The Devil's Handshake

10

London

The dinner was arranged for quarter to eight o’clock but he was late and Thomas didn’t have time to change, so instead he found himself in the study waiting for Nara to join him.

Nara, running late as was the norm, walked into the study just as the clock in the study chimed seven thirty. She was wearing a sexy, short, black couture dress from one of the many famous designers she gave her patronage to.

“By God, she is beautiful,” reflected Thomas as he recovered from the stunning sight she presented.

The silk dress, designed with lace around the front and sides provided revealing glimpses of her bare olive skin from the thigh up to her cleavage in front, had left nothing to the imagination—she was a vision of alluring elegance.

“God knows how much that cost me?” he thought as for all her natural beauty and the ability to look stunning in anything, his ‘wild horse’ as he fondly thought of her certainly knew how to spend it. By definition, she fitted in well with the wives and girlfriends of the Oligarchs that were exiled in London.

To finish off her look, she wore a pair of high stilettos with ankle straps, the color of legendary soles of the designer matching her very kissable made up red lips. “Darling you look absolutely ravishing,” he said as kissed her gently on her cheek so not to ruin her lipstick. He put an arm around her and felt his loins stir as his fingertips traced along the length of her long naked back.

“Thank you, my darling!” she sparkled. “I am pleased you like it,” she followed up with an alluring smile to match her sparkling eyes that seemed to Thomas to be working in tandem with diamonds in her ears and around her neck.

Changing the subject quickly to fight the urge to cancel dinner there and then and take Nara to bed instead, he asked if she knew who the woman was that would be joining them for dinner as Steve’s companion. His personal assistant had told him earlier she was an actress, but he had never heard of her.

“Yes! Darling, she is on the TV Show that Victoria watches—you know, the one with all the singing,” Nara answered straight away with authority.

“That means she’s young then, I suppose?” he said with a twinkle, as he knew Stevie liked his women young and had a reputation of using his position and the casting couch to full effect. Looking at his watch, the small talk over, he said, “We better make a move. I will brief you in the car.”

During the short drive, he briefed his ‘partner in crime’ on the background of the night. Nara listened carefully as he spoke, so she didn’t miss anything. It had filled her with immense pride that the President of Mother Russia saw ‘Her Thomas’ as a key part of his plans to rebuild her country’s status in the world.

For Nara, like the vast majority of her contemporaries of the émigré community, considered him a strong and fair leader in direct contrast to rest of the world that fell outside his influence.

Being street smart, she had learned early on in her life that important men often like to impress pretty girls engaged in pillow talk after sex. Yet it was only after the time when he had made love to her after punishing on that terrible day that Thomas changed towards her in this regard and started to treat her as his sounding board by involving her in his thought forming processes.

Whenever he did, it proved to Nara that she was truly his woman not just Hiskəniz (meaning concubine). It also had the added effect of allaying her fears as to Thomas moving on from her, something that had been festering inside her since he took the decision to send Victoria to boarding school.

Most of the time she had learned Thomas preferred for her to sit quietly and listen, but one thing he always did without fail was to ask her at the end of the night for her impressions on his associates when acting as his hostess. This act alone made her feel special.

“I will not let you down my darling,” she responded in Russian smiling at him taking his hand as he finished his briefing. Arriving at the restaurant, the resident paparazzi readied themselves as they pulled up just in case it was a famous person about to get out of the car.

On seeing it was Sir Thomas Litchfield with his famous girlfriend, the bulb flashes immediately lit up the street as they stepped out surrounded by their bodyguards. Thomas straightened his back and helped Nara out of the Rolls Royce Phantom. They briskly walked together arm in arm into the restaurant, ignoring the volley of flashing lights.

Once inside they entered the bar, Steve, having already arrived with his companion and his own bodyguard quickly spotted them and waved them over to join them.

Expressively, he hugged Thomas first, as was his way, before respectfully kissing Nara on each cheek. Initial formalities out of the way, he introduced his young companion standing just to his side.

“Guys, this is Daniela,” he said.

