Ken McClure

Miasma

One

May 2018

Steven Dunbar, chief investigator of the Sci-Med Inspectorate (Sci-Med), an independent, but government-funded body located in the UK Home Office and his partner, Natalie (Tally) Simmons, a paediatrician at Great Ormond Street Hospital, took breakfast in their Marlborough Court, London flat while listening to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. It had become their custom to listen to it every morning, using it as a primer to inform them of what was going on in the world before leaving for work. A politician was being asked what his party’s policy was on something he didn’t seem too keen to talk about. He waffled on about his leader having made it ‘perfectly clear’.

‘Why do they do it?’ Tally complained. ‘Why come on the programme at all when they have no intention of answering questions?’

‘Because they’re...’

‘Strike my last question,’ Tally spluttered, discovering that laughter and cornflakes didn’t mix. ‘I should know better than ask you for your views on politicians.’

‘True,’ said Steven, ‘Well, do you think we’ve heard enough bad news to set us up for the day?’

‘Mm, it would be nice to hear some good news for a change... but maybe that’s against news policy; it has to be bad.’

‘And the worse the better...’ Steven paused when the Today presenter interrupted proceedings with an item that had just arrived on his desk.

‘Early reports of a new outbreak of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo are coming in...’

‘Oh, no,’ Tally groaned, ‘not another one, they’ve hardly had time to get over the last one.

They listened intently to further but sketchy details. Twenty-five people had died so far; the outbreak was in Equateur Province in the north-west of the country and, although its source had not yet been identified, there were fears that the outbreak would not be confined to rural areas. Cases had been reported in, Mbandaka, a major transport hub with a population of more than a million people.

‘This could be the one we’ve been dreading,’ said Steven, ‘the one that triggers a pandemic.’

‘Well, nobody can say that Sci-Med didn’t warn them,’ said Tally. She was referring to the fact that Steven and his boss, Sir John Macmillan, the founder of Sci-Med, had been unsuccessfully trying to persuade successive governments that public vaccination against killer diseases should be a priority, citing the fact that a killer strain of ‘flu had managed to sweep round the world back in 1918, killing forty million people at a time when public travel had been much rarer and more difficult than it was today.

‘We can only hope they’ll manage to contain it,’ said Tally. ‘Surely they’ll be better prepared this time?’

‘It was just plain luck that saved us last time,’ said Steven. He was thinking back to the near-nightmare scenario that had unfolded when a volunteer nurse returning from an outbreak in Sierra Leone to the UK and suffering from Ebola herself, had ended up wandering around a UK airport before boarding a scheduled flight back to her home in Scotland.

Steven refilled their coffee cups and asked in a quiet voice, ‘How are you feeling?’

Tally had lost her mother a couple of weeks before after a short illness had progressed to pneumonia and she had failed to recover. This was to be her first week back at work.

‘I’m fine,’ she replied, adding ‘really I am,’ in response to the look of doubt appearing in his eyes. ‘I’m glad I managed to spend some time with her before it happened. It was good to be able to say some of the things you’d regret not having done when it was too late.’

‘It’s still a big milestone losing your mother.’

‘And a pause for reflection,’ added Tally, ‘Makes you consider what you’re doing with your own life.’

‘You can’t have any problems with that,’ said Steven. ‘You’ve helped countless sick children: in many cases you’ve been responsible for ensuring they had a life at all. Now, you’re at the top of your game, practicing paediatric medicine at one of the best children’s hospitals in the world.’

‘Mm.’

‘I only wish my contribution to society was as clear cut.’

Steven was a qualified doctor too, but had chosen not to practice medicine, feeling at the time that he had been cajoled into medicine by school and parental pressure as bright children often are. After qualifying he had rebelled by joining the British army, initially as a soldier, but, over time, had become a specialist in field medicine — the medicine of the battlefield — as well as a trained Special Forces soldier. He had served with distinction in trouble spots all over the world, practicing both crafts in terrain ranging from jungle to desert. He had opted to leave in his mid-thirties without any real idea what he might do next — or be able to do, when he quickly discovered that openings for people with his skills were limited in civilian life.

