by Mandy Baggot
Nathan stood up, grabbed Alison, and, hauling her up off her chair, put his gun to her temple.
‘Drop your weapons and put your hands above your head, or I’ll shoot her!’ he ordered the two security officers.
There were screams from the other diners, shouts of ‘gun.’ People began to react. Some ran for the door, others slipped down low in their seats. The maître d’ reached for the phone.
‘Let her go and drop your weapon!’ one of Alison’s aides yelled in response, his gun drawn.
‘On the floor with the gun or we’ll take you out,’ the other ordered.
‘Nathan, something’s wrong. I don’t know what, but this is wrong,’ Autumn told him.
Nathan’s hand tightened around Alison’s neck. ‘We discussed this, Autumn,’ he reminded her.
‘I know but…’ She saw him hesitate, only for a moment, but that moment was there. ‘Please, Nathan, something’s different.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ Alison exclaimed. ‘I employed you! I demand you release me at once!’
‘Put the weapon down and release her! Do it now!’
‘Nathan,’ Autumn tried again.
He seemed to be thinking. When he thought, his forehead creased, his eyes narrowed, his cheek twitched. It was as if he was mulling over what she was saying to him. She didn’t know if she was right or not, but there was a feeling that, whatever her mother’s involvement in the situation, it wasn’t the whole story.
‘Listen, just stand down. I need some time,’ Alison said, her voice hoarse.
‘We can’t let you do that, Foreign Secretary.’
‘I order you to stand down. You can follow orders, can’t you? Stand down,’ Alison repeated.
The two guards looked to each other, as if wanting confirmation of what to do. Very slowly and reluctantly, they lowered their guns and replaced them in their holsters.
The initial shocked reaction from the diners had changed into a tense near-silence as every pair of eyes were trained on Autumn and Nathan’s table.
‘Nathan, please,’ Autumn begged. She looked at his hand, tight around her mother’s neck, the metal of the barrel of his gun pressed against her mother’s too-tight brow. Despite how sickened she felt about what her mother had been doing, something was telling her to give her a chance to explain. That perhaps she didn’t have a completely black soul.
‘Nathan,’ she said, this time even softer.
He turned to face her, his expression at first unreadable. Then she saw it in his eyes. Saw that flicker of belief.
He dropped his weapon. ‘Get your purse. We’re taking her back to the house.’
Twenty-Four
‘Tawanda!’ Nathan yelled as he opened the front door. He guided a pale, convulsing Alison Raine down the hall.
‘I’ll go and see where she is,’ Autumn offered, striding ahead.
‘No, you don’t! You hold up the Foreign Secretary. I’ll go.’
Alison steadied herself against the wall then doubled up and vomited on the carpet.
Autumn held on to her mother’s waist. ‘It’s okay, Mother, I’ll get you a drink in a minute,’ she said kindly.
‘It’s the car… or maybe the boat,’ Alison spluttered, trying to take a breath.
‘I know,’ Autumn answered.
Her mother suffered from terrible travel sickness, and it hadn’t helped that Nathan had driven back from the port like a lunatic. Alison looked weak, not a state Autumn was used to seeing her in, but nothing seemed usual with her. Autumn had a gut feeling, but whether that was completely correct was yet to be clarified.
‘Oh my, child!’ Tawanda rushed down the hallway and scooped Autumn up into her arms.
‘I’m fine, Tawanda. We’re fine. Tawanda, this is my mother, Alison.’
The expression on Tawanda’s face turned from one of joy that Autumn was back unharmed, to a look that could have cut stone. The woman folded her arms over her ample bosom and locked her eyes on Alison.
‘Where is Mr Nathan?’ Tawanda asked.
‘He went to look for you and check the house before we came right in.’
‘Could I have a glass of water?’ Alison croaked.
‘I will find Mr Nathan,’ Tawanda responded then disappeared up the hallway.
‘Who is that woman?’ Alison asked as she began to regain a little color.
‘She’s a friend.’
‘What is going on here, Autumn?’
