Jus Lik Breefinz, Onlee Longr

Mom Says:

M led Agent Octavian to the corner of the large, very techy room, where there were a number of plaid couches against the walls and at angles from each other. Siberian Huskies, a German Shepherd or two, an assortment of cats and an incredibly fat Guinea Pig sprawled here and there, clearly taking power naps between perilous missions. Myshov jumped on top of the Guinea Pig, waking him rudely and sending him on his way.

“Pour vous, Madame,” he squeaked to M, who graciously sat.

Octavian leaped up onto the couch and sat next to her, his tail swooshing slowly. He squinted up at her and said, “OK, M, I got to admit, I am confuzzld.”

“Well, Eight, it’s like this. Back in the late 1970s, when the environmental movement was still, er, moving, the bears of the Soviet Union finally unionized and sent a deputation to Moscow, saying that they would rather not be made into bearskin hats, that they could serve Glorious Mother Russian better as spies than as hats. Other animal species—primarily dogs and mice, but also cats and others—became co-signers of this document. Brezhnev eventually broke down and secretly added a group to the KGB, much like Mysiz, although of course not based on a decadent Western model, because that would never happen.”

Myshov grunted.

M continued, “For the next five years, the division flourished, and they built small, hidden underground command posts in many nations around the globe—“

“But not in Merika, rigt?”

M said, “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous,” in the bored sort of way that made it sound like “Yes.” (Huh, thought Octavian, hoominz!)

She continued, “When Gorbachev came to power, things changed, funding dwindled. Eventually the division was stood down in that particular way of intelligence communities that means that the thing never existed in the first place. But they didn’t actually destroy the command posts, or for that matter, keep track of their former agents. So agents like Myshov here retired and when the wall fell and things were changing, he moved back to Granada, married Timidora, and settled down.”

Myshov nodded. “Dah. Cela est mon histoire. Mais alors qui l'idiot, Yeltsin—“

“Ah, yes. Yeltsin.” M sighed and stroked Octavian’s plumy black tail. “You know, Eight, that after the fall of the Soviet Union, things were dicey for a while. Here in Spain, other things were happening. But the long and short of it is that Myshov here, and a few dogs and humans, decided to reopen this post in Granada to keep an eye—well, not on the world for Moscow, but rather on Moscow and its activities for the world, if you see what I mean.”

“Mebbe. Aftr all, aminalz gots a speshul aminal citrzinship mor than we gots the hoomin peeples nayshun-typ.”

“Quite. So during Yeltsin’s reign, the animal division consolidated its resources, trained new recruits from different nations and reawakened ‘sleeping’ agents across the globe.”

“Kinda lik that polees InnerPol thin?”

“Like Interpol? I suppose so, in a way. And just around the time that the organization was beginning to spread its wings—sorry, that’s a metaphor, Eight, they’re not real wings—around that time Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia.”

“Huh,” said Octavian. “I has herd about him. He has doggees an he’s not verree nice.”

Myshov grunted and muttered in Russian. M nodded. “That’s one way to put it, yes.”