by Mike Binder
“No taxi. Thank you. It’s all good. It has nothing to do with the hotel. I appreciate your concern. We just need to meet up with some friends that have invited us to come stay with them.”
Kate’s face scrunched up. “What friends? What are you talking about?”
He pulled her to the side again, talked low. “It’s nothing. I’m just saying that so he doesn’t think we’re on the run or that we’re in a panic.”
“Gee, why would he think that, Adam?” she wondered with her most sarcastic drip. He wanted to get into it with her but decided against it. He waved good-bye to the clerk and, with a mountain of unwieldy luggage balanced on his arms and his back, waited for traffic to clear, then crossed over into Grosvenor Square.
“Let’s go, Kate, kids. We have to go right now. We’re very late.” Trudy and Billy begged with gusto for their mother to talk some sense into him, but Kate already had a solid feeling that that wasn’t going to happen. She hiked up her share of the bags and went after Adam, ushering the kids to carefully follow her across the road.
Ronnie watched until they reached somewhere near halfway into the square and then finally let it go. He decided he had done his best, figured they were now going to be some other hotel clerk’s problem.
ON THE HUNT ■ 1
Davina Steel, accompanied by Lieutenant David Bellings of Special Branch, Captain Andrew Tavish, and Edwina Wells, Darling’s number two at SO15, descended on Heaton Global’s building on Farringdon Street with eight uniformed officers and several different warrants for information pertaining to Adam Tatum. It was a purposely planned show of force. Steel had her Glock on display, next to a pair of handcuffs that were swinging on her belt. She hoped to run into the redhead and “baldy” and deal with the visit they paid to her parents’ home. This time, much to Steel’s regret, they weren’t given any version of the runaround. Heaton was not on the premises and was said to be out of town, but his top people quickly convened with Steel and the investigators in the large wood-paneled conference room on the first floor.
There wasn’t a lot of information to give, not if you listened to the sympathetic employees of the large multinational firm. According to the files, the Tatums came into town a few days before the bombing and stayed at the Millennium until they left abruptly after the explosion, which was now six days ago. They had disappeared since then, fallen off the map. No one seemed to have a straight answer as to where they were, where they could have gone, who picked Tatum to be part of the contingent, or why. Heaton Global claimed to be just as in the dark on Adam Tatum as SO15 was.
There was a man at the back of the room, an older fellow with close-cropped hair, a thick, sturdy trunk, and finely polished shoes. Steel watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was doing his best to stay out of the conversation. He always had one eye on the door to the conference room. Steel guessed by his overly firm posture that he was ex-cop, maybe ex-military. There was something weak about him, though, she thought, flimsy in his confidence in direct juxtaposition to his broad chest and thickened build. He had a frightened quality. He was too big to be mousy, but he looked shaken. She played a hunch. She turned and bellowed out across the room, her accent just a little more “street” than usual.
“Oy. Are you Gordon Thompson?” The man at the back wall froze and checked the door again, as if he might even run, then looked back. He wasn’t sure how to answer. Finally he put words to lips.
“Yes. Yes. I’m Gordon Thompson, Inspector Steel. How can I help you?”
“Number one, you can start returning my calls. I’ve rung you three times this week. The receptionist gave me your number, said you made the hotel reservations for the Tatums, that you arranged to have them picked up at Heathrow when they’d landed.”
“Yes. That’s true. I did. I’m sorry to not have gotten back. I’ve been up north at one of Mr. Heaton’s properties. The caretaker had to go abroad and it was left to me to take care of some logistics. Please forgive me.”
She glared at him across the room for another moment, then started back in on her questioning. “So you made the reservations for them? At the Millennium?” He nodded. His face was white. Something was wrong with this man. It was obvious.
“I made them with the Chicago office. Actually, a woman called Ellen Doyle. In travel. It was she that cobbled together the arrangements. I just carried through.”
“Who told you to do that? Who were you answering to at the time?”
