The Devil's Handshake (9 page)

He also knew if had refused then he was a
dead man. Being a survivor, Ruslan tried to make the best deal
possible out of a bad situation. He had no love for Oleg so the
choice in the end had been relatively easy for him. That though
didn’t stop him feeling nervous and terrified. If they failed
tonight, his entire family would suffer.

“
Who knows, you pull this
off we might send you to Paris next,” Oleg said as the car pulled
up in front of the hotel.

“
Thank you Munbashi,” Ruslan
replied with a nervous smile.

As they walked into the lobby, neither man
spotted the dark looking Arab sitting there as they entered nor did
they hear him mutter that the targets had entered the lift with a
pair of locals dressed in their dish-dashes.

Exiting the lift moments later leaving the
locals in the lift, the three men quickly made their way to the
suite.

Once outside the door they rang the bell. The
door opened and a Japanese man wearing a dark blue suit and red tie
greeted them.

“
Gentleman,” said the man
warmly. “Do please come in.”

Once inside the Asian man, as was the
Japanese way, presented his business card to Oleg and Yuri.

Although surprised that he had been given a
business card, Yuri took it and made the pretense of being able to
understand what was written on it so not to cause offence before
promptly placing it into the pocket of his cheap tailored green
suit.

“
Thank you Nakajima-San,”
replied Oleg respectfully as he took his card with both hands
before presenting the man his own business card in the same
manner.

They sat down and almost immediately both
Oleg and Yuri started to feel out of breath and dizzy. An odor hit
their nostrils. It was then they realized with horror where the
smell was coming from. Their hands!

“
YOU TRAIT….” was all Oleg
managed to blurt out as his and Yuri’s world went black.

Originally developed by the Czechoslovak
communist State Security secret police in the 1980s, the version of
scopolamine used on Oleg and Yuri was four times more powerful than
most date rape drugs that are sold and regularly used by the
Colombian cartel known as “Devil’s Breath.” When a drugged person
wakes, the first things that hit them are the side effects. A
mixture of blurred vision, dizziness, and hypertension, Oleg felt
all of these as his eyes opened.

A searing pain flowed through his brain. He
tried to move his hands, but couldn’t. It was then he realized he
was hanging by his arms above his head held up by a set of
chains.

“
Hello Oleg,” said the
voice.

The second Oleg heard that English accent, he
knew instantly who his captor was.

“
LITCHFELD,” he said using
the Russian form of Thomas’s name.

“
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE FUCK
YOU ARE YOU DOING?” he demanded as his blurry eyes began to focus
on Thomas’s face as a pair of black soulless eyes stared back
him.

“
Spare me the tantrums,
Oleg,” Thomas answered calmly.

“
THE PRESIDENTS WON’T STAND
FOR THIS,” Oleg said desperately.

Thomas looked at the man. He chose not to
respond to the statement.

“
Oleg, you are my prisoner
because I am claiming the right of qan dashar on behalf of my
daughter’s grandfather.”

“
Qan dashar?”

He appeared confused before it suddenly
dawned on him. Oleg’s venom returned in full force.

“
FUCKING JELEPS CANNOT CLAIM
THAT RIGHT, YOU PRIZA!” Oleg said referring to Nara’s previous
position. “Poshel na knuy,“ he said, meaning “fuck you.”

Still Thomas said nothing.

Because Oleg knew that he was only moments
from death, he decided to go out with pride. He started
laughing.

“
I always knew that bitch
gave the best blowjobs! I just never expected just how good!” he
said continuing with an evil laugh that echoed around the
room.

Thomas’s eyes narrowed. The demon in his soul
surfaced.

“
I bet the bitch didn’t tell
you the words you’re supposed to say when honor is claimed,” he
taunted Thomas. Still Thomas said nothing.

“
Before you kill me,
Englishman, you should know that your bitch and her mother had
screamed like little piglets when I took them,” he said as he spat
on the floor.

