The Devil's Handshake (15 page)

She perked up straight away when she spotted
the young girl’s disappointment that he done so.

“
That’s right, Jelep! He’s
mine,” Nara thought glibly, ignoring the fact that she wasn’t much
older than the girl herself when she entered her Thomas’s life all
those years ago.

“
Why don’t you ladies do the
ordering tonight?” Thomas asked.

“
That’s a fabulous idea,
Thomas!” Steve replied jovially, in support of his friend and
business partner.

Much to Daniele’s annoyance, Nara immediately
asserted her place as a senior female and did just that. She put
the little starlet back in her place by not even consulting with
the girl on the food for the night.

Inwardly Thomas chuckled, “God, she can be
such a little cow when she wants to be,” he thought having spotted
straight away Nara displeasure over the way Danielle had been
flirting with him. “But a sexy one,” he added,

With the conversation over dinner touching on
places, art, and music, interjected with several interruptions by
fans for Daniele, friends of Nara, or business associates of both
men, the point had come for them to discuss their business.

Taking her cue from Thomas with one of his
famous winks, Nara suggested that Daniele and she go to the powder
room. Again Thomas could instantly see it had infuriated the young
starlet who had spent the entire dinner flirting with both him and
Steve not to mention enjoying the attention of her fans, if not
offering much on the subjects of general conversation.

But just as Daniele was about to decline,
Steve backed up Nara by suggesting or ordering her to do so,
depending on your point of view. Only then did the pretty teenager
take the hint and did as she was told.

With the ladies out of earshot, the two men
turned to business.

“
Did McGiven take the bait?”
Thomas asked as he sipped his chilled Sake.

“
Because if the Chief of
Staff hadn’t taken the bait, then the both of them were going to
have to come up some other another angle they might be able to use
because for all your planning or planting of seeds, you just don’t
control an individual’s understanding of the situation until it is
presented to them,” Thomas thought, using one of Homer’s quotes on
the aspects of human nature.

“
Pretty much like you had
said,” Steve responded to the point at which, Thomas nodded and
began to relax.

When the Mayor had first informed them of his
desire for TLH to put forward the offer of a new Russian military
base in Adwalland as part of his proposed infrastructure investment
package into the new country by using the argument that it would
support the Russian oil companies entering the region, Thomas had
quickly grasped the dressed up offer for what it was: “Russia was
re-entering the great game.”

With the negotiations completed and the
Memorandum of Understanding initialed and agreed with the
Government and with the formal signing process to be completed in
Borama after he had agreed the deal with the greedy minister on the
yacht over the weekend, the only thing of the investment program
that needed to be handled was the planned construction of the
Russian Navy base on the coast of Africa’s newest country.

At the meeting with the Mayor, he knew
instantly why the Mayor had chosen him.

“
Christ,” Thomas had
exclaimed. “It’s like setting up shop in a ‘surrogate’
Cuba!”

“
Yes, it could argue that it
may not be ninety miles off the coast of America, but it may as
well have been, with the Horn of Africa being one of the world’s
significant trading routes, has and sees eleven percent of the
world’s trade passing through it and by definition a ‘choke point.
Ukraine was only a test of resolve!” Thomas grimly
thought.

Desperate not to be drawn into the political
game, Thomas had started to argue that Gazprom as a state entity
might be better placed to handle the offer of a military support.
The Mayor had waved his hand dismissively as if irritated.

“
Why do you think I have
selected you, Fama!” he had said in English, with the use of
Russian name instead of Thomas.

With a large shareholding in the U.S. media
company sitting alongside his oil interests, it had quickly dawned
on him why he was the chosen one. He was the perfect political
proxy.

“
I should have known! He
knows full well that their great enemy isn’t going allow a base a
hundred and twenty miles away from their own one in Djibouti! Not
without some kind of response, especially after the bloody nose he
had given them in Syria and the Ukraine,” Thomas had
mused.

Having been put firmly in his place, Thomas
then had known what this meant.

TLH and thereby him as the company’s owner
were about to become a piece on the Mayor’s chessboard.

This meant Thomas was going to have to
protect his position. If he did not then the collateral damage cost
to his family and those who depend on him would be measured in
billions of U.S. dollars.

Figuring he would at least try and be the one
piece on the board that can escape from attack of a Queen, Thomas
had formulated a plan.

Over the years, chess often acted as a
sounding board in his strategizing when he started to think through
a problem in business. It was something his father in one of their
few moments of parental interaction had taught him when they
holidayed at his estate outside Florence.

He still remembered that day like it was
yesterday

“
A knight can only move one
square horizontally and two squares vertically or one square
vertically and two squares horizontally, however its ability to
move over the other pieces to a free square or capture the piece on
that square makes the knight special,” his father had said showing
him the moves.

“
In the best circumstances,
Tommy,” his father continued, “he can sidestep an attack.” Again,
he showed him the moves.

“
A King moves one space in
either direction so is limited in his movement, but he must be
protected at all costs. A Queen is seen by many as the most
powerful piece on the board, hence why it is always attacked or
coveted as it reflects the power and strength,” his father said
smiling before he took a puff of his cigar. “A knight though,
always has the ability to sidestep an attack and survive!” he
stated through the smoke surrounding him.

“
My friends, albeit
unwittingly, are the Knights,” Thomas decided. “A controlled leak
through Steve is the perfect way to kick start the backchannels,”
Thomas concluded. In his heart he hoped it would be political
grandstanding but with recent state of relations between the two
protagonists at recent all-time low it made sense to Thomas to try
and have an insurance policy.