“No one really. I was just doing what was in front of me. I took care of making sure the whole delegation got in and settled. That’s what Sir David has me do. Whatever the job is at hand.” He knew more, Steel could feel that.
“How did they seem to you, the Tatums?” Thompson thought about his answer. He wanted to get it right.
“They seemed like a nice family. Happy to be in London.”
“How about him? Anything unusual with Mr. Tatum?”
“He may have been a bit nervous. This was a step up for him. I could see that.”
“How well did Heaton know Mr. Tatum?”
“I couldn’t say for sure, ma’am. I’m not in that kind of position to know how well Sir David would know anyone.”
Steel knew this Thompson person was lying through his teeth. She could feel it. It only added to her growing anger toward the whole company, this whole place. She needed to figure out where he fit in. For now, though, she was done talking to him.
“Next time I call, you pick that damn phone up. You hear me? This is a very active criminal investigation into what may well be an act of treason. I don’t have time to play phone tag or to play games with you. Okay, Mr. Thompson?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be sure to respond immediately.”
Detectives Tavish and Wells shared a quiet chuckle. Edwina Wells was one of Steel’s closest friends on the force, almost an older sister. For some reason she always perversely enjoyed seeing the pint-sized Steel make gruff old men quiver like frightened schoolboys.
* * *
WELLS AND TAVISH may have gotten a kick out of Steel’s behavior in the conference room, but when the group left the building and walked toward the patrol cars double-parked on Farringdon Street, they witnessed a show of a completely different kind, a version of their young friend they had never seen.
Harris and Peet were on the far side of the concourse. Davina caught the redhead’s eye, baldy’s, too, both snickering at her, gloating over what they had gotten away with not only at Number 10 but also at her parents’ flat. She lost it. She ducked behind a patrol car without being noticed, pulled out her Glock, and fired off into the sky.
The pack of cops, inspectors, and Heaton Global workers froze. No one knew where the gunshot came from. Steel jumped up from behind one of the Met cars, gun drawn, running full speed toward Harris and Peet.
“You two get down on your knees now!” She called out to the uniformed cops: “Over here. It was them, one of these two. They shot off a firearm.” She screamed as she ran toward the two bewildered bodyguards. “On your knees, now!” She was over to Harris and Peet before they knew what to do or what had happened, the Glock up close in Harris’s face. She slapped him.
“Get to the ground now. You, too, baldy, on your damn knees, now!”
The Met police officers were over there, too, guns drawn, circling Harris and Peet. Steel took control of the whole situation, barking out orders at the top of her voice.
“Cover these two. Cover him, the bald fuck. They both have firearms. One of them fired off.” Harris was on his knees; she kicked him to his stomach and made him lie flat.
“Lie on the ground, now!” She cuffed his hands behind his back. The other officers and Bellings from Special Branch and Wells and Tavish from SO15 weren’t sure what to do. All weapons were drawn, just in case. Steel was a blur. She made sure that Peet, too, was handcuffed on the ground, his hands behind his back. She quickly frisked them both, found their weapons, and held them both up to show the group.
; “Right here, one of these was the one that was fired.” She touched the barrel of Harris’s. “This one here, still warm.” Tavish and Wells knew full well that neither of them had shot off a weapon, knew Steel was up to something. They weren’t sure where this was going. Everyone looked on in shock.
Steel bent down over Harris’s body, took her Glock, rammed the barrel through the back of his legs, and shoved it into his crotch. She whispered into his ears.
“Ya listen to me, Red, you listen good. Ya ever come to my house, ya ever come near my parents again, I’ll blow this battered little bunion of a cock right off. I’ll burn your body alive in a field, a hundred miles from anywheres near where someone could hear ya scream. Do you understand?” Her accent was really thick now, as back-alley Scottish as it could go. “This is me being nice. This is my calm warning. Nod and tell me you understand.” Harris nodded into the sidewalk. He understood.