“
Seniň mertebe bolmak meniň
mertebe,” meaning “Your fate is my honor,” Thomas whispered as he
lifted Oleg’s famous gold pistol and pointed it at him and fired,
taking his head off his spinal cord as he riddled with it all the
bullets of the magazine in the process.

It wasn’t long after that Nara had told him
that day in their bedroom of what had happened that it transpired
by a strange coincidence Oleg’s own bodyguard had killed him with
his own pistol before disappearing in Ashgabat.

It was even stranger, when it was reported
that the bodyguard also had turned up dead in Dubai with his throat
cut and an ear missing less than a week later.

Although the news only made Sky News and The
Times of London as a minor item, in Turkmenistan it was about as
significant as news got for he was considered a powerful man with
connections to the Government.

The police and the government both promised
to investigate, but despite reported intense efforts being made
throughout the country nobody so far, had been caught for the
murders.

Nara came breathlessly running into his study
upon The Libertine that were moored of the coast of the sky blue
waters of the Aeolian Islands with her hair loose, wearing a sarong
around her waist. She wore an orange sexy bikini top to tell him of
the gift that had been granted from Allah to her and mama. He knew
instantly why.

“
Thomas!” she said, not
stopping to draw breath, her breasts moving up and down
seductively. “Mama says the pig is dead!” she announced
excitedly.

Without a word, Thomas smiled at her, pulled
out a walnut polished box from his desk drawer then got up and
walked around the desk until he came to stand in front of her.
Pausing for a moment, he looked into her seductive brown eyes.

“
Open it, Darling,” he
ordered softly, giving it to her whilst stroking her hair away from
her face gently with his other hand.

Thinking it was just another one of his gifts
of guilt that he had bought her as a way of an apology since that
terrible afternoon of few weeks ago, Nara’s face immediately showed
intense disappointment.

“
He doesn’t understand!” she
thought.

Nevertheless she did as he told her.

Upon setting eyes on the box’s contents that
lay on green velvet, she quickly stared straight back up him in
shock and awe.

“
It’s the p-i-g’s pistol!”
she exclaimed, recognizing it straight away.

“
Is this his animal’s ear?”
she asked referring to the piece of shrived up anatomy that was
lying next to a knife that she had instantly recognized as
belonging to Yuri.

“
Seniň mertebe bolmak meniň
mertebe,” Thomas said quietly in Turkmen, which meant, “Your fate
is my honor.” He kissed her forehead beneath him ignoring her
question.

Immediately, tears arrived in Nara’s eyes as
she began to comprehend the enormity what her love had done in her
name.

6

Africa Two Weeks Ago

The meetings in Borama, a city that for some
unknown reason is twinned with Henley-on-Thames in England, but
more importantly is the capital of a new country born out of the
ashes of Somalia, and known as Adwalland, had been both trying and
complicated for Thomas over the last few days.

Much more difficult to that of a typical
natural resources deal with a host country he usually experienced
because of the additional intricacies of the wider issues of
superpower politics and global dominance were brought into
play.

Adwalland, the world’s newest country was
situated right in the middle of a plan that would see Russia’s
re-emergence on the world stage as a military power with Thomas
acting as the point of the sword as the country’s lead proxy
investor.

As to why Thomas had been drawn into this
position was complicated. Due initially, to TLH’s (Thomas’s Holding
Company) strong ties with Russia through its present control of one
of Siberia’s major Oil and Gas fields but primarily it was due to
the close personal relationship Thomas had with the young President
of the country. A former mailroom employee whom Thomas had
befriended five years ago when he had contacted TLH offering
exploration rights in Awdalland in an attempt to try to raise funds
for a permanent diplomatic mission in London so they could build
the momentum of their country’s right to exist as a legitimate
State.

