. Don't worry, it's normal for people like me."

"Why?"

"It's the custom in my homeland."

"Why?"

"Sugar makes you fat and it rots your teeth."

"But I drink tea with sugar, and I'm skinny. And look at my teeth. No gold teeth at all!"

"It is my father's wish that I do not drink sugar with my tea. I must respect my father's commands," said Rupert with as much fake sincerity as he could muster.

"Oh, of course! I will not put sugar in your tea."

Rupert bringing his father into the interrogation may seem a little strange, but Rupert found that any foreign oddity that Kajbez people wanted to rectify could be justified in their eyes if you just say that your father or grandfather told you to do it. The Kajbez people knew all about having to listen to the often nonsensical commands of their authoritarian male elders.

Turning around to look for a table, Rupert saw the old man gesturing to sit down at his table.

"Please, guest, sit!"

Rupert gladly took his rescuer up on his offer and sat down.

"Hi, nice to meet you. My name's Rupert. Thanks again for the help earlier."

"Nice to meet you, and you're welcome. My name is Stalin."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. Stalin Fazliddinovich. My father...he was a patriot. A Soviet patriot, not a fake Kajbez patriot. And I was born in June 1945. It was a time to show your appreciation for our leader."

"Clear enough!"

"I know that Stalin is not popular in the West, but you must understand that we feel differently. I'm sure that you find it strange that almost every Kajbez town with over 1,000 people has a statue of Stalin standing."

"Oh, no. Not at all. I understand enough of Soviet and Kajbez history to know why people here honor Stalin. It's just like how in America we have statues of President Jackson."

"And why is President Jackson famous?"

"He killed all the Native Americans."

The old man nodded in approval.

"So what are you doing here?" asked Stalin. "Not many tourists leave the main road and come into this town. And don't worry, I'm not police or KGB. I tried to join, but they said that they only accepted illiterate idiots," said Stalin in a perfect deadpan delivery.

"I work in Chorshanbe, and I've seen all the popular tourist destinations in Kajbezistan. I want to see something new. So I came here."

"Seen anything interesting yet?"

"I saw wolves eating a sheep early this morning at the bottom of the pass."

"That interests you?" asked an amused Stalin.

"Sure. I've only ever seen something like that in nature documentaries on television. It was interesting to see in real life."

"Ah, of course. I forget sometimes. Here we see things like that every day, so it is no longer interesting to us."

"Do you see wolves often?" asked Rupert.

"The wolves usually keep to themselves. They stay far away in the mountains, and they want nothing to do with humans. But! In times of trouble, the wolves come to visit. My grandfather told me that when the soldiers of the White Army came, the wolves appeared – as if the wolves came with the counter-revolutionaries. And when Hitler attacked us, the wolves again came down close to our villages. They ate our livestock, and sometimes our children. Again they came in the early 1990s after the end of the Soviet Union."

"And now?"

"And now they appear again. I don't know what it means... But it can't be good news."

"Are you afraid of the wolves?" asked Rupert.

"A little bit, maybe. But our wolves are not big like Russian wolves. To be honest, I am more afraid of kabany."

"Kaban? Sorry, I don't know this Russian word."

"Kaban. Wild pig."

"Pigs, seriously? Why are you afraid of wild boars?"

"Bears run away. They are chubby cowards. A snow leopard will watch you from two kilometers away, but do nothing. They are shy cats that prefer fat sheep to skinny humans. Pigs, however, they will attack. They travel in a herd, with several large males. Several very large and angry males. The dominant boar can be up to 250 kilograms. 250 kilograms! They see humans as a threat to their sows and to their piglets. They want to control their territory against everyone and everything. So they attack. And when they attack, they rip the flesh with their tusks and their teeth. With loud war cries. Like the scream of a devil. They go for the man's legs and the stomach, and everything in between."

"Sounds terrible."

"It is. A firewood collector was killed in a neighboring region last year. His body was torn to pieces. Nothing left to look at to know he was once a human."

"And in this area? Are the pigs are a serious problem here?"

"Not so much before, but now they are," replied Stalin gravely.

"What changed?"

"Their numbers. It has increased greatly over the last two decades. We have always had wild pigs, and they would raid our potato fields and steal our dried corn and kill our dogs, but they were few in numbers."

"Why has their population increased?"

"Many reasons. The winters are warmer, so fewer pigs die during their first winter. Plus, fewer predators. We used to have snow leopards here, but they are almost all gone. Poachers killed them and sold their fur. They now hide in the high mountains. And in the lowlands we used to have tigers, but not for 50 or 60 years. Poachers again! Fewer bears also. The Chinese will buy bear parts for medicine to grow their cocks. And these big predators were what kept the number of pigs low. Unfortunately, the wolves here are small, like I said. So the pigs have little to fear."

"Do people hunt the pigs?" asked Rupert, who was by now fascinated with the conversation.

"They did. The Russian people who lived here were enthusiastic hunters. And they were good marksmen. Many of them had served in the military as paratroopers. Those Russians loved hunting. On Saturdays and Sundays during the fall – when the weather got cool and the leaves fell from the trees – the Russian men here would get together in hunting parties. They would take some bread, vodka and their dogs – up into the side valleys! They didn't bring sausages because they would very soon be cooking pork shashlik over a fire."

"Sounds like fun."

"Yes! I myself would go with them on occasion. I had Russian friends. They were good people. Unfortunately, starting in the late 1980s they began to leave. Some Kajbez people were making them feel like this land was not their home. And then during the troubles in the 1990s they left completely. All of them. They migrated to Russia or to Russian towns in the northern regions of Kajbezistan along the Russian border, even though they were born and raised here. This was their homeland. I miss them..."

"Why not hunt the wild boars yourselves?"

"The government took away our guns after the conflicts in the 1990s. The United Nations came here and the government grabbed our hunting rifles and gave them to the UN. They said they were going to destroy them, but I'm not sure. I didn't see it with my own eyes. I still to this day have no idea what these UN people wanted with our ancient hunting rifles."

"Well, I can tell you," said Rupert, in one of the rare cases that he knew something that a local did not. "The UN and the Kajbez government were claiming that they were confiscating Kalashnikovs from militias, and that people were turning in weapons voluntarily as part of the disarmament process. The regional authorities were given quotas for guns to collect. And they count a Kalashnikov and an old hunting rifle equally: one gun. Of course, if they confiscated a Kalashnikov they sold it to Afghans at the border. I talked to a guy who worked here for the UN as part of the disarmament process. He said all he saw being destroyed were old hunting rifles and broken Kalashnikovs that were already beyond repair."

"Bastards. That doesn't surprise me," said Stalin.

"So, no more guns here?"

"A few people have been able to get a permit to buy a new rifle. Single fire bolt action. No magazine! You must slowly reload after each round you fire. Can you imagine! A bear or a wild boar can take several shots before it goes down. We need a Kalashnikov! Or a lever-action Winchester, like your cowboys! A single bullet is all you get. You will not have time to reload before the pigs are upon you."

"Yeah, it sounds like it would be the pigs hunting the humans instead," remarked Rupert as he chewed on his halal hotdog sausage.

"Exactly. Plus, there is not much incentive to hunt a pig. You know, we are Muslims. Well, not me, I'm an atheist, and a communist as well, but I follow many Muslim traditions like almost everybody around here. So we do not eat pork. Nobody wants to hunt an animal that you cannot eat, and one that does not have any valuable horns or fur to sell. It's only good for feeding to the dogs."

"So now you have too many pigs."

"Yes, they are the fourth Plague of Kajbezistan."

"A plague?"

"Yes. Many plagues here. The worst is, of course, the family," said Stalin, in a clear reference to the president's extended clan. "You know who I'm talking about. But don't say it aloud."

"Clear enough. I know all about them."

"It's sometimes hard, you know, to tell the difference between these wild pigs and our dear leaders..."

The rest of Rupert's day was not nearly as interesting as Stalin, but it was certainly more relaxing than the khotdogkhana incident with the angry drunk.

Later that afternoon Johnny eventually returned from wherever he was and had some news.

"It turns out that the guy who gives tours of the mine is busy. He's a mine employee who does public relations, but he's in Chorshanbe for business right now. But the guesthouse manager called around and he found someone who can get us a tour. I went to meet the guy, and he said we can go visit tomorrow morning."

"Awesome. The mine sounds crazy. I want to see this place that is constantly in danger of being swallowed by a fast-moving glacier. And it will break a record for the highest altitude place I've visited."

"Yeah, it should be something a little different than what we usually do," remarked Johnny.

"So, what's the deal? Do we have a guide who will meet us here? Or do we drive up to the mine?"

"We will drive halfway until we get to the security gate. Some guy will be waiting for us there. Then we drive with him in an official company vehicle. It's for safety reasons, I guess."

"Or maybe it's a trap and someone wants to kill us and dispose of our bodies in some restricted mining zone?" suggested Rupert.

"Yes, it could be that also."

*****

The next morning:

The road from town started to gain in elevation immediately after the last house. The valley slowly narrowed, and the herds of skinny sausage horses thinned out. Soon Rupert and Johnny had driven high enough to be back in an evergreen forest. The valley soon quickly turned into a gorge and Rupert could look out the passenger-side window down a very steep embankment to an angry, rushing river that pounded its way over the large boulders at the bottom of the ravine.

However, this road was quite unusual by the standards of nearly abandoned rural Central Asian roads. The road was excessively wide and well groomed, despite having a gravel surface. The massive mining machinery that occasionally moved up and down this road was the reason for its width and quality, while the gravel surface was a stand-in for an asphalt surface that would buckle and crumble under the weight of a full sized mining truck.

Johnny used the opportunity to drift around the inside corners that, if he made a mistake, would deposit him on the upper side of the hill, rather than at the bottom of the gorge as would the outside corners. Rupert quickly made his displeasure known, and the two travelers switched seats so that Rupert could himself drift around the corners – despite the fact that Rupert had already started on the twelve cans of beer they had purchased that morning.

The road soon became even steeper and the 2004 Opel Astra was not exactly up to the task of uphill drifting, and the best they could do was slide sadly for a short distance before losing momentum. Eventually Johnny pointed out that the temperature gauge was trending towards the engine overheating, and the fun ended.

Thirty minutes later they passed a sign that warned that the road ahead was only open to mine employees. After a few more corners a large metal gate and a checkpoint booth came into view. Rupert slowed down and pulled up next to the booth, and waited for someone to come out. Johnny shrugged and stepped out of the car.

"I'll see if our guy is here," said Johnny.

"He better be. We are about 45 minutes late."

Johnny talked to the two men in the booth briefly before returning to the car.

"They need to check us in. So that means your passport," said Johnny.

"Where's our guy?"

"I have no idea. They say they need to see ID first."

Rupert grumbled as he leaned into the back seat and fished his passport from his backpack.

Rupert stepped out and walked to the booth with Johnny, where they both handed over their passports to a dour-looking man, who promptly snapped a photo of Rupert's biography page in his passport.

Then the dour man changed his expression to disdain.

"It is not possible," he said in English. "You cannot visit the mine. It is prohibited. You must turn around and leave now."

He brusquely handed back Rupert's passport and closed the window.

Rupert and Johnny were taken aback, but they weren't particularly surprised.

"Well, shit," said Rupert as they headed back to the car, "want to take a guess on what that guy's real occupation is?"

"Security for the mine, or he works for the KGB," guessed Johnny. "And now he has our identities."

"Maybe they think we are undercover journalists or environmentalists?" suggested Rupert.

"Probably. I can't think of any other reason. And if that's the case, then I think we've spent long enough here."

Various scenarios raced through Rupert's mind. None of them were particularly favorable.

"Yeah, we should leave this place now," said Rupert in agreement.

The drive back down the road was much more fun, and Rupert was finding that drifting while heading downhill was optimum for such an underpowered car. Around each corner the Opel spit up a large cloud of dust and gravel. Rupert had started again on the lukewarm beer, handing his can to Johnny each time he decided to drift.

Rupert had finally mastered the gravel road downhill drift. With increasing confidence he drifted around each corner, now no longer bothering to hand his can of beer to Johnny.

It was the most fun that the two men had had since leaving Chorshanbe.

Then, suddenly, the two drifters sped around a corner to find a large tanker truck in their path coming the opposite direction.

It was too late to move back onto their side of the road. Rupert slowly tapped the breaks and did his best to veer without spinning out of control. He failed.

The Opel Astra's rear end spun out to the side and the car began to spin. Then they were lost in the dust.

The car very quickly – but softly – came to a stop in what revealed itself to be a sandy hillside. They had spun out of control into the upper side of the hill.

Rupert and Johnny looked back into the dust cloud behind them as it slowly dissipated, trying to make out whether the tanker truck had stayed on the road, ran into the uphill side of the mountain as they had, or if it had gone into the gorge.

They could not see anything, so they decide to drive further down the road to get a view from where a bend in the road stuck out over the canyon.

They could now see that the tanker truck was at the bottom of the canyon.

"I can't see anything? Should we go down there and see if the guy is OK?" asked Johnny.

"Just a minute," said Rupert nervously as he walked back to the car.

Rupert reached into the glove compartment and took out his binoculars.

"I can see the driver," said Rupert as he looked through the binoculars. "It looks like he jumped out halfway down the slope. He's fine – just a little dusty. He's slowly walking up the hill back to the road."

"And the truck? It looks like it's smashed into the rocks. But is it catching on fire?"

"Nope. No fire. But it says sodium cyanide in English on the side of the tanker. And the tank is leaking. Or rather it's pouring out...fast! That whole tanker is emptying into the river."

"Sodium cyanide? Is that bad?" asked Johnny.

"I'm no chemist, but a tanker full of chemicals on its way to a gold processing site can't be a good thing."

"Should we leave?"

"Fuck yes, we should leave!" answered Rupert. "We should leave this crash site, leave this town, and leave this region."

"Where to?"

"The Afghan border."

"We won't make it today. We'll have to sleep in the car or in the house of some villagers somewhere along the road."

"That's fine. Better than staying here," said Rupert.

"But the guys at the security post have our identities now."

"Doesn't matter. Staying here won't help. We need to leave. Now. And if anyone stops us, we just say we have no idea about any accident and we didn't do shit, got it?"

And so the guilty party left the accident scene behind.

As night fell it became clear that Johnny was correct: they would be sleeping in the car or on the ground. Rupert made the decision to stop at the least bad spot they could find, and so they settled into a sandy spot next to a small river that offered some brush and trees for firewood.

The starry sky was completely clear, and the night was surprisingly warm, with a nice breeze blowing from the direction of Afghanistan. Rupert was pleased to see that Johnny had taken some initiative and purchased two cheap Chinese sleeping bags at some point recently without asking permission.

Rupert was even more delighted to see that Johnny had found a passable bottle of whiskey in his previous day's shopping trip, while Johnny was relieved to see that there was plenty of naan bread remaining.

After about half of the bottle was empty, Johnny grew curious and asked a question.

"What will you do next?"

"On this trip, or in general?" asked Rupert.

"In general, in your life and career."

"I don't know. Take some time off and spend my money. And when I'm broke again, then I'll get another bullshit job at some shitty NGO in some shithole country."

"Maybe you will go to some African country and write the best proposals in the world and save them from their poverty and ignorance?"

"That's some serious sarcasm."

"Yeah, I'm learning," said Johnny.

Rupert nodded in approval.

"Well...I don't have any experience in writing grant proposals that would result in beneficial programs," started Rupert. "Your government doesn't allow those. I write grant proposals that will get the money from the idiot donors and which will be allowed to be implemented by the asshole government."

"NGOs don't work," agreed Johnny. "Everybody knows this. But maybe the next country you go to will be an easier place to work in?"

"It'll be the same wherever I go. The government will praise NGOs and foreign donors to their face, but then will turn around and tells its citizens that everything built is thanks to the government. Government-run newspapers often criticize NGOs after the government has stolen everything it could from the NGO."

"So, stealing from NGOs is..." started Johnny.

"Pass the bottle back here," Rupert said, interrupting Johnny.

"...something you do when you are tired of a country?"

"Yeah, I'm tired of this country, and the people."

"How so?" asked Johnny, who already had a very good idea of how.

"Aside from the usual stuff I complain about, there are thing like...when locals make friends with you, and then ask for something impossible: 'Help me get an American visa,' 'I saw job advert at your organization, can you get me the job?', 'Introduce me to the woman in your office and tell her I'm a good guy,' 'What's the name of the person making the hiring decision, can you introduce me?', etcetera... That sort of thing. Every new friend wants helps with scholarships or visas. It's exhausting. Why would I know anything about university scholarships in the west for Kajbez citizens? So why wouldn't I be suspicious of every smiling, friendly Kajbez dude? They're all trying to network off of me."

"See? Bro, in your position you don't get to meet normal Kajbez people. This is why you have a bad impression of this country. You should try harder to meet people outside of your work for the Presbyterians."

"Nah. I gave up long ago," said Rupert bluntly.

"When did you give up?" asked Johnny as he took the bottle of whiskey back from Rupert.

"I didn't give up on myself, I gave up on Kajbezistan... I'm not sure exactly when that was. One day I woke up and I realized that nothing I do will make any difference. And nothing anybody else does will do any good either. It's a cliché – I know that. But clichés are clichés because they happen so often and to so many people. And when I say that nothing makes a difference, I mean that I accepted that everything here will be crushed. All efforts will go to waste. All investments will be lost. All plans will be destroyed. The Kajbez government is a giant grinder, shredding good intentions and hard work into scrap that they can feed to their families. Fuck this government."

Johnny thought to himself silently for a minute.

"Bro, it's not just the government. There is so much else here that is broken. The Soviet Union and then this dictatorship have destroyed society. And it's not just society that has been destroyed, it's the individual. Here, people's minds are controlled. Everybody here knows their limits – or whatever they think those limits are. The government tells you what is possible. And you believe it. This mind control...it is turning us all into peasants. Into slaves. Slaves who have accepted their place."

"So, that's what you think has become of your country?" asked Rupert.

"Yes, I do. And what is the alternative to living in this country? What escape is there? Go work on a dangerous construction site in the snow in Russia? Buy a needle and some heroin? Join the Islamic State? Find a rope and a tree? That's if there are still any trees left in this country when you decide to end it..."

Johnny was now drunk.

"So, chto delat? What is to be done?" asked Rupert.

Johnny did not react in any way that was noticeable.

"Johnny?"

Johnny did not reply. He just stared into the distance. After a minute he stood up and walked away into the dark to no place in particular.

Rupert decided that they had lost the battle against the whiskey. He screwed the cheap cap back onto the bottle and laid back. He felt nothing beyond just a slight numbness.

Special Information Insert #12

A Brief History of the Afghan Border

The British Discover Everything: The source of the River Oxus was the obsession of numerous buffoonish 19th Century Englishmen and Scots who bumbled about the mountains in luxury with a massive follower camp while writing down condescending but witty observations about the locals in their travel diaries. More than a few contemporary travelers have inadvertently reproduced the exact same behavior of adventurers such as Royal Navy Lieutenant John Percival Woodley, an enthusiastic British racist who wrote the 1841 travel adventure book titled A Personal Reconnoitering of a Most Daring Route to the Source of the Mysterious River Oxus: By the Route of the Indus, Cabool and Badakhshyan Valleys, Loyally Performed Under the Sanction of the Honourable East India Company. This book can be considered a direct predecessor to idiot-abroad literature seen in modern-day Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and blog posts. The book also provided the route for the itinerary of an adventure travel company that offered a tour of Lieutenant Wood's journey. The expeditions were offered up until 2016 when a commander who had been fired by the Taliban for excessive decapitations decided to kidnap and decapitate one of the tour groups, each member of whom had paid £7,800 for the trip (their next of kin were refunded in full).

A most wild and exotic British border: In 1869 the British announced that there was nothing north of the River Oxus that interested them, and stated authoritatively that this was where the territory of the totally free and independent Kingdom of Afghanistan ended. And then after just a couple of decades worth of negotiations, the British Crown secured the agreement of the wily Russian Empire on the matter. The Afghans were not consulted. And thus, the modern-day northern border of Afghanistan was created, and the independence and peaceable existence of Afghanistan was secured.

Cross-border bandits: Following the Communist Revolution, Russian Bolsheviks arrived in Central Asia and announced to the locals that they were liberated – but not from Russian imperialism. They were liberated instead from the oppression of the bourgeoisie capitalist class – a class that did not exist in Central Asia, as this region only had kings on one hand, and peasants on the other. After the communists confiscated everybody's land and livestock while burning all the Korans and executing a wide range of class enemies, the very satisfied Central Asian locals had their lives upturned by British provocations. This led to the Bandit Rebellion, which lasted not even two decades and ended when bandit leader Ibrahim Bai crossed over from his safe-haven camp in Afghanistan and was informed on by loyal Central Asian communists who were mad at him because his older brother had stolen their best dairy cow in March 1909. The unfortunate Mr. Bai was paraded around like a Roman war prize for a while before facing the firing squad.

No more border fun for anyone: By the mid-1930s the Soviet-Afghan border was completely sealed and nobody got through, except for a few brave Seventeener Shia mountain Muslims from the Kajbez Soviet Socialist Republic who travelled to India to buy Japanese transistor radios to sell on the Soviet black-market.

Soviet-Afghan War: With the British having faded from importance, the Americans took their turn at provoking the Soviet peoples. American interference in Afghanistan left the Soviet Union with no choice but to liberate Afghanistan. Again, the Americans interfered and a small conflict ensued. Nobody remembers this war, but it is noteworthy as it totally disrupted the Hippie Trail, an overland route for stoned, fornicating western backpackers that ran from Istanbul to India.

Independence: With the USSR now dead, independent Kajbezistan rediscovered its neighbor Afghanistan, deciding that it wanted nothing to do with it, except for...

Drugs for everyone!: Finally, something that everybody can agree on. The heroin trade that flows across the Oxus River from Afghanistan into Kajbezistan has brought prosperity (to the border guards, permanently) and happiness (to drug addicts, temporarily). The Afghan and Kajbez governments (who reap the drug profits) pretend to fight the narcotics trade, while Russia and western donors pretended to not know that Kajbez and Afghan authorities are only pretending to fight the drug trade.

Modern border tourism: Follow the Oxus River upstream and you eventually come to the confluence of the Washkh and Shash Rivers. The border follows the Shash River up to the Vakant Corridor and the mountain pastures of the Little Bomidunya. It is generally acknowledged that there is nothing to do here except spend your time recovering from altitude sickness and traveler's diarrhea.

# Chapter Twelve

# The Afghan Border and Some Fresh Hashish

Date: September 10th, 2019.

Place: Qorog-Tash City, Opasno-Badakhshyan Semi-Autonomous Region.

People: Johnny and Rupert in a well-lit showroom belonging to Massoud, a very friendly Afghan gem merchant.

Johnny was confused. Rupert had, without a word, suddenly veered off the crumbling, dusty sidewalk and into an out-of-place gem showroom where they were greeted by a portly merchant who seemed to recognize Rupert. The Afghan gem trader quickly got to enthusiastically showing of his high-grade lapis lazuli and low-grade rubies to Rupert, but he made no effort to make a sale. As far as Rupert knew, Massoud the gem merchant had never made a sale locally.

"Please, Rupert-jan, you and your friend must come into my office and have some tea," offered Massoud as he gestured for the shop assistant boy to lock the front door. "I have something special to show you!"

Johnny was still confused.

After Massoud had made sure his guests had enough sugar dumped into their tea, he reached into his desk and pulled out a small box, placing it on the table in front of Rupert and Johnny.

Johnny remained confused.

Rupert opened the box and took a long look at Massoud's special surprise. There were four crystals the length of half-smoked cigars, and almost as wide. The crystals grew naturally out white rocks that served as a base for their display. The crystals started out pink and then transitioned to a narrow band of white-ish color before becoming a glowing green.

"Wow, these are great, Massoud," remarked Rupert with some actual sincerity. "They look like the inside of a watermelon."

"Exactly, Rupert-jan! These are called elbaite. Elba-ite. But when they are sold they are marketed as watermelon tourmaline. Beautiful, yes?"

"Yeah, they're amazing. I've never seen these before."

"We have these in Afghanistan. In Kunar Province and Nuristan. But now somebody has discovered them here in Kajbezistan."

"Nearby?"

"Who knows?" replied Massoud. "The people who bring them to me keep the location a secret. If the government finds out, they will take over the mine."

"How much do these sell for?" asked Rupert.

"The rough small tourmaline gems with poor clarity will sell for $10 to $100 after they are polished or cut," said Massoud as he passed a cup full of the rougher gems to Rupert. "I sell those by the bucket. But these large crystals you are looking at can sell for up to $10,000 in the West. Of course, I won't get that price when I sell them to a buyer in Pakistan."

"$10,000? Not bad."

"Crazy rich American women think that these crystals have mystical healing powers. They are so superstitious!" laughed Massoud. "I pray to God for good health, not to a rock. But I'm glad they think this way! It keeps me in business."

"Do you worry much about transporting these to Pakistan?"

"Oh, no. The system for moving gems has worked safely for 5000 years. Anything is possible when money is involved. Government forces, Taliban, Islamic State, warlord militias. No problem! Money fixes everything. As for the thieves...well, the government forces, Taliban, Islamic State, or warlord militias that we pay will fix them," said Massoud as he drew his index finger across his throat dramatically.

"Speaking of money, can you help me out with this?" asked Rupert as he handed over a bulging plastic bag with bundles of US dollars clearly visible for all to see.

Johnny's confusion was now matched by his curiosity.

"Same deal as the last time?" asked Massoud.

"Yes, that would be perfect, thanks. You still have the information?"

"Of course, written down in my records – in secret code of course," replied Massoud with a wink.

"Great."

"Would you like for me to count it here right now?"

"Oh, no need to worry about that," said Rupert with a friendly wave of his hand. "We're old friends."

"Of course," smiled Massoud as he knocked one of the $10,0000 tourmaline crystals on his desk to summon the shop assistant.

The boy seemed unfazed as he was handed a bag of cash that was several times more money than he would earn in multiple lifetimes. After some brief instructions from Massoud, he darted out of the office, carrying the moneybag with all the nonchalance of someone carrying a sack of groceries.

Rupert and Johnny stayed for a while as Massoud insisted they have numerous cups of tea. Rupert lost count, but it was definitely more than three. Rupert attempted to beg himself and Johnny out of the invitation for lunch, but he was convinced to stay when Massoud revealed that his assistant had ran to the back when Rupert and Johnny first entered and relayed the command to his sister, Massoud's Kajbez second wife, to start up the rice pressure cooker.

As Rupert recalled from his previous visit, Massoud has trained his young Kajbez wife to cook the Kabuli pilaw to the standard demanded by the numerous cross-border Afghan traders who visited. And Rupert, who despised Kajbezi pilaw, could not resist the temptation of an authentic Afghan dish.

The meal was as Rupert hoped it would be, and he used the opportunity to attempt to get Johnny to admit that this saffron-tinted, raisin-scented lamb and steamed rice dish was far superior to any greasy mess of rice, cotton-seed oil and mutton that could be cooked in the post-Soviet world. As usual, Rupert failed to extract a confession.

Johnny remained confused as they walked back to their car. Rupert offered no explanation as he ignored Johnny and spent his time occasionally holding up his newly gifted but poor-quality watermelon tourmaline gem to the sun.

"What was that all about? You just gave that Afghan all the cash that you stole from the Presbyterians. Is he going to keep it safe for you?"

"Sort of," replied Rupert. "Massoud deals in gems, but he's also a hawala guy."

"Hawala? What's that?"

"Typical Kajbezistani Muslim you are!" exclaimed Rupert. "Hawala is an international money transfer system for Muslims. I just sent that money to my sister. She will go to some Pakistani shopkeeper back home and he will hand her all of what I just handed over, minus a reasonable commission for himself and Massoud."

"And you trust some Afghan gem buyer to do that?!"

"Oh no, gem buying is only a small part of his business. Massoud loves gems and it provides a cover for his real work. He's mostly into sending hawala transfers somewhere safe for heroin traffickers."

"How did you know how to do this?" asked Johnny.

"Oh...Well, I was stealing money from some bullshit USAID agricultural development project that I worked on a few years ago. I had about $90 thousand in cash. And I can't fly home with more than $10 thousand without paying steep taxes and getting on some sort of watch-list. Plus, I would probably get robbed by customs officers in the Chorshanbe airport. But, as luck would have it, one of my girlfriends at the time – a Kajbez girl – she worked for a business that was getting into Islamic sharia-compliant banking and finance, including hawala transfers. She said that they investigated and found out that Afghans in the bazaar and on the border were already doing hawala transfers. She met them with her boss to discuss the possibility of a joint venture. Of course, the government shut down the whole thing and banned Islamic finance and the hawala system, as it wasn't dirty enough for their liking. But my girlfriend still had all the contacts with the hawala guys. So she introduced me to them, and Massoud transferred my money no problem. They are just sort of underground with their money transfer business now. But I've kept in touch with them."

