Keep Calm

by Mike Binder

  “Now listen to me, Georgia. We need to leave. You and I. Straight off. I need to get you back to Downing Street.”

  “Where is Early?”

  “I had one of the security staff run him out. He’s doing an errand for me. I sent him with a note to Tatum. A first blush on a negotiation to buy him off.”

  “Do you really think that’s going to be possible? Buy him off, then send him away with a new name and it’s all going to be fine?”

  “No. No, it’s not at all possible. The press, the people, they’ll need to have him. Either dead or in the docket.” Georgia turned from his gaze and knew exactly what he was saying. She wanted as little to do with it as humanly possible.

  “The negotiations will be a means to lure him out, nothing more. There’s something else you need to know, Georgia. Your little friend, the inspector. She’s here.”

  “Davina Steel? She’s here? Where is she?”

  “She’s here, and she’s detained for now. She came here guns blazing, Georgia. She’s come unhinged. I begged you from the first to have Darling pull her back. I knew she’d be trouble, and she has been. Catastrophically so.”

  “I want to see her.” Heaton instantly lost his signature cool in a wild flash of anger.

  “She’s just shot the shit out of my security staff, for Christ’s sake! What do you want to say to her, Georgia? You want to tell her how much you love her perfume? Is that what you want to say? Do you have any sense of how off the rails this has all gone? I can hear the gallows being built in the square as we speak!” Georgia once again fought tears. It seemed as if it was all she did lately—suppress panic.

  “Now you listen to me. We need to go; we have to get you out of here. Get you back home. Stay here. I’m going to round up a ride for you. I’ll be right back.”

  “And what of Steel? What will you do?”

  “We don’t have the time for me to answer that, for a variety of reasons. Number one because I don’t know yet, and number two because you won’t like any answer I come up with.” He left for the front of the house. She was crying now. The hell with him. The hell with being strong. She wanted to die. Right there in this overdecorated, horrible, leather-clad room. She wanted it all to end. He had won. Heaton had outplayed her in every hand. He was the prime minister, not she. Events had gone from horrendous to disastrous. There was no scenario now that didn’t end horribly. She was sure of it.

  TATUM ■ 8

  Adam came in through the double doors off the second-story patio, having finally tackled the latticework. He was in a large, nicely done guest bedroom. He walked out of the room and then up the long hall toward the front of the house. Halfway up the way, he passed a closed door. From inside he heard someone calling for help. The voice was muffled and distant but clearly emitted by someone in extreme distress kicking something. He tried the door handle, but it was locked. He checked a little farther up the hall: no one else seemed to be up in this part of the house. He made his way into another room, an upstairs den. It was filled with memorabilia. Rich kid collector’s crap, he thought. This is what happens when you have more money than God; you just start buying shit up by the dozens. Bugles. Boxes. Knifes. Maces.

  Adam went back down the hall to the locked door. He used one of Heaton’s fancy hunting knives to jimmy his way into the room. He saw two steamer trunks laid out on the floor. One of them had someone trapped inside it. He came over cautiously, broke the lock with the butt of his pistol, and then trained his barrel at whoever was in there as he opened it. It was Early.

  Some serious roadwork had been done to his face. Adam gave him his hand and helped him stand. It was a chore, but he managed. Early was scared out of his mind, shaking like a leaf.

  “Who put you in here? Heaton?” Early nodded yes, then pointed to the other trunk.

  “Someone’s in there, too. I heard him beating someone else.” Adam went over, broke the lock in the same fashion, and found the cop from Dorrington: the little one with the badge around her neck, the one who saved him from the dogs. He turned to Early.

  “Do you know this woman?” Early nodded.

  “Inspector Steel.… Is she dead?”

  “She may be, yes.” He bent down; she wasn’t moving. She was cute, he thought. He wondered what the hell she had gotten herself mixed up in all of this for. He lightly slapped her face. Nothing. He looked over to Early, not wanting to look at the quiet, unmoving body of the young woman any longer.

  “Dead?” Adam checked under her neck, groped for a pulse, and got nothing.

