The Devil's Handshake

12

London – Present Day

Arriving approximately thirty minutes before the meeting with the Prime Minister, Thomas and his security entourage walked down Parliament Street until they reached and entered a little coffee shop known as Café Churchill.

Unlike its high street competitors, the coffee shop was old-fashioned, had no internet, and yet to this day was the place where most of the world’s movers and shakers always met before a pre-meeting at Downing Street, just as Thomas and his entourage were about do.

As they entered the cafe, a tall man in his sixties stood up and greeted them.

Brigadier Angus Mackintosh, standing poker straight and well over six-feet tall, was certainly a person who met the description of former British Army Officer. He was dressed in his grey pinstriped tailored suit, highly polished black leather shoes, and his Guard’s tie, providing him the blessed appearance of a leader of men.

Thomas, as a young officer during his tour with the regiment had always respected him for his cool leadership style. Certainly one not to play politics, as he was the man who recommended him for his Military Cross and fought for and tried to force his political masters to recognize his men’s bravery right up until he retired.

He had joined the board of TLH after a stint in the Royal Omani Brigade of Guards to provide a necessary respected ‘back-door’ between the British Government and Thomas.

“Hello, Dear Boy,” Angus said warmly crushing Thomas’s hand in the process.

“Late night, Tommy?” he immediately enquired, spotting Thomas’s eyes and earning a cheeky smile from his charge in return. Almost as if was the old days.

“Always, Brig,” Thomas replied for he never called him Angus out of respect.

While Mikhail got an espresso for the both of them, his other bodyguards took up their positions either side of them.

“So are you sure the PM is going to go for this, old chap?” Angus asked.

“Well, Brig, it not just me that needs this so does Britain. The potential oil reserves under little Adwalland should ensure Britain’s requirements are met for the next fifty years,” Thomas began. “I do recognize though that it’s a tough pill to swallow having old Ivan acting as the security guarantee!” he continued as Mikhail arrived with the strong black, rich Italian coffees the café was famous for.

“Mmmm,” the old solider replied. He wasn’t completely convinced of his former protégé’s synopsis, yet he kept wise counsel while they finished their coffee and enquired about each other’s family.

Coffees finished, the five of them left the small café and walked down the busy Parliament Street for about a minute before crossing the road to Downing Street. Mikhail and the security team, armed with Tasers and batons, had to wait outside.

Once the reception officer had confirmed their identification, the former Special Forces officers walked through the security gates and down the road to Number 10.

Arriving outside in a matter of moments and as if by magic the door opened before they could knock. Met a female aide she proceeded to take them to the garden room at the back of the building that overlooked a small courtyard.

As they made themselves comfortable, both men refused the offer of tea or coffee from the lady while they waited for the PM to see them. They didn’t have to wait long.

Minutes later, the door opened allowing the PM, followed by his Personal Private Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, and to ensure the public demands for greater transparency, the official minute taker to walk in.

“Sir Thomas, so very good to see you,” the Prime Minister said in his crisp Etonian tones offering his hand to introduce himself.

Aware that, with the minute taker in the room, no reference should be made to their previous meeting in the Dorchester when he was in Opposition and understanding that the PM’s diary with commercial interests was now “matter of public record,” and having been briefed by Angus not to mention their previous meeting, Thomas took his hand firmly in return and politely greeted him.

At the start, the meeting went pretty much as expected with bland questions being asked by the PM and his aides and equally non-committal answers from both Angus and Thomas being received. This was created purely for any nosey reporters looking for tidbits in the official minutes.

Then after ten minutes with a single nod towards the minute taker, the men watched as the young man left the room only to be replaced by an attractive woman in her early forties.

“Thomas Litchfield,” Thomas said offering his hand, beating the Prime Minister to the punch.

“Sir Thomas,” the woman said taking it while turning towards the Foreign Secretary to lead the way to introduce her.

“Elizabeth, good of you join us,” the Foreign Secretary said taking his cue as he gestured for her to sit down, where upon they all quickly followed suit as well.

Taking in her appearance, Thomas thought she was extremely attractive indeed. She had piercing green eyes and long auburn colored hair. The standard high street dark blue business suit concealed her long slender body gave her a height of ,he guessed, at five-foot-nine-inches and since she hadn’t introduced herself, he quickly surmised that it meant she was from the Intelligence Services so he waited for the PPS to confirm it.

