The Devil's Handshake (18 page)

“
Yes Elizabeth, that
scenario could be easily presented,” Thomas replied without
hesitation having expected it.

“
We would like you to
explain why you think it is vital that the British Government
should support your proposed investment plan and not to mention
provide its formal recognition of the Russian Government’s
intention to build a Naval base less than hundred and twenty miles
away from the Americans in Djibouti?” she continued.

He crossed his legs and relaxed and did just
that for the next forty-five minutes during a question and answer
discussion as Elizabeth, the PM, and the Foreign Secretary probed
him hard on the benefits versus the negatives of the erosion of
United States and British security relationship that would most
likely outcome from such an action and how it would help the
long-term interests of Britain. It was a tough sell; Thomas could
see everybody was less than convinced but knowing his hour was
almost up, nonetheless he decided to go for broke.

“
If Britain is going to
maintain its Energy Security position then its needs to do it by
allowing Joint Ventures of this nature, for if it vocally opposed
to them then our country’s major Nature Resource companies can kiss
goodbye the prospect of cheap power from Russian related
interests.” He paused to take a drink of water. “Britain just
cannot afford the cost of taking a neutral position, Prime
Minister,” he continued.

“
How do you know this
Thomas?” the Foreign Secretary queried.

“
The President of Russia,
unfortunately, made it abundantly clear to me in our last meeting,”
Thomas said delivering the Mayor’s back channel message somewhat
more diplomatically than when the man had actually said
it.

The room was silent for a moment whilst it
grimly absorbed his statement.

The UK, whether it liked it or not, was the
slave of the natural resources of Russia and Asia and as such it
had to always tread a tightrope in how it engaged above the line
with them whilst not appearing as allowing them to walk all over
them in front of the Americans who fuelled the Private Equity of
the British Economy. The problems of Ukraine remained fresh in both
politician’s minds. The prices of Natural Gas had spiked by ten
percent in the months following the crisis, as Russia punished
Europe for the sanctions they had placed on them.

The threat, masked as intelligence, that
Thomas had just delivered them was a bitter pill to swallow, as it
meant they would be facing additional Energy costs rises as they
approached the general election.

Thinking on his feet, the PM closed the
meeting with a request in very simple straightforward terms so he
could take advantage of the DA notice.

“
If Her Majesty Government
agrees to support Russia’s security proposal to safeguard joint
investment interests in this part of East Africa,” he paused before
continuing, “I assume your media interests will be fully briefed?”
He was referring to what he needed from TLH with respect to
positive media for his Party in the next general election in return
for his government’s support of his interests.

“
Of course, Prime Minister,”
Thomas replied without hesitation as he stared into the eyes of
Elizabeth, having noticed she was somewhat uncomfortable over the
misuse of the meeting for political capital instead of Her
Majesty’s nation’s security. As he did so, he remembered where they
had met.

Born of Algerian Jewish extraction whose
grandparents moved to London in the twenties, Rebecca Leiris was
forty-four years old, a graduate of Bristol in International
Relations where she had achieved a First, and was recruited as a
spy after applying for a position in the Foreign Office, only to be
offered the opportunity to work in SIS half way through her
interview. Never looking back, she truly loved her work and her
country.

She had never married due to the nature of
work or had any long term trusting relationships much to her
parents’ despair and who to this day still didn’t know she worked
in SIS as they thought she worked in the Foreign Office as an
undersecretary.

Only her brother knew, as her next of kin,
what she really did, and they had never told their parents, knowing
they would worry nonstop if they did. A specialist in Russian
affairs she had first come across Thomas Litchfield, as he was
then, in the early nineties when she had been placed at the Embassy
as part of the British Council and the British Ambassador had
introduced them at a party under her real name. This had happened
because her work at that time was merely analytical, and as such a
Non Official Cover (NOC) identity wasn’t needed.

Intrigued by his flawless Russian, not to
mention his rakish looks she checked him out only to find out that
he was a decorated former ex-Special Forces British Army officer
with some very interesting links to certain people emerging and
making their fortunes in Yeltsin-led Russia.

They had never met again despite him ringing
her to ask for a date, which she had turned down due to his rather
exotic business interests. Instead, she had placed him on SIS watch
list.

Over the years, Rebecca had watched him grow
into an immensely powerful man with his tentacles reaching way
beyond anything she imagined.

To her, Thomas, with a Russian child, Turkmen
mistress, and most importantly the fact that Putin had granted him
Russian Citizenship considering him an instrument of his new Russia
to the extent that he had used him to deliver the threat, appeared
to represent everything she most feared.

“
Above the law, able to move
within the corridors of power at will and a person who even had the
PM of the realm she was sworn to protect appearing to ask him for
favors!”

As the meeting broke up, Thomas followed his
instincts that for some unbeknownst reason was convinced that
Elizabeth held the key to his endeavor, not the Foreign
Secretary.

“
Elizabeth, you are most
welcome to have a cup of tea anytime you want with me if you feel
it would help” he offered.

“
Thank you, Sir Thomas. On
behalf of service I fully appreciate the offer,” the Foreign
Secretary answered for her before she had a chance to.

“
Excellent, that’s settled
then I am sure we can leave the both of you to work out the proper
place for the meeting,” said the PM laughing because he was
actually quite pleased with himself over the fact that he just
gotten an important endorsement from one of the country’s most
famous media barons for his run-up to the next General
Election.

Once on the road having left the building,
Thomas turned towards his Executive Chairman.

“
Brig, can you get
everything on Rebecca Leiris please?” he asked

“
Who the devil is that dear
boy?” Angus asked

“
The attractive lady you
just met,” Thomas replied nonplussed to the shocked former
Brigadier.

