“BULLSHIT! I’m fucking starting to wonder whose fucking side you’re on!” The Bostonian had angrily said before backing off knowing calling out a CEO of a significant news company wasn’t the best policy. “I am sorry, Steve. I know am over-stepping the mark,” McGiven had added. “It’s just that I am under pressure from the Sec. State!” Joe had continued even though that wasn’t the case but in any event useful in the game of political negotiations.
This call hadn’t been a surprise as both Thomas and he in London had discussed that it would come at some point.
That night they had agreed that for them to become the ‘Brokers’ they would need to appear as neutrals despite their links to each other so for the moment Steve kept wise counsel and remained silent.
“Look, I honestly need your help on this, Steve,” The Chief of Staff said finishing off his mini-performance.
“Okay, I hear you,” Steve had responded on cue.
“Look, nobody is supposed to know this as we only start running the promos tomorrow, but Litchfield is doing an exclusive interview in a couple of days with the Business Desk in New York.”
“Really, who’s doing it?” McGiven had quickly asked seizing the moment and falling into Steve’s trap.
“Jessica Austin,” Steve had responded with a smirk that the Chief of Staff couldn’t see, as he had cast his fly almost as if he were fishing in Montana for trout.
“How about you get somebody to brief her on the value of the Russian base. What she does with it is up to her.”
Immediately the Chief of Staff had bit, “Thanks I certainly appreciate your support, Steve!”
“Oh and don’t worry the Sec. State will be at your dinner for your coming out parade,” Joe had added, to which Steve chuckled.
“It amazing what a little push can do,” Steve had privately thought.
“Favors for favors,” he had chuckled to himself, having Kerry at the dinner was going guarantee him the exposure and political support he needed to announce that was throwing in his hat and entering the ring as a potential serious candidate for Governorship of the world’s ninth biggest economy in the near future.
Once the call was out of the way, Steve had discreetly let Thomas know that McGiven was coming for him just as they had discussed through the simple use of a code word in BlackBerry instant messenger within a good luck note. Now he was just waiting to see how he managed it.
“Don’t let me down buddy,” he said to Thomas’s face on the screen.
Introductions completed, Jessica turned and smiled towards the famous billionaire.
“Sir Thomas, welcome to the MGN Newsroom.”
“Thank you, Jessica.”
“Your career has certainly been stellar, to say the least, with your interests ranging from a shareholding in our parent company it needs to be mentioned to our audience, to your global natural resource interests,” she said setting the scene. “So I would like to begin our interview with a question that although I understand it is one you hate, but I feel our viewers would like to hear an answer to?”
“Of course,” answered Thomas all charm personified, knowing what was coming.
“Do you consider yourself an Oligarch?” she asked.
“Straight to the point!” Thomas thought.
“Yes Jessica,” he answered coolly. “I do hate the term because the media always tags each successful businessmen with it whether he is working in or is Russian. An Oligarch is driven by the ability to set cash above everything else! I have never done that. So, to answer your question, no, I am not Oligarch. But I am pleased and proud to be part of the rebuilding of Russia after a difficult transition in its history,” he added attempting to close down the question.
“Do you have links to organized crime?” she probed.
“No, I don’t. I have always had complete confidence in the laws and the officers who uphold them in all the countries my group over the years has invested in and continue do so,” he answered sincerely, despite having done the exact opposite as working with and around organized crime in Russia was an unfortunate but a necessary evil.
Again Jessica probed, but having been signaled by his friend by way of a message that U.S. would start their campaign to paint either him or the leadership of Adwalland as criminals, thereby potentially derailing the Russian presence, Thomas offered his answers in a cool and understated manner.
Under any other circumstances, he would never dream of doing an interview and indeed until this one he had never done so in the past. He didn’t even have a Facebook or Twitter account, despite the many efforts of Victoria to make him get one.
When the Mayor made clear his intentions and what he expected from him, Thomas’s instincts had told him at some point he was going to be receiving a barrage of questions of this sort as he was the lead investor and broker.
His instinct had also led him to believe tensions between the U.S. and Russia were almost certainly going to start to boil in the coming months.
So using the logic to get the skeletons out of the way and on record at a time of his choosing instead of being ambushed down the road, Thomas summoned his media information officer to help prepare him.
It was a decision that had nearly given the poor man a heart attack after initially thinking Thomas was joking.
“Fucking hell, Thomas, you’re bloody nuts!” James Weston had said in typical blunt fashion, reflecting his Northern England roots.
“Jim, just get me ready,” he had said, calming his long-standing combustible friend who lived on too much coffee and cigarettes.
So as Jessica pressed him again, this time Thomas continued in the cool and focused manner just as James had taught him earlier in the day during their training session and answered.
“I think I answered that question,” he stated, followed by a deadly pause designed to fill the air with silence so to push her to move on.
With her screaming producer’s orders in her ear, sensing that he wasn’t going to answer, Jessica did just that by moving on to his education, military career before she came to a question of how he saw Russia’s future.
Her questions were presented as her views but obvious to the informed who were watching and not just Thomas, had come from a State Department briefing, signaled by her use of a statement by former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on the attempt of Russia to “Re-Soviet” around the world as the catalysis, Thomas responded.
“In all my years doing business in Russia and the neighboring states that surround her, I have always mixed with perfectly happily ordinary people,” he said. “As I said earlier, I am proud to be part of the rebuilding of Russia after a difficult transition. The atmosphere in these countries is always totally different to the way it perceived by your colleagues in media.
“People go to work, socialize in bars and restaurants, raise families and don’t keep looking over their shoulder for the KGB at the door, so I disagree strongly with Mrs. Clinton’s perception,” he said with conviction in his voice, ignoring her question completely and giving a party line answer he knew would please the Mayor.
“How do you see Putin?” Jessica asked suddenly as if out of blue, which it was anything but.
“Here, we go!” Thomas thought. He took a big breath.
“I see him as a strong leader for whom the majority of Russians that make up the general populace respond to, whether the world likes it or not,” he answered neutrally.
“Is he your Krysha, meaning Roof, to use a Russian word?” she fenced.
The fact she used such a word in her subject confirmed to him that she had, as Steve suggested, received a full briefing from the State Department by the mentioning an essential part of Russian business in the 1990s when the country was weak and more corruptible than they were today as to the way to try and link him to the Mayor.