Keep Calm (18 page)

“This man must be found. Every resource of our government must now be used to bring him in and to uncover where and to whom the trail behind him leads. His details and photos must be sent to the attention of every station house, border crossing, and police officer in and around every corner of Great Britain. The press should not have his name or any, I repeat, any knowledge at this point of his or this potential scheme's existence. We don't want them to know we are on the hunt just yet. We'll hope Mr. Tatum thinks himself free to roam and makes an unfounded move.”

Her back was straight now, her chest out, and her voice clear. She was morphing, Steel thought, right before everyone's very eyes, into a true leader—a powerful figure, a Churchill even. Steel was crazy about her. It was clear in that moment, right then and there: she was head over heels nuts about Georgia Turnbull. How could she not be?

The room was thick with concentration, every eye riveted on the chancellor, her passion evident, the import, the severity, the calm resolve in her voice mesmerizing to the ministers and civil servants.

“This will be stopped. If it is in fact a plot, it absolutely threatens the very future and fabric of our nation. It could well bring along irreparable repercussions. It will not bear fruit. It will not pay dividends.” She was speaking at the top of her voice now. “Our goal from this moment on is to shut down this island, to put eyes on every train, every plane, every boat, lobby, café, and shopping plaza. It is now, from this second on, job one of this government to use all of our powers and summon all of our convictions to locate this American.”

With that, she sat down under the Walpole portrait, in the chair always left cocked to the table, and turned the room over to Major Darling who had more information on Tatum. As Darling spoke, Georgia looked over and saw young Steel looking at her. Her gaze brought Georgia comfort she badly needed—she had never once in her entire life been as frightened as she was at that moment.

 

PART TWO

ON THE RUN

ON THE HUNT

 

ON THE RUN
■
1

The limo dropped them all at the Connaught hotel. Sir David invited everyone in for a celebratory drink. Adam tried to beg off, to go back to the Millennium, but Heaton wouldn't hear of it.

“Don't be like that, Tatum. We've had a good day, a rousing success. You need to let a breath out and enjoy your win. Have a quick drink, man.” Adam went in but stopped to call his hotel from the Connaught's lobby. Trudy answered. She was in the room with Billy. Kate was out somewhere, Trudy wasn't sure where. Adam took a deep breath. His daughter was safe. One major load had been lifted.

In the Connaught's smoky bar, the HGI group was in a good mood. Most of them wanted to talk about how exciting it was to be in Number 10, to meet Roland Lassiter and Georgia Turnbull. Heaton told a few funny stories about his first visit at Number 10 as a young man. They all drank expensive scotch and puffed happily on strong Cubans. None of it felt right to Adam. Not only did he sense that it would all end badly, but he also couldn't get over the fact that they had so blatantly threatened his daughter, forced him to do something against his will. Brought him to London to use him for some reason that he still didn't understand but was sure wasn't legal, ethical, or morally sound.

The French lady gave him a friendly, relieved half-smile across the table; he returned the darkest look he could possibly give. There was talk of “the deal,” “implementation,” “bellwether comparisons,” and other “statistical anecdotes” concerning a package of this size, plus a lot of back patting on the historical nature of what they'd done, a “benchmark” set for years to come.

Adam finally excused himself. Heaton didn't want him to go, but he wouldn't stop him. Adam turned and left the bar before he lost his temper. He skulked toward the Millennium, his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground the whole way back to Grosvenor Square.

As he walked into the lobby, he noticed several people standing at the hotel's bar and café staring up at the television. They were all entranced by the screen. Others wandered over to listen. There was breaking news. The clerk, Ronnie, had left the front desk to see what everyone was looking at.

Adam crossed the lobby and craned his neck up to the television. His heart almost stopped beating when he saw stock footage of Downing Street on Sky News. A bomb had gone off at Number 10. That's all that was known. There were no other details yet, just word of an explosion—no idea where it came from or what part of the building it was in, and no news if anyone was hurt.

