The Devil's Handshake

32

Borama

Although all Somalis genetically belong to the “G” tribe, each town or city much like the cities of the United Arab Emirates were responsible for their immediate geographical area.

In Adwalland, these areas were Saylac and Lughaya in the northwest then finally Awdal in the west with all the areas using the original Clan base divisions of the sixteenth Century Sultanate that had ruled when it was known as the Emirate of Saylac.

The reason why they chose to follow the municipality system of the UAE had made sense when they had been setting up the State as it meant it the Presidency of the new nation could be shared every five years and allow the tribal chiefs to self-govern their own areas without one tribe dominating the others.

In bringing all the sub-clans of the Upper and Lower Houses together to create a cabinet of six members to act as the ruling council, the President had for the first time since the Sultan been able to create a State for the whole area, but despite this, the peace was still fragile. Therefore Thomas and the President needed to make sure that the spoils from their agreement with the Russian Government were shared correctly and more importantly, fairly.

The clean water wells, roads, electricity, telecommunications, schools and medical facilities were the first part of the plan as the harbor contractors set about creating the docks and channels to take boats with up to twenty meter drafts to make it one of the biggest ports on the East African coast and one to certainly a rival to Djibouti’s next door to Adwalland once it was completed.

The second part was cash. Over the last month the Russian Central Bank had set up the correspondence relationship with Adwalland’s new Central Bank and in doing so was able to serve as the underwriter to the Western banks for the new country that would struggle to get credit otherwise if they hadn’t.

TLH had placed its first lease payment of fifty million U.S. dollars on deposit into the new Commercial Bank of Adwalland, and the Russian Government had placed into the new branch in Moscow their first tranche of 200 million U.S. dollars for deployment into Adwalland joint ventures.

This was now being explained to the Council by Omar, but instead of understanding the significance of the gift they were receiving, which would make them over the next ten years a leading African state, unfortunately it now appeared to Thomas that they had all immediately seen it as an opportunity for ‘land grab.’ As a result, each Clan was seeking to divert the monies into their own areas, not understanding that the money couldn’t be deployed in that way.

At least that’s what he surmised from what he could make out by the emotions on the President and his many advisers’ faces.

After about three hours of going around in circles, and copious amounts of mint tea, the meeting finally broke up for the evening.

“Thomas, I need money!” the mentally exhausted President said once they were alone.

“You have money, Mr. President,” answered Thomas bracing himself for a renegotiation of the terms.

“No, I need money here in Adwalland, not in Moscow!” replied the emotionally drained man.

“Once they begin to see the buildings going up, the supplies arriving they will be glad.” Thomas offered in simple terms. Omar waved his hand as if to cut him off at the pass.

“That is not the problem! The problem is Wasir!”

“Why?”

“I took care of him. He has received the payments he requested to be sent to Dubai for his security teams,” Thomas answered annoyed having not understood a word of the exchanges over the last few hours, only the bits that used Arabic. He had assumed it was about greed, not the vicious bastard who had insulted his family and had cost him a couple of million U.S. dollars in a thinly veiled bribe.

“He has been filling the Council’s heads with thoughts that the deal is not good enough!”

“Well, that is nothing new!”

“No deal is good enough,” Thomas replied even if he were still fuming inside at the treachery of the pirate.

Omar said nothing, but Thomas could see he was at his wit’s end.

“Okay, what did he say?” he asked instead.

“That he has partners from India through his contacts in Dubai who will give them a better deals than my Russian and English friends.”

“Better deals!”

“Mr. President, Adwalland has only just been born, it cannot act like pirates and tear up international contracts with a sovereign state like Russia because it has been promised more elsewhere,” Thomas explained to his friend with a touch of anger in his voice. “In any case how do they know it is a better deal!” he asked doubtfully.

“He took his friend to see them, and in each case he gave them money and left it up to them on how best decide to spend it within their area!” he said. “Just like the old days!” he said continuing with his rant in reference to a time when you could buy a Clan’s loyalty with a few U.S. dollars.

Thomas looked at Omar’s tired face.

