Ep 2 | Killing Tiberius

20:24Thomas Mitchells:I'm glad to be finally working for you in some capacity, Pilgrim. Shepard couldn't happen in Cheltenham.

20:29Luke Jasztal:Very nearly at Sonak.

20:31Thomas Mitchells:Ship's in the night.

20:32Luke Jasztal:You in a U.S. warship, of course, and me in a little English rowing boat. That's who pays the bills these days, is it not, Mr. Shaw?

20:40Thomas Mitchells:That's right. Defense contractors. All U.S. We're talking joint exercises, hybrid conflict planning, all of that.

20:49Luke Jasztal:Yes, sir. And you, I don't know too well, Wynne Ellis. Her good things? Likewise. Thank you for having me. I'm somewhat blinded by the sparkle of your CV, so do forgive the squinting. PhD in International Relations and Strategic Geography. Senior Policy Fellow for ECFR on Eastern Europe and Russia. Centre for European Policy Analysis, focusing on NATO's eastern flank. German Council on Foreign Institute Relations. Finnish Institute of International Affairs. And the Polish one too. Three years at Globsec in Bratislava, regional advisor, Ukraine, KUK, Moldova. Senior researcher for Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, focusing on arms dynamics.

21:35Luke Jasztal:Visiting program lead at ORF, focusing on the India-Russia-China triangle. And finally, senior lecturer and course director at NATO Defence College. Speaks English, French, Russian, Mandarin, German, Arabic and Welsh. Pronoun that. Is that good afternoon or something?

21:55Thomas Mitchells:Exactly that, Mr Moore.

21:57Luke Jasztal:Very impressive. Right, well, we have a fun little project, the bones of which are in here. But the flesh that comes now, from us, in this room, today.

22:14Thomas Mitchells:Can you clarify the origin of this line of inquiry? No. This is a theoretical exercise? Because if we're evaluating risk to the contributors, as it were, we would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today, and disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO. A FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia? Yes. As a terror cell unit?

22:53Luke Jasztal:Potentially. Money and institutional influence will, in this exercise, side with the unit, however. Alma, gentlemen. Asymmetric lethal mitigation advisory. Not going to be diplomacy by numbers, is it?

23:14Thomas Mitchells:This is extremely fucking asymmetrical.

23:17Luke Jasztal:It has to be.

23:19Thomas Mitchells:I mean this Grey Zone warfare, Pilgrim, then there's this.

23:23Luke Jasztal:Yes, but Wyn's friends at NATO don't participate on the Grey Zone battlefields, do they? We are Grey Zone pacifists. These are counterweight operations to a system that could become compromised. You two, both unable to stick it out to rise through the ranks at MI6, MOD, GCHQ. you're not getting any work with the cabinet any time soon. And the days of protecting this country from the threat of Russia are being counted down every day. All you have to do is look along the bottom of Sky News. The British people are heading to the polls imminently. That's the clock. Then everything you've ever done, studied, trained for, advised on comes to an end.

24:15Luke Jasztal:London Grad is going to sell one final townhouse to the Russians. Number 10 Downing Street. Six bed, six bath and a home office that controls the greatest nation this world has ever known. You want to talk about Grey's own warfare? We've damn near lost it, Simeon.

24:39Thomas Mitchells:I... Look, I suppose the simple pushback on the premise is that this is a declaration of war. Nobody is declaring war. Non-state or semi-deniable violence can absolutely still trigger state liability and war. Black Hand, 1914. Ergun, 1940. Viet Cong, PLO. Hezbollah. Little green men. If... Look, you know, Iran are strategically responsible for the Houthis. Houthis are trained and funded. Even if the actor is just tolerated or merely unrestrained, history is consistent, Mr Moore. Brutally so. Global. Millions of lives.

25:21Luke Jasztal:Could be billions. No. One life. Just one. One life to pay for many. Hey, just a feasibility study. Just a game.

25:40Thomas Mitchells:Consider the strategic partnerships for a -

25:43Luke Jasztal:Once again, we are still reading the rules!

25:49Luke Jasztal:Are we going to play? Or not?

26:04Thomas Mitchells:The... Assassin. Mm-hmm. Do we need to get him home?

26:20Prime Minister?

26:21Thomas Mitchells:Pilgrim, how's everything?

