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Kedja Stirling rushed forward to open the doors for her boss. She knew he needed air. His face was flushed, his cheeks puffy, he messed with the collar of his shirt as he walked across the lobby. He didn’t acknowledge her assistance as he strode out of the Plaza Hotel into the brisk spring morning. He paused and squeezed a finger between his neck and his shirt collar as if trying to release pressure, then grumbled something before he marched down the stone steps toward the waiting black Mercedes.
‘Senator Charlton!’ came a shout from the right.
Charlton groaned and they glanced over to see a young female reporter scuttling across the steps toward them, phone in her hand held out in the hopes of getting a soundbite.
What Charlton wanted to do, Kedja knew, was to ignore the reporter, carry on down the steps, get into the car and away from there as fast as possible. Probably grab a Scotch or four.
‘Senator Charlton! I wanted to ask you a question about the trade bill!’
What he did instead – just as she’d been vehemently training him to do – was push every ounce of discomfort to the back of his mind and reach for his winning smile, before turning to face the journalist.
‘Elliott, make it quick,’ Kedja whispered to him. ‘Just enough to show you care.’
The question wasn’t really one of time. The point wasn’t even that they’d just come out of a grueling three-hour meeting with a band of idiots from the State Department – plus a bunch of overpaid technical ‘consultants’ – who didn’t understand the first thing about senatorial duties. The point was, through his own desire, Charlton was increasingly a national figurehead for this administration, and if he wanted to rise any further – hell, if he just wanted to stay where he was on the slippery pole of politics a few years – he had to make sure that the public continued to see the carefully crafted image they’d worked so hard to cement. And Kedja knew that meant limiting how much off-script time he gave to journalists, anyone, to a bare minimum.
The reporter, cheeks flushed and out of breath, came to a stop in front of them.
‘Sorry, Senator, I know you’re busy, but I’d really like to ask a question about the trade bill.’
‘That’s OK,’ Charlton said, his face and manner as welcoming as ever. Some people called it sickening, but mostly he was considered charming, at least by the nation’s right-wing press, who were already touting him as a future presidential candidate. With Kedja’s help, and some misfortune for others, she really believed she could get him there. ‘I really don’t have much time, but fire away.’
‘I realize the bill was fronted by your predecessor, Senator Narzary, but my understanding
is that for the vast majority of companies, the changes you’ve instigated will substantially increase red tape for imports, and will ultimately benefit companies outside the US much more than our own.’
‘What we’re doing is positioning ourselves to take advantage of growing markets.’
‘But won’t these changes hamper trade with some of your closest partners if you—’
‘Sorry, Miss…?’ Kedja said, stepping forward, placing herself in between her boss and the reporter.
‘Leanne Jarvis.’
‘Mr Charlton really does have to go now. We have a horribly busy schedule.’
‘I promise you, Miss Jarvis, this bill will smooth external trade,’ Charlton went on, ‘not hamper it, but it will see a shift in terms of who we deal with. Thank you, but like my assistant said, I really do need to get going.’
Kedja smiled, satisfied with his final words, and she and Charlton turned away from Jarvis to bound down the remaining steps.
‘But Senator Charlton…’
‘Ignore her,’ Kedja said, and she reached forward and pulled open the back door of the Mercedes.
Charlton reached the door, but Jarvis shouted out again.
‘I’d really like to arrange a full interview with you, so you can properly explain,’ she said.
Charlton turned and pulled out his smile again.
‘Of course,’ he said, before getting into the car.
Kedja grabbed a business card from the reporter then ushered her away, and soon both she and Charlton were safely inside the car.
‘Just go,’ Kedja said to Marta, the impeccably dressed driver up front.
Marta pulled the car into the road. Kedja caught the reporter’s eye as they went past. She couldn’t read the look she gave. Scathing? Knowing?
Kedja handed Charlton the business card.
‘Evening Herald?’ he
said, sounding disgusted.