‘What? You’re asking me what’s going on? Mother, Nathan is going to question you, and you need to tell him the truth, or else—’
‘Or else what?’
‘I don’t know, but it won’t be good. He’s a professional. He’s very talented at his job.’
‘Am I supposed to be scared?’
‘Mother, stop this! You need to tell us exactly what’s going on. I saw how you looked tonight. I want to hear the truth.’
Alison shook her head and despite Autumn’s attempts, she wouldn’t meet her eyes.
*
Taking the Foreign Secretary and bringing her to the house hadn’t been the plan at all, but with her security detail there, she was never going to open up. It would have been lie after lie, spinning a tale, denying accountability for anything and everything, a complete waste of time.
But it was Autumn’s reaction to her mother that had made him alter the plan. She really believed that there was more to this story than what he’d been told by his contacts at Section 7. Despite despising the woman, she had believed enough to want to give her a chance. Her plea had been heartfelt, and he’d reacted to that. Right or wrong, it was done now.
He spun his gun around on the table as Alison and Autumn looked on. Tawanda was making hot chocolate in the kitchen, and no one had spoken since they had congregated over in the lounge.
‘All right, I’ve had enough of this silence shit, so I’m going to cut right to the chase. I know that you’ve been selling secrets to the terrorist organization As-Wana, and I know that you’re behind this plot to kidnap Autumn,’ Nathan stated.
*
Autumn put her fingers to her mouth and began to chew the edges. One… two… three… four… five.
‘Oh, you do, do you?’ Alison replied, her professional face almost completely restored.
‘Mother, is it true? Have you been selling information to terrorists?’ Autumn questioned.
Tears formed in her eyes as her anxious look was met by one hard and practiced.
‘Is that what you think, too?’ Alison asked her daughter.
‘Nathan said that—’
‘And you believe him. You believe someone you’ve known a few days,’ Alison said with a tut of annoyance.
‘Pack up the attempt to play on the emotions and get to the truth,’ Nathan interjected. ‘I want to know it all.’
Alison straightened her skirt and crossed one leg over the other. ‘You seem to have a lot of faith in your colleagues at Section 7, Mr Regan. Have you never doubted the information they’ve given you?’
Autumn looked to Nathan, saw him swallow.
‘There are many things going on behind those doors back in London. The truth gets blurred so much, no one knows what’s real and what’s a lie,’ Alison continued.
Autumn turned to her mother. She was back to being calm, collected, and under control. Maybe she’d made a mistake. Maybe her mother had played her again.
Nathan picked up the gun and held it fixed in his hand. ‘If you don’t open up, right here, right now, I’ll kill you,’ he threatened.
Alison let out a loud titter of laughter, and in the kitchen, Tawanda slammed down the kettle.
In one stride, Nathan was at Alison’s side. He pulled back her head, clenched her hair in his fist, and put the barrel of the weapon against the side of her head. ‘Stop fucking me around or I’ll end this. You’re nothing to me, and you’re nothing to Autumn.’ Nathan wrenched Alison’s head back even farther. ‘You’re a liar and the world’s worst mother, and if that isn’t enough, you’re
a traitor to your own country!’
Alison let out a yelp. Autumn stood up and moved to Nathan’s side.
‘Autumn, it isn’t true,’ Alison pleaded.
‘You talk to me, not her!’
‘It isn’t true! I’m not a traitor. I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t do that.’
‘I don’t believe you, Mother,’ Autumn responded, her face pale and her lips tight.
How she had misjudged her. There was nothing in her heart, no love, no compassion for anyone or anything, just selfishness, and a desire for career recognition—whoever she worked for.
‘Autumn, it’s true! Mr Regan, please,’ Alison begged.
‘Please what?’
‘I’ll tell you everything.’
‘No, she won’t,’ Autumn answered back.
‘Autumn.’
‘She’s been a liar all her life. She doesn’t know how to do anything else. She’s hollow and emotionless, and I’ll never know what my father saw in her.’ Autumn’s lips formed a snarl.
‘He understands what I have to do,’ Alison said, weeping.
