Turning to his daughter, Thomas took the opportunity to present them to each other for the first time.
“Victoria, I would like to introduce you to your grandfather, Rufus,” he said.
“You’re a lucky man,” Rufus said taking in sight of the beautiful child and as he did so he could have sworn he saw Amelia in her smile.
“It’s a great pleasure to meet you Victoria,” Rufus said introducing himself by leaning down and kissing her cheek. It was a gesture that took Thomas by surprise, as he was never that friendly with him as a child. It was always handshakes, never hugs or kisses.
Figuring Victoria was shy, as she hadn’t said anything, Rufus moved on quickly to introduce his wife and two daughters.
“Thomas this is my wife, Cecilia.”
Although Thomas had never met her before he was very aware of her, a striking attractive long blonde, blue eyed woman in her early fifties who looked no more than forty years old, he could see why she still captured the attention of all the men, old or young. Standing barely five-foot-three in height, with a very narrow waist and slender legs the woman had been his secretary before becoming his wife at the age of just twenty.
“Cecilia,” Thomas offered with a nod. Defensively.
“And your sisters, Charlotte and Eleanor,” said his father.
Again despite never bothering to meet them Thomas was very much aware of them as they both girls had reputations that would have put the famous Mitford sisters to shame. Just thirty, the twins were the reason his father had left his mother all those years ago. Slight and slim, he could see both had inherited their mother’s figure, with long and wavy dirty blonde hair, wide-set blue eyes, pert upturned noses, and pleasantly oval shaped faces he could see why the papers, including his own tabloid, had made them the darlings of the gossip pages.
Over the years with ambitions of careers in the Media they had many a time tried to engineer a meeting with him. It had taken a tragedy to finally do so.
“Ladies,” Thomas answered. Recognizing despite his personal feelings towards their mother because they shared the same blood he bent down and kissed each of them on the cheek as if it were a regular occurrence in turn.
It was a gesture that wasn’t lost on either Cecilia or his Father. In Cecilia’s case, it was one of fury because he refused to kiss her, thereby acknowledging her place in his father’s life while in contrast his father’s case it was one of pride because it meant Thomas had acknowledged the girls as part of his family.
Awkward introductions out of the way, the Litchfield clan walked into the chapel for the service together.
Because Nara was Muslim the washing and shrouding and Janaazh prayer are the responsibility of the deceased family, but as Thomas wasn’t of the faith, Tania had taken over the responsibility. She allowed Thomas to stand at her side watching her wash her beloved daughter forty times in the morning at the funeral home before Nara was driven down to the country for her final resting place. It had nearly torn him apart watching it, but he had remained composed for Tania’s sake.
Together they had designed a service to reflect the celebration of Nara’s life. So as the Imam sung his prayer it wasn’t lost on him that it made a lovely contrast to surroundings of the Christian chapel, so much so by the end of the service the only ones not crying were Thomas and Victoria. Something he had only noticed when his daughter looked up at him under his shoulder.
He smiled and kissed her head.
At the end, the service over Thomas and Victoria rose together. He felt his daughter take his hand firmly. He squeezed it gently then placed an arm around the sobbing Tania as the coffin was carried out the three of them followed behind so they could walk to the plot that had been made ready by the side of his mother. They were swiftly followed his Father and his second family, Mikhail and Hanna, Sgt. Tan and his wife, Pritchard and the rest of his men and senior staff then finally the now permanent police protection unit that had been increased in size since the incident at the school.
Watching his beloved Nara being lowered into the ground Thomas made a silent commitment to the woman he loved, “I will revenge you my darling! On my life!”
“Please look after them for me?” Thomas suddenly asked of his mother referring to Nara and his unborn child within his confines of his mind.
A gust of wind out of nowhere in response, Thomas took it as a sign his mother would do as he asked. He leaned down and kissed his daughter’s head again at his side, getting another squeeze of his hand in return from the little girl.
An hour later back at the house Thomas found and asked for a moment with his father.
“Of course, Thomas,” Rufus answered putting down his cup of tea.
Walking into the study, he closed the door behind them. Straightaway Thomas spotted the chess set on the side table.
“I would like very much if we could have a game together again,” his Father said having spotted what he was looking at as he placed his hand on Thomas’s shoulder.
“As you wish Father,” Thomas responded before giving the reasons why he had asked for a moment alone with him not really wanting to engage in small talk until he reached an agreement with his father.
Once completed and looking grim his Father give a singular nod of his head if not his approval for he knew his son would not change his mind.
“I ask only one thing in return,” Rufus said before going on to ask that he and his family spend Christmas with him on his return from his duty and that he swore to look after Cecilia and his sisters once he was gone.
“I promise you on my honor that I will,” answered Thomas without a second thought despite his feelings towards Cecilia.
His response was a source of great relief for the old man. He had worried considerably over the years that once he was gone from this world his son would reap his vengeance upon Cecilia and the girls, for though they hadn’t spoken, he still intended to leave the company and house to him as honor demanded but most of all he had worried about his son’s exotic business reputation with its unproven links to a number of high profile deaths in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
Over the years, Cecilia had lobbied hard for him change his will on the basis that Thomas didn’t need his money and would only kick them out with nothing. Relentlessly using the logic that Thomas had not once had he made the effort to be part of their life despite his and the girls multiple attempts not really understanding that was the least of her worries.
The answer his son had just given him had immediately lifted the weight of the world of his old shoulders. Now his concerns would be directed to that of his son’s chosen path.
Seeing an ivory piece on the chessboard, Rufus suddenly picked it up and threw it towards his son. Catching it, Thomas looked at the piece and smiled: It was the Knight.
“Bring it back for our game!” he ordered his son and heir.
“So like his mother,” he thought. “Always swimming upstream as though he was a salmon to its fate.”
59
Nouakchott
A week later when sitting in his office, in the grounds of the Russian Embassy on the Rue Mamadou in the capital belonging to one of the poorest states in the world twenty-eight-year-old Anton Vasilyevich Sosnin, the local resident of the SVR, had nearly fallen off his chair when he received a call from his line officer at the Wood telling to make himself available for a team from the famous Planning Division that would be arriving that night.
He was even more surprised when he received his encrypted packet to find he was ordered to gather intelligence on the background on the villa of the now infamous warlord Wasir Osman Hassan, who was in Nouakchott.