Michael Reagan - The Devil's Handshake

Reaching the table he found James, tie undone as usual, in his Saville Row uniform of a pinstripe grey suit, while the ambassador wore a uniform that most New York businessmen preferred of a regular Brooks Brothers dark blue suit though, in his case, his tie was made up and because he was a former public servant he had a little American flag pin on his lapel.

Getting up, James greeted him.

“Fucking good effort, Tommy!” he said instantly in his regular redneck boy-made-good way in respect to his coolness under pressure during his interview with Jessica. “The fucking phone has been going non-stop from the business desks asking what you meant on the Russian Navy base situation, though,” he said, half asking.

“What have you been telling them?” Thomas asked.

“That you’re FUCKING British! Not FUCKING Russian!” James answered hoping that he had actually grasped his positioning.

Thomas acknowledged his answer with a nod of his head knowing he would have been a tad more eloquent than that though, but, not by much, he reflected just as the Ambassador decided to introduce himself.

“I can vouch for that sir, Jack Fielding,” he said offering his hand with a smile.

“Oh fuck! Where are my manners?” said James embarrassed, despite his brilliance in communications, a double first in Modern and Medieval Languages from Cambridge, he had missed out the lesson of diplomatic etiquette. “Ambassador Jack Fielding, may I present Sir Thomas Litchfield,” he said introducing, now back on track, “and Mikhail Pshenicnikov,” he added.

The Ambassador started the conversation.

“I haven’t seen your interview yet, Sir Thomas, but having been briefed by James and seen the number of calls that he has been getting I certainly can see you must have set fire to the ‘blue touch’ paper!” he said warmly.

“I just answered it from a businessman’s point of view, Ambassador,” Thomas replied as he began to assess the person across the table from him.

“Well, I can certainly see why the State Department has been taking an interest in you!” answered the Ambassador with a small smile of his own and who was doing the same thing with respect to Thomas.

“Well, one does like to get out in the midday sun,” deflected Thomas straight-faced as he began to look at his menu.

“Indeed,” replied the older Statesman as he put his glasses on to read the menu in his hand.

The dinner was really a fishing expedition for both men, with the Ambassador providing Thomas with insight as how the State Department was viewing Russia’s re-emergence, himself, and of course their proposed base in East Africa, and finally in an effort to promote himself how he could be potentially useful within the corridors of the lower and the upper house on the Hill.

Thomas was impressed. The former Ambassador knew his stuff and quickly grasped what TLH end game was and positioning.

“You know, Sir Thomas, I think there is a touch of Metternich in you,” Fielding said suddenly out of the blue as the coffee arrived.

“Witty or tenacious?” Thomas offered deadpan with his own light-hearted attempt at the synopsis.

Smiling back in return if what somewhat surprised that the man across from him actually knew he was referring to the great Prince of Austria’s personal overall character traits who kept the powers of France and Prussia surrounding him at bay in the 1800s, the Ambassador, having recovered from his momentary surprise, answered.

“I was actually thinking that you’re unquestionably someone who has perfected the shape and nature of diplomacy of this era is going to take just as he did in his.”

“A dokter un a kvores-man zeinen shutfim,” offered Mikhail.

“I am sorry, Mikhail, forgive me. I don’t speak Yiddish,” replied the Ambassador recognizing the language nevertheless.

“It means ‘doctors and grave-diggers are partners.’” Mikhail replied with a smile as he took a sip of his water. He never drank when on duty.

“So true! That works too!” offered the Ambassador with laughter. “So which are you, Sir Thomas?” he probed again.

“I will take the fifth on that Mr. Ambassador,” Thomas answered.

“So you will support TLH?” James asked, ignoring the Ambassador’s efforts at intellectual flattery by pushing him to confirm whether he would act as their advocate in the corridors of Washington, knowing full well that Thomas needed him.

“I would be delighted to consult for your business, gentleman,” he answered as the bill arrived.

Dubai

Sitting in his villa in the old part of Jumeirah, Navjot set down his secure sat phone having just finished briefing Ali on where the operation was with regard to the seduction of Wasir for the Director’s office. He reflected on their conversation for a moment.

With the hiring of Andrew Martin, he now had all the cornerstones in place. Later today he planned to introduce the future dictator of Adwalland to his new technical advisor, who had impressed him for, as promised, over the last month he had very efficiently delivered the recommended equipment on time and within the budget.

Despite Navjot’s doubts at the time, the refurbished Mil-17 helicopter had been sourced from Ukraine and was about to be refitted in Guinea Bissau by the Ukrainians, complete with its gun pods and rocket launchers.

Then a few days before they were ready to go they would use Wasir’s front-loading Il-76 plane to pick it up and fly it into Adwalland, offload it at the airport and then start the operation to bring into effect a regime change.

The former Guardsman had estimated he needed about two hundred men. At first Navjot thought that was an excessive number but to remain in tune with his cover he had accepted it.

Instead, he had asked. “Why Ukrainians for officers?”

“That is simple, dear boy, Gaddafi had them as officers of Tuareg in his old legion, so there is a natural mechanism of command for the NCOs.”

“That essential?” he had questioned.

“Very much so, I am afraid experience tells me that these things have a habit of getting out of hand, there is no such thing as a bloodless coup. If our friend Wasir is going to get dirty it is better that his Muslim foreigners do it for him rather than his Christian Mamluks,” he had said with sigh, before continuing.

“So if does happen we need to make sure up until that point arrives our orders are being followed,” he had said without emotion.

“Three degrees of separation Mr. Singh,” Tony Wilson had offered in support of his former boss who had sat in on the briefing.

At that precise moment, Navjot despite being an experienced operative, had started to feel incredibly guilty, but he had quickly dispatched it. He had done things in the past in the pursuit of terrorists that in some cases caused innocents to die this, however, with its capacity to be a bloodbath was something very different. It troubled him greatly.

When he was at the Farm, the lecturers had once made the trainees debate the thought process behind Winston Churchill’s decision to not to warn the residents of Coventry that Hitler was planning to level the city as a requiem to the Luftwaffe dead to protect the fact that they had broken the German Enigma Codes used for their coded radio messages. One thousand souls had lost their lives that night. In a war of attrition, terrible decisions had to be made, Churchill did not shirk them, nor would he. He suddenly remembered Jeremy Bentham’s famous quote, “It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.”

That didn’t make it any easier though. On his last operation in Pakistan before he was reassigned he had ordered the death of twenty people, some of them children, just so they could get a high value Al Qaeda operative who happened to be on the bus with them.