“For all the idealism one may have, self-interest always trumps in the end!” Thomas sadly reflected.

“How much?” Thomas asked instead, resigned to the fact he was going to have to match the offer. “One million each, plus five percent of any resources mined or extracted from their regions,” the President answered in disgust.

As he took onboard the latest information he reflected that it wasn’t the cash figure that bothered him, he thought that affordable. It was the percentage figure.

When Wasir originally asked for ten percent of the profits before taxes he thought that was excessive, but this was completely uneconomic.

After a mine or oil company had paid out the expenses and the Central Government’s share of the revenue, it generally left them with profit before taxes of about twenty-five percent though he admitted to himself it was still huge a sum it certainly isn’t if you have to factor in local Clans receiving revenue shares as well as. Investors would deem it uneconomic for the area and pass on it. Therefore, this was far worse than having to up cash contributions as he was now facing a creditability issue on the international markets. That affected TLH, not just Adwalland.

“Who is his friend?” asked Thomas narrowing his eyes.

“Some rich Indian called Gouramangi Singh,” answered the leader of Adwalland.

“He is in diamonds not oil!” thought Thomas surprised. Although he had heard of him their paths had never crossed.

“Okay, what do you believe will help you with the Council?”

“I think I need ten million U.S. dollars in cash to keep them in line,” answered the President sincerely.

“I will organize to have the cash transferred,” Thomas answered decisively having also reflected on Rebecca’s warning of a week ago and thinking it had to be linked. “But I will need to go Moscow and make sure our partners are satisfied as to the reasons why,” he added.

“Of course, I understand, when will you return?” the concerned President asked.

“I will be back next week for the arrival of the Russian Ambassador,” he answered to a now very relieved President.

Not wanting to waste any time, Thomas left the President’s residence and went straight to the airport.

On boarding his Boeing BBJ to head off to Moscow, he noticed a G-4 parked up by the Cargo hanger.

“That’s the GSG plane,” Mikhail said, reading his thoughts.

“Where are they staying?” Thomas asked.

“With our friend Wasir,” answered Mikhail before again beating him to the punch by adding he had asked Barek to get his system of street kids to discreetly keep an eye on him having observed the exchange between Thomas and the President.

One other thing he did as well was to ask Angus to get some intelligence on the Indians.

Once settled into their seats for takeoff Mikhail asked Yossi for the printout of what the former solider had sent across.

“From Angus,” said Mikhail as Yossi handed the notes to Thomas.

Casting his eyes over the report Thomas reflected that thought it made interesting reading, but he couldn’t quite get his head around why he was offering such an uneconomic deal from his point of view.

“One could argue he was of a marketer or retailer, therefore, inexperienced,” he countered trying to see the Indian’s point of view, but because he had a joint venture in a mine in Alaska that meant Singh should have enough experience with ‘Hardhats’ to understand that offering deals of this nature would never appeal to an investor base in London or Canada let alone New York, not to mention by trying to secure all the rights already contracted he was putting at risk a major piece of infrastructure that would be created to export the product.

With plenty of rights to go around because Thomas and his investors had advised the President and his Energy and Mines Minister to structure it as such on the basis that encouraging investment meant the country could grow faster, it was nothing but plain stupid.

So again reflecting back on the Rebecca discussion of a few days ago still not quite believing it he as he thought through it, Thomas concluded that the Indian had to be receiving money from one source and one source only with a completely different agenda to that of business.

“This is fucking suicidal!” Saul who never swore unless stressed interrupted Thomas’s train of thought for a moment.

“He couldn’t possibly afford five billion in infrastructure either!” Thomas added, referring to the sum that the Russian Miners and TLH as one of the Anglo-Russian Oil and Gas producers had secured from the Russian Government when Saul finished walking him through the numbers.

“So what or who do you think is behind our Mr. Singh?” he asked Saul, wanting his trusted CFO input not just his own conclusion to mull over just as one of the team pretty air hostesses brought him his customary glass of Blue Label on the rocks.

“I am on the case!” replied Saul not being able to answer Thomas at that time.

It didn’t matter. Thomas figured he already knew the answer: The United States of America.