  “Yes. I think so.” He looked out at the hallway. He turned his attention to downstairs, then looked back to Early and handed him Heaton’s hunting knife.

  “Hold on to this. You may need it.” Early feebly took the knife.

  “Be careful. Heaton’s still down there.”

  “Good, because I’m going down to see him. I’ve had enough sneaking around to last a lifetime.”

  * * *

  THE TIRED, SORE, broken, busted-up man from Michigan made his way down the ornately paneled front hall stairway, taking each step gingerly. The next face he saw was Heaton’s. He was coming in from the front door, having been out on the motor court. If Jack looked like a different man, the same could be said for Sir David. His eyes were enraged, his face bright, raw, and red. It was contorted with fury. The smooth-talking, giggly game player was gone. He had no clever salutation to impart, just a large shotgun pointed up the stairway. He had been outside and had obviously found his men dead in the front and, via the security screens, in the back. Now this. Tatum. Fine, he thought. Good. This has all of the players here. He’d taken care of Steel; he’d finish up with Tatum now and end it all. He’d get Georgia back to Downing Street, come back here, and make the calls to get it all cleaned up and tucked away. But first this: first he’d kill this Tatum, do what was supposed to be done in the first place. He had him now. All he had to do was fire the shotgun and blow him back up the staircase.

  Tatum kept coming. He pulled the iPad from inside his coat, turned it on, and got close enough that Heaton could see that he was playing a video of Georgia in her office, at her desk. She was talking to Early. It was nicely edited and flawlessly lit. There was no doubt what it was from the minute it unspooled. Adam moved cautiously closer so Heaton could get a good view.

  “It didn’t make sense to me either, ma’am. But you said you wanted to write out the truth about the bombing.”

  “That I was involved? Was I going to write that?”

  “Yes, you were. That it was David Heaton’s idea, but you eventually went along with it. You had the American unknowingly place the bomb by switching the dossiers.”

  Adam taunted him.

  “Fat lot of good controlling the prime minister will be when this comes out. It’s up on a cloud, too, Davey. Anything happens to me, it’s going to a reporter at every news organization in the Western world. One pre-addressed e-mail, off to four hundred destinations.”

  “What have we done, Jack? How did I let this happen? We could have killed Roland, couldn’t we have? We’ve let so much happen, let so many down. This is a disaster. It’s a tragedy. I’ve done the unthinkable.”

  “What makes you think it won’t be provable that this was shot on a movie sound stage, Adam? That’s it’s a fake?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll be able to prove that. In a snap. You won’t be able to disprove that it’s Turnbull, though. It’s her, the real thing. She’ll go down and I’m pretty sure she’ll take you with her.” He winked at Heaton.

  With that, Adam grabbed Heaton’s shotgun from his hand in a flash. Heaton didn’t even put up a fight. His enmity had taken a new form—he was furious and his mind was racing, trying to figure out how best to move forward on this newest of curves. He stared at the American, looked into his eyes. He saw that Tatum was bruised and damaged but also that he was enjoying this moment; he was euphoric. Adam almost snickered at Heaton.

  Heaton lunged at him, grabbed his throa
t with both hands, and choked him. Adam did what he could to pull him back, but Sir David was strong, powered forward with a demonic heat—white-light anger. He had quickly gotten a two-handed solid grip around Adam’s neck and was choking him as hard and as violently as he could. It was an insane, desperate, guttural reaction, but it was having an effect. Adam was struggling to breathe. He dropped the shotgun as Heaton pushed him back across the marble lobby and slammed him over the back of a large antique wooden cabinet. They struggled some more and finally Heaton had Adam up against the wall as he brutally and viciously strangled him.

  Adam had been overtaken with surprise. He didn’t expect the level of infuriation to come on so forcefully, didn’t take into account the insane hours that the billionaire had spent in gyms, judo studios, dojos, and karate retreats around the world. He hadn’t factored in how strong Heaton was. Adam reached for his knife, but Heaton was blocking his arm with his body now, not letting Adam get to it. He was trying to get him off him, but he couldn’t. Heaton seemed to be picking up strength and Adam was losing it. He had been without breath long enough now to know that he was going to pass out.

