by Mike Binder
In actuality he wasn’t doing badly. Not for a neophyte. Not for someone who had never sold a thing in his life. Least of all institutional retirement packages. He’d had a lot of jobs; aside from being a cop, he’d done construction, even been a set carpenter in a movie studio in Pontiac, Michigan, a few years back. He’d done a lot, but he knew nothing about setting up annuities for group retirements and saving plans. This was all a foreign language to Adam, but he was doing it, showing up every day and sometimes, some of those days, people even said he had something of a knack for it.
Kate had gotten him the job. Not Kate actually, but Kate’s father, Gordon. Gordon Thompson, who, at least in Adam’s mind, never liked Adam and never forgave him for brainwashing his daughter and settling her permanently in Michigan. In America. Yet with all the alleged animosity, it was Gordon, the distant father-in-law, who, after Adam had had his troubles, once they seemed to have finally ended, when he had no work, no idea what to do next, called from thousands of miles away, coming to the rescue with a job at Heaton Global Investments.
Gordon Thompson had been alone in London after the death of his wife from cancer thirty years before. He missed his only child with a hunger that, at least from the other side of the ocean, had made him seem bitter. Kate’s father wasn’t one to travel. He had left England only once as a young man, when in the service in the Far East. Kate and Adam had only gone to see him three times in the eighteen years since they were married. Gordon and Kate spoke regularly, even talked over Skype, but the decades and the distance had done their damage. Over the years the two of them had grown into something more or less resembling strangers. Gordon’s heart was broken.
Two men, Gordon and Adam, each with a deep, endless, aching supply of love for Kate, both did what they could for her. Gordon stuck his neck out and approached his childhood friend and current boss Sir David Heaton, the British billionaire CEO of Heaton Global Investments, and got his ne’er-do-well son-in-law a job; and Adam showed up every morning in an unfamiliar suit, week after week, trying desperately to make sense of a new set of obstacles. Both of them doing it all for Kate.
Kate, who dropped the kids off, picked them up, got the dry cleaning, did the shopping and the laundry and paid the bills as she wondered if it had all slipped away. If she could ever feel like she once felt before. If she could ever laugh and play and coo and pet with her big bear of a handsome husband whom she once thought the very sun rose and set upon. She took the dog for a walk every morning when the kids were at school and every day, like clockwork, she wondered whether she’d ever get over the three months he spent in jail, the charges he faced that could have had him in a federal prison for over twenty years, the shame he brought to his family. Would she ever excuse him for doing something as stupid as he’d done, for putting all of what they’d built and held holy at such silly risk?
She blamed him for everything: for losing their home in Royal Oak, for her friends abandoning her during his incarceration, for the emotional roller coaster on which he had taken their two children. She even found the moral high ground to blame him for the hours she spent staring at photos of Richard Lyle, her high school boyfriend, on Facebook. She blamed him for the afternoons wasted ruminating over Richard and the life she could have had, for combing over his posts, for marveling about what great shape he was in all these years later. It was even Adam’s fault she’d been desperate enough to send several messages to Richard’s Facebook account. This was all emotional weight that he had dropped onto her when he shattered their lives almost two years ago.
So yes, Adam went off to his strange new job every day on the old clanging commuter train, but the real learning curve belonged to Kate: figuring out from nine to five, day after day, how to get to the next chapter of their story; how to forgive; how to let go; how to get herself home to Adam.
* * *
ADAM MADE HIS way down the back hallway of the tenth story of the HGI building. It was a big, modern, metal-and-mirror thing that had been designed and built during the last raging bull market and plopped down onto the river along West Wacker Drive, facing north. The building never seemed to blend in with the other Chicago skyscrapers and it more or less sat there, away from the pack, its own towering entity.
As he ambled through the gauntlet of offices, more than one of the secretaries gave him a sweet smile. He was a regular fixture around the floor by then, and was well liked. The younger women saw him as cute, humble, fun to look at, and safe. He was a married man who knew how to smile and maybe flirt friendly, but not one to send out any signals other than that he headed home every night to Kate and the kids.
Retirement Services had the whole tenth floor, and Adam was headed toward the office of his boss, the head of the Chicago unit, Barry Saffron. Saffron, an ambitious forty-four-year-old transplant to Illinois from Boston’s Back Bay and a lifer in the financial services world, had had Adam plopped into his lap ten months earlier in the same way that the Chicago River had landed the HGI building. Needless to say, Saffron wasn’t the least bit happy when he got the call from Betty Roytan in the London office.
“Shit, I get it, Betty. This comes from the big man himself, but why Chicago? Send the little fucker to New York or to Dallas! I got way too much on my hands as it is.”
“I don’t understand it, either, love. This is very out of character for Sir David,” replied the very dry and very British Roytan, who headed the London Pensions Package office. “All I can tell you is this young fellow’s wife is the daughter of one of Sir David’s security men, who also just happens to be one of his best boyhood mates. Give it your best. That’s what I would do had Sir David sent me a handful. Give it my all.”