‘You just need to remember to keep your public face on,’ Kedja said. ‘I know you did OK with that reporter, but in the meeting… You can’t let the bastards get you down, as the saying goes. You never know who’s watching, who’s recording these days. You have to be—’
‘I get it,’ Charlton interrupted.
Was his anger directed at her? She didn’t know. Maybe at his own performance earlier, as his mask had slipped more than once. Would that come back to bite them?
‘I’m not seeing much on social media yet,’ Kedja said, scrolling on her phone. ‘But it’ll probably take a few hours for things to properly filter through once people have given their version of events. What I can see so far is mostly positive. I think you’ll be fine.’
Charlton said nothing. Kedja knew that at twenty-eight years old, her more up-to-date view of the world was one of the very reasons why Charlton, in his fifties, relied so heavily on her to keep him on track with the younger generations. He, on the other hand, bullishly made as much use as he could of pen and paper and what others viewed as outdated communication methods because… Why not? Previous generations had got by doing so just fine, and he wouldn’t change if he could avoid it. That was fine by Kedja. It earned Charlton a lot of support from like-minded individuals, but she was there to make sure he appealed to the masses too.
Of course, Kedja was much more than just an eye into the modern world; she was a political intellectual too. Someone Charlton, who’d only turned to politics in the sixth decade of his life, still had a lot to learn from. Charlton knew how to handle the Chinese and Russians and Arabs in a boardroom, knew how to garner support from big businesses with promises of untold riches and lax regulation that had executives and shareholders drooling, but handling groups of left-wing zealots hankering for his blood was something different altogether. A
challenge, although absolutely not an insurmountable one. Just look at how far they’d come already in his short career in politics.
‘Where are you going?’ Kedja asked, when Marta took a left turn rather than the expected right.
‘To the Capitol.’
‘Then why are we heading further away?’
‘There was an accident,’ she said. ‘This way will be quicker.’
Charlton didn’t say anything but folded his arms and sat back in his seat as he stared out of the window.
Within a couple of minutes, they were gridlocked. Kedja caught Marta’s eye in the mirror.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know.’
Neither Charlton nor Kedja responded, but Charlton looked out of his window, doing a lousy job of hiding his contempt.
It took longer than it should have, but they eventually made the turn onto Independence Avenue where traffic trudged slowly back and forth along the wide street. The Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial were among the many renowned sights behind them, and the Capitol Building loomed in the near distance in front.
They closed in on the Capitol, tourists dotted here and there outside, mostly taking selfies in front of the statues of famous Americans, past and present.
They reached the intersection with Washington Avenue and came to a stop once more. Their destination was so close. Kedja knew Charlton was getting increasingly antsy now, with yet another big meeting on the horizon. Although he seemed unusually distracted too. Something on his mind other than the daily rigors of being a senator she thought. Rather than try to reassure him, she looked away, out of her window, acting calm and collected, hoping it would rub off on him. She spotted two men on the sidewalk a few yards away. Not tourists. They moved with more purpose. They weren’t walking too quickly, nor too slowly. Yet somehow they didn’t belong, as though the aura around them marked them out as imposters.
Not unusual to see such types in a big city; every other street had someone who didn’t belong, for one reason or another.
Kedja kept an eye on them as they neared. Both men had their hands in the pockets
of their thick jackets. The one on the left was jittery, and even though Kedja could see little of their faces under their hoods, he was definitely the youngest.
The men were only five steps from the Mercedes when the younger man nudged the other, as if he’d seen something that had grabbed his attention. With the nudge, the taller man lifted his head slightly too, his face fully visible now. Kedja’s gaze followed his across the road, where she spotted two other men who could have been mirror images of those closest to her.
All four moved in unison toward the Mercedes as they pulled their hands from their jacket pockets.
Guns.
Kedja’s heart jackhammered in her chest, while every other inch of her froze. A moment later, booming gunfire consumed every sense, stirring her to life.
‘Go, go, go!’ she screamed to the driver.
