Jeffrey looked up at Annie and recognized that she was taking the news extraordinarily hard. She had worked here for a year and half, working alongside Andrew just as they all had, so Jeffrey reasoned that her obvious case of denial made sense. He tried again to explain it to her again as gently as he could.
“Annie, I don’t know exactly what happened, but Andrew didn’t fly home last night. He was on the Eurostar. We just received an updated preliminary list of confirmed passengers a few minutes ago. He’s on the list.”
Annie stood there, blinking at Jeffrey Hunter, stunned. This time she allowed the reality of the news to slowly start to sink in . . . it might really be true, she thought. Andrew might really be dead. Her head started to throb, and her stomach began to churn as though she might throw up right there in the office of the Prime Minister of England’s Chief of Staff. She nodded her understanding and then quickly bolted into the hall before she became sick and made another scene. Darting down the hall, she barely got the door to the ladies’ private rest room closed before the contents of her stomach came pouring out of her mouth into the toilet. She choked and gasped, the tile room spinning as she grabbed the walls for support.
Sobbing, she grabbed a towel and held it to her mouth to muffle the sound. The grief came in waves, and she held onto the wall to steady herself. His face, his hands, the way his hair curled behind his ear… all these images played on repeat through her mind. How would she ever live without him? How could she conceal the grief that was washing over her like unrelenting waves for one day? Let alone a lifetime?
Annie stood there in the small, dim bathroom, and thoughts flooded back through her mind. She had never wanted to fall in love with Andrew Bolling. Certainly she was not the kind of woman to have an affair, lying and cheating on her husband. Her husband Richard was a good man, everyone liked him. Hell, Annie liked him too. But Andrew Bolling was a bolt out of the blue that she didn’t see coming. He was intelligent of course, but it went further than that. He was gentle and caring to everyone, yet he could debate political philosophies and constitutional theories with an intense depth of knowledge and fervor. He was confident, curious, and creative, but also the most loyal friend and confidant. The fact that he was also incredibly handsome was just what had pushed her over the edge into an affair that she did not want or pursue. It just happened, and it had completely transformed every facet of her life. Yet now he was gone forever, just as unexpectedly as he had entered it.
After a few minutes, she heard a soft knock on the door . . . “Hey Annie, you OK?”
It was Rosalind, the pleasant older lady who worked back in the communications office.
“Oh, I’m OK! So sorry! Just feeling a little overwhelmed with all of the bad news today! I’ll be out in a minute!”
After a few minutes to compose herself, Annie blotted her face with some rough sheets of paper towel, rinsed out her mouth, smoothed out her hair, and exited the restroom. Thankfully Rosalind was nowhere to be seen. Weaving her way through the office back to her desk to avoid any face to face contact, she managed to make it back to her desk without further scrutiny.
She willed herself to halt all thoughts of Andrew. She simply could not think of him at this moment. People could not know that Andrew’s death had devastated her. There were strict rules against dating within the top government office in the country — it was seen as a security threat and left the administration vulnerable to accusations of nepotism and partiality. The fact that one of the parties was married made this situation all the more worse. An affair of this type, even when one of the parties was murdered in an act of terrorism — or especially when one of the parties had been murdered in an act of terrorism — would be a scandal. She would lose her job and quite probably her marriage as well; although right now, that was less of a concern.
CHAPTER TWELVE
By 4 p.m. Monday afternoon, Hunter was relatively certain he’d taken care of all of the emergency agenda items on his list of things to do. For a moment, he could take a breath and let himself take in all that had happened in the last 18 hours. He had been running on adrenaline since midnight last night, and the fatigue was starting to set in.
The recovery teams were still hard at work deep in the tunnel, extracting victims and documenting the tangled, burned mess that comprised the crime scene as best they could. One hundred and thirty one victims had been recovered thus far, with many more trapped in the twisted wreckage. Many would probably never be recovered. Jeffrey was sick just thinking about the thousands of people who represented the families and friends of these poor victims. So much death and destruction, so many lives lost, and so many victims’ families’ lives forever altered. It was sickening that any person could have so much hate in their heart that they could kill a trainload of innocent victims with so little regard for humanity. Jeffrey hated all of it, and right now, he hated his job very much.
