The Orange Dawn

The movie was silly, really, that is what a particular young agent thought.

The Red Dawn was released in 1984. The KGB often distributed books, magazines, and movies such as this one. Their goal was to give agents a feel for the American mindset. This movie was about a handful of ragtag American high schoolers who valiantly fought back against an invasion of America.

But what was it, the agent wondered, that intrigued him so about this movie? It captured the essence of America, with all its wide-eyed sincerity, he decided. And for a couple years he let the movie capture him. He watched it over and over. After a long days work, it helped him unwind. It kept drawing him back and all the while, as the images flickered in his eyes, he whispered, silly little movie.

Eventually, other events overtook his attention. He forgot about the movie. The Soviet Union collapsed. And this ex-KGB agent began climbing the ranks of the new Russia that emerged from that rubble. Little could he have known the inspiration this movie would be for him decades later in a new mission. The biggest mission he'd ever attempted.

And he saw it almost as a vision. It was the paratroopers scene he'd watched so many times in the beginning of the movie. He found the old movie and put it in again. This time, when the parachutes started dropping his heart actually quickened. He started seeing the scene in slow motion. And he knew. He knew. He could land in America with a new kind of parachute. An invisible propaganda parachute. He would drop it/them right into the heart of America, without ever actually stepping foot on their ground. And he would do it all via the Internet.

In that moment, he understood. And he went to work. They all went to work. They gathered a massive army from the new FSB in Russia and recruited the best and brightest of their Intelligence. Establishing them as your typical American was easy, as they were trained to think and walk and talk like an American anyway. They then turned this well-trained army loose on Face Book pages and the Internet to help turn America against itself. It was such a very simple feat.

It all culminated on a fateful day a few years later when that ridiculous man descended those escalators, destined to become the leader of the free world.The former agent laughed to himself. He'd been working such long hours and he began laughing and laughing. He pulled himself together and whispered silently to himself, of the orange man on the screen, The Orange Dawn. And he laughed again, tears in his eyes, doubled over. He was about to invade America.