by Mike Binder
Steel sat in the row against the back wall of the Cabinet Room behind her boss, Major General Sir Donald Darling, who was noncommittal, almost quietly mumbling to himself. He seemed to be taking the hardest brunt of the nine days since the bombing, and the fact that Tatum was still out there, he and whomever he was working with, thwarting the ex-soldier, the decorated Gulf War vet. They were razzing their noses at Darling with each day he was left twiddling his thumbs. He sat in the chair fuming, his close-cropped hair almost melting into his forehead. No one could feel the major general’s helplessness like Steel could.
Steel was, of course, also strongly attuned to Georgia’s tension. She looked across the table and thought the chancellor appeared at times to be underwater with the weight of it all, almost drowning. She sounded different than she did with her on the phone last night. Last night before she passed out, she had a vibrancy to her voice. The conversation gave her an energy and a vitality that her tone didn’t seem to regularly have these days, or even this morning. Last night at the height of their talk Georgia seemed to have a strength that was bigger than all of the problems at Number 10.
“Have we covered ourselves with the Americans? With the White House?” Georgia asked. Burnlee nodded. He was a pro. Always several steps ahead. “I had a long talk last night with Elliott Anderson, the president’s new chief of staff. He called me early this morning. We’re on the same page. They just want to be kept up to speed.”
“Do I need to call the president?”
“No. She’s well aware of where we are at.” Georgia took it all in. If she was going to be the prime minister, she was going to need to start out on the right side with America’s historic female president. She didn’t want to kick off a new relationship on a sour note, yet at the same time, she needed to find this Tatum. It had already gone on way too long.
“Good. Let’s go then. Inform the public on everything there is to know about Adam Tatum. I want his picture on every TV show, website, magazine cover, storefront, and smartphone in Britain. Enough is enough. Let’s put the people to it. Let’s find this man.”
As the conference room dispersed, Georgia couldn’t help herself any longer. Knew full well she was in full view of Burnlee, Darling, Early, and other staffers, yet she was well beyond being in control of herself in matters pertaining to Steel.
“Inspector Steel? Might I just have a quick word with you? In my office?” Darling looked over with a question mark embossed on his face. Georgia answered before he could move his lips. Before either he or Burnlee could form a pair of complaints.
“I’d just like a moment alone with the inspector. Nothing pressing. Just a girl thing.” She smiled and casually walked out of the conference room.
Steel looked over to Darling and the others with a shrug, trying as hard as she could to look as if she had no idea what this could possibly be about.
* * *
ONCE IN THE PM’s office, as Davina followed her in, as she closed the door behind Steel and her palms broke into a sweat, she turned back to Steel, hoping she could remain calm.
“I just wanted you to know, Davina, that I so, so truly enjoyed our phone visit last night.”
“As did I, Madam Chancellor. The time just flew by, didn’t it?”
“Georgia. Please.” She playfully scolded her. “When we’re alone, ‘Georgia.’ Okay, Davina? I told you, I really do love to hear you say my name.”
“Of course. Georgia.”
“Thank you. These are loaded times, aren’t they?” Georgia stepped closer to her. “Loaded days. Everything is so full of peril. Laced with purpose. Sometimes, just to talk, just to not say anything important for once, it’s invigorating.” She hadn’t planned to, but she was stroking Steel’s hair now, gently pulling a strand down the soft side of her face. Steel responded with a noticeable deep breath. She gently touched Georgia’s arm, and before either of them could check the moment for sanity, Georgia leaned in and kissed her.
She sweetly brushed their lips together, then thankfully, Georgia pulled away. They just looked at each other, for what seemed like the longest time. The moment was broken by a small knock at the door and the head of one of Early’s perky blondes who had come in with a sheath of papers.
“Excuse me, ma’am. I have the notes from Treasury’s meeting this morning.”
Georgia barely turned to her, hardly took her gaze off Steel.
