The Devil's Handshake (31 page)

His speech finished, Thomas quickly left the
stage and made his way to his table, stopping to shake a few hands
along the way in the process with the Minister of Business, the
local MP and his wife, who made sure the society photographer got a
photo of her kissing his cheek.

Arriving at the table, Thomas apologized for
getting caught up. Luckily everybody had started without him as
Nara told everybody not to wait, knowing from experience he would
most likely get waylaid.

Going around the table, Thomas hugged the
Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, then Steve Krivets
followed by a handshake with his long term friend and fellow
National Champion, Valeri Aleksandr Berezutskiy, before finally
their particular wives with kisses on the cheeks, and in Steve’s
case his girlfriend Danielle. It did not go unnoticed by Nara that
the girl had stroked Thomas’s side rather too suggestively for her
taste.

“
Little Jelep!” she thought
in disgust.

As they picked up their glasses for their
private first toast, Elena a beautiful young former ballerina from
the Bolshoi, whom Valeri had acquired as a second wife, commented
on the champagne.

“
Nara, this champagne is
like fresh, crisp green apples in my mouth it is so complex, where
did you get it from?” she asked with her piercing blue
eyes.

Knowing her young friend had a penchant for
following them, having taken her under wing when she moved to
London with Valeri, Nara replied.

“
You can’t buy it, Elena,
because we own the entire vintage.”

“
The entire vintage!” cried
Steve impressed. He didn’t think that was possible.

Stepping in to cut short the discussion as
Thomas hated it when Nara went into one of her ‘One-upmanship’
modes, despite understanding that it was part of her make-up, due
to having nothing before he entered her life and a general
affliction of his National Champion colleagues, including Valeri
who had just brought his own Premier League team, he
interjected.

“
There are only five
thousand bottles Steve, I agree though; it is a fabulous champagne,
excellent choice darling,” lifting his glass to Nara to show his
appreciation.

The Ambassador’s wife, ever a trained
diplomat herself noticing that Nara’s glass was filled with only
mineral water and her plate was missing, knocked on the table three
times then pretended to spit three times over her left shoulder as
she radiantly smiled towards Nara, who quickly followed suit and
did the same in response.

A shining glowing Thomas also followed
suit.

“
What does that mean?” asked
Steve as the Ambassador, Valeri and Elena having now grasped the
situation as well, followed suit, which carried over to the next
table where Mikhail and Hanna and his closest aides all did the
same, beaming smiles all around.

“
We are praising Nara’s
pregnancy. You knock the table three times and spit over your left
shoulder so not to jinx it,” the Ambassador answered with a huge
smile.

“
It’s an old Russian
custom,” Valeri further explained to Steve.

“
Pregnant!” shouted Steve as
both he and his young starlet girlfriend Daniele followed suit as
well joining the joyful laughing surrounding the tables.

As the ripple was finished, Thomas winked at
Nara whose eyes sparkled when she caught it as they raised their
glasses to his lady, but not before a little shiver went down her
spine.

Once the party had entered into full swing
Steve joined Thomas in his study. After offering him a cigar and a
tumbler of three fingers of his 78 Speyside Mortlach, Thomas asked
if he wanted water.

“
Yes, please Buddy, just a
touch,” Steve answered as he clipped a Short Churchill cigar and
proceeded to light it.

Handing the malt to his friend, Thomas
started to light his own cigar.

“
I am sorry Jessica went a
little overboard the other day,” Steve said, starting their
catch-up.

“
Don’t worry about it! James
had me well prepared,” Thomas answered sincerely. “We knew it was
coming and anyway it proved one thing! Your leaders have definitely
taken the bait!” Thomas added.

“
Yeah I had that prick
McGiven on the line moaning to me that our publications were being
too friendly towards you and the Russians. Little fucker!” Steve
added with a touch of theatre as he remembered the exchange that
took place having decided he wasn’t go to tell his friend yet of
his plan to run for the Governorship.

Thomas too held own his secret. That being
the meeting with Rebecca at which she informed him about the “nod
and the wink” as to the Americans intending to support Wasir.

Instead, Thomas asked Steve if he could give
Ambassador Jack Fielding some airtime so he could assist them in
the pushing of the neutral position of being honest brokers to be
used by, rather than Thomas becoming the recipient of the United
States of America sword.

“
Fielding!” Steve replied
shaking his head with a pained look that immediately told Thomas
there must have been some past history between the two
men.

“
Do you know him?” he
probed.

“
You could say that!” Steve
cryptically answered looking into his whiskey deeply.

To Steve the memory that flooded back after
all these years was of her slender, girlish figure. Her oval face
that made her beautiful in the extreme and with her finely honed
figure, large eyes, a mass of coal black hair, olive skinned skin
and molded lips, Kelly Christina Fielding. The only woman he had
ever loved.

A product of Jack Fielding’s first marriage
to an aristocratic Spanish woman Steve had met her at the Cannes
Film Festival at one of his father’s parties when he was
twenty-one, and she was just eighteen. She was a free spirit, born
from unstable home life and a Swiss boarding school and Steve was
instantly drawn to her for her ability to spark chaos all around.
Over the course of that wonderful summer, he had fallen head over
heels in love with both her vulnerability and independent spirit
like a moth to a flame and found himself constantly getting into
fights all over South of France trying to protect her from herself,
forgiving her each time. It was to end tragically at the end of the
summer with Steve losing her to a drug overdose on the Rivera and
with it all his dreams of having children and a stable
relationship.

Fielding blamed Steve, so much so, he had
banned him from attending her funeral.

“
We have a personal
history,” was all he said to Thomas.

Seeing his friend face change to one of
sorrow within an instant, Thomas chose not to press him on it.

“
Fair enough, let’s forget
it, I will get Weston to earn his keep,” Thomas offered wondering
what had affected his friend so badly.

“
Thank you,” was all Steve
said.

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.