She went over to Peet, rolled him onto his back, bent down, looked into his eyes, then reached up and kissed his bald head. She took her Glock, shoved it down in his crotch now. Lieutenant Bellings moved to stop her; Edwina Wells, who knew what these two had done at Steel’s parents’ place, gently halted him to let her go.
Steel got real close to Peet’s face, maniacally looked into his eyes with her gun up against his pants. She just stared at him, didn’t need any words. She nodded to him and expected him to nod back that he’d got the message. He did. He nodded back. She pulled the Glock away from his pants and stood up. She looked around at the crowd of cops and detectives, all staring at her—the passersby, the HGI employees, the two men on the ground handcuffed, one on his stomach, one on his back. Her Glock was still drawn.
Everyone waited for her to calm down, to speak. She finally holstered her weapon. She turned to the Met cops and threw one of them her handcuff keys.
“I was wrong. It wasn’t them that fired off. Might have even been a car that backfired. Let them go.”
She walked over to the patrol vehicle she came in. As she opened the door to the backseat, she glanced back toward the building. Rebecca, Heaton’s gal, standing on the top step before the entrance, watched her every move, hoping that Steel would meet her eyes. She did. Steel nodded softly as she closed the door and then calmly waited to be driven back to Scotland Yard.
ON THE RUN ■ 2
Adam labored under the weight of the luggage all the way across Grosvenor Square to the northeast side, crossing over to Duke Street. On the corner, in front of the London Marriott, he looked back to see Kate and the kids having a rough time with the bags. He set down his load, ran back, grabbed as many bags as he could handle, and lugged them across the one-way lane, throwing them onto his pile.
Kate had had enough. She was more than a little close to melting down.
“Okay, Adam, you need to talk to me. What is going on?” The kids were far enough away, lagging back. Adam felt safe to share a little more information.
“We’re in big trouble. Serious trouble. I was right. The Heaton thing was bad news. I’ve been forced to commit a crime, a big one. We have to move. Now. We don’t have time to talk.”
Kate’s eyes flared. She wasn’t one to follow along blindly, at least not this version of Kate.
“Make time, Adam. You’ve got the kids scared out of their minds, and I’m beside myself with fear that you’re having some kind of psychotic breakdown, so make the goddamn time to explain to me what the hell is going on.”
Adam looked over her shoulder as the kids crossed the traffic island onto Brook Street and caught up. He turned to his sixteen-year-old daughter.
“Trudy, I want you to stay right here, watch your little brother, and keep an eye on our luggage. For two minutes.” Trudy, who had been in tears, segued into a junior version of her pretty mother’s rage.
“Why, Daddy? Why? Why are you doing this? I have to go back. I have to be with Étienne, at least to say good-bye or something.” Adam stood firm.
“Not now. Right now you have to watch your little brother. Do not go anywhere. Do not get on that phone. Keep alert. I need a moment alone with your mother. I mean it, Trudy, don’t let me down.”
“You’re the one who’s letting me down. You don’t know what I feel for him, Daddy. It’s never been like this.” He softened, pulled her forward, and kissed her forehead.
“I need you to come through for me right now. Étienne has to wait. This is about your family.”
He motioned for Kate to follow him into the front door of the Marriott. Kate reiterated to Trudy to keep sharp and to watch out for Billy. She promised her she would get to the bottom of this, then hurried to catch up to Adam who was already inside the Marriott.
In the lobby of the hotel, Adam found the house bar. Kate followed. It was about half as full as the Millennium’s bar, but predictably the people there were riveted by the television. Adam motioned for Kate to look up as they watched the television together.
Rolling footage shot from a helicopter showed cops, workers, tanks, and trucks. The words under the screen flashed with breaking news of the bombing at Number 10 and the new information that the prime minister had been hit and had been rushed to hospital. There was no news yet if he had survived.
