by Mike Binder
Then Sir Darling turned, looked over at the home secretary to give Burnlee one more chance to stop a direction that he was about to go in, and, once getting a nod to move forward, drew attention to a young woman who was sitting in the back row in one of the chairs up against the wall.
“I’d like to turn the floor to someone that I am hoping, with the chancellor’s approval, can take the minute-by-minute lead on the investigation. Inspector Davina Steel.”
Steel was young, twenty-seven. A pixie, too, so at five foot five she looked even younger, almost like a teen. She was cute, with velvet skin and thick brown hair that fell naturally to a flick, just below both her ears. She had an almost perfect figure. She wished she were taller, but who at her height didn’t? Everything else that was God given, she was okay with, including her mind, which since she’d been a young girl had been her very own secret weapon.
She had an uncanny ability to look at things, events, pictures, photos, tapes, depositions, and eventually crime scenes and, seeing them as broken figures, reconstruct them between her ears, remembering details from other scenarios, considering options, dropped leads, or questions in a way few others ever did. She was as keen an observer of people, places, and things that those in that world had ever seen. It was a talent that in three short years had earned her the sobriquet at the nation’s top antiterrorism unit: “Darling’s darling.” She had risen with incredible speed from out of nowhere to quickly become one of SO15’s top investigators. If she weren’t so good, others in the Special Branch would resent her, but it was obviously about her talent and nothing more, so she was applauded and protected by her seniors. In fact, her humble humanity in the face of what was almost a freak-of-nature talent, her pleasant looks, and her tireless work ethic made her a much-loved figure in the large investigative department. She could sometimes have a cranky, irritable side, but in light of her many successes, others found it easy to look past those bits when it reared its head.
Sitting directly behind the mountain of a man that was Major General Darling, having been told in advance that she was going to be up on her feet with a pitch, Steel was far more nervous than she thought she’d be, especially with Georgia Turnbull there, two feet away. She had met Ms. Turnbull before, here in the Cabinet Room. She and many of the cabinet secretaries, along with Prime Minister Lassiter, were here when Steel gave the lead report on the arrest last year at Heathrow that had thwarted a bombing at the Syrian embassy. She had run that file and worked it to great success.
In truth, she idolized Georgia Turnbull. She knew every detail and most of the footnotes in Georgia’s rise to power, the road she took from Glasgow as a young girl, to Finchley, to Cambridge, and up through the back channels of New Labour. Steel also was from poor Scottish parents who had moved south to run a small business in London, so it made sense that Georgia, whose father had a pharmacy in Finchley, was one of the young woman’s heroes. Being here now, about to address her in this most calamitous moment, to be given this responsibility to work, if not alongside of her, then directly under her, was the opportunity of a young lifetime.
Davina rose, looking around the packed yellow-walled hall, across the large, oblong, finely polished mahogany table and the delicate bone-china coffee mugs with the coats of royal arms. It didn’t seem real to be here now, or ever. Her home in her parents’ musty two-bedroom flat in Bloomsbury, her upbringing as counter staff in their tiny breakfast-and-lunch bar didn’t prepare her for this. She had grown up poor. A quiet face in the back row of any crowd, she continued to find this proximity to power to be both foreign and unsettling.
The only consolation was her awareness that none of these power players would find this normal, either. No one in that room could ever have been prepared for a turn such as the one the government had taken yesterday evening.
“Let me begin by saying good morning, and that I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to the family of the prime minister, and my warmest thoughts for his return to health; also to you here in this room, many of whom I’m sure call Mr. Lassiter a close friend.”
Georgia liked her already. She had a sweet trace and lilt of a Scottish accent that Georgia found appealing. She remembered her from last year and the attempted Syrian embassy bombing, and of course Sir Melvin had tipped her off in a private moment before the start of the meeting that Darling wanted to use the young Scottish gal on this most urgent matter. She had an inviting face, Georgia thought to herself, a face that could set your defenses down, get a person relaxed and on informal footing very quickly. At the same time, she thought, there was a haze of sadness about Steel’s eyes, a sense of knowing too much too well about human nature and about the way things tend to work in a world too often bent toward madness.