“Yes, thank you. Just place it on the desk.” The staffer did as she was told and quickly made an exit.
It was just Steel and Georgia again, the only difference being the half-opened door. It was enough, thought Georgia. She had said what she had wanted to say, had done what she wanted to do. She and Steel nodded to each other. They took each other’s hands, squeezed them both together. Steel turned and left as Georgia leaned against her desk, trying to figure a way to get her head wrapped around the job at hand.
* * *
NOT MORE THAN an hour later, in Heaton’s den atop the Farringdon Street HGI complex, Sir David sat quietly with Harris, Peet, and two others. Rebecca, his office aide, brought in a tray of drinks on a Lucite cart, along with a plate of scones. Heaton had been in Strasbourg in the evening and his new home in Switzerland after that, and then quickly back to London. The long day and night of constant movement had taken its toll. The whole week was bringing him down, deflating his normally swelled-out chest. He hadn’t slept in four nights. His frustration had boiled over. Harris and Peet knew it. The two, never ones to waste words either, had none to offer. They had both thought the job at hand would have been much easier than it had turned out to be. They knew Heaton well enough to know that bad had turned worse. They were rarely, if ever, brought into the den like this.
“Gordon Thompson has gone underground. He was supposed to have come down from the farm; I had him up there with the dogs as the caretakers are in Zurich opening my house for the season. He was to be here yesterday, to make a statement to the police. It was set up through Darling and the DPG. He was a no-show. It means he’s left the squad. I’m sure of it.” The men in the room nodded. They understood the severity of what Heaton was saying.
“I’ve known this man for too many years. I underestimated him. I thought he’d stay good through to the end, but in fact there isn’t the stomach there.” He got up and paced the small den, almost talking to himself, trying to figure out how he had got himself into the present fix.
“I should have done this quicker. Bolder. I should have known he’d jam the works. This needed to be all put to bed on the very night that it started. My mistake was wanting him spared. Now he’ll do what he can to thwart all this and I’ll pay for it from the others. I’ll bear the brunt if it can’t be fixed.”
He looked over the four men in the room: Peet and Harris, his two top men; and two younger men, Dorman and Childs, both tall, lithe, and coldhearted. This would be the foursome that decided his future. If they couldn’t fix this now, not later, not in days or weeks but now, it would be over for Heaton. He would be a ruined man. Everything he had and more would be taken, he’d be labeled a traitor, and most likely he would spend the rest of his life in a prison cell. Four men stood between him and a personal apocalypse.
Why? Because he loved his country. That’s why he’d pay. Because men forty some odd years ago had started to slowly give it away, parcel it off, soul first, body second—men his father saw as traitors, men so addicted to empire that they’d trade away country, trade it for money, for power, for Europe, for crumbs. This was what Heaton and the others wanted. They wanted England back. Were they criminals? Traitors? So be it. Lassiter clearly felt the strong winds that demanded a referendum and yet couldn’t be bothered to muster up the passion to let the people vote. He had to be removed. There was no way around it.
Heaton knew what Gordon Thompson would be planning right now, working on getting his family, his son-in-law included, out of country. Heaton had resources all tethered together, all in sync, but the clock had run out. He had just got
ten a quiet call letting him know that moments earlier, Munroe and Burnlee had talked Georgia Turnbull into releasing Tatum’s name to the press and to the world. The odds of Heaton’s men finding the Tatums before the authorities did had grown very long indeed, but he could not give up now. These four men had to understand that they were his last chance.
He took a small manila envelope off the coffee table and pulled out a photograph, a frame from a security camera.
“This is from the caretaker’s lodge in Worcestershire last night.” He passed it around the den. It showed Gordon, Adam, Kate, and the two kids, getting out of a run-down camper’s van.
“He went straight back up. He knew no one would be there. It’s just them and the dogs. They won’t stay long. He’ll move west, I’m sure of it, try to get them over to Ireland, and from there to New York. You have one chance. Tonight. There’s no other way. It ends quietly in Worcestershire, for all of them.”
