The Devil's Handshake (49 page)

It had taken them a week to find out that the
aircraft had flown first to Madeira then changed it flight plan
mid-flight by taking a detour to Mauritania instead of Eritrea.

“
Really?”

“
Is that confirmed?” asked
the DG, looking for a bone for the Foreign Secretary, his immediate
superior, to gnaw on.

“
Yes, the Americans
confirmed it for us,” Rebecca answered. Something she had only just
found out about, when to her surprise an English sounding voice had
called her back a couple of days before in response to having asked
Langley if it were case due to the fact they had assets on the
ground. The voice confirmed the inquiry and then followed up with
an email attaching surveillance footage to confirm it.

“
Mmm so do you have a plan?”
asked the DG, hoping it didn’t include an expensive Special Forces
assault as he was already over budget.

“
Yes we do,” Michael
answered looking towards Rebecca.

The man that greeted Rebecca was not the same
man of several months ago at his annual party. Although he was
smartly dressed and his face sported a neatly trimmed full beard,
his eyes told a somewhat different story.

“
Thank you for seeing me,”
Rebecca said shaking his hand first then just as everybody else had
since Nara’s death offering her sympathy and
condolences.

“
I have something for you,”
she said giving him the envelope.

“
Where were these photos
taken?” he asked after he pulled them out.

“
Mauritania,” Rebecca
answered simply.

“
Thank you. I owe you one,”
he said understanding why she was giving him the photos.

“
No, you don’t,” she replied
before explaining the link that bound them. Once she finished,
Thomas took her hand lifted it to his lips and gently kissed her
fingers looking her straight in the eyes. Not a word said between
them.

Composing herself, Rebecca got up and made to
leave the conference room, but when she reached the door she
stopped and turned back towards to Thomas.

“
Got shtroft! der mentsh iz
zich noikem!” she said in Yiddish.

Thomas’s reply to her statement was a mere
nod. No translation was necessary; he understood the meaning
completely.

Picking up the phone on the conference table,
Thomas dialed the personal number for Sergei Andreyevich Petrov who
like everybody else when he picked up offered his own set of
condolences.

The painful account of ‘thank you’s’ out of
the way, Thomas set about explaining what information Rebecca had
just given him, if not the source of information.

Once completed, the Head of Zaslon replied he
would send Igor and his team to assist him following up on the
directive made by the Mayor that all efforts would be made to find
the man that had almost taken Russia and America to the brink of
war.

Awake at seven. Thomas gently moved his
sleeping daughter by the side of him. He got up and went into his
bathroom, showered, trimmed his beard and brushed his teeth before
returning to the bedroom. Taking a moment, he sat down by the side
of Victoria and gently stroked her hair, seeing Nara in her
features brought him a sense of peace if only for just a
moment.

“
Time to get dressed Plum,”
he said using her nickname gently as he woke her. Opening her eyes
again, he found Nara staring right back at him as if haunting him
through their daughter. She still hadn’t spoken since that fateful
day. Knowing his daughter was traumatized, initially Thomas had
hoped that eventually she would just start naturally talking again
but as of yet that still hadn’t happened. Instead, she would just
nod and hug everybody she knew when was asked something.

“
She needs help!” offered
Hannah, firmly backed up by Tania in turn, when they confronted him
in the study of the Holland Park house.

“
They are right, Thomas,”
Mikhail also offered to support his wife and Victoria’s
grandmother.

“
I’ll think about it,”
Thomas had responded, unimpressed with their proposal yet
understanding why they were pushing him.

It wasn’t though until Pritchard offered his
opinion when bringing him some coffee in the afternoon that he
actually took notice.

“
Sir, may I have a minute?”
asked the butler putting down the tray with the silver coffee
pot.

“
Of course Pritchard,”
Thomas answered, turning off the television he was watching before
turning towards him.

“
You’re bloody fool, Sir!”
Pritchard blurted out when their eyes met.

“
Pardon!” Thomas replied
absolutely shocked.

“
Sir! That little girl needs
help! And you’re an arrogant bugger if you think she doesn’t,” he
said. “You and she are the nearest thing I have to a family! So
please I am begging you, don’t allow her to be lost to the demons
of her soul like your mother!” he said going for the killer
blow.

Looking at Pritchard who was actually shaking
from the emotional courage he had used to create a stand on behalf
of Victoria, Thomas reflected first on his statements then
acknowledged within seconds that his old charge was right, and it
took the mention of his mother’s demons to terrify the hell out of
him to recognize it.

“
Thank you Stephen,” he said
taking his arm to put him at ease as his mind took on board the
possibility that his little girl might end up the same way if he
didn’t act. “I will make the call,” he continued as Stephen went
about pouring the coffee his hand still shaking.

“
Blast!” Pritchard said,
having spilt coffee in the saucer and not wanting to embarrass him
Thomas said nothing having recognizing the courage it took to
confront him in the first place.

Awake, Victoria hugged him first, got up with
the sleep still in her eyes and left the bedroom, to return to her
own room; still not a word muttered by her. Thomas’s eyes never
lost sight of her until she closed the bedroom door behind her.

“
Soon,” he thought almost as
if he were talking to Nara. His mind lost to the demons of
vengeance.

Walking into the dressing room that still
smelled of Nara’s perfume, Thomas faced up to the possibility that,
after the funeral today and when the time was right and he left to
revenge Victoria’s mother, his little girl could lose him as
well.

He reflected for a moment as he tied his
black tie.

“
You have no choice,” his
mind concluded in reference to the conversation that he now knew he
need to have. A conversation with the one person in the world he
swore he would never ask for support.