Marta didn’t hesitate. She hit the accelerator and the Mercedes shot forward, gunfire bursting everywhere. Flashes of light cut through the foreground like strobes. Kedja, wide-eyed, was pushed back in her seat. Glass shattered, then—
Smash.
Kedja was thrown forward, her face smacking into the seat-back in front of her. Her nose burst open, and blood poured out as pain erupted.
They’d hit something, and they were going nowhere.
‘Elliott!’ she shouted.
She spat blood and looked at Charlton. He was fumbling with his seat belt. From somewhere she found an inner strength and focus, or perhaps it was just survival instinct. She unclasped her belt and slid across to Charlton as bullets raked the metalwork of the car on her side. She managed to release his belt and heaved open the crumpled door leading away from the gunfire. She quickly checked on Marta. Blood and grisly flesh covered the dashboard. Kedja gasped in horror before pushing Charlton out of the car and to the ground. She slipped out
beside him, staying as low as she could.
Pedestrians were running and screaming as the gunfire continued.
‘What’s happening?!’ Charlton shouted.
Kedja didn’t bother to answer.
She scanned the area. There’d been two men this side of the car moments before. Now? One lay on the ground, blood seeping from a hole in his chest. The other was in a frenzied attack with… Who? Not a police officer; she couldn’t see anyone in uniform.
Kedja jolted as the rapid-fire gun released a hail of bullets and their attacker scuttled away from the man he’d been tussling with, before dropping to the floor with a line of bullet holes rising up his torso.
Kedja stared toward the other man with the gun as distant sirens cut through a momentary ceasefire. She heard the shouts of police officers already closing in. The man who’d felled the two shooters turned to her. Made eye contact. Pointed the gun toward… them?
‘Get down!’
Kedja pushed herself and Charlton to the ground as gunfire burst once more. Not at them anymore, though – this time it was directed somewhere else.
‘Go, go!’ she screamed at Charlton, pulling on his collar. ‘We need to go!’
She got to her feet but stayed low and tugged him again; he complied and they scurried together toward the large concrete plinth of a statue, skidding around it to safety.
‘You’re hit?’ Charlton said.
She wiped at the blood pouring from her face, noticed the hole in the sleeve of her jacket.
‘Shit!’ she said.
She hadn’t even realized, but as the adrenaline started to wear off the pain arrived. She grimaced and squeezed her eyes shut.
‘We’re going to be OK,’ she said, trying to reassure them both.
A shout came from across
the road. Police?
Kedja glanced around the concrete to see one of the attackers in cover behind a truck. But where was his companion, the fourth shooter?
Two police officers burst onto the scene, surrounding the gunman. They gave a quick shouted warning, or instruction of some kind, but a beat later they opened fire and the attacker’s body pulsed from the barrage of bullets.
A wave of nausea washed through Kedja and she had to swallow hard to keep her insides in. She scuttled the other way, peeking out from the other side of the statue.
That man, the one who’d tackled their attackers. He was there. Weapon in his hands still. The next moment the final attacker darted into view from the other side of the Mercedes. Bullets sprayed and cut into him and he went down in a heap of his own blood.
The gunfire stopped. Sirens came from all directions. Shouting from more police closing in too.
The good Samaritan turned in Kedja’s direction. He locked eyes with her for a split second. She froze.
Then he dropped his weapon, turned and sprinted away.
Curtis shut down the engine of his Range Rover but remained in the plush cream leather seat. A more than comfortable enough place to sit and spend some time, but it wasn’t his fondness of the car that caused him to pause. His eyes moved across the windows of his home, the redbrick-fronted house as handsome as ever, and his pride at the building belonging to him as strong as ever too.
He and Rachel had bought the place only six months ago, a cut-price deal considering the location and its size, reflecting the amount of work it needed. They’d already spent a small fortune as they began the process of turning it into their dream home. Sash windows renovated, roof and cladding replaced, internal walls and ceilings stripped and made good, and they’d restored tiles and hardwood floors to their original glory.