The men nodded minimally, as a group, not one of them proud of what they were all agreeing to do, no one wishing to oversell his confidence. They all understood though: they had no room for error. Heaton nodded back. The room cleared quickly. He sat into a padded leather club chair and took a deep, wistful breath. He told himself this could all still be righted. He took another full-bodied breath with shuttered eyes and palms held out flat. Stay confident. Then another. In. Out. Stay clear. A final deep inhalation, then a vigorous exhale … Stay strong.
* * *
THE BONGO BAR is an odd little joint in Shepherd’s Bush, just off Shepherd’s Bush Green. It’s a trendy little watering hole for young professionals and working singles. What it lacks in volume, it makes up for in a darkened moody ambience, tailor-made to melt away the stress of a long day spent in the throes of industry. Rebecca Donton sat at the bar, her wonderful hair catching the low-wattage bulbs overhead in such a way as to give her a halo effect. Like so much of her life, Rebecca and her long waves of blond beauty looked, as she leaned against the bar sipping a martini, as if she were posing for a magazine ad.
She had come to London from South Africa. Her friends, family, and many strangers had routinely told her how much she resembled a young Charlize Theron. Growing up in the suburb of Lakeside, she was often approached with offers to model or even to take acting lessons. Some were legitimate, some were merely come-ons from local men, and some were from workers at the stable where her mother and father were also employed. She had no interest in modeling or acting. She would leave that to the performers and the poseurs of the world.
She dreamt only of business. She wanted to work in the world of fashion maybe, or sport, or even media, but all from the side of business. It was as far away as she could get, she thought, from the life of her parents who were both third-generation horse groomers. It was a chain she was determined to break.
She earned a degree from a small university in Johannesburg, and with money borrowed from her aunt she traveled to London. After a long year working in a Pret A Manger, she managed to get an interview for an executive assistant position at HGI. It wasn’t until her fourth interview that she realized she was being sussed out to be the new first assistant for Sir David Heaton, the world-renowned CEO of Heaton Global.
Once hired her life became, to her, a true fairy tale. If it hadn’t turned out to be exactly “high finance” in the sense of what she’d learned at university, the cool factor of having a fold-down seat on the bus alongside Sir David Heaton’s larger-than-life reality more than made up for it. There were private planes, dinner parties, and exquisite celebrity luncheons. Yes, she was the “help,” and more than often out in the hallway waiting for Sir Paul McCartney or Sir Bob Geldof to leave Sir David’s office, but she was there inside the whirl, living a movie montage of an existence.
Heaton was a taskmaster. She was on call at all hours and was expected to have no life. He rarely showed any interest in who she was or what her opinions were on anything. He paid her more than amply, was always respectful, and although he constantly had a starlet or a model floating in his jet wash, she was never called to take a place under his arm or in his bed. In the early days he had been nothing but professional with her, even on long trips in exciting situations where she would have maybe welcomed a call up to his suite for a champagne ride in his Jacuzzi. It never happened and was never even joked about.
Later, when she had come out to him, in a time when she was in a relationship with a woman she had met at Wimbledon, he was nothing but respectful and supportive. It was a dream job. It had been the best four years of her life. It broke her heart that it would now be over, but she absolutely had no choice.
Inspector Steel arrived at exactly half past eight, as she had said she would over the phone. She ordered a drink for both of them as they took a private booth in the back of the restaurant. They had a run of idle conversation. Steel wasn’t exactly unaware of Rebecca’s beauty. Under the warm light of an overhanging lamp in the center of the rounded booth, she looked even more radiant than she did in the HGI executive suite. Steel, not usually one to spend too much time or concern on her own looks, had no idea how alluring she herself looked to the young South African. They doubled down on the chitchat, life in London, the differences between London and Johannesburg, and Rebecca’s flat nearby in Shepherd’s Bush. Steel comically described her life living with her parents and her desperate need to get her own place.