Thomas and Nara immediately thought that she was incredibly beautiful. Eighteen, she may be, but she came across as an illicit sixteen something they also surmised she almost certainly used to her advantage with certain types of men or women. Both also assumed unkindly that because she was with Steve, a man old enough to be her father and who had a passion for young girls, this was the reason why she was currently starring in the successful TV show set in a high school on the network owned by MNG.

“Yes,” Nara reflected, recognizing a predator instantly. “In looks she maybe a child underneath, however, she is anything, but!” she thought with authority.

“Christ, Stevie, you’re going get into trouble one day!” Thomas thought as he reached the same conclusion as his beautiful companion, just by a different route.

“It is a pleasure to meet you both,” Danielle responded with her best apple pie accent and smile just as she did on her television show, kissing air with each of them in turn after she had said it.

Introductions over, they went straight to the table.

As Thomas slid into one of Nobu’s famous booths, Nara immediately noticed the young girl had made sure her Thomas could see her legs.

“Jelep, I am not letting my Victoria watch her show anymore!” Nara jealously thought. Thomas, who unknown to Nara was into women and not children, blatantly ignored Daniele’s very obvious attempt.

She perked up straight away when she spotted the young girl’s disappointment that he done so.

“That’s right, Jelep! He’s mine,” Nara thought glibly, ignoring the fact that she wasn’t much older than the girl herself when she entered her Thomas’s life all those years ago.

“Why don’t you ladies do the ordering tonight?” Thomas asked.

“That’s a fabulous idea, Thomas!” Steve replied jovially, in support of his friend and business partner.

Much to Daniele’s annoyance, Nara immediately asserted her place as a senior female and did just that. She put the little starlet back in her place by not even consulting with the girl on the food for the night.

Inwardly Thomas chuckled, “God, she can be such a little cow when she wants to be,” he thought having spotted straight away Nara displeasure over the way Danielle had been flirting with him. “But a sexy one,” he added,

With the conversation over dinner touching on places, art, and music, interjected with several interruptions by fans for Daniele, friends of Nara, or business associates of both men, the point had come for them to discuss their business.

Taking her cue from Thomas with one of his famous winks, Nara suggested that Daniele and she go to the powder room. Again Thomas could instantly see it had infuriated the young starlet who had spent the entire dinner flirting with both him and Steve not to mention enjoying the attention of her fans, if not offering much on the subjects of general conversation.

But just as Daniele was about to decline, Steve backed up Nara by suggesting or ordering her to do so, depending on your point of view. Only then did the pretty teenager take the hint and did as she was told.

With the ladies out of earshot, the two men turned to business.

“Did McGiven take the bait?” Thomas asked as he sipped his chilled Sake.

“Because if the Chief of Staff hadn’t taken the bait, then the both of them were going to have to come up some other another angle they might be able to use because for all your planning or planting of seeds, you just don’t control an individual’s understanding of the situation until it is presented to them,” Thomas thought, using one of Homer’s quotes on the aspects of human nature.

“Pretty much like you had said,” Steve responded to the point at which, Thomas nodded and began to relax.

When the Mayor had first informed them of his desire for TLH to put forward the offer of a new Russian military base in Adwalland as part of his proposed infrastructure investment package into the new country by using the argument that it would support the Russian oil companies entering the region, Thomas had quickly grasped the dressed up offer for what it was: “Russia was re-entering the great game.”

With the negotiations completed and the Memorandum of Understanding initialed and agreed with the Government and with the formal signing process to be completed in Borama after he had agreed the deal with the greedy minister on the yacht over the weekend, the only thing of the investment program that needed to be handled was the planned construction of the Russian Navy base on the coast of Africa’s newest country.

At the meeting with the Mayor, he knew instantly why the Mayor had chosen him.

“Christ,” Thomas had exclaimed. “It’s like setting up shop in a ‘surrogate’ Cuba!”

“Yes, it could argue that it may not be ninety miles off the coast of America, but it may as well have been, with the Horn of Africa being one of the world’s significant trading routes, has and sees eleven percent of the world’s trade passing through it and by definition a ‘choke point. Ukraine was only a test of resolve!” Thomas grimly thought.

Desperate not to be drawn into the political game, Thomas had started to argue that Gazprom as a state entity might be better placed to handle the offer of a military support. The Mayor had waved his hand dismissively as if irritated.