  Heaton choked harder and harder, his dark, vicious eyes bearing straight into Adam’s withering, blinking soul. His hands clamped harder; it was the last lap and he felt it: he was going to finish this all off now, with his own hands, end the whole thing once and for all. Adam gasped, his lungs exploding in pain, the skin on his throat ablaze with the burn from Heaton’s grip. His eyes went dim, his eyelids desperately struggling to stay open.

  A shot rang out, a piercing blast. Heaton’s eyes opened as wide as possible in utter shock as he instantly let go of his grip on Adam’s battered windpipe.

  STEEL ■ 8

  She was halfway down the staircase. Steel had shot Heaton in the arm. The bullet ripped through his skin and burrowed straight into his bone. He howled in pain. Adam threw him off, backward toward the center of the room. She fired off another shot, this time hitting him in the other arm. She came off the steps now, her pistol pointing straight toward him as she slowly crossed the large, marble foyer.

  Georgia was there. She had come up the back hall from the den. She took it all in, speechless. Steel. The American. David. The blood. She found herself able to form only one simple word.

  “Davina.”

  Steel didn’t respond; she kept her gaze locked on Heaton. She was shaking, horrified by his image, mortified by everything he had done: to her, to her parents, to Georgia, to Britain. She raised the pistol to his numb, conquered face. Both of his arms shot through, he was in pain and beaten. It was over, he knew it now, and his creaky quiver waved his version of a flag of surrender.

  Steel held the gun even closer, her face drenched with her own tears, wet with confusion, overcome by a blinding repugnance that wouldn’t let up. It built up inside her brain like a steam whistle, ready now to bellow and blast. Georgia begged, once again.

  “Davina. Please. Don’t … Don’t do it.”

  She pulled the trigger. Heaton flew back toward the far wall, with a clean gunshot hole in the center of his forehead and another straight out through the back. He dropped instantly to the ground in the same sad trajectory that Gordon’s last seconds had taken, that Richard Lyle’s body had traveled. He was dead before he landed flat. She turned and faced Georgia and looked over to Tatum. No one was sure what to say.

  Steel and Georgia locked eyes, a view that offered both of them nothing but pain. She dropped the gun on the ground, letting Georgia know it was over. She wasn’t a physical threat to her, letting Tatum know that if he was inclined to leave, now was the time to do it.

  TURNBULL ■ 9

  No one spoke. For a grisly length of time. The three of them stood silently together. Adam still didn’t even know the name of the younger woman, the cop who had just murdered Heaton in cold blood. He knew the prime minister’s name, but they, too, had never said a single word to each other. Conversely, Georgia thought she knew Steel so well, yet she obviously didn’t know her at all. She had no idea what exactly led her to take the leap she had taken when deciding to end David Heaton’s life.

  The three of them stood there in the large, frigid foyer, standing over Heaton’s dead body, with more dead bodies out in the motor court and scattered through the backyard. Yes, Steel had never said a word to the American, yet she sensed that she understood him well. She knew what it was to be used as a pawn, to be played as a game piece, to be in fear for your life once your usefulness had ended. He had saved her life—three times. She knew him better than she ever knew Georgia.

  The prime minister shattered the silent daze.

  “Davina, I am so sorry.” She wanted to let more words fly, promises, declarations, pleas, but she couldn’t summon them up, so the stillness returned. The American spoke next.

  “I want my name cleared. I want my family to get home, safely.” He took a deep breath and stared at Georgia across the lobby. He had more to say, but he didn’t want to waste words. He wanted her to talk and wanted her to sell him, not the other way around. He merely turned the iPad around to her and pressed play again.

  “It didn’t make sense to me either, ma’am. But you said you wanted to write out the truth about the bombing.”

  “That I was involved? Was I going to write that?”

  “Yes, you were. That it was David Heaton’s idea, but you eventually went along with it. You had the American unknowingly place the bomb by switching the dossiers.”