"Sharia-compliant drug money banking transfers?" asked a confused Johnny, still not sure what to think.

"Yes. All clear?"

"OK. I think I understand."

Johnny paused and a very serious frown grew in intensity across his face.

"Wait! You lied, Rupert. You said we were coming to Qorog-Tash to do something fun. But you really just wanted to come here so you can transfer your money!"

"Yeah, no shit."

Johnny did not reply.

"It's just weird, that's all," said Johnny after a long delay. "And you didn't tell me what you were going to do, not even right before we went into that Afghan's place."

"Is there a problem?" asked Rupert with a smirk.

"No. No problem."

"Great. That settles that. Now let's go do something fun. If the Afghan border is good for anything, it's good for cheap drugs," commented Rupert.

"Why didn't you just buy from one of your hawala banker's friends?"

"First of all, I don't do heroin. And secondly, I think they have something like a 10 kilogram minimum purchase."

"Oh...OK. So hash and weed again?" asked Johnny.

"Yeah, take the car and go find a cop who's dealing and buy whatever he's got."

It took Johnny an entire hour to find a police officer that had both hashish and marijuana. The first two officers were apologetic about not having what Johnny needed, but they were able to point him in the right direction.

It took another half an hour of driving along the river border until Rupert spied a spot that seemed scenic enough for recreational outdoor drug use. Finding a good spot, they sat down in the shade of small willow tree and gazed down at the Shash River as it cut through a deep canyon.

"The weed here is terrible. Your people should be ashamed for smoking it, and the Afghans should be ashamed for growing it. How does a person produce such vile, God-awful, weak-ass ditch weed?"

"You know the quality and strength is not great. You complain every time about the marijuana. This should not be a surprise."

"It isn't. That's why I also bought the hashish..." noted Rupert as he started to scrape hashish resin into his pipe atop a shredded marijuana bud.

Rupert and Johnny made a sizeable dent into their drug stash as the conversation meandered from pointless argument to pointless argument – a pattern that Rupert usually followed with the few people who would tolerate his friendship.

Rupert got bored after a while and the two men transitioned to a relaxed, stoned silence. But, inevitably, Rupert grew tired of the silence.

"Johnny, if you look way down the river at that bend, right where it disappears from view, you can see a big house. See it?"

"Yeah. It's a nice house."

"It's probably all trashy nouveau-riche décor and brass lions inside, but...."

"What does that mean?" interrupted a clueless Johnny.

"Nothing. I'm just wondering, who do you think owns it, a drug mafia guy or a government guy?"

"Same thing out here, bro. Some mafia guys have government positions, and some government guys have mafia positions."

"Yeah, that sounds about right."

"Not too different from the rest of Kajbezistan, especially the Kharvori mafia," continued Johnny.

"So, what do you think about the anti-narcotics trafficking programs on the border?"

"Are you joking?" laughed Johnny.

"Sort of. But really, what do you think?"

"About what, exactly?" asked Johnny as he breathed in and held the hashish-infused marijuana smoke.

"Well, the Europeans and the Americans fund a lot of the border infrastructure and anti-trafficking programs. Like that EU program, BOMBCA. But they know it's all bullshit. Why do you think they keep doing it? Like, why do they support the government programs when it is the government that is the biggest heroin mafia?"

"But the border guards shoot drug smugglers all of the time," said Johnny.

"Sure, but they are just going after the small independent traffickers. Their own people cross like they own the border. The guards probably salute them and their 200kg of heroin as they pass."

"That why the Americans and the Europeans support the border guards and the drug control agency, because they still go after some of the drug smugglers," replied Johnny.

"But that means that American and European projects just serve to help the Kajbez government-mafia eliminate its competition in the heroin trade," countered Rupert.

"Well, you Westerners need to talk to your own governments about this."

"But what do you think, Johnny? Why do the Americans and the Europeans pay for so many border programs and security projects when that mansion down there probably belongs to a KGB border guard Colonel who also serves as major mafia player in the cross-border heroin trade?"

"I don't know, maybe because it ensures low levels of violence and instability? It's better than Mexico where the government tries to fight the drug trade. But probably the Americans give so much money and training and material to the Kajbez government because they need Kajbezistan for the war in Afghanistan."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot about the war," muttered Rupert as he stared across the river into an Afghanistan that appeared completely peaceful.

"That's OK, we never think about the war in Afghanistan either. I know all about war in Syria and Ukraine, but nothing about our neighbor."

"Too much Russian TV here," noted Rupert.

"Yeah, that's probably why," agreed Johnny. "Russia does not really care what happens in Afghanistan. They never talk about it on TV."

Rupert stood up unannounced and wandered back towards the road.

"Where are you going?"

"To get my bird binoculars."

"Binoculars? What are those?"

"Binokl!" yelled back Rupert in Russian, failing completely to properly pronounce the final letter L.

"Binokl' are so fun! Can I try them? Please! I've never used them before," pleaded Johnny like a small child.

Rupert never did let Johnny try them after he returned, as he was having a great time surveying a small Afghan village just up the river.

"What do you see?" asked Johnny.

"Afghan girls."

"What, really?! Can I see? Please, let me have a turn!"

"In a few seconds."

"Ok, do you promise?" pleaded Johnny.

Rupert fell silent and did not reply.

"Uh... Fuck. Oh fuck. Shit."

"What? What is it?" asked Johnny, sensing Rupert's sudden serious tone.

"Behind the tree! Get behind the tree! Fucking now!"

Rupert stood up and darted behind the willow tree with Johnny in close pursuit.

And then Johnny heard a sound that answered all his questions: the unmistakable sound of a Kalashnikov firing. The sound then echoed back and forth across the canyon.

"They are shooting at us!" yelled Johnny.

"No shit!"

"Why? Fucking Afghans!"

"Well, uh..." started Rupert as he tried to catch his breath. "I was looking at the girls through the binoculars, and they noticed me."

"Afghan girls are shooting at us?!"

"No. The girls were waving and it even looked like they were laughing. Their faces weren't covered or anything. I could see them smiling. But..." paused Rupert as he was still out of breath.

"But what?"

"I could see the girls, and then suddenly at the edge of my view I could see an Afghan dude with a pissed-off look on his face and a gun in his hands pointing our direction. I swear I could see down the barrel of his gun."

Johnny started to laugh nervously.

"Bro, you pissed off their dad or brother!"

"Or cousin or second-cousin or husband or whatever man it is who thinks he owns them," said Rupert.

"Bro, if some Afghan came to your hometown and hid in the trees and started looking at your daughters through binoculars while they play in your backyard, well..."

"Yeah, I know," grumbled Rupert. "But my taxes pay for this guy's country. He should be a bit more grateful than this."

"Maybe he is Taliban?"

"No. He was actually wearing government military fatigues."

"Fatigues?"

"Camouflage military uniform."

"I guess Afghan government soldiers don't like foreigners spying on their girls either," observed Johnny.

"I guess not," agreed Rupert.

"So, what do we do?"

"He's way too far away to hit us. Not without a lot of luck, anyways. Plus, he probably doesn't want to waste all his ammo, as he needs it so he can sell it to the Taliban to raise the funds for a new smartphone."

"Haha! Afghans are so corrupt!" laughed Johnny nervously.

"And they can't shoot straight. So let's make a run for the car and get out of here."

There was no further attempt at any honor-murder by the cross-border shooter, and Johnny managed to not accidentally drive into the canyon as he sped off at far too high a speed for such a poor quality and dangerous road.

The incident quickly turned into a hilarious event as the two still very stoned men laughed about the shooting and described it in an increasingly exaggerated manner. Rupert would certainly be adding it to his repertoire of stories that he repeated over and over again to his more tolerant social circles.

"Man, Kylie is gonna love this story!" laughed Rupert.

"Who?"

"John Kylie, the contractor that..." started Rupert before the realization hit him.

"You, uh, said he was dead."

"Yeah, shit. I already forgot about that. I guess I'll have to tell the story to somebody else," said Rupert with a shrug.

"It's very sad about your friend."

"Yeah, sure. So," continued Rupert without skipping a beat, "you want to head back into Qorog-Tash and find a good restaurant? That Afghan lamb and rice was great, but that was like five hours ago."

"Yeah, I have the munchies!"

"Me too. The munchies," concurred Rupert, confirming to Johnny that he had used the slang word in its exact, proper context.

Ninety minutes later Rupert and Johnny sat comatose at their table, with a large variety of half-finished curries set out before them. As Rupert had noted, the locals in this particular region were so terrible at cuisine – even by Kajbezistani standards – that they had no choice but to go to the only ethnic restaurant in town: the Indian place.

"So, what's next, Rupert?"

"I would say women, but that's a death sentence here. This place is like Corsica or Sicily or someplace like that."

"What is it like in Corsica and Sicily?" asked Johnny.

"Beautiful women. But lots of macho, scary local men. Hook up with a local girl and either you or the girls will be dead by morning."

"OK, so exactly like Opasno-Badakhshyan then," concurred Johnny.

"Not that some dumb-ass expats and tourists haven't tried."

"Somebody tried?"

"Yeah, I've heard a couple stories."

"What happened to them?"

"Well, there is the occasional drowning death. The river is dangerous, you know?" replied Rupert.

"Yes, absolutely, tourists and expats should be careful when they go near rivers here."

"Yup."

"Wait, are we talking about accidental drowning or murder?" asked Johnny.

"Murder by drowning."

"Crazy."

"The crazy part is that you might not do anything wrong, but get in trouble anyways."

"Yeah?" asked Johnny, hoping for more details.

"Yeah. There were these Polish tourists who were here, and they talked to some high school students in Qorog-Tash who wanted to practice their English. But then these local dudes driving by see them talking to some sixteen-year-old girl they know, or whatever. Right? So they call her brothers and cousins and those guys spend the rest of the day armed with big sharp knives, looking for a couple of Polish tourists to stab to death."

"Did they find the tourists?"

"Not before their angry Kajbez mom found them and spanked them in the street. Or dragged them away by their ears or something comical like that. This town lives on tourism. So nobody was particularly happy with the local boys. Not that they were happy about the idea of some foreigners chatting to their daughter."

"Yeah, talking to someone's sister is a big insult here," agreed Johnny.

"So, they're protective of both their women and their tourists."

"Not really."

"Not really what, Johnny?"

"They only protect their women from tourists and Kajbez men from other regions, but not from Afghanistan."

"What does that mean?" asked Rupert.

"Local mafia and police here sell little girls across the border into Afghanistan."

"Do their own families sell them?" asked Rupert.

"Fuck no, bro. They are kidnapped. But sometimes they are given by their father or brother to repay a drug debt."

"And sold into marriage or slavery?"

"Slavery sometimes, but marriage is the same as slavery on the other side."

"How much for a girl from Opasno-Badakhshyan?" asked Rupert.

"The local mafia can sell a girl for $40,000 if she is blonde with blue eyes."

"Not a lot of that type here."

"In some of the higher valleys further away you can find them."

"Yeah, I see photos of them all the time. Blond kids everywhere in the mountains," noted Rupert.

"It's not really true. But all the tourists only want to take photos of blonde girls with nice eyes. So now everybody think these mountains are full of blondes. Tourists are weird."

"Tourists are weird, sure. But why haven't the locals or the government put a stop to this?" asked Rupert. "Kajbezistan is a police state, and everybody here seems to hate Afghans."

"Business is business. Plus the central government doesn't like the people here because they are disobedient, and because the government thinks that they are not real Muslims."

"Not real?"

"They are Seventeener Shias."

"Oh, right. Of course," replied Rupert in a state of total disinterest. "And the locals who do the kidnapping?"

"The locals boys worship them. They want to be just like them. They want a German car with tinted black windows. They don't care how those guys got rich."

"Gangster mentality," observed Rupert.

"Exactly. They love money more than they love their own people."

"Don't these people have some spiritual leader who helps them out and tells them to not do this shit?"

"The Aka Amir?"

"Yeah, that dude. The one with the race horses who marries models," replied Rupert.

"He saved this region from starvation, he pays for the schools and their electricity. He gives them scholarships and builds stuff here. There are so many Aka Amir development projects here. And in exchange he ordered his followers to stop trafficking heroin. It was a religious order. They call it a farman. Like, you know, as if it was an order from God."

"And?" asked Rupert.

"And the people here say they love the Aka Amir. They say they would defend him to the death. But as soon as he asked them to quit making themselves rich... Well, they ignored him. The local people stayed loyal to their brothers and cousins who were drug traffickers. People love money, you know?"

"Oh, I know all about that, yeah..."

The other restaurant patrons nearby were growing increasing uncomfortable with the loud conversation.

"Drugs..." continued Rupert. "At least I can still get hash. I'm glad the locals ignored their spiritual leader."

"Mm-hmm," nodded Johnny in approval.

"Now if only they would take the same attitude towards letting you date their women as they do towards selling you drugs."

"Yeah, bro, it's a death sentence to try to date a girl from this region."

"I did it," said Rupert.

"No way! I don't believe you."

"Well, she was in her late thirties and divorced. And in Chorshanbe. We hooked up regularly."

"That doesn't count, bro. Nobody cares about those women. They are...used, finished."

"Jesus Christ, Johnny. Older women are so much better. Less drama, more realistic expectations."

"But they are not virgins."

"Well, neither am I."

"But they are divorced!"

"So am I."

"But it's different for a woman," objected Johnny.

"Not really."

"Rupert, you are not a feminist! I know you. I work with you, and I drink with you. I know."

"OK, fine. I'm not a feminist. But I'm also not a Kajbez dude. It's a simple as that. I'm somewhere in-between."

The conversation was very loud, and all the NGO consultants at the tables in the vicinity had had enough of Rupert and Johnny's crude, meandering comments. But those people sitting nearby were all random, assorted northern Europeans, so they just sat in silent, passive anger without saying a word.

*****

Date: Same day.

Place: KGB Headquarters, 12 Avicenna Street, Chorshanbe.

People: Two very ugly KGB officers.

The uglier of the two put down his phone and turned to his partner, "He's been sighted! The foreigner and his translator."

"Where?" asked the second officer, grinning widely.

"At the Canadian gold mine. They tried to visit, but they were turned back. One of our people offered them a fake tour. He was trying to find out what they were up to. He thought the foreigner might be an environmentalist or a spy. But his boss wasn't interested, so he just had someone at the mine's security checkpoint get photos of their passports."

"Are they still nearby?"

"Don't know. Our colleague's boss didn't care to track them. He has bigger problems up there right now with some industrial accident."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. They won't say."

"If they left the area it's going to be hard to find them."

"But it will be a lot easier up there compared to the cities."

"Still, it will be difficult. If our boss finds out what we are doing..."

"We have to do it. The foreigner has at least $400,000. There wasn't a single dollar in his house. This is our chance. With that much money..."

"I know! We can buy new positions where we can make ourselves rich," said the other officer in a manner that made him sound like a cartoon villain doing an exposition monologue.

The officers, however, were dead wrong about the $400,000. They assumed that the entire NGO quarterly cash budget was in Rupert's pockets, as they had no concept of skimming or partial embezzlement, only of grabbing everything.

"Let's take separate cars. We can cover more area that way."

"OK, now?"

"Yes, immediately. I'll take the low road, you drive the high road and we'll check at every checkpoint to see if anybody has seen the foreigner. We'll meet in Gharyn province. I want that cash!"

Special Information Insert #13

The Problem of Terrorism

Old school terrorism: The Islamic Movement of Kajbezistan (IMK) menaced the land throughout the 1990s as it conducted cross-border raids from its safe haven in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. It is most famous in the West for its 1999 kidnapping of a group of American mountaineers. The climbers had ignored warnings about visiting the wild and lawless border regions from the US State Department's travel advisory, from the Kajbez government's tourism pamphlets, from their taxi drivers, from local villagers and from shepherds in the mountains. The climbers were promptly kidnapped by IMK fighters, leading to an operation by government forces to rescue them – resulting in the deaths of 25 police officers and soldiers. The IMK raiding party, under a full-scale counter-attack, released their hostages and fled back into Afghanistan, leaving the climbers with their camp cook – a fourteen-year-old boy. The Americans promptly strangled the boy to death and hiked back to safety. Upon their return to the US, they promptly had a book ghost-written about their incredible heroic adventure.

New school terrorism: Hundreds of Kajbezistanis have travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State. After going through interviews and a rigorous assessment process, the Islamic State recruiters decided that the Kajbez terrorists would be best put to use not as front-line fighters, but rather as cooks and toilet cleaners.

The following crimes count as terrorism offences: Accessing WhatsApp, signing up for Twitter, downloading a proxy client, using the Tor browser, accepting an email from an Arab country, criticizing the president, criticizing the president's family, insulting the memory of Josef Stalin, using Google Maps, reading Wikileaks, visiting the Human Rights Watch website, watching inter-racial porn where the woman is any ethnicity that could plausibly pass for Kajbez, murdering a police officer, and using an Afghan SIM card.

# Chapter Thirteen

# Disobedient Donkeys of the Heroin Highway

Date: September 12th, 2019.

Place: The M83 Highway on the Bomidunya Plateau, eastern Kajbezistan, also known as 'The Heroin Highway.'

People: Rupert and Johnny take a break from driving to get stoned and drunker than they already were while watching a sunset.

Luckily, Rupert and Johnny's car had survived the elevation gain of the 4700-meter pass that had just spilled them out safely – despite Rupert's drunk driving – onto a barren, high-altitude wasteland populated only by yaks and the occasional sad nomad.

With their backs to the Chinese border, Rupert and Johnny gazed west over the mountains – the haze in the distance filtering out enough of the brightness to look directly into the sun. To Rupert's great satisfaction, they had found a nice flat roadside boulder to perch on and on which to lay out their alcohol and drug paraphernalia.

There was, however, a small problem as the two adventurers attempted to smoke the last of their weed. The oxygen-poor, high-elevation environment was not conducive to keeping the marijuana burning. Rupert cursed every time the tiny, smoldering fire in his pipe was snuffed out.

Rupert decided to switch to the booze, and took out his last bottle of whiskey.

"So... Kajbezistan. Chto delat?"

"What is to be done?" asked Johnny with a blank stare.

"Yes," confirmed Rupert as he poured himself some whiskey.

"You already asked me that once before."

"And you didn't answer me."

"So, what is to be done about what?" asked Johnny.

"The future of your country. Or rather, the grim future of your country."

"Grim?"

"Shitty."

"Oh, well. Nothing," replied Johnny with a shrug.

"But what would you do if there was a revolution? Stand and fight, or would you be like a rat fleeing a sinking ship?"

"I don't understand what that means."

"OK, maybe that was a bit too harsh," said Rupert. "Maybe you would just be a rodent that invests in swimming lessons and floatation devices. Yeah?"

"What?"

"Nothing..."

"OK," said Johnny, hoping to end the conversation.

"So...why don't you personally do something?" asked Rupert, who was not yet done with the interrogation. "You are smarter than every single person in the government. Smarter than every person at every university, including those idiot professors. And you are smarter than almost every businessman in the country. If this was a real country, you would be a minister or a business tycoon."

"Thanks, but there is nothing to be done."

"How about you become a revolutionary and overthrow your corrupt government and rule as a wise leader...for life, or whatever?"

"You joke, but I will be serious. There is nothing than can be done. There is nothing that should be done."

"Explain, Johnny."

"Well, a person in Kajbezistan can't rebel. There is no opportunity. And nobody wants to be the first to try to create an opportunity. I mean, what would we use for a revolution? What organization? Where would we get the guns and money? Who would we look to for...to, you know, inspire us? What country would be an example for us? Who would lead us? Who has experience as a fighter? And maybe a revolution would just give us a long war, or a worse leader."

"So what are all you young men going to do? Just bow your heads here at home or run away to a frozen shithole in Russia?"

"Probably Russia, yes," replied Johnny.

"Isn't it better here? Russia is full of racists and police who hate you."

"Rupert, Russia is in many ways a paradise compared to living here."

"You can't be serious?"

"Listen. When you are growing up here, you must listen to everything that your mother and father say. The same goes for your grandparents and uncles. If you disobey, they beat you. And then at school the teachers will beat you – even if you do obey. And no girls will look at you. Seventeen years old and you have no chance to touch a girl. Then your parents say that you cannot go to the city for university. They are afraid you won't come back. And then they say that you must marry some dumb, boring village girl because she is good at cooking and cleaning for her mother-in-law. And on the streets the Kajbez police will beat you or steal from you. And here your employer is always trying to rip you off or not pay you. And then we have to stand in line for a million different government documents that we must pay a bribe for from some horrible government worker who treats us like garbage. Every day here in Kajbezistan is humiliation for us. So, yes, Russia is like a paradise. It is freedom. Humiliation there is maybe maximum once a week for us Kajbez."

"Even if you have to work six days per week in Ulyanovsk selling shawarma or kebabs on the street while it's minus 20 degrees?" asked Rupert.

"Yes!"

"I still don't understand how you eat those oily Arabic trash-burritos."

"There is a lot you don't understand about what Kajbez people like and what they don't like."

"So why do you people like the strange stuff that you like?" asked Rupert.

"Bro, life is rough, man. It's hard here. After a 12-hour day of selling $2 Chinese blue jeans at a bazaar, you are hungry. After moving bricks or digging with a shovel all day, you are starving. You want food that is rich. Oil, salt, fat, sugar and lots of bread or rice. You want a normal Coke, not Diet Coke. You want tea that is sweet with lots of sugar. Healthy food is for rich people in the west. And people here have depressing lives, so they don't want to watch some sad European movie about being molested or depressed or something. They want a Bollywood happy ending, or a big Hollywood action movie. Fast and Furious, you know? Good guy wins, gets the girl. People here are losing at life. You know what I'm saying? So they choose a winner to cheer for: Madrid, Barcelona, Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea... They get a poster of Cristiano Ronaldo. They get to feel like a winner when they watch the games. They want these small things to...to feel comfortable and maybe a little bit happy. You people are so comfortable that you look for sadness and discomfort. You eat terrible food with no taste, but it's healthy I guess. You watch sad movies about nothing that make you feel bad. You go on miserable vacations to the mountains in Kajbezistan and sleep in a wet tent next to goat shit like a refugee. We want to go to the shopping mall in Dubai and stay at a nice hotel. It's that simple."

"Huh. You make it sounds like us Westerners are a bunch of miserable masochists."

"Maybe you are. And maybe you hate everything in Kajbezistan because you are miserable."

"Jesus Christ! I don't hate everything here. I have a very exact list of things I hate," protested Rupert.

"Like what?"

"Well, for example, I hate your chairs and your couches and sofas and benches."

"Why?"

"Because they are a strange imitation of similar products we have in the West, but which are comfortable and actually work. It's like your couches, for example, were constructed by aliens who had the rough shape and purpose explained to them. They are ridiculously uncomfortable to sit in. And all of your tables and booths in restaurants are also fucked. The table is too high or too low or too far away and the bench is, again, not fit for human beings to sit on. Literally everything here sucks."

"Anything else?" asked Johnny unenthusiastically.

"You air conditioner units are fake also. They say SAMSUNG on them, but they are just a fake plastic box with God-knows-what sort of approximation of a working air conditioner shoved inside. And all these plastic and metal doors that everybody installed, the locks and the handles are all broken. Brand new and fucking broken already. And locks are the worst. Is there a single working lock in this country? And your shower heads...they spray water in every direction but at you."

"These are all Chinese things you are complaining about."

"Well, you can't blame China for the people here."

"You hate the Kajbez people?" asked Johnny, who already had a fair idea of Rupert's feeling about the Kajbez nation.

"Maybe not hate, but I really dislike all Kajbez over the age of about 40. Except for village people – they're cool. And the quietly religious men, they're also OK. Young, educated Kajbez are also cool. All your women are saints. But God I hate these real Soviet men," said Rupert, stressing the last three words.

"Why?"

"They're like, 'Vodka! Let's toast! Again! And Again!' Then time for some more fake pledges of eternal friendship after a full week of repressing emotions and acting like a dour Soviet drone. They say, 'Welcome! You are my brother!' even though in fact they're informing on you to the KGB and stealing from the funds your NGO has provided. And so on and so on... That's why I hang out with young people like you, not these useless old Brezhnevian drunks who think the world owes them something because they are a middle-aged man in a suit. And that's why I love going to the villages so often, especially to the mountains. No more vodka poisoning! And they are always friendly, not just when they are drunk."

"But Rupert, you are drunk all the time!"

"Yes, but I'm not falling on my face within 30 minutes after drinking half a fucking bottle of shit bathtub brew vodka."

"Rupert, you are drunk right now!"

"Yes, but, like I said, I'm not falling on my face, and I'm drunk on a pretty decent whiskey."

"It is a good whiskey," agreed Johnny.

"See? You are learning good taste. Soon you will agree that Afghan pilaw is better than..."

Johnny was no longer listened to Rupert.

"Rupert! Look!" yelled Johnny in a half-hushed voice.

Rupert turned to look in the direction that Johnny was pointing. In the far distance a man and an animal of some sort could be seen walking out of the sunset.

The mysterious figure slowly got closer as Rupert and Johnny tried to get a better look, with Rupert's curiosity driving him to fetch his binoculars from the car.

Without asking, Johnny rudely grabbed the binoculars from Rupert and took the first look.

Johnny, who was more than slightly stoned, gasped out loud.

"It's a fucking Wahhabi! A terrorist! He's like, a Chechen jihadi or something! He has a big beard and long hair! Get a rock! Where is my knife? Did I bring my knife? The guy is a terrorist for sure! Fuck! I shouldn't be stoned right now!"

Rupert angrily grabbed the binoculars back.

"Calm down Johnny," whispered Rupert after taking a look through his binoculars. "That's just the weed-paranoia speaking to you. This guy is obviously just a greasy, long-haired hippie."

"His donkey is dragging a dead body, or something! Fuck, man! Aren't you seeing this?"

"Yeah, that's weird. He is dragging something. Let's go ask him about that."

"No! Why? We should hide behind the rocks! Or drive away!" yelled Johnny hysterically.

"He's European or American. I guarantee it."

"How do you know?"

"He's wearing hiking boots and shorts. Therefore he is white. $250 boots and shorts is a white people thing," answered Rupert authoritatively.

Johnny calmed down a little with some further reassurances from Rupert.

The strange man, looking for all the world like a red-headed and very filthy Jesus impersonator, walked slowly towards Rupert and Johnny's boulder, pausing occasionally to savagely beat his donkey with a branch that was far too light to persuade the donkey for more than 30 seconds at a time.

Johnny had calmed down, realizing that the man was a threat only to his own donkey.

The donkey was indeed dragging something. It appeared to have a rope haphazardly tied around its neck like an amateur noose. The cheap and fraying nylon rope led back to a large car tire with a very dusty backpack placed on top.

The donkey-man duo walked up to the base of the boulder.

"Hey! What's up?" asked Rupert, as he climbed down from the rock to greet the stranger.

"Not much. How are you?"

"Drunk as fuck. You want a glass of whiskey? Or rather, whiskey in a plastic cup?" asked Rupert.

"That would be great, thanks. I haven't had good alcohol in a while," replied the stranger, his accent revealing him to be an Englishman.

"Plenty of weed though, huh?"

"You can tell?"

"You reek of weed," stated Rupert bluntly.

"You do smell like marijuana," agreed Johnny, who passed the Englishman a cup of whiskey. "Like marijuana and donkey."

"Oh, well, I'm afraid that can't be avoided under the circumstances. Sorry."

"What are you doing to this donkey?" asked a still confused Johnny.

"He's my pack animal. He's a beast of burden. And my bag is his burden," said the Englishmen as he untied the noose from the donkey's neck.

"Her burden," said Johnny, correcting the stranger.

"Really?"

"Yes, really. How long have you had this donkey?" asked Johnny.

"Three weeks. He, or rather she, is a replacement for the first donkey I had. It was stolen while I was setting up camp. Some guys in a car jumped out and lassoed the poor beast. One waved a knife at me. Then they threw my donkey into the boot of their car and drove away. No idea why."

"Chinese," said Johnny confidently.

"They looked like locals to me," said the Englishman.

"I'm sure they were, but they stole your donkey to sell to the Chinese."

