“Get in here, Joey! Now!”
The Joeydigenova poked his long neck inside the Oval Dwelling.
“My wife too? We’re a team you know.”
Moments later the Joeydigenova and his legal lover, the Victoriatoensing, squatted across from the Tyrumposaurus.
“I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” said the T-Rump. “While you had me at the two-for-one package deal, I’m afraid this just isn’t going to work out.”
“Why not?” asked the Victoriatoensing.
“Well, I’ve changed my mind six ways to Sunday on this one … and when your gut feeling turns to major indigestion, I just can’t always chalk it up to something I ate. No hard feelings?”
“Uh, no, of course not,” said the Joeydigenova. “You mentioned good news?”
“Yes, I didn’t want you two to leave without having done something for me. That’s how the Oval Dwelling rolls.”
The legal duo chuckled at the T-Rump’s joke … but the T-Rump didn’t get it. Awkward.
“We’re listening.”
“The Stormydaniels thing is blowing up again. Damn that Mediacircustops Andersoncooper. It’s all the Tymelania’s fault. If she wouldn’t have had all those head-aches, none of this would’ve ever happened. You do see I need something — anything — to blow this Stormy mess out of the water.”
“Of course.” The legal dino duo leaned toward each other, spoke in muffled terms for a minute, nodded and turned back to the T-Rump.
“You need to ratchet things up big-time,” said the Joeydigenova. “I mean big big. Hugely big. So, what’s the craziest thing you could do?”
“That’s easy. Expel some Russodino diplomats.”
“Exactly.”
“But what will the Putinodon say?”
“Look, do you want the Stormydaniels forgotten for one day, maybe two?”
“Go on,” said the T-Rump.
“Okay, so the question is how many Russodino diplomats are we going to expel.”
“Not too many I hope. The Putinodon’s really a good guy dino.”
“Don’t worry, we’ve come up with a method of giving you plausible deniability. And you can always say this is the reason you fired us.”
“I like it already.”
“Great. To help keep you focused and reduce your Putinodon stress, we’re going to make a game of it.”
“I like games.”
“We know. … We’re going to arrive at the number of expulsions randomly.”
“You lost me.”
“Plausible deniability.”
“Gotcha.”
“Now then,” the Victoriatoensing jumped in, “for every conspiracy theory that led to dead dinos at the hands of the Putinodon, you’re going to expel 10 Russodino diplomats. Okay?”
“Dead dinos? Hah! The Putinodon would never do that. Sounds like fake news to me. Looks like I won’t have to diss him after all.”
“Let’s begin, shall we? There was the Litvinenko going down with some bad swamp water.”
“Even I remember that one. Okay. That’s ten.”
“Oh, we’re not done with the Litvinenko conspiracy. There’s the Ponomarev who also had some bad water two days before, the Matthewpuncher who invesitgated the poison and the Danielmcgrory, the Mediacircustops who reported it. All gone.
“You made your point. Ten. Next.”
“There’s the Sergeimagnitsky and the Perepilichny, both Sub Family of the Whistleblower dinosaur. Beaten, heart attack. That type of thing.”
“The Sergeimagnitsky … that lead to the …”
“Sanctionsaurus, that’s right.”
“Oh. Well,” said the T-Rump. “The Putinodon wasn’t too upset about that. I guess that’s twenty.”
The Joeydigenova leaned forward.
“For the next conspiracy, we’ll combine the Mediacircustops with the Oligarchus because one dino was relative to both. The Mikhaillesin — right here on the Milkanhoney Preservation. Then there was the Politkovskaya, a Mediacircustops covering the Second Chechen Frontier and the Yurigolubev, an Oligarchus from the Yukosoil Fields.”
The T-Rump tapped his chin with a claw.
“Dead, dead …?”
“And dead,” said the Victoriatoensing. “We’re at thirty. Let’s not forget the Garethwillliams. He was found inside the Duffelbag Barrier. He was a Londonbritwit tracking down where the Russodino moolah-moolah leaves were being washed.”
“Oh, you mean like the Manaforta and Rickyprisongates.”
“Yep. That makes forty.”
“Surely that’s gotta be it,” said the T-Rump. “I mean, if you can’t trust the Putinodon …”
“His competition, the Borisnemtsov, turned up dead in the Moscovian Bluffs. Every Russodino security guard on duty that night was looking the other way.”
“Big coincidence. But I’ll give you that one. Fifty. Let’s wrap this up before I can say fake news.”
“Ah-ah-ah,” said the Joeydigenova. “Remember the Stormydaniels. We need shock value. This final conspiracy we call the Project Moscovian Bluffs. We have the Stevenmoss, the Stevencurtis, the Robbiecurtis — no relation — the Paulcastle, the Johnnyelichaoff, the Scotyoung, the Patarkatsishvili and the mastermind, the Borisberezovsky. A pack of Londonbritwits, legal dinos and Russodinos just looking to make some moolah-moolah before they all started jumping off cliffs and suffering heart attacks in the prime of their lives.”
“C’mon. Eight dinos?” said the T-Rump.
The legal dino duo nodded.
“Well, if it’s eight, it only cost me 10 expulsions. Alright then.”
“That’s sixty total, T-Rump.”
“And you’re sure I won’t get into trouble?”
“Heck no. We coordinated this with sixteen other dinosaur-member states. You’ve got your Stormydaniels deflection and Putinodon cover. You’re good to go.”
“That’s great, you two. Just great. It’s too bad that I have to let you go. But other legal dinos are just dying to get in here, y’know. … Uh, you wouldn’t know any, would you?”
David Belisle 