The Devil's Playground

by Michael Reagan

place between the U.S, Korea, and Japan once Krivets had finished brokering the cease fire with China.

  "He suggested England," Thomas answered, twiddling the glass on the table in the lounge.

  "Really?" Rob questioned with a look of surprise.

  "He wants to use my house at Upper Barpham," answered Thomas.

  Rob chuckled.

  "I better let the President know," he said.

  "I can just see the Secret Service's face when you suggest that location," injected Mikhail with his own smile.

  Rob responded.

  "Not my pig, not my farm!"

  50

  Upper Barpham

  The young Lead Agent of the Secret Service's advance detail was a tough no holds barred African American former linebacker with Mississippi State named Terrell Valentine. He was not in a happy mood as he sat in front of his counterparts from the Korean Presidential Bodyguard and the Japanese Security Police arguing over who had operational security lead in the event of an attack on the Tri-Party talks.

  With literally only five days to plan the threat risk assessment, protocol had been thrown out the window. Usually the U.S. Secret Service and other agencies choreographed the President's foreign trips down to the minutest detail and even then there were still huge risks involved with any operation involving foreign agencies, like a hand grenade getting within fifty yards of President Bush and his Georgian counterpart Mikhail Saakashvili in 2005 to name just one.

  From the moment the White House had informed him that Litchfield's house in Upper Barpham was going serve as the place to host the peace talks, he and his team had worked 24/7 looking at the various security scenarios. They had spend hours working up and re-working plans, taking in changing intelligence information in order to ensure security was tight during the visit, which was why his head was pounding.

  Luckily, to Terrell's relief, the manor appeared to have all the latest countermeasures but the unfortunate side effect of that was the bun fight which now being fought as to which nation's snipers were going to perch on the rooftops and which nation's agents would be used to man the security gates that was taking place now. So far the only thing they had all agreed on was that air cover would be provided by Great Britain, the host nation.

  Because no agency was allowing the others anything in the way of leeway, everything on the ground had been doubled. That meant there were over 750 heavily armed agents, dozens of advisers, three teams of sniffer dogs, and even each country's own catering team on site to prepare their respective President's meals for the sit down dinner that was hosted this evening by Litchfield, the house's owner.

  "When the President travels, the White House travels with him, from the cars he drives, the water he drinks, the gasoline he uses, the food he eats," said Terrell to his female counterpart when they started arguing over storage space.

  "Special Agent Valentine, where do you suggest then that we store our logistics?" the female agent responded, quickly joined by the Japanese, neither party backing down.

  It was the Israeli bodyguard of Litchfield that broke the tension.

  "Don't worry, we have placed Marquees at the edge of the estate that will accommodate all your needs," he said to the two young Asian agents.

  "So all you need do is play rock, paper, scissors to decide who get the storage area at the main house," he said to the collective laughter of his men who were sitting behind him.

  Terrell looked at Mikhail. He wasn't amused.

  "That's not helping, Mr. Pscheniciknov," he said with a serious face.

  "By the way you're carrying on, Special Agent Valentine, you'll still be here when your President arrives in six hour's time," the Israeli bodyguard responded.

  "Do want to tell the world that the peace deal is off because you don't want to put the President's potatoes in a Marquee at the edge of the estate?" said Mikhail with a huff.

  "I agree with Mr. Mikhail," said the Korean agent, supporting the Israeli. "This is yet another example of the American arrogance," she added,

  "Terrell, I suggest you focus on the choke points," Mikhail said expressively with his finger pointing to the plans of the estate whilst giving the Korean a look that said that she wasn't helping.

  "If we all had our way we would put our principals in a cement bunker and no one would get to see or hear him," Mikhail continued, trying to act as a peacemaker.

  "Unfortunately, we don't!" he said.

  Terrell looked at Mikhail. He hated being railroaded by his wife and his certainly wasn't going to be now.

  "Have you finished?" he stated before starting over again to the rolling eyes of Mikhail.