“Why do you think I have selected you, Fama!” he had said in English, with the use of Russian name instead of Thomas.

With a large shareholding in the U.S. media company sitting alongside his oil interests, it had quickly dawned on him why he was the chosen one. He was the perfect political proxy.

“I should have known! He knows full well that their great enemy isn’t going allow a base a hundred and twenty miles away from their own one in Djibouti! Not without some kind of response, especially after the bloody nose he had given them in Syria and the Ukraine,” Thomas had mused.

Having been put firmly in his place, Thomas then had known what this meant.

TLH and thereby him as the company’s owner were about to become a piece on the Mayor’s chessboard.

This meant Thomas was going to have to protect his position. If he did not then the collateral damage cost to his family and those who depend on him would be measured in billions of U.S. dollars.

Figuring he would at least try and be the one piece on the board that can escape from attack of a Queen, Thomas had formulated a plan.

Over the years, chess often acted as a sounding board in his strategizing when he started to think through a problem in business. It was something his father in one of their few moments of parental interaction had taught him when they holidayed at his estate outside Florence.

He still remembered that day like it was yesterday

“A knight can only move one square horizontally and two squares vertically or one square vertically and two squares horizontally, however its ability to move over the other pieces to a free square or capture the piece on that square makes the knight special,” his father had said showing him the moves.

“In the best circumstances, Tommy,” his father continued, “he can sidestep an attack.” Again, he showed him the moves.

“A King moves one space in either direction so is limited in his movement, but he must be protected at all costs. A Queen is seen by many as the most powerful piece on the board, hence why it is always attacked or coveted as it reflects the power and strength,” his father said smiling before he took a puff of his cigar. “A knight though, always has the ability to sidestep an attack and survive!” he stated through the smoke surrounding him.

“My friends, albeit unwittingly, are the Knights,” Thomas decided. “A controlled leak through Steve is the perfect way to kick start the backchannels,” Thomas concluded. In his heart he hoped it would be political grandstanding but with recent state of relations between the two protagonists at recent all-time low it made sense to Thomas to try and have an insurance policy.

History taught Thomas that the world’s conflicts were either started or ultimately stopped because men worked in the shadows of diplomacy and despite trying hard to avoid it, Thomas now found himself to be such a man.

“It will be just like when Kennedy used Scali in that role in the Cuban crisis in 1961 as the tensions, really started to rise,” Thomas had said during his call to Steve while he was on the plane flying across Africa, referring to the famous news reporter who had acted as a back channel, as he was trying to convince Steve to use his contacts on his behalf.

“I have no doubt you will be able to earn yourself a lot of favors,” he had offered as Thomas had continued his charm offensive, knowing full well his friend was thinking of a political career in the future, as it was something Steve had mentioned during their last dinner together.

In the Cuban crisis, the famous journalist had been rewarded with an Ambassadorship for service to his country, and as they took out their phones, Thomas wondered what reward his friend would seek.

Personally Thomas had never sought power or wealth though he readily accepted that it be could be argued he had both. His mantra was more akin to a quote he had once heard the late Margaret Thatcher say at Hereford during a visit to the base, to thank the men personally for their efforts in Northern Ireland: “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

Although she had used it as a sound bite to justify why their undercover work had to remain secret.

In Thomas’s case he used it to justify his desire to survive.

Irrespective of your wealth and power, if you suddenly found yourself the target of a country’s wrath above the line then you sure as hell not going to survive unless you had a piece of leverage, pure and simple.

When Steve had suggested it might be appropriate for him to call McGiven, to brief him on the background behind the deal, Thomas had quickly grasped at his friend’s suggestion because it enabled three things.

Firstly, he knew that it would establish Steve’s credentials as a potential backchannel that might be trusted by the State Department, if needed at some point. When his friend had recommended McGiven, he later admitted to himself after the call that it had gone better than he had hoped. For, until Steve had proposed McGiven himself, the best Thomas had hoped for was a high level introduction to somebody appropriate within the Administration.

This was high as it got: ‘Two degrees of separation’.