Curtis loved his home, so why was he finding it so hard to go inside?
He glanced at the clock on the dash before he put his hand to the door and stepped out into the cold evening. Just gone 8 p.m. The night was chilly, even though spring had apparently arrived.
He headed over to the front door, opened it and went inside.
‘Rachel?’
‘In here.’
Kitchen.
He took off his jacket and shoes and walked across the patterned tiles to the back of the house and the sprawling kitchen – the only room they hadn’t yet remodeled downstairs. The worn wooden cabinets, the drab brown walls, the dated appliances; everything looked and smelled of oldness in here, even if it remained useable enough and had undoubtedly cost a fortune when installed a couple of decades ago.
For some reason Curtis felt daunted about the prospect of turning this space around now, nothing like the excitement that had filled both him and Rachel not long back.
His wife was sitting at the kitchen counter, facing away from him, with her head tilted to look up at the small TV on the wall.
He approached her and kissed her on the cheek. She had the remains of a plate of food in front of her and a full glass of white wine. The now-empty bottle it had come from stood across the counter.
‘I started without you,’ she said, not looking at him.
‘I can see.’
‘I tried calling.’
‘I was…’
He didn’t bother to finish the sentence. In the middle of something he almost said, but what did those bland words help to explain exactly? Anyway, missed
calls between them were par for the course these days, both of them continuously under the cosh, sleepwalking to middle age one seventy-hour work week at a time.
‘It’s in the fridge,’ she said. ‘Just a microwave meal.’
He opened the fridge door. The huge space was practically empty except for butter, beer, wine, his favorite collection of hot sauces, and a chicken parmigiana. Last night he’d suggested they go to a restaurant this evening. Or get takeout. Or that he could even make something. But quite honestly, after the day he’d had, and how late he’d arrived home, this was his preferred option now anyway.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
He plonked the plastic container in the microwave and set it on high for five minutes.
‘How was your day?’ he asked, as he snapped the cap off a beer.
Not that he really was interested in the answer, but he knew Rachel liked to vent, and it was the done thing, right? Married couples telling each other about their days, the highs and lows. Curtis hated it. Hated having to go through it all in his mind a second time.
Rachel swiveled around on the stool, glass in hand, a couple of fingers of her wine already gone. Her face was still made up from a day in the office, but she looked seriously tired, her eyes glazed, a little bloodshot. Probably exactly how he looked.
‘Bellamy has been on my back all day,’ she said. ‘I just don’t get it.’
‘He still doesn’t think you should go to trial?’
‘Doesn’t think it? It’s more than that. It’s like his life is threatened by the prospect. I don’t know what his game is anymore. Maybe it’s all just to screw me over.’
‘Why would he want that?’
She didn’t answer as she took another sip of her wine. Well, more of a glug, really.
‘I told you before,’ Curtis said. ‘Stick to your guns. If you think the deal is bullshit then don’t accept it.’
‘That’s easy for you to
say, isn’t it?’
The words snapped out of her mouth like shotgun pellets, her bitterness evident. But that was simply the way she saw their work. She was the overworked defense attorney, ‘living the dream’ by being the type of lawyer everyone saw depicted in movies, but earning nowhere near what her talent and hard work deserved, not to mention the stress. Meanwhile, he had ‘sold out’ to work as a corporate lawyer serving rich clients.
As irritated as that view made him, Curtis still bit back a response.
And after all, it was their respective careers which had brought them together in the first place. He’d first met her when one of his clients had been on trial for fraud. They’d worked together for months preparing, getting closer all the time, had slept together for the first time three nights before his client was cleared.
Their lives had seemed so similar then, not just their careers but a sense of shared pain that brought them closer, him meeting her only a few years after his mom’s death when he was still finding comfort for his grief by dedicating his heart and soul to his work. Head in the sand, perhaps. Rachel, on the other hand, was an only child and didn’t have the added complication of an estranged sibling like him, but her dad had died when she was in her teens. She’d hated him. Hated how he’d abused both her and her mom, but she’d also become distant from her mom in the aftermath. Perhaps guilt of some sort, or perhaps because she’d felt her mom should have done more to protect her.
