by Mike Binder
Still, he wasn’t sure. That was the problem. His knuckles did feel like he had been beating something. He was scared—incredibly frightened. He had been terrorized a lot these last couple of years; he was actually getting used to it. Even after his criminal charges in Michigan were finally dropped, even when they moved on, when they lived in Illinois, he often had times when he wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. He had heard people in their house in Wilmette twice, late at night, once someone rustling in their garage, another time in the den. He was convinced that someone was going through his computer files. Both times he called the police and grabbed a baseball bat, ready to use it. Each time he was told he had been dead wrong, that no one had been in the house. The alarm was still on. It was just another in a long series of incidents that left Kate unsure of what to believe in as far as her husband’s state of mind.
This was different. Some version of this had actually happened. He needed to stop his head from spinning and find out what and why.
* * *
NOT LONG AFTER he was finally awake, when it all truly started to sink in as to how much trouble he could conceivably be in, for some reason it was all suddenly over. Out of nowhere, a door opened. A uniformed police officer came down the hall, opened the cell, and motioned for Adam to follow him out. He walked him through the processing area, past the receiving desk, through the main lobby, down a stairwell, along a back hallway, and out to the street through a rear door. The officer then handed Adam his possessions in a plain envelope, minus his passport, turned, and went back inside, closing the door behind him.
Exactly like that, the officer left Adam alone, confused, and uncertain as to what to do next. The policeman hadn’t said as much as one word to him. Now he just stood there on the corner of New Burlington Street and Savile Row, under a bright morning sun, once again not sure what the hell had hit him.
He walked a block or so and tried to start breathing again, wondering if it was a trap of some kind, if they were going to arrest him for trying to run. He decided it was best to move, that he should get the hell out of there. He hit Regent Street and sprinted for four or so blocks, until he couldn’t move his legs any longer. He headed west and found a bench in the middle of Hanover Square behind a clump of trees and collapsed into it, struggling to regain wind, still having no sense of how he had gotten into or out of jail.
A minute or so later, Harris and Peet, Heaton’s men, drove up in one of the company Mercedes. Harris, the stocky, muscular redhead, got out, opened the back door, and motioned from across the square for Adam to get in. Once again, there was a lot of summoning but no talking. Adam wasn’t sure this was a good idea, but seeing as how he didn’t have a better one, or any real idea where he was, he did as he was told, went over and got into the backseat.
They drove him through the Mayfair shopping district for a short hop over to Grosvenor Square. Still, not a word. As they pulled up at the hotel, Gordon was standing out front, waiting. Adam stepped out and on cue the bodyguards pulled away: once again, not a single syllable had been traded.
Bathed in remorse and confusion, Adam walked over and approached his father-in-law.
“Gordon, I don’t know what you think happened, but I swear to you I did not do anything like what I’m being accused of doing. Also, I was not with any girl in any way that would make Kate—”
Gordon cut him off. He was good and upset, the old guy. He wasn’t any more in the mood for small talk than the cop or the bodyguards were.
“Close it, boy. Close it now! I mean it. Stop talking. I know damn well what you did and didn’t do. Anyone says you did anything close to what’s been intimated answers to me. Understand?” Adam was surprised. He didn’t expect Gordon to come on this strong, especially in his defense.
“The girl never existed, Adam. That’s the way it is. She never existed, this bird, you got it? The charges are all dropped. Sir David’s taken care of it. The police’ve asked that he keeps care of your passport until you’re ready to leave the country, so he will, and that’s that.”
“I didn’t do anything, Gordon. I wasn’t with her, I know…” Once again Gordon shut him down.
“It’s taken care of. Sir David’s taken care of it. He’s handled everything.”
“I know, you said that, but what does it mean? What the hell does it mean?” He was on the verge of tears now, this big sturdy guy, the former football star and cop, the bottom about to drop out, seconds away from breaking down right here on the street.
“You know damn well what it means, Adam. Means he wanted to show you what kind of strings he has, imprison a man, just like that, get him out of prison once again as quick.”
“But why? Why? I still, I just don’t know why. Why am I here? What the hell is going on?” He looked at Gordon now; a bolt of heat shot through his chest. He made a fist with one of his hands, convinced he might take some teeth out of the gray-haired man’s mouth. “What the fuck have you gotten me into?”
“Don’t even start with me. Take that fist and put it up your bum if you need to put it someplace, but don’t even think about a move like that. You hear me? This isn’t my doing, and making me the problem won’t help you one bit.”
Adam took it all in. Gordon softened. Adam began to see that it might not be he who Gordon was upset with.
“What is going on? Please? Tell me. I’m so confused.”
“I’m not entirely sure, son. He’s brought you here to do a job, I know that.”
“A ‘job’? What the hell does that mean?”
“I truly don’t know yet. I do know maybe it’s not as simple as I was led to believe it was. I’m in the dark from this point on as well.” He looked up at the hotel, toward Kate and the kids, somewhere up there in the fancy brick building.
“Now go on. Go up there and I’ll back your telling Kate we all stayed out and had a late boys’ night that turned into a messy scrap of a morning. Act like you’ve got a hangover.”