Secondly, by involving his friend personally, Thomas knew that by playing to his ego as a CEO of a world media group, he was now a ’world player’ in forging public opinion, not just feeding them the ideas of others. This meant that as long as he was smart and managed it carefully Thomas could pull the strings on the message and at the same time, ensure his overriding goal that being the protection of TLH’s commercial position.

Lastly, though, on this part of his plan he couldn’t be sure that there wasn’t a guarantee that anybody was listening, he was sending a signal to the Mayor that the ball was in play, thereby putting in place his survival goal of his plan.

His mind reflected on that last part of the plan for a few moments.

“Yes,” he concluded. “It may be speculative to assume that SVR was monitoring all my communications just as it would be to assume that the National Security Organizations of the United States had been monitoring those calls but assume otherwise would be stupid.”

So much so, it was something he shared with Steve. They had both taken their batteries out of their phones and placed them on the table before they started their update.

“One thing life’s taught me,” Thomas said as he opened up the back of the phone. “The day you stop attempting to work out what would the other side was going to do in their situation would either be your last day on earth or it will end up costing you money.”

Steve laughed and then said, “One thing Snowden’s affair has shown the world was that with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act allowing for the sharing of Internet traffic information between the U.S. government and technology and manufacturing companies it would be foolish not to assume that from the moment I called Joe McGiven, if not before, then all our communications together are going to be recorded and reviewed. So don’t worry, I am on the same page, old buddy.”

Thomas smiled at his friend. “Excellent Stevie! Welcome to the great game,” he said, offering him a toast in response.

“Hell, Tommy,” Steve replied as he picked up his drink. “If I pull this off I might even have a run at the Presidency myself one day!” he said, his ego rising to the surface as he tapped Thomas’s sake shot with his own.

“Indeed,” answered Thomas before he started to brief him on the next parts of the plan over the coming weeks.

He thought, “I might have guessed an Ambassadorship wouldn’t cut it for the famous Steve Krivets!” in reference to the question he asked as he presented his idea.

Moments later, with heads turning in their direction from restaurant, scores of celebrity watchers of London, the ‘jailbait’ looking Daniele and his stunning life’s companion walked back to join them.

“Stevie if you’re really serious about being President one day you’re certainly going have to give up ‘pursuits’ like that!” said Thomas in his best sage-like voice laced with a little humor.

“Yeah I know, buddy, but just not yet!” he laughed while offering his friend another toast.

Returning to the table, having changed places with Daniele so she could sit next him, Nara took his hand and he instantly responded with a little squeeze of his own, his signal he had finished his business for the evening.

Allowing normal conversation to resume until the meal ended with both Titans having a mock fight as who paid the bill. The honor fell to Steve.

“Keep in touch,” he said to Steve as they hugged each other.

“I will, buddy,” Steve responded as they left the restaurant together, but not before each man’s various protection teams took up their anti-threat positions, to allow their charges to get into their various limos as the blinding wall of light from the awaiting paparazzi lit up the night again.

Awake, having looked at the clock by the side of the bed and seeing that it was seven o’clock, Thomas quickly realized that he had only three hours sleep. Getting up, despite his body telling him not to, as he had a meeting at ten with the Prime Minister, he slid quietly from beneath the linen sheets trying hard not to disturb the sleeping Nara knowing she was not due to fly to Nice until midday.

Glancing over at her face, he took a moment to reflect on the night before. An intense bout of lovemaking had taken place after getting home from the restaurant. Demanding and passionate, it reminded him of their time in Venice when they created Victoria together.

They hadn’t wasted any time on their return home, once inside their bedroom, tearing at the dress like a possessed man, wasting the thirty thousand U.S. dollars in the process but not caring as he made love to Nara.

The rest of the night was as just as frenzied and passionate while they attacked each other. On and on, it went with him exploding each time as his beautiful wild love controlled him.

“Yep,” he told himself as he shook his head with a broad smile. “I am a blessed man!” He caressed her long hair gently.

Leaving their bed quietly, he slipped through the dressing room straight on through to the bathroom; automatically the lights came on as the sensors picked up on his body movement. Reaching the sink, he grabbed the can of shaving gel, stretched, turned on the tap, lathered up his face, and started to shave. As he did so, he thought about his imminent meeting with the Prime Minister.