Autumn turned away and shook her head.
‘This is your last chance,’ Nathan threatened. He released the safety on the weapon.
Autumn turned back, her eyes wide. Suddenly, her chest felt tight, and her legs turned to liquid. She stumbled and grabbed hold of Nathan to stop herself from tumbling to the floor.
Tawanda hurried toward her and held her up. ‘What’s wrong, child?’ she asked.
‘She said “understands”,’ Autumn said through trembling lips.
‘What, child?’
‘She said “he understands what I have to do”. She should have said “understood”. Why didn’t she say “understood”?’ Autumn directed her eyes at Alison.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Nathan said. ‘I’m going to count to five then—’
‘She needs to know the truth, and I will tell her.’ Alison looked up at Nathan. ‘And you—all of it.’
‘You can’t do that,’ Nathan warned.
‘It’s the only thing I can do. Now, put that gun down and get Autumn a martini, please.’
No one moved, and Autumn felt like she was standing on the edge of a mountain, waiting for that one piece of information that was going to send her out and over the rocks.
‘Mr Nathan, what is going on here?’ Tawanda wanted to know.
‘Get Autumn a drink,’ he ordered then tossed the gun onto the sideboard and ran his hands through his hair.
‘There isn’t an easy way to say this, and no matter how I wrap the words up to soften the blow, I know it won’t.’ Alison reached for her daughter’s hand. ‘You have to understand that I had important reasons to keep it from you, reasons I hope you’ll understand. Autumn, I—’
‘What is it?’ Autumn stated through clamped teeth, desperate to hold herself together.
‘Your father,’ Nathan stated. ‘He didn’t die. He’s alive.’
Twenty-Five
There was sand in her nostrils, and it speckled her lips. Her mouth tasted of bile, and she had scratches up her forearms. Her eyes were still tightly closed against the rapidly approaching night, because if she opened them, she’d have to deal with the information she’d been given. She couldn’t. Not with something so monumental, something that had affected her whole life. Her father, who left one day and never came back. The man she remembered so fondly, loved so strongly, wasn’t dead. He was alive, had always been so. She’d been fed a series of lies in the name of protection.
Right now, she wanted to walk into the lake and just keep on walking until something made sense. Nothing had in the last half hour, and she couldn’t envisage that changing.
She sucked in a lung full of air and scrunched her eyes up tight again. One… two… three… four… five.
*
He watched her out the window, to make sure she was safe. She’d only walked five paces off the deck before she first collapsed on the sand, thumping it with her fists, crying out, screaming, then silencing herself to stillness. Now she was half walking, half stumbling to the left of the house, toward the dunes that banked up high and gave some protection from the wind.
Tawanda approached the door. ‘I should go to her. It’s getting dark,’ she said.
‘No,’ Nathan said immediately.
‘If anyone is going, it’s me,’ Alison spoke as she dabbed at her eyes with the corner of a tissue.
‘You’ve got to be joking. You’re the person she hates most in the world right now. And no one is going. She needs time to deal with it,’ he stated.
Alison looked at her watch. ‘We don’t have time. We need to decide what to do.’
‘We can give her the night.’
‘I need to make contact with Section 7. If I don’t, the—’
‘Call them,’ Nathan ordered. ‘Tell them your contact with As-Wana is meeting you tomorrow. We’ll have made a decision by then.’
Alison rose from her seat. ‘Fine, I’ll do it now.’
‘Use my phone, not yours,’ he said, taking it from his pocket and handing it to her.
Alison looked first at Nathan, then at Tawanda. ‘You do believe what I’ve told you, don’t you?’ she asked.
Nathan pressed the cell into her hand. ‘I don’t want to take any chances.’
*
She felt cold and numb, like someone had replaced her insides with crushed ice. Her father was alive. Alive! All these years she had mourned him, and all this time, he was living and breathing and existing under the same sky. And her mother had known. Her mother—the woman who had told her he had died and had wept as she broke the news—had lied. For what? To protect a secret branch of MI5 and their intel? To protect her father? To protect herself? To protect Autumn?
