Consequences Unforeseen

Moscow - 12th June 1991 - The die is cast.

Moscow – 12th June 1991 – The die is cast.

Aleksandra’s warning turned out to be fully justified. Fraser sat there waiting for them wearing ‘that face’. No words could describe it and Douglas heard his Uncle John mouth “Oh fuck!” in his head.

Douglas thought in unison, “Oh fuck is right! Here we go!” He knew this was bad and his gut rumbled in anticipation and the hair prickled on his neck.

Many had perished after seeing Fraser with a similar countenance for the one and only time they would ever behold it, and his associates came to joke about it as the ‘FDS” – the Fraser death Stare. It had become folklore in the whispering hallways of the British intelligence community.

But Douglas knew this face was worse than that. It took the heat out of the air and then sucked the air out of the room. He had seen it only twice before in his dealings with the man.

One such look had come following what proved to be a Russian attempt on Bill’s life in Majorca back in 1973, and the untimely death of an innocent friend of Bill’s, Heather Doyle. Douglas vanished from sight and contact for several weeks after this and Fraser had simmered over this assassination attempt for years. Indeed the current operation he was directing would, as a side benefit, give Douglas the closure of cold revenge. Or at least that had been the intention.

The second time followed Douglas’ reappearance from a second unpredicted and unapproved vanishing act following his friend Lynda’s death and funeral back in 1974. On that occasion the French Police and Interpol came in for the full extent of his fury for daring to re open an old murder inquiry into the death of some German scum back in 1966.

On both occasions the common factor was that rage had consumed Fraser so that his entire focus and that of his power was exhorted on the enemy as he perceived them to be. These had been hard days in Douglas’ life, but Fraser’s response was not borne out of sympathy. The depths that forged this visceral reaction were somehow entwined in the man’s DNA and in that of the Douglas clan.

Today though, no one to Douglas’ knowledge had died and so in some ways he felt sorry for the new Prime Minister, Joe Minor who, as far as Douglas was aware, had caused them all to be here in the room today. Fraser had without doubt set the ripples in motion that would in time destroy the perpetrator.

But that did nothing at this moment to lessen the glare that awaited the two erstwhile tourists as they walked through the door.

Expecting the worst possible reaction, Douglas did not even say ‘hello’. Fraser in fact never raised his eyes in their direction as they entered. He was for sure in a ‘mind, no mind’ state, so deep in focus and concentration that he was in some ways unaware of the interruption their entrance caused. On another level altogether however his mind was tracking them like a hidden camera.

Aleksandra glanced at Douglas and indicated with a subtle head movement that they should retreat to the upper levels and wait the storms passing. She knew much of the root cause of the predicament they were in, but not all of the specific detail. This made her unsure if it was better to hold her limited information to herself or begin to slide the thin end of the wedge of truth and actuality into Douglas’ consciousness.

Wrestling with the version of events he had told her versus the actual clusterfuck the politicians had set in motion was excruciating for her because she knew that Douglas himself, trained and honed under Fraser’s tutelage was capable of just as vehement a reaction as her lover. He was much younger though and she was nervous that his reaction would be less considered and he’d take action of some sort without thinking things through.