“Elizabeth is from our Security Services, gentleman,” he said before continuing. “As this part of the meeting is privy to the Official Secrets Act, and a DA notice to reflect Elizabeth’s presence I will be taking the minutes,” he added. The DA notice meant anything discussed could never be reported on and could be removed from the public eye.

Nodding their agreement in return, the PM gave his permission to Elizabeth to start. As she did, it suddenly dawned on Thomas he had met her before.

“Sir Thomas, it has been made aware to us that your reasons for this investment may be linked less to your commercial interests, and more to the requirements of men of your position on the other passport you hold are required to deliver?” she said as both a statement and a question in an oblique reference to his citizenship of, and the National Champions policy of Russia, getting straight to the point.

“Yes Elizabeth, that scenario could be easily presented,” Thomas replied without hesitation having expected it.

“We would like you to explain why you think it is vital that the British Government should support your proposed investment plan and not to mention provide its formal recognition of the Russian Government’s intention to build a Naval base less than hundred and twenty miles away from the Americans in Djibouti?” she continued.

He crossed his legs and relaxed and did just that for the next forty-five minutes during a question and answer discussion as Elizabeth, the PM, and the Foreign Secretary probed him hard on the benefits versus the negatives of the erosion of United States and British security relationship that would most likely outcome from such an action and how it would help the long-term interests of Britain. It was a tough sell; Thomas could see everybody was less than convinced but knowing his hour was almost up, nonetheless he decided to go for broke.

“If Britain is going to maintain its Energy Security position then its needs to do it by allowing Joint Ventures of this nature, for if it vocally opposed to them then our country’s major Nature Resource companies can kiss goodbye the prospect of cheap power from Russian related interests.” He paused to take a drink of water. “Britain just cannot afford the cost of taking a neutral position, Prime Minister,” he continued.

“How do you know this Thomas?” the Foreign Secretary queried.

“The President of Russia, unfortunately, made it abundantly clear to me in our last meeting,” Thomas said delivering the Mayor’s back channel message somewhat more diplomatically than when the man had actually said it.

The room was silent for a moment whilst it grimly absorbed his statement.

The UK, whether it liked it or not, was the slave of the natural resources of Russia and Asia and as such it had to always tread a tightrope in how it engaged above the line with them whilst not appearing as allowing them to walk all over them in front of the Americans who fuelled the Private Equity of the British Economy. The problems of Ukraine remained fresh in both politician’s minds. The prices of Natural Gas had spiked by ten percent in the months following the crisis, as Russia punished Europe for the sanctions they had placed on them.

The threat, masked as intelligence, that Thomas had just delivered them was a bitter pill to swallow, as it meant they would be facing additional Energy costs rises as they approached the general election.

Thinking on his feet, the PM closed the meeting with a request in very simple straightforward terms so he could take advantage of the DA notice.

“If Her Majesty Government agrees to support Russia’s security proposal to safeguard joint investment interests in this part of East Africa,” he paused before continuing, “I assume your media interests will be fully briefed?” He was referring to what he needed from TLH with respect to positive media for his Party in the next general election in return for his government’s support of his interests.

“Of course, Prime Minister,” Thomas replied without hesitation as he stared into the eyes of Elizabeth, having noticed she was somewhat uncomfortable over the misuse of the meeting for political capital instead of Her Majesty’s nation’s security. As he did so, he remembered where they had met.

Born of Algerian Jewish extraction whose grandparents moved to London in the twenties, Rebecca Leiris was forty-four years old, a graduate of Bristol in International Relations where she had achieved a First, and was recruited as a spy after applying for a position in the Foreign Office, only to be offered the opportunity to work in SIS half way through her interview. Never looking back, she truly loved her work and her country.

She had never married due to the nature of work or had any long term trusting relationships much to her parents’ despair and who to this day still didn’t know she worked in SIS as they thought she worked in the Foreign Office as an undersecretary.

Only her brother knew, as her next of kin, what she really did, and they had never told their parents, knowing they would worry nonstop if they did. A specialist in Russian affairs she had first come across Thomas Litchfield, as he was then, in the early nineties when she had been placed at the Embassy as part of the British Council and the British Ambassador had introduced them at a party under her real name. This had happened because her work at that time was merely analytical, and as such a Non Official Cover (NOC) identity wasn’t needed.

Intrigued by his flawless Russian, not to mention his rakish looks she checked him out only to find out that he was a decorated former ex-Special Forces British Army officer with some very interesting links to certain people emerging and making their fortunes in Yeltsin-led Russia.

