The Devil's Handshake (46 page)

“
Mr. President the Chief of
Staff says he needs to speak to you urgently,” she offered down the
phone.

“
Send him in
please.”

Within seconds the man entered to brief him
on the call he had just received from Ambassador Jack Fielding. The
President listened carefully then gave a singular nod of his head
just as his Secretary interrupted again.

This time it was the Secretary of State, only
in his case, the call he had received had come from Steve Krivets,
the owner of MGN.

As his Chief of Staff and The Secretary of
State discussed and compared the calls they had received they were
interrupted one last time. This time by a simple knock on the door
whereupon his secretary quietly informed him that she now had the
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on the line asking for
him.

Asking the Secretary of State to wait a
moment, The President switched lines.

“
David, what can I do for
you?” he asked informally as was their way between each
other.

“
Barack, I just had a
somewhat interesting call from Sir Thomas Litchfield, Chairman of
TLH,” he said before continuing with the content of the
call.

“
I think we can say this guy
is real,” he said to his Secretary of State and Chief of Staff when
he disconnected the call from the Prime Minister.

“
That’s some impressive
clout!” said his Chief of Staff reflecting on and the fact one man
had managed to get a back-channel message across to them from three
different sources of the highest level.

“
Not even John Scali
achieved that,” said the President who being a keen student of the
Kennedy Administration, had like his Chief of Staff grasped just
what the Oligarch was doing.

It was at that moment he took a decision to
back his gut.

“
Call Jack Fielding and let
him know we are prepared to accept the terms that they are
offering.”

Thirty minutes later the President of the
Russian Federation appeared on television to his country to confirm
his signal within a softer speech.

“
I am convinced that our two
great nations with pride and noble purpose—” using Thomas’s code
word ‘blagorodnyy purpose’ confirming his below the line approval
of the idea put forward by his National Champion.

Twenty minutes later the President of the
United States of America with his body armor off appeared before
his country and confirmed he accepted the proposal by his use of
the same line at the beginning of his speech in English and a
response in kind with a speech that suggested that a way forward
could be found by the two great nations.

An hour later with little fanfare or
statement, the American Commander of the rescue mission walked out
to a watching world media and handed over responsibility of the
mission security to the Russian Commander. As the two veterans
saluted each other, the world started to breathe again.

Over the following ten hours, as agreed, the
Russians took the lead as the armed forces of both countries stood
down and returned to peacetime footing.

As they did so the world, praised the
statesmanship and common sense of both leaders and breathed a
collective sigh of relief.

With the television screens off, the
exhausted but much relieved President summoned the Director of the
CIA to his office. Forty-five minutes later on being shown into his
office, his President’s expression said it all.

“
Director Young, I would
like you to contact Ambassador Joe Fielding so you can make
arrangements for the collection you’re missing agents,” he
said.

“
I assume that I can leave
you to clean this mess up?” The President added, handing him the
contact details of Fielding.

“
Yes Mr. President,”
answered the dumfounded Director.

“
Good, you may go now,” said
the President, dismissing him.

As Young exited from the office, he wondered
just how in the hell Litchfield had pulled this off.

The answer to how Thomas managed to get the
both leaders to back down came from the four most important phone
calls of his life.

Yet despite believing otherwise the reasons
as to why Thomas’s plan had been approved by the Mayor had nothing
do with the commercial reasons that he offered up at the time.

The leader of Russia couldn’t have cared less
about saving the Americans’ embarrassment over their failed coup
d’état by handing over the three CIA assets Thomas’s people had
caught below the line, or his request to ask the many National
Champions of Russia to prevent the shorting of U.S. Stocks and
attacks on the U.S. Economy.

“
Sir, the Americans are
perceiving this as an act of War,” Thomas had suggested to
him.

The Mayor’s single overriding objective had
been the political process and ensuring Russia didn’t lose face,
but more importantly he didn’t.

Much like his predecessor in the 1960s, the
Mayor couldn’t use his country’s diplomatic channels, as that would
have meant breaking constitutional law.

The result of such an action would have given
his former protégé and partner the extra weight he needed to have
him removed just like Brezhnev had been able to do to Khrushchev
once the Cuban crisis was over, ending right there and then his
dream of a strong Russia leading the world into the twenty-first
century.

“
Use him to act as a
go-between without breaking constitutional law,” thought the Mayor
as Thomas continued with his explanation, which didn’t mean he
shouldn’t cover his bases. Something he did by instructing Thomas
to hand over the prisoners to the SVR commander in theatre if he
didn’t get anywhere within twenty-four hours.

“
Of course sir,” Thomas had
answered hoping he had enough time and luck on his side.

The second call Thomas made was to Jack
Fielding. It was to the point and insightful.

“
The President will get the
Russian financial community to stop the shorting of U.S.
positions,” confirmed Jack. “He will also tell them to start
supporting the Feds’ efforts to rebuild confidence in the U.S.
dollar by purchasing U.S. positions.”

“
Yes,” Thomas said
firmly.

“
And get you to hand over
the CIA officers to avoid any potential leaks in Borama,” the
Ambassador had continued.

“
That’s correct!” Thomas had
replied, telling Jack only some of the truth.

“
In return, he asks that the
United States hand over the responsibility of the Mission in
Lughaya to Russia,” the Ambassador had stated. “As a direct result
of this Statesmanship by the White House he will personally praise
his leadership and quickly order Russian strategic forces to stand
down first so to ensure that the United States doesn’t lose any
face over the hand-over and then take the lead over the next ten
hours as America stands down theirs in response in each
case.”