For the first time in eighteen hours, Hunter let himself think about Andrew. First at Oxford, through many years climbing the government ladder, and now in the Prime Minister’s office, the two had worked side by side for more than seventeen years. They were good friends, confidants, coworkers, and drinking buddies, in that order. Other than Trevor Wellington, he was Hunter’s best friend, and he would miss him terribly.
He knew everything about Andrew and vice versa. When they first met at Oxford, they were assigned to work on a project together for their political theory class and hit it off immediately. Andrew didn’t have the same kind of privileged background that had propelled Hunter and Wellington to Oxford. He had arrived there the old-fashioned way, through sheer hard work and intellect.
Andrew grew up in the Chiswick neighborhood of West London, playing on the streets among middle class homes and working class families. He had attended the local primary and secondary schools, excelling far and above the expectations of his middle class London upbringing. When he blew the top off of his A level exams at the end of secondary school, Oxford came calling with a hefty scholarship offer. It was his ticket out of Chiswick and into the inner sanctum of England’s most revered academic circles. His future would be bright indeed.
At University, Jeffrey, Trevor Wellington, and Andrew Bolling had become close friends during their senior year, along with Rasul Aziz, Andrew’s wingman all four years at Oxford. Their flat just two blocks west of campus was a constant hubbub of activity with classmates, books, and copious amounts of Guinness and Coors Light. The later beer preference was compliments of Andrew and Raz’s previous flat mates Charlie and Jorge, the American exchange students who had roomed with the pair the previous year. Hunter had only met Charlie and Jorge a handful of times at Oxford, but their American beer of choice would forever impact his own taste buds for years to come, by sheer fact of their common friendship with Andrew. Jeffrey’s parents always said that the purpose of University was to open one’s eyes to the world, and he had laughed at the thought that influencing his choice of beer was probably not what they had in mind.
Jeffrey thought back to his conversation with John O’Leary this morning. What in the hell did Andrew Bolling have to do with this whole mess, other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and paying for that mistake with his life? What did that phone call mean this morning? Certainly it was a crank call, but why would anyone be trying to tie Andrew to a terrorist attack? And why would they be threatening anyone based on it? None of it made any sense. Andrew was a high- ranking government official, but there was no way his otherwise ordinary life had anything to do with terrorists and threats against his country. Andrew Bolling wasn’t even supposed to be on that train anyway, so the idea that his death could be tied to this random act of terrorism was nonsense. John O’Leary would clear the matter up, certainly.
Jeffrey Hunter picked up his replacement cell phone, needing some answers. Punching the yellow icon for contacts, he pulled out the small business card containing the information John O’Leary had left him with this morning. Adding John’s name t
o his contact list, he punched the phone icon to call the MI6 investigator while formulating his thoughts on how this situation needed to be expedited.
“John? Jeffrey Hunter here, from the P.M.’s office. I wanted to check in and see if you have any updates on the investigation. I know you’ve only just started, but Wellington is looking for a briefing on where the investigation stands this afternoon. He’s got a press conference this evening at six, and he is wanting to get an update. He wants to be prepared.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Hunter. We’re chasing a couple of dozen leads right now, everything from a French housewife who thinks she saw someone board the train with suspicious boxes, to a local teacher who thinks one of his students might be involved. Frankly, the phone call you received this morning is the most solid lead we’ve got. We’re just trying to systematically check out each lead, crossing the crackpots off our list, and starting the process of narrowing down the suspects. Has any new information come your way?”
“Oh no, John. Just wanted to check in. Any idea why Andrew Bolling’s name was mentioned on the call this morning? That’s got me a little shaken up. He was a good man… I don’t want his name being needlessly tangled up with this nightmare in the press.”
