“There are only five thousand bottles Steve, I agree though; it is a fabulous champagne, excellent choice darling,” lifting his glass to Nara to show his appreciation.
The Ambassador’s wife, ever a trained diplomat herself noticing that Nara’s glass was filled with only mineral water and her plate was missing, knocked on the table three times then pretended to spit three times over her left shoulder as she radiantly smiled towards Nara, who quickly followed suit and did the same in response.
A shining glowing Thomas also followed suit.
“What does that mean?” asked Steve as the Ambassador, Valeri and Elena having now grasped the situation as well, followed suit, which carried over to the next table where Mikhail and Hanna and his closest aides all did the same, beaming smiles all around.
“We are praising Nara’s pregnancy. You knock the table three times and spit over your left shoulder so not to jinx it,” the Ambassador answered with a huge smile.
“It’s an old Russian custom,” Valeri further explained to Steve.
“Pregnant!” shouted Steve as both he and his young starlet girlfriend Daniele followed suit as well joining the joyful laughing surrounding the tables.
As the ripple was finished, Thomas winked at Nara whose eyes sparkled when she caught it as they raised their glasses to his lady, but not before a little shiver went down her spine.
Once the party had entered into full swing Steve joined Thomas in his study. After offering him a cigar and a tumbler of three fingers of his 78 Speyside Mortlach, Thomas asked if he wanted water.
“Yes, please Buddy, just a touch,” Steve answered as he clipped a Short Churchill cigar and proceeded to light it.
Handing the malt to his friend, Thomas started to light his own cigar.
“I am sorry Jessica went a little overboard the other day,” Steve said, starting their catch-up.
“Don’t worry about it! James had me well prepared,” Thomas answered sincerely. “We knew it was coming and anyway it proved one thing! Your leaders have definitely taken the bait!” Thomas added.
“Yeah I had that prick McGiven on the line moaning to me that our publications were being too friendly towards you and the Russians. Little fucker!” Steve added with a touch of theatre as he remembered the exchange that took place having decided he wasn’t go to tell his friend yet of his plan to run for the Governorship.
Thomas too held own his secret. That being the meeting with Rebecca at which she informed him about the “nod and the wink” as to the Americans intending to support Wasir.
Instead, Thomas asked Steve if he could give Ambassador Jack Fielding some airtime so he could assist them in the pushing of the neutral position of being honest brokers to be used by, rather than Thomas becoming the recipient of the United States of America sword.
“Fielding!” Steve replied shaking his head with a pained look that immediately told Thomas there must have been some past history between the two men.
“Do you know him?” he probed.
“You could say that!” Steve cryptically answered looking into his whiskey deeply.
To Steve the memory that flooded back after all these years was of her slender, girlish figure. Her oval face that made her beautiful in the extreme and with her finely honed figure, large eyes, a mass of coal black hair, olive skinned skin and molded lips, Kelly Christina Fielding. The only woman he had ever loved.
A product of Jack Fielding’s first marriage to an aristocratic Spanish woman Steve had met her at the Cannes Film Festival at one of his father’s parties when he was twenty-one, and she was just eighteen. She was a free spirit, born from unstable home life and a Swiss boarding school and Steve was instantly drawn to her for her ability to spark chaos all around. Over the course of that wonderful summer, he had fallen head over heels in love with both her vulnerability and independent spirit like a moth to a flame and found himself constantly getting into fights all over South of France trying to protect her from herself, forgiving her each time. It was to end tragically at the end of the summer with Steve losing her to a drug overdose on the Rivera and with it all his dreams of having children and a stable relationship.
Fielding blamed Steve, so much so, he had banned him from attending her funeral.
“We have a personal history,” was all he said to Thomas.
Seeing his friend face change to one of sorrow within an instant, Thomas chose not to press him on it.
“Fair enough, let’s forget it, I will get Weston to earn his keep,” Thomas offered wondering what had affected his friend so badly.
“Thank you,” was all Steve said.
32
Borama
Although all Somalis genetically belong to the “G” tribe, each town or city much like the cities of the United Arab Emirates were responsible for their immediate geographical area.
In Adwalland, these areas were Saylac and Lughaya in the northwest then finally Awdal in the west with all the areas using the original Clan base divisions of the sixteenth Century Sultanate that had ruled when it was known as the Emirate of Saylac.
The reason why they chose to follow the municipality system of the UAE had made sense when they had been setting up the State as it meant it the Presidency of the new nation could be shared every five years and allow the tribal chiefs to self-govern their own areas without one tribe dominating the others.
In bringing all the sub-clans of the Upper and Lower Houses together to create a cabinet of six members to act as the ruling council, the President had for the first time since the Sultan been able to create a State for the whole area, but despite this, the peace was still fragile. Therefore Thomas and the President needed to make sure that the spoils from their agreement with the Russian Government were shared correctly and more importantly, fairly.
The clean water wells, roads, electricity, telecommunications, schools and medical facilities were the first part of the plan as the harbor contractors set about creating the docks and channels to take boats with up to twenty meter drafts to make it one of the biggest ports on the East African coast and one to certainly a rival to Djibouti’s next door to Adwalland once it was completed.
The second part was cash. Over the last month the Russian Central Bank had set up the correspondence relationship with Adwalland’s new Central Bank and in doing so was able to serve as the underwriter to the Western banks for the new country that would struggle to get credit otherwise if they hadn’t.
TLH had placed its first lease payment of fifty million U.S. dollars on deposit into the new Commercial Bank of Adwalland, and the Russian Government had placed into the new branch in Moscow their first tranche of 200 million U.S. dollars for deployment into Adwalland joint ventures.
This was now being explained to the Council by Omar, but instead of understanding the significance of the gift they were receiving, which would make them over the next ten years a leading African state, unfortunately it now appeared to Thomas that they had all immediately seen it as an opportunity for ‘land grab.’ As a result, each Clan was seeking to divert the monies into their own areas, not understanding that the money couldn’t be deployed in that way.
At least that’s what he surmised from what he could make out by the emotions on the President and his many advisers’ faces.
After about three hours of going around in circles, and copious amounts of mint tea, the meeting finally broke up for the evening.
“Thomas, I need money!” the mentally exhausted President said once they were alone.
“You have money, Mr. President,” answered Thomas bracing himself for a renegotiation of the terms.