The newscaster and the people in the bar all wondered who could have done this. The first guess was ISIL. Someone else guessed the Syrians.

“Don't forget that last year we expelled their whole damn embassy. I bet good money it was the Syrians.” One guest thought it was the Palestinians; another mused that it was Israel trying to blame the Palestinians. Everyone in the bar took a stab.

“It could be the Egyptians. That whole country's coming apart. I can see one of them doing something like that,” said a well-dressed man at the end of the bar. An older lady, at a table near the back, thought it was the Irish. She almost got laughed out of the room over that one.

Adam knew better. He knew exactly what had happened. His hands could feel the weight of the report that Louise Bloomfield was fed to put back into that cupboard. He had the weight etched into his memory: the weight—in his hands, on his brain—of the bomb. He broke into an instant sweat. Every pore of his body leaked with a liquid dread. He left before anyone could see his soaking forehead and the near meltdown of his mind and body as he came to the realization that it wasn't ISIL, it wasn't the Syrians, it wasn't the Irish, the Egyptians, the Israelis, or the Palestinians. It was Adam Tatum. Adam Tatum had planted that bomb, and it wouldn't be long before the whole world knew it.

*   *   *

HE HAD TRIED
to call Kate from his cell phone on his way down the hall to their suite. There was no answer; it went straight to voice mail. He didn't bother to leave a message, figured she'd see that he called. What kind of message could he leave, he wondered?
Hey babe, get home quickly. I just blew up 10 Downing Street. We need to talk
.

When he got into the room, Trudy was on the phone with the French kid and Billy was watching another cartoon. He distracted Trudy long enough to ask her where her mother was.

“I don't know, Daddy. She said she was going out to see an old friend, that she'd be back in time for dinner.”

“Who was the friend?”

“She didn't say. She doesn't have to run that kind of thing by me. She's the mother, I'm the daughter, remember?” She shrugged. He ignored her, was used to her talking to him this way. It was another part of the price he had paid since his time in jail. In times of disagreement she spoke to him more like a sibling than a daughter.

“Why don't you just call her?”

“I tried. She's not picking up her cell.”

“Try again.” She went back to her phone call and starting giggling in a whisper, inwardly rolling her eyes at her father.

“You need to hang up the phone now, Trudy. Right now. I want you and your brother to pack your stuff. Right away.” He stared at her. He gave her a beat to let what he said sink in. She looked at him, still listening to whatever Étienne was saying on the other end of her cell phone. She was still half chuckling at the French kid, half taking in what her father was going on about.

“I mean it, Trudy. Get off the phone now.” She raised a finger in a way that told him it would just be another minute and he needed to be patient. He walked over, took the phone from her hand, hung it up, and set it on the table.

“What are you doing? I was in the middle of a conversation.”

“Get packed. Right now. Help your brother. I mean it. We have to go.”

She stood up. She realized for the first time how serious he was. She realized he was talking in the tone he usually talked in just minutes before he'd be yelling.

“Go where? What are you talking about? What about Mom?”

“We'll wait for her, obviously, but we need to be ready to go the minute she gets back.” He went over to the television and shut it off.

Billy gave Adam a look like he'd just killed all of the characters in the movie, a movie that Adam knew he'd already seen at least five times.

“Daddy? Are you kidding me? Why did you do that? I'm in the middle of that.”

“Not anymore. Pack your stuff. Right now.”

“What? Why? I don't know how to pack. Mom packs me.”

“You heard me. Both of you. I need you both to listen to me really carefully. We need to be packed and out of here in the next five minutes. We're moving to another hotel.” Billy was still staring at the TV, wounded and hoping somehow it would magically come back on.

“But I like this hotel.”

“Too bad. We're leaving. Pack up. Now. We'll meet your mother in the lobby when she gets back.” Trudy held her ground and bore down with a strident glare to her father.

“Mom's not going to like this. You know that.”

