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Using her skills to spot micro-expressions that linked to deceptions during interrogations during the next twenty minutes, Rebecca concluded that though Thomas had admitted he was close to the President of Russia, the relationship was best explained by Thomas’s way of a cricketing analogy.

“That whether I like or not, I have no choice but play each ball as it comes.”

“Much like the messenger from the Iliad?” She fenced with him.

A look of surprise appeared on Thomas’s face. She knew all about his background, including his love of the classics and the teachings of Homer and by using the response in the manner she had just done told him that.

After a moment Rebecca noted his initial shock had dissipated well enough to laugh.

“Indeed,” he acknowledged. “But I certainly don’t want to end up like the poor messenger from Troy!” In Homer’s poem, King Agamemnon messenger had been stoned to death upon the delivery of his message because they did not like its contents.

“More like Bellerophontes,” Rebecca replied with a piercing stare preferring to use the part of the epic poem when Argos sent the hero with message saying, “Kill this messenger” to the ruler of Lycia but instead ended up becoming Greece’s greatest hero for killing the Chimera, the monster that Homer depicted with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail.

This time he didn’t say anything for a few moments. Instead he smiled and kept her stare before breaking it by looking at his watch.

“You’re most welcome to liaise with Angus for your report, I promise I have nothing to hide from you,” he offered.

“I do apologize, but I am running late,” he said with sincerity. “When I get back to London let’s get together again,” he further offered. “That’s if you have any more questions?” he quickly added with warmth.

“Absolutely,” Rebecca answered back.

“Of course, it’s only so I can recruit you for Ivan!” he joked attempting to gain the upper hand to which Rebecca smiled in return but chose not to comment.

As she watched him walk away, Rebecca felt something she hadn’t felt since Christopher lost his life, but being a professional she quickly banished so to focus on her work at hand something now made more complicated by the fact Thomas knew almost certainly everything about her, if he was connected as she expected him to be.

13

Cote d’Azur

Fitz Ernst had captained The Libertine since it had been launched. It had been built at the famous Lurssen yard in Bremen at the start of the millennium. The yacht was 330 feet in length, had three decks, a helicopter pad plus four zero-speed stabilizers with modifications, and was driven by two 5,500 horse powered engines with a maximum speed of nineteen knots. It was considered one of the most luxurious pleasure crafts in the world. Costing over three hundred million U.S. dollars, to many she represented the ultimate statement of total self-indulgence, but to Fitz she was the goddess of the Ocean.

A throat cleared respectfully behind him.

“Captain?” a voice asked.

Fitz turned and found his Second Officer, Daniel Hartmann, standing at attention before him.

“Ja?” the captain asked quietly in German.

“Weather report is good, sir,” Daniel replied also in German but with a Swiss accent.

“Clear skies all the way. Sir Thomas will be arriving around eight tonight, and his guest will be on board at five.”

“Very good, Daniel, I will inform Miss Gunara.”

Leaving the deck, the experienced Captain made his way at a measured pace to the ready room at the back of the yacht, which had its own deck. Entering the room he found his employer, Nara, going through the menus for the weekend with the Chef.

When Mikhail initially introduced her to him she had taken his breath away. A sultry lightly tanned youthful creature just out of her teens, oozing femininity and sensuality from her every pore. He wasn’t surprised Sir Thomas had fallen for her. She was beautiful, and she knew it, and she acted as if she knew it!

“Fitz!” the lady stated warmly as she saw him approaching. He smiled back for her smile, had always dazzled and tormented him at the same time. Today was no different.

Over the years, he had seen her turn from an exotic sexy child-woman into one of the world’s most beautiful women and although he would never admit it to anybody else, especially his wife, he was half in love with Nara.

Yet for all of her charms she was not without her faults and could be a real bitch, often making everything all the more difficult if the yacht were not just so, never more so when Sir Thomas had business associates on board.

It was only when her family or Victoria was on board she was more relaxed as if changing persona in the process that he found her to be more approachable as she was now.

“Your Lady,” Fitz said inclining his head pleasantly knowing she always enjoyed the title even though technically she wasn’t.

“Isn’t it a beautiful day, Fitz?” Nara breathed as she rose up giving him sight of her exquisite breasts and her long jet-black hair draped over one of them as she did so. They had moved so seductively that he worried they would fall out of her top.

“It is my Lady,” Fitz replied as his eyes took in the sight of her.

“The weather report has just arrived,” he reported. “Clear skies and smooth waters ahead,” he stated before continuing with the arrival times of the guests and Thomas.

“Do you have information on who is accompanying the Minister yet?” she asked, referring to Wasir Osman Hassan.

“Yes, My Lady” he confirmed nervously.

“He will be traveling with the President’s Economic Advisor, his own protection team of four, plus two officers of the French Police and his companions,” he said pausing on the last word of his statement.

For all of his private lustful thoughts with regard to Nara, the Captain certainly didn’t like his yacht being used as a whorehouse.

“Thank you, Fitz,” Nara answered, ignoring his pause on companions but privately agreeing with him.

14

Langley, Virginia

The United States Department of Defense defines a Covert Operation as “an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor” while a Clandestine Operation as “an operation where the emphasis is placed on concealment of identity of the sponsor rather than on concealment of the operation.”

So when the Director received the authorization from the President a week ago to enter into a new phase in relations with Russia; Deputy Director Ali Mansoor wasn’t surprised, for Young had made it his personal crusade ever since the focus of the agency shifted to the catching of terrorists under the Bush Administration. It wasn’t a secret, the whole of Langley knew about it.

Ali, an American Pakistani whose family had moved to New York in the seventies, had joined the Agency in the mid-eighties after graduating from Georgetown University, via the U.S. Marine Corps.

Blessed with his unique experience he had gathered from serving with the Recon division he had quickly progressed through the ranks at the Agency due to his special abilities and middle-eastern looks in the fight against Islamic terrorists initially, as a Non Cover Officer in Beirut, then Baghdad, Kabul and finally Lahore. A devout Muslim, Ali absolutely hated the Mullahs who turned the hearts and souls of the less educated into the killers who perpetrated the 9/11 incident. He had made the manhunt of Bin Laden his own personal “Jihad” for the shame he had brought upon his faith. In the preceding years, he had won an “Intelligence Star” and a “Distinguished Intelligence Cross” for his actions in Afghanistan, when against great personal risk he stopped an attack on Kazai, the President at the time. The actions were deemed classified and to this day nobody outside the Agency including his family knew about them for they remained locked up in the Langley vaults, for Officers are never allowed to confirm that they are even a recipient of them.