"What the hell would the Chinese want my broken-ass donkey for?"

"They skin them and boil the hide to make a gelatin. There is some sort of Chinese medicine that comes from donkey skin," explained Johnny.

"Sounds like bullshit," offered the Englishmen.

"It is, I'm sure," agreed Johnny. "But the Chinese believe in it, and they have run out of donkeys. The price of donkeys is very high right now. So the donkey owners of Kajbezistan need to be very careful."

Rupert laughed out loud while he poured himself another drink. Johnny wasn't sure why Rupert laughed so loudly and for so long.

"Poor fucking donkeys," added Rupert. "How is this one doing?"

"Oh, we've reached an understanding," said the Englishman. "Failure to move forward equals a beating."

"Yeah, I think that is the essence of the man-donkey relationship," noted Rupert compassionately.

"It looks very skinny," observed Johnny.

"It didn't used to be so skinny. It's been losing weight for the last couple of weeks."

"You need to carry grain here. There is not enough grass for a donkey to work all day at this altitude. Your donkey will probably be dead in about ten days. But it will slow down to almost nothing before that," said Johnny regretfully.

"I thought donkeys could just feed themselves at camp every night."

"Not here," said Johnny. "This place is like a desert. A very high desert on the roof of the world."

The donkey stood motionless, looking quite miserable – as miserable as every single other donkey was in Kajbezistan at that exact moment.

"And why are you dragging your bag on a tire behind your donkey?" asked Johnny, who seemed to be fascinated with the Englishman's utter incompetence when it came to the care of livestock.

"I couldn't tie the bag on top of the donkey properly. It kept slipping off, or the rope rubbed the donkey until it bled," admitted the Englishman as he finished untying the tire from his donkey. "Apparently packing a donkey is some sort of peasant art form that I am unable to master."

"Other than that, how is your trip going?" queried Rupert.

"Good. Pakistan was nice. I started walking from the outskirts of Peshawar but I got tired of carrying my bag. So I bought my first donkey from a random guy in the field using Google translate Pashto."

"It's a brave new world," commented Rupert.

"With such people in it, definitely," added the Englishmen.

"How the hell did you make it across Afghanistan?" asked Johnny, interrupting the Aldous Huxley and/or William Shakespeare quote session that Rupert wasn't even aware he had started.

"I pretended that I was insane. I smeared shit on my face and..."

"Like, donkey shit?" asked an incredulous Johnny.

"My own shit. Donkey shit doesn't smell bad enough."

"Right. Of course. That makes total sense," observed Rupert plainly.

"As I was saying, I smeared my own shit on my face and I would scream 'allahu akbar!' at anybody who tried to talk to me. I faked insanity. It worked. No police or soldiers wanted anything to do with me. Crazy people get ignored in this part of the world. Regular Afghan people also thought I was completely mad, but they took pity on me. So they would hand me bread and fruit, like, all the time. I quickly learned that I could sit outside a mosque and people would give me food and even money."

"I believe it. Sounds effective. But how did that tactic go in Kandahar?" asked Rupert.

"I started from Peshawar, not Quetta. So I went through Jalalabad and Kabul, not Kandahar."

"Oh yeah, that's right," noted Rupert, having a very bad idea of Afghan geography despite having worked there for three years.

"But I have to say," continued Rupert, "have you considered that this act won't work in Central Asia, and that it may actually make things far worse for you?"

"Yes, definitely. I quit smearing shit on my face at the Kajbez border."

"Well, that's good," said Rupert. "How have the checkpoints been?"

"Not bad. After they check my documents and search my stuff, they realize I don't have anything worth taking. That's because I insert all my travel money anally."

"Ha!" laughed Rupert.

Johnny frowned.

"You put your money in your ass?" asked Johnny in a very concerned voice.

"Yes, right up my ass," confirmed the Englishman as he made a dramatic upward swoosh with his hand.

"And people will accept this shit-covered money from you?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. It's inserted inside a small, sealed plastic tube container first."

"Uh-huh," nodded Johnny.

"So yeah, it's been working for me so far. The checkpoint police in Kajbezistan must just think that I'm some sort of odd impoverished Brit wanderer. They always let me pass. It's just how long it takes that is the annoying part. I have, however, grown accustomed to it. But if it takes too long I will fake some sort of illness or shit my pants. Then they almost beg me to leave."

"Intentionally or not, live long enough in Kajbezistan and you will shit your pants, that what I've always said," noted Rupert. "But I never imagined it as a defensive maneuver."

"You should try it sometime."

"I'll stick with plain old bribery. It just seems a little cleaner," replied Rupert. "But aside from the police, how about the locals?"

"They are either really scared of me – I don't know why – or they take photos of me. Lots of cars drive back after passing me and stop to gawk and take a photo."

"Like, they stop you and ask for selfies?"

"No. They just stare at me and take a photo out their window like I'm an animal and they're on some Serengeti safari," said the Englishman. "And then they drive away."

"Hey!" interrupted Johnny. "Your donkey!"

The Englishman turned to look. The donkey was making its escape.

"I didn't know my donkey had that sort of speed in him," he observed casually as the donkey sprinted towards the horizon, kicking up a cloud of dust behind her.

"Are you going to, uh, chase him down?" asked Rupert.

The Englishman just stared into the distance as the donkey disappeared over the crest of a hill, still at full speed.

"No. He's gone," sighed the former donkey owner. "I guess it's fate."

"Yes, it's what God wills," added Johnny in an attempt to comfort the Englishman.

"Fuck, judging by the speed it's escaping at, your donkey must really hate you," said Rupert.

"He does. Twenty days of pure, unadulterated hatred. And the feeling is mutual."

The donkey reappeared briefly as she galloped over a second hill. And then she was gone.

The light started to fade as the sun dropped below the high, snowy peaks to the west.

"Well, this sucks," said the Englishman with a sigh.

"I have more bad news for you, bro," announced Johnny as he turned towards the stranger. "Between here and the next town there is no water. You can see the snow on the mountaintops, but you are stuck on the...the, uh, what do you call it, Rupert?"

"The plateau," said Rupert. "And he's right, you'll be nowhere near a stream that you can drink from. There are just salt flats and brine ponds along the road. Nowhere to buy food either. And, honestly, nobody is going to pick you up. You'll see probably only five to ten cars maximum, and each car will be packed full of paying customers. And, no offense, even if they have a free seat, who would want someone who looks like you in their car?"

"So I can come with you guys?" said the Englishman confidently, in a tone that was more like an announcement that a question.

"You've had a bath since the last time you smeared your own shit on yourself?" asked Rupert.

"Several."

"Great, then no problem. But you'll have to share your weed," said Rupert sternly. "We only have hashish left. We need something to smoke it with."

"And you know," offered Johnny helpfully, "there is an animal bazaar in the next town. It's full of drunks who try to fight tourists, but we can find what you need there."

"Chujaab?"

"Yeah, that's the place. I'll help you buy a properly trained donkey tomorrow morning. Something a little more obedient than your runaway friend who is now enjoying her freedom," laughed Johnny as he pointed towards the horizon.

"Cool. Appreciate it," nodded the Englishman as he reached into his backpack and pulled out a transparent Chinese supermarket bag filled with what appeared to be about two kilograms of tightly packed marijuana buds.

Special Information Insert #14

Russian and American Foreign Policy in Kajbezistan

Kajbez Foreign Policy: A "multi-vector" system in which Kajbezistan attempts to beg money and weapons from Russia, United States, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran, without prejudice. Recently the President was widely mocked on Twitter for a full Wednesday for announcing that Kajbezistan would be glad to accept loans and grants from "the Republic of Hezbollah, on a mutually agreeable basis, specifically in exchange for pure Kajbez mountain water via a pipeline."

American Policy in Kajbezistan: Cooperation on counter-terrorism, permission to set up CIA Black Sites for enhanced interrogations, and access to the Kajbez-Afghan border in exchange for weapons, loans, generous funding for counter-narcotics trafficking programs, and acquiescence to the fact that the Kajbez government controls the drug trade and tortures anybody who objects.

Trump: Over a year before Trump became president, Kajbezistan rejected a Trump Tower project proposed by a local businessman. After seeing the designs proposed by Trump and his Kajbez oligarch partner, President Islambaev was insulted that the numerous planned 'golden' fixtures were not actually real gold, but rather polished brass.

American idiots: The incoming US ambassador apologized for an interview in which she denied declaring, while serving as a member of Congress, that Kajbezistan contained many large jihadi terrorist training camps, then she denied in the apology interview that she had denied that. The America ambassador also had to deny that the President, in a behind-doors meeting with US Senators, put Kajbezistan in the category of 'Shithole countries' while referring to it as 'Kajbezibezibezistan.'

Russian Policy in Kajbezistan: Kajbezistan is being pressured to join the Russian-backed Eurasian Integration Union, whose benefits include not being fuel-embargoed by Russian, not being attacked by the Russian media, not having your labor migrants expelled by Russia, and having the cigarette import tax lowered to the point that border guards can no longer make a living as cigarette smugglers.

Russia's leverage: Kajbezistan's people despise Kajbez TV, and instead enthusiastically watch Russian television. This leaves President Islambaev deeply fearful of the Kremlin's ability to unleash the full power Russian TV onto him. Islambaev is, according to Kajbezologists, one Russian attack-documentary away from a street revolution.

Russian soft power: Kajbezistan's population has a very hostile opinion of the United States, as opposed to its run-away Russophilia. Kajbezistan, however, still leads the world in American green card lottery applicants per capita.

A small historical matter of genocide: Russian Bolsheviks starved to death 1.5 million Kajbez peasants, executed 90,000 more in the purges of 1937, send 200,000 to Siberian labor camps, and treated ethnic Kajbez migrants in Soviet Russia like dogs. Today, mass-murder no longer characterizes Russian-Kajbez relations, but the Russian authorities still treat ethnic Kajbez migrants like dogs, and beat them in that manner. But, like a beaten dog, the Kajbez people will defend their master to the death.

Chinese foreign policy: Kajbezistan is deeply, deeply in debt to China. What China will demand when Kajbezistan is unable to repay its debt is, at this time, unclear. The best guesses include: territorial transfers, Chinese control of Kajbez farmland, or a Chinese takeover of Kajbez mineral and energy reserves. A much more entertaining conspiracy theory posits that since China is aborting so many female babies that the huge gender disparity will result in Kajbezistan transferring all of its fertile young women to China in exchange for debt relief.

# Chapter Fourteen

# Russian Spies and American Scoundrels

Date: September 15th, 2019.

Place: Back out of the mountains and into the city of Almurt-Ata.

People: Rupert and Johnny at an outdoor vodka bar with six plastic tables, enjoying some dried fish, beer and Kajbez flatbread.

"The naan here is terrible," grumbled Johnny.

"Then ask for Russian bread."

"I want proper naan. These northerners don't know how to bake bread."

"So people from other regions can't do anything right? Is that your attitude?"

"No. This dried fish is really good," admitted Johnny.

"Well, there you go."

"But it is probably imported from Russia," sniffed Johnny.

"What a tragedy."

"Yeah."

"Any other complaints?" asked Rupert.

"No. You?"

"Aside from the fact that this shitty plastic chair only ever has three legs on the ground at a time and keeps rocking in an unpredictable manner back-and-forth, to-and-fro?"

"Yes. Aside from this small problem."

"Sure. I have a serious complaint," said Rupert as he leaned back in his chair that rocked to-and-fro. "Why are your brooms so short?"

"Brooms?"

"Look at that woman across the street."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. Seriously."

The young woman across the street was busy sweeping the dust away from the front of a restaurant with a half-length broom that she hunched over.

"Why are you trying to start an argument about brooms?" complained the already exasperated Johnny.

"Could you add some length to that broom? Would that be too difficult?"

"Who cares? The ground is clean."

"Yeah, but it took twice the effort and it wrecks your back," said Rupert in rebuttal.

"So? It's not me that has to do the cleaning."

"OK, fine. But what's with the excessive unnecessary cleaning?"

"It's bad to be extra clean?" asked Johnny, who was not expecting an answer.

"No. But that cleaning lady at the hotel yesterday tried to kick us out of the dining room so that she could mop it."

"So?"

"It was 9am!" exclaimed Rupert. "We were eating breakfast and she was like 'Move! I'm cleaning.'"

"I told her to go away."

"Yes, but you shouldn't have to tell her that. And she must have mopped the lobby floor five times in a single day. Every time we walked through, there she was: making the floor slippery and dangerous with her mop. Maybe she's trying to kill or injure us? And what's with the floor tiles in Kajbezistan? The ones here are obviously meant to be wall tiles. You lived in America, you know what non-slip tiles are."

Johnny shrugged in an attempt to end the conversation.

"But what you should tell her to do is to quit mopping floors that are perfectly clean and start cleaning the toilet," grumbled Rupert.

"The toilet?"

"Yes. There were shit stains in it when we arrived and there were shits stains in it after she allegedly cleaned our room."

"Probably she does not want to clean shit," said Johnny as if the answer was that obvious.

"I understand that desire. And I get that it's probably easier to spend all day chasing the five or six leaves that fall off the tree in the courtyard with her stupid too-short broom. But toilets are her job. It's in the job description for cleaning ladies: clean the toilets."

"Kajbez people don't like to clean toilets."

"Nobody does, Johnny. Nobody does. But somehow toilets get cleaned elsewhere."

"We can go to a nicer hotel tonight if you want."

"No, I want to go to a guesthouse by the Sharoon Canyon," said Rupert. "We can spend the night there and then go for a hike along the Sharoon River in the morning."

"Charoon," said Johnny in an attempt to correct Rupert.

"Yeah, that's right."

"No, you are not saying it correctly. It's Charoon."

"I visited the place a couple of years ago and it was called Sharoon. And the hotel concierge who suggested a visit called it Sharoon," said Rupert, whose turn it was now to be irritated.

"Well, he's an illiterate idiot and a northerner."

"OK, whatever. We will go to the national park whose name ends in –aroon."

"It's nice?" asked Johnny.

"Yeah, like I said, I stopped there a couple of years ago. I was there just for a quick picnic by the river. There's a spot by the river on a really nice rock beach. The rocks and the water are so nice, you'll love it – even when you're sober. And if the weather is hot then we can sit under the willow trees by the river. It really is an amazing place."

"Great! I've never been there."

"Then it's settled. Let's make sure to grab some liquor for the trip."

"OK, but at the supermarket we can get cheaper and better vodka than what they are serving here," Johnny pointed out helpfully.

"VODKA!" yelled a voice that startled both Rupert and Johnny.

The yeller, a middle-aged man of undeterminable ethnicity, sat down at the table without being asked.

Ignoring Johnny, he leaned over into Rupert's personal space – almost falling out of his chair – and reached for a handshake.

It was the aggressive and unfriendly type of handshake that one usually gets from random drunken older men of the post-Soviet variety.

Out of nowhere the man produced his own mini-bottle of vodka, one of the more horrific brands that sold for about $2. Without being asked, he refilled Rupert's shot-glass – totally ignoring Johnny.

"Let's toast!" hollered the drunk.

"To what?" asked a bemused Rupert.

"Well...how about, uh...DEATH TO FASCISM!!"

Johnny decided that he had had enough of the uninvited guest.

"Hey, we were talking business," interrupted Johnny. "So maybe you should leave."

The man stared blankly at Johnny and then looked at Rupert, "You and your friend have a problem with defeating fascism?"

"No, but..." started Rupert.

"You support fascism?!" yelled the increasingly agitated drunk.

"Jesus Christ," mumbled Rupert in English.

"You know all about fascism and imperialism," continued the drunk. "You are American!"

"No. I'm European."

"Also imperialists," said the drunk. "World history is full of your crimes, on every continent!"

"Not my people. I'm from Ireland," said Rupert.

"So?!"

"We have no history of being imperialists. In fact, we are victims of imperialism ourselves."

The drunk paused and let his brain attempt to process that fact.

"Really? I don't believe you."

"Yes, really," said Rupert confidently.

"But now you are NATO!"

"Actually, no we aren't."

"Yes. You are in the West! You are all NATO fascists!"

"Right. OK. Johnny, please Google 'List of NATO Members' on your phone for this guy."

Within thirty seconds Johnny was reading a full list of NATO members to the drunk.

"Montenegro!? Those traitors!" yelled the shocked drunk upon hearing the name on the list. "They were a Soviet Republic! We gave them prosperity and industry and progress!"

Johnny laughed out loud.

"Maybe you are thinking of Moldova?" asked Rupert with a grin.

"Of course I am thinking about Moldova! They are traitors for joining NATO."

Johnny switched to English and said, "Rupert, just ignore this guy."

"Why are you speaking English?! Or German?! You speak Russian here!!" the drunk yelled.

"If you want to speak Russian all the time, maybe you should return to your homeland," replied Johnny in as rude a tone as he could manage.

"What!?"

"Return to Russia," said Johnny as he switched to speaking in Kajbezi. "Nobody will bother you there with English or Kajbezi."

"RUSSIAN?! You think I'm Russian? I'm Balkarian!"

"You are the first drunk Balkarian that I've met in my life," said Johnny disapprovingly.

"I'm part Balkarian, part Armenian! Also Moldovan and also one-quarter Russian."

"One-quarter Moldovan and you manage to mix up Moldova and Montenegro?" sneered Johnny.

"You bitch! I'll fuck you! I'll..."

The drunk was cut off mid-threat by the proprietor of the vodka bar, who grabbed the one-quarter Moldovan by the hair and dragged him to the sidewalk where he then roughly tossed him into the street. The bar owner obviously did not take kindly to drunks who get wasted on vodka that was not purchased at his establishment.

The drunkard stumbled away down the street in a state of obvious dejection.

"I do that once a week," said the manager quietly. "A little rougher each time. He never learns... More fish?"

"Yes, please. And some more bread for my Kajbez friend here."

*****

Date: Noon the next day.

Place: Rupert's not-so-secret river beach picnic spot.

People: Johnny and a very disappointed Rupert.

Rupert looked down at what remained of his beautiful rock beach. A large front-end loader labored to scoop up some of the remaining rocks, its diesel engine spewing thick black smoke into the air. A rusty half-full dump truck waited nearby for the next scoop of gravel. Rupert's eyes followed the dirt road away from the beach and up to a huge gravel-sorting machine. A conveyor belt was being fed gravel from a large pile, up through the sorter and out onto three different conveyor belts that deposited rocks of three different sizes into separate piles. An even blacker plume of smoke rose from the gravel sorter's diesel engine.

Rupert looked back towards where his beach used to be. It was then that he noticed that the willow trees were all gone – up and down the river on each side and in every direction.

From across the river a very large and extremely angry guard dog near the gravel sorter noticed Rupert and Johnny and started to viciously bark at them.

"Isn't this a national park? Or at least a zapovednik?" asked Johnny.

"The sign at the entrance said that it was a zapovednik preserve, but that it was upgraded by the president to a national park a few years ago."

"Well, the president should ask his brother-in-law about the park rules."

"His brother-in-law?" asked Rupert.

"Yeah, see that logo on the machines? That's Ghassan Aliyev's company," said Johnny.

"Well, that explains why these guys across the river are allowed to rape your national park."

Rupert did his best to contain his anger and they turned back up the trail, carrying their lunch supplies.

"Let's go back and take the turn at the fork in the trail that we passed. From what I remember on the big sign at the beginning, that's the high trail for the trekkers and climbers."

"You want to go all the way to the top?" whined Johnny.

"Hell no. Not that far. But the map on the sign showed a nice scenic meadow part of the way up the trail. We can just go as far as that. Hopefully the president's greedy relatives haven't dug that up yet."

The hike went well enough, at least for Rupert. Johnny's shoes, best suited to city sidewalks, were flat-bottomed and had no tread. Rupert's cross-trainers were far superior when it came to steep, rough trails.

After some gain in elevation the evergreen forest started and provided some welcome shade. Johnny, however, was noticeably out of shape and was starting to struggle. Rupert, for his part, was starting to worry about their navigation, as they had passed several forks in the trails. He soon had the feeling that they may not be on the way to the meadow that they hoped for.

After some more hiking, Rupert was glad to see a group of four hikers stopped on the trail ahead.

As Rupert and Johnny got closer, they were able to determine that the men of the group up ahead were likely from eastern Europe or Russia, all of them having stereotypical Slavic features and somber looks.

"Hello," started Rupert in Russian. "Can you tell me how close we are to the large meadow, or if maybe we are on the wrong path?"

"Why do you go hiking in the mountains if you are not prepared and have no map?" asked the burly blond who seemed to be the leader. "We are not here to provide information for tourists."

The others barely glanced in Rupert and Johnny's direction.

"OK. Thanks for the help," said Rupert as abruptly as he could.

Johnny and Rupert hiked on, waiting to get a suitable distance before talking to each other.

"I've seen plenty of Russian trekkers and climbers," started Rupert. "But those ones looked...not like climbers."

"What did they look like?"

"Like people who are trained to kill other people."

"Oh, yes. They are probably Russian GRU," suggested Johnny.

"What are they doing hiking around the mountains? Besides being rude?"

Johnny just shrugged in reply.

And so the two hikers continued on up the trail, not knowing if they were heading in the right direction.

Another ten minutes had passed when again another group of hikers materialized at the side of the trail. But Rupert was not too happy to see them.

The seven men that Rupert saw were all wearing Kajbez military fatigues with large backpacks and assault rifles slung casually by their side.

"Should we keep going?" Rupert whispered to Johnny.

"Yes. It will look strange if we turn around and go back."

"You think we are in trouble?"

"For what?" asked Johnny. "We are in a national park. This is a tourist area. We are allowed to be here."

Johnny ventured out ahead and greeted the soldiers in Kajbezi. A discussion began that Rupert could not understand. But he could sense that Johnny was now being interrogated rudely by one of the soldiers. Johnny seemed to be doing his best as he pled their case.

"He says we should sit down," said Johnny as he finally turned to explain the situation to Rupert. "I think he is going to call someone on his radio. And he said that he wants to see your passport."

"This is unfriendly. I'm not going to sit down. I'll stand," said Rupert.

"Yes, but we have no choice."

Rupert stood and Johnny sat for a few minutes while one of the Kajbez soldiers talked into his radio.

"What are they saying?"

"Same thing he said to me: that we are in a military training area without permission."

"Well, shit."

Rupert and Johnny stood and sat for a few more minutes, waiting for something to happen. But no decision by the soldiers seemed to be forthcoming.

Suddenly a voice sounded behind them.

"Hey boys," was the southern American-accented greeting they heard.

Turning around, Rupert saw a familiar face.

"You're the guy from the Fake Irish Pub, right?" asked the well-built man with a bad American haircut.

This time the American was in uniform. Rupert noted the US Army patch and the insignia showing that he held the rank of major. The nametag was missing.

"Yeah, that's me," replied Rupert.

"I'm sorry about your friend. We really tried, but we couldn't get a doctor to treat his knife wounds. We did everything we could for him, but he really needed a surgeon."

"Well, thank you for trying. We really appreciate it. I didn't know what to do. I don't have any sort of medical training. So I'm glad that you were there. Thanks."

"Your welcome," said the Major, before he switched to the problem at hand. "The Kajbez soldiers seem to think that you've been following and watching us?"

"On one of the more popular trekking routes in Kajbezistan? Everybody is watching you."

"Seriously? This is a popular trail?"

"Didn't you see the big parking lot and the sign with all the information at the base of the trail?"

"No. We came here by helicopter."

"Sharoon National Park is an odd place for training."

"Uh huh... I see the problem. You're not in the park anymore. You probably crossed the boundary a few kilometers back down the trail. I'm pretty sure you are not on a popular trekking route. I think you came up on a cow trail," said the Major.

"Really? We asked some Russians down the trail for directions, and they basically told us to F-off," said Rupert in their defense.

"Yeah, those guys are usually nearby whenever we train. I guess those would be the people that these boys said were following us, not you two – obviously."

The US Army major then did his best to help out the two lost hikers, showing them a map and their approximate position. Quickly it was worked out how far back Rupert and Johnny would have to go before finding the main trail.

"If and when you see the Russians on your way back down," said the American officer, "please tell them that 'Major Robbie says hi to Alyosha.' He'll be the blond one with all the muscles. And tell them that nobody believes them that they're Ukrainian trekkers."

"Yeah, the blond one was the rude guy that wouldn't give us directions. I'll pass on your greetings."

The hike back down the trail should have been far easier than going up, but it was so steep that Johnny kept slipping and falling down with his completely unsuitable shoes – much to the amusement of Rupert.

Eventually the trail flattened out and the conversation restarted.

"Did you notice their uniforms?" asked Johnny.

"The American guy's uniform?"

"No. The ones that the Kajbez soldiers were wearing."

"They were not like the ones I usually see the Kajbez Army wearing," said Rupert.

"That's because they are Kajbez special forces. And these had a scorpion on their uniform."

"Those arm patches? Yeah, I noticed."

"You know who this brigade is?" said Johnny.

"Scorpions?"

"Yeah, but do you know what they did?"

"Fuck. Get to the point, Johnny!"

"They are from the brigade that the president's son took to Yangi-Uzen."

"They are the soldiers who massacred the striking oil workers?"

"Yes. Maybe not the same men, but they are in the same brigade. They are cruel people. They are just dogs for the president."

"Looks like the American soldiers are preparing them well for the next massacre," said Rupert.

Rupert and Johnny never did see the Russians, but they did eventually make it to the meadow – a fully five hours after starting their hike. It should have taken only 90 minutes.

Rupert emptied out his backpack and then looked over at what Johnny had pulled out of his now empty bag.

"You forgot the booze?" asked an incredulous Rupert.

"You mean the vodka?"

"Yes."

"I thought you said that you had it?" protested Johnny.

"Fucking great. It will be a sober day today."

Rupert should have been content with the sunny, cool mountain weather and the amazing view of the small stream that meandered through the meadow. A few horses grazed casually on the other side of the stream, awaiting their end-fate as Kajbez sausages.

In the far distance Rupert could see two men on horseback leaving the forest and entering the far end of the meadow. As they got closer, Rupert could make out their features.

"One foreigner, and one Kajbez guide. On horses. I wish we had horses," complained Rupert.

"So do I. But that guy probably paid a lot for the guide and the horse rental."

"I didn't even see that that was an option when we entered the park. I guess we should have asked about horseback rides when we were still in the guesthouse."

The westerner on the lead horse waved in a friendly manner as he came towards Rupert and Johnny's picnic spot. As the man dismounted, Rupert recognized another familiar face.

"Good afternoon, Ambassador. How is your ride going?" asked Rupert.

"Quite well, thank you," was the cordial reply. "But I apologize. I'm certain that I recognize you from any number of events in Chorshanbe. But your name and affiliation escapes me."

"Rupert. Presbyterian Aid Services."

"Oh, of course. I've seen you at the Irish Pub regularly. That's where I recognize you from."

"Yeah, that would be it," admitted Rupert. "I don't really go to any special events these days – unless there is good, free alcohol."

"That's sound criteria!" said the ambassador with a gregarious smile.

The ambassador turned to Johnny and greeted him in what sounded to Rupert like perfect Kajbezi.

"Oh, sorry," said Rupert, interrupting. "This is my translator and project assistant, Muhammadjoon. Muhammadjoon, this is His Excellency, Rowan Thornton, Her Majesty's Ambassador to Kajbezistan."

Johnny politely returned the greeting in Kajbezi.

"Did I get the title right?" asked Rupert.

"Oh yes, that was quite nicely done thank you. I'll send a memo around the embassy asking them to use that title for me regularly," joked the ambassador, without letting Rupert know if the appellation was correct or not.

"Do you mind if we join you for a late lunch? There were no spots up above that made for good picnic location," continued the ambassador. It's quite steep up there."

Within ten minutes the ambassador's bodyguard had unloaded a full bounty from the horse's saddlebags.

"Please, I brought quite too much food. And I think you will probably like what I've brought up by horse," said the ambassador.

"What is that?" asked a very curious Johnny.

Looking at the spread on the picnic blanket, the ambassador started, "Well, this is Italian beef bresaola – three days cured and three months air-dried. This is manchego cheese from the happiest Spanish sheep in all of La Mancha – aged two years. Here we have shaved pear slices in honor of the wonderful city of Almurt-Ata – the origin of pears. And this is fresh jam from the persimmon tree in the courtyard at my residence in Chorshanbe – no preservatives or sugar added. These green Castelvetrano olives are from Sicily. These walnuts we bought at the park entrance from a lovely old lady. And we brought this flatbread with us from the south. Not quite fresh, of course. It was baked last night. But once that campfire burns down to hot coals we can toast it quite nicely."