“Analysis of the crime scene at this point gives us the very little we have as a first blush. We have the security cameras in the hallways and commons areas here and outside of Number 10, but cameras aren’t installed in the White Room, where the bomb went off. We haven’t yet been able to ascertain as to why the PM had gone into that cupboard in that room to begin with. We know that earlier he was in the room, during a trades delegation with Sir David Heaton and members of his staff at Heaton Global, a roundtable that Ms. Turnbull and several other ministers took part in. According to the logs, it ended without incident over two hours before the bomb went off. We’ll explore if there’s a connection to that or not. It wouldn’t seem so, but we’ll dive into it once we’re steady.”
“What do we know about the bomb, about its makeup? How did it get into the damn building?” asked Burnlee, always impatient.
“We know that the bomb was made with a highly efficient brand of plastique explosives which for the most part we’ve not seen used in this form from ISIL or any of the offshoot jihadist groups. We’ll have first-round testing done within the hour and we’ll know more about its makeup then. We’ll also have gone over the logs and cameras in all of the security systems outside and inside 10, 11, and 12 Downing Street for the day, the week, and most likely the month prior.”
The home secretary barked across the table at the small young thing trying desperately not to show her shake to the room full of the country’s most powerful men and women.
“So in a sense what you are saying, Inspector Steel, is that you have nothing?”
“Yes sir, at this time, I’m sorry, but that is correct. At this point, at this first lap, we’ve nothing.”
With that she sat down in her chair, nodding to Major General Darling to please take back the reins. Georgia, sitting below the famous portrait of Walpole, looked across the table and over to the row of chairs behind the vaunted ministers and made sure to catch Steel’s eye. She gave her a warm nod, a bit of a wink, and a sweet half smile. Steel nearly melted in her chair. Her skin caught a slight red flash of heat that for her came alongside moments of embarrassment and pride. She bowed her head softly in respect.
* * *
LATER IN THE day Georgia took a call from Kirsty Lassiter. The situation at the hospital was still incredibly grim. The prime minister had initially lost a lot of blood and had many shattered ribs and a ruptured spleen. On top of it all, the blast had broken his left arm.
There was a previously scheduled planning meeting with the parliamentary secretary, and a quick sit-down in her office at 11 that Sir Alan had set up with the editor of the Guardian, just to get some kind of press out there that they could control. Georgia agreed with Munroe on the meeting’s importance. She wanted to start a conversation that “spoke of the ship not tipping.” This was obviously the object of the bombers and she refused to let them see points put up on the board. This wasn’t a win, she told the journalist.
“This was a sick attack on innocent people. It will change nothing, profit them nothing, and bring not one soul toward whatever is their ‘cause.’” She did little to hide her disgust. It was obvious to the paper’s newbie editor, Arnold Lavington, that Ms. Turnbull was taking this “incredibly personally.”
* * *
AT FOUR P.M. she was up in her room above 11, and exhausted. She took another couple of pills, even though she knew she shouldn’t. She was going to slot in a quick nap, but was called down to an impromptu meeting with Donald Stanhope, the opposition leader of the Conservative Party. Early forced her to take the meeting, claiming that not reaching out to the opposition would be “dire.” For the life of her, she didn’t think she had the energy to see the man, but somehow she summoned it up. She hobbled downstairs, through the back hallway into Number 10, and upstairs into the State Room, a finely decorated drawing room that was one of Tony Blair’s favorite spots in all of Downing Street. Margaret Thatcher had spent a silly amount of money to have it redone in the style of an eighteenth-century aristocrat’s parlor. Munroe had scheduled the meeting to take place in Roland’s den downstairs, but Georgia wasn’t ready to have a meet there just yet, least of all with the opposition leader.
Either way, regardless, Stanhope promised to be brief.
Forty-five minutes later the man still hadn’t made his point.