26:27Luke Jasztal:Slow, but steady.

26:31Thomas Mitchells:Having a cigarette?

26:32Luke Jasztal:Have you banned that too? Haven't had my phone on.

26:37Thomas Mitchells:Seriously, a cigarette?

26:39Luke Jasztal:The cancer is in my pancreas. Not my lungs, Prime Minister. Pilgrim, um, keep, uh, I suppose keep it going, but I've got...

26:50Thomas Mitchells:I'm meeting the US President in Paris.

26:54Luke Jasztal:Mm-hmm.

26:55Thomas Mitchells:Mel's coming with me. We're giving them the, um... We're putting our... We're putting our position forward for... For super sanctions.

27:08Luke Jasztal:Super sanctions? Yeah, that's right. Goodness me. Who needs Trident when you have super sanctions?

27:20Thomas Mitchells:Pilgrim, I'm exploring. Okay? I'm exploring avenues, options... As am I, Prime Minister.

27:41Breathe.

27:43Thomas Mitchells:Breathe with me now. I'm flagging. You're not fucking flagging. You're not flagging. You're in pain. You know what they say about pain, yeah? Weakness.

27:57Leaving the body.

27:59Thomas Mitchells:That's right. Every breath out. Off it fucks, eh? Cleanse it. Get rid of it. You're not weak. You're a ranger Surrounded by the finest soldiers Your nation produces Are your lungs burning?

28:13Luke Jasztal:Yes sir

28:14Thomas Mitchells:Well I'll tell you what Look around you These red flowering trees I read right That's the Ohio Lawua Native trees of Hawaii They grow on lava flows On fucking lava The locals make weapons from the wood That grows from fucking lava Fucking badass too fucking right what's your name Barnett I can read what's your name Roman Roman you're not some fucking house plant that whilps next to the couch because you got too toasty too comfortable yeah Roman you're the fucking Ohio Leroy molten rock and lava don't burn you not you hey pal it feeds you yeah we are gonna I'm gonna create a weapon out of you from the lava pit of your pain!

29:10Luke Jasztal:Right, that's it.

29:12Thomas Mitchells:We'll pass these lot. The man in front of you is your objective. Hunt him down, get past him and on to the next objective. That's how battles are fought and wars are won, man. That keeps your brothers and your sisters at home safe. Push on! Fuck these Mr. Universe cunts! Get past them! Look at the size of that guy! Vanity fitness over effective horsepower! Look at those gym bods! Look at them all! Right now their bodies are burning glycogen like a cheap Yankee engine burns petrol! Sorry, gasoline! War is mass! Do you want to add to your load? No! Do you fuck, Roman? Thank you, sir! Fucking pleasure!

29:54Thomas Mitchells:Grow in the fucking lava! Yes, sir! There's nutrients there, Roman, in pain, in grief. Let your roots search right down for it. Now go on! Go on! Get up there, Roman! Get up there!

30:17Luke Jasztal:You could kill the wrong one. Lookalikes. Yeah. So we need intelligence or... an occasion

30:27Thomas Mitchells:where you get the real Russian present. Correct. We had confirmation back in Feb, I think it was, that the real one was the keynote speaker at Vladivostok. Good. Eastern Economic Forum. We got a lip reader on his talks with South African leaders. It correlated to a conversation he'd had the year before about Regnum.

30:51Luke Jasztal:That would be frosty. Good for the South Africans.

30:54Thomas Mitchells:Yes. Regnum ran stories about South African corruption. He was contesting that. Well spotted. If you want your killer back from Vladivostok, you're in just about the most eastern location of Mother Russia there, fellas. Even more isolated than that, I'm afraid. The keynote speech takes place on Ruski Island, off the coast. Operationally isolated? Well, one bridge. Pretty rough seas on all sides. Let's see. No natural landing site, steep rock, Coastal radar coverage, naval patrols, batteries, bunkers, tunnels. Hundreds of miles across the East Sea to Japan. Even further to South Korea.

31:32Luke Jasztal:Mm-hmm.

31:33Thomas Mitchells:Very good. On land, it's even worse. 80 miles from China, 95 from North Korea. And actually, because of those immediate neighbours, the island itself is a kind of veneer. It's a point in the Far East that Russia has deliberately polished up as a sort of jewel. An inorganic one, you might say. University campus, conferences, summits, delegations. This sort of very managed openness.

