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“I’d like you to get rid of him.”
The hairs on Sir Edward Manning’s neck stood on end. He looked at his boss with new eyes.
There’s a determination there, a ruthlessness that I didn’t appreciate before. She’s a street fighter. A survivor.
Just like me.
What had Hamlin shouted at Alexia, when the police dragged him away?
I know who you are.
Sir Edward Manning wished he could say the same. Not least because his own survival might now depend on it. He thought about Sergei Milescu and the faceless people paying him. He remembered the sharp pain of the kitchen knife as it cut through his skin, the cold terror of being tied to his own bed, helpless, with the blade hovering over his genitals. He remembered the camera and the awful, degrading things that Sergei had made him do.
Edward Manning had secrets of his own.
For a tense few seconds the civil servant and the cabinet minister eyed each other across the desk like two desert lizards. Unblinking, cold-blooded, and as still as statues, each assessed the other’s intentions. Were they to be hunting partners, ranged against Billy Hamlin? Or was one of them the predator and one the prey?
“Yes, Home Secretary. I can get rid of him. If that’s what you want.”
“It is, Edward. It is.”
“Then consider it done.” Sir Edward Manning got up to leave the room. When he reached the door he turned. “Just one small question, Home Secretary. I heard Hamlin calling you ‘Toni.’ Why was that?”
“It was a nickname I had as a little girl,” Alexia answered unhesitatingly. “To be honest with you, I can’t remember why. So strange, hearing it again all these years later.”
Sir Edward Manning said, “I can imagine.”
The door closed and he was gone.
It was all over so quickly.
There were no lawyers, no phone calls, no court appearances or appeals. After Alexia De Vere refused to see him, the police threw Billy Hamlin into the back of a van with six other protesters and kept him in a cell at Westminster police station. A few hours later a smartly dressed man arrived to claim him.
“Mr. Hamlin? There’s been a misunderstanding. You can come with me.”
The man seemed avuncular and kind. He had an educated accent and was wearing a suit. Billy felt quite safe getting into his chauffeur-driven car, assuming that they were heading straight to the Home Office. In fact, as soon as the car door closed, Billy was restrained and injected with some sort of sedative. He was dimly aware of being transferred from the fancy car to another, anonymous-looking white van and driven to Heathrow. After that, it was like a dream. His passport was taken, then returned with various hostile-looking stamps in black ink on its last pages. He was escorted, luggageless, onto an ordinary Virgin Atlantic passenger plane, strapped into his seat, and, as he fought the drug-induced sleep that inevitably claimed him, launched into the gray, drizzly sky. When he awoke, he was in New York, dumped penniless and alone back on U.S. soil like an unwanted package returned to sender.
Dazed, he found an airport bench to sit on and rummaged through his pockets for his cell phone.
Gone.
No! It couldn’t be gone! What was going to happen when the voice called? Who would answer?
Billy Hamlin started to shake.
Why hadn’t Alexia De Vere listened to him? Why hadn’t he made her listen?
He had failed. Now there would be blood, more blood, and it would be on his hands.
He wept.
“Mr. Hamlin?”
Billy looked up, defeated.
He didn’t struggle as the strong arms gripped him and carried him away.
Chapter Seventeen
