The Devil's Handshake (52 page)

As she opened it, her hand had went to her
mouth in shock, for sitting on the crushed green velvet was a black
human ear with a watermarked business card bearing the Litchfield
Crest. A phrase was written in black ink

“
Got shtroft, der mentsh iz
zikh noikem,” followed by the letters TL after it.

“
Thank you Thomas,” she had
said out loud.

The wind blowing across the graveyard brought
her back to the present.

She took the smooth grey round pebble in her
hand and placed it on top of his grave. She kissed her finger once
then touched his name and said the prayer of the dead silently to
herself.

As she began to walk away she spotted a fox
watching her by the Garden of Remembrance and on seeing the
creature she knew instantly what do with the ear.

Reaching the edge of the garden, although the
fox was no longer in sight, but knowing the creature would be
watching, she threw the ear into the garden.

Rebecca turned, wiped a tear from her eye,
and walked away from the graveyard.

Acknowledgements

The Devil’s Handshake is a work of fiction.
The names, characters, places and incidents portrayed in the book
are the product of the author’s imagination or have been used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
corporations, events surrounding the decisions and conversations of
the Presidents, Prime Ministers, Secretaries of States, and United
Nations officials is entirely coincidental.

My deepest apologies to the Ruler of Dubai,
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and the
management of the Jumeirah Hotels and Resorts in Dubai for using
the Burj Al Arab as the base of operations for the character of
Robin Ashley to conduct his clandestine activities on behalf of the
Central Intelligence Agency, but I’m afraid operational security
required it.

My apologies must also go to Mahesh Tourani,
one of Dubai’s more colorful residents for using him and one of his
famous parties as the setting for the CIA recruitment of Ashley.
Again operational security required it, but I am reliably informed,
he still hosts the best parties in Dubai!

The prologue makes reference to an incident
where a Regimental Sergeant Major of Special Air Service (SAS)
asked his troopers behind enemy lines to hold a meeting to discuss
the new furniture to be bought for the Hereford barracks.
Eagled-eyed military historians will recognize this story from
Peter Ratcliffe’s insightful and excellent book the Eye of the
Storm - Twenty-Five Years in Action with the SAS. As one of the
more unconventional commanders in the field, vastly experienced,
and a true shadow warrior, I hope he does not mind me referring the
tale in the introduction to Sir Thomas Litchfield’s character.

The conversation between Saddam Hussein and
Yasser Arafat is of course fiction but is derived from an actual
interview Saddam Hussein gave to The Gulf News shortly before his
execution in 2005. The article provides a chilling insight into the
mind of a tyrant and is certainly worth a read, as it helped me
develop the character of Wasir Osman Hassan. Having once had the
unfortunate opportunity to see Saddam Hussein up close and personal
and to observe his character during my time in the Arabian Gulf, I
have tried to make him as amoral as possible.

I leave it to the readers to make up their
own minds whether I have succeeded or not.

The country of Adwalland as portrayed in the
book does not exist. At this time, it remains a self-proclaimed
state that is made up of Clans all based on the sixteenth century
sultanate in the westernmost region of Somalia. The characters that
make up the leaders of the government agencies, departments, and
intelligence services are also fictitious.

The book also makes reference to the “Energy
Security Doctrine.” This again is purely fictitious, for as far as
I am aware no such publically available policy document exists and
thereby is purely a construction of my imagination. That said,
students of American Presidential history no doubt recognize that
elements of the book’s policy as coming from the centerpiece of
United States foreign policy from the early 1980s that until the
end of the Cold War in 1991 was known as the ‘Reagan Doctrine.’

The offices of 18 Old Queen Street do exist
but I assure the reader that the occupants of the building are not
members of MI6.

The village of Upper Barpham, the home of
Farrow Hall was once a Norman village that was unfortunately
finished off in the fourteenth century by the Black Death. Today
all that remains are the ruins of a substantial church. I chose
this long past village in West Sussex as the home of Farrow Hall
because in future books, it will play an important part in the
future telling of the stories of the Litchfield family saga.

St Ageranus School is also a product of my
imagination because I did not think it was appropriate to use an
actual school for the massacre of children.

I named the school after a brave monk who
died 303AD defending the sacred precincts of a monastery from a
Norman army.

The equipment and tactics mentioned in the
book do exist. I have consulted many articles, books and websites
to ensure that the techniques and equipment used are authentic. If
I have missed anything, I apologize and hope it has not ruined the
story for the reader.

Finally, this novel couldn’t have been
written without the help of my family and friends who have
continued to believe in me, despite my numerous mistakes over the
years. My many personal friends from Russia and the Middle East who
are drawn from a collection of successful businessmen, officials
and security officers, some colorful others not so but all equally
full of interesting stories of their lives.

As to the substance of my story only time
will tell whether fiction becomes fact.

Michael Reagan

Bermuda 2014

About Michael Reagan

Michael Reagan is a nom de plume. Initially
working as an analyst specializing in Corporate Solutions &
Planning for a private bank, he was there right at the start of the
crazy years of Yeltsin-led Russia. Gaining first hand insight into
how the Oligarchs did business in the early days of a Russia
struggling to embrace capitalism.

Some of Michael’s experiences have provided
in part, the background to his Litchfield character, the chief
protagonist of the book.

By the end of the 1990s, employed in a rather
peculiar role, within a private office of a royal family in the
Middle East he found himself gaining insight not just into the
workings of the region’s royal families and their various
governments, but also seeing just how Natural Resources have and
will continue to effect the “doing of business” between the
governments of the world and the multifarious characters
involved.

Negotiating everything from hunting rights,
the paying of gambling debts of young sheikhs, to oil and gas
deals, he refers to it as a life that was never dull but certainly
not for the fainthearted and one that often found him questioning
his “Devil’s Bargain.”

Michael doesn’t maintain a website or a
twitter page, but you can find him on Facebook if you would like to
drop him a line.

The Devil’s Handshake is his first novel on
the adventures of the Litchfield family.