32:02Luke Jasztal:That's a potential location, then. Give me a potential method.

32:08Thomas Mitchells:God almighty. So, ensuring that it's him, the real president.

32:13Luke Jasztal:Mm-hmm. Russian president. Rusky Island, Vladivostok. Keynote speech, Eastern Economic Forum, 6th June, 2026.

32:22Thomas Mitchells:Lead time is at least manageable.

32:24Luke Jasztal:Every point from now. Our assassin could begin their work in Russia.

32:30Thomas Mitchells:Off-grid, off all comms?

32:33Luke Jasztal:Correct.

32:34Thomas Mitchells:So the EEF takes place in a semi-permanent venue. It's put up at the beginning of the summer. Stages, pavilions, exhibits. Your assassin could work for the contractor. that builds up the event infrastructure? Plant the explosives in the stages and platforms itself? Maybe? How would that even work, logistically? Simeon? Bribery? Your only chance. Down at a military compound. We could look at regiment losses in the Donbass, find the most dissolutioned fuckers and try and break them for a few million rubles. Get a serious amount of explosives off them. Vladivostok is the administrative centre of Primorsky Krai.

33:15Thomas Mitchells:That region is consistently overrepresented in battlefield dead relative to population. More so. To them, the war isn't on the doorstep. It's 7 ,000 miles away. It's in a distant land. To say the conflict is unpopular would be underplaying it. After Primorsky Krai, there's Khabarovsky Krai, another major contributor of personnel and casualties. That's your region to the north. Again, favourable ground to exploit discontent.

33:46Luke Jasztal:Very good, Professor. High explosives under our keynote speaker. Remote detonation. Operative could leave 48, possibly even 72 hours before. So a head start for South Korea or Japan. Alternatively, through the Leopard National Park, take your chances across the border in Heilongjiang, China.

34:09Thomas Mitchells:I'd be more concerned about snow leopards than actual leopards. Snow leopards are Chinese special police units.

34:15Luke Jasztal:I know what the snow leopards are.

34:17Thomas Mitchells:Now, Russia can give you that opportunity with the corruption, the discord in the Far East, but otherwise, trying to pull this off in Russia itself, that's a problem.

34:26Luke Jasztal:Yes, please, Mr. Shaw. That's what we like to hear. What is this problem? You're in Russia. That's a problem? Because last time I checked, our target was based there. That's a big fucking problem.

34:39Thomas Mitchells:Russia are nothing outside their borders, but inside they control everything. Everything. It is a den, Mr Moore. Russia is a winter den. There's nothing they won't do to defend it. Another history lesson. Thank you. You are choosing to take on FSB in their own backyard. I know we're strategising a particular phase of an action, but look at the outcomes for a second. FSB will either treat this as a Ukraine problem, and you'd be looking at a tactical nuclear strike, as their retaliation, or at least their FOAB, or they'll treat this as a domestic problem. Domestic threats include Chechens, Caucasus Emirate, Islamic State, NRA.

35:20Thomas Mitchells:Let's say you do this in Vladivostok. Maybe they wait Buryat Republic and the Yakutsk too, just as a matter of geographics. you will embolden Ruskia versus Rossiane.

35:32Luke Jasztal:The ethnic Russians versus the administered margins.

35:36Thomas Mitchells:Yes. And this is a gift to the already overpowered Syloviki, to the Impertsi, to the Dershavniki. This would make them stronger. You're decapitating a regime for no gain whatsoever.

35:50Luke Jasztal:And that's why this is Plan B.

36:03Thomas Mitchells:Greet him in the centre, beneath the logo. Mm-hmm. Shake. He doesn't want longer than five or six seconds. He has a bruised hand. Yeah. His comms team have talked about your left hand. My left hand? They don't want it planted on the president's forearm. I'll try my best. A few photos, then move off. No questions. No questions. Not here, no. and no questions later on BA236 or Ukraine. Christ. Exit stage right with his team once handshake concludes.

36:34Luke Jasztal:Will do.

