The Devil's Handshake

36

Moscow

The call from Alexei Nikolai in the early part of the afternoon, outside their formal once a week briefing, had taken the Minister of Foreign Affairs by surprise.

Listening carefully as he sat in his study at his weekend dacha, Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov took notes.

Trusted by Russia’s President although he wasn’t a member of his inner circle, he was nevertheless seen as a faithful servant rather than a formulator of foreign policy and thereby trusted for his skills as a tough, reliable, extremely sophisticated negotiator by all in the diplomatic world. This was the reason why he had stayed in the role since his appointment even after the man took power.

“This might need some fees to be arranged, Alexei Nikolai?” he further added after going over his notes.

“No problem Sergey Viktorovich, I will take care of anything that needs reimbursing,” answered the Director of the SVR, understanding what the Foreign Minister meant.

In the last few days, his analysts had tracked the whereabouts of helicopter through their assets within the Security Service of Ukraine having picked up on what they had previously reported over the last couple of months concerning the recruitment of individuals by Xerulla.

It had then taken them the rest of the day to locate the helicopter and send the local resident at the embassy in Guinea-Bissau to the airport to confirm it was indeed there.

They were able to do this so quickly because one of the pilots had foolishly left his travel itinerary from his travel agent on his Gmail account.

“Give me an hour,” the Minister asked.

“Of course sir,” replied the Director.

Picking up the phone, the Minister spoke to his personal assistant to ask him to find the man he was looking for. Ten minutes later, his assistant rang back and connected him to the person he wished to speak to.

When the call came in on his mobile, The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Francisco da Silva was at dinner with friends at his favorite local restaurant, the Enotheque Tinto Fino. Seeing it was from the Foreign Ministry he answered it immediately only to be surprised to find the Minister for Foreign Affairs on the other end of the call. Excusing himself for a few moments, he went outside and listened.

Two hours later he met with an operative from the SVR at the famous Night Flight nightclub. He listened to his request and considered his thoughts for few moments as he took a sip of his Black Label. He then stated the amount he needed for expenses before finally outlining what he required to be transferred to his Swiss account in Zurich for organizing the arrangements.

Meeting over, the Ambassador finished his drink, got up, and left the nightclub a very pleased man because he was now able to buy a house in Lisbon on his retirement. Ready to celebrate he picked up his favorite big-breasted curvy blonde, left the bill for the SVR officer to pay, and walked out of the club.

An hour later the transfers were made. The first transfer for $100,000 U.S. dollars went to an account in Jersey, Channel Islands. The second transfer of $200,000 U.S. dollars went to a small private bank in Zurich.

Four hours after that, the Ukrainian pilots currently working for a company that had just set up their helicopter transportation business in Bissau were both arrested by the State Intelligence Services of Guinea Bissau.