“I do have a goddamn hangover!”
“Good for you. Go on. She knows nothing and she won’t ever need to if you play this well.”
“As long as I do whatever it is that you and Sir David have for me to do? Whatever it is I’m here for? I’m not stupid, Gordon. Something’s going on, something not good.”
Gordon stared at him long and hard.
“Yes. You’re right. Maybe you should go to the police then.”
Adam stared back, not liking the sarcasm. Gordon was done with this round. It was too much talk already.
“Go on. Go on up and be with your family. I have your back. I mean it. I’m gonna watch out for you here.”
“I want to believe that. I do.”
“Then go upstairs now.”
The conversation was over: Adam was just as in the dark as when it began. He turned, went into the hotel, walked through the lobby, saw Trudy and the young French boy chatting up a storm on one of the couches, decided it was best to keep moving, and didn’t bother to say hello. He had his wife to face, his thoughts to get straight. He needed to shut his eyes, clear his head. Heaton was up to something. He had been right all along—it was a setup, but nothing like what he thought he was being set up for. It had nothing to do with getting Kate to move home. Whatever “job” Gordon and Heaton had brought him to London to do wasn’t going to be garden variety.
He got to the elevator bank and looked back out to the street, through the front door. Gordon was still there, standing firmly with his chest out. Adam couldn’t help but notice that the old man looked good and worried.
AFTER ■ 4
It was half past four in the afternoon. They were coming on the forty-eight-hour mark since the bomb had exploded. Georgia had left the hospital and gone straight into a series of meetings, one at Treasury and another in the PM’s small office at the House of Commons. Several of the leaders of her party wanted her and not Felix Holmby, the deputy prime minister, to do the Prime Minister’s Questions in the House the next day. They didn’t
think Holmby was the right face, knew it may be the highest-rated turn at the dispatch box in years, and wanted to have a clear plan on who was going to be seen running the government through this phase. The consensus was Georgia. Eventually Holmby agreed.
Back at Number 10, she settled into her first meeting in the prime minister’s office. Richard Sandville-Amply, the minister for Europe, had forced a meet to discuss, in light of the tragedy, the state of the upcoming referendum on Europe. The vote would be a serious reckoning on currency and trade and Britain’s future in the European commonwealth. The decision point had been almost a decade in the making. A few years earlier there had been a referendum that almost sent Scotland out on its own. Since then that particular scenario was always in the air. Yet as realistic as this threat now seemed, it was nothing compared to the cloud that the referendum to leave Europe left hanging over daily life.
Georgia deftly put off an answer. If it were up to her, she’d see it through. She knew in her heart and in her polling briefs that it would pass, putting the final nail in the coffin of the decades-long “European experiment.” Roland, however, much more pro-Europe than she had ever been, would have loved nothing more than an excuse to derail the vote.
After the tea with Sandville-Amply, Georgia led another emergency session in the Cabinet Room to hear from Darling and the others on what progress had been made in the investigation. Davina Steel, in her short-cut black leather jacket, dark blue skirt, and bright red silk shirt, led them through what they had, which was once again not much. They had canvassed many of the well-known informants with ties to ISIL and other radical jihadists groups, and were now even surer than yesterday that this was going to be something other than the usual bunch. Wiretapping of extremely high-level sources in all of the key terror cells had found them to be just as curious about the forces behind the blast as they were.
Just as in the meeting the day before, no one seemed too happy with Davina Steel’s results. She faced another series of long faces; probing, almost accusatory questions. A bunch of scared, grimacing, whining faces, she thought. Wealthy, powerful people looking for someone to blame. It wasn’t going to be her, she told herself. She was going to put this one to bed; she was going to win this one, make these overweight men with their throat-clearing harrumphing and their exasperated, over-the-top gasps truly sorry. It may take time, but she felt certain she’d have the last word.
Later, in a private meeting with the chancellor that Steel had requested, for the first time she spoke candidly about her misgivings. The two of them met in the prime minister’s private den. It was Georgia’s first meeting in the place Roland most liked to have important discussions. He was an expert in the one-on-one and had gotten his way more than often in this cozy anteroom turned work area. It was the “python’s den” to his opponents. The nickname was bequeathed after Roland’s famous, almost python-like ability to cajole, flatter, twist, turn, and, finally, charmingly bring an opponent around to his way of thinking.
Steel was nervous. They sat opposite each other on small fluffy couches across a finely polished dark wood coffee table. Everything about Georgia made Steel feel a little weak, not just because she was the most powerful woman in Britain, either. It was her confidence, her ability to look at people, and, as Steel saw it, almost see through them, into what they were feeling. She seemed older than her years to Steel, but also there was something about the chancellor that made her seem much younger, like a girl: an older sister whose parents had gone out and had never come home, leaving her in charge.
“There is one aspect to the events of two days ago that I wanted to discuss. I thought it would be best if I spoke to you alone. It’s about David Heaton.”
Georgia sat up. “What about Heaton? Surely you don’t think he could be involved. I was in that meeting. I know Heaton well. I’ve known him for many years. I walked him to the door as they left; it was several hours before the explosion.”