36:40Thomas Mitchells:Mr President. Prime Minister, how are you? I'm good. Oh, you look good out now. You look great. And you, sir? Excited to have these conversations. So exciting. Truly such an opportunity to sit and talk. I love opportunities. Love them. You like opportunities too, Alex. I, yeah, I love opportunities too. Josh is Department of Business and Trade, and this is Mel Murray. As well as being a close friend, sometimes enemy. Double's partner too, tennis. Oh, tennis. Wow. Brutal, sir. Oh, I bet. Mel is also Acting Director of the Secret Intelligence Service. MI6, sir. Like James Bond. Mmm, MI6. Hey now, hey now, that's so great.

37:27Thomas Mitchells:Really top-notch intelligence agency. Hey, Mel, Mel, take a seat. Alex, come sit, sit right here. Thank you so much. Straight to what we're talking about. What we talked about, talking about. Our much-discussed frustration with the... I'm just reading your notes, I'm listening. Great. We feel the next step is, and we'd like your team to use this moniker too when these discussions are concluded, we are constructing super sanctions. Super sanctions? Wow, okay. And they'll be armed and turbocharged to blow apart the economies of hostile states. Holy shit. That's some powerful stuff. Powerful stuff.

38:20Thomas Mitchells:Full repurposing of confiscated assets. Block on maritime insurance. That's what we call the Lloyd's line in the document. Any vessel containing Russian goods immediately cut off from the City of London. And that's a big thing. That would have actual financial consequences. Absolutely, sir. It may not always look like it, but Britannia still rules the waves.

38:50Thomas Mitchells:And a financial chokehold with secondary bank sanctions. Banks that deal with Russian institutions, or Iranian ones, right?

39:00Luke Jasztal:Mm-hmm.

39:01Thomas Mitchells:They lose access to UK-US markets. Super sanctions. Super sanctions. Oh, great stuff. What is the objective? Prime Minister? So the objective is for Russia to admit responsibility. This is regarding the plane? Yes. Admit responsibility. But crucially to withdraw from Grey Zone conflict entirely. It's a peace plan, in a sense. But Russia needs to. There needs to be... Oh, great. Yes. Oh, yes, Beth. Beth, bring that through here. This is so exciting. I didn't think they'd get it here, but they got it here. So I spoke with Mark. Your guy. U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. Yeah, yeah, great guy, great guy.

39:56Thomas Mitchells:He's doing a good job. You like Mark? Mark's great. He told me you guys had a Super Bowl night over there one time in London. He said you were quite the fan.

40:09Thomas Mitchells:Yeah, many lost early hours to American football. Seahawks! Yes. Yeah, you love the Seahawks, right? Right, yes. I spoke to the owner. I got this. Look at that. Look at that. Look at the back. Wow. His jersey from the Super Bowl, from the game. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that amazing? Thank you, Mr. President. And as the end of your time approaches, and it's been great. You've been doing amazing things. Absolutely amazing things, truly. Fingers crossed still. Oh, of course, of course. This is politics, and I wanted to make sure I got this done now. After your term. I spoke to the league, to many of the team owners, too.

40:48Thomas Mitchells:They're all friends of mine. We go way back, do anything I ask of them. I spoke to them. I told them about you, about your leadership, about your skills. They want to talk to you about becoming a global representative for the league. You'd be speaking to the teams about your expertise. You'd be... Special representative was the title. How's that sound? Special representative, huh? Special representative. Special representative for the special relationship. I could write headlines, couldn't I? Write the headlines myself. Maybe look into that. Sir, you should. You totally should. I mean, amazing offer.

41:29Thomas Mitchells:Isn't it? What a way to go out. Huh, Alex? A new life. A new start. Doing what you love. That's beautiful, right? Absolutely beautiful. Beautiful. You want to go out with a bang? Yeah. Of course.

41:50Luke Jasztal:Ah, that'll be Mr. Marcel.

41:55Hi.

41:56Thomas Mitchells:You're Sir Pilgrim Moore, aren't you?

41:58Luke Jasztal:I am. You are Daniel Marcel.

42:00Thomas Mitchells:Yes, that's me. I'm genuinely honoured. Hello.

42:04Luke Jasztal:Daniel, this is Simeon Shaw, former army man, then mortgaged his soul for cyber at Cheltenham, then remortgaged for some US arms manufacturers.