Stanhope was rotund, unkempt, and famously flappable. Georgia had never cared for him. At one point, as he went on about the pain he was in for “poor Lassiter,” she nodded out again and had the instant dream about being asleep up in her bed. Luckily Stanhope didn’t see her eyes close, or even catch Early poking her back awake. He was too busy pointing, pacing, and pontificating. He was trying to tie these events through to the years past, through the struggles with the Irish Republican Army and World War II, the history of the country in facing adversity. History? Georgia thought. He’s here to give me a history lesson? Today? Let me check the other cupboards. Maybe there’s a bomb to blow me up as well. Anything to take leave of this ass.
Finally, Stanhope, after seeing Georgia shift in her seat one too many times, came to his point. His visit had to do with the young investigator. Steel.
“I understand that someone’s got to have the tiller until we see what the next day or so brings, and I’m of course happy to leave it all to you, but allowing Sir Melvin and Major Darling and that group there to put this young Scottish girl at the head of the investigation—the image alone, a girl that age, so little experience, it speaks to the crowd of a wobbly wheel, doesn’t it?”
“Well, obviously you’re not all that happy to leave it to me then, are you?” The opposition leader, as usual, didn’t have much of an answer. He just glared over at her.
“Then whom would we leave it to, Mr. Stanhope? Should I call the PM in the hospital? Run it by him?”
“No, of course not. Don’t be absurd.”
Georgia stood. She needed her cane to make the full trip, which irritated her even more. She was angry anyway, and he was upsetting her, this large wooly bull of a man, but truthfully, all out of context. Early, hovering helplessly behind the couch, could see the axle about to come out from under the wagon as her voice slowly raised.
“If my nod’s not good enough, if Major General Darling or the home secretary can’t make the call, then who should make the call, Mr. Stanhope? You? Should I have rung up for your expertise?”
“No, no, I’m not suggesting anything—”
She cut him off, her voice now bellowing, “Of course, no! It’s best that SO15 staffs this out! Clearly.”
“Yes, but do they truly need to put a young thing like this out on the curb? What kind of confidence is it going to give the people? We are in uncharted waters here, Chancellor. We need to show them that we are in charge and—”
“We are not in charge here! Not even close!” She had had enough; suddenly she was interrupting, yelling out at the top of her voice, “Darling is in charge here, Burnlee is in charge here! The Met is in charge here. This will be left to the professionals! Not you, Mr. Stanhope!”
Without warning, she slammed her cane down across the coffee table between them. She sent cups and saucers into the air; a dish of cream jumped overboard and threw itself across the priceless rug. The cane made a whoosh and a whack that had Stanhope frozen in place for a full ten seconds. It was seconds that Georgia needed to check herself and realize what she had done—time enough for her to see Early at her side, sweat beading up on his balding forehead.
She stopped, sat back down on the couch. Let the room settle. She looked over to Stanhope, who was still stunned into silence, not sure if he’d really seen what he’d just seen.
“You must forgive me, Mr. Stanhope, please. I’m not myself today.” Stanhope backed off full throttle. The last thing he wanted was for the flames to erupt again.
“Obviously, but who could expect you to be?”
“Is there something else you want to speak to me about?”
“No, Ms. Turnbull. I think we’ve touched on all my bullet points.”
The 258-pound opposition leader was up and out of the building before Georgia had another chance to blink. She turned to Early as two perky blond staffers began to clean up the mess.
“Are there any other ‘dire meetings’ for me to take today, or can I please go somewhere and shut my eyes?”
BEFORE ■ 2
Adam carried Billy through Heathrow hoisted across his chest, wrapped onto his shoulders. The little boy’s legs twisted around his midsection, fast asleep, a plastic toy airplane clutched tightly in one hand, the wing digging into the skin on the back of Adam’s neck. The walk from the plane to the arrival hall of UK Customs seemed to go on forever, and Adam wanted to wake his son and tell him that he was officially too old to be carried like this. He truly felt he wasn’t going to make it. The boy was deep in slumber, though, contentedly embedded on his daddy’s torso, so Adam trudged forward.