They had never met again despite him ringing her to ask for a date, which she had turned down due to his rather exotic business interests. Instead, she had placed him on SIS watch list.

Over the years, Rebecca had watched him grow into an immensely powerful man with his tentacles reaching way beyond anything she imagined.

To her, Thomas, with a Russian child, Turkmen mistress, and most importantly the fact that Putin had granted him Russian Citizenship considering him an instrument of his new Russia to the extent that he had used him to deliver the threat, appeared to represent everything she most feared.

“Above the law, able to move within the corridors of power at will and a person who even had the PM of the realm she was sworn to protect appearing to ask him for favors!”

As the meeting broke up, Thomas followed his instincts that for some unbeknownst reason was convinced that Elizabeth held the key to his endeavor, not the Foreign Secretary.

“Elizabeth, you are most welcome to have a cup of tea anytime you want with me if you feel it would help” he offered.

“Thank you, Sir Thomas. On behalf of service I fully appreciate the offer,” the Foreign Secretary answered for her before she had a chance to.

“Excellent, that’s settled then I am sure we can leave the both of you to work out the proper place for the meeting,” said the PM laughing because he was actually quite pleased with himself over the fact that he just gotten an important endorsement from one of the country’s most famous media barons for his run-up to the next General Election.

Once on the road having left the building, Thomas turned towards his Executive Chairman.

“Brig, can you get everything on Rebecca Leiris please?” he asked

“Who the devil is that dear boy?” Angus asked

“The attractive lady you just met,” Thomas replied nonplussed to the shocked former Brigadier.

“I am not going ask!” Angus replied with a chuckle as they walked back up Downing Street to join Mikhail and the team outside the British Empire’s gates of power.

Whilst waiting in the lounge at the TAG Aviation’s private airport at Farnborough Airport to travel to Nice on one of the TLH’s G-4’s so she could organize The Libertine for the weekend, Nara’s mind began to wander as she looked at the guest list and the requirements.

When Thomas had first told her of the new role as the Executive Manager, all those years ago he said it was merely so he could bring her to England but when she found what “The Libertine” was, she had seen it as another sign.

“Allah was truly merciful,” and that he was her guardian.

The yacht “The Libertine” was her favorite place in the world when the passengers were only Thomas, Victoria, and herself.

Earlier Victoria had made Nara happy when she told her that she was starting to like the school in Somerset that Thomas had insisted that their baby went to, despite Nara’s forcible objections otherwise.

She missed her baby terribly and couldn’t wait to see her again.

Although she was protected 24/7 by one of Mikhail’s teams she always worried that someone would take her most precious gift from God, and having seen the effort by the childlike Jelep of Stevie only the night before as she attempted to flirt with Thomas her mind begun to wrestle with the realization that as she was getting older, her sell-by date was fast approaching.

“No,” she decided that wasn’t going to happen.

She was determined to protect her and Victoria’s place in his life.

“I will not let Victoria’s position come under threat from the day he would give in to his natural desires with the inevitable result being the introduction of a son from the liaison with a younger woman,” she resolved as the Captain arrived in the waiting room to advise that they could now take off.

So as the plane taxied down the runway she first prayed to Allah that he would bless her again with a son for “Her Thomas,” then refocused her mind on the weekend, and the African Minister they were to have as a guest.

As Thomas walked into his office and greeted Louise, his secretary, he took in her short cream skirt and matching blouse with her hair up in the process. He smiled at her and then commented that he thought she looked lovely which instantly earned him a blushing thank you from her in return.

Before Nara entered his life, he had been very much the typical description of a rake in the traditional sense of the word with a reputation as a lothario that would have put Don Juan to shame. But that was then and this was now. That didn’t mean though he didn’t like to flirt and look from time to time,

Telling Louise he didn’t wish to be disturbed until one o’clock, Thomas sat down at his desk and gathered his thoughts from the morning.

Feeling his phone buzzing he pulled it out and seeing it was a text from his daughter he opened it.

“Love you daddy enjoy the L this weekend!” it said.

“I see she spoke to her mother this morning!” he replied out loud with a shake of his head.

Looking at his watch, he realized that his daughter had sent this note in a lesson covertly.

“I will call you after prep lessons young lady!” he ordered.

He received an immediate reply of, “Sorry D xxx.”

When he had told Nara he felt the time was right for her to go boarding school they had fought tooth and nail over the decision.