  Georgia nodded. The room fell silent again. Early hobbled over to the top of the steps on the second-floor landing. He, too, was beaten and battered, on the hard end of a bad Sunday morning, as they all were. He also said nothing. Just made a somber version of eye contact with his boss, then looked away. Steel finally spoke.

  “It’s over, Georgia. It’s over. I don’t mean with you and me, either. I mean with you, with this. All of this.” Georgia calmly agreed.

  “Yes. It is over. All of it.” Her head bobbed as she took it all in. The room sat numb, waiting for her to process it all.

  “It has to be put down elegantly though. There’s so, so much at stake. I’m not talking about for me here, know that. For so many. For so many innocents. For you, Davina. All of it, we’ve all lost so much of ourselves. It’s all spun so wildly out of control.” She looked over at Tatum. He was bearing down on her. He wanted the answers and assurance that she was fully ready to give him. She knew she owed him a moment to let his shoulders drop, to know that his ordeal had truly ended.

  “Mr. Tatum, I will have you and your family flown home safely to Chicago, in quiet, first thing tomorrow morning, on a private plane.” She looked up to Early, giving him the note to have it done. Early looked over to Adam and told him with another nod that he could trust him, that it’d be just as she promised. “There will, of course, be no charges filed, and, in fact, I will firmly and fully publicly declare your unbridled innocence.”

  “I want something else.”

  “What is it? Money?”

  “No, fuck you lady, it isn’t money.” Georgia was taken aback. No one had ever really spoken to her that way.

  “What is it, then?”

  “I want my father-in-law’s body. I want to take him to Chicago with us.” Georgia looked to Early, once again silently telling him to make it happen. She turned to address Steel.

  “I will resign my office in sixty days. I will leave politics forever. I need a quick moment to drain the riverbed of those who are involved while keeping the full disclosure of what has happened under wraps for as long as possible—hopefully many years. Anything other than all of us quietly leaving right this moment and dutifully repairing whatever can be rectified in the next bit of time will only lead to both of us, Davina, in prison and an irreparable body blow to the people’s psyche, the flow of government, and the very future of Great Britain. Do you see that?”

  Steel swished it all around in her brilliant yet frazzled brain.

  “If you don’
t resign, though, I promise I’ll come visit, and it won’t be to talk about perfume and such. You have sixty days.”

  “I understand. I do, Davina. I assure you that it’s all over. Mr. Tatum, I’m well aware of your file, of my movie debut hanging over my head. All I ask is time to make sure that those behind all that’s been done are cut off from the chance to get their hands on the tiller. Then I’ll go. Sadly. Gladly. Are we all three agreed?”

  Adam nodded and shrugged. All he wanted was to go home and get his family back to something close to normal. He wanted someone to have to pay for Gordon’s death, for Richard Lyle, for all that was done, but that was second place to his family’s safety, so he’d take this deal and run with it.

  Steel agreed as well. She had lost herself, oddly in the same way that Georgia had. Heaton had gotten to both of them, and she’d known immediately, maybe just as Georgia had known in colluding with him, that she had made a disastrous decision in killing him. Something had overcome her, be it fear, rage, vengeance, or weakness: she had been lured out into waters she could never swim back from. She didn’t like letting everyone else off the hook to let herself go free, but in this moment it was sound reasoning that Georgia was offering, so, soaked through in shame and regret, Steel went with Georgia’s bargain. They all did.

  * * *

  SOMEWHERE OFF IN the distance, toward Albert Hall, there were church bells ringing twelve times. It was noon on a sleepy, now cloudy Sunday morning in London. Each of them quietly left Heaton’s shattered, blood-spattered palace. Georgia and Early drove off in Jack’s bullet-riddled Ford. Steel, after destroying the security camera system’s computers, walked out the drive heading up the street toward her squad car. Adam was just behind her at the mouth of the motor court. She considered offering him a lift but realized that the two of them had not spoken a word to each other. They truly were strangers, she and the man she had hunted all over England.