A buccaneer at heart, Thomas knew that the
only way to get TLH into point position for the area’s rich natural
resources was to ensure his young friend got a seat at the
negotiating table, especially as Somalia had already previously
granted the same rights to the U.S. Oil exploration companies main
competitors of TLH in the business of exploration rights. Although
skeptical at first, it wasn’t until he had visited the little
self-governing area when he was impressed by the shared
determination of all the tribal leaders to bring the rule of law to
this small desperate area of Africa, did he take the initiative to
set the ball in motion.

Thomas provided the struggling little
organization with the five million U.S. dollars they needed for
their Missions in London and New York and then placed TLH Public
Relations teams at their disposal so they could build the necessary
momentum to ensure this dream they held came to fruition.

Although it was incredibly difficult with the
United States of America opposing the break-up of Somalia all the
way, seeing it as a threat to their national security objectives
related to the defeat of Al-Qaeda and because of their
determination to protect their leading oil companies existing
rights in the area, the end result was eventually achieved.

The little country now included at the
negotiating table, with the support of Russia and China and much to
the disgust of the US Oil explorers, who had lost their exploration
rights in the process, became Africa’s newest state.

Unfortunately, like all young states born out
of years of struggle and pain, not all of the Adwallians shared the
elders’ vision for a respectful, peaceful country.

One such opportunist was a
forty-five-year-old former pirate named Wasir Osman Hassan.

By using the money he had earned from the
payment of ransoms in the lawless days of 1990s, Hassan had bought
himself the post of the Interior Minister and staffed the Ministry
with those loyal to his tribe to ensure he kept everybody in place
with a “rod of iron” in the process.

It was this man who had given Thomas the most
problems because the President, although a good and honest person,
certainly wasn’t a wolf despite the traditional role of his tribe
to be so in the region. This meant Thomas needed to ensure that the
Minister was kept happy as he controlled the capital’s security.
That meant money and lots of it was needed to change hands.

He was not new to this, as ever since he had
arrived in Russia, twenty-seven years old, flush with money from
U.S. Private equity and fresh from the hairiest experience of his
life in Iraq in 1991, Thomas had carved his own way free and away
from his father’s influence, doing deals including a couple
involving the use of the gun. It was because this unique business
experience and having had done his fair share of deals with the
devil that Thomas understood the problem the young President was
facing.

One such a deal for Thomas was in 1996 and
involved a meeting with the ‘Mayor’ of St Petersburg otherwise
known as Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

At the time, the future President of Russia
was foolishly considered by some as a mere bag carrier for Yeltsin
and as such was dismissed by the new oligarchs “carpet-bagging” the
country being fuelled with U.S. finance as being of limited
importance in Russian politics.

However when Thomas met him he immediately
grasped that sitting across him was a man of the principle who only
cared about one thing, Russia, and was determined to do this
through his newly promoted “National Champions” political
concept.

This ideology was born out of Putin’s
education and experience from the ashes of communism, his idea, was
simple in design—the largest corporations in strategic sectors of
Russia’s economy are expected to not only to seek profit, but also
to “advance the interests of the nation.”

Yet for all of Thomas’s initial skepticism
his basic instinct told him that he would be foolish to attempt to
discredit him, or worse, ignore him at his peril, so instead Thomas
offered the hand of friendship and support for Putin’s ideas.

It was a move that would bind Thomas to his
fate forever.

At the time, The ‘Mayor’ suspiciously had
taken his hand and money with a mere nod then a sip of his black
tea without a flicker of emotion.

Over the four years that followed as both of
their mutual fortunes rose, Thomas had watched the Mayor rise first
to the top of the FSB, Russia’s replacement for the KGB and then to
Deputy Prime Minister before finally taking the Presidency from his
mentor six months later on the 31st December 1999 and in one night
ruthlessly take out those who stood in the way of his vision of a
new Russia for the twenty-first century.

“
We have three years,”
Thomas had said to Mikhail at the time as they watched the Mayor’s
handover speech whilst celebrating the New Year in Haifa over a
traditional Jewish feast with Nara and Hanna, his wife.