Happily, and to his relief, Sir John Macmillan had come along to suggest that he might fit very well into his organisation, the Sci-Med Inspectorate, a small body of scientists and medics, which had been set up to investigate crime and wrong-doing in the hi-tech world of science and medicine — areas where the police might lack expertise. Macmillan had been right. Steven had taken to the role of medical detective like a duck to water and was now Sci-Med’s chief investigator.

Tally was surprised at Steven’s expression of self-doubt. ‘You are kidding,’ she said. ‘You’ve taken on some of the most powerful crooked individuals in the land and exposed their true colours: you’ve even come up against pure evil on occasion and won through. How many times have government ministers had reason to thank you personally for what you’ve done?’

Steven felt embarrassed to hear this from Tally. He knew how much she hated his job and the dangers that occasionally came with it. He wasn’t alone in experiencing these dangers. By association, Tally had come up against them too. He smiled, looked down at his watch and said, ‘You don’t want to be late on your first day back.’

The outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was to impinge on both their days. Steven was about to be briefed by John Macmillan on the deaths of two eminent medical scientists, which had caught his attention when they were interrupted by John’s PA and Sci-Med’s office manager, Jean Roberts. She had come in to say that their attendance was requested by the Prime Minister at a COBRA meeting at 2 p.m. to discuss the latest Ebola outbreak in DRC.

Steven always thought it such a pity that the dramatic acronym, COBRA, only stood for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, but the drama to those not in the know was always useful in suggesting that the government was taking something very seriously.

‘God knows why they’re asking us along,’ sighed Macmillan, ‘they’ve been ignoring our advice on vaccination for years.’

‘It’ll be interesting to hear what the Health Department has to say,’ said Steven.

‘Do they even have a vaccine against this damned disease?’ asked Macmillan. ‘If I remember rightly, it seemed pretty much like a rush job they came up with towards the end of the 14–16 epidemic.’

‘I suspect it’ll be the same experimental one.’

‘What exactly does ‘experimental’ imply?’ asked Macmillan.

‘Untested formally and therefore unlicensed. Because of that, they are obliged to point this out to everyone they intend offering it to and seek their permission before using it.’

‘Good God.’

‘Let’s hope he is.’

‘What do you know about this place, Mbandaka?’

‘It’s in the north-west of the country and has a population a bit bigger than Glasgow. It has key transport links to three capital cities, Kinshasa, Brazzaville and Bangui. DRC hasn’t got much in the way of proper roads but it has extensive river networks and lots of boats trading along them — many unlicensed and engaged in all sorts of illegal activities.’

Macmillan was impressed, even slightly puzzled by Steven’s knowledge. ‘How come you know all this?’

‘Simone Ricard,’ said Steven.

‘Of course,’ said Macmillan, leaning back in his chair, ‘Dr Ricard and you were great friends. Such a tragedy.’

Steven’s friend, Simone Ricard, had been a doctor working with Médecins Sans Frontierès’. She had spent her entire medical career with the international medical charity and no one had understood more than her about outbreaks of infectious disease in Africa. Steven had often sought her advice, which had been gladly given and she had been much loved and hugely admired by all who knew her before her tragic death. She had been murdered while attending a medical conference in Prague where she had gone in an attempt to expose an international cover-up over the continuing presence of polio in the Middle East when it had been eradicated everywhere else.

Tally had been warmly welcomed back to Great Ormond Street where she was popular with staff and patients alike. She had been in the middle of reading patient notes — getting up to speed with what had been going on while she’d been away — when she had been informed that there was to be a meeting that afternoon of senior London hospital staff to discuss the developing situation in DRC. It was suggested that, having just come back and having no patients under her direct care at the moment, she might be best placed to attend. She had agreed.

Steven was first home. He made himself coffee and stood by the window, watching the river traffic on the Thames through the gap in the buildings opposite their flat in Marlborough Court. It was orderly and controlled unlike the river traffic in DRC he suspected. Confining the spread of Ebola under such conditions would be challenging in the extreme. He was thinking about this when he heard Tally come in.

‘How was it?’ he asked.

‘A bit odd,’ said Tally. ‘I’ve been at a meeting all afternoon about the Ebola outbreak and how it might possibly affect us.’