History taught Thomas that the world’s
conflicts were either started or ultimately stopped because men
worked in the shadows of diplomacy and despite trying hard to avoid
it, Thomas now found himself to be such a man.

“
It will be just like when
Kennedy used Scali in that role in the Cuban crisis in 1961 as the
tensions, really started to rise,” Thomas had said during his call
to Steve while he was on the plane flying across Africa, referring
to the famous news reporter who had acted as a back channel, as he
was trying to convince Steve to use his contacts on his
behalf.

“
I have no doubt you will be
able to earn yourself a lot of favors,” he had offered as Thomas
had continued his charm offensive, knowing full well his friend was
thinking of a political career in the future, as it was something
Steve had mentioned during their last dinner together.

In the Cuban crisis, the famous journalist
had been rewarded with an Ambassadorship for service to his
country, and as they took out their phones, Thomas wondered what
reward his friend would seek.

Personally Thomas had never sought power or
wealth though he readily accepted that it be could be argued he had
both. His mantra was more akin to a quote he had once heard the
late Margaret Thatcher say at Hereford during a visit to the base,
to thank the men personally for their efforts in Northern Ireland:
“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people
you are, you aren’t.”

Although she had used it as a sound bite to
justify why their undercover work had to remain secret.

In Thomas’s case he used it to justify his
desire to survive.

Irrespective of your wealth and power, if you
suddenly found yourself the target of a country’s wrath above the
line then you sure as hell not going to survive unless you had a
piece of leverage, pure and simple.

When Steve had suggested it might be
appropriate for him to call McGiven, to brief him on the background
behind the deal, Thomas had quickly grasped at his friend’s
suggestion because it enabled three things.

Firstly, he knew that it would establish
Steve’s credentials as a potential backchannel that might be
trusted by the State Department, if needed at some point. When his
friend had recommended McGiven, he later admitted to himself after
the call that it had gone better than he had hoped. For, until
Steve had proposed McGiven himself, the best Thomas had hoped for
was a high level introduction to somebody appropriate within the
Administration.

This was high as it got: ‘Two degrees of
separation’.

Secondly, by involving his friend personally,
Thomas knew that by playing to his ego as a CEO of a world media
group, he was now a ’world player’ in forging public opinion, not
just feeding them the ideas of others. This meant that as long as
he was smart and managed it carefully Thomas could pull the strings
on the message and at the same time, ensure his overriding goal
that being the protection of TLH’s commercial position.

Lastly, though, on this part of his plan he
couldn’t be sure that there wasn’t a guarantee that anybody was
listening, he was sending a signal to the Mayor that the ball was
in play, thereby putting in place his survival goal of his
plan.

His mind reflected on that last part of the
plan for a few moments.

“
Yes,” he concluded. “It may
be speculative to assume that SVR was monitoring all my
communications just as it would be to assume that the National
Security Organizations of the United States had been monitoring
those calls but assume otherwise would be stupid.”

So much so, it was something he shared with
Steve. They had both taken their batteries out of their phones and
placed them on the table before they started their update.

“
One thing life’s taught
me,” Thomas said as he opened up the back of the phone. “The day
you stop attempting to work out what would the other side was going
to do in their situation would either be your last day on earth or
it will end up costing you money.”

Steve laughed and then said, “One thing
Snowden’s affair has shown the world was that with the Cyber
Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act allowing for the sharing of
Internet traffic information between the U.S. government and
technology and manufacturing companies it would be foolish not to
assume that from the moment I called Joe McGiven, if not before,
then all our communications together are going to be recorded and
reviewed. So don’t worry, I am on the same page, old buddy.”

Thomas smiled at his friend. “Excellent
Stevie! Welcome to the great game,” he said, offering him a toast
in response.

“
Hell, Tommy,” Steve replied
as he picked up his drink. “If I pull this off I might even have a
run at the Presidency myself one day!” he said, his ego rising to
the surface as he tapped Thomas’s sake shot with his
own.

“
Indeed,” answered Thomas
before he started to brief him on the next parts of the plan over
the coming weeks.

He thought, “I might have guessed an
Ambassadorship wouldn’t cut it for the famous Steve Krivets!” in
reference to the question he asked as he presented his idea.

Moments later, with heads turning in their
direction from restaurant, scores of celebrity watchers of London,
the ‘jailbait’ looking Daniele and his stunning life’s companion
walked back to join them.

“
Stevie if you’re really
serious about being President one day you’re certainly going have
to give up ‘pursuits’ like that!” said Thomas in his best sage-like
voice laced with a little humor.

“
Yeah I know, buddy, but
just not yet!” he laughed while offering his friend another
toast.

Returning to the table, having changed places
with Daniele so she could sit next him, Nara took his hand and he
instantly responded with a little squeeze of his own, his signal he
had finished his business for the evening.

Allowing normal conversation to resume until
the meal ended with both Titans having a mock fight as who paid the
bill. The honor fell to Steve.

“
Keep in touch,” he said to
Steve as they hugged each other.

“
I will, buddy,” Steve
responded as they left the restaurant together, but not before each
man’s various protection teams took up their anti-threat positions,
to allow their charges to get into their various limos as the
blinding wall of light from the awaiting paparazzi lit up the night
again.

Awake, having looked at the clock by the side
of the bed and seeing that it was seven o’clock, Thomas quickly
realized that he had only three hours sleep. Getting up, despite
his body telling him not to, as he had a meeting at ten with the
Prime Minister, he slid quietly from beneath the linen sheets
trying hard not to disturb the sleeping Nara knowing she was not
due to fly to Nice until midday.