“
Yes!” Thomas had answered
for the third time. It was essential Jack got this
right.

“
Finally, he will support
U.S. Corporations in natural resources joint ventures by
underwriting the United States sides of the deal in Adwalland
through TLH?” the Ambassador had asked.

If anybody else had made this call the
respected diplomat would have thought he or she were crazy.

“
That’s it in a nutshell,”
Thomas had answered not bothering to tell him that it was actually
going to cost him, personally, three billion U.S. dollars, not the
Russian government.

“
I will call White House and
pass it on, but you will need a few other advocates, Thomas, I
won’t be enough and there isn’t much time,” the former Ambassador
had advised whilst looking at his television screen showing the
Fifth Fleet exiting the Arabian Gulf. The fact that the Russians
were to going assist in the shoring up of the commercial positions
of the United States and then give the Americans the credit for
acting as the peacemaker in exchange for the handover of something
the world would be telling his country’s many Ambassadors to do so
to avert the crisis was a lot to absorb.

Experience told him this offer had nothing to
do with the agents or commercial benefits; they were all window
dressing. This was all about pride and having the excuse to not to
go to war.

It was at that moment Jack knew that he had
been right to work for Litchfield; he really was the real-politic
deal.

“
I am on it, as we speak,”
Thomas had said.

Thomas’s next call was to Steve Krivets.

“
Fuck me, Thomas, this is
turning into a real fucking shit storm!” Steve had expressed while
he watched Jessica Austin report on the fact that the White House
was now in lockdown, and speculating on unconfirmed reports that an
attempt had just been made on The President life by the
Russians.

“
I know, but I have
something that I think will help! But we don’t have much time, so
fucking listen!” Thomas had ordered him. It was a language he had
rarely used with his friend, but he needed to ram home the
importance of what was going to ask him to do.

“
I am on it!” the Mogul had
answered, fully briefed and already thinking about the political
capital he was going to get from the White House for his efforts in
the brokering of this deal.

“
The Governor of California
here I come!” he had said as he dialed McGiven, all the while
making a mental note as he watched Jessica on screen to invite her
dinner for it was time to put away the starlets.

The last call Thomas made went to Angus,
except in this case it was an instruction to call Rebecca and ask
her to pass the content up the line and give to the Foreign
Secretary and then ultimately the Prime Minister.

“
Consider it good as done,”
The former commanding officer had replied before adding his
condolences over the death of the five Gurkhas.

“
Those are my next five
calls,” he said.

55

Aden Isaaq International Airport

The ever-present call to prayer rippling
across the city joined the men in welcoming the Falcon that was
taxiing into the hanger.

Once parked up, a door opened to allow a man
to walk down the steps of the aircraft.

He was a very different person to one Thomas
had first met in the early 2003 when he was trying to sell his
Russian Oil interests. That man had been overweight and heading for
a heart attack. This man was fit and lean.

Earlier when Fielding rang him and told him
that the Americans were sending Rob Ashley, the trusted
representative of the Sheikh of Dubai, to receive delivery of his
employer’s Indian partner and their people to expedite matters by
acting as their proxy as well in the handover of the officers, it
had completely taken Thomas by surprise. Up to that moment he had
assumed that it was Americans that had financed the coup d’état.
Rather, it appeared now that it was the Sheikh who had covertly
backed the regime change.

Only to have this assumption changed back to
his original hypothesis, when Benny walked into the office after
seeing the man’s passport details arrive over the wire as part of
the aircraft flight plan.

“
Boss, I know this guy,”
Benny said holding a copy of the man’s passport details.

“
So do I, he works for the
Sheikh of Dubai,” Thomas answered, thinking that was what his
trusted bodyguard was about to say.

“
No! I know him from my time
at the Institute,” Benny replied making reference to his service in
the Mossad before going on to explain how he had delivered a mobile
phone to a CIA asset that killed the Hamas commander on behalf of
Israel due to the short time constraints in the city.

“
Rob Ashley did that!”
offered Mikhail shocked and not to mention impressed before
offering up to Thomas that the man Ashley had killed was the
bastard who ordered the murder of Hannah’s brother along with
thirty other souls in a café in Tel Aviv.

“
That means Gourgamangi has
to be an asset as well!” Thomas inwardly reasoned but kept that to
himself.

“
If that is the case that
means the CIA is now actively engaged in securing natural
resources!” he further theorized on the implications of what that
intelligence had just given him.

“
Either way we soon find
out,” he thought as the smiling Fixer walked up to him, offering
his hand.

“
Been a long time, Sir
Thomas,” Rob said.

“
Indeed” answered Thomas
noting the Glock under his shoulder over his white linen shirt as
he took his hand firmly.

“
You look well,” said
Mikhail shaking his hand also referring to physical
appearance.

“
Amazing what a sexy
personal trainer and giving up the booze will do for you!” said
Ashley in return in an attempt to break the ice.

Seeing Thomas’s continuing lack of a smile,
he quickly decided to end the small talk.

“
I don’t suppose the Boss
can have his friends back now could he?” he asked instead, keeping
the façade of his cover intact.

Thomas turned towards the team and gave them
a nod.

At which point Avi and Yossi turned on their
heels and went to obtain the prisoners, leaving the three of them
to stand in awkward silence in the process.

Less than a minute later, Rob’s face
instantly changed the second he caught sight of Benny walking out
with the five prisoners with their hands behind their back in
FexiCuffs.