“No clue, Mr. Hunter. We’ve already talked with his parents, his neighbors, and a couple of other family members. No one seems to know anything. We’re in the process of obtaining his cell phone records as we speak, and should have them by later this evening. We’ll have a lot better picture of what our Mr. Bolling might have been up to in Paris over the weekend once we have those records. In the meantime, he seems like a good guy; I can’t imagine why he would have been targeted. Our working theory right now is that the call was a crackpot who works for some non-Governmental agency in contact with your office. They probably had your number and just wanted to get in on the action. But we’ll keep looking into it.”
“Thanks, John, please keep me posted.”
Jeffrey Hunter put down the cell.
Paris. Who all was it Andrew had told him would be in Paris last weekend? Were Charlie Turner and Jorge Morales, their old American buddies, still going to be there or just Rasul? Raz still lived in Paris, or at least he thought he did. Jeffrey hadn’t really talked to any of those guys in years. Andrew had always been the common denominator in the group, the guy everyone else was primarily friends with. Charlie and Jorge had been roommates with Andrew junior year, and then Jeffrey and Wellington had moved in and become his roommates the year after that. Rasul was Andrew’s first friend at Oxford, but it was Andrew that served as the glue that connected them all together. Maybe he should make contact with them, Jeffrey thought to himself. Make sure they had all heard the news about Andrew.
Jeffrey buzzed Annie over the interoffice speaker. “Annelise, would you mind chasing down the Paris phone number of a Raz …. No, make that Razim . . . No, it’s . . . Rasul Aziz, that’s it. He’s in Paris I think. Thanks.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
At 5:30 p.m., a man in a Federal Express uniform pushed open the door of Paradigm Books.
“Signature please,” the new man said.
“Oh, sure,” Raz said as he grabbed the plastic pencil and scribbled his name, illegibly as usual, across the plastic window. “Thanks . . . You’re new, right?”
“Yeah, today’s my first day. I’m Tom,” he says, jutting out his right hand.
“I’m Rasul. Good to meet you.”
With that, the FedEx man was already backing out the door, eager to stay on schedule.
Rasul reached in his top drawer to take out the large knife he kept for dual purposes, to open book boxes, and protection. Not that any size knife would offer much protection in this neighborhood. The weapons around here were much bigger than a four and half inch blade.
Slicing open the packing tape, he folded back the flaps to reveal four copies of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. Taking each copy out one by one, he slowly opened the front flap of each book and fanned his fingers along the pages, looking for anything that might be tucked among the pages.
Opening the third book and flipping through the pages, he saw the edges of the ivory linen note paper slide out of the book, almost falling to the floor. Unfolding the note, he saw the familiar handwriting in the black ink he now identified as coming from a very expensive ballpoint pen.
The note, as usual, was in all uppercase letters and in letter perfect print, as always.
GEORGE STREET OX1 2AR
TOMORROW NOON
Raz recognized the postal code instantly. He refolded the linen note paper and slid it into his pant’s pocket, alongside the silver key. Patting the outside of his pants, he made sure he could feel the folded paper buried deep inside his pants along with the key.
He took the four copies of Hemingway’s novel and placed them on the shelf in the Classics section, alongside copies of The Sun Also Rises, Old Man and the Sea, and The Great Gatsby. As with For Whom the Bell Tolls, each of these masterworks had also done their duty as caretakers of an important piece of instruction or vital information. What better camouflage for a book seller than books? Rasul smiled to himself.