  Three hours later Mikhail appeared in the sitting room. Thomas could tell by the look on his face that he was pissed.

  "Fucking Valentine!" he spat as he joined Thomas, Rob, and Steve Krivets, earning a small smirk from the young Secret Service Agent that was guarding Steve at the side of the room that he tried to hide but failed miserably.

  "What are you smirking at farm boy?" Mikhail asked with a venomous look having spotted young agent's look, quickly getting a look of indignation in return from the young ex-college educated agent in the process.

  "Ignore my friend, Agent Wilson, he is getting way too grumpy in his old age," injected Thomas in an effort to cool Mikhail down.

  "Valentine is just doing his job. I bet you were even worse when you were in Shabat protecting Shamir," Rob said, joining in the banter with a beaming smile referring to the former Prime Minister of Israel.

  "There is something called the common sense approach!" Mikhail replied, not backing down. He let out a sigh as he sat down.

  "So I take it the Secret Service aren't making your life easy?" Steve asked with beaming white teeth, displaying the bad habit of politicians the world over of stating the obvious.

  "No, Governor," Mikhail gruffly replied as Pritchard, the long standing butler of the Litchfield family, walked in with afternoon tea for everybody.

  Changing the subject back to what he considered a more important matter, Steve brought Thomas up to speed on the situation with the Chinese.

  "The talks went pretty much as was you said they would but we have a real problem with the Chinese demand for reparations to cover the loss of forty percent of the PLA assets," stated Krivets as he took a cup of tea from Pritchard.

  "How did you respond to that?" asked Thomas.

  "I didn't for the moment," he said before going on to explain the biggest threat that was America was now facing from the resolve of the Chinese to set up the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) without the United States.

  "They are locking us out, Tommy," said Steve.

  "That's not a bad thing as there will be competition in the process of liberalization," Thomas replied. "That said, I acknowledge that if two of the world's largest economies choose to reject each other then it's going to be everyman for himself."

  "And the economic shockwave will be felt throughout international trade and investment," Steve responded. "Unfortunately, though the trust between China and America is completely burnt. The Chinese will use this crisis as a tool to isolate themselves from America and recommend the promotion of international trade and investment reforms to our main trading partners."

  "You tried to explain that to the President, I take it?" Rob asked, fully understanding what Steve had just said.

  The RCEP had always been a significant part of China's strategy to defeat the United States and eleven other countries of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) but with being China the main importer for practically all the TPP member states and holding the core position in the global manufacturing supply chain, if they stopped Parker's reforms before they were implemented, then the vast amount of trade and investment activity that would have shifted from China to TPP member states would be blown apart.

  "This was their plan right from the get go, wasn't it?" Rob asked with horror on his face. "If they force their RCEP reforms through, then all the
world's major economic activity would shift from the United States into other countries," he continued.

  Steve nodded.

  "In the past China has been is one of the major beneficiaries of America's advocacy of economic globalization. Without the continuation of international free trade and investment, China could not have relied on internal reforms to achieve economic growth," he said to Thomas. "That changes the moment they implement the RCEP reforms!"

  "So what's Parker's response?" asked Thomas.

  "He hasn't got one other than survival," Steve stated, putting on his Democrat hat for the moment and continued, "With the result that it will be America's people who will now pay the price".

  "You see, the United States has never seen China as a major rival, because China has always been passive in its acceptance of international economic laws," Rob said to Thomas, appearing to support Steve's answer.

  "This crisis changes everything, although the United States is still the world's largest economy, China is now the second largest, but with Parker at the helm it will overtake America in the coming decade. The juggernaut is being created as we speak," Rob explained shaking his head sadly. "China and other developing countries wishing to participate in international economics are going to have to become logical and reasonable, but that in itself will create a problem because China has just proved to the world that the dragon is awake and ready to breathe its fire!" he said.

  Thomas was surprised-even after all his years as a mercenary in the service of Sheikhs, at heart