“N-o, m-y T-h-o-m-a-s… PLEASE NIET… do not send my baby away… I B-E-G YOU!” she had pleaded in broken English and Russian like she always did when under stress with tears flowing from her eyes.

She had delivered her wails with such distress Thomas almost backed down and gave in to her before sticking to his guns because he was absolutely convinced that their daughter would have a more rounded education with some level normality.

The point was he had never even considered becoming a father until his little girl was delivered into his arms and now the little girl and her mother were the center of everything he did in his life and would always remain so.

Even his father, the infamous head of one London’s oldest and biggest private Merchant Banks, had sent him a note of congratulations, despite the fact they hadn’t spoken since he left Oxford. Stating only, “Well done! Your mother would be proud! Always, Rufus.” And although he had kept the note all these years it he had never responded back to the old bastard.

His thoughts moved back to Nara, it wasn’t lost on him that she had recently started to become more and more insecure despite him telling her there would never be anybody else. Of course, the direct benefit of this for him was their recent love making—it was almost as if she were using sex to make sure his eye didn’t wander.

“Maybe I should ask her if she would like have another child,” he mused sensing her insecurities were possibly a direct link to her own troubled relationship with her father and of more terrifyingly the life she was forced to lead before he entered her life.

As he waited for the laptop to come to life he confessed to himself that over the last year or so he had begun to worry about Victoria’s future.

He expected his ‘Plum,’ as he thought of her, and who was fast becoming a younger version of mother with every passing day, to run the TLH Group, a company currently worth sixty billion U.S. dollars by herself one day.

“It just isn’t fair,” he reflected as he made a decision that he hoped would rectify it.

He just hoped Nara felt the same as he returned to his paperwork in readiness of a meeting with the technical team of his Oil and Gas division.

The walk back to her office on 18 Old Queen Street took Rebecca just under eight minutes. As she was technically an officer working under “NOC,” meaning Non-Official Cover, she wasn’t located in the imposing building overlooking the Thames. Instead, her office, located in Westminster, was surrounded with small legal firms and lobbyists who had no idea that their neighbors, were the Near East Desk’s operations desk of MI6

As she walked, she mused over the problem she potentially faced with Litchfield. He knew her real identity. A conclusion she had reached by the way Thomas had looked at her. If she reported it up the line she would have been immediately removed from the scene and having spent the last six years watching him and suspecting that he was a traitor, she certainly wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

“I need to meet him!” she silently told herself.

On entering the office, she sat down at her desk, started her desktop computer, entered her password, and then pulled up his extensive file. As she did so, her boss Michael Barnes walked in.

He was a tall black man of second generation West Indian descent, fifty-two years old, wearing the sort of clothing you would expect to find in any Next or M&S of a simple dark blue blazer, white shirt, with a red tie and trousers with a black pair of black shoes. He was married with two teenage children, a house in Maidenhead, and a product of the State school system having gone to school in Reading, before going on to Guildford where he studied Business Studies.

After gaining a First, he then applied on a whim to the Civil Service only to be like Rebecca diverted into SIS. Together over the years they had served all over the world.

“I hear the meeting with the PM turned into a bit of love-in,” he said.

“Oh yes, I thought he was going to beg at one stage!” Rebecca replied uncharitably with a smile making reference to the PM taking advantage of the notice to ask for a media endorsement.

“Just be careful; the DG wants this handled with kid gloves” he said, ever the politician. “If he is an agent rather than a messenger of Ivan we will need to advise the FS. If he isn’t and we get this wrong then the fallout would be disastrous for us!”

Rebecca looked at him one more time, but didn’t say anything as he got up and walked out of her office. She knew the stakes more than anyone.

The African investment although important from a trade perspective and of course to the United States whose interests in the area were dead set against the growth of Russian influence in the Horn of Africa was secondary as far as the SIS were concerned. The real threat they were concerned about was whether the major contributor to the different political parties of the United Kingdom represented a clear and present danger to the ‘Defense of the Realm’ with his ability to mold and form policy. If he was an SVR asset then his reach and influence could have serious implications. The fact he had a Russian passport should have been enough for them all at the SIS in usual circumstances. Still, the game had changed dramatically over the last twenty years; ideology trumped by financial power throughout the fabric of society every time and when aligned alongside his outstanding military record from when he had served in the British Army meant that nobody wanted to risk sending it up the chain that he was suspect.