Raz gathered up his laptop and slid it into the side compartment of his leather bag. He made sure the hot plate was off and poured out the extra hot water left over from his tea service. Turning on the small light behind the counter, he flicked off the larger overheard light, and taped a small sign to the front door reading “Back in 15 minutes” that he kept handy when he wanted to go for a quick coffee. Grabbing his leather bag, he carefully set the store alarm, and locked the door behind him. The store would be closed tomorrow, but Raz did not give it a second thought. Paradigm bookstore had few customers, and its owner had other important business to attend to tomorrow.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Twelve o’clock noon in New York, and Charlie Turner was hungry. He exited his office in Hazelwood Tower and was careful to lock his office door behind him. Twelve years in this office and he had managed to cultivate several friendships with his co-workers, without ever letting them get too close. He kept his personal life on the down low, but made certain to hit the office happy hour a couple of times a month, just to stay part of the crowd, keep an ear to the ground for office gossip that might come in handy, and avoid any unnecessary curiosity about his life. He maintained a careful façade: a solid stable of legitimate clients who earned authentic profits on Charlie’s usually above average stock market expertise. He wasn’t a high flyer at the firm; he preferred to fly under the radar the majority of the time. But to everyone’s amazement — except his — he had managed to make a few calls now and again that earned astounding profits for his very grateful client pool. Most of his co-workers just marveled at his occasional extraordinary luck.
Charlie smiled to himself. Today would be a very lucky day, indeed.
Charlie took the express elevator down from the 83rd floor, and left the building with the usual lunch time throng. Jorge would be just behind him. Charlie exited the building and walked a block down the street to the Metro Broadway Diner on the corner of Broadway and Pine. Run by an old Pakastani immigrant named Bilal and his wife, the place was always overrun with tourists who were perfectly willing to dine and pay inflated prices at any establishment with the word Broadway attached. The regular Wall Street crowd would be nowhere around, and Jorge and Charlie could talk in private.
Charlie ordered a Ham and Swiss on Sourdough bread and a bag of chips at the counter, grabbed a bottle of water, and found a booth in the back corner where they would be left alone. Jorge walked in about the time Charlie was settling into the booth. After ordering his usual bowl of Clam Chowder along with a Diet Coke, he made his way back to the booth and took a seat.
“So, have you checked our position this morning?” Charlie said with a slight smirk.
“I have indeed!” Jorge could not help but break into a large grin.
“That’s almost eleven big ones apiece, a nice chunk of change for a da
y’s work.” Charlie’s smile now matched Jorge’s and they grinned at each other, then chuckled as if they were sharing a joke between old friends.
“Yes, I would say so!” Jorge snickered back. He had to take a quick drink of Diet Coke to keep from choking on a chunk of potato in his soup.
Jorge could not believe his luck. Since prep school days at Jesuit High School in Dallas, his friendship with Charlie Turner had been one of his luckiest breaks ever. An unlikely pair, they were from different worlds back in Dallas, but their tight friendship and shared history had brought them both a life of adventure and increasingly, a whole lot of money.
Jorge was from South Dallas and would normally have never stepped foot in the likes of any school remotely similar to Jesuit. His reasonably high IQ had played a small part, but it was his 92-mph fastball had helped pave the way into one of Dallas’s most elite private schools. At Jesuit, the sons of some of Dallas’ most wealthy citizens jockeyed for grades and sports’ accolades among the leafy enclaves of North Dallas.
In late June after Jorge’s 8th grade year, a prominent Jesuit alumnus had spotted Jorge at his son’s summer league baseball tournament. Knowing Jesuit was always looking for strong pitching on its perennially State-competitive team, the Jesuit alum made a few calls and introduced Jorge’s mom to the administration and coaching staff at Jesuit. By the following spring, Jorge was standing on the pitcher’s mound at Jesuit’s Wright field, mowing down batters from the area rival schools. Jorge helped carry Jesuit to the State baseball finals the next summer, and his name was soon being mentioned all over the state. When colleges came calling two summers later, Jorge had his pick of half a dozen Division 1 schools, eager to bolster their roster with a whip-smart Hispanic boy who could throw a mean curve ball.
While baseball was important to Jorge, he knew better than to bet his entire life on his ability to throw a small round ball. Every pitcher was only as good as his last game, and Jorge had seen his share of “future MLB stars” forgotten overnight as soon as they threw out their shoulder or elbow from overuse. His plan was to use baseball as an entry into the best schools, work his butt off, and then collect his diploma as payment for services rendered. He would let his sharp mind carry him from then on.
The Cornmarket Conspiracy Page 5