Her mom lived near Seattle now, thousands of miles away, and had remarried. Rachel hardly ever spoke to her, saw her even less. When Curtis and Rachel had met, they’d both had so little emotional support around them, which he knew explained why they’d both tied themselves, tied their lives, so closely to their work back then.
Except now, years later, that same work ethic no longer brought them closer together, it only pushed them further and further apart.
He downed half of his beer in two large gulps. The alcohol provided immediate relief to
his weary mind. He put the bottle down and went over to his wife again. She barely moved as he put his arms around her and brought her close.
‘Why don’t we do something this weekend?’ he said. ‘We could both do with the break. A night away to get our minds off work?’
She didn’t answer. A few moments later she pulled back from the embrace.
‘I told Bellamy I’d go in Saturday morning,’ she said. ‘Just for half a day.’
‘Meal out Friday night then?’
‘Everywhere good’ll be booked.’
She finished the remainder of her wine.
‘I can try?’ Curtis said. ‘We haven’t been to Valentino’s for months.’
She stood up from the stool.
‘Maybe, but I was trying to get a dinner date with Anne and Russ, remember?’
No, he didn’t remember. And the idea didn’t appeal at all, even if Russ was technically his friend.
She headed over to the fridge. Curtis glanced at the TV. The news. Something a bit more light-hearted would have been better after the toil of a working day. The scrolling banner on the screen and the report itself both carried the same story, about an armed attack near the Capitol Building in which several people had been injured and ‘at least’ three attackers were dead.
‘Do you want some?’ Rachel said.
Curtis glanced over his shoulder. She held a bottle of Crémant in her hand.
‘What are we celebrating?’
The humph she gave showed she really didn’t appreciate the jovial comment.
‘Yeah, please,’ he added quickly.
‘It’s almost a good news
story for once,’ she said, nodding toward the TV. Curtis flinched when the cork popped out of the bottle.
‘Good news?’ he said, his eyes now firmly fixed on the screen. He’d heard about the incident several times throughout the afternoon – news alert on his watch, the top story on his phone’s news feed – but he hadn’t paid it any real attention until now. How sad was that? That a major incident in which multiple people had lost their lives was seemingly so commonplace that it drew little more than a cursory reaction from him.
‘Some guy stopped the attack,’ Rachel said. ‘A random passerby.’
‘Yeah?’ Curtis said, only half-listening to her.
Over the top of the newscaster’s voice, shaky cellphone footage played of the apparent moment the passerby first intervened.
‘Elliott Charlton?’ Curtis said. ‘The senator?’
‘The intended target, apparently.’
She handed him a flute of sparkling wine and chinked his glass.
‘So just who is the mystery hero?’ the newscaster said, as the screen paused on an out-of-focus image of the man. ‘That is the question on a nation’s lips tonight.’
Blue jacket. Jeans. Tall, lean. Cap covering his face.
Most of his face, anyway.
Curtis stared as the world around him blurred, and a year-old memory stirred.
The last time he’d seen his brother…
The sun’s rays blasted through the wide windows, making the room feel uncomfortably stuffy and airless. Curtis stared down at the photograph on the dresser. The only photograph, the only knick-knack of any kind, left on display in the bedroom now. He’d deliberately left this one until last.
The dresser itself – five drawers high, old dark-stained pinewood that was scratched and worn and marked, but in a way which somehow gave it a hearty charm – was something of a family hand-me-down, having come from Curtis’s great aunt to his grandmother, then finally to his mother over fifteen years ago.
Three families, even more house moves. In many ways he wasn’t sure if he wanted
to see the piece of furniture ever again, though he’d already decided he’d take it with him today, if it fitted in the back of his car. Just one more thing he was unable to let go of.
He picked up the photo frame, holding it gently like it was an injured baby bird whose newly formed wings were as delicate as sugar paper.