The first few items just confused Johnny, but the southern naan bread brought a smile to his face.

The mid-afternoon lunch only got better as the ambassador kept pulling out items from his seemingly magical saddlebag.

Grabbing a large vintage thermos with a Royal Air Force stamp, the ambassador announced, "This is coffee, brewed this morning. It's a dark roast from Guatemala. Don't ask me if it's fair trade or not, I honestly can't remember. I've taken the liberty of adding mare's milk. And don't worry, we had the herders pasteurize it this morning over their fire for us just in case the coffee is not hot enough to kill off the brucellosis. These raw milk people are really quite mad! And we must be careful, as this is my grandfather's thermos from the war, and it does not exactly keep the temperature as well as a modern thermos."

The ambassador's bodyguard then presented sugar and four old Soviet-era copper-nickel melchior alloy cups decorated with a heroic Soviet sputnik satellite motif.

"Now, for the important part: would you like to turn your café au lait de cheval into a scotch whiskey coffee? I'm not so barbaric as to have brought along vanilla or any sort of vanilla-infused sugary syrup, so you'll have to do with the traditional recipe."

Rupert and Johnny were happy to agree, Rupert especially so when he saw that the ambassador had brought a bottle of GlenGrant 18-Year-Old single malt scotch.

"You like it? The Minister of Foreign Affairs gifted me one of these a year ago at a charity event, and I thanked him on national television. Now everybody in Kajbezistan who seeks to curry my favor gives me a bottle of GlenGrant. I have no idea where they find it – certainly not in a Kajbez supermarket. So I now have a serious oversupply at the residence. You are more than welcome to take this bottle off my hands."

"Seriously?" asked Rupert.

"Actually, here...you can also take a full bottle. I brought two. Just please do not mention where you got it from, as re-gifting is frowned upon here as far as I know. And do not let anyone know that I used a bottle of GlenGrant for a drink that is usually only requested by middle-aged American tourists from Ohio while on vacation in Scotland," said the ambassador with a wink.

"I'm no whiskey snob," added Rupert. "But I promise to drink the rest of the bottle the way that the distillers intentioned – unadulterated by coffee, milk and sugar."

"Wonderful. I had planned to give this bottle to a forest ranger I met here last year who works during the summer, but the herders said that the national park had gotten rid of all the rangers for some reason. So this bottle is searching for a home."

"Thank you. We will do our best to not drink it all before we make it back to our car."

Rupert was not joking.

After a long and pleasant conversation that focused on the best of Kajbezistan's lesser-known natural wonders, the ambassador and his trusted servant and/or bodyguard departed on their horses up another side trail to continue their multi-day trek across the mountains and into the neighboring Gharyn region.

"Rupert, I can't go back to eating potato chips, northern Kajbez horse-dick sausage and Russian cheese. Where can I find the food that the ambassador has?"

"London. Rome. Vienna. Madrid. Maybe Moscow as well for five times the price."

"Oh," replied a dejected Johnny. "Maybe I could ask some people who visit Europe to bring some cheese and meat like this back to Kajbezistan?"

"You could. But it might be a little outside of your budget. By London prices, you just ate about $20 worth of cured meat and cheese."

"What?! Really?"

"Yes, sorry," said Rupert.

Johnny was now even more dejected. But Rupert was able to console him with yet another paper cup full of scotch whiskey from the first bottle.

"And this whiskey? How much does the whiskey cost? It's so good."

"I don't know. Maybe $150 or $200," guessed Rupert.

"Oh my God. I want to be a rich person."

"Don't we all?"

"The ambassador is such a great guy! I like him," said Johnny as he enthusiastically changed the conversation back to the gift-giver.

"Yeah, everybody likes him – except for the KGB. They are super-suspicious of him because he can speak a little Kajbezi and because he likes traveling the country doing stuff that has nothing to do with official embassy business."

"Why do you think the British ambassador is here?"

"Same reasons we are? To be a tourist? He said he was riding through one of the passes into Gharyn. Why else would he be here?"

"Maybe to spy on the Russians who are spying on the Americans," suggested Johnny.

"Oh, I'm sure. And I bet the American ambassador is up on a mountaintop personally watching all of it."

"You think so?"

"No," replied Rupert, deeply annoyed with Johnny's inability to catch the sarcasm. "That idiot is probably back in Chorshanbe, trying to insert a cube-shaped wood block into a star-shaped hole."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that she is a retard," replied Rupert. "She is literally retarded. She is the dumbest diplomat in the entire State Department – and that's saying something. Kajbezistan is a post for professional diplomats, not for donors to the president's re-election campaign. So only God knows how she got to the rank of ambassador. I've thrown rocks at cows that were smarter than her."

"Then why is she here?"

"Because this is where the US government sends its imbeciles. Except for the young first-year foreign service officers, I think this place is a punishment posting for the State Department's biggest fuck-ups and morons."

"And NGOs? What sort of people do they send here?" asked Johnny with a grin.

"Thieves and perverts. And, also, people like me."

Special Information Insert #15

Presidential Facts

Some facts on the President of Kajbezistan, via the Eurasian Group security consulting firm's country profile (subscribers only):

The family: The Kajbez president has three sons and, to his chagrin, seven daughters, the youngest of whom is, at age sixteen, the Chairwoman of the Committee for War Widows in the Upper House of Parliament. This, of course, does not take into account the children of any of his mistresses.

Presidential succession: Kajbezologists in the West point to President Islambaev's sociopathic eldest son Rizvon as the likely successor. The main argument for this line of succession is that Rizvon has been appointed to many high-profile positions in the state apparatus, including head of the Gulganberdybacha Islambaev Charitable Foundation, chairperson of the Kajbez Football Federation, President of the Kajbez Gymnastics Union, Vice-Rector of Islambaev University, Kajbez goodwill ambassador for UNESCO, Mayor of Chorshanbe, and Vice President of Kajbezistan. President Islambaev's numerous bastard children are not considered serious candidates for presidential succession, nor are the semi-secret children from his first marriage – a safe assumption considering that they were long ago disowned and exiled to Russia with their mother.

The eldest son: Rizvon, the president's son and heir apparent was the 'star' of the national football league. Despite being a terrible soccer player, opponents lived in fear of him (i.e., fear of off-pitch consequences), and he lived in fear of the wind blowing directly at him on the field, as his loose jersey would be pressed by the wind against his small beer gut, making him look like a pregnant stork, belly engorged and being held up by two thin sticks as he ran across the pitch. Since his retirement, all embarrassing videos of him playing have been removed from Youtube, having been flagged in the Youtube complaints system by loyal apparatchiks as 'racism.'

Presidential torture: Kajbezistan is known to the rest of the world as one of "those 'stan countries," specifically the one where political dissidents are boiled alive in oil. This is deeply angering to Kajbez citizens who travel overseas, all of whom must educate their interlocutor with the fact that nobody was boiled alive in oil, but rather partially submerged in simmering water – a fitting punishment for insulting the honor and dignity of President Islambaev. Kajbez defenders note the gullibility of foreigners who believe that a pot of boiling oil big enough to fit a person exists anywhere in Kajbezistan. Giant pots used for cooking the traditional wheat gruel sөmölöök, however, can be found everywhere, as they are a feature of the Persian New Year's celebrations, which locals celebrate despite not being Persian. So, Kajbez citizens note authoritatively, their president partially submerges traitors in a simmering sөmölöök pot until they are slowly cooked to death.

Presidential religion: President Islambaev created his own spiritual guidelines for the people of Kajbezistan, which has resulted in a what some call a religion – a new one, say the orthodox types, an ancient one, say the president's supporters – that combines Tengriism (a Eurasian nomadic shamanistic religion), Zoroastrianism, Islam, and some obvious elements of Communism (the Communistic aspects of the religion exist only in writing, and not in practice). The sacred text of this new religion, which the president refuses to name or acknowledge as a religion, is called the Zhannoma, and includes mostly the ramblings and quotes of the president, plus his deeply ill-informed musings on the major world religions. Memorization of large tracts of this book are required in order to graduate high school and university, as well as to get your driver's license or passport, or to become a certified dentist or member of parliament.

Presidential books: President Islambaev has written and published over 100 books. Titles include A Diplomatic History of Kajbezistan: Great Achievements on the World Stage (2004), Kajbezistan's Unparalleled Contributions to World Civilization during the year 2007 (2008), Musings on the March of History: My Journey to Leadership (2018), Melons of Kajbezistan: A Tribute to the Noble Melon Farmers of Kajbezistan (1997).

Presidential music: Foreigners are strongly advised to beg their way out of an invitation to the President's bi-monthly concerts where an audience of 10,000 people is forced to watch him DJ on stage with his MacBook Air. The concerts can last up to three hours. The President then usually follows up with an acoustic encore show as he incompetently plays the yaktar, a traditional Kajbez stringed instrument that produces 'music' via plucking the one single string. The playing of the yaktar is, as is mandatory, accompanied by loud, anguished wailing for extended family members who have died over the last forty years. This includes a full recitation of all the names of the deceased. They say the concerts won't kill you, but that you will wish you were dead. Foreign guests report that the music sounds like a Chinese opera ensemble burning in a medieval hell [Note: a concert in 2013 did result in the trampling deaths of thirteen people in the rush for the doors at concert's end].

# Chapter Fifteen

# A Pig Attacks and a Revolution Begins

Date: September 18th, 2019.

Place: Tiger Gorge nature preserve, Gharyn Region (also known as Dead-Tiger Gorge, as the last tiger here was killed in 1958).

Tourist attraction: Shar-Sharshara Waterfall, an old pre-Islamic animist holy site.

People: Rupert, Johnny and a very helpful eleven-year-old peasant boy.

"Hey, boy! Where's the road to the waterfall?" yelled Johnny with the customary rudeness that an adult from the city should show to a rural kid.

The sullen boy looked up at the car from his shady spot under the roadside tree and asked "Which waterfall?"

"How many waterfalls are there in this area?"

"Just one."

"Then why did you ask which waterfall?" barked a very annoyed Johnny.

"You didn't ask for directions to a waterfall in this area specifically, you asked about a waterfall in general."

"OK, then where is the waterfall in this area named the Shar-Sharshara Waterfall?

"We don't call it that name here."

"What do you call it?" asked Johnny, who was now quite exasperated.

"Ajina Waterfall."

Johnny turned to Rupert and said with a laugh, "This kid says locals call it 'Evil Demon Waterfall.' Isn't that fucked up?"

"Not at all," replied Rupert. "If anything, it makes it way more interesting. Let's go see this evil demon waterfall!"

"Alright kid, how can we get to the Ajina Waterfall?"

"I'll tell you in exchange for five cigarettes!" yelled the boy with a determined scowl on his face.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. This is serious business. You are getting paid for being that foreigner's translator and driver. And that foreigner is probably rich. So why shouldn't I get paid also? The government takes everything from us Gharyni people and gives it to the people in the city – like you. We have nothing!"

"This is why everybody hates the Gharyni vendors at the bazaar in Chorshanbe! I'll give you two cigarettes," countered Johnny.

"Three. Or you can find the waterfall yourself," the boy said with a bored shrug.

"Deal. Three cigarettes," grumbled Johnny as he threw his cigarette pack at the kid. "You've taken my last three cigarettes. Now how can we get to the waterfall?"

"I'll need your lighter as well. That has to be included in the deal. Otherwise these cigarettes are useless to me."

"You little hooligan!" yelled Johnny as he hurled his cheap plastic lighter at the boy's feet.

"OK, so... Keep going this direction and turn right after the place where Hajji Akhmet's cattle pen used to be."

"Seriously, kid, how should I know where some guy's cattle pen used to be?"

"Because he's a big man here. He's the only hajji in the village," said the boy as if this was an obvious fact.

"Well, thanks be to God for granting Uncle Akhmet the wealth and physical strength to undertake the journey to Mecca. Now, if somebody was not from this area, and they knew neither Hajji Akhmet nor his cattle pen that no longer exists, how would they find their way to the waterfall?" asked Johnny.

"Turn right after the spot where Hajji Akhmet's cattle pen used to be at the place where there's a big sign with a picture of a waterfall and an arrow. It says 'Shar-Sharshara Waterfall, seven kilometers.' But that's false information."

"Are you fucking kidding?"

"No, I'm not. If you follow the directions on that sign you will go to the Ajina Waterfall, not the Shar-Sharshara Waterfall," said the boy.

"But they are the same waterfall, right?" asked Johnny.

"Yes, but we don't call it Shar-Sharshara. Only assholes from the city and tourists call it that."

"Amazing. Thanks kid!" said Johnny as the car sped off towards the place where Hajji Akhmet's cow pen used to be.

The peasant boy waved the road dust away from his face and then burst out laughing as he lit his first cigarette.

Rupert and Johnny were not, unfortunately, done with aggressive young Gharyni businesskids. Waiting for them as they stepped out of the car at the waterfall parking area was a slightly less ragamuffin-looking boy.

"Big brother! I will be your guide to the waterfall!" the kid yelled in Kajbezi.

"Kid, I can see the waterfall from here," said Johnny as he pointed down the gorge. "And the trail is obvious. Why would we need a guide?"

"The trail goes many different directions. You will get lost in the forest! It can be dangerous! There are wild animals down there."

"We'll take our chances," said Johnny.

The boy then switched to English as he looked over at Rupert, "Excuse me, sir. I can be your guide. I can tell you about the history of this waterfall and all of its secrets. Very cheap. 100,000 somes."

"Two dollars, huh? OK, you are now our guide. Let's go," replied Rupert.

"100,000?!" yelled Johnny. "The kid would have done it for 25,000. Don't pay him that much."

"He's my guide, not yours. And I'm paying him."

"OK, it's your money. You do what you want," said Johnny.

Rupert turned to the kid and asked, "So, what's your name?"

"I am Aslanbek. I am fifteen years old," said the kid authoritatively. "And what is your name, where are you from, are you married, how much money is your salary, and how old are you?"

"My name's Rupert, and I'm from England."

"My dream is to visit London!"

"You seem ready to visit. Where did you learn to speak English?" asked Rupert.

"I am learning English at the American Window in town."

"American Window? What's that?"

"It's an American language school in the town. It's free. The American embassy pays for everything," replied Aslanbek happily.

"That's 20 kilometers away. Do you live there, or here near the waterfall?"

"I live in town. But I come here every day in the summer to wait for tourists."

"You're a businessman?"

"Yes! I want to have a touristic business here in Kajbezistan. I will take foreign tourists to all the many scenic places in the Gharyn region. I am saving money for a car. Soon I will be old enough to have a driver's permit."

"Sounds like a great idea! Now what can you tell us about the waterfall?" asked Rupert as the three started their descent on the rocky trail.

"The holy waterfall has magic. It can give women babies."

"Seriously? Like the waterfall is the father?" joked Rupert.

The boy laughed and said, "The waterfall helps a woman and a man have a baby. If the woman and the man do not have children, the waterfall will help them. It is the woman's fault, of course. So the woman must walk in the water, up to here!" exclaimed Aslanbek as he indicated a depth up to his chest.

"And what does it do for men?"

"The waterfall washes away all of a man's sins."

"Great! Can I go swimming at the waterfall?" asked Rupert jokingly.

"Yes. There is a deep pool, and it is safe. But you must pay the mullah first."

"The mullah?"

"The thief!" interjected Johnny.

"Yes, the mullah is a thief," stated Aslanbek in somber agreement. "Our mullah used to be the guardian of the waterfall. A thousand years ago a mullah from our village defeated the evil demon that guarded the magic waterfall. The mullah then prayed to God to make the waterfall Islamic. The waterfall became part of the Islamic world. For a thousand of years we Gharyni Kajbez have kept the waterfall safe and collected money from pilgrims. But then the government took it away and gave the waterfall to a different mullah. He is not from this area."

"Where is the new mullah from?" asked Rupert.

"Kharvor," said Aslanbek in disgust.

"You see, Rupert?" said Johnny. "You see what they do? Nothing is too small to take. Everything in this country must be theirs. Next time we come here, that boy demanding cigarettes will be a Kharvori."

Aslanbek continued on with his rehearsed history of the waterfall and all of its other numerous magical properties, from healing foot fungus to curing prostate cancer (for which a full liter of colonic water must be blessed by the mullah and then bought at a sufficient price for such a miraculous cure).

The trail was quite easy and completely impossible to get lost on, as Johnny had suspected. Once they reached the pool at the bottom of the falls, the full commercial operation could be seen. The mullah sat on a low-quality Chinese carpet beneath a willow tree as his two minions sold water by the plastic bottle and urged the swimmers to make a donation, as that is what God very surely wanted in exchange for swimming in one of his many aquatic creations.

Eventually Rupert had enough of the cold water spray and the shade, and hinted to Johnny that they should head back to the car. Aslanbek agreed with Rupert, as he wanted to get paid and be done with the tourists.

The trail back down the river cut through the dense forest and bushes that lined the river, the branches scratching Rupert as he walked by, to his great annoyance.

"Mister! Be careful! The pig! It is dangerous," yelled Aslanbek as he looked back towards Rupert and Johnny.

Rupert and Johnny's attention was then fully secured as three small wild piglets crashed through the bushes and onto the trail.

"Oh, fuck off!" laughed Rupert as he picked up a rock and hurled it at the piglets.

It was a lucky throw. The rock found its way right onto the snout of the littlest of the piglets. The pig squealed in pain and shock as the rock bounced off its face. This set off a panic amongst the three pigs as they all shrieked in terror and fled into the bushes.

"Ahahaha! Did you see that throw? I nailed that pig right in the nose!" exclaimed Rupert proudly.

"They are bad animals, mister!" exclaimed Aslanbek. "We should leave here! They are dangerous!"

"So I've been told," said Rupert, still laughing.

The sound of breaking branches faded into the distance as the pigs continued with their retreat.

"How many were there?" asked Rupert.

"I don't know mister, I could only see three. But maybe more," said Aslanbek. "They travel together in big group. I don't like them. They are bad!"

"They are probably here to eat all the garbage that the tourists leave," offered Johnny.

"They are usually in the hills. I've never seen them here before in the summer," countered Aslanbek.

"Well, they have the right to be tourists too," joked Rupert.

"Then why did you throw a rock at the poor little animal?" asked Johnny with a frown.

"Yeah...now I feel a little bad for nailing that little fucker in the face," replied Rupert, who clearly did not feel bad about anything.

The topic of pigs quickly receded from the conversation as the group continued on down the river.

But the trio were not yet done with unpleasant animals.

As they turned a bend, an unwelcome sight came into view. Four heavily armed men in their best action movie special forces velcro gear stood at the edge of the trail, obviously very bored as a serious looking man in a business suit and a shockingly bushy unibrow stood in the middle of the forested trail and glared angrily at Rupert, Johnny and Aslanbek.

"Who are you?!" he demanded, as rudely as possible.

"They are tourists, uncle, and I am their guide," answered Aslanbek.

"I'm his translator," said Johnny as he nodded towards Rupert.

"Give me your documents!" demanded the angry man as he switched to Russian. "Just you, the foreigner!"

Rupert did his best to act nonchalant as he fished his passport out of his pocket and handed it to the belligerent Kajbez. The nameless man quickly glanced inside the passport and then handed it back without looking at Rupert. He seemed more interested in demonstrating his authority than actually checking the information inside the passport.

"Get off the trail. Stand here," said the angry man. "You will wave to the president. You will not speak to him unless he speaks to you. Understood?"

The president.

Johnny felt a rush of blood to his head. A feeling of dread poured over him.

Aslanbek started to shake almost immediately.

It was if a god was descending from the clouds – and it wasn't clear whether the god was a cruel or a loving god.

Rupert now felt as if he had entered a surreal zone full of pigs, special forces and presidents, complete with a surly unibrowed ringmaster dressed in a bespoke suit and shoes covered in dirt.

The man barked some orders to the armed men and they then proceeded up the trail together, leaving behind one presidential praetorian guardsman to watch over them.

The travelers and the young guide stood motionless and didn't say a word to each other. Perhaps five minutes had passed, Rupert wasn't sure. And he didn't dare look at his phone to check the time.

Then, suddenly, four even more heavily armed men came around the corner.

These men seemed calm and relaxed and completely in control of whatever it was they were doing.

One of them came up to Rupert and said, in English, "Sorry, we need to quickly search you, OK?"

"Sure, no problem," replied Rupert as a second man quickly frisked Rupert and Johnny.

The men spoke some code words into a handheld radio and then left up the trail to hassle whatever tourists still remained at the waterfall.

Rupert and Johnny didn't have to wait long. Two men in civilian clothes and sunglasses came around the corner and surveyed the three tourists. They slowed down and looked back as the President of Kajbezistan rounded the corner.

Rupert looked at President Islambaev and could think of only one thing: the presidential hairdo was deflated. His hair lay flat on his head. On television and in photos he had an impressive upright pompadour. But in real life...it was disappointing.

"Assalamu alaykum, El Olidagi! Our dear president!" bellowed Johnny enthusiastically, using the president's honorific title.

"Greetings fellow countryman! Hello young boy! Greetings dear foreign guest!" barked the president in a very jovial manner.

"Privet!" replied Rupert, as if 'hi!' in Russian was the appropriate response.

Johnny winced upon hearing Rupert's reply, but continued to keep smiling broadly – while twitching just slightly.

"Where are you from?" asked the president as he laughed at Rupert's excessive confidence.

"South Africa."

Johnny winced even more strongly than before as he recalled immediately that one of the president's men had seen Rupert's passport. His smile was now a very nervous one.

"Very good, very good. Kajbezistan's relationship with South Africa is of the utmost importance!"

"Of course," said Rupert in agreement.

"Goodbye!" said the president with a gentle smile.

And with that, the president continued up the trail under the watchful gaze of his bodyguards.

Rupert and Johnny turned to head down the trail, but were stopped by the remaining soldier.

"One more VIP!" the soldier warned. "Wait just a minute."

And then the second VIP rounded the corner. It was Vice President Rizvon Islambaev, the eldest son of President Islambaev and an accomplished serial rapist.

Rizvon did not even acknowledge Rupert and Johnny. He just continued up the trail with a dull gaze in his eyes and a pot-bellied swagger. He was just as Rupert imagined him to be: the spitting image of Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday – just with a bad Central Asian haircut to match the several thousand dollars' worth of clothing and hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of wristwatch he was wearing.

Rizvon disappeared up the trail, doing his best imitation of a child unhappy that he was being dragged along on his parent's vacation.

And with that, it was over.

"You can go now," offered the soldier.

Rupert and Johnny took his offer and followed Aslanbek down the trail.

"Well, you finally got to see our president in person. What do you think?" asked Johnny.

"I think he had the look of a man who sleeps very soundly at night while his police and security forces do indescribably cruel things to the people of Kajbezistan."

"Well, yes. But what else?"

"His hair was so disappointing," replied Rupert.

"Yes, he does not look like he does in photos and on television."

"He looks old and tired."

The excitement soon wore off as the trail steepened. Rupert switched to complaining about the short hike.

"Fuck! We're going to be hassled again near the parking area," said Rupert as they got close to the top.

"Why?" asked Johnny.

"Because it overlooks the waterfall where the president will be."

"Yeah, you are probably right."

As they crested the hill, the parking lot came into view and Rupert was right – more armed men and presidential minions clustered around their armored black SUVs.

Rupert and Johnny saw that they would have to walk right by the remainder of the president's security detail on their way to their car. They braced themselves for another search or interrogation.

Then a burst of gunshots erupted in the distance.

The security detail immediately ran over to the edge of the hill and looked down into the gorge.

A frantic voice squawked loudly over the men's radios. The men pointed down into the gorge and yelled to each other in a panic. They turned towards the trail and ran off in a full sprint.

Rupert and Johnny both looked at each other. Their hearts raced as they cautiously walked over and looked down into the gorge.

"Fuck! Fuck!" yelled Johnny as he saw the source of the panic.

About a hundred meters down the trail from the waterfall was a scene that neither Rupert nor Johnny could believe was real. A dozen extremely angry wild boars of various sizes – from smaller than a dog to larger than a bear – were ripping apart a screaming man amidst the bodies of several dead or dying pigs.

The man being torn apart by the pig's teeth and tusks was none other than Rizvon, still at that moment the oldest living son of President Islambaev.

Johnny continued to yell wildly in Kajbezi, narrating the events for nobody in particular.

The bodyguards were in a full panic. One of the bodyguards let loose a full volley of poorly-aimed shots from his Kalashnikov at the pigs, taking out two pigs and three of his fellow bodyguards, as well as the grumpy man in the expensive suit who had just recently hassled Rupert and Johnny.

Rizvon was now silent as the large alpha male boar had him by the throat and was thrashing wildly, shaking the last bit of life out of him. Rizvon's silence was now matched by the hysterical screaming of President Islambaev, who cowered behind what was likely his most competent bodyguard, who managed to shoot dead two pigs while standing between them and his president.

The pigs, all eight of them that had managed to avoid the hail of gunfire, suddenly changed their focus away from the now thoroughly dead Rizvon and charged towards President Islambaev and the rest of the bodyguards.

The combined firepower in close quarters was not sufficient, and six pigs still remained in the fight, included the alpha male. Two of the bodyguards, having emptied their magazines and, being too scared to reload quickly, retreated down the trail.

The president's last bodyguard fired his handgun at the charging pigs to very little effect, only disabling one of the smaller animals.

The last five pigs swarmed over the bodyguard, tearing at his legs and stomach and face.

President Islambaev screamed in a high-pitched voice as the boars dropped their attack on the bodyguard and dedicated their full attention to the president.

The pigs tore away the president's clothing, and then his limbs, and then his genitalia. They tore through his large potbelly and then, finally, his face. The screaming ceased as one of the pigs gripped down on Islambaev's throat while another tore off the presidential jaw.

"Allahu Akbar!" yelled young Aslanbek enthusiastically, making his sympathies known.

Rupert glanced over and noticed that Aslanbek, grinning widely, was videoing the entire event on his phone.

Down in the gorge the large pools of blood were clearly visible, even from atop the rim. It was now eerily silent, with just an occasional pig grunt echoing up out of the canyon.

The pigs were now moving quickly away from the scene of their battlefield victory and into the thick forest. The remains of the battle were grim: dead pigs mixed with expired bodyguards and the severely mutilated corpses of President Islambaev and his son Rizvon.

"Where did our guide go?" asked Rupert as he turned around and looked in every direction.

Aslanbek had disappeared.

"Who cares!?" yelled Johnny. "Do you see what just happened?"

"Yeah, that was crazy. Your president just got killed by a bunch of wild pigs."

Johnny continued to stare down into the gorge, even though the action was finished.

"But seriously, where is Aslanbek?" asked Rupert. "We need to have a little talk with him. He was recording video on his phone."

"He ran away, I guess. Wouldn't you do the same if you were him?" replied Johnny, who was still shaking.

"I told him that we would drive him back to his town on our way home."

"And would you want to be seen getting out of a car driven by two people who had just killed your president?"

"Who would be stupid enough to believe that?" said Rupert. "The president's bodyguards saw everything, and some of them are still alive. We were nowhere close to the pig attack."

"It's not stupid, Rupert. It's just how this country works. Nothing happens by chance. It must be a conspiracy, and if there is a foreigner to blame, then even better. Forget about Aslanbek and his video."

"So we should get the fuck out of here?" asked Rupert.

"Yes."

"To Chorshanbe?"

"First we will go to my hometown," replied Johnny. "We will be safest in Eshakdek."

"Right. OK. Let's get the hell out of here."

The drive through back to town was filled with total silence. The two travelers grabbed supplies at a local supermarket, nearly filling their backseat. The gas tank was also filled up. And in the trunk they put three full cans of petrol.

Rupert and Johnny did their best to not show panic. They looked warily at the local people, none of whom showed any sign that they knew of what had just happened to their president.

The long period of silence was interrupted, as usual, by Rupert.

"You people can't do anything original in this country. I swear, that pig must have watched Game of Thrones."

"I don't understand," said a confused Johnny.

"It's a joke..."

"How so?"

"Game of Thrones is a book series and a TV show. And..."

"Fuck, bro! I know what Game of Thrones is. What does this have to do with anything?"

"OK, then you remember that a big war starts after the king is killed by a wild boar in the first season," said Rupert.

"I don't remember that scene."

"Well, they didn't show it on screen. They didn't have a big budget that early on in the series. But it was an important event. It led to a war of succession between rivals."

"What does this have to do with Kajbezistan, aside from a leader being killed by a pig?"

"Well, like I said, a war started after the king was killed by a pig," said Rupert gravely.