Being the service experts on the Oligarchs, Rebecca’s department had been tasked to rubber stamp him one way or another. The more political animals of the service considered it a poisoned chalice, so stayed away relieved it was not on their desk.

Get it wrong and it would be career suicide with a posting to the Congo, Michael had warned when giving her the task.

As she stared back at his rakish features on the desktop, Rebecca took the decision to use the high ground.

“Strike while the iron is hot!” she told herself with determination.

The phone buzzing on the desk interrupted Thomas’s thoughts. On pushing the button he was greeted by his assistant’s crisp voice.

“Sir Thomas, sorry to bother you I have a Mrs. Elizabeth Field from the Home Office on the line.”

“Put her through please,” he replied without hesitation.

Greeting her politely and choosing not to reveal that he knew her real name as he knew the call would be recorded her end and was almost certainly being monitored by SVR, he arranged to meet her for a coffee at Connaught around the corner from his office at three just before heading off to Nice.

As he put the phone down he reflected, “That was quick!”

In the back of his mind, Thomas had suspected that the charade of this morning’s meeting was actually about two things.

For the PM, it was getting his covert support for him as the election approached. That was positive because it showed him that the British government would at worst take a neutral position with respect to the Adwalland deal. Something he would “pass” up the line to Moscow at a suitable moment.

For the SIS, he initially assumed it was to report back to the Americans under the terms of their shared intelligence platform, but it wasn’t until Rebecca brought up his discreet Russian passport granted by the Mayor all those years ago to test his reaction did he realize what they really concerned about: that he was an enemy agent of the Special Services of Russia.

He pondered on that thought for a moment. He had considered the passport of limited importance. A mere piece of theatre created by the Mayor all those years ago to justify his expectation of his continued loyalty and ensure that he knew his place within the political fabric he had created within Russia.

Most of the time the bloody thing sat in the safe at Holland Park except of course whenever he traveled into Russia and the former Republics of the Soviet Union.

To the SIS, he summarized it appeared it was much more important, something he had gauged by the approach of her questions.

The appearance of Rebecca in the sitting room at Downing Street had been a pleasant surprise.

The years had treated her well as far Thomas was concerned, she was now even more elegant and beautiful than when he last saw her all those years ago in Moscow, of course only then he didn’t know she was in fact, a young officer of the SIS. As he remembered about that moment he smiled, it pleased him his photographic memory never failed him.

His wandering mind’s attention moved back to his inbox. Seeing an email from Angus in reference to her, he opened it. Reading it, he noted that she had never married, had a private life, which couldn’t be at best described as a threat to national security as none of her recent lovers actually knew what she did. He also noted with a chuckle that she was considered the expert in the service on the Oligarchs.

“That explains a lot!” he thought out loud before continuing with his reading.

A rotation in Iraq as a support member in the ‘Green Zone,’ keeping an eye on the contractors then a placement in Nairobi monitoring the area in the early 2006 showed him that she was highly thought of in the service.

His mind returned to the fact she had never married and then to a collection of newspapers reports that were attached as files.

It appeared that one of her lovers, the man she planned to marry, was a member of the Red Cross and had been tragically killed in Somalia when his Land Rover had driven over a landmine.

The death of her fiancée he guessed had to be linked to her career, an assumption he reached by its lack of reference of him in Angus’s notes.

“Nice to see some secrets are still kept!” he concluded.

Experience told him that Rebecca had to enjoy the power of knowledge. In her work it was a function that was an essential prerequisite, for him he considered it a weakness.

It was then he decided that he would use to his advantage as he tested her this afternoon over afternoon tea. Bored, he skimmed the rest of the notes that were pretty standard on her background in terms of family and friends.

Truth be known he was actually quite disappointed that Angus could get that much information within an hour from former colleagues on a dedicated officer who had served faithfully her country in spite of the lack of background on the death of the one person that she appeared to be close to.

Closing the file down he reflected about the stepped up interested in him again by the SIS. The simple fact was though he wasn’t a fully paid up agent of the SVR he was certainly and had been whether he liked it or not an asset of the Mayor and as such, was his instrument just as Achilles was of King Agamemnon in the Trojan War.

He didn’t believe, like the beautiful Rebecca, in the concept of blind loyalty to one’s country rather like Dostoevsky.

“The line between good and evil is drawn, not between nations or parties, but through every human heart.”