‘Me too,’ said Steven. He told her about the COBRA meeting, which he thought had largely been called for the benefit of the press, hoping they would help by assuring the general population that Her Majesty’s Government was keeping a watchful eye on the situation.’

‘That should do the trick,’ said Tally tongue in cheek. ‘In similar vein, London hospitals are being advised to be “prepared and vigilant”.’

‘Let’s eat out and exchange notes?’

‘Good idea.’

They showered and changed into more comfortable clothes before heading out to The Jade Garden, their favourite Chinese restaurant. Apart from the good food and a guaranteed welcome from the extrovert female owner who was always pleased to see them, it was within walking distance of Marlborough Court.

‘So, how does being advised to be prepared and vigilant translate into action?’ asked Steven.

‘Much was made of our state-of-the-art specialist units, which are ready to deal with any outbreak of deadly disease.’

‘How many patients can they handle?’

‘About ten,’ said Tally.

Steven let the ensuing silence join the conversation.

‘Not a lot?’ suggested Tally.

‘People don’t seem to understand what an epidemic is,’ said Steven. ‘Maybe it’s an age thing.’

‘You could be right,’ said Tally. ‘The vast majority — and that includes us — have never experienced one. Unfortunately, that includes the people giving advice and taking decisions. I remember my grandfather telling me about a typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen when he was a young man. It was caused by imported corned beef and the disease spread from person to person like wildfire until all the hospitals were full and the whole city had to be isolated.’

‘And that was at a time when we actually had specialist hospitals for infectious diseases,’ Steven interrupted.

‘Exactly. Now they’ve all been turned into luxury flats and we have specialist units which can handle ten patients.’

‘Absolutely everything depends on identifying the source of a potential epidemic quickly and dealing with it or the game could be lost.’

‘The official line is that it is not that easy to contract Ebola,’ said Tally.

‘They got that from a text book,’ snapped Steven.

Tally noted a note of anger in Steven’s voice. ‘You don’t agree?’

‘I remember talking about this with Simone before she died. She put me straight. The official view peddled by our Health Officers, is that you can only contract Ebola by coming into contact with the body fluids of an infected person and people are invited to see this as being unlikely.’

‘That’s almost word for word what I was taught.’

‘It conjures up thoughts of HIV and images of Princess Di shaking hands with patients to show how safe it was.’

‘Where are you going with this?’ asked Tally.

‘People are being encouraged to think the same way about Ebola... they assume they’ll be safe unless they have unprotected sex with an infected person.’

‘Ah.’

‘Ah indeed,’ said Steven. ‘The situation is completely different with Ebola; it’s one of the nastiest diseases on Earth. Ebola is one of the haemorrhagic viruses: infected people bleed from every orifice; even their eyes bleed and the fever can be such that they are no longer in control of their actions. The area surrounding them will be covered in body fluids. Clothing, bed sheets, blankets, the floor, the walls, doors... What are the chances of a nurse engaged in a wrestling match with a demented patient not coming into contact with body fluids?’

‘I think you’ve made your point.’

‘But the authorities still push the same old line that it’s not easy to contract.’

‘That is exactly what they stressed this afternoon,’ said Tally.

‘Simone used to say that these people are the kind of people who would learn to swim from a book. They’ll be absolutely fine until they hit the water and then they’ll drown because they didn’t know what it felt like. Reality can be very different from book learning and, by the time you adjust... it can all be too late.’

‘You still miss her.’

‘We only spoke a couple of times a year,’ said Steven, ‘but she was always worth listening to and she had such a wealth of experience in the field.’ Steven smiled. ‘She could never understand why I gave up being a doctor; insisted it was the best thing anyone could be.’

‘What did you say to that?’

‘I told her the real question was, why did I ever become one in the first place. You really should have much more than good school grades to get into medical school. They should require you to have something special along the lines of genuine care and concern for the people who will become your patients. Simone had that, you have it, I don’t.’

‘Don’t put yourself down, Dunbar. I seem to remember hearing from one of your ex-army colleagues that you had been single-handedly responsible for saving the lives of more than one wounded soldier under fire and in situations where no back-up was possible.’

‘That was different,’ Steven insisted. ‘Special ops... are different. ‘You’re in a bubble, you look out for each other, you’re outside society, you make and live by your own rules until the job’s done and then comes the difficult bit... you’re expected to re-join society and behave accordingly.’