“
I am not going ask!” Angus
replied with a chuckle as they walked back up Downing Street to
join Mikhail and the team outside the British Empire’s gates of
power.

Whilst waiting in the lounge at the TAG
Aviation’s private airport at Farnborough Airport to travel to Nice
on one of the TLH’s G-4’s so she could organize The Libertine for
the weekend, Nara’s mind began to wander as she looked at the guest
list and the requirements.

When Thomas had first told her of the new
role as the Executive Manager, all those years ago he said it was
merely so he could bring her to England but when she found what
“The Libertine” was, she had seen it as another sign.

“
Allah was truly merciful,”
and that he was her guardian.

The yacht “The Libertine” was her favorite
place in the world when the passengers were only Thomas, Victoria,
and herself.

Earlier Victoria had made Nara happy when she
told her that she was starting to like the school in Somerset that
Thomas had insisted that their baby went to, despite Nara’s
forcible objections otherwise.

She missed her baby terribly and couldn’t
wait to see her again.

Although she was protected 24/7 by one of
Mikhail’s teams she always worried that someone would take her most
precious gift from God, and having seen the effort by the childlike
Jelep of Stevie only the night before as she attempted to flirt
with Thomas her mind begun to wrestle with the realization that as
she was getting older, her sell-by date was fast approaching.

“
No,” she decided that
wasn’t going to happen.

She was determined to protect her and
Victoria’s place in his life.

“
I will not let Victoria’s
position come under threat from the day he would give in to his
natural desires with the inevitable result being the introduction
of a son from the liaison with a younger woman,” she resolved as
the Captain arrived in the waiting room to advise that they could
now take off.

So as the plane taxied down the runway she
first prayed to Allah that he would bless her again with a son for
“Her Thomas,” then refocused her mind on the weekend, and the
African Minister they were to have as a guest.

As Thomas walked into his office and greeted
Louise, his secretary, he took in her short cream skirt and
matching blouse with her hair up in the process. He smiled at her
and then commented that he thought she looked lovely which
instantly earned him a blushing thank you from her in return.

Before Nara entered his life, he had been
very much the typical description of a rake in the traditional
sense of the word with a reputation as a lothario that would have
put Don Juan to shame. But that was then and this was now. That
didn’t mean though he didn’t like to flirt and look from time to
time,

Telling Louise he didn’t wish to be disturbed
until one o’clock, Thomas sat down at his desk and gathered his
thoughts from the morning.

Feeling his phone buzzing he pulled it out
and seeing it was a text from his daughter he opened it.

“
Love you daddy enjoy the L
this weekend!” it said.

“
I see she spoke to her
mother this morning!” he replied out loud with a shake of his
head.

Looking at his watch, he realized that his
daughter had sent this note in a lesson covertly.

“
I will call you after prep
lessons young lady!” he ordered.

He received an immediate reply of, “Sorry D
xxx.”

When he had told Nara he felt the time was
right for her to go boarding school they had fought tooth and nail
over the decision.

“
N-o, m-y T-h-o-m-a-s…PLEASE
NIET…do not send my baby away…I B-E-G YOU!” she had pleaded in
broken English and Russian like she always did when under stress
with tears flowing from her eyes.

She had delivered her wails with such
distress Thomas almost backed down and gave in to her before
sticking to his guns because he was absolutely convinced that their
daughter would have a more rounded education with some level
normality.

The point was he had never even considered
becoming a father until his little girl was delivered into his arms
and now the little girl and her mother were the center of
everything he did in his life and would always remain so.

Even his father, the infamous head of one
London’s oldest and biggest private Merchant Banks, had sent him a
note of congratulations, despite the fact they hadn’t spoken since
he left Oxford. Stating only, “Well done! Your mother would be
proud! Always, Rufus.” And although he had kept the note all these
years it he had never responded back to the old bastard.

His thoughts moved back to Nara, it wasn’t
lost on him that she had recently started to become more and more
insecure despite him telling her there would never be anybody else.
Of course, the direct benefit of this for him was their recent love
making—it was almost as if she were using sex to make sure his eye
didn’t wander.

“
Maybe I should ask her if
she would like have another child,” he mused sensing her
insecurities were possibly a direct link to her own troubled
relationship with her father and of more terrifyingly the life she
was forced to lead before he entered her life.

As he waited for the laptop to come to life
he confessed to himself that over the last year or so he had begun
to worry about Victoria’s future.

He expected his ‘Plum,’ as he thought of her,
and who was fast becoming a younger version of mother with every
passing day, to run the TLH Group, a company currently worth sixty
billion U.S. dollars by herself one day.

“
It just isn’t fair,” he
reflected as he made a decision that he hoped would rectify
it.

He just hoped Nara felt the same as he
returned to his paperwork in readiness of a meeting with the
technical team of his Oil and Gas division.

The walk back to her office on 18 Old Queen
Street took Rebecca just under eight minutes. As she was
technically an officer working under “NOC,” meaning Non-Official
Cover, she wasn’t located in the imposing building overlooking the
Thames. Instead, her office, located in Westminster, was surrounded
with small legal firms and lobbyists who had no idea that their
neighbors, were the Near East Desk’s operations desk of MI6

As she walked, she mused over the problem she
potentially faced with Litchfield. He knew her real identity. A
conclusion she had reached by the way Thomas had looked at her. If
she reported it up the line she would have been immediately removed
from the scene and having spent the last six years watching him and
suspecting that he was a traitor, she certainly wasn’t going to
allow that to happen.