The Devil's Handshake (45 page)

Unlike the measured tones, of his counterpart
in the White House, the Russian President speech was designed for a
different audience.

Full of emotion, he took his turn to accuse
the United States of supporting of the attempted coup d’état,
firing on Russian Military Aircraft, and the breaking of
International law by illegally entering a sovereign country,
conveniently choosing to ignore the United Nations mandate in the
process by suggesting that the UN didn’t follow the procedure of
waiting for confirmation from the host nation as to whether
assistance was required.

By the time he was finished the world’s media
were left scrambling for information, experts, and content on the
world’s newest state that was bringing two of world’s superpowers
to the brink of war.

Speech finished, his heartbeat returning to
normal, he walked back into Emergency Situation Room to be greeted
by his Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“
I just took a call from the
American Ambassador. He is advising me that if the President of
Adwalland makes an effort to deploy his Militia in the direction of
the Mission they will consider them a threat and respond
accordingly.”

The President of Russia offered a nod.

“
It was time to hit back,”
he thought.

“
Tell our Ambassador in
Washington to contact the Secretary of State and inform him that we
will be taking over responsibility for the base and that our
Russian Armed Forces on the ground will make all haste,” just as he
stated he would do in his speech moments ago, ignoring the US
Ambassador’s message.

“
I will also get our
Ambassador in New York to inform the Secretary General as well,”
offered the Minister of Foreign Affairs making sure the President’s
bases were all covered legally.

“
How long will it take our
troops to get from Borama to Lughaya?” asked the President towards
the Chief of the General staff.

“
Approximately three hours,
Sir,” responded the Marshal.

The President acknowledged the information
with a further firm nod of the head.

“
Good! Give the
order.”

“
Yes, Mr. President,”
answered the Marshal without hesitation.

“
We must put our troops on
‘Danger of War’ footing,” insisted the Prime Minister, ever aware
of the legal requirements of the Russian Federation.

The President looked towards the Prime
Minister. There was no turning back.

“
Make it so!” he ordered on
something that hadn’t been authorized by Russian leader since the
Second War World as he looked towards the Prime
Minister.

“
Yes, Mr. President,”
answered the Marshal while he privately thought, “Are we really
going to war over this?”

53

Borama

In the office of Paul Compton, a doctor
patched up Thomas’s arm. He had been wounded during the battle at
the TLH compound adjacent the “The Cismah” having now left the
“machine-gunned” ridden offices of the President.

All the men of the TLH Group sat in stunned
silence watching the fast growing tensions rise moment by moment on
television. The elation of earlier they had felt in surviving the
attack had been quickly tempered when they found they had lost five
of their Gurkhas in the assault.

“
This is Anne Jenkins of MGN
reporting from the Whiteman Air Force Base,” said the journalist as
the network viewers watched the squadron of B2s take off behind
her, a direct result of an increased war footing.

Switching channels to Sky News, it didn’t get
any better

“
So is America at DEFCON
three?” said the British journalist to an experienced stringer war
correspondent who was on the ground in Djibouti.

“
This is turning into a
right fakakta,” said Mikhail as they switched back to MGN News.
Another grim faced television anchor struggled to explain the
escalation that built up to in the last few hours between two of
the world’s superpowers and the realization that war between the
armed forces of Russia and America was fast becoming a terrible
possibility.

A fact that was confirmed from the briefings
the journalists were receiving left, right, and center from the
various informed sources of both Russia and the United States.

“
Are they really going to
war over this?” asked Yossi still not quite believing what he was
seeing and referring by the waving of his hands around them to the
country they were currently located in.

“
What are we going to do?”
asked Mikhail towards Thomas, hoping he would give them orders to
evacuate from the country.

Lost in his thoughts Thomas didn’t answer
until he was interrupted by one of the Gurkhas.

“
Mr. Badr is at the front
gate asking permission to see you, Sir Thomas,” said the
middle-aged former solider with a salute just as he would of if he
still served in the Army.

“
What does he want? I
thought he was with the President and Igor?” answered Mikhail,
before telling the Gurkha to let him in.

Less than a minute or so later the Head of
Security walked into the office.

“
Mr. Thomas,” Badr said.
“The President told me that you would know what to do with the
prisoners I have outside,” he said.

“
Prisoners?” asked
Mikhail

“
Yes the Indian and two
Englishmen,” answered Badr proudly.

“
Where did you pick them
up?” asked Mikhail.

Badr smiled then replied that his people had
arrested the Indian at the airport just before the Russians
arrived. An action it turned out had transpired because the young,
loyal officer thought he might be important, so he had arrested him
on the spot instead of letting him leave.

“
Despite his attempt to
bribe him with two thousand U.S. dollars!” added Badr proudly over
the fact that his young officer hadn’t accepted it.

“
The other two were picked
up running away from the attack on the offices when my men stopped
them,” continued Badr.

Immediately Thomas knew why Jawari had wanted
him to take responsibility for them. They represented a hot potato
for him because internally he needed to show the Chiefs that the
foreigners had helped the young country as such they weren’t the
cause of the situation they found themselves in.

“
The cunning sod!” he
thought acknowledging the hidden message of ‘You deal with
it.’

“
Tell the President I won’t
let him down,” he said to Badr warmly.

“
I think I have a plan that
might just be able stop this madness!” he said to Mikhail as the
boys went with Badr to collect the prisoners.