Ruminating that it is never the easiest of jobs leading a coalition, Thomas concluded it was because PM always ended up sounding like he was delivering a sound bite from a PowerPoint presentation and also, in no small part, due to the fact he was a product of a privileged education having gone to Eton and Oxford, that the PM struggled in presenting himself as a man of the people.

Each time he did he just ended up sounding like a British First World War officer ordering his men over the top of the trenches and then onto their deaths.

It was the Mayor who ensured Thomas used the first part of his conclusion to their mutual benefit having told him the KGB had tried to recruit him once when he was nineteen on a visit to the Soviet Union knowing he was from the political elite of England and on his way to Oxford. That attempt ultimately failed because he wasn’t a traitor in the traditional sense of the word.

When the Mayor became President, he chose to use his National Champions allies in England to cultivate him this time by using commerce and political self-interest as the tools of choice.

“Almost like Satan in John Milton’s Paradise Lost,” Thomas suddenly thought chuckling to himself as the razor glided over his chin.

Ambitious, principled, driven, not to mention a family man, the Mayor had told Thomas over a dinner that he actually quite liked him before ordering him to help him through his media interests.

Following his instructions to the letter Thomas proceeded to do just that in subtle ways until the man finally sat in front of him in the China Tang’s Private Room located in the famous Dorchester Hotel as the Leader of the Opposition.

Described as the “Leader in Waiting,” it hadn’t taken much for him to make a deal with him over his media’s support for the next four years leading up to the General Election: just the promise that TLH agenda received full access to his ministers and support from him whenever they requested it.

“You have to hand it to the Mayor. He was right, the National Champions are the best recruitment team of the Special Services of Russia!” he sadly concluded looking at himself in the mirror.

His second country’s interests were now well and truly established in his first country’s institutions of the City and Whitehall, that was something the Soviet Union never achieved in it is eighty years of existence despite the nest of assets they had in the security services and civil service, and reinforced by the fact that for the first time since the Special Relationship had begun Britain hadn’t followed the U.S. into a conflict by the way the PM had allowed the MPs of his party to vote against Syria.

“Rumpelstiltskin always gets his due, old chap,” Thomas thought chuckling to himself over the comparison of the Mayor to the famous children’s fable.

That said, the fact, that “repayment” happened to suit the Federal Republic of Russia’s interests and not that of the United States of America, the traditional ally of the United Kingdom, was neither here or there.

Finished shaving he stretched again, feeling his old wounds in the process throb in the process. He turned on the cold tap very briefly to wash away the remains of his shadow mixed with the shaving cream and to wake him up, then turned to the power shower and stepped in.

As the water roared out hitting his body, he reflected again on his life. More and more he was beginning to feel like Achilles. Like many of the Oligarchs who had taken the wealth of Russia’s soil, he had become the instrument of the Mayor. He just wondered if his own particular heel would kill him one day.

“If I get this wrong, it will!” he concluded as his mind went over what he needed from the meeting that was due to place in a few hours’ time.

The warm water jets were exceptionally relaxing against his skin, though he had little to relax from at this precise moment—he had, after all, apart from the views whirling in his head just had a bout of passionate and stress-relieving sex with his amazing woman followed by a short, deep sleep.

He was so wrapped up by his thoughts he had not noticed the figure of Nara enter the bathroom until she spoke.

“Morning, my Thomas,” she said through a giggle, her smile widening as she watched him turn his head slowly back towards her with his own smile.

“Morning beautiful,” he said with his own naughty glint in his eye.

“You’re up early. Do you have to be somewhere, darling?” she asked innocently, earning a response that he did although not telling her who with.

“Then why didn’t you wake me?” she said as a siren to a sailor, wrapping her hand around the large silver handle set into the glass shower door making clear her intention to join him. “I need to shower too, my love,” she further added as she stepped in.

Seeing his devilish eyes twinkle with amusement, she laughed as she shut the door behind her.

“It certainly looks like I’m not the only one happy that I’ve joined you my Thomas,” she murmured looking at the stirring taking place below as her hand went about weaving its magic as the water hit them both.