42:13Thomas Mitchells:Good to meet you. You too.

42:15Luke Jasztal:And this is Wynne Ellis. Hi. Hello. Future Sec General of NATO from the sounds of it. If there is such a thing in 10 years.

42:23Thomas Mitchells:Amazing. Amazing. Wow. Great stuff. I'm just going to sit down here. And this, the Alma Project, you're looking for risk assessment analysis? Are we talking predetermined covered assets or kind of zoom out like macro decision?

42:39Luke Jasztal:Daniel works in insurance.

42:43Thomas Mitchells:Yes, sorry. I'm Daniel Marcel. I'm a strategic risk advisor for Anthems. Don't know if you know Anthems? No. Boutique agency in the city. I do brokerage too and underwriting, so that's sort of three in one. But generally I spend most of my time in risk research strategy. Great.

43:07Luke Jasztal:Do you take a lot of risks yourself, Daniel?

43:13Thomas Mitchells:Can do, yeah, can do. Yep.

43:17Luke Jasztal:You did with this.

43:24Aha.

43:26Thomas Mitchells:What's that?

43:27Luke Jasztal:It's a novel. It's rather good. Daniel quit a Ministry of Defence job to write it. That's a risk, isn't it?

43:35Thomas Mitchells:That was... That's... No. So that's actually my last one. I did red team which sold quite well.

43:42Luke Jasztal:Tell us what it's about.

43:44Thomas Mitchells:Red team? No.

43:47Luke Jasztal:This one.

43:49Thomas Mitchells:So there's this spad. So at the start his wife is in this car accident and he doesn't know it at the time but she was actually pregnant with what he thinks.

44:00Luke Jasztal:Could we skip forward a few chapters?

44:02Thomas Mitchells:Right, yeah. So skipping forward, the kind of central premise is that, Well, so Tiberius is the codename for the president of Russia, and the British have a plan to kill him, right? Which is? Well, they get Britain's best soldier. Britain's best soldier. How exactly would that be determined? In what metric? It's fiction, Professor Ellis. Right, and they retire him, special forces retire him and send him to China to assassinate, to kill Tiberius. And it's kind of, you know, it's kind of exploratory. Like, it's a deeply personal story. Why China? Well, I mean, it's a bit... MOD Day's got the better of me in writing it, so it's, like, massively over-detailed in that.

44:59Luke Jasztal:We'd like to hear it.

45:00Thomas Mitchells:Of course. So the Russian president visits China on a guaranteed recurring annual basis at a parade in Beijing every 3rd of September. To celebrate victory over Japan. Yes, yeah, exactly. So it's a guaranteed appearance of the actual president, not one of his doubles because of the nature of their diplomatic relationship. China, Russia, superpower, subservient power. But also, like, I go into this whole thing because for such visitations, China has to sign off the security personnel. It becomes a kind of skeleton security staff for the Russian president. And they have to take that, you know, it's China.

45:39Thomas Mitchells:They're dependent on China. So he does it there in Beijing. The soldier does. Because the president's security and FSB are at a disadvantage. Yes. Yeah. I think the characters weren't fully fleshed out, but I enjoyed kind of workshopping all of that. What happens? You want spoilers? Well, okay. What, diplomatically what happens? Because, I mean, really, if that happened in China, the Chinese wouldn't warrant a Russian investigation. No way. And you've immediately pushed Russia away. It's a split. A quite traumatic, sudden rift. In that partnership. Right between them. So the next president has to...

46:23Thomas Mitchells:Has to be anti-China. Has to be, rather than anti-Chechen or anti-ISIS. The US president, on the other hand... He fans the flames. Of course he does. Of course he does. Because nothing would be better for him than splitting Russia from China. Plus the bullet is Chinese. What? The rifle and round in the story is Chinese. That would be difficult for them, for Beijing. It would. They would go dark. So Britain's best soldier, how does he get into China? How does he get a Chinese rifle? The Brits retire him and he accepts a freelance training instructor gig, as it were, of Cameroon military. And when he's in Yaoundé...