Kate looked over to Adam. She hadn’t used her lungs in almost a minute. He stared at her. His eyes were red, his skin white; he was shaking. She asked him wordlessly if he did this. He answered with an affirmative nod. They were speaking in a way that a long-term marriage lets you speak in moments of crisis—almost telepathically. She felt as if she were going to pass out. She turned, looked for a place to sit. Adam quickly led her over to a lonely two-top against the front window. He could see the kids out on the curb. Trudy was still in meltdown mode; Billy was on top of the luggage, absentmindedly playing on his Playstation. Adam sat down across from his shattered wife.
“It’s been a setup from the beginning. It’s the reason I was given the job, a year and a half ago last November. It’s been in the works that long—to set me up, to use the mistake I made in Lansing. We’re in big trouble, Kate. We’re in so much trouble.”
She was shaking. The weight of the realization that things were going to go horribly bad from this moment on, very quickly, was already suffocating her. She whispered to him, barely able to form the words.
“You planted a bomb? Could that really be true? Please tell me you could be wrong.”
“I’m not wrong. I wish I was. I was set up. I had help. There was someone inside, someone handed it to me, but the point of the whole thing was for me to be the one, the lunatic from Michigan, somehow over here with a hard-on for Roland Lassiter.”
“That’s insane.”
“I know it is. That’s the point. They’ll say I’m insane. They’ll say I’ve been setting it up for a long time. They’ve thought it through. I’m the perfect scapegoat. ‘He’s done it before; tried to kill a head of state, now he’s done it again. This time he may have succeeded.’”
Kate said nothing for what seemed like the longest time. She turned, looked out the window, saw the kids on the curb, turned back, and stared at her husband.
“The police. We need to go to the police, Adam. Right now. Let’s get up and call the police.”
“We can’t. Believe me, if we could I would have gone right away.” He stared across the table and read the confusion on her face like a scary treasure map to the end of the world. He took a breath and forced out the story of the high-end whorehouse with Heaton, his arrest and subsequent release. He made her realize that it was offered up as a demonstration as to how futile going to the authorities would be. She hung there for a long, uncomfortable moment, stuck on the battered call girl.
“Did you do it? Beat that woman? The prostitute? Could that be possible?”
Again he needed a hit of oxygen to answer. He had thought it over so much in the last few days, played and replayed the night like a tape that he could rewind. He knew for a fact that the wounds and the pain in his hands that morning were
real.
“No, of course not.” They sat together for a moment as he thought about the girl again, finally turning to his wife, just a tad less certain.
“I was slipped some drug, that’s all I know for sure. That and the fact that she and I were the only ones in the room. She was pushing me to a place I didn’t want to go.” Kate withdrew her hand, slumped back into her seat.
“We’re in so much trouble, Kate. Everything, every moment has been a setup. Getting the job, taking this trip, it’s all been a setup, a chain of events designed for me to end up taking a long, hard fall.”
Kate allowed the darkness of the situation to sink in.
“What will happen?”
“We need to disappear. Quickly. The whole reason I’m a part of this is so that they can kill me. When I’m dead, it’s over. ‘He was crazy. He’s dead.’ End of story.”
He gave her a moment. It was important that she clearly understood the stakes. He wasn’t going to be able to do more of this stopping and talking thing. They had to move quickly, right away, and they weren’t going to be able to speak in front of the kids. She realized that whoever would kill the prime minister wouldn’t blink before killing a normal man, a man from Michigan.
“After I’m gone, the government and the press can speculate all they want. Anything else becomes folklore, another conspiracy theory to add to the others. And what’s worse, Kate, is even if they kill me, I don’t know who they’ll stop with, who else they’ll need to silence. I need to get you and the kids out of here. I’m going to take you to the airport. Right now. Put you on a plane. I can’t leave. They have my passport, and by the time we get to the airport they’ll be looking for me. Every minute counts. The bomb went off two hours ago. Watching the airport will be their first move. We have to beat them to it.”
“Why do they have your passport?”
“It was taken the night I was arrested. They kept it. Heaton has it. I have to get you and the kids away. Out of England. Home. My uncles and my brothers can protect you once you’re back in America. We have to go, Kate.”