Arriving at the Litchfield House estate they
were greeted by a whole volley of flashes from to the cameras
outside the gates from journalists that had massed to record the
funeral. Keeping his eyes ahead with Victoria tucked under his arm
Thomas ignored them. Instead he focused his gaze on the road ahead
that led to his father’s mansion.

Admired by all since it was established in
the 1880s as a country retreat on a grand scale for its magnificent
gardens, the house had once been the glittering hub of society;
visited by virtually every British Monarch and home to Litchfield’s
since the early twentieth century and just as infamous for its
exclusive parties and political gatherings.

Yet, because his mother hated it she had
rarely visited it during her lifetime, preferring the party set of
London, that’s why he had always found it ironic that she had
chosen it as her final place. Of course, he knew why. It was his
mother’s twisted way of punishing Rufus and telling his young wife
that one day he would come back to her.

Despite his mother’s tormented last laugh on
his father Thomas however, thought the house was lovely, but
because it would have meant interacting with his Father he had
never visited his mother’s grave.

“
God has it really been over
thirty years!” he asked himself in relation to the last time he was
there as the car pulled up outside the house.

Luckily because the Chapel of the great house
was private, this meant Victoria wouldn’t have to deal with the
attention of the world.

Although he never said anything he was
grateful to the personal assistants of both him and his Father in
ensuring that all the correct people were invited.

“
Thomas,” his Father said
once he had exited the Rolls Royce proffering his hand and offering
the first olive branch between the two men of the Litchfield
Clan.

Standing around six-foot-three with hazel
eyes and short white hair, Thomas could instantly see the old
bastard was still fairly well built with the firm jaw of all the
Litchfield men pointing forward with pride.

“
Father,” Thomas answered
taking his hand firmly.

Despite all these years and long surpassing
his Father’s power and status, Thomas still felt like the young boy
in front of him. Today was no different.

Turning to his daughter, Thomas took the
opportunity to present them to each other for the first time.

“
Victoria, I would like to
introduce you to your grandfather, Rufus,” he said.

“
You’re a lucky man,” Rufus
said taking in sight of the beautiful child and as he did so he
could have sworn he saw Amelia in her smile.

“
It’s a great pleasure to
meet you Victoria,” Rufus said introducing himself by leaning down
and kissing her cheek. It was a gesture that took Thomas by
surprise, as he was never that friendly with him as a child. It was
always handshakes, never hugs or kisses.

Figuring Victoria was shy, as she hadn’t said
anything, Rufus moved on quickly to introduce his wife and two
daughters.

“
Thomas this is my wife,
Cecilia.”

Although Thomas had never met her before he
was very aware of her, a striking attractive long blonde, blue eyed
woman in her early fifties who looked no more than forty years old,
he could see why she still captured the attention of all the men,
old or young. Standing barely five-foot-three in height, with a
very narrow waist and slender legs the woman had been his secretary
before becoming his wife at the age of just twenty.

“
Cecilia,” Thomas offered
with a nod. Defensively.

“
And your sisters, Charlotte
and Eleanor,” said his father.

Again despite never bothering to meet them
Thomas was very much aware of them as they both girls had
reputations that would have put the famous Mitford sisters to
shame. Just thirty, the twins were the reason his father had left
his mother all those years ago. Slight and slim, he could see both
had inherited their mother’s figure, with long and wavy dirty
blonde hair, wide-set blue eyes, pert upturned noses, and
pleasantly oval shaped faces he could see why the papers, including
his own tabloid, had made them the darlings of the gossip
pages.

Over the years with ambitions of careers in
the Media they had many a time tried to engineer a meeting with
him. It had taken a tragedy to finally do so.

“
Ladies,” Thomas answered.
Recognizing despite his personal feelings towards their mother
because they shared the same blood he bent down and kissed each of
them on the cheek as if it were a regular occurrence in
turn.

It was a gesture that wasn’t lost on either
Cecilia or his Father. In Cecilia’s case, it was one of fury
because he refused to kiss her, thereby acknowledging her place in
his father’s life while in contrast his father’s case it was one of
pride because it meant Thomas had acknowledged the girls as part of
his family.

Awkward introductions out of the way, the
Litchfield clan walked into the chapel for the service
together.

Because Nara was Muslim the washing and
shrouding and Janaazh prayer are the responsibility of the deceased
family, but as Thomas wasn’t of the faith, Tania had taken over the
responsibility. She allowed Thomas to stand at her side watching
her wash her beloved daughter forty times in the morning at the
funeral home before Nara was driven down to the country for her
final resting place. It had nearly torn him apart watching it, but
he had remained composed for Tania’s sake.

Together they had designed a service to
reflect the celebration of Nara’s life. So as the Imam sung his
prayer it wasn’t lost on him that it made a lovely contrast to
surroundings of the Christian chapel, so much so by the end of the
service the only ones not crying were Thomas and Victoria.
Something he had only noticed when his daughter looked up at him
under his shoulder.

He smiled and kissed her head.

At the end, the service over Thomas and
Victoria rose together. He felt his daughter take his hand firmly.
He squeezed it gently then placed an arm around the sobbing Tania
as the coffin was carried out the three of them followed behind so
they could walk to the plot that had been made ready by the side of
his mother. They were swiftly followed his Father and his second
family, Mikhail and Hanna, Sgt. Tan and his wife, Pritchard and the
rest of his men and senior staff then finally the now permanent
police protection unit that had been increased in size since the
incident at the school.

Watching his beloved Nara being lowered into
the ground Thomas made a silent commitment to the woman he loved,
“I will revenge you my darling! On my life!”

“
Please look after them for
me?” Thomas suddenly asked of his mother referring to Nara and his
unborn child within his confines of his mind.