where the tape ended. I don’t know what to think about all this.
On Channel 3, they said it’s possible that those rebel forces were from Chechnya and wanted to seize control of chemical weapons or nuclear material stored in the laboratories. The world is full of crazy people…
This afternoon I did some shopping. Three Kings Night is coming up. The mall near my house was packed with people buying gifts. I ran up my credit card buying tons of food, several five-liter jugs of water, a couple of powerful flashlights, and lots and lots of batteries on account of the damn power outages, and some electrical equipment, especially cable. If I’m going to install solar panels on the roof, I’d better be ready for some glitches. I also bought a ton of food for Lucullus, my Persian cat, who’s been ignoring me lately.
Some girl kitty in the neighborhood must be in heat. Lucullus thinks it’s his duty to shower her with his attention. He’s constantly jumping the wall in search of adventure. That wall’s ten feet high! What a guy won’t do for a girl!
I went to the store that installs solar panels and bought a couple of BP Solar SX170 panels. They were pretty expensive. All totaled, including installation (they’ll be here tomorrow to install them), it came to two thousand euros (storage batteries not included), but it’s the best on the market. Each panel weighs about fifteen pounds, so they can be installed on the roof without caving it in. They’re multicrystalline silicone cells guaranteed to last twenty-five years. With the two panels on the roof, I can charge two series of 24-volt storage batteries even in a place like Galicia where there’s so little sun. That’s crucial if I don’t want food in the two freezers in the basement to spoil.
I don’t have a lot of time to shop, so I stock up. That way I only have to go to the store every couple of weeks. These freezers are a great invention.
On the way home, I stopped at the liquor store and bought a couple of cartons of Fortuna cigarettes and a pad of paper, for when inspiration hits me. As I was waiting to pay, I saw a couple of guys in the gun shop across the street buying shotgun shells. It’s hunting season, and there’s a festival to kick it off. It’ll be a long weekend for them.
When I got home, I put away my purchases and mowed the lawn as I listened to the radio. My backyard is only about five hundred square feet. I have a lot of privacy, with the wall around it. The house is brick and is in a development of forty identical brick villas, in rows of ten, on two parallel streets. Mine is in the middle of Street 1. It doesn’t have a real name, since the development is less than three years old. These things take time. There’s a house on each side of me and one in the back, facing Street 2. A small backyard and a wall, about ten feet high, separate me from the villa behind me.
I don’t know my neighbors very well, since I’m hardly ever at home. A very nice retired couple with a Pathfinder lives across the street. Next door is a doctor and his wife and two young daughters. A cool guy named Alfredo lives on the other side. He works construction and lives with his girlfriend. I live with my cat Lucullus, the horniest devil on the street. One of these days a hysterical neighbor will show up at my door with a box of kittens the spitting image of Lucullus, demanding an explanation. I have to do something with that cat.
On the radio they are still reporting news of Dagestan. It looks like the situation is spinning out of control. The Putin government continues the news blackout and sends in more and more troops and medical personnel. What the hell’s going on?
ENTRY 5: SOMETHING’S NOT RIGHT
This morning a crew of guys installed my new solar panels. They’re rated at 220W in optimal conditions of luminosity. The two rows of 24-volt batteries in the basement will give me about eight hours of electricity a day, more than enough to weather any power outage.
I called my sister in Barcelona to talk for a while. This weekend she’s going to visit a friend in Girona. She said she’s fine, and after some small talk, we hung up.
On TV they keep showing images from Dagestan. According to the latest news (what little there is, given the media blackout), Russian authorities have begun to evacuate the population. In the assault on the Russian base, Chechen rebels must have accidentally released some kind of chemical weapon stored there. On Channel 1, Lorenzo Mila, the highly respected newscaster from Barcelona, speculated it might have been sarin gas, what terrorists used in the attack in Tokyo. Channel 5 reported it might’ve been the hydrogen peroxide the Soviets used in their intercontinental missiles.
I don’t think anyone knows for sure what’s going on.
ENTRY 6
Something’s really wrong in Russia. This weekend there has been a steady stream of news updates, statements, denials of those statements, blackouts, and violence. For the last forty-eight hours, nonstop on every channel, all they’ve talked about is the events in Dagestan.
On Friday morning they closed Russia’s borders. That afternoon, Reuters reported that the raided base was really a biological research laboratory and that the substance accidentally released was some kind of pathogenic agent. Hours later, the Putin government categorically refuted that and talked only about a cloud of toxic chemical fertilizers. By breakfast time on Saturday, we learned that Russia had requested a team from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta to come to Dagestan.
Now they’re saying they released the highly contagious West Nile virus that was endemic in Egypt. A few years ago a mosquito transmitting the disease found its way on to a plane. Since 1995 there’ve been isolated cases in Europe and South America. That
On Sunday, things seemed to spin out of control. Just five hours after the CDC team arrived, just as they started to care for the poisoned—or should I say
Late that night, something similar happened to a team from the World Health Organization (WHO). They were rushed to the base at Ramstein, Germany. Some Internet sites are saying that members of the team were killed.
We don’t have much information on the Russian medical teams, if they even have any, or the civilian population in the area. Home videos smuggled out of the country, mostly online, showed long convoys of people fleeing or being evacuated, some with pretty bad wounds, and lots and lots of ambulances. Army troops and Russian Border Guards in combat gear are headed in the opposite direction, toward what is now called the hot zone.
And this morning, the nail in the coffin. The Russian government declared martial law. All foreign journalists had to leave the country. No more freedom of assembly or the press. What’s even weirder, they declared an Internet blackout across the country. Nothing can get in or out—in theory, anyway.
This morning our minister of health came on Channel 1 and said that the Spanish government will ensure that there are no outbreaks of West Nile in Spain. There’s no cause for alarm. On Channel SER, the minister of defense said that a team of army medical personnel and construction engineers are headed to Dagestan to help control the situation. He emphasized that they won’t be in danger. Blah, blah, blah.
Half of Europe, Japan, the United States, and Australia are sending similar teams. Something is happening in Russia. Something huge.