"I don't think we will have war."

"So who is your new king then? Rizvon doesn't look like he can make it to work tomorrow in place of his father."

"I don't know. Maybe another family member? It's a big family. They will figure out a solution," shrugged Johnny.

"Well, in the TV series it took eight seasons to figure out. How many seasons will it take for Kajbezistan?"

Johnny didn't answer.

There was another long period of silence.

"Rupert, listen. You need to let me make the decisions from this point onward. It might get really bad in Kajbezistan."

"Yeah, no shit."

"Good, then you agree," confirmed Johnny. "Our first problem is that we have to go back through the police checkpoint at the entrance gate to Gharyn province. If they know anything, then the checkpoint will be closed to everybody who isn't a security forces officer. Then the only thing that can get us through is a large bribe or a good story. Let me handle all the talking, OK?"

"Right. OK. You do the talking, and if you need money, then let me know," said Rupert.

The mobile signal had disappeared after they left town, and the drive was one in which Rupert and Johnny were in the dark about what was happening.

"You know, Johnny, in some countries the government has kept the death of a leader secret for a while – like several days – until they have a plan for a new leader sorted out. So maybe we might just get all the way back to Chorshanbe without incident."

"Well, this is not some 1950s dictatorship in Africa," countered Johnny. "People here talk. And they love rumors. And everybody has a mobile phone now."

"Yeah, I guess we'll see..."

After a few hours of driving through a sparsely populated area with no mobile service, Johnny's phone lit up with text messages from friends as soon as his phone connected to a signal. All were demanding that he watch a video online.

Johnny pulled over to the edge of the road and played the video.

"Fucking Aslanbek! That little shit!" exclaimed Johnny.

It was the pig attack. The video was shaky, and the people and pigs were in the distance. But it was clearly people being killed by a herd of boars while a panicked group of well-armed bodyguards shot their guns wildly.

'Pigs kill the dictator-pig' was the title of the video.

Sitting in the parked car, Rupert said, "You can't see us in the video, but I can hear you talking. Somebody is going to recognize us."

"They have already recognized us. Well, they recognized me. My voice. I swear in English while speaking Kajbezi. That's why my friends are sending the video to me."

"But the bodyguards will say that we had nothing to do with it," countered Rupert.

"They might. Or they might not. But people will think whatever they want to think. This is bad," said Johnny nervously.

"This is very bad," added Rupert, who was now finally as worried as he should be. "We need to leave the country."

"The borders will be closed. I'm sure of it. So we will continue to Eshakdek. It is our only choice."

Rupert played with his phone until he found the pig attack video on Youtube, uploaded within the last hour by Youtube user 'Aslanbek2004.'

"This fucking kid is making a killing off of the ad revenue!" exclaimed Rupert.

"What are you talking about?"

"The kid has uploaded the video to Youtube. And he monetized the video."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that an advertisement will play before the pig video, and he will get a share of the revenue."

"This is insane," said Johnny as he shook his head. "I need to get online and see what is happening."

Rupert took over the driving duties at that point, allowing Johnny to find updates online.

Thirty minutes later, Johnny announced that another video has appeared on Kajbez messaging groups. It was the presidential residence in Chorshanbe. It was on fire and surrounded by a huge cheering mob.

Twenty minutes later the mobile phone and the internet service ended suddenly, despite the two travelers being close to several towns and with mobile phone towers clearly visible on a nearby hilltop. Communications in Kajbezistan had ended. It was the universal sign of a government in panic. Rupert and Johnny were now fully in the dark.

*****

Date: September 20th, 2019.

Place: Local self-defense militia road checkpoint, formerly a Kajbez Ministry of Interior police checkpoint, Gharyn region.

People: An ugly KGB officer.

Kajbezistan's ugliest KGB officer could not believe what he was seeing as his car came to a stop in front of the police checkpoint. There were no police of any sort. Instead, a large group of men in civilian clothes milled about, some searching cars and some questioning frightened travelers. By the time he realized that the men were armed with an assortment of hunting rifles and stolen Kalashnikovs, it was too late. He looked into the rear-view mirror and saw two large trucks drive across the road and stop, blocking his escape route. He had only one option but to stop and roll down his window.

"Who are you?!" demanded the KGB captain as the first of the roadblock crew walked up to his window.

"That's not important. I want to know who you are," replied the man in a menacing tone. "I just need you to keep speaking for a little bit longer. Be a good boy and say a few more words."

"What?! You stupid villager!" screamed the KGB officer, trying his best to pretend that his world had not just been flipped upside down set on fire. "I'm a captain in the State Committee for National and Presidential Security. You will apologize for calling me a boy and start to answer my questions, now!"

"KGB, huh? That by itself is not necessarily a death penalty offense today here at this checkpoint, but now that I've heard your Kharvori accent I can tell you that today is your last day on earth, and that it will be by far your worst."

The officer was frozen with fear and confusion. He did not reply or make a single movement as he now looked down the barrels of several rifles pointed at his head. He knew that he now had no chance to reach below the seat for his gun.

"Nothing to say, huh?" continued the interrogator. "Not so brave anymore, are you? Your people in the government have taken everything from us in Gharyn. You come into our houses and businesses and steal from us. You rob us at every checkpoint in the country. Your police rape our women who work at the bazaar in Chorshanbe. You wait in the airport to grab as much money as you can from our boys who are returning from working in Russia, and you steal the gifts they bring for their families. You even falsely accuse our sons of belonging to the Islamic State and then demand all of our life savings in exchange for dropping the charges! You have taken everything from us Gharynis. And in return, we now ask from you just one simple thing."

The KGB captain started to beg hysterically for his life.

The interrogator grinned widely and said, "Now get out of the car. We don't want to spoil the nice interior with your dirty Kharvori blood."

Several of the roadblock crew open the door and pulled the officer out and dragged him to the edge of the road. There was no cliff, but rather a steep embankment that ended about 100 meters down the slope in a dry ravine.

"On your knees!" yelled one of the men standing behind the officer.

The light was fading, but the captain could just make out the dozen or so lifeless bodies that were lying at the bottom of the ravine.

Suddenly he felt a splash of what he thought was water spill over his head, followed immediately by a full dousing. He was soaking wet. It took a full second for the smell to register in his brain. It was not water. It was gasoline.

Special Information Insert #16

"History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Often Rhymes"

-Some witty person

Kajbez Civil War: The country refuses to acknowledge that they had a civil war from late 1991 until early 1993. It is known instead officially as 'The Period of Constitutional Turmoil.'

What happened?: President Islambaev started his presidential tenure in 1991 after a half-decade as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Kajbez Soviet Socialist Republic. However, the true power in the republic leading up to independence was the Russian officer that led the republic's KGB, and the Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Kajbez Soviet Socialist Republic – also a Russian. Both of these Russian men had been dispatched from Moscow to administer the Kajbez Republic, a place known as a corrupt Soviet backwater where Moscow usually sent apparatchiks as punishment. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Moscow-appointed administrators left to their home republics, and an inexperienced and incompetent Islambaev was left in charge. About a dozen other Kajbez apparatchiks from various regions all believed that they could seize power from Islambaev in a democratic election. They made their move and split the opposition vote twelve different ways, allowing Islambaev to win with 88% of the vote. The losers, unhappy with the unfree and unfair election, brought their supporters into the street for anti-government demonstrations (and attacks on ethnic Muskhatarians for good measure). Soon the violence escalated and various armed militias seized Chorshanbe.

How did Islambaev survive?: President Islambaev realized that he was not safe in Chorshanbe, so he moved his government to his hometown of Turkabad, whose named he promptly changed to Aryanabad upon his homecoming. Islambaev claims that he then led the military campaign to take back Chorshanbe, but it is widely known that during this period he lived in a luxury hotel in Moscow while a group of warlord-gangsters took back the capital city in his name (in exchange for control over the criminal economy, the heroin trade, and one industrial sector per warlord).

Hero of the nation: Islambaev had TV footage made of himself in military uniform, riding on a tank triumphantly into Chorshanbe, filmed a full week after the main assault. This video is still played regularly on state TV.

Russian assistance: While in Moscow, Russian operatives surreptitiously filmed Islambaev crying into a pillow in his luxurious hotel room, and ever since they have been using the film – or rather the threat of its release – to smooth over any difficulties in Kajbez-Russian relations that may arise. The existence of a video is well known, but the last person in Kajbezistan to say so publicly was simmered alive, taking several hours to die of heat exhaustion.

# Chapter Sixteen

# Narrow Escape or Quick Death

Date: September 21st, 2019.

Place: Five kilometers north of the Gharyn-Eshakdek regional boundary.

People: Rupert, Johnny, and an old man by the roadside selling qorüt, the generally inedible dried sour yoghurt balls beloved by Kajbez truck drivers.

"Be careful! They are killing Kharvoris and government people. That's what other travelers are saying," warned the old man as he handed Johnny his bag of qorüt through the open car window.

"I'm not Kharvori," replied Johnny.

"I know! I can hear your Eshakdeki accent. But some people here are ignorant. All they will know is that you are not a local. And some of them now have guns that they stole from the police and the military base. The police have thrown off their uniforms and run away. Now anybody can be accused of working for the government."

"Thanks for the advice, Uncle."

"Yes, and watch over your foreign guest. It says on Russian TV that foreigners are being murdered in Chorshanbe," warned the old man. "He has no worries here; we are hospitable! But other regions are less hospitable, especially Kharvor, or whatever they are calling their dirty region these days!"

The old man then switched to Russian as he looked at Rupert and yelled, "Where are you from? England? Germany? France?"

"Belize."

"Oh. Good. Good. Belarus. Very good tractors."

"Yes, very good," nodded Rupert.

Tired of their exchange already, Johnny stepped on the gas and drove off with a brief wave to the old man.

The drive was quiet. Neither Rupert nor Johnny spoke. The road was deserted.

Then the huge gate that welcomes drivers coming from the opposite direction came into view. Rupert looked up at the 'Safe travels!' sign and noted, "There is something hanging from the side of the gate."

As they approached, a body hanging by its neck could be seen, clothes rippling in the wind.

"Let's just drive quickly through the gate and get the hell out of here," advised Rupert.

But Johnny slowed down as they drove past the body and took a long, slow look at the dead man. He pulled the car over to the side after passing through the gate.

"What are you doing? Whoever killed him could still be here!" warned Rupert.

"I want to see if the body is Eshakdeki."

"I don't see the point, let's just go!"

"If he is Eshakdeki, then that means this road is not safe for me," explained Johnny.

"OK, fine. Let's do this quickly."

Johnny walked over and looked up at the body that twisted in the wind below the 'Welcome to Gharyn, Dear Guest!' sign.

"This guy is ugly as shit," noted Johnny.

"Well, you wouldn't look too good either if you had been hung by your neck."

Rupert suddenly flinched in fright as a rough-looking teenager appeared out of nowhere.

"Damn it kid!" yelled Rupert in his rudest and most informal Russian. "Don't walk up to people like that!"

"How should I walk up to people?"

"Never mind, brother," interjected Johnny in Kajbezi. "You know who this dead guy is? What happened to him?"

"I don't know anything. And who are you? Where are you from?" the kid asked suspiciously.

"Aren't you quite the boss?" observed Johnny. "I'm from Chorshanbe."

"Nobody is from Chorshanbe. What region are your ancestors from?" asked the kid in a dead serious manner.

"Eh! Quit bothering him!" yelled out another voice from behind a low concrete wall. "Can't you tell by his accent that he's Eshakdeki?"

A second kid who looked almost exactly like the first kid walked out from behind the crumbling concrete barrier with a KGB-issued 9mm Makarov handgun, which he tucked into the back of his pants in a friendly gesture.

"Hey, want to buy a gun?" asked the second kid. "American dollars only."

"Where did you get the gun?" asked Johnny.

"From that guy hanging up there."

"Did you kill him?"

"My friends and I did that, yes. He's Kharvori. He tried to get a Fanta from us without paying. So we hit him over the head with rocks, and then put him up there."

"There is a war starting and you are sitting here selling drinks?" asked Johnny.

"War makes people thirsty, just like a normal life does. I have to sell these drinks to help feed my family. My father is in prison because he would not give his business to a Kharvori police major. Now my family is poor. And my mother has to work in the bazaar every day where Kharvori police try to destroy her honor. This is my revenge. Wouldn't you do the same?"

The conversation was beyond surreal, but in everyone acted like it was a normal conversation.

The first kid gestured towards the body and commented, "Bad time for this KGB bastard to be caught outside of Kharvor."

"You sure he is Kharvori?" asked Johnny.

Rupert stood by, not understanding a single word of the conversation.

"Definitely!" said the kid as he pulled out an ID card and a passport from his pocket and handed it to Johnny.

Johnny took a quick look and then said, "Hey, Rupert, this dead guy was KGB."

"Seriously?"

"Kajbez State Committee for National and Presidential Security; Rank: Captain; Birthplace: Krasniykishlak, Region of Capital Submission," said Johnny, reading off of the ID. "Krasniykishlak is in the old Kharvor oblast. He's Kharvori."

They had no way of knowing that the dead man was the slightly less ugly of the two KGB officers that had been, unbeknownst to Rupert and Johnny, pursuing them for the past seven weeks.

"I will kill any Kharvoris that I meet today," said the first kid casually. "You Eshakdekis should do the same."

"Well, I have to take care of my guest first," replied Johnny. "Then I'll worry about Kharvoris."

"Yes, you must protect our guest. We are good to foreign guests here, also. We are a hospitable people! But back to business, Uncle. We sold his car already. However, we still have this gun for sale. You will need protection!" the kid announced gravely before switching to Russian for emphasis: "War is here."

Ten minutes late Johnny had closed the sale for exactly $100, but with no idea of the going price for this sort of gun.

"The kid says that there are eighteen bullets in this gun," said Johnny with a smile as they walked back to their car.

"Great. You can kill eighteen people. Is that enough to win the war that those kids said had started?"

"We'll see," shrugged Johnny.

Rupert glanced back over his shoulder and paused.

"What? There's a problem?" asked Johnny.

"Maybe, I'm not sure, but I think this is ironic," said Rupert as he raised his phone to take a photo of the body hanging beneath the 'Welcome to Gharyn Dear Guest!' sign.

"If ironic means justice, then yes it is. Now let's go," commanded Johnny.

The kids had assured them that the road ahead had a checkpoint manned by Gharynis, but that they had only heard that second-hand from a traveler coming the opposite direction.

Rupert and Johnny decided that they would take their chances.

The drive was even quieter than the previous stretch of road. Rupert tapped his finger on the side of the car door nervously. Johnny gripped the steering wheel tightly.

After a half-hour of driving they saw what the boys had advertised as the checkpoint soon came into focus. Concrete road barriers had been moved into place and a large crowd of men stood around. All of them were armed.

A spray-painted plywood board on the side of the road read 'Drive slowly! [in Kajbez] Or we shoot! [in Russian].'

"What does the Kajbez part say?" asked Rupert.

"It says we should slow down."

Several of the men pointed their rifles at the car as Johnny approached as slowly as possible.

A calm older man with a very impressive Stalin-style mustache waved at Johnny to come to a stop and walked up to the open car window.

"Repeat after me," command the man, 'Kharvoris eat potatoes out of their uncle's donkey's asshole.'"

"What?" squeaked a confused Johnny.

"Just say it."

"Kharvoris eat potatoes out of their uncle's donkey's asshole."

"Eshakdeki, huh?"

"You are good with accents, commander!" said Johnny with a nervous smile.

"Just good enough to tell the difference between Gharynis, Eshakdekis and those Kharvori animals. You Eshakdeki people are in the same situation as us Gharynis. We are friends...for the time being."

"Yes, we are friends against the Kharvoris," said Johnny, realizing that a side in the conflict had been chosen on his behalf.

"But I must warn you," said the newly self-appointed highway commander, "the road to Chorshanbe is not safe. We have no idea what is on the road between here and the city. Stay here. Your foreign guest is welcome. We are a hospitable region! Guests are the most important thing in Kajbezistan. And we need tourists."

Rupert glanced across the field next to the roadblock and could see several bodies lined up next to a shallow grave that was slowly being dug by two young boys.

"Oh, don't worry about them," noted the commander as he switched to Russian. "They were Kharvori. Government workers at the taxation office in Gharyn. Sent here to steal from us. They tried to escape. But, again, I invite you to stay here in our region."

Rupert did not need to say anything to Johnny. The two were of the same mind.

"Thanks, commander," answered Johnny. "But I need to return to find my family. I have no contact with them. I need to make sure they are safe."

"Of course! Family is the most important thing in Kajbezistan."

The commander then leaned further through the car window and said to Rupert, "Englishman?"

"No. Scottish."

"Oh! Shotlandsky viski! Ingjudaofareenkitareenekan!"

"Sorry, I'm didn't understand," said Rupert.

"He said Scotch whiskey is the best," interjected Johnny.

"Oh yes, of course!" smiled Rupert.

Then, as if it was planned well ahead of time, Rupert reached into his bag and pulled out the British ambassador's bottle of GlenGrant 18-Year-Old single malt scotch whiskey.

"Please! Take a small gift from us. This is Scottish whiskey," said Rupert as he passed the bottle to Johnny.

"Real Scottish whiskey?" asked the heavily mustachioed commander.

"Yes, this brand is very exclusive," replied Rupert as Johnny nodded in agreement.

"Oh ho!" bellowed the commander as he gladly accepted the bottle with a gregarious smile.

The road commander spent the next few minutes returning the favor by providing as much information as he could about the road ahead.

"And that's all I know right now," said the Stalin lookalike commander as he ended the information session. "But I'm getting bored standing around here. I might just take a trip down this road in the next couple of days myself!"

"Well, good luck if you do make that trip," said Rupert.

"And good luck to you!" hollered the commander with a nod and a wave.

"Thank you, commander," said Rupert.

And with that, Rupert and Johnny were on the road again.

"So, what did the commander say when he was speaking Kajbezi?"

"He said that he doesn't know exactly what is on the road ahead. He told us as much as he could based on the travelers he talked to coming from the opposite direction."

"But this is Eshakdek Province from this point onward, so we should be good, right?" asked Rupert.

"The towns will be safe, but nobody lives along the higher roads, so there are no Eshakdekis nearby to chase away any Kharvori police officers that may still be there."

"OK, that sucks. I was hoping we were home-free."

The car slowly gained elevation as it labored up the steep road. Soon the temperature began to progressively drop and a blanket of clouds moved in. Johnny came to an intersection and made a turn as a light rain began to fall.

"We're back on the main road now, right?" asked Rupert.

"Yes, we just completed a huge circle. We will be driving by the holy tree soon."

"Your holy pistachio tree? The same place?

"Yeah."

"There was a checkpoint there," noted Rupert.

"Yes. Hopefully the police have all decided to go home."

"Maybe Eshakdeki people have taken over the checkpoint?"

"Maybe."

Yet again Rupert was filled with a slow dread as he played over in his head the various roadblock scenarios. Horror stories from Afghanistan kept popping into his head. He wondered why Johnny was so calm.

Finally they drove around a corner and the checkpoint came into view. Nobody was on the road and the wooden gate was closed. But looking down the hill, Johnny and Rupert could see four men sitting around a fire. They wore uniforms.

"The tree," muttered Johnny.

"The tree?"

"It's gone."

"It's gone?"

Then, at the same time, Rupert and Johnny noticed the large pile of freshly split firewood and branches that were stacked next to the guardhouse.

"They are burning the tree," muttered Johnny. "They are burning our prayer tree."

"How do you know?"

"The tree is gone and they have a big fire. Can you see how much smoke is coming from that fire? Only green firewood does that," observed Johnny, who was now visibly angry.

The freshly cut firewood was not dry enough to burn well, and the police were struggling to get hot coals going amidst the thick, humid smoke.

"What jerks," noted Rupert, who was obviously far more concerned with other things.

"They destroyed our mazaar. Our Eshakdeki mazaar. Our holy place. That was our tree. Fucking Kharvoris," grumbled Johnny.

"I know it's your holy place, but there's nothing we can do. Let's pay them and go."

Johnny was now shaking with barely controlled rage.

"Three regular police. Militsiya. Only one OMON. Police special forces. See his gun?" noted Johnny.

"Yeah, I do. It's a very nice machine gun," replied Rupert. "So please try your best to be polite and to get this gate in front of us opened."

One of the men by the fire waved at the car, gesturing for them to come walk down the hill.

"I'll handle this, don't worry," said Johnny.

"Fine by me," replied Rupert as he dug into his bag for some cash. "They'll want American dollars under the circumstances, obviously. How much do you think will be enough?"

"Save your cash," countered Johnny as he stepped out of the car.

"Seriously, you think these are the only four honest police officers in all of Kajbezistan?"

Johnny was already out of earshot. He walked confidently with a sense of purpose towards the four police officers.

"Hey brother! Do you have any news?" asked one of the police officers. "Only a few cars have gone by today, and they know nothing! All we know is that the president is dead."

"So are you Kharvori bastards," said Johnny quietly as he pulled out his gun.

He shot the armed OMON officer first. The second cop stood in shock without moving or saying anything. The third begged for his life and screamed that he was only half Kharvori. All of them died. The fourth fled down the hill and out of view, clutching a bleeding gunshot wound on his arm.

Rupert watched everything unfold as if it was in slow motion. And he was surprised by how calm he was.

Down below, Johnny walked to each body and fired a final insurance shot in their heads.

Johnny checked over the bodies. There was nothing worth taking expect for the OMON officer's Kalashnikov. And only one magazine. The other two were unarmed, as were most police in Kajbezistan.

Rupert arrived at the scene in a shocked daze. He had nothing to say. He just looked at the bodies.

"Can you imagine? A war has started and you have no idea," observed Johnny. "You just sit around like nothing has changed."

"Alright, let's get out of here. It's getting dark, and the temperature is dropping even more. And the cop that got away might bring reinforcements."

"OK. We can drive for another hour and we will be at a low elevation. It will be warm. We can sleep there tonight," said Johnny.

"Where, exactly?"

"Anywhere but here. The tree is gone. This place is dead."

"Yeah, looks that way," agreed Rupert as he pulled out his phone and began shooting video of the scene.

*****

The roadside teahouse, now accepting dollars and dollars only, offered a full dinner and some modest roll-up kurpechaki mattresses to sleep on. There were no other travelers that night to share their stories or provide any information, and there was no phone or mobile data signal. But the teahouse did have satellite TV. Kajbez state television, however, was no help. It just kept playing an authentic Kajbez theater production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake on repeat. Radio did the same.

So instead, Rupert and Johnny watched the mostly incomplete story unfold thanks to Russian TV news. But the satellite TV channels from Russia did nothing to clear up the confusion. The Russian news stations had no instructions from the confused and bewildered Kremlin, and so confined themselves to playing the pig-attack video over and over while speaking vaguely of 'troubles' in Kajbezistan, plus noting how George Soros and NATO might benefit from the situation.

A Russian TV newsreader that looked like a perpetually angry model narrated the scene in Chorshanbe from her studio in Moscow. Every so often she repeated, in a very concern voice, that Kajbezistan is an ally of Russia and that it hosts a Russian military base and a strategic air base.

"Who would benefit from chaos in Kajbezistan? Who seeks to undermine the constitutional governments of this region with their regular provocations?" she asked rhetorically without ever providing an answer.

"Don't worry," smiled Rupert. "The Kremlin will provide that information soon enough."

"And don't you worry, Rupert. Everybody watching knows she is talking about America."

The Russian news channel played, on a regular loop, the same poorly-shot video from Islambaev International Airport in Chorshanbe: somber Kajbez locals from obviously wealthy backgrounds getting on airplanes, an unarmed German Luftwaffe officer on a runway talking through a translator to an armed Russian Air Force officer, a US Air Force cargo plane slowly taxiing, American civilians arguing with US Marines about how much baggage they could take, a German Luftwaffe cargo plane landing, frightened-looking Europeans filing into the plane, a German officer arguing that only EU nationals and citizens of NATO member countries were being taken aboard the German plane, a screaming Serbian man pointing to an allegedly Swiss couple that were getting on the plane, yelling furiously, "Since when did Switzerland join NATO or the EU?!" The German soldiers shrugged and pushed the Serb and his Kajbez wife out of line. The TV report then cut to a scene of dogs eating garbage in the street, as if this was not previously a regular everyday occurrence in Chorshanbe.

Johnny was getting exasperated with the repetition on the TV.

"The president and his son are dead. The president's family was burned alive inside the presidential mansion by a mob. The foreigners are trying to leave. The Russian president has expressed his concern. It just keeps giving the same information over and over again," observed an annoyed Johnny.

Rupert and Johnny then did their best to get a few hours of sleep.

*****

The next morning Johnny turned on the TV as soon as he woke. And still the same information was being repeated, along with a call from a mid-ranking UN employee for all the sides to refrain from violence and to engage in dialogue.

"Dialogue? Who the hell is supposed to talk to who?" asked Johnny rhetorically.

With no new information forthcoming, Rupert and Johnny quickly ate their greasy fried egg breakfast and got back onto the road.

They weren't on the road for more than ten minutes when they saw a roadblock in the distance. Rupert and Johnny immediately became agitated. As they got closer and closer they struggled to get a look at what it was that they would be dealing with.

Once they were close enough, they saw who was manning the roadblock.

"You can't be serious. It's the GAI road police! These guys are really dedicated to their jobs," mused Rupert.

"They're insane," added Johnny.

"They clearly didn't get the memo," said Rupert. "How about we ignore them and just drive right through? There is nothing physically stopping us. It's just three idiots with plastic orange batons waving at drivers."

"Oh, I'm stopping," said Johnny with authority.

"Why?" asked Rupert as Johnny stopped his car well short of where the road police stood.

Johnny put the car in park and got out. He walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk.

"What are you doing in the boot?" asked Rupert.

The next thing Rupert saw was Johnny walking by with his newly acquired Kalashnikov.

"Fucking shit, Johnny!" yelled Rupert out the window. "Do not kill these guys. They're just road police!"

"Don't worry," replied Johnny as he walked back to the window. "I'm not going to kill these GAI idiots. I'm just going to teach them a lesson on what life is like in the new Kajbezistan."

Johnny turned around and walked back towards the police officers, all three of whom seemed to be frozen in fear and confusion.

Rupert then watched, barely able to comprehend what it was that Johnny was about to do.

The police officers tried begging for about 30 seconds until Johnny lost patience and fired a single shot into the ground in front of them.

Rupert again yelled his objections out the window.

Then the three police officers decided to comply. They stripped off all of their clothes down to their underwear and placed them in a pile in front of Johnny.

Another rude exchange passed between Johnny and the GAI police. They then reluctantly removed their underwear and added them to the pile. Johnny gave another command and all three retrieved their monstrous Soviet police hats and placed them back on their heads.

Johnny nodded with his head in a direction way from the road, and the three naked and obese officers comically ran off naked and barefooted into a cotton field, looking back occasionally as they fled.

Rupert sat in disbelief as Johnny returned to the car and dumped the officers' clothing on Rupert's lap.

"After we drive for a few kilometers you can throw these out the window," said Johnny.

Rupert figured that there was nothing he could do to restrain Johnny from this point onward, let alone try to give him orders.

Within a couple of hours, as they were driving past larger villages, a mobile phone signal miraculously appeared. Johnny pulled over to the edge of the road and began furiously texting.

Rupert sent a quick message to his sister, assigning her the duty to tell 'whoever else back home that cares' that he was alive and well.

Rupert then overheard Johnny speak loudly in Kajbezi to nobody in particular.

"What was that?"

"Kajbezi for 'Thank God!'"

"I'm guessing that means your family is OK?"

"Yes, my sister tells me that when it got bad in Chorshanbe my little brother stole a car from some Kharvori and then drove my family with him back to Eshakdekshahr. They're safe."

"Isn't he like fourteen years old?"

"Fifteen," replied Johnny.

"The kid's a bad-ass."

"Yeah, he'll be boasting about this for the rest of his life, the little bastard."

Johnny then suddenly started to cry.

Rupert couldn't tell if Johnny was crying out of relief and joy at his family being safe, or if he was crying because his country was being destroyed.

Johnny took a deep breath and then put the car in to drive and pulled back onto the road.

Rupert decided that he should leave Johnny alone and not ask any more questions.

Switching on the VPN proxy on his phone, Rupert was suddenly flooded with notifications for the numerous messages that he had missed. It appeared that every messaging app and social media platform had been blocked. He figured that he should tell his Kajbezistan-based social circles that he was still alive. But he wanted to do it in a memorable way. So, in a message to one of his WhatsApp groups he send a photo with the caption 'Hey guys, I'm still alive. This Kharvori KGB guy? Not so much lol.' The photo was, of course, the dead and ugly officer hanging below the Gharyn welcome sign.