She hadn’t understood half of what her mother had said after Nathan delivered the news. He had known, too, and that knowledge did more than smart. He had known her father was alive all along, the man who had made her trust him. He had been lying to her from the minute they’d met. They’d spoken about her father. He knew just how much he meant to her, yet he had said nothing.
Her father had apparently been part of Section 7, too, a high-ranking soldier with an unrivaled technical knowledge of warfare and weapons. He was valuable to the British government, and that had made him even more so to terrorist organizations. One of his covers had been blown, and in a desperate attempt to keep him safe, his death had been faked, and he had been extracted. Only a select number of people were told where and who he was. Alison had had to break all contact. His death had to be very real.If the world didn’t believe Rick O’Toole was deceased, his life was over for good this time.
But last month, her father had broken cover, gone AWOL, and no one knew where he was. Somehow, As-Wana had found out he was alive, and their plan was to kidnap Autumn to draw him out of hiding, and, when he was theirs, under threat of execution, they would gather all his intelligence to use against British forces.
Her mother’s role in all this hadn’t been selling secrets to the terrorists. It had been trying to make sure this kidnapping was managed. As-Wana thought they were getting what they wanted from Alison – Autumn as a pawn with the guarantee that she would live if Alison stuck to the plan and ‘gave’ them her husband. But really, with Section 7 completely appraised of everything, it was the UK government’s objective to capture the main players in the terrorist group and to ensure Rick O’Toole was back under their radar for his own protection and for the protection of national security. Or so Alison had said. Autumn still wasn’t sure what or who to believe. So many people were telling her so many different things, it was blowing her mind.
She took another deep breath, drew in the scent of the lakeside, then inched open her eyes. She’d had them closed so long, it hurt to draw the lids up. She blinked slowly, reacting to the fading light as it invaded her pupils. Her eyeballs were sore from crying, and she couldn’t see properly. A shiver ran over her bare arms, and s
he pulled her knees up tighter.
‘It’s getting cold. You should come inside,’ Nathan spoke.
‘Go away!’
‘That isn’t going to happen.’
‘Fuck off!’ Autumn shrieked. ‘Do you understand that? I don’t want you anywhere near me. You lied! You knew my father was alive all this time. You knew!’
‘I couldn’t tell you! I signed the Official Secrets Act, Autumn. Do you know what that means?’
‘That’s a bullshit excuse. I mean, you’ve told me now, haven’t you? What’s going to happen? Will you be shot? Because if that’s what happens, I’d quite like to watch!’
‘Autumn, I know you’re angry but—’
‘Angry? You think “angry” covers it, do you?’ She climbed to her feet and faced him. ‘She’s lied to me. You’ve lied to me. I suspect Tawanda knew, as well, so she’s lied to me. Then there’s Juan and Janey. Is there a person in my life that hasn’t bloody lied to me? What am I? Some sort of gullible idiot for expecting a bit of the truth every now and then?’
‘I’ve been lied to, as well,’ Nathan told her. ‘Section 7 has fed me a pack of lies since I took this job. They had to ensure Alison’s cover wasn’t blown with As-Wana. She had to provide you with security to authenticate the threats, and I was the man for the job. I’m expendable. I can’t be traced back to them. I don’t matter, and that’s fucking fine by me, but I wouldn’t compromise your safety. I put a fly in the ointment by bringing you here and enlisting Tawanda, Teo, Jazz, and their teams to help me. They didn’t count on me having half a brain and figuring out that something was off. But don’t think for a second that I knew the whole story.’
‘I don’t care about the whole story, because I’ve heard so many, they’re all starting to merge into one big fairytale. I care that you lied to me. I care that you knew my father was alive and you didn’t tell me. I hate you for that!’
‘Good, you should.’
She jerked, turned her head, looked over at him. ‘What?’
‘You should hate me. I want you to.’ He folded his hands behind his head and took a deep breath.
Autumn stared at him, trying to call up a response. He appeared tired. His eyes were dim, with dark shadows underneath. He looked to her, and she shook her head.