“
I am glad somebody does!”
answered Mikhail.

Picking up the Codex phone, Thomas quickly
dialed the number of the Principal Private Secretary of the
President of Russia.

“
I would like to talk to the
President,” said Thomas once the young assistant was on the
line.

After a wait of about five minutes, the Mayor
came on the line. Thomas didn’t waste any time on small talk. At
the end of his explanation, he received a simple response from the
President of Russia.

“
You have permission to use
your resources.”

Thomas thanked him for his trust.
Nevertheless the Mayor issued final instruction for him.

“
If it doesn’t work, you’re
to hand them over to Igor Valeriyoych.”

“
Yes, Sir,” Thomas replied
despite privately acknowledging the fact that whatever way he cut
it he was going to have kiss goodbye to a potentially billions of
dollars’ worth of contracts.

54

Washington D.C.

The world was in melt down, markets had
opened in panic with sell offs everywhere being registered across
the board, worse still commodity prices had also risen in sharp
razor-like peaks, added to that petrol stations and supermarkets
were now starting to report long queues and stockpiling.

All sparked from the response by the Russians
that they were sending their “peacekeeping” troops to the Mission
in Lughaya.

For the President of the United States, it
was about to get a lot worse.

“
Mr. President the Russians
appear to be making ready their mobile regiments in
Teykovo.”

“
I strongly recommend we do
the same and move to DEFCON Three,” said the Air Force Chief of
Staff as a response to the mobile nuclear missiles regiments of
Russia departing their home base.

“
What! Have they gone mad?”
replied the Assistant to the President on National Security
Affairs, in shock.

“
Sir, they would do this if
they believed there is a Danger of War,” offered the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs understanding instantly why.

“
May I suggest that we
stopping buzzing their troops with the F-15,” offered the Secretary
of State trying to prevent the grandstanding blowing into a
full-blown engagement.

“
We will do both,” replied
the President acknowledging his equally tired Secretary of State
effort to try and strike a balance between the two options without
appearing weak.

“
We believe it’s time to
invoke Title 12, Mr. President,” said the Secretary of the
Treasury, crisply adding his thoughts and to the stress if not the
temperature by referring to the law that gave the President in
times of war the right to order the freezing assets of companies
and nationals of an enemy nation.

“
Jesus Christ! Freeze their
assets! They will take that as an act of war!” blurted out the
Secretary of State understanding the significance of his
colleague’s recommendation.

“
We are taking hits from
Russians shorting our gold reserves,” said the Treasury Head,
rebutting him. He refused to be bullied.

“
We wait,” said the
President, backing his Secretary of State.

“
Sir—” replied the Treasury
head ready for a fight, only be cut off by the President’s
stare.

An hour later the Director of Communications
of the White House went on television in response the White Press
Corps to accuse the Russians of supporting genocide and comparing
their actions to what they were doing in Syria in an attempt to
rebuke the Russians claims that the United Nations Secretary
General had acted outside his mandate.

Immediately the Russian Minister of Foreign
Affairs responded in kind by rebutting the comments from the White
House by claiming that the Americans were operating outside the
Mandate of the UN Resolution by refusing to recognize their
requests to hand over security for the mission to Russian Armed
Forces.

The result of which quickly had the two
Ambassadors on the Security Council engaging in bitter diplomatic
war of words over principle with the world as very worried and
scared spectators, the financial markets responding
accordingly.

Yet, by luck rather than design, both parties
as of yet had still so far not fired a physical shot against each
other.

In between this, the Russians or the
President of Adwalland had not yet announced that they had the
three CIA assets in custody. It was a problem that was resting
heavily on the President’s mind for if and when they did he was
sure the response of America’s allies would be less than supportive
and result in a cold freeze on par with what he experienced the
year previously over the illegal monitoring of their
telephones.

Worse still, his political instincts were
telling him that they would quickly lose any potential goodwill
they were now receiving from the world’s media over their actions
in regard to the rescue mission.

Despite all of that, it wasn’t until the
Chief Agent of his Protection Detail gave him his body armor to put
on as he left the Situation Room, and then informed him that
because the country was at DEFCON 3 from this moment onwards the
White House would be in lock down mode did it really strike home
the enormity of what he had just ordered on behalf of his
nation.

Taking stock, and in his thoughts as he
walked through the White House, it wasn’t lost on him that none of
his Administration team had said a word in greeting towards him;
their grim faces told him the whole story as they observed the
President in body armor over his suit, an increased security detail
in a circle around him and Heckler and Koch MP5s on full display in
his own house,

Entering his private office, he instantly
switched on the television set to find a journalist from MGN, who
was among the first of the world’s main media into Borama,
reporting that the order had been restored to the city.

He switched to CNN. This time he found a
journalist reporting that Russian Special Forces were parking up
outside the Mission.

“
Ladies and Gentleman, we
are interrupting the broadcast as it appears something is happening
at the White House.”

“
Here we go,” thought the
President, switching off the television screen knowing full well
what they were about to refer to lock down that had been ordered by
the Secret Service.

He closed his eyes, all he got,
unfortunately, was only a few minutes of respite.

His Presidential Secretary, the last line of
defense, interrupted his thoughts. Knowing she would not do it
lightly despite the situation in the office, he pressed the phone
with a sigh.