With that the phone went dead, she was gone, and Barry was stuck with a new man who for some reason was handed a damn good job and a fat starting salary with absolutely no experience. Zero. Nothing.
When he got to his boss’s office, Adam could see that Saffron was not in anything close to a good mood. Saffron waved him in and told him to close the door. Adam did as he was told and sat down in the contemporary leather black greeter chair. The office was stunning. No expense had been spared in interior design and furniture—modern, crisp, and clean. There were three large flat-screen TVs on two different walls so that Saffron could watch sports, world news, and business news, all simultaneously.
Adam noticed immediately that Saffron was plunked deep into his chair, all three screens dark.
“What should I make of you, Tatum? Huh? What are you, Forrest Gump or something?”
“I don’t know what you mean?” He was being sincere; he had no idea where Saffron was going with this.
“I’ve worked my ass off for this company—for thirteen years, Tatum. I worked my way up in this business, since I was just out of college. First one in my family to ever even go to fucking college.” Adam nodded. He more or less knew Saffron’s history. He also knew it wasn’t easy having a new guy just dropped into his world, as Adam had been. He always tried to be respectful, though, and went out of his way to be grateful for all that Saffron did for him, so he truly didn’t know where this was going.
“They’ve put together a delegation on the fucking magnitude of this civil service pitch in London next month, and they cherry-pick from all the offices, and they didn’t pick me. I know, I could trust that it was an oversight, I could give them the benefit of the doubt, but they picked you, fucking you, Tatum, and I’m sorry, but that sucks to me. They picked a friend of the boss’s son-in-law, and it just kind of makes me want to take a steaming shit right here on my desk and walk right the fuck out.”
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Barry. I swear I don’t.”
“Ah, please.”
“I don’t. What is it again?”
“A few of the New York group that does all government union services, employee pension specialists, some of them down in Texas that did the whole deal with the Texas government workers program we did, and a bunch of that team in Pa
ris that always gets written up in the company newsletter are going to London next week. They’re going to a round table with Sir David himself, and guess where it is? Guess where?”
“Where?”
“At 10 fucking Downing Street. You know what that is?”
“Yeah sure, I mean, it’s the White House of England. Right?”
“Good. You’re not a total moron. Now guess who they’re meeting with, this group? Who they’re gonna put the big squeeze on for taking over the investment services on the pension program for the entire British civil service? It’s landmark if it happens. Guess who they’re meeting with?”
“Who?”
“Roland Lassiter. The prime fucking minister. Among others. And guess who’s going from the motherfucking Chicago office. Guess!”
There was silence, for a long moment. Adam didn’t want to guess, and Saffron couldn’t get the bile from his throat. Finally he did.
“You! Adam Fucking Tatum! That’s who. They picked you to be part of the delegation and I swear to God I want to go postal in this damn place. That’s how pissed off I am, Tatum.”
Adam just stared across the giant glass desk. He shrugged in confusion.
“I swear to you, Barry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He sat back in Barry’s expensive chair as Saffron’s eyes beamed death rays at him. He started to boil now, too. This was Gordon, his father-in-law. This was a setup of some kind, to get Kate home to England. That was what this was: a setup to get Kate and the kids in London with him, and to somehow use the trip to get her to move back home permanently, with or without Adam. He was being set up. He was sure of it, and now he was just as mad as Saffron. They sat there staring at each other.
“I’m sorry, Barry. That’s all I can say.”
“I’ll bet you’re sorry. Go on. Get to work. Ellen Doyle over there in travel’s gonna come see you with the details. Pretend like you don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“I don’t.”
“Okay, fine. Get the fuck out.”
* * *
ADAM DIDN’T IN fact know about the London trip. He was being straight with his boss. Kate did, though. She was in on it. Whatever this plan was, she was well aware of the details.
He was playing tetherball in the backyard of their two-story rented white-brick colonial on Birchwood Avenue up in Wilmette with his son when she finally just came out and admitted it. On the ride home from the train station she had played dumb. She pretended the London trip was all new information to her. Pretended that she didn’t know that the overly friendly lady in travel would offer up four business-class tickets and a hotel suite in Mayfair so that all four of them could go. Now, there in the yard, she was finally ready to admit the truth.
“Yes, I knew. Okay? You want me to admit it? Fine. I’ll admit it. My father rang me last week and told me he had overheard talk of having you going along in the delegation, and he twisted some arms at the company to have myself, Trudy, and Billy come as well.”
Little eight-year-old Billy, with the crazy head of red hair and his father’s big brown eyes, stopped his side of the tetherball game at once.
“Go where, Mom? Where are we all going?” Kate looked to Adam for permission to make it public but then decided she didn’t need the consent and turned back to Billy.
“London. We’re going to visit London. And your grandfather.”
“Really? This is true? I’m going to really meet my grandfather? This is true?” He looked to his father, but didn’t wait for an answer either. He jumped into the air with childish ebullience and ran toward the house to tell his sister. Halfway to the house he stopped dead in his tracks and turned back to his parents.