“She doesn't have a choice. Now for the last time, please go in there and pack your stuff. Both of you. Now!”

As they shuffled into their part of the suite, he tried Kate's cell phone. Once again, there was no answer.

*   *   *

RICHARD LYLE STILL
smelled the same. Almost twenty years later, he had that clean, soapy, almost cologne aroma that he'd had the first night she met him, when she was sixteen years old—Trudy's age. Richard's place even smelled the same, a wild combination of sweat, chipped wood, burnt microwave popcorn, and hair care products. A tiny mews house a stone's throw from Paddington station, he'd lived there since finishing his A levels. He ran his music management company, his ticket-scalping operation, and his advertising consulting firm from the house, plus he did hair styling there. She used to tease him that he truly never had to leave home. That was when she used to do his food shopping and most of his cooking, so why would he bother?

Pictures on Facebook can be very deceiving. That's what she kept telling herself in the cab over from Mayfair. There's nothing to stop one from posting a fifteen-year-old photo and claim it's as current as the morning's paper. Richard wasn't that type, though. She knew that. She knew that his pictures were current. She knew that he wouldn't look all that different today than he had the last time she saw him in Michigan, seventeen years ago, the last trip he took over to try and convince her to come home.

She was ready for him to look the same. She just wasn't ready for him to smell so “Richard.” She wasn't ready for his place to feel so familiar, as if time had stopped and waited for her.

“Well, aren't you a doll? Let me get a good look at you.” He was dressed in a trendy jacket, a dark pair of jeans, and crocodile leather boots. He had dressed for her, exactly the way he knew she used to like him to dress. The fact that two decades had passed was another story, but “it's the thought that counts,” she figured. She could have laid out the outfit for him herself, exactly as she had done so many times before in another life, in another world, another dimension—a dimension she had somehow suddenly stepped back into.

Richard Lyle truly had not aged. If he had, it had only helped. She hated men for that, for aging so well. His hair was shorter but still thick. His stomach may not have been as flat as it once was, but it was attractively maintained. There was no doubt he kept up his morning workouts, still followed his strict diet.

“You look lovely, Rich.”

“And you, my doll. It's so nice to see you. I can't tell you.”

“Well, I had a couple of hours to kill. Adam's at this business thing. I thought it'd be nice to say hello.” She wasn't sure what to say, how much to say, what tone to say it in.

He made them tea.

The decoration and furnishings were as eclectic as Richard's résumé. There were Victorian-era antiques in one corner, video arcade games in another. The dining area/solarium was equipped with an impressive array of secondhand gym equipment. The breakfast nook had been turned into a one-chair hair salon. Three Himalayan cats perched lazily on a giant modern leather couch in the middle of the living room.

Richard and Kate went out back and sat on the terrace. He filled her in on all the things he'd been doing. He told her about the “pretty lady” who had just dumped him. He made her laugh with the stories of his travails with nutty women. She smoked a cigarette.

“Haven't had a cig in five years. Even when I did, it was a sneak, and I had to smoke it so fast it wasn't any fun.” This one was fun. She smoked it to the nub—one of Richard's fancy French ones.

The tea was perfect as well. Richard made her laugh some more. They told and retold old stories, relived favorite memories.

“You know that I see Gordon every now and then, right? For breakfasts?”

She smiled, sighed. “He's lonely. He's so lonely.”

Richard agreed. He refilled her tea, then lit another smoke and handed it over to her.

“That's why I like to have breakfast with him. That, plus he keeps me informed on ‘all things Kate.' Allows me to keep up on current events. So I'm prepared to sneak back into your life when the proper time comes.”

“Listen to you.”

“Why start now? You never did listen to me.” He winked. She grinned. They sat there in quiet, smoking and sipping. “You know, Kate. I know you've been through a rough patch. I know that your man's had a hard run.”

“Well, yes, but it seems to be picking up for him. I hope. Gordon's gotten him a job, with David Heaton. He seems to be doing well there.”