The Devil's Handshake (29 page)

“
That is wonderful, my
darling girl!” he said, his emotions bubbling over.

“
You’re happy? My Thomas,”
she said with a nervous smile.

“
YES…yes… and yes! My lovely
lady!” he replied excitedly as her news began to take hold over
him.

At that moment having seen that in fact
Thomas was completely over the moon and not upset in any way over
her news she tore her hands away from him, grabbed him,
passionately drawing him into her, and then peppered him with a
kiss after kiss, dropping her papers out of her lap in the
process.

“
I love you my darling
Nara!” he said, making her happiness complete.

On the morning of the main event with the
guests now arriving, Mikhail, who was still nursing a seriously bad
hangover from the amount of champagne, wine and fatally, the
whiskey he had drunk after the both of them had told him and Hanna
their news, wandered in to join Thomas and Saul the CFO of the
group, to let him know that Rebecca and her companion had arrived
at the hotel.

Immediately as he entered, Thomas
laughed.

“
You look like how I feel!”
he said something that was true because the pair of them had drunk
for England and Israel so much so that Nara had undressed him and
put him to bed.

“
Don’t!” he said with a
laugh. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m all farmisht,” using the
Yiddish phrase “for mixed up” as he sat down beside Saul before
continuing.

“
Anyway, Boss! Miss Leiris
has checked in under Miss Field with her companion,” Mikhail said
somewhat gingerly changing the subject back to his reason for
popping in, ever the professional to the core.

“
Companion or spook?” Thomas
asked intrigued, unaware of the room arrangements.

“
Spook!”

“
He would never pull
something as Shayn as her; he must be her boss!” answered Mikhail
using the Yiddish word for “beautiful.”

“
Don’t let Hanna hear you
say that, she’ll cut your balls off,” retorted Thomas to his old
friend in reference to his wife who before they married and had
their three children, was an operative in the Shin Bet and had more
than once had killed in the service of Israel, causing Saul to
laugh at his friend and colleague’s expense.

“
Tell me about it!” replied
Mikhail joining the laughter in the room everybody knowing that
although Mikhail may still look, he would never betray one woman
who had tamed him. “I asked Angus to pop in and say hello like you
asked,” he said, changing the subject back to business. “I also
asked Saul here to make sure she gets twenty minutes with you this
afternoon as well, Godfather,” pointing with his thumb towards to
Saul making sure he wasn’t the only one in the room to bear the
brunt of jokes. Thus earning a further chuckle from the CFO at his
use of the Godfather reference of Thomas, half in joke and half in
truth, knowing his habit of having him line up every thirty
minutes, “a private meeting” slots outside the study door in the
evening before the main events during the weekend.

“
Alright! Alright! I get the
message!” Thomas said, putting his hands up in mock surrender with
a smile to hold his aching head.

When the offer arrived to attend his private
garden party in response to Rebecca’s request to discuss further
the situation in Adwalland, Michael, who was sitting beside her as
they drove down to Litchfield’s estate together, had no idea it was
to do with her personal crusade with regard to Christopher’s
killer.

Instead, her immediate superior believed it
was linked to the additional information request they had received
from across the water with respect to Thomas Litchfield.

At first Michael thought about having one of
Rebecca’s colleagues attend the event but thought better of it when
he reviewed the guest list.

The opportunity to gain intelligence overrode
his plans for the weekend! Not to mention if he were honest with
himself he was guilty of suffering from a touch of voyeurism in
that he desired to see how the other half lived. Something he
wisely kept to himself when telling his wife.

Checking into the hotel on the estate once
inside the room, Michael actually thought his wife would have
really enjoyed this place not to mention the Spa, so much so he
mentally decided not to tell her about it, as they could never
visit it because he had used a cover name instead of his own.

Although they had been happily married over
twenty years and she knew what he did for a living; he hated lying
to her. It was bad enough all their friends thought he was a middle
ranking civil servant instead of a senior officer in the SIS.

Because she never complained or asked him
details in turn, he never told her about anything he experienced,
not that there were many of them which could be considered
luxurious or potentially enjoyable and he stuck rigorously to
cockroach related stories to make her feel better.

At that moment though, Rebecca wasn’t
thinking about the Spa.

Originally she had toyed with using the
approval as a carrot as part of her strategy to get at Wasir, but
she had changed her mind when one of her junior analysts advised
her that the Americans had requested increased monitoring and
information on Litchfield’s interests plus on his investment in
Adwalland.

When she listened to his telephone
conversation with the President of the country she quickly decided
there and then Thomas represented a much better chance of revenge,
if she handled it correctly.

With British interests over the last two
years becoming focused on ongoing Gas supplies and Asian export
Markets like India and China, Her Majesty’s Government, since the
election, had moved away from the supporting American Foreign
Policy goals and focused heavily into the rebuilding of relations
between Russia and China using the position of a trusted ‘neutral,’
following the parliament’s vote over military action in Syria
representing a prime example.

First, the Litchfield deal had been parked on
the sidelines on the basis it was considered advantageous for
British business but when the Americans had turned up on the scene,
this meant as far as Rebecca was concerned that situation presented
a much better bargaining chip that she could use on him.

The Vauxhall Bridge analysts had immediately
grasped this by watching his first interview describing it as
hostile, to say the least, for a network his company was a major
shareholder in.

With the Director General instructing Michael
to be “helpful” towards the Americans, in effect, meaning “all
assistance short of help” so to allow the opportunity for the
“deal” to bed in one-way or another.