Rupert then looked through his gallery and pulled up the aftermath video of the three dead police officers at the holy tree site. After some short edits to tidy up the video, he sent it to his message group, captioned 'More dead Kharvoris. Shit's getting real out here.'

With great annoyance, Rupert looked at the progress the video was making in being uploaded over the weak connection. He switched over to Twitter to see if anybody in Chorshanbe was tweeting. It soon became clear that only the five-star hotels had access to Twitter.

"Idiot," Rupert exclaimed as he laughed out loud.

"Who?" asked Johnny.

"The social media manager at the Shyatton Hotel in Chorshanbe is insisting that the insecurity is being over-exaggerated."

"What an idiot."

"Yeah, she's a foreign idiot. List to this, Johnny. She tweeted 'Don't cancel travel plans. It is perfectly safe here. The media is exaggerating the insecurity. Kajbezistan is a hospitable country!'"

"Tweet at her to see if she's still alive," suggested Johnny.

The next hour was completely uneventful, aside from the sudden disappearance of the mobile signal. Rupert returned to fidgeting.

"We should stop in Bardakabad until we figure out what's going on," said Johnny, informing Rupert of their plans.

"Bardakabad?"

"It's the town on the crossroads that turn to Eshakdekshahr City."

"Never heard of it," said Rupert.

"It's a shithole. But there's a decent guesthouse there for the agricultural NGO expats that visit from Chorshanbe."

Upon their arrival at the guesthouse they were greeted by an old Russian lady who expressed her happiness at seeing that her foreign customers had not been scared off by a little fighting – and that they had dollars to spend.

Rupert decided to ask her opinion of what would happen next.

"The new leader, whoever he is, will be the same as the old leader," she barked.

She then left Rupert and Johnny to themselves after they convinced her they did not need her to cook up a meal at that exact moment.

"Bro, can I leave you here at the guesthouse?" asked Johnny. "I have to meet a relative nearby."

"Again with a secret meeting with another relative. Another mafia figure again?"

"No. It's just that everybody is paranoid right now. Nobody in this town wants to be seen hanging out with a foreigner."

"Fair enough. But why do you need to meet him?" asked Rupert.

"Family stuff."

"Whatever. See you later."

Rupert did his best to keep his mind occupied, but he soon grew bored of the Russian news channel that was just repeating the same uninformative story on a loop. He figured that going for a walk would help to pass the time.

Bardakabad was, in fact, a shithole. But Rupert persevered and found a place that was serving up both shashlik and beer. Just as in the guesthouse, they were accepting only dollars – but they were also open to Euros and Russian Rubles.

Sitting inside the restaurant at his shaky plastic table, Rupert surveyed the people who walked by, wondering if Bardakabad was deserted because of the instability in Kajbezistan, or if Bardakabad was just like this all the time.

And then, suddenly, he saw Johnny walking by with another man.

Figuring that it was probably the relative that Johnny had gone to meet, he started to get up with the intention of inviting the two in for some lamb shashlik.

But then he recognized the man with Johnny.

It was the KGB officer who had forced him into extorting Presbyterian Aid Services. A feeling of confusion and dread overcame Rupert as he slowly sat back down in his chair.

Rupert figured that he needed some time to think hard about what was happening. He sat and thought about every potential explanation and scenario. The paranoia was running rampant in his head.

After about twenty minutes of this, Rupert retreated back to the guesthouse.

Walking through the smaller door in the large gate of the guesthouse, Rupert spotted his parked car. He had an idea. But then as he looked into the car he saw that the keys were not in the ignition. Johnny had taken them with him. There would be no sudden solo trip to Chorshanbe.

Rupert sat in a dusty plastic lawn-chair in the shade, still thinking over the various scenarios. He spent three hours sitting in the chair.

Finally, the gate creaked and Johnny appeared.

"What's up, bro?" said Johnny as he walked into the guesthouse courtyard.

Rupert decided on the direct approach.

"So, you are friends with the KGB officer who busted me and stole the bulk of the Presbyterian budget? I know he probably gave you a hard time. But you two seemed to be getting along quite well."

Johnny's face was blank.

"Well?"

"He forced me to do it," said Johnny meekly.

"He forced you to do what?"

"Help him steal from Presbyterian Aid Services."

"Right. OK. Why would you agree to do that?" asked Rupert.

"He threatened me and my family. But...also, I needed the money. Quickly. I couldn't pay back the loan."

"What loan? To pay for your ridiculous wedding I suppose."

"No. The loan my mother took out to get me released from KGB prison."

"Like, SIZO prison?"

"Yeah. The bad one," replied Johnny.

"What the fuck did you do?"

"Nothing. When I returned from America the security guys at the airport accused me of having been an Islamic State terrorist. They knew that was not true, but they can make up any story they want. They said they would torture me and rape my sister if I didn't sign a confession. But they said, of course, that my family could buy me out of trouble. Then they put me in a room with two other Kajbez guys who had arrived on earlier flights from Russia. One of them had no more teeth and he was lying on the floor, bleeding and crying. The other guy said that he was tortured because he refused to call his family and tell them to gather money to trade for his freedom. This guy said that the KGB injected him with a needle full of somebody else's blood – from a person who had AIDS. I was...scared. Fuck... You can't understand how bad it was there. This is all true. I swear to God."

Rupert knew that this was likely true. Everybody spoke about the fear that young men had at the Chorshanbe airport upon their return from overseas. A certain number of young Kajbez men would be selected for extortion by security officers.

"How much did it cost to get you released?"

"$20,000. And I was having problems with the payments. My father couldn't get in touch with my uncle, and the mafia people I borrowed the money from weren't Eshakdeki, and they were saying that the entire amount of $40,000 was now due. The only place I could think of to get that much money that quickly was from the Presbyterians."

"Christ! That's way more than they usually take for releasing ISIS suspects."

"They said I had worked in American for so long that I must have lots of money. But I spent all my money on rent and food. You know it's not possible to get rich in America anymore!"

"Huh."

"And then I guess I was under surveillance, because the KGB guy found out that I was planning to steal the money from the office. I talked about it with my wife by text message."

"And how did I become involved?"

"The KGB officer arrested me again and asked me what was the quietest way to steal all of the money from the Presbyterians. I told them all about the director killing people with his car, and about you trading grants for sex. So what happened was what I suggested. It was the only thing that I thought would work."

"Huh."

"You're not mad?"

"Oh, I'm mad," replied Rupert, who was not actually mad. "But I need you at the moment."

"Yes. You do..."

"So those KGB guys outside my house must have thought that I had all that money. No wonder they tried to follow me."

"I have no idea who those KGB guys were. But this KGB guy won't be a problem for us anymore."

"How is that?"

"He is dead."

"The guy I saw you with earlier today? You two seemed to be getting along well. And now he's dead?" asked Rupert incredulously.

"Yes."

"Fucking hell, you are turning into quite the killer."

"Oh, I didn't kill him. My cousins did that."

"Your mafia uncle's sons, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah."

"They are taking orders from you now?"

"No, of course not. They only listen to my uncle. But I explained that this is one of the Kharvori KGB guys who have been putting innocent Eshakdekis in prison by falsely saying that they are members of the Islamic State. Many people in my hometown will be happy, including my cousins."

"How about the money?"

"We tortured him. We told him to call his family and have them bring the money as a ransom for his freedom. But he already spent the money."

"That was quick. What did he spend it on?" asked Rupert.

"He bought the rank of colonel, plus full control over all returning Kajbez passengers at the airport for flights returning on Wednesdays and Thursdays."

"So he could extort them like you were extorted?"

"Yes. You can make good money by accusing returning labor migrants of being terrorists, obviously."

"So, uh, how did your cousins kill him?"

"We wanted to slowly cook him in hot water like the KGB does in Chorshanbe, but we couldn't find a pot big enough. Now I really wonder where the KGB got their big pot."

"So no death by simmering or boiling?"

"No. Even if we had a huge pot, I wouldn't want to wait for that long for the water to heat up. So, instead, my cousins stuck him into a tandoor oven, head first."

"Christ! You people really escalate quickly. Usually a country has a civil going for at least a couple years before people start doing that sort of thing."

"He deserved it. They all do," said Johnny bluntly.

"But seriously, death by tandyr oven?"

"It's pronounced tandoor."

"Then why does one of my girlfriends say tandyr?"

"Bad news for you, bro, she's a northerner."

"Whatever. You hungry?" asked Rupert.

"Sure, what should we get?"

"Something quick and easy. That mention of the tandoor got me thinking about baked samosas."

"Good idea. Good idea."

Special Information Insert #17

Oppressed Ethnic Minorities

Excerpts from Chapter 7 of the unreadable book Stalin's Ethno-Cartographic Disaster: 'Problematic Minorities and Non-conformist Sects on the Imagined Kajbez Lands'

The ethnic Muskhatarians who live in Kajbezistan today are descended from those Muskhatarians who were deported by Stalin from the West Caucasus to Central Asia as punishment for their alleged collaboration with invading Nazi forces. Muskhatarians quickly established themselves as the most productive farmers, the best businessmen, the smartest students, the most skilled tradesmen, and the least alcoholic of all ethnicities in Kajbezistan. These habits quickly earned them the undying hatred of the Kajbez people.

Every protest in Kajbezistan has ended with a massacre of Muskhatarians. The protests against the new road toll, the protest against the alcohol tax, the protest against the racist comedic portrayal of Kajbez labor migrants on Russian TV, the protests against delayed pensions, the protest against the land swap with China (which was actually just Kajbezistan giving land to China after a well-placed presidential bribe), and the protest against the non-existent Danish embassy during the Prophet Muhammad cartoon scandal all ended in the same place: wherever the beleaguered Muskhatarians were living. The Muskhatarians worked hard, studied diligently and avoided alcohol, resulting in a notably higher quality of life and nicer homes. Many Kajbezs interpreted this as a theft from the titular nation, and murdered and robbed the Muskhatarians accordingly. Of course, the Kajbez mobs did not go directly from their protests to the Muskhatarian neighborhoods, they would first make a stop at whatever Turkish-owned supermarket was being looted for its vodka.

None of the pogroms every fully satisfied the Kajbez public, as many soon came to believe that the Muskhatarians had tricked them in some elaborate migration scheme after the largest of the recent attacks. After the most recent bout of ethnic cleansing, the UNHCR organized an airlift of Muskhatarians to temporary refugee camps in Romania, from where the Muskhatarians were selected for settlement in Canada, the US and Sweden. Within a half-decade, Kajbez citizens could watch Radio Freed Europe news videos of Muskhatarians parking their nice new Chevrolets in the driveway of their oversized suburban homes somewhere in southern Ontario, having already established successful niche import/export businesses and enrolled their kids in the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. The most popular conspiracy theory still circulating in Kajbezistan framed the incident as the Muskhatarians provoking the Kajbezs, with the Muskhatarians in concert behind the scenes with the UN, a Canadian mining company, Human Rights Watch, George Soros, a Jewish oligarch in Ukraine, and, for reasons unclear, the Rotary Club of Ohio, in an elaborate plan to escape Kajbezistan with the "stolen wealth of the nation" somehow stowed aboard their flights. Muskhatarians succeeding based on merit and hard work is an inconceivable idea in Kajbezistan.

# Chapter Seventeen

# A Burning City

Date: September 25th, 2019.

Place: Bardakabad, the most miserable crossroads town in all of Kajbezistan.

Scenario: Johnny and Rupert, sometime after breakfast (fried eggs).

"Rupert, let's go to Chorshanbe!"

Johnny had burst into the guesthouse room with such enthusiasm and apparent happiness that Johnny decided to forgo an attempt at any sort of sarcastic and witty reply.

"That means that everything is calming down?"

"Oh, no," replied Johnny somberly. "It's getting worse. But not for Eshakdekis. I talked to some guys who said they talked to their friends who went to Chorshanbe yesterday. Eshakdekis are going to Chorshanbe, and Kharvoris are running away from the city."

"How about for foreigners?"

"Still bad, probably. But you will be with an Eshakdeki, so you will be safe."

"A half Eshakdeki," said Rupert.

"Don't worry. I look Eshakdeki, I sound Eshakdeki, I am Eshakdeki."

That settled the non-existent argument, and the last leg of the road trip began.

The drive out of the Eshakdeki town of Bardakabad was uneventful, with only the occasional sight of a fast-moving car full of shouting young Eshakdeki men passing them, or, alternately, them passing a large, slow moving Kamaz truck full of hollering young Eshakdeki men waving a variety of weapons, from sharpened sticks to shovels to Kalashnikovs. It quickly became apparent to Rupert and Johnny that they were riding a wave of marauding Eshakdekis into Chorshanbe.

Soon the two travelers drove across another regional boundary and into the 'Region of Capital Submission,' an administrative district whose boundaries are always in flux and whose territory holds no significance for anybody. Where it begins and ends nobody was sure. But it was a territory that, on this side of Chorshanbe, was home to both Eshakdeki and Kharvori-populated towns. Despite Johnny's worry, the Kharvori towns offered no barrier. In fact, they offered nothing: no petrol stations at which to refill, no open stores or restaurants, and almost no people on the streets.

As Rupert and Johnny neared Chorshanbe they arrived at the southern city limits crossroads to the scene of a purge in full swing. A long line of overfilled cars, buses and trucks were turning towards the Kharvor region. There was also a long line of mostly empty cars and mini-busses coming from the direction of Kharvor to pick up people at the busy crossroads.

Johnny rolled down his driver's-side window and spoke with a bored-looking old man who stood on the roadside trying to sell bottled water and RC Cola.

As they drove away with four bottles of RC Cola, Rupert asked, "What did the old guy say?"

"He says he is not from the city, but that the people who are leaving Chorshanbe are all Kharvoris. The Kharvoris are telling him that they are being attacked. Their women and daughters are being raped. Their houses and apartments and cars are being stolen. And their men are being murdered."

"By who?"

"These guys. My people," said Johnny bluntly as he pointed to a passing Gaz-66 truck with over a dozen young Eshakdeki men standing in the back, all of whom were loudly whooping and hollering. One of them held a vintage Kalashnikov over his head triumphantly as the truck passed on the wrong side.

"These guys don't even know how to drive on a real road," observed Johnny as the Gaz-66 driver attempted his slow, lumbering wrong-side overtake.

As the truck passed, a yell of allahu akbar could be heard from the mob of men and boys. Rupert rolled up his window as casually as he could.

"Should we turn back?" asked Rupert.

"No. We are too close. And I'm not Kharvori. Plus, you know I still have some relatives in Chorshanbe. I need to go find them."

As they drove closer to the city, the stream of vehicles coming from the opposite direction thinned and turned in to a long line of families on foot dragging suitcases and carrying bags. Then after another 20 minutes the character of the refugee groups changed into clusters of children and the elderly, with some middle aged women. Many of them were visibly in distress and weeping.

"Where are the men?" asked Johnny rhetorically. "Maybe they stayed behind to fight or to protect their houses?"

"Where are the young women?" observed Rupert. "I doubt they stayed behind to fight."

And then Rupert and Johnny saw the beginning of the destruction.

Smoke rose up from burning buses and cars along the road.

And with this scene of devastation came a partial answer to their earlier questions. Men's bodies were strewn around next to the burning buses. Further away from the road, lines of bodies could be seen out in the field, face down.

They never saw any sign of the missing teenage girls and young women.

The car grew silent and it stayed that way.

Then Rupert and Johnny wordlessly observed the same trucks and cars full of marauding young Eshakdeki men driving back the direction that they had just came, with sullen looks of dejection.

Finally, the quiet was interrupted by the impending roadblock ahead – the first sign of any organized military or security presence, and the explanation for the disappointment of the roving Eshakdeki plunderers.

Both men welcomed what they saw: a few Russian armored vehicles and Russian soldiers wearing balaclavas despite the heat, albeit Russians wearing uniforms with neither insignia nor flags.

There was a long line of cars backed up along the highway as Johnny slowed down and took the last spot in the line-up.

And yet again they were able to reply upon the Kajbez small businessman for intelligence. Another old man with sunflower seeds and dried sour yoghurt balls came up to the passenger side window and offered some small snacks for an inflated price.

"What's this line-up for?" asked Rupert in Russian.

"Well, they are slowly letting some people in, but only those who have residence permits for Chorshanbe. They say they want to stop bandits from coming into the city. But who carries around their propiska documents?"

"We do," interjected Johnny.

"Oh, good. Then you will just have to wait for a little while. These Russians are taking their time. Which is, of course, good for my business."

"OK, thanks Uncle," said Rupert and he handed over some cash for a bag of sunflower seeds.

Having made the sale, the elderly Kajbez motioned to the center of the road and announced in Kajbezi, "You can just drive up the middle. The people lined up here have all being rejected. With a propiska for Chorshanbe you can drive up the road until you get to the short line of cars."

"Great, thanks!" said Johnny, who really was thankful.

"Don't forget your Gharyni brothers!" said the old man as he looked directly at Johnny.

"I won't."

Johnny had already forgot them as he pulled out of the line and drove slowly towards the roadblock.

"What did he say the second time about propiskas?" asked Rupert.

"Same thing: that they are only letting in people who are registered to live in Chorshanbe. I have my propiska with me. And yours is glued into your passport along with your work visa."

As suicide car bombings were not part of the Kajbez people's culture or traditions, the Russian checkpoint soldier was not too worried about the slowly approaching car.

"Your documents..." started the Russian soldier as he looked into the driver's side of the car, stopping when he saw Rupert. "Never mind. You can go through. All Europeans and Americans can pass. Take the foreigner to the airport. There is an evacuation center there. But first pull over to the side. An officer will talk to you."

"Do you need to see my propiska?" asked Johnny as he held up his documents wallet.

"No. The foreigner is good enough for you to pass. But I must say, your country's continued use of propiskas makes me nostalgic for the Soviet Union..." said the soldier, who was far too young to remember the Soviet Union.

The Russian soldier then waved the car through without saying anything further.

"I like these Russians," remarked Rupert. "I hope the officer is as cool as his soldier."

Rupert and Johnny sat in the car for ten minutes before the officer showed up.

"Sorry, boys. I was in the shitter," muttered the bored Russian army officer. "Now I need to take care of some even less important business. Just a few questions."

"Where are you coming from?" was his first inquiry.

"We were in Gharyn, and then we drove back here through Eshakdek," replied Johnny.

"Gharyn, huh? Were those your pigs that killed the president?"

Rupert laughed out loud at the joke while Johnny laughed nervously.

"So, I need to ask about the road from Gharyn to Eshakdek. Who controls it?"

"Local Gharyni people on the Gharyn section, and Eshakdeki people on the other side. Some police were killed, and the others ran away. That's what the local people at the roadblocks were saying."

"And the local people have weapons?" asked the Russian officer.

"I saw men with hunting rifles. A couple of men with weapons they took from the police. Avtomats. AK-74s, maybe AK-105s. But most people just had sticks and shovels."

"And are Eshakdekis and Gharynis fighting each other?"

"No. I am Eshakdeki, and the Gharynis let us pass in friendship. And in Eshakdek they are allowing Gharynis to drive through back to their region. Everybody is calling the Kharvoris the enemy."

"And what are they saying about Russia?" asked the Russian.

"They say that they want the Russian military to intervene and help Kajbezistan by stopping the sides from fighting.."

"Well, that's what we are doing in Chorshanbe. Maybe next week we'll expand our operations and come visit your village compatriots for tea. But that decision is made far above my rank."

"Uh-huh," said Johnny neutrally.

"One final question, do you know who Bakha Junior is?"

"Of course, he is a big mafia guy in Eshakdek."

"Do the people there respect him?" asked the officer casually. "And are they talking about him right now? What's he up to?"

"They are saying that he is an old man, and only good for extorting peasants in the bazaar. Everybody is talking about Black Alimzhan," said Johnny authoritatively.

"Black Alimzhan," repeated the officer as he wrote down the name in his notebook. "Tell me about him, what's he up to?"

"All the important Eshakdeki people are going to him right now. They are asking advice, asking for protection. He is organizing a self-defense militia. Many people respect him. He fought in Afghanistan, you know. With the Soviet 40th Army, not with the dukhi," said Johnny, referring to the Afghan mujahideen by their nickname. "He was a paratrooper with the 345th. He was awarded a Red Star and a Red Banner for bravery in battle. That's what they say."

"Clear enough," said the officer.

"Is that all?"

"No. One last question: does this guy Black Alimzhan do business in Russia?

"Yes. People say that he spends part of the year in Yekaterinburg. I have heard a rumor that he is the boss of all the Central Asians in the Chinese Bazaar in Yekaterinburg. But I don't know what he does there, to be honest. I've never worked there."

"And you say he is home in Eshakdek right now?"

"Yes. Definitely," replied Johnny.

"Listen, I'm pretty busy here. I'm supposed to ask questions from people who are arriving from the regions. Do you mind if we talk some more later? Maybe you could give me your phone number? Phone service should return soon in the city."

Johnny diligently handed over his phone number and generously offered to answer any further questions that brotherly Russia may have.

"OK," mumbled the officer, and he waved the car on.

"The hell was that about?" asked Rupert. "Are you a secret mafia promoter for your uncle now?"

"I gave the best image I could for my uncle."

"All of that was true?"

"Yes, he fought in Afghanistan against the terrorists and he does go to Yekaterinburg for business. But it was not true about Bakha Junior. Everybody knows him, and many people respect him. But I had to say something good about my uncle. He is family. Family is important in Kajbezistan, you know?"

"Sure," replied Rupert, who was still a little confused about everything.

There was now nothing to stop their entrance into Chorshanbe, though they still had no idea what to expect. But what Johnny saw was a shock to someone whose only living memory was of one single man in power.

Johnny could understand what he was seeing, but it was hard emotionally for him to comprehend: a large billboard of the president, standing in a wheat field holding the bountiful breads and cereals of the Kajbez land. President Islambaev was the provider, the protector. He himself was responsible for the fertility of the land and the full stomachs of the Kajbez people. And here he was on the billboard with his face ripped off. The next in the series of vandalized cult-of-personality billboards was the president in an engineering-themed setting, sitting astride a bulldozer and, quite literally, building the nation's infrastructure, while ignoring the obvious fact that everything was paid for by Chinese loans and built by Chinese contractors. And on this billboard the president was labeled in red spray-paint with the Russian word suka, announcing his newly acquired bitch-status to all. The next poster that was hung down the length of a five-story building featured a large splatter of black paint that dripped down across the noble teacher-president, personally educating the youth of Kajbezistan. And so the vandalized propaganda posters of Islambaev continued in this manner.

"He's really gone. His family is gone. They're all dead," said Johnny slowly, and in a manner that made it clear that it was a profound moment of understanding for him.

"Yup. Eaten by pigs and burned to a crisp in their own mansion. All gone. But...," said Rupert as his tone changed, "your Russian friends are not yet gone."

Up ahead on the city street was a Russian armored personnel carrier with a heavy machine gun mounted on top. On the street were more Russian soldiers, manning a barbwire barrier.

"I can see some Kajbez police also," added Johnny.

"I'm definitely happier to see more Russians than to see those Kajbez cops."

"Me too," said Johnny in agreement.

Pulling up very slowly, one of the clearly-in-charge Russian soldiers motioned for Johnny to roll down his window.

"You can't go this way," grumbled the young Russian contract soldier.

"Your comrade at the checkpoint outside the city said we should drive straight to the airport," protested Johnny.

"Yes, I'm sure he did. But the situation has changed. Your countrymen are having a shootout with each other near the airport. So go somewhere else and have tea until it calms down."

"Which direction should we go?" asked Johnny.

"Well, to be honest, we have heard gunfire coming in pretty much every direction over the last twelve hours. Maybe you should just go back the direction you came."

After some backtracking, Rupert and Johnny decided to ditch their airport plans for the day and take a new, longer route to reach their side of the city. The drive was dominated by an eerie silence and menacingly empty streets. Gates to the older Soviet apartment blocks were locked or barricaded. No businesses were open. The main central bazaar appeared to be completely shuttered. The city was dead.

But then Rupert and Johnny turned a corner and the luxury 5-star Shyatton Hotel came into view. Smoke was billowing out of the windows.

Johnny slowed down to gawk.

Rupert peered up as they slowed down. A big grin slowly grew across his face. And then he laughed.

"Look at those fuckers!" exclaimed Rupert.

"At what? Those people on the roof?"

On the rooftop bar and outdoor restaurant there appeared to be about 40 foreigners standing around.

"You think they'll end up like the people at that apartment building in Shamkand or Chamqand or whatever?" asked Rupert.

"Like, will they jump?"

"Yeah, we could stick around to watch $700 per hour UN and EU consultants bounce off the pavement below," laughed Rupert.

"Rupert, these are your people!"

"My people don't get paid $700 per hour and get a $150 per diem and stay in 6-star hotels in exchange for giving Powerpoint presentations to sleeping Kajbez bureaucrats. Fuck these people. Let them jump."

"They are probably fucked. I don't see any firemen," noted Johnny.

"Poor United Nations," said Rupert. "How will the UN replace all those valuable experts and consultants who teach your government employees about localizing their core-competencies via process outsourcing?"

Johnny finally got the sarcasm.

Rupert, observing the scene unfold, was genuinely happy. He suddenly felt much better about his decade worth of failed UN job applications.

"We can't stay here, Rupert."

"I know, I know..." sighed Rupert. "Anyways, it looks like phone and internet service is still down. So I wouldn't be able to tweet a photo or video of the jumpers anyways."

After the excitement of the burning hotel, the drive again returned to the dead quiet of an obviously very fearful city.

They soon came upon a familiar landmark – a statue of Stalin that was still standing in the middle of a roundabout.

"I'm surprised nobody has taken the chance to knock that thing down," observed Rupert.

"Why would anybody here want to knock down Stalin?"

"Because he murdered 2 million Kajbez farmers and nomads? Because he killed every Kajbez religious scholar they could find? And because he burned all of the Korans in the region and turned your mosques into animal barns? And because he destroyed your culture and made Russians your bosses for seventy years, making you slaves in your own country?"

"Is that what they taught you in school at home?" asked Johnny.

"They don't even know Kajbezistan exists, to be honest. But they may be watching it on the news tonight before they forget about it..."

Stalin disappeared into the rear view mirror.

The final challenge would be the bridge. With three bridges over the river that split the city in two, the Kajbez security forces had often used these in the past as choke-points to set up shop during times of high security. Rupert and Johnny discussed this, hoping that they would find a checkpoint manned by Russian soldiers.

They did not.

As Johnny slowed down, they saw what they would have to deal with: Kajbez police officers and numerous men in suits who looked like they were dressed for the office.

"I don't like the looks of the men in suits. But there are no soldiers. No police special forces. It looks like just regular militsiya," said Johnny hopefully.

"Why don't they have guns?"

"Regular police never have guns," replied Johnny.

"I know. But why wouldn't they give them guns now under the circumstances?"

"Because Islambaev has never trusted the police. They refused to crush the protests in 1991, and he had to go live in Moscow for six months because of it. So now only OMON special police get guns."

"Well, I guess I would rather them be unarmed at the moment."

"It's the government guys in suits that I'm worried about," said Johnny.

Rupert and Johnny fell silent as their car came to a stop. Johnny rolled down the driver side window.

The man who walked up to the window was, like the other government men, dressed in a tight black suit. He had pointy shoes with an impossible black shine, a nearly connected unibrow, and an eternal scowl, plus a haughty air of authority. In short: a Kajbez government official.

"Documents!"

"You're not even KGB, are you? What ministry are you with?" asked Johnny with a rude laugh as he looked at the man, and then at the police and black suits who were behind him watching.

Rupert was not expecting the aggressive, confident approach.

"How dare you! Give me your documents, now!" yelled the government man in return.

"I'll give you the documents when you tell me what ministry you work in."

"You village idiot! I work for the Ministry of Emergency Situations! I am in charge here!" the man yelled in an overly angry manner that showed he wasn't too confident about his authority.

Rupert had no idea what Johnny had just said in Kajbezi, nor what the man's reply was.

"Now, who are you!?" barked the man in the suit. "Why are you driving? Who is this foreigner!? Where did you come from? Did you just arrive from Eshakdek? You are Eshakdeki, aren't you!?"

"Maybe, but that's none of your business," replied Johnny.

"Give me your documents! And give me the foreigner's documents! Now!"