“How come I’ve never met him until now, besides on computer? How come I’ve never met him in person if he’s my grandfather, my only one?” Neither of his parents was quick to respond, each of them sure the answer would either be wrong or bring on more questions. Kate decided to take charge with a reply.
“He lives a long way away, sweetie. London’s very, very far from here. It’s not so easy for your grandfather to travel all this way.”
“Oh. Okay, but now I’m gonna finally meet him, right?”
“That’s right, love. You are going to meet him. Finally.”
“I can’t wait. I’m gonna bring a lot of my soldiers and my sticker collections to show him. And my Portable Play Station.” He turned and purposefully headed into the house to finish his mission to inform his older sister of their trip. Kate looked back to Adam, now playing himself in a feeble version of tetherball.
“Yes, okay, Adam. I knew. My father had called. Explained the trip to me. Yes. He did pull strings. He’s just trying to get to meet his grandkids. Find some way to be with us. He’s lonely, Adam. Very lonely. For me.” Then, with those awesome blue eyes trained on him, she barreled down.
“As am I, lonely for him. I need this. For me. For my father and for my children and, Adam, I just can’t come up with a good reason that it doesn’t thrill you to no end. I cannot understand for the life of me how you would see this as some kind of plot staged against you.”
He stopped smacking the big rubber ball on the string and came over to his wife. He wanted to explain to her that he was just being stupidly paranoid. Afraid to lose her. Lose her to her father. Lose her to London, to old friends, lovers, favorite street corners and songs on the radio, things and memories that weren’t about him. Afraid that once there, she’d never want to come home. That she would want to reset her life all over, back where she belonged, without her husband. Without the jailbird American wacko who had pathetically lost everything they had ever had. Everything they had built.
He didn’t, though. He couldn’t find the words, so he gently stroked the side of her face and quietly ended the argument.
“It looks to me like we’re all going to London.”
AFTER ■ 2
They met in the Cabinet Room at Number 10 the first thing the next morning. Investigators from the Diplomatic Protection Group and the Met’s antiterrorism unit, SO15, worked all night to collect as many clues and forensic samples as they could from the White Room, where it had been determined that the blast did the most damage, and the cupboard from which the explosion had originated. They had also taken extreme precautions to make sure other explosive devices weren’t still set to go off.
Georgia, running point on all matters for the hopefully small interregnum that the bombing had brought on, chaired the session with Lucy Barnathanson, the cabinet secretary, who was taking notes and keeping pace. Sir Donald Darling, the head of SO15, and Hardy Milligan, the director general of MI5, were both there, seated directly across the table from Georgia. To their left was the secretary of defense, then the foreign secretary, Elena Dowl-Curtiss. The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was present, along with her boss, Sir Melvin Burnlee. The remaining seats were filled behind them with ministers, civil servants, COBRA directors, emergency planning experts, senior Met police detectives, and all of their top staff. Many, in fact most of them, had been working nonstop throughout the night.
Georgia hadn’t slept either. She had taken too many of her pills, she knew, but she was on edge, taking several calls an hour from Lassiter’s worried relatives, foreign leaders, secretaries, and ministers. At one point, as the home secretary was reading another list of questions that had been drawn up regarding ways to move forward, Georgia fell fast asleep while upright in her seat. She had rapidly dreamt she was asleep upstairs at Number 11 in her four-poster bed. When Early, seated behind her, quietly passed her a ballpoint pen to surreptitiously wake her as the room waited for an answer, she was, for a brief second, unsure how she had gotten down and into the Cabinet Room from her bed.
Burnlee, older than most of the others, was weary and impatient with Georgia, as always. He repeated his question with a bit of a growl.
“Does the chancellor agree that SO15 should be given the oversight on this entire investigation? Are we going to
go ahead and classify this as a terrorist act?”
Georgia steadied herself nicely. She got back in the game so fast that only a few saw that she had momentarily left the court.
“If that’s the consensus, yes. Although I will say that no one so far has mentioned any theories on who or what we are dealing with. I do suppose SO15 is the right horse to lead, though.” She nodded to Darling, the Counter Terrorism Command’s head, seated to her right.
Sir Darling, the major general, was famously a man of few words. Six and a half feet tall and nearly half as thick, he sat steely eyed, poker faced. A former member of the Special Air Service and Special Reconnaissance Regiment, he was a lifelong intelligence operative. Georgia gently patted his arm on the table, prodding him to give a summation of where they were so far.
“Thank you, Madam Chancellor. At this point I must say we have few leads as to the perpetrators. We are actively speaking to several sources and liaising abroad with all the channels one would think we’d be contacting, but as of now there’s nothing yet to put a pin in. We expect to have at least a direction before much longer.”
“Let’s please hope so,” Georgia said as a wish more than a directive. “Is it ISIL, the Islamic State? Do we have any reason to look that way?”
“None yet, ma’am, although that’s a tree we’re obviously going to be shaking. My guess is that we’ll probably find it to be them or an offshoot of them.”
“It wouldn’t be a homegrown Islamic terror group, would it?”
“I personally don’t see that as a possibility, Chancellor. Our ears are pretty good right now on that front, but we are combing through that possibility as well.”