47:13Thomas Mitchells:Ah, of course. Yeah. Chinese infrastructure. Yes, exactly. Yes, the Chinese presence in Cameroon, they have a military and intelligence coalition with the Cameroonians, so the Brits, you know, they planned all this. It baits the Chinese to hire the standout Brit. Bingo. Yeah. And he's in China, what, training troops, police, what have you? Being the usage of firearms, yeah. And that's how he gets to be in China, with access to the rifle. Yeah, yeah. No, so that's killing Tiberius.

47:51Thomas Mitchells:Anyway, no. So, Mr Moore, regarding your initial queries on the...

48:16Luke Jasztal:I said find yourself a heretic. You've gone for an insurance analyst. But a bloody good one, Albert. Now. You must call your knight to arms. It's not a simple task. Yes. I best go. The heretic approaches. All good? Yeah. Interesting day. Thank you for your efforts, Daniel.

48:41Thomas Mitchells:Pleasure. I'll, um... Just invoice. Yeah. Same email? Same one. Great. Great.

48:49Luke Jasztal:Oh, I can't ignore this call, I'm afraid. Of course. No, yeah. Actually, could I get you, before you head off, to sign a copy of your book for a friend of mine?

49:00Thomas Mitchells:Aye, yeah, no worries at all, let me just...

49:05Luke Jasztal:Who's it to?

49:07Thomas Mitchells:Um, Alex.

49:09Luke Jasztal:Make it out to Alex. The British lion, the Chinese tiger, the Russian bear. That's the key, Alex, that's the key. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

49:29Luke Jasztal:We are not in Kansas anymore.

49:32Thomas Mitchells:Who is going to be able to pull this off?

49:34Luke Jasztal:This is the United Kingdom, Alex. We don't have the kids, but the men. The best in the world, Prime Minister.

49:43Thomas Mitchells:I'm sure.

49:44Luke Jasztal:What did the Ukrainians ask for? What did they ask for more than anything? Train us. Train our men. To fight like the Brits do.

49:55Thomas Mitchells:Yeah.

49:56Luke Jasztal:They're not asking the fucking French, the Yanks, even the US Department of War. They know. We bring in nearly 100 million a year training their meatheads. It had to be this. It had to be this. Centuries ago, we wouldn't have sent an armada. It would have been a knight. An exemplar. A champion. A paladin of the crown. Put a Brit on the ground and the job will be done. But your super sanctions, of course. Are they armed and ready for launch? No.

50:46Thomas Mitchells:Not something the President wanted to discuss. He's somewhat rather creatively trying to distract me from my position on it. This operative. In the scenario you drew up, what is he exactly? Well,

51:08Luke Jasztal:Britain's best soldier was the descriptor. How we identify such a person will take some investigation on my part. And his payment would have to be reflective of the task.

51:24Thomas Mitchells:Leave it with me.

51:26Luke Jasztal:With pleasure. Good night, Prime Minister.

51:31Thomas Mitchells:Cheers, Pilgrim.

51:37Yes, sir.

51:38Thomas Mitchells:Robbo, how long were you Special Forces for? Fourteen years, sir. Saw plenty of action. Never too much action, sir. Of course. If I was to ask you who Britain's best soldier was... I know. In what area or discipline, exactly? Just, if someone asked you that, some layman like me, would you have an answer? I would, sir. I would.

52:30Thomas Mitchells:K.I.A. K.I.A. Wounded K.I.A. How did we find ourselves down here, gents? As a unit, We wanted to isolate where the enemy acoustics were coming from. Your operational home is in Texas, right? Where do you train? We'll train at Fort Irwin from time to time. So the fucking desert, basically. Yes, sir. Perfect training ground for Afghanistan. Open desert, visibility for miles, and nowhere to hide from the United States Air Force orbiting above you. This is the fucking jungle. I've fought in the desert. I've trained in Belize. You can be ten feet away from an enemy platoon on hard routine and none of your fancy sensors will know about them.

53:18Thomas Mitchells:You need to trust basic soldiering skills. Look at the ground. Listen to the jungle. Like now. What do you hear? Hear that? Could you track him? Or did he just fucking sneak up on us? Yeah, kind of sneaked. You need to learn to read the jungle. Right now, it's not your friend. Especially at night. The noise disperses much further than you or your drones can see. You need to do a little dispersing yourself, Sergeant McDuff.

53:52Luke Jasztal:Do I now? Somebody wants you back home.

54:12Thank you.

54:38Thank you.