“Two hours. And I’ve seen the security tapes. I saw them leave. It’s exactly as everyone is saying.”
“You couldn’t be insinuating that Heaton had anything to do with this? That’s absurd.”
“No. Of course not. But in his group, there was one person in it, someone relatively new to his firm. An American. Did you notice him? Have you had any dealings with him?”
“An American? No. It was mostly Heaton who spoke, Heaton and a fellow from Paris, Despone. He had prepared the brief from what I remembered. We were to give it a look through and have him back in. But I don’t remember an American. What about him?”
“It’s just that he was new. Very new. Doesn’t seem to have much experience in the business at hand, nor have much of a reason to be at a top-level meeting. It doesn’t seem right to me. I wanted to let you know I will be looking into it. I know Sir David Heaton is an important man. I also know that you and he have a history.”
“Well, I don’t see how this could add up to anything, but please do go ahead on any hunch that you have.” She smiled at Steel as she quickly got to her feet. “And please, do not let the old dragons out there in the Cabinet Room get under your skin. I happen to think you and your group are doing a fine job in a trying time. Keep the back stiff, you hear?”
Georgia reached across the table and shook Steel’s hand warmly. Steel caught a strong whiff of her perfume, which she found surprisingly alluring.
“There’s one more thing I need to tell you, Madam Chancellor, about the American, the one in Heaton’s delegation. His name is Adam Tatum. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. He’s originally from Michigan, just outside of Detroit. He’s an ex-cop.”
“Really?”
“Yes, ma’am. There’s something else about him you should know.”
“What is it?”
“He spent ninety days in jail in federal prison. Almost two years ago. The case was quite serious. It was very public. He admitted his guilt, but for some reason that we’ve yet to discern the charges were dropped and he was released.”
“What was he arrested for, this Tatum?”
“Attempted murder.”
“Who in god’s name did he attempt to murder?”
“The governor of Michigan.”
BEFORE ■ 4
Kate wanted to make good on a return to the amorous moment from the night before. She had even looked past the fact that he had come in at eight in the morning smelling like someone had poured a gallon of whiskey on him and stuffed lit cigars in his pockets, or that he had smashed up his hands roughhousing with her father and some of his friends. She wanted him to have a good time, wanted him to enjoy London, to get on well with Heaton. It all played wonderfully into her game plan. She came out of the shower in his favorite orange pajamas, a pair that he always took great joy in peeling her out of.
It wasn’t to be. He was fast asleep. She crawled into bed and went back to her book, a memoir from several years earlier by the comedienne Tina Fey. She, the sleeping kids in the next room, the snoring hubby, her orange “sexy PJs,” and Tina Fey. All was fine. She was in London. That’s what mattered. She was home.
The hotel phone did its thing once again. Like a clanging giant iron cat, the old mechanical ring commanded Adam out of a deep sleep. He sat up straight in bed as if he’d been hit with a hammer. It was another HGI rep on the line. Sir David wanted him to “pop round the house for a quick chat.” It didn’t seem to matter that it was eleven at night. Adam seemed to be okay with it. He actually welcomed more face time with Sir David. Kate thought the hour was odd, but she happily helped him dress and gave him another sweet kiss at the door.
Gordon was there in the lobby, as usual. They almost had words as he walked him toward the Mercedes across the way, with Harris up front and Peet at the wheel.
“I’m gonna get to the bottom of all this shit right now, Gordon. This guy’s going to come clean with what he’s up to.”
“I’m telling you to stay as calm as can be, son. Just listen. Do not bang pots. Do you hear me? It’s not the
way to play it.”
“I’ll do what I have to do. Fuck you, Gordon. I’m done playing with you.”
The old man stopped him and pulled him back into the lip of the lobby, away from the eyes of the bodyguards.
“You watch how you talk to me! I am on your side, you hear me? I told you I have your back and I intend to keep my eyes on it. You need to be steady here. I know what you’re up against. You don’t have a clue.”
“If you know what I’m up against, then you knew what you were getting me into, so quit playing dumb, Gordon. I’m getting tired of it.”
He stared at him. Gordon wanted to smack him, it was obvious. Adam would have done more than smacked him back. That was also good and evident. Adam turned, left the lobby, crossed the small street toward the square, and got into the back of the Mercedes. The bodyguards didn’t say a word as they pulled away. Adam hadn’t expected them to.
* * *
HEATON’S HOME WAS on the Palace Gardens Mews, a mansion or two down from the sultan of Brunei’s place and two doors up from the Lebanese embassy. It was five stories on two acres in the center of London, backing up to the Kensington Palace Gardens. It was a walled estate with more security than the embassies around it. As they drove through the gate, Adam saw several more men in nondescript suits similar to the ones Harris and Peet always had on. They all wore the same non-smile and were most likely armed. Adam wondered why a guy like Heaton needed all of that security, all this muscle.
Heaton met him at the front door, dressed impeccably once again, every hair in place. The mansion was landscaped to perfection, the front door an aged mahogany that must have been six inches thick.
“Tatum, good of you to come. Come on, I’ll give you a quick tour and then fix you up with a very nasty drink.”