Four smiles beamed back at him. Himself, nine years old, Finn, seven, and his mum and dad in their early forties. He remembered the day. Their first vacation after moving from England to Georgia. The bright sunshine. The smell of the pine trees that surrounded the lakeside cabin. The glistening blue pool with the seahorse mural at the bottom that he and Finn had challenged each other to dive down to and touch. The endless fun they’d had jumping in and out of the water for hours on end until their fingers were like prunes and their ears sloshed with trapped pool water.
Yet, as familiar as the still image had become, as vivid as the whole day burned in his mind, looking at the picture now he barely recognized his parents.
They looked so young and full of life…
Why couldn’t he grasp that image of them – that version of them – in his head?
He heard the faint clunk of a car door outside. He moved to the window and peered down below. Finn stood by the front gate, arms folded, looking up. He spotted Curtis and motioned to him.
Curtis sighed and, picture still in his hand, headed down the stairs and out to his brother.
The warm sunshine, the blue sky – such a contrast to the mood of the day. Curtis would much rather it was cold, wet and dreary.
‘You’re leaving already?’ Curtis said, as he looked from his brother to the car where Finn’s girlfriend, Emily, was already seated in the passenger seat, phone in hand.
‘We’ve got a long journey.’
‘I thought you wanted to help me.’
‘I thought I had?’
‘The movers haven’t even arrived yet.’
Curtis glanced at his watch. They were half an hour late. Typical.
Finn sighed. ‘What else can we do? We’ve got everything that means anything. The rest is…’
‘Junk?’
‘The rest will be put to good use for people who need it.’
‘You want this?’ Curtis said.
He held the photo out. Finn set his eyes on it and for a few moments said nothing. Then he took it from Curtis and smiled.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
‘So where are you off to this time?’ Curtis asked.
‘Dubai.’
Curtis said nothing but the scathing look he received from Finn suggested his brother had read his thoughts.
‘It might not be your lifestyle of choice,’ Finn said, ‘but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.’
Curtis glanced over to Emily, still focused on her phone. He’d only met her for the first time at the funeral two days ago. She seemed nice enough, even if he knew next to nothing about her, other than that Finn had met her a few months previously. As smitten as she seemed, Curtis had doubts as to how much longer she had left on Finn’s merry-go-round of life.
Finn reached out and put his hand on Curtis’s shoulder.
‘I know it’s been harder for you. You’ve been stuck so close to—’
‘Stuck?’
Curtis glared at his brother and the conciliatory look on Finn’s face dropped away.
‘Seriously, what do you mean by stuck?’ Curtis said. ‘Do you mean for the past six months I’ve been our mom’s daily carer? The one of us by her side as she wasted away. Is that what you mean?’
‘No,’ Finn responded, his tone just as hard as Curtis’s, as though he was the aggrieved party. ‘But I’m not going to stand here and make a problem when
there isn’t one. It’s hardly appropriate.’
‘Appropriate? What about—’
‘I only mean… I… Isn’t it now time to think about yourself? I loved Mom just as much as you did, I loved them both, but I can see the burden on you—’
‘A burden? They were our parents.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Do I? So you know the burden’s been on me, yet you still stayed away.’
Finn shoved the picture back into Curtis’s chest. ‘You know what? Screw this.’
Curtis took the photo back as Finn turned and strode to his car.
‘Running away again?’ Curtis shouted after him.
Finn grabbed the door handle then paused and turned back.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to live my life. Perhaps you should try it. Don’t you think they would have wanted you to?’
He got into the driver’s seat. The engine fired up and a moment later revved freely as the car shot down the street.
As if on cue, from the opposite direction, the removal truck came to a rocking halt. The driver wound down his window.
‘Sorry, mister. Lousy traffic.’
Curtis didn’t say anything, he was still too busy replaying his brother’s words in his mind.
‘Mister?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ Curtis said. ‘Whatever. Follow me.’
Picture in hand, he turned and headed back inside. ...