More drinks were ordered. Rebecca considered accidentally dropping the “her” in a story of the relationship with the tennis fan that had just ended, a shot into the air that she was a lesbian, that she was single, but she knew there was serious talk to have, talk that would quash any leanings toward romance, notwithstanding the fact that Rebecca didn’t really size Steel up as a woman who would find other women attractive.
It didn’t matter. Steel sensed that Rebecca was a gal’s gal, not that Steel was herself as a rule. Georgia Turnbull was the third woman she’d had strong feelings for, and the first two were both just more or less fun weekend playdates. Both of them maddeningly adorable, she had immensely enjoyed their quick company, but before Georgia she’d never felt anywhere near close to what she was feeling now.
She could easily see this Rebecca as a plaything, someone who would be fun to giggle and cuddle and tease with if it weren’t for Georgia. Georgia had her heart now. She wasn’t interested in anyone else, no matter how perfect her hair and teeth were.
“Why don’t you tell me why you called, Rebecca? You said it was important.”
“It’s more than important. I actually feel cheap making small talk. I’m just nervous.”
“What is it that you’re nervous about?” Rebecca finished her martini and looked around. A young man sat at the bar, in a suit, by himself. She was sure she was overreacting but felt he was watching her; a common occurrence, yes, but tonight she felt a different kind of naked than she normally did when strange men were observing her.
“Could we leave? Go for a walk?” Steel sensed her fear, wanted her comfortable.
“Yes. Let’s get out of here.”
They walked through Shepherd’s Bush. It had rained while they were in the bar but had conveniently let up. The streets glistened sweetly, the moon dancing happily in the reflection of every surface that would have it. The small trees on the roads dripped with tiny drops of a mildly pleasing spray.
“He’s involved. I’m sure you must know that.” Steel stopped in her tracks. Her heart pounded as the South African beauty slowly began to weep.
“I’ve known something was up for a bit now. He’s been so sullen. There has been so much whispering. So many quiet meetings. Not business meetings. Meetings with men that he uses for his … security. Shady characters. You know?” Steel nodded. She knew quite a bit about Heaton’s shady characters.
“He’s been different. For the last three months or so. On edge. All the time. I travel with him less. Never really know his schedule anymore. Then, a week ago, after the bombing at Number 10, about the time you st
arted coming around, he withdrew completely. I knew. I knew. I could tell.” She looked deep into Steel’s eyes.
“Today, he was in the den. With all of his security. I brought in a snack. He’d been traveling. He needed to eat. I set the tray down, on the coffee table. The edge of it, I didn’t know it, but it had rested on the phone. On the button for the intercom. When I got to my desk, I heard them all, clearly. Was going to get up to let him know, to move the tray, when they started talking about doing this. I couldn’t stop listening. I couldn’t pretend anymore. I couldn’t be around this anymore.”
“What is it, love? Tell me. You can. I promise.” Rebecca nodded, wanting Steel to know that she trusted her.
“I can’t hold this back anymore. I need to tell someone. I don’t think they’re safe. Any of them. Not even Mr. Thompson.”
“You’re talking about the Tatums?”
“Yes. Yes … I think they’re going to kill them. They know where they are.”
“Where are they?”
“Up in Worcestershire. At Sir David’s farmhouse in Tewkesbury. Dorrington. They’re not safe.” Steel nodded, her eyes trained on Rebecca’s.
“I hope I’m wrong. I could be wrong.”
“No, no. You’re spot-on. They’re not at all safe.”
“Can you help? Help them?”
“Yes. I think I can. In fact I’m going to give it everything I have.” Rebecca broke out in a sliver of a smile at Steel’s confident response. Her eyes brightened as much as they could under the circumstances.
Within another fifteen minutes Steel was in a patrol car with Captains Andrew Tavish and Edwina Wells, heading to the London heliport, bound for Tewkesbury.