"No."

Johnny reached down next to his seat and lifted his arm. The government official was frozen in shock at the sight of the gun. Johnny fired one shot directly into his face.

The man in the suit crumpled to the pavement and the men behind him started to scatter while shouting aloud in panic. The men at the checkpoint revealed themselves to be completely unarmed as they fled in terror.

"Fucking hell, Johnny!" yelled Rupert.

"What?"

"Do you have to shoot every police officer and government official that we meet?"

"No, I think we're done. We'll be at your house in five minutes. Plus, that was my last bullet," noted Johnny plainly.

Rupert breathed in and out slowly as he tried to regain his composure.

"Can you move those barrels?" asked Johnny as he gestured towards the makeshift blockade. "I can't fit the car between them. And open the trunk and get my Kalashnikov!"

Rupert reluctantly got out and tossed aside the empty barrels, which would have not stopped even the smallest and lightest car.

"Who were they?" asked Rupert as he got back into the car while gingerly handling the Soviet assault rifle. "More Kharvori guys? I heard them saying Eshakdek."

"No. I bet all the Kharvoris are gone or hiding, those were just regular government assholes. The guy I shot didn't have a strong accent, but he actually sounded a little bit Eshakdeki – like maybe his parents are Eshakdeki and he was born in Chorshanbe. I'm not sure what they thought they were doing, but the government is gone and I have a gun."

"You shot a fellow Eshakdeki?" asked Rupert.

"Yeah, but he is a government Eshakdeki. There are a few traitors like him that serve Islambaev. Well, one less now."

After crossing the bridge and turning onto the road that ran parallel to the river, the two travelers looked back in the direction they had just come. Under the bridge next to the riverbank was a pile of about a dozen bodies directly under where the roadblock had been. A man in a suit walked up to the pile and hastily grabbed onto one of the bodies, dragging it to the edge of the river and dumping the corpse into the swift flowing water. He then quickly returned to the pile for another body.

"That could have been us," said Johnny.

"Yeah," mumbled Rupert in agreement.

"Now, let's get you back home before our luck runs out," said Johnny as he pointed towards the string of holy pistachio tree leaves hanging from the car's rear view mirror.

Just to be sure, Rupert stuck his hand into his pocket and felt to make sure that the protection amulet he purchased from the shaman was still there.

*****

Date: Three days after returning to Chorshanbe.

Place: Rupert's looted rental house.

People: Rupert, who had been hiding inside for three days, and Johnny, who had finally returned after hiding at his own apartment while trying to find out about family and friends.

"Ruuupert!"

Johnny was the first person to knock on Rupert's still-damaged gate in the three days that he had been back in Chorshanbe.

Rupert moved the concrete cinder blocks that were holding the gate shut and waved Johnny in.

"Welcome to my perfectly-functioning house," announced Rupert sarcastically as he opened the mostly destroyed Chinese metal house-door. "Come on inside."

"Is this all they left for you?" asked Johnny as he got his first look at Rupert's pathetic living room.

"Yeah, a twelve-year old TV and a plastic chair."

"They took your big screen TV?" asked Johnny.

"Yeah, but it wasn't Samsung or anything like that. Some shit brand. But it was mine, not the landlord's."

"Thieves!"

"Neighbors, actually," said Rupert. "Right after you dropped me off, I saw kids that I recognized from this street. They were going over the back wall with a big bag full of my belongings."

"That's no surprise. They probably thought you had left the country. But I see that you still have your generator."

"Yes, because it's too heavy and it won't fit out the gate even if you could find enough people to lift it. The landlord obviously built the wall after installing the generator."

"That's good," remarked Johnny. "He must have learned his lesson during the first civil war."

"And the generator's fuel tank has a lock on it, so the thieving bastards I have for neighbors weren't able to siphon it off."

"And food?"

"They took my rice and my sugar, but not my pasta and my breakfast cereal. Typical Kajbez."

"Not really, I'm Kajbez and I like spaghetti."

"Well, do you like breakfast cereal with water instead of milk?" asked Rupert.

"No."

"That's right, nobody does. But more importantly than food, I guess satellite mini-dishes don't have a good resale value, because mine is still on the roof. And thank God for that, I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have international TV news over the last few days."

"You've been watching the news a lot?"

"Yeah, including this shit," quipped Rupert as he switched the channel to a Russian news station. "It's just vague war updates and propaganda, but no practical information."

As Rupert and Johnny looked at the screen, the Russian reporter announced proudly that neither ethnic Russians nor Russian citizens had to evacuate, as they are known locally as friends of Kajbezistan.

"You hear that bullshit?" asked Rupert. "For the last two days Deutsche Welle, BBC, and Europa News have been showing carloads of ethnic Russians driving across the northern border into Russia."

"Yeah, I know," replied Johnny. "Eshakdeki guys have been going around trying to find out which apartments belong to Russians. They are free to be taken."

The Russian TV reporting then switched from the Moscow studio to the Russian military base on the outskirts of Chorshanbe, as bored-looking Slavic contract soldiers checked over their equipment for the benefit of the TV cameras.

"Russia stands by to assist Kajbezistan," hollered the TV reporter in the field. "And Russian military forces have already began deliveries of humanitarian aid and medicine. But the UN, the European Union and America are nowhere to be seen!"

Video was then shown of a huge Russian military plane landing and emptying out pallets full of cargo marked with Russian flags. Rupert shook his head and switched to BBC and laughed as he saw the dramatic Eurasian British reporter describing the arrival of the fourteenth shipment of EU aid that day, versus the single Russian delivery.

"Fucking Russians," muttered Rupert.

"Russians? Have you thanked them yet?" retorted Johnny.

"For what?"

"For keeping the municipal water supply working. They sent engineers to replace the ones who fled Chorshanbe."

"Oh, I was wondering who did that. Too bad they don't do the same for phone and internet service," lamented Rupert. "Anyways, the water was off for the first two days and then it suddenly came back on."

"You should watch more Russia TV, bro. They will tell you all about Russian-Kajbez friendship and cooperation."

"I've been watching mostly BBC, as you can see."

"Fake news, bro."

"Uh-huh. And can you tell me why Russia had to send engineers to take care of the water filtration system?" asked Rupert.

"Because of the war?"

"More specifically, because the water filtration engineers in Chorshanbe were all ethnic Russians – and they have had to flee or go into hiding. That's what the BBC reported."

"Fake news," replied Johnny bluntly.

"Did you get your own formerly-Russian occupied apartment yet?"

Johnny just smirked and said nothing in reply.

"Yeah, anyways...What's going on?" asked Rupert.

"It's safe for you to leave now," started Johnny. "Russian soldiers now control the main streets between here and the airport. And anybody who is still wearing a Kajbez police uniform in Chorshanbe has to work alongside the Russian peacekeepers. And there will be a plane leaving today for the foreigners who weren't smart enough to leave during the first couple of days. That's you."

"Yup," agreed Rupert.

"So there's a Ukrainian charter flight leaving later today that is paid for by the EU and the Americans. You should be able to get on it. We can go to the Salafi mosque over by the Chorshanbe beer brewery. They are hiding a bunch of foreigners in the mosque. They said you can join them and go to the airport together. Plus, the Russians will be escorting them."

"Salafi mosque?" asked Rupert.

"Yeah, the one that all the guys with big beards went to. The Salafis were protecting the foreigners from the rioters."

"The mosque next to the brewery?"

"Next to the brewery. That's what I said," replied Johnny.

"According to The Desolate Planet Guide to Central Asia, that's a Sufi mosque."

"Guys with big beards who go to the mosque too much. It's all the same to me," was Johnny's weary retort.

"So did the Salafis or Sufis or whoever let their expat guests grab beer next door from the brewery?"

"I don't know. But it wouldn't matter. The brewery was looted on the second day after the dictator died."

"Why not on the first day?" asked Rupert.

"Because that was when people were busy looting the vodka distillery."

"Fair enough."

"So, let's go?"

"No, I'm not leaving Kajbezistan," replied Rupert.

"What?! Why? Chorshanbe is getting better, but it's getting worse everywhere else. And it might get worse in Chorshanbe again. Nobody knows the future, Rupert!"

"The next few months will be the time when I...when we can get the real money."

"The real money?" asked Johnny, whose interest was suddenly piqued.

"The European Union, USAID, the Pentagon, the OSCBE, DFID, the Germans. They will soon be throwing money at Kajbezistan. Do you think anybody wants two million swarthy Kajbez refugees showing up in Europe?" asked Rupert.

"So how do we get that money? Bro, we are two unemployed guys standing in a looted house in Kajbezistan."

"The first people who are on the ground and ready and able to work will get the best of the money that will soon be thrown at Kajbezistan. Just like Afghanistan and Iraq. You need to be here and ready to go. The business model of skulking around northern Virginia and Brussels is OK for the big contractors and NGOs. But the really dirty sub-contracts that can be easily skimmed from will be done here. I need to be here. If I leave, who knows when I will be able to return?"

"You really care about Kajbezistan, don't you?" asked Johnny.

"Did you just hear what I said? I'm staying for the metric shit-ton of money that I think I can scoop up out of the reconstruction and stabilization projects that are probably already being planned."

"Bro, I was joking. It was sarcasm."

"You are using sarcasm now?" asked Rupert.

"I always was."

"Great... Then on to the next problem. If it's unpredictable here, then I think I should move to a new neighborhood, or maybe even go to a safe region like the far west for a little while. I don't trust my neighbors."

"Well, bro. I have good news if you want to stay in Kajbezistan. There is no need to run away from Chorshanbe if you can survive another two days," said Johnny, who had suddenly turned optimistic.

"Why is that?"

"My uncle will be here in Chorshanbe tomorrow. Everybody is saying that. Now we will be safe."

"So your small town mafia uncle and his Mercedes full of buddies will somehow protect you and me in their spare time? That doesn't sound very reassuring."

"It's reassuring if you can find a Mercedes that fits 2000 men."

"How did he go from a few henchmen to 2000 men?" asked Rupert.

"He killed his commander the day after the president died because his commander was doing business with Kharvori police and was trying to protect them. And then on the second day he killed his commander's commander because his commander's commander wanted to kill him in revenge for killing his commander without his permission."

"So he promoted himself?"

"Yeah, twice," replied Johnny. "He's now the most powerful Eshakdeki. Everybody has started to follow him."

"How is he just going to show up on someone else's turf? He's still below those big Chorshanbe mafia guys, right?"

"You mean, like, Yaponchik and Zafarboybacha?" asked Johnny.

"Yeah, those two, for example."

"Well, they are both dead."

"What happened?"

"They had a meeting. They needed to discuss what to do now that the government was gone. It was a problem for them."

"Shouldn't that be a good thing for them?" asked Rupert.

"No. Mafia needs the government, government needs the mafia."

"How does that work?"

"How have you ignored how things work in Kajbezistan for this long?" asked Johnny in exasperation.

"I dunno, disinterest, I guess... So these guys had a meeting?"

"That's right," said Johnny. "But they had a disagreement and they started to shoot each other."

"They brought guns to a meeting?"

"Of course, they are mafia," replied Johnny.

"What was the argument about?"

"Well, nobody knows. The people that know are dead."

"So your uncle has a clear path right into the center of Chorshanbe now?"

"Definitely. Plus, he took all of the military equipment from the Kajbez army garrison in Eshakdekshahr. Two tanks. Some BTRs, you know – the big vehicles with strong armor that carry around soldiers. Plus, Kamaz trucks. So many guns. All the bullets. Everything."

"Shit. Sounds like he's a serious dude," said Rupert.

"Yeah, and now he has spetsnaz helping him."

"Whose spetsnaz?"

"Russia's. There are some Russian GRU officers with my uncle now. They give advice. And one of them can make helicopters and planes appear. For bombing."

"Bombing who?" asked Rupert.

"Kharvori militias. The bastards."

"Nice. So these Russian soldiers just don't care that everybody can see what they are doing?"

"Well, they removed the Russian flags from their uniforms."

"Oh, so they are completely invisible now?" said Rupert with a smirk.

"Not really, but these soldiers are trying to say that they are volunteers from among Kajbezistan's ethnic Russian population. Of course, they are from Russia, and they are real professionals, not volunteers."

"Seriously?" asked Rupert rhetorically and sarcastically.

"Yeah, seriously."

"Are the Russian attack helicopters also volunteers from Kajbezistan's ethnic Russian population as well?"

"The helicopters are volunteers?" asked Johnny quizzically.

"Jesus. How do you not see the sarcasm in what I said?"

"Because this is serious business."

"Sure, whatever. So...Why didn't the Russians just round up some Kajbez special forces guys to take the capital in the first few days?" asked Rupert.

"Because every single one of those Kajbez special forces soldiers was trained by the Americans. They can't be trusted. Plus, they all deserted their posts, sold their weapons and went home. None of them wanted to die for a dead dictator."

"OK, clear enough," said Rupert.

"Now everybody knows my uncle will take Chorshanbe, and they are kissing his hand and begging to join his forces. But he is getting advice from people from the village. Tough people, but they don't know Chorshanbe, aside from the bazaars. I will meet him soon. The Russians give him military advice, but I think he needs my advice for politics in this city – especially dealing with you foreigners."

"Yeah, we're the worst."

"You sure are," said Johnny with a grin.

Special Information Insert #18

The Kajbez Civil War, 2019 to 20??

The destruction of the Islambaev Dynasty: Within twelve hours of President Islambaev's death becoming known, a mob burned down the presidential mansion, and with it almost all of the president's immediate family members who had been sheltering there. The president's powerful brother-in-law turned up a day later at the airport in Minsk to begin his Belarusian exile. Islambaev's younger brother, known mainly for his rural simpleton ways, was rumored to be in Dubai, or perhaps in Istanbul or Moscow. Nobody knew. Soon it was clear that nobody in the extended presidential family was able to take the reins of power. Kajbezistan was rid of the president and his family. But the country was still full of angry momentum.

An information vacuum: The rumors and panic circulating on the internet died immediately along with the internet itself. But the theories and wild stories continued to circulate on the street, from person to person. Groups of young men in every city and town stood together, sharing videos and photos on their phones via Bluetooth. Most of the videos and photos were from other countries and foreign warzones, being passed off as Kajbezistan. All were mixed together with wild speculation and accusations as the story moved along rapidly. Kajbez people with Afghan SIM cards were able to get online near the Afghan border, as were those in the far north with Russian SIM cards. The border towns controlled the story now, and it spread through drivers and travelers alike, reaching every Kajbez city, town and village in a horribly mutated form from its original sources: both completely imaginary information and texts from the few expats and the even fewer locals in Chorshanbe who had satellite phones. The fear and paranoia grew until it was almost unbearable.

The violence widens: As for attacks on civilians, the targeted killings of Kharvoris were at first few and isolated and confined to a small number of unfortunate Kharvori businessmen and government officials in Eshakdek and Gharyn. The turning point came when a mysterious photo appeared on social media of a dead Kharvori security officer hanging by his neck below the 'Welcome to Gharyn!' sign. The photo was taken as a signal by many to attack any and all Kharvoris, and the campaign of mass-murder and looting began in earnest.

Origin of the extended conflict: At first it looked like the security forces were going to contain the demonstrations and violence after the president's death. The targeted killings of Kharvoris were at this early point few and isolated, being confined to a small number of unfortunate Kharvori government officials in Eshakdek and Gharyn. But then a photo and a video appeared online that unleashed the worst of the violence. The photo was of a Kharvori KGB officer hung by his neck below the arch that welcomes travelers to the Gharyn province. And the video, from the site of a well-known Eshakdeki holy pistachio tree, showed three dead Kharvori police officers. This was the catalyst for the dramatic escalation of violence against security forces in Chorshanbe and throughout the country. Security officers went from working to stop young men from looting all the alcohol in the supermarkets to being fully preoccupied with protecting their own lives. Kharvori police and soldiers responded by either attacking civilians from other regions or by deserting their posts in order to return to their homes and protect their families. The obvious next step was to strip power from all those Kharvori compatriots of Islambaev, whether they had benefitted personally or not. The attacks on Kharvori businessmen began...followed by the theft of Kharvori homes and property. Once they had taken everything from Kharvori civilians, the mob turned to taking their women and their lives.

The most feared warlord: The most powerful warlord, and current power behind the throne, was a previously unknown mafia figure from Eshakdek known only as Black Alimzhan. But he was a reasonable man. The warlord who struck fear into the hearts of Kharvori civilians and who escalated the violence dramatically was the warlord known as Comrade Whiskey, so named for the famous photo taken of him by the VILE News correspondent on assignment in Kajbezistan. The photo, taken during his brutal raid into Kharvori districts of the capital city, featured the warlord with his trademark Stalin moustache waving a half-drunken bottle of GlenGrant whiskey (which many conspiracy theorists note was the preferred liquor of the British ambassador). Legend has it that he was a recovering alcoholic who organized a well-disciplined self-defense militia in his native Gharyn, but who then descended into madness and went on a rampage after a late night whiskey drinking session.

Revenge of the British: The most popular version of events formed in Russia amongst Kajbez labor migrants. A rumor spreading in the community of Gharyni workers in Russia had it that an Englishman was at the waterfall when the president and his son were killed. The Englishman had, of course, hatched an elaborate plan to drive the trained attack pigs in the president's direction.

So, surprisingly, most people in Kajbezistan and Russia began pointing fingers at the English. The British ambassador was known to be travelling nearby, as could be seen via his Facebook updates, so some blamed him personally as the mastermind behind the revolution. A couple of days later, the Kremlin decided on what the truest version of events was. Sputnik and Russia Today ran with headlines that were all variants of 'British Ambassador: Bystander or Wily Assassin?' The stories were all filled with a few lines that had been written by the Kremlin, and which were repeated without any editing whatsoever: 'There is information, according to experts, that the Kajbezi-speaking British Ambassador were in the area when the president was killed. And who was the mysterious Englishman at the waterfall? MI6 or SAS?'

The wily Brit was one step ahead of everyone else, as the ambassador's local bodyguard received a full warning on his satellite phone. The British 'assassin' and his Kajbez henchman then fled across the frontier on a 10-day horseback journey to China, an escape later celebrated in a Daily Mail article that include 47 vaguely-related photos and copious references to the Kajbez people as bandits and terrorists. The ambassador soon entered into negotiations for the rights to a book and a film based in the adventure (with Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Ewan McGregor and Daniel Craig all expressing an interest in the role, and Jake Gyllenhaal rumored to be co-starring as the ambassador's Kajbez bodyguard). Nobody ever did make a film about the fate of the Kajbez involved in this whole affair. But not for lack of drama...

It's All America's Fault: Other fingers pointed away from the British and instead stressed the alleged American involvement, as many witnesses claimed that American soldiers were seen in neighboring valley of Sharoon/Charoon with a group of Kajbez mercenaries.

Ethnic cleansing: Most people killed were actually Muskhatarian, not Kharvori, as Kharvoris were really only killed in large numbers in the capital city, whereas Muskhatarians were attacked and killed countrywide. Kajbez people found the Muskhatarians' property, businesses and daughters to be just too tempting of a target.

Radical Islamists: Muslim extremists were few in number, but they saw a potential civil war as an opportunity to operate in freedom and eventually grow their numbers. Their rallying cry was the decades of oppression that Islam had endured in the Soviet Union and then under Islambaev's rule. They were a diverse group with no central command or dominant faction, but they all used the same recruiting tool, a video of a simple, honest Muslim villager being robbed and having his beard forcibly shaved by the police. The video was uploaded without sound, but the effect was not lessened. Muslims throughout Kajbezistan were outraged, and the villager became a symbol of the suffering of true Muslims that had reached its peak under Islambaev, but that had continued nonetheless to the current day. Two of the police officers behind the forced shaving soon appeared online in snuff videos, having their throats slit after begging for their lives.

Journalists eventually tracked down the villager to a construction site where he had been working in Russia. His co-workers brought the journalists to the pauper's grave in Ulyanovsk where he had been buried after a construction accident that had killed seven Kajbez labor migrants. The families of the other six Kajbez men had their men's bodies flown back to Kajbezistan for burial, but the villager's family was destitute and unable to afford the coffin transport costs.

Pointless battles: The fiercest battle was fought over control of the central government's Customs and Taxation Committee building in central Chorshanbe. Five different would-be warlords fought for control of the building as it changed hands eight times over three months, leaving the building pock-marked and scarred by smoke. Each commander believed that control of the building would give them control over all the revenue that goes through the Customs and Taxation Committee. In response, the interim UN-sponsored government set up a reformed Customs Department inside the Russian military base, while an American-sponsored Tax Agency was created in a secure compound in the outskirts of Chorshanbe – with 28 employees managing the country's new 13% flat tax. After about three months, the last two clueless warlords killed each other in a shootout inside what remained of the old Customs and Taxation Committee building. The building has not been rebuilt, but has instead been rented out to a paintball war-gaming operation.

Refugees: 148,000 Kajbez refugees (those connected to Islambaev, or merely from the Kharvor region) showed up at the Belarus-Polish border, overwhelming Polish border guards. Within six months, two Kajbez asylum-seekers in Germany, who had lived in Russia for the last decade, drove a truck through an Oktoberfest crowd before getting out and stabbing as many people as they could before they were in turn hacked and stabbed to death by Kurdish asylum seekers who had been working in Oktoberfest kitchens cooking pork sausages. The resulting death of 86 Germans and 43 tourists was a key factor in the shock election victory of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party. The European Union did manage, before the right-wing takeover of Germany, to secure a massive aid package to help stabilize Kajbezistan. Money, expats and prostitutes soon began to pour into Chorshanbe.

Instant Kajbezistan experts: An influential article written in an entertaining story-telling narrative style by the Pakistani communist turned British journalist Rashid Ahmedi spurred governments to invest double-quick into the new security forces. The article used an anecdote that seemed very familiar to Rupert and Johnny, but in a confused and perverted way: two radicals, including a "light-haired Chechen" cut down a prayer tree on a mountain pass in Eshakdek and massacred the policemen tasked with guarding it. This is used as an anecdote to summarize the struggle in Kajbezistan: Wahhabi terrorists who hate local traditions versus the moderate Sufis of the type who guarded the sacred tree.

As for the local Kajbez terrorism experts, some of them claimed that the origins of the conflict could be traced to a different Chechen terrorist, photos of whom – giant red beard and all – had circulated online. One photo taken from a passing car showed the redheaded Chechen with a fully loaded donkey emerging from the mountains near the Afghan border in the days leading up to the death of President Islambaev. They noted that the load was so heavy that it could be seen falling to one side – much to the donkey's distress. What was in the heavy load was, as many Kajbez believed, a large supply of weapons and bomb materials that was used to start the conflict. The final proof was a photo taken at the airport during the evacuation, showing the British Deputy Ambassador deep in a friendly chat with the very same Chechen terrorist before he got onto a German Luftwaffe cargo plane that was evacuating foreigners.

Tourists: Those tourists who were not in the capital, but rather on treks and cycling trips in the mountainous east of Kajbezistan, were evacuated by a helicopter and plane owned by the Aka Amir, the leader of the Seventeener Shia Muslims. Online photos of heavily bearded western trekkers, mountaineers and cyclists were used by some Kajbez Sunni Muslims as proof that foreign jihadis had been flown in by the Seventeener Shias as part of a Shia-Sunni extremist alliance.

Expats: Not a single foreigner based in a rural area or a smaller regional city was killed or harmed. All spoke glowingly of their hosts and protectors, some of whom fought off security forces and militiamen who wanted to arrest all foreigners or at least do them harm. But in Chorshanbe it was the opposite; even long-time Kajbez neighbors who had, on a daily basis, greeted their foreign guest with a smile and a hand over their heart, took part in predatory attacks on foreigners. Across Chorshanbe foreigners were beaten and robbed in the streets on the first day after the death of the president. On the second day they were targeted for rape and looting in their homes. On the third day it turned to murder. On the fourth day a loosely organized network of Raqsbandiyya Sufi Muslim scholars announced that it was the duty of every true Muslim to shelter and protect the foreigners. On the fifth day most of the remaining foreigners were brought, many quite reluctantly, to Sufi mosques in the suburbs where they were fed and guarded. On the sixth day the Russian military finally received its orders to leave their base outside of Chorshanbe and to restore order across the city, thus allowing foreigners the opportunity to make the drive to the airport.

Foreign correspondents: Within six hours of the presidential pig death video appearing online, the KGB detained the journalists who worked for Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Al Jazeera English, Radio Freed Europe and The Guardian. They were all put into the same guesthouse where they remained under house arrest and incommunicado 'for their own protection.' The correspondents had their phones and laptops confiscated, but were provided with a limitless supply of alcohol. The KGB, however, did not know about the VILE News correspondent on the ground in Kajbezistan, as he was on a tourist visa and from a news outlet that the Kajbez authorities had never heard of. His reporting, via a satellite phone that his parents bought him, won a Pulitzer and he was soon after hired by CNN as a senior foreign correspondent.

America: Fox News analysts demanded that the US Air Force bomb Kajbezistan, despite the fact that Kajbez terrorists could only be found in exile in Syria, having left Kajbezistan many years ago. One Central Asia expert who unwisely chose to be interviewed by Fox did his best to explain that Kajbez terrorists were radicalized in Russia and Germany, not in Kajbezistan. He was quickly shouted down with hyena-like shrieks by an assorted panel of Fox News terrorist expert paid commentators.

President Trump publicly thanked the Russian military in Chorshanbe for saving his citizens, but he never did get around to thanking the Kajbez Muslims who risked their lives to shelter their foreign guests. He did, however, order one targeted airstrike in Chorshanbe against a mosque next to a brewery that was rumored to be the headquarters of a jihadi terrorist group. His press secretary explained that the US bombed the mosque because they had received intelligence that it was being used as a base to kidnap foreigners, and that they worried about a potential attack on their embassy from that location. "No more Benghazis!" was the phrase that the press secretary repeated over and over again. Unfortunately, as the US government later admitted, there were 37 western hostages in the mosque at the time of the airstrike, and all were killed.

Within a week of the conflict starting, most of the State Department civilians were reassigned and not replaced. US-funded aid programs ended and Department of Defense programs began. US government guesthouses and diplomat residences were quickly taken over by very fit Americans with too many tattoos and vaguely Arkansas or South Carolina accents. Neighboring residences were then taken over by mysterious men with vaguely Eastern European accents and with haircuts that were slightly different than the Americans, but just as bad.

Russia: The Kremlin secured a new 49-year lease for their Kajbezistan military base, which the previous president had hinted wouldn't have its lease renewed when it was set to expire in 2022. Russia was also awarded the contract to construct and run the new hydroelectric dam, and to upgrade and run the older ones – with terms that were extremely favorable to Russia. Gazprom was quickly awarded a monopoly on all gas and oil rights in Kajbezistan, as the new government ruled that all old contracts were null and void due to the corrupt manner in which they were acquired. Kajbezistan also admitted that it could not control or retake the border with Afghanistan from the regional militias and Afghan heroin smugglers. So it handed over control of the border to Russian FSB border guards, also on a 49-year timeline. The Russians made a mysterious deal with those militias and drug traffickers controlling the border, and arrived at the border peacefully to mild applause from local residents.

World's Tallest Fallen Flagpole: After a full week of trying, angry Chorshanbe residents managed to topple the world's tallest flagpole – a symbol of Islambaev's power. It fell into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, cutting through the first five of ten floors before coming to a stop at a 30-degree angle. A photo of the fallen flagpole, complete with flag, made the front page of both the New York Times and the Washington Post, a sure sign to many that this meant that the flagpole toppling was an American operation.

Extra misery: On top of the civil war, Kajbezistan was hit by another potential disaster with the outbreak of smallpox in the former seaside town of Aridsk – the world's first outbreak of smallpox since 1977. Because of the ongoing war and the fragmented zones of control on the far west, international disaster relief organizations are having difficulty reaching the area to stem the spread of a virulent disease that was believed to have been long ago eradicated.

Even more misery: Due to the reckless driving of an allegedly drunk tanker driver, an entire 40,000 liters of sodium cyanide spilled into a pristine river that fed into the Suuk-Kul Lake, a major agricultural region for Kajbezistan. The Canadian mining company attempted to blame an unidentified foreign driver in an almost 20-year old Opel Astra for causing the accident – an accusation that was widely ridiculed, as if a foreigner would drive such an old cheap car. Plus, if the blame was on the Opel driver, then the mine – with its huge bank account – couldn't be held financially liable under Kajbez law. So the evidence from this case was quickly destroyed by investigators on the orders of the government. As for the environmental impact, foreign scientists claimed that there was no measurable level of sodium cyanide in the region's fruits, vegetables and meat, but the damage in the eyes of the Kajbez public was done. Nobody would buy any produce from the region, leaving it to be dumped alongside roads and at the edge of fields. This easy source of free food, in turn, allowed the region's wild pig population to surge out of control.

