Keep Calm (20 page)

“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
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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.”

She started to cry. She couldn't hold it back any longer. She just started bawling. A couple at another table looked over.

“What will we tell the kids?”

“I haven't figured that out yet. Right now, there's a rental place a block from here. We're gonna get a car. I'll tell the kids we're going to take a drive. We'll figure out what to tell them on the way to the airport.”

“We can't just leave England, not without you.”

“You have to. I'll figure it out; I'll work out another way home. I promise.” He reached across and took hold again of her hand in her lap. She was as cold as ice, numb with shock. A sudden realization caused another tear to suddenly leap from her eye, painting her big cheek with a deeper sadness.

“My father?”

“Yes. He's part of it.”

 

ON THE HUNT
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2

Davina Steel sat on a small couch in a crowded vestibule outside the prime minister's office, the office that Georgia was temporarily working from. Georgia was inside with Jack Early, Major Darling, Burnlee, Edwina Wells, and several of the top COBRA people. They were discussing the investigation, but in actuality they were discussing Steel. Should she be taken off the case and put onto something else?

Steel's outburst outside of Heaton Global had caused a major rethink up and down the chain. Could something of this importance be spearheaded by someone as emotionally volatile and obviously immature as Steel? That was the question in play as Steel sat outside on the couch, punching away on her laptop, awaiting news if she'd be pried from the case, pulled away from her unique proximity to Georgia. Maybe that would be best, she thought. Being around her had become so fraught with emotion.

Inside, at Lassiter's desk, Georgia struggled to think clearly. She was exhausted. It was early. She hadn't slept once again the night before. Yesterday had been a long slog with the press demanding to know what Lassiter's future held. Would he be back? What would the party do in a reshuffle? Would it be Georgia? Munroe had wedged in a grueling series of one-on-ones with the top papers' editors, and most of them couldn't have been bothered to be civil.

The chancellor was scheduled to do a quick trip to Strasbourg to meet with top European ministers to discuss how to slow down the momentum regarding the upcoming referendum on Europe. The referendum would almost surely lead to Britain pulling from the union once and for all. Part of Georgia would have been overjoyed to let the referendum happen, just get on with it—to take it to the voters to decide. It was the only major issue she and Roland disagreed on. There was also a new inheritance tax cut bill looming that needed Treasury's guidance, another foray into a political minefield that would come back to haunt Georgia if she did in fact take over as prime minister. All in all, the entire load was more than she could have foreseen. It was a short walk from Number 11 to Number 10, but it felt more like crossing into an entirely different dimension.

On top of Georgia's exhaustion and her overbooked schedule was the utterly powerful pull of the pain pills. She was down to her last few. She had tried to wean herself but had only become more irritable, less able to sleep. In her vulnerable state, she was nagged by thoughts of this young inspector. Maybe it would be better, she wondered, if she let these people talk Major Darling into benching Steel. Maybe it was too much for Georgia to process. There was nothing all that comfortable about the feelings she had for Steel. It had been years since she felt this way about a woman, not since university; Steel's obvious reciprocal passion only made the situation more difficult to bear.