Kate had her hands full with a mountain of carry-ons, and Trudy was in her own world a hundred yards back, desperately trying to get a cell phone signal so she could text the boy back in Wilmette who had most recently broken her heart. Kate and Adam hadn’t spoken too much on the plane. She had cocooned herself off in a business-class module and watched a long chain of British television from her youth. The flight seemed like it had gone on and on, for days, not hours. Billy had peppered Adam with endless questions about London and the grandfather he was finally going to meet. Now this slow, interminable walk through the airport was making the flying time seem easy. It was one hallway after another, early morning on a sleepy Sunday. The long trek through the colorless, advertising-lined terminal halls and the numbing jet lag made Britain already seem cold and incessantly foggy even before they’d stepped outside.
On the far side of customs, Gordon Thompson lingered patiently to meet them. He had waited and paced like a father awaiting birth all over again. He craned his neck down the hall, looking for his family, wondering if he could even truly refer to them that way. It had been so long since he’d seen his daughter, her reckless husband, his tiny little granddaughter, or the ginger grandson he’d only a few times said hello to during a series of Internet chats.
He was solid, Gordon—muscular and firm, especially for a man of his age; tall and self-contained to a fault. He had few friends. His job in Sir David’s security detail was the last stage in a long, uneventful career of watching and waiting for someone to act up or act out. He spent years in the military police, then the Metro police, finally settling into his now-famous boyhood friend’s orbit, basically taking up a post outside his Kensington Park mansion, making sure no one upset Sir David’s mornings, running items up to his farmhouse, feeding the farm dogs when the caretakers were at Heaton’s home in Switzerland. That’s what it had all come down to; his was basically a daily vigil to protect David Heaton from unwanted neighborhood soliciting.
Adam spotted Gordon first, just as they made it through customs with four carts full of luggage. He was there at the top of the ramp, waiting behind the crowd: the tall, gray soldier, shoulders back, chest out, slowly bouncing on his toes. He could read Gordon as either nervous or impatient from thirty yards back. Kate saw him next. Her face lit up.
“Hello Daddy!” She ran
ahead with Billy, now wide-awake, on the top of a loaded cart, having the time of his life. She threw herself into the old man’s arms, burrowing her face into his chest as he gently kissed the top of her scalp.
Adam let the two trolleys he was pushing go clumsy on him so that he could hang back and let them all have a moment in the crowded terminal. He let Trudy pass him too, let her join the hugfest, gave them all the moment they needed. He was the spoiler; there was no doubt about it. He was fine with that. He wanted to give Gordon a beat. Allow little Billy a chance to have the meeting he had been longing for.
The boy just gaped at the big man with the long arms coiled around his mother. He watched his grandfather’s every move as if he were some folklore mountain beast that had stumbled down from the woods. Gordon let Kate partially free and turned to the tiny eight-year-old, smiling as Billy looked up to him from knee high to Gordon’s frame.
“Hello there, little one. It’s so nice to meet you.”
“You’re my grandfather?”
“I am.” Billy just continued to stare at him, not sure what to say to his mother’s father that he had come so far to meet. “You look different in person. Skinnier.”
“What can I say lad? I’m getting old. Maybe while you’re here we can go out for some ice cream and fatten me up. Do you like the idea of that? You and your Poppa? Getting off for some ice cream?” Billy nodded. Words weren’t coming to him. He had put the mystery of the old man in the faraway world of London so high and mighty in his head. Like the ring in the Tolkien tales, this was the holy grail for him for some reason, to see his granddad, and here he was in the flesh, and the boy was tongue-tied. The old man just laughed and pulled him in with his long hairy arms for an energetic hug.
When he could no longer fake bad trolley wheels, Adam pushed to the top of the ramp and said hello. Gordon, happy as could be with young Billy in his wrap, was polite. Almost even warm.
“It’s nice to see you, boy. Welcome to England.” He let go of Billy and pulled Adam in, gave him a solid hug, so happy to see his daughter, grandson, and granddaughter, that he even had a genuine spillover of affection for Adam.