# Chapter Eighteen

# The East is a Delicate Matter

Date: Googoosha 17th, 2020 (March 17th, 2020, as the interim government has not yet renamed the months that were renamed by President Islambaev).

Place: Presidential Palace. Office of the Special Kajbez Liaison to the International Aid and Development Community, known not-so-secretly as the office where all NGOs, international organizations and humanitarian aid groups must pay bribes if they wish to help the Kajbez people.

People: Johnny, in his new role as the 'Special Kajbez Liaison to the International Aid and Development Community,' and Rupert in his even newer role as secret advisor to the Special Kajbez Liaison to the International Aid and Development Community.

"So what's the mood like in the country?" asked Johnny.

"You're asking me? Shouldn't you know? You're the Kajbez one in this room," countered Rupert as he sat down.

"People are scared of me now. I'm the so-called warlord's nephew. They just want to give me good news."

"OK, the mood in regards to what, exactly? The general state of pessimism versus optimism about the future?" asked Rupert.

"Narrow it down to how people feel about the new interim government versus the old government."

"Who cares about the interim government?" shrugged Rupert. "In six months' time your uncle's puppet will be elected in a free and fair election. Then I'm sure that the people will fall in love with a former deputy Minister of Agriculture who's been in exile in Russia for 15 years."

"Was that sarcasm?" asked a very annoyed Johnny.

"Yes."

"Quit with your bullshit, Rupert! What's the mood like?"

"Well, the mood right now is 'Thank God we got rid of Islambaev, I never liked him in the first place.' But, you know, he's been dead for half a year now. The novelty is wearing off quickly. So it may soon change to 'At least we had peace under Islambaev, even if he was cruel.' Of course, I can only speak for Chorshanbe City. And really only for the English-speaking Kajbez people that I hang out with. Plus a few taxi drivers."

"Hmm. I need you to start asking more people about how they feel towards the new government. So put that on your list of things to do," commanded Johnny.

"Yeah, I'll work it into my daily conversations."

"And if anybody criticizes the new government, give me their names. Especially foreigners working for international organizations or embassies. If they are against the interim government, they will be even more against my uncle's guy when he's president."

"Sure thing. You got it," said Rupert obediently.

"And if you meet anybody who is trying to investigate the big holes, let me know."

"The big holes?"

"During the revolution somebody dug up big holes in the ground in some fields south of the city and then filled them back in," said Johnny.

"And why do people want to investigate these holes?"

"Because the lying Kharvoris are spreading fake news that thousands of their women and girls are missing and that they are buried in those holes."

"Holes? Dude, we call those mass graves," said Rupert.

"There are no women and girls in those holes," replied Johnny angrily.

"Then let those UN investigators who are staying in their newly-renovated Shyatton Hotel suites dig them up, and I'm sure you'll find them to be empty holes rather than mass graves full of Kharvoris."

"They're at the Shyatton? How many of them?" asked a suddenly very interested Johnny.

"Twelve. Mostly forensic scientists, but also a couple of engineers."

"Fucking spies," grumbled Johnny as he wrote the new information down on a sheet of paper.

"So, will your uncle let them dig up the empty graves?"

"No. Of course not. The graves are full of...people," replied Johnny plainly.

"I though you said that..."

"And it's true," said Johnny as he interrupted Rupert. "There are no women and girls in those graves. My uncle's militia filled those graves with all of the men who had returned from Syria. Some of them had gone through the amnesty and deradicalization program and been released, and some were in prison here in Chorshanbe. We can't have people like this in our country. They were starting to say that now was their big opportunity."

"Oh, OK. Well, nobody will give a shit then. Except maybe some human rights people..." commented Rupert nonchalantly.  
"Good. Then forget about these mass graves."

"So...I, uh, need a favor from you," said Rupert meekly as he transitioned away from alleged war crimes.

"Oh God! What now? You have become like a street beggar. Always at my office with something you need from me."

"This favor will cost you nothing. And it can be done with minimum effort. I have a list," said Rupert apologetically as he handed a single sheet of paper to Johnny. "It's a list of expats I would like blocked from returning to Kajbezistan, and a few I would like expelled."

Johnny looked over the list – with each name having a nationality and organizational affiliation attached to it – and remarked dryly, "Looks like a list of everyone that remembers you as an assistant project manager for an unimportant NGO."

"And they remember you as the translator for that assistant project manager of an unimportant NGO," countered Rupert. "But seriously, those people are not just my problem. They are yours, too. They know about what I have done here in the past, and they know that you and I have been working closely together for the last year. If they talk to one of these journalists that arrived recently, then we may get some seriously unwanted attention."

"Why is our former Presbyterian boss not on this list?" asked Johnny.

"He's been accused of embezzlement of funds by headquarters, as he was the only one with access to the safe in the office. He then had a nervous breakdown and his mental health has gone to shit. Apparently he's in some sort of hospital or mental health facility back in California. So we won't have to worry about him."

"OK, fine. This list is no problem. I can do whatever I want in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Anyways, the ministry is making all foreigners reapply for visas starting next month. The old visas are no longer any good. So these people will not be successful getting new visas. I'll make sure that they fail their mandatory AIDS test or whatever it takes," said Johnny confidently.

"Great. One less problem for us."

"For you," said Johnny, correcting Rupert.

"Yeah, of course. Thanks for that."

"Another problem for you, bro, is your artwork."

"My artwork?" asked Rupert, who sounded more than a little worried.

"Yeah, some KGB guy tells me that your house is decorated with the greatest paintings from the Soviet Kajbez socialist realism era of the 1930s to 1950s."

Rupert was not surprised, as usual. Johnny now had access to state resources for his annoying habit of spying and collecting information.

"Yeah, I bought them at the Saturday morning junk bazaar behind the train station."

"You bought my nation's most important works of art from some thief behind the train station?"

"Yes," said Rupert honestly.

"Get rid of them. Send them home. Sell them. Whatever. If some journalists write a story about all the art that was looted from the national museum, then I will soon be connected to you."

"I would send them home, but the government has banned DHL and FedEx. How am I supposed to ship those paintings?" protested Rupert.

"Send them by KajbezPost."

"Those vandals? Why don't I just stomp on them and put them out in the rain? Seriously, whose decision was it to ban foreign shipping companies?"

"My uncle's friend. He was appointed head of KajbezPost, and he wasn't making as much money as expected. So we banned the competition."

"Clear enough."

"So get rid of those paintings. Burn them, or mail them home. I don't care. Just do it," ordered Johnny.

"OK, I'll figure something out."

With the topic of conversation concluded, Johnny changed the subject and asked, "Who is the new girl? The one that lives at your new house. She looks like a model or something."

"Oh, her? Her name's Aidana."

"Where did you meet her?"

"I met her last year at the State Committee for Sanitation and Hematology HIV/AIDS laboratory on Stalinskaya Street, or whatever they renamed the street to," shrugged Rupert.

"She has AIDS?" asked Johnny with a frown.

"No. And neither do I," replied Rupert. "I was there to get my HIV-free certificate for my work visa renewal, and she was getting it because she was applying for a job at the Ministry of Health. I guess all their accountants must be free of disease. Anyways, she ended up at the Ministry of Finance instead."

"So she doesn't have AIDS? You are sure?" asked Johnny.

"I wouldn't have asked her for her phone number if she did. I was right behind her in line to pick up results for my tests from the day before. The people who were HIV positive had a big red ink mark next to their name on the laboratory technician's list that you needed to sign. I looked over her shoulder when she was signing."

"So you met your new girlfriend in an AIDS clinic?"

"Yup."

"So she is number four for you? Now you have the maximum number of girlfriends permitted under Islam."

"That's too much for me. I've reduced it to just one," said Rupert.

"And the others?"

"Well, Aidana had an Oriental princess temper tantrum. It lasted an entire evening at my place. She smashed a bunch of stuff and screamed in my face for a while. I thought she was going to get a knife from the kitchen and stab me to death."

Johnny laughed out loud at the thought of Rupert being stabbed by a petite Kajbez girl.

"Anyways, she's a feminist – or at least that's what it says on her Instagram profile – so she gave me an ultimatum," continued Rupert. "I had to cut ties with the other girls or she would leave. So I did. She's tough. Now she's demanding that I take her home to Canada for a vacation on a fiancé visa and get married there. She wants the documents in her hands. Canadian documents, not Kajbez documents."

"Ha! More problems for you," laughed Johnny.

"Yeah, and now she's pregnant even though she said she was on the pill. And she won't get an abortion. She says we will register the baby as a Canadian citizen at the Canadian embassy in Moscow as soon as it's born. She says the kid is her 'anchor baby,' whatever the hell that means. I don't ask her about anything anymore, I just nod my head in agreement."

"Women problems, bro. Foreigners can only handle one woman at a time. Not like Kajbez men. We are pros. One. Two. Three. More. No problem, we can manage as long as we have enough money," boasted Johnny.

"I think that's true of rich men everywhere."

"Maybe. But really, man, I got 99 problems and the Kharvori rebels are one," said Johnny, segueing awkwardly from women to war. "These Kharvoris are acting like they're not defeated. There are rumors that they are reorganizing their self-defense groups into offensive combat groups. My uncle's men tell me that there are Russian visitors in Kharvor. I don't know if this is true. Maybe. Nobody in the new government can go to Kharvor. Our soldiers can't go there. But the Russian embassy says that they will support us – the new government. So I don't think they would support the Kharvoris."

"Maybe the Russians will support both sides, so that they can control the eventual winner?"

"But we have won! It's over. Konets! The end. The UN recognizes us as the legitimate government. These rebels, these Kharvoris, they are, like, on a dead-end road. Dead-enders. That's what they are! And you know, it's not just the Russians. The Americans are also supporting us. Do you remember the US special forces guy we met in the mountains with all those Kajbez soldiers?"

"Yeah, of course," replied Johnny.

"He is in charge of the US Army SOF training mission here. He is at the garrison in Eshakdek, training our soldiers."

"So, the Americans who were training Kharvori guys for President Islambaev are now training some Eshakdeki militia now? I can imagine why the Russians are now skulking around Kharvor looking for friends. And seriously, maybe in six months this American guy will be training the guys who come and kick you out of Chorshanbe."

"No. Not possible. We are in control," said Johnny.

"Really? You don't control the parts of the Afghan border where the bulk of the money for the heroin trade changes hands. Nor the Chinese border, where half of your imports are entering. Shit, or half the Iranian border! You guys only really strongly control the capital city region, your home region, the Russian border, and about, what, 50% of Kajbezistan's industrial capacity? You have, like, half of everything – at most."

"We have the best half," replied Johnny.

"But it sounds like your control over the oilfields is not looking so good."

"Listen, these striking oil workers will be back at work by the end of the week."

"You guys have reached a deal with them?" asked Rupert hopefully.

"No. My uncle is going to Yangi-Uzen this week with his militia, plus he is taking the new Scorpions Brigade with him."

"Weren't they the guys that killed the oil workers the last time they went on strike?"

"Yes. Exactly," stated Johnny bluntly. "Now everyone knows that we are the most powerful."

"Even then, most people are sitting on the fence, deciding who to support, or maybe even supporting nobody – just waiting to see who wins without getting involved. And, honestly, the winner is not decided yet," warned Rupert.

"I think it is obvious that we won."

"Do you really believe that the Russians think that as well? Because I hear that some Kharvoris went to Moscow and met with some Kajbez guys from the north. Maybe they are making a deal? Maybe Kharvoris aren't defeated, maybe they just lost the first battle," said Rupert.

"Yeah, some of those northerners aren't real Kajbez anyways. Nobody can understand their ugly dialect. I don't trust them. They think they are better and smarter than everybody else. That's why my uncle is firing all of them from the transitional government."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. And the prokurator has started legal stuff to take their businesses under our control."

"Legal stuff?" asked Rupert suspiciously.

"They will have their businesses confiscated because they were corrupt and they did business with Islambaev's family."

"Wow. You people, by which I mean Eshakdekis, are kicking all northerners out of the government and expropriating their businesses? I can imagine why some northerners are jumping into bed with the Kharvoris. You might want to plan for just a tad little bit more civil war," cautioned Rupert.

"Maybe, but it probably won't get in the way of making money."

"War usually doesn't," said Rupert without missing a beat.

"War doesn't what?"

"Nothing. But speaking of money...we need to talk about Islambaev's offshore bank accounts."

"Yeah, that's why I have no appointments today. Only you. We need to make a plan. You need to make a plan to get that money back. And your message said that you had a plan. That money belongs to Kajbezistan, not the Islambaev family. If the banks give the accounts to Islambaev's brother who ran away to Dubai, then it is theft," ranted Johnny.

"I have a plan, but there is one final problem."

"I have you here for solutions, not problems," complained an exasperated Johnny.

"Again, this is a mutual problem," protested Rupert. "And it has to do with the Ministry of Finance. The UN has lent them some experts. Three of them actually. Finance and banking consultants, to be exact. Two Europeans and one Indian. The three UN consultants are coming up with a plan for the Ministry of Finance to recover Kajbez assets from overseas, including Islambaev's offshore bank accounts."

"Fuck! My uncle controls the KGB, the police, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But not the Ministry of Finance."

"I know, Johnny, I know. So we need to make sure that your office is in charge of asset recovery. If an honest argument is made for who is best for this job, then it will go to those foreign experts in the Ministry of Finance."

"OK, I will talk to my uncle personally about this."

"Do that. But we need to move quickly in parallel, just in case your uncle does not come through – because he's a busy dude. We need to get rid of these meddlesome UN experts," suggested Rupert.

"You know, bro, I can easily kick out any foreigner – except those that work for the American, Russian or Chinese embassies...or anybody at the United Nations office. That sort of thing needs to be done in the office of the interim president. She is weak and temporary. She's really only the mayor of Chorshanbe if you think about it. But she won't do anything that drastic because she will go work for an international organization after she leaves office. That's what everyone says. She won't kick out UN people without a good reason."

"Well...is statutory rape a good enough reason?" asked Rupert.

"What does statutory mean?"

"It means sex with a girl under sixteen. That's illegal in Kajbezistan if you are twenty or older, thanks to legislation that the Europeans helped you guys to write up about a decade ago. You people have never actually enforced the law, but you can start now. So find some girls who are, like, nineteen-year-old prostitutes or bad girls or whatever, and let's get these guys on video. They will then be arrested and the girls will have fake documents that will say they are fourteen. The girls can testify that they are sex slaves. Our new lady president will turf out the UN guys in an instant, or more likely the UN will send them home immediately – even if they think it's a set-up."

"These guys will be easy?" asked Johnny.

"Yeah. They are here in the country with no partners, wives or girlfriends. They are all straight, and they are nerds so the expat women want nothing to do with them. The expat women have the pick of all these American Special Forces soldiers and western security contractors now. The expat men just sit by themselves at the Irish Pub while looking over at all the girls who used to hang out with them now on the lap of some former Australian commando with big muscles and ugly tattoos," lamented Rupert.

"Ha!" laughed Johnny as he envisioned a table full of sad nerdy expat men.

"Yeah, hilarious. So these UN guys hang out in a lonesome trio. They are at the Irish pub at least twice per week. They seem lonely. Have the girls pick them up there or wherever else they happen to be. I mean, this is all just a suggestion. You Kajbez people are the true artists when it comes to honey-pot entrapment and other dirty tricks and kompromat. This is a cakewalk for you guys – a cakewalk that you've done hundreds of times. The KGB did this all the time, including quite recently. And half of the original KGB officers still work there, right?"

"More like a quarter. But they have enough experience. It will be easy work," said Johnny confidently.

"And one final related problem..."

"Fuuuuuck! What!? Seriously, bro. You are just a river of bad news," said Johnny as he shook his head.

"There is a Kajbez guy working at the Ministry of Finance. He's a high-level hire that the Europeans pushed for. He has a master's degree in finance from the UK. He has been working at British banks in their Russia accounts section. He is smart, aggressive and he is religious in a very quiet way. People say he is completely incorruptible. He has the ear of the interim government and of all the foreigners, by which I mean the American and European embassies and the UN."

"Sounds like a great guy," said Johnny.

"Wonderful guy," said Rupert. "But he is writing up his own plan for asset recovery. He feels that young educated Kajbez people are capable of doing this job themselves and leading the effort to get back the money transparently that Islambaev offshored into his own bank accounts. We need to do something about this Kajbez guy."

"OK, this is a job for my cousins."

"Your big uncle's sons? Black Alimzhan's sons?"

"Yes."

"From what I remember, they are just straight-up killers with a fondness for baking human beings alive in tandoor ovens."

"Yes. So?" asked Johnny.

"OK. I don't want to hear anything more. I'll just consider it a Kajbez matter and none of my business."

"Cool. Good idea, bro. But now I'm interested in your business. How do you know so much about what's going on inside the Ministry of Finance? Because I'm having problems getting information out of the Finance building. They hired all these Kajbez diaspora people who have lived outside the country for a long time. And they fired all the KGB guys who worked at Finance because they were Kharvori. Where are you getting this information?"

"I have someone on the inside," said Rupert.

"Who?"

"Aidana."

"Who is that?"

"I just told you, she's my girlfriend," said Rupert.

"Oh yeah, right...And you think she can be trusted?"

"Of course. She's the mother of my child. This is all her plan."

"What?! Are you serious?" asked Johnny.

"Yes, she came home from work one day and laid out an exact plan that she had been researching for at least a month."

"Our plan for getting Kajbez assets back from overseas was made up by some pretty girl that you feed like a stray animal?"

"She is smart as hell. It's good plan. You people underestimate your women," protested Rupert. "I've never met anybody better at diabolical scheming than Kajbez girls."

"What does 'diabolical scheming' mean?" asked Johnny.

"It means she knows how to make plans to get things done. Difficult things."

"OK, then. What's the plan?"

"Alright, the process of getting back Kajbez money from overseas is called 'international asset recovery.' But you and me are concerned only with Islambaev's British Virgin Islands bank accounts, plus the bank accounts that belong to various family members – living and dead. We want the cash. We don't want to go around chasing ownership of condos in Dubai or that 20% share of a cement factory in Belarus. That takes years and years," warned Rupert.

"Of course, just the cash."

"Now, there are several open and transparent ways for a state like Kajbezistan to go about asset recovery based on the corruption of a previous government. And those are through the United Nations Convention against Corruption, the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative of the World Bank, and through various European and American courts."

"Fuck that!" yelled Johnny. "If that happens, then everything will be in public documents and the entire amount will go straight into the Kajbez state budget."

"Exactly. So Aidana's plan is to go quietly through an asset recovery specialist firm. She found one and contacted them while representing herself as a Ministry of Finance employee. They don't even have a website or a single reference to them online. Very discreet. They are based, strangely enough, in the British Virgin Islands."

"That's where Islambaev's money is!" exclaimed Johnny.

"Exactly. This firm that says they can recover assets, probably because they already know Islambaev's bankers. Shit, they might even actually be Islambaev's bankers for all I know or care."

"So, how does it work?" asked a fully intrigued Johnny.

"We don't go through courts or judges. We say nothing publicly. This firm goes about its business and they cut a secret deal on our behalf – as representatives of the new Kajbez government. The bank in the British Virgin Islands keeps 10% of the bank deposit for itself. The asset recovery firm keeps 10%. Aidana and I take 15%, you take 15%, and the remaining 50% is transferred publicly to the Kajbez government, where you corrupt Kajbez people can then steal it from the national budget."

"20% for me! 10% for you and your bad-girl girlfriend," countered Johnny.

"Deal," answered Rupert. "I think Aidana and I can live off of $1.5 billion."

Johnny paused and did some slow mathematics in his head.

"I will get $3 billion?!"

"Well, $2.8 billion to be exact – give or take a few million," answered Rupert.

"That means that there is almost...$15 billion in Islambaev's bank account?"

"Across a number of accounts at the same bank that belong to the various presidential family members, yes."

"How did he steal that much from Kajbezistan? That means that we were a rich country all this time! Imagine what that money could have paid for! Schools! Hospitals! Roads! Food for widows and orphans! Electricity for the villages! Heat during the winter!" yelled out Johnny.

"Yes, it's terrible."

"I'm rich. I'm a billionaire!" announced Johnny without skipping a beat.

"And that's not so terrible," said Rupert with a smile.

"Wait, will they bring the money here? How does this work? When can I get the cash?"

"That's not possible. Your money, if you had it in $20 bills, would weigh tens of thousands of kilograms. And you don't cash out. That's not how it works. You aren't a 1980s Columbian drug lord. You keep the money in a bank and move it electronically. They'll teach you how. When you need some physical cash there is a Russian bank you can wire money to, and then the Russian bankers will deliver cash to you here in Chorshanbe. For a fee, or course."

"So where will I keep this money?" asked Johnny.

"In the British Virgin Islands, of course."

"Is it safe there?"

"Absolutely, as long as you don't get eaten by pigs like Islambaev," replied Rupert.

And then the two men shook each other's hands for the first time in their two-year long friendship.

"OK, sounds good, Rupert. But what happens when everybody sees that it is only half the amount that was in Islambaev's bank account?"

"Who can prove that the original amount was $15 billion? The asset recovery firm will work with the bank to make it appear as if it was only half that amount. And if they can't, the missing 50% will be blamed on mysterious bank transfers by Islambaev a few weeks before he died. That didn't happen, of course. So they will fake the paperwork. I'm not sure how it's done, but those Caribbean weasels seem to know how to make it happen. People will just say that Islambaev's brother-in-law in Belarus has the money now. Belarus is a black hole, so who's to say that billions aren't floating around somewhere there or in another offshore banking location? The brother is living like a king, so it will be believable. Of course, the 50% will only be transferred to Kajbezistan once the government here agrees that the matter is settled. So what will the Kajbez government do? Take the 50% now, or get in a decade-long legal battle to recover money that is already long gone?"

"Alright. Go ahead and contact that asset recovery company, or whatever you call it. Let's do this," said Johnny

"Aidana already has. That's why we have this thing so clearly laid out. The firm has a plan of action ready to go as soon as we say the word. We just need some documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that say that they are working in the legal capacity as contractors of the Kajbez government."

"Cool. Now you are bringing me solutions instead of problems," said Johnny.

"Yup. It's all easy from here onwards. The asset recovery firm in the British Virgin Islands will write up the fake contract that outlines how the assets will go back to the control of the interim government, and how their firm will get a very modest fee. But the percentages that we discussed just now will be the real contract. Also, they want to meet you and make sure that you are for real. Then it's done."

"They know who I am already? Did you guys explain that I'm way more powerful than the job title on the officer door?" asked Johnny in a very concerned tone of voice.

"Yeah, they know exactly who you are and who your uncle is."

"People from the British Virgin Islands know that?" asked Johnny, who was partly pleased and partly suspicious.

"They're from England, but yeah – they know who you are. When this much money is at stake they can just pay some researcher to give them a detailed report on you or whoever else," said Rupert bluntly.

"Fucking spies! Who is this researcher?"

"Who knows? It's probably just somebody who works in Moscow and does business research for some political risk consulting firm," said Rupert.

"OK, tell the asset recovery guys to buy their own tickets to Chorshanbe. I'll take them to the lake or something nice. And then I'll record them on hidden camera doing something dirty. I need some insurance."

"That's not going to happen," said Rupert with a shake of his head. "They already said they will only meet in one of three neutral locations: Maldives, Dubai or Cyprus. It's your choice. They aren't dumb enough to come here."

"But they are dumb enough to go to Cyprus where the Russians hear everything that is said by everyone. I'll go to the Maldives."

"OK. Then it's settled?"

"Yeah, no problem. Tell your pretty mafia boss Aidana to get started," said Johnny with a smirk. "Now, let's go outside and have lunch. It's really warm and sunny today for March. It's global warming, thanks to you people."

"You're welcome," replied Rupert. "So...what's for lunch?"

"A few skewers of lamb shashlik first, with the usual Korean salad and some sort of soup. And after that, a surprise."

Rupert and Johnny slowly drank their tea on the veranda and looked out over the posh government courtyard, slightly annoyed with the renovation project that had begun. A man below noisily climbed up a very unsafe-looking ladder propped up against a bronze statue of the great conqueror and war criminal Baburlane, whose face had been smashed in by some confused rioter who mistook the statue for President Islambaev. The worker was handed an acetylene torch, which he promptly lit. The quick work of decapitating Baburlane began.

"Johnny, are you guys gonna put a new head on there?"

"Yeah."

"Whose head?"

"Boséddinbay Khan. A great rebel who fought to protect the people against an evil foreign Amir. You know, in like...200 years ago or something."

"Boséddinbay? The bandit who switched sides between different khanates and emirates like seven times? Isn't his shrine in..."

"My hometown? Yes. He is our hero. So now he is hero for all of Kajbezistan. We can be proud of him. His statues will be in every town in Kajbezistan. My uncle gave the order to replace all of the Stalin statues. We will put his head on Stalin's body."

"So Boséddinbay will be dressed – from the neck down – like Stalin?" asked Rupert.

"Yes. It's cheaper than a new statue."

There was nothing that could make Rupert laugh anymore. He did not react to this latest small absurdity. But then the worker, bothered by something, stopped his work for a second and reached into his pocket, drawing out a pair of fake Ray-Ban sunglasses to protect his eyes.

Rupert suddenly recognized the man. He could not believe who it was.

"Johnny, look! That worker. Look at him. Isn't he that welder that burned down the building in Shamkand?"

"Chamqand," said Johnny firmly. "Get the name right."

"OK, Chamqand. Whatever. That's the guy, isn't it?"

"Him? Yes. Yes it is him," said an unconcerned Johnny.

"Didn't he kill like a hundred people?"

"No. Just dozens."

"You sure that he should be working near the place where you work? He might burn the place down...or something? Maybe?" asked Rupert.

"I asked him that when I first saw him working on a construction site in Eshakdekshahr. He's a good guy. His older brother went to my school. His brother died last month fighting against Kharvoris. So he will work here now."

"The arsonist is from your hometown?" asked Rupert with an incredulous smile.

"From my neighborhood, actually. I left when he was just a kid, so I didn't recognize him in Chamqand."

"Promise me that you won't let him do the electrical wiring in your office or anything like that, OK?"

"Oh, don't worry. He will have a new job next week. His father talked to my uncle. So now he will not be a welder, he will be a captain in the criminal investigative directorate of the Ministry of Interior."

"Fuck. Of course he will," said Rupert.

"Yes, of course. These things must be done. There are many winners, and they all want a piece of shashlik from the sheep. But the sheep is still fat. We can share. Well, Eshakdekis can share with each other. Kajbezistan will be OK."

"Of course it will," replied Rupert, just as a cube of mutton slipped off his fork and plummeted to the ground.

Suddenly a malnourished and slightly filthy cat darted out of nowhere. It made a beeline under the table and scooped up the meat in its mouth.

"Fucking greedy little bastard. How did that thief get inside the Presidential Palace?" observed Johnny with no irony whatsoever.

Johnny smiled at Rupert as he placed another skewer full of mutton – the last one – onto his own plate.

"Listen bro..." said Johnny, returning to his previous train of thought, "you need to understand better how it is here. And maybe you will never understand because you are a foreigner. We say, not in Kajbezi, but in Russian...Vostok – delo tonkoe. I'm not sure what a good translation for that is."

"The East is a delicate matter," said Rupert, confident of his translation.

"No. We are not delicate."

"The East is a difficult affair?"

"No. It is, um...The Orient is tricky! That's it," said Johnny.

"The Orient is tricky?"

"Yes, it is."

"OK," said Rupert as he looked down hungrily at his empty plate.

At that exact moment a sullen-looking palace servant appeared and silently placed down on the table some fresh-baked naan bread along with a large plate of beef bresaola, manchego cheese, green Castelvetrano olives, and persimmon jam. The palace underling apologized meekly to Johnny for the lack of pear slices, noting that they were out of season.

In the far distance, the firing of a Kalashnikov could be clearly heard.

Both men pretended to not hear the sound.

The End

About the author:

Christian Hale is a semi-employed professional liar who has worked in various broken countries and war zones over the last decade. He has still not yet found a way to make himself rich in any of these places. Maybe next year...

Other titles by Christian Hale:

Department of Student Loans, Kidnap & Ransom

Muslim Mars

Connect with Christian Hale:

https://twitter.com/ChristianHale84