To him the said heart was those he was sworn to protect, gave him their loyalty, and those of his blood no matter the cost, with Nara and Victoria at its epicenter.

The deal he had brokered in East Africa had originally been driven by the huge profits. The fact it had to include the interests of Russia was merely a by-product that he had no escape from.

He stroked his chin. “So let see where the game takes us Rebecca?” he mused in a final reflection as he leaned back in his chair.

At ten to three on leaving his townhouse office, Thomas with his ever-present guards led by Mikhail walked around the corner to Mount Street, up and into the famous Connaught Five-Star Hotel. On entering, Espelette, the General Manager warmly greeted him by informing him that his guest Mrs. Field was waiting for him by the window. Signaling Mikhail and his men to stay in the lobby of the hotel, he walked towards the beautiful woman.

“Thank you for seeing me on short notice, Sir Thomas,” she said offering her hand as he sat down in front of her continuing with her cover.

Taking a moment to look at her as he had done earlier in Downing Street, this time Thomas replied as he took her hand firmly. “Rebecca, you don’t need to call me Sir Thomas,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, thereby acknowledging and proving her initial conclusion that he had recognized her in an instant although Thomas didn’t know that.

“Gosh!” Rebecca exclaimed, playing along. “How on earth can you remember that it was almost twenty years ago!” she said, regaining her composure.

“One always remembers the ones that got away!” Thomas answered with a chuckle releasing her hand.

“Well I can see your charm hasn’t mellowed over the years, Thomas,” she fenced back at him dropping the ‘Sir’ in front of his name. “In any case, thank you for not embarrassing me this morning,” she answered sincerely.

Acknowledging her thanks with a simple nod to put her at ease as the waiter turned up, Thomas offered a glass of champagne. She politely declined before they both settled on a cup of tea each.

Knowing he had to leave so he could make his slot time at Farnborough in the late afternoon, Thomas immediately got down to business with her.

Rebecca, as he was offering her the champagne, was sizing up her person of interest and wondering what was his angle. She didn’t need to wait very long.

“So SIS is concerned that I am an asset of Foreign Power?” he said matter of factually.

“The sledgehammer approach, Thomas?” Rebecca replied with a slight smirk that earned in return one back from him as the waiter arrived then theatrically poured their tea through the strainers into the signature bone china cups and then placed the silver teapot on the table and left.

Their conversation resumed.

“Why don’t I put you at ease as it appears an African Oil deal and the building of a Russian Naval base stopped being of interest to the Great British Empire in 1990s,” he answered in reference to the fact that Britain’s interests were no longer Cold War focused.

Using her skills to spot micro-expressions that linked to deceptions during interrogations during the next twenty minutes, Rebecca concluded that though Thomas had admitted he was close to the President of Russia, the relationship was best explained by Thomas’s way of a cricketing analogy.

“That whether I like or not, I have no choice but play each ball as it comes.”

“Much like the messenger from the Iliad?” She fenced with him.

A look of surprise appeared on Thomas’s face. She knew all about his background, including his love of the classics and the teachings of Homer and by using the response in the manner she had just done told him that.

After a moment Rebecca noted his initial shock had dissipated well enough to laugh.

“Indeed,” he acknowledged. “But I certainly don’t want to end up like the poor messenger from Troy!” In Homer’s poem, King Agamemnon messenger had been stoned to death upon the delivery of his message because they did not like its contents.

“More like Bellerophontes,” Rebecca replied with a piercing stare preferring to use the part of the epic poem when Argos sent the hero with message saying, “Kill this messenger” to the ruler of Lycia but instead ended up becoming Greece’s greatest hero for killing the Chimera, the monster that Homer depicted with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail.

This time he didn’t say anything for a few moments. Instead he smiled and kept her stare before breaking it by looking at his watch.

“You’re most welcome to liaise with Angus for your report, I promise I have nothing to hide from you,” he offered.

“I do apologize, but I am running late,” he said with sincerity. “When I get back to London let’s get together again,” he further offered. “That’s if you have any more questions?” he quickly added with warmth.

“Absolutely,” Rebecca answered back.

“Of course, it’s only so I can recruit you for Ivan!” he joked attempting to gain the upper hand to which Rebecca smiled in return but chose not to comment.

As she watched him walk away, Rebecca felt something she hadn’t felt since Christopher lost his life, but being a professional she quickly banished so to focus on her work at hand something now made more complicated by the fact Thomas knew almost certainly everything about her, if he was connected as she expected him to be.