Using her rank she had quickly taken over the
liaison with the Americans using excuse that as she had the most
knowledge on Litchfield and having established links of
communications with him and senior members of his organization, she
was the most logical choice. Secretly though it was because she
instinctively knew she could use him as a lever in her quest to
revenge Christopher.

“
Bloody Americans! I take it
we are being ‘helpful.’ I don’t want us to be caught up in a
pissing contest between them and Ivan primarily as the Prime
Minister and the Foreign Secretary have both expressed their
support in this deal!” the Director General had said to Michael and
her in their weekly briefing at his offices in Vauxhall
Bridge.

“
Of course, Sir” Michael had
replied.

“
We are also happy to
confirm that we don’t believe he is an agent of the SVR,” Rebecca
had added, handing him her report.

“
Excellent news! I will let
Foreign Secretary know so he can brief the Home Secretary and
Number 10.” He smiled. “I had the ‘comic relief’ boys on at me why
we were taking so bloody long—now I can tell them to bugger off,”
he had said taking the report from her, having used his Service’s
nickname for the MI5 which came about due to the red nose of Sir
Francis Walsingham, the famous spymaster of Elizabeth I that formed
part of their crest.

Like always, Michael, ever the inquisitor,
had eyed her with a thoughtful eye when she presented her case for
taking over the file.

Originally she had planned to tell him that
Thomas actually knew her real name due to the politics surrounding
him because she still wanted a career in the service, but relying
on her instincts she had changed her mind on her way back to the
office from their meeting at the Connaught over a month ago.

At the time, she processed the decision as
low risk because he hadn’t let on he knew her in any of their
public meetings so why take oneself out of the game, plus, though
she didn’t want to admit it, she wanted to see him again having
enjoyed the mental swordplay and flirting with him.

That had all changed the moment when she saw
the photos of Wasir, to the point that she actually thought it
might have been fate, for if she had told Michael he would have
taken her off the assignment immediately. The direct consequence
would have been that she would never have seen Wasir’s picture, and
as such missed her opportunity to get him.

“
Bashert!” meaning destiny
in Yiddish she had thought at the time.

“
Makes sense, Becks” Michael
had said in support at the time when she offered him her dressed up
false flag logic. “I will let Langley know you’re the new case
officer.”

The phone buzzing in her room pulled her away
from her thoughts and her unpacking for the night.

“
Mrs. Field?” asked the
regular public school voice of an older gentleman when she picked
it up.

“
Yes.”

“
Angus
Mackintosh.”

“
Hello, Angus, and how are
you?” Rebecca replied, recognizing the voice.

“
Very well, Mrs. Field. I
was wondering if you’re free for a meeting with Sir Thomas this
afternoon?” he asked with the typical style of a British Army
Officer not bothering with small talk, something his wife told him
he was useless at in any case.

“
Of course, what time would
suit you?”

“
How about
three?”

“
That is absolutely fine,”
Rebecca answered.

She didn’t ask to bring Michael because she
wanted to take the opportunity to find a baseline as to what type
of leverage she might be able to use. If Michael attended the
meeting he possibly could weaken that position by expressing or
giving up the fact the service was only going through the motions
with respect to their increased interest in Awdalland.

At a quarter to three Rebecca made her way
down the stairs of the hotel. Finding Angus waiting at the bottom
they shook hands then got into his golf buggy and proceeded to
drive towards the main house from the hotel. Making a terrible
attempt at small talk by using every Englishman’s old friend of the
weather as a subject, Angus never mentioned that he knew her real
name by sticking religiously to Mrs. Field all the way.

Taking five minutes to reach the main house,
Angus parked up the buggy. Whereupon a member of the household
staff quickly ushered them inside to the study.

Finding Thomas was already standing. It
pleased her that he made no reference to their meeting at the
Connaught as he shook her hand and smiled.

“
Mrs. Field. I trust
everybody is looking after you at the hotel?” he said using her
cover name as a way of telling her that as Angus was present he
wouldn’t call her by real name.

“
Very much so, Sir Thomas,”
she replied smiling in return, playing along.

“
Excellent. I hope you don’t
mind Angus being present?” he then asked.

“
Of course not,” she
replied. In her mind over the last hour she had toyed with a couple
of scenarios as to how she could use the man standing in front of
her now in the personal quest; in the end she settled on testing
him first with respect to his relationship with Wasir and whether
the phone conversation with the President was just to keep him on
side.

Getting the small talk out of the way she
went straight down to business.

“
Sir Thomas, what can you
tell me about your relationship with Wasir Osman
Hassan?”

That question in itself immediately told both
Angus and Thomas two things: firstly the British had him under
surveillance, something both had expected so not surprising, and
secondly the Interior Minister was a person of interest to the
British.

“
Why are they asking about
him?” Thomas thought.

“
I am sure you know more
about him than we do, Mrs. Field,” Angus stated in return,
surprised that a field intelligence officer was actually telling
them they were under surveillance despite them both suspecting they
would be.

“
Why are you asking?” he
probed with a forceful look.

“
We are trying to make sure
that no laws are being broken with respect to possible links back
to Her Majesty’s Government,” she offered using the government’s
latest crusade in the buildup towards the General
Election.

Again that told both men they were also
listening to their conversations, but that was pretty weak
positioning as nobody took any notice what really happened in a
third world country.

Having gathered his thoughts, Thomas answered
this time instead of Angus. “He is the Interior Minister of
Adwalland and provides security to the TLH exploration teams in the
fields, because at the moment the law enforcement officers of the
country are still pretty much in their infancy. His Ministry is
responsible for the protection of all foreigners in the
country.”