But just as Daniele was about to decline, Steve backed up Nara by suggesting or ordering her to do so, depending on your point of view. Only then did the pretty teenager take the hint and did as she was told.
With the ladies out of earshot, the two men turned to business.
“Did McGiven take the bait?” Thomas asked as he sipped his chilled Sake.
“Because if the Chief of Staff hadn’t taken the bait, then the both of them were going to have to come up some other another angle they might be able to use because for all your planning or planting of seeds, you just don’t control an individual’s understanding of the situation until it is presented to them,” Thomas thought, using one of Homer’s quotes on the aspects of human nature.
“Pretty much like you had said,” Steve responded to the point at which, Thomas nodded and began to relax.
When the Mayor had first informed them of his desire for TLH to put forward the offer of a new Russian military base in Adwalland as part of his proposed infrastructure investment package into the new country by using the argument that it would support the Russian oil companies entering the region, Thomas had quickly grasped the dressed up offer for what it was: “Russia was re-entering the great game.”
With the negotiations completed and the Memorandum of Understanding initialed and agreed with the Government and with the formal signing process to be completed in Borama after he had agreed the deal with the greedy minister on the yacht over the weekend, the only thing of the investment program that needed to be handled was the planned construction of the Russian Navy base on the coast of Africa’s newest country.
At the meeting with the Mayor, he knew instantly why the Mayor had chosen him.
“Christ,” Thomas had exclaimed. “It’s like setting up shop in a ‘surrogate’ Cuba!”
“Yes, it could argue that it may not be ninety miles off the coast of America, but it may as well have been, with the Horn of Africa being one of the world’s significant trading routes, has and sees eleven percent of the world’s trade passing through it and by definition a ‘choke point. Ukraine was only a test of resolve!” Thomas grimly thought.
Desperate not to be drawn into the political game, Thomas had started to argue that Gazprom as a state entity might be better placed to handle the offer of a military support. The Mayor had waved his hand dismissively as if irritated.
“Why do you think I have selected you, Fama!” he had said in English, with the use of Russian name instead of Thomas.
With a large shareholding in the U.S. media company sitting alongside his oil interests, it had quickly dawned on him why he was the chosen one. He was the perfect political proxy.
“I should have known! He knows full well that their great enemy isn’t going allow a base a hundred and twenty miles away from their own one in Djibouti! Not without some kind of response, especially after the bloody nose he had given them in Syria and the Ukraine,” Thomas had mused.
Having been put firmly in his place, Thomas then had known what this meant.
TLH and thereby him as the company’s owner were about to become a piece on the Mayor’s chessboard.
This meant Thomas was going to have to protect his position. If he did not then the collateral damage cost to his family and those who depend on him would be measured in billions of U.S. dollars.
Figuring he would at least try and be the one piece on the board that can escape from attack of a Queen, Thomas had formulated a plan.
Over the years, chess often acted as a sounding board in his strategizing when he started to think through a problem in business. It was something his father in one of their few moments of parental interaction had taught him when they holidayed at his estate outside Florence.
He still remembered that day like it was yesterday
“A knight can only move one square horizontally and two squares vertically or one square vertically and two squares horizontally, however its ability to move over the other pieces to a free square or capture the piece on that square makes the knight special,” his father had said showing him the moves.
“In the best circumstances, Tommy,” his father continued, “he can sidestep an attack.” Again, he showed him the moves.
“A King moves one space in either direction so is limited in his movement, but he must be protected at all costs. A Queen is seen by many as the most powerful piece on the board, hence why it is always attacked or coveted as it reflects the power and strength,” his father said smiling before he took a puff of his cigar. “A knight though, always has the ability to sidestep an attack and survive!” he stated through the smoke surrounding him.
“My friends, albeit unwittingly, are the Knights,” Thomas decided. “A controlled leak through Steve is the perfect way to kick start the backchannels,” Thomas concluded. In his heart he hoped it would be political grandstanding but with recent state of relations between the two protagonists at recent all-time low it made sense to Thomas to try and have an insurance policy.
History taught Thomas that the world’s conflicts were either started or ultimately stopped because men worked in the shadows of diplomacy and despite trying hard to avoid it, Thomas now found himself to be such a man.
“It will be just like when Kennedy used Scali in that role in the Cuban crisis in 1961 as the tensions, really started to rise,” Thomas had said during his call to Steve while he was on the plane flying across Africa, referring to the famous news reporter who had acted as a back channel, as he was trying to convince Steve to use his contacts on his behalf.
“I have no doubt you will be able to earn yourself a lot of favors,” he had offered as Thomas had continued his charm offensive, knowing full well his friend was thinking of a political career in the future, as it was something Steve had mentioned during their last dinner together.
In the Cuban crisis, the famous journalist had been rewarded with an Ambassadorship for service to his country, and as they took out their phones, Thomas wondered what reward his friend would seek.
Personally Thomas had never sought power or wealth though he readily accepted that it be could be argued he had both. His mantra was more akin to a quote he had once heard the late Margaret Thatcher say at Hereford during a visit to the base, to thank the men personally for their efforts in Northern Ireland: “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”
Although she had used it as a sound bite to justify why their undercover work had to remain secret.
In Thomas’s case he used it to justify his desire to survive.
Irrespective of your wealth and power, if you suddenly found yourself the target of a country’s wrath above the line then you sure as hell not going to survive unless you had a piece of leverage, pure and simple.
When Steve had suggested it might be appropriate for him to call McGiven, to brief him on the background behind the deal, Thomas had quickly grasped at his friend’s suggestion because it enabled three things.
Firstly, he knew that it would establish Steve’s credentials as a potential backchannel that might be trusted by the State Department, if needed at some point. When his friend had recommended McGiven, he later admitted to himself after the call that it had gone better than he had hoped. For, until Steve had proposed McGiven himself, the best Thomas had hoped for was a high level introduction to somebody appropriate within the Administration.
This was high as it got: ‘Two degrees of separation’.
Secondly, by involving his friend personally, Thomas knew that by playing to his ego as a CEO of a world media group, he was now a ’world player’ in forging public opinion, not just feeding them the ideas of others. This meant that as long as he was smart and managed it carefully Thomas could pull the strings on the message and at the same time, ensure his overriding goal that being the protection of TLH’s commercial position.