‘That can’t be easy.’

‘It isn’t,’ said Steven. ‘Some guys never quite manage it.’

Tally decided to leave it at that and conceded with a small smile. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘tell me all about the COBRA meeting.’

‘I learned quite a lot.’

‘Really? Then it wasn’t just a PR exercise?’

‘Apparently there’s a new weapon against pandemics.’

Tally’s eyes opened wide. ‘Do tell.’

‘Money,’ said Steven.

Tally’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. ‘Money,’ she repeated.

‘Apparently something called the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility was set up after the last Ebola outbreak in West Africa. It has worldwide support with all the big bodies on board and has two parts, a cash element handled by the World Bank under advice from the World Health Organisation and an insurance element with capital being made available from investors.’

‘Investors?’ Tally exclaimed. ‘Are you saying that people like bankers are gambling on being able to stop a pandemic?’

‘I suppose you could put it that way. Twelve million dollars has been released to deal with the new threat in DRC but more will be made available to finance all types of expertise to contain the outbreak. Someone has calculated it will rise to over fifty million before they’re through.’

Tally shook her head. She said, ‘I’m finding it difficult to introduce money concerns into the threat of a pandemic.’

‘Me too,’ confessed Steven, ‘but they reckon that the 2014–2016 outbreak of Ebola ended up costing 11,000 lives and 3 billion dollars to bring under control because of a slow response at the outset. This time they’re going all out to nip it in the bud.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to concentrate on vaccination?’

‘That’s part of the plan, of course, but they’re being obliged to use the same experimental vaccine as last time. They’ll use ring vaccination, concentrating on immunising concentric circles of people round victims to stop the virus moving outwards.’

‘Makes sense on paper,’ said Tally. ‘Can the vaccine be used as treatment?’

Steven shook his head. ‘It has no effect on people who already have the disease.’

Tally thought for a moment before saying quietly, ‘I have such a bad feeling about this.’

Steven sighed and said, ‘It may come down to hoping for the best, but four thousand doses of vaccine are already in DRC and all kinds of health professionals are being recruited as we speak.’

Two

‘What do you think about yesterday?’ asked John Macmillan when they resumed their meeting after the interruption of the previous day’s COBRA meeting.

Steven smiled wryly and said, ‘I’ve often thought money to be at the root of everything we come across in life, but yesterday really brought it home in spades. Money versus microbes... and yet...’

‘And yet?’ Macmillan prompted.

‘Last night, when I was lying thinking about it in bed, I found myself concluding it might just work.’

‘I had a similar experience,’ said Macmillan. ‘Having lots of money and resources at your fingertips must be infinitely better than having nothing and depending on charity and selfless volunteers.’

‘Anyway,’ said Macmillan, changing the subject, ‘I was about to tell you yesterday about two eminent English medical scientists who have departed this life recently. I think Sci-Med should check it out.’

‘Did they work at the same hospital?’

‘No, different hospitals, different parts of the country... and now you are going to ask me what drew my attention to the everyday occurrence of two people dying in the UK?’

Steven agreed with a smile.

‘Both were murdered.’

Steven was taken by surprise. ‘Good God.’

‘The computer picked up on it.’

Sci-Med had computer software set up to monitor any unusual happenings in science and medicine. It had picked up on the fact that both men were senior medical scientists and leading lights in their fields.

Steven asked, ‘The same field?’

Macmillan shook his head. ‘No, one was an expert in palliative care, an advisor in pain management to hospices all over the country and a much sought-after international speaker on the subject, and the other was involved in the design of sophisticated prosthetic limb control mechanisms, working with both the UK and US veterans’ organisations.’

‘Doesn’t sound like they had too much in common,’ said Steven, ‘but I understand why the computer picked up on it. On the other hand, you said they were based in different parts of the country?’

‘One in London, the other in Leicester. One killed on Monday, the other on Wednesday.’

‘Have the police linked the killings?’

‘No, our computer did that through correlation of separate press reports that mentioned they were medical professionals.’

‘Did you pass this on to the police?’ Steven asked.

‘I did, and they gave me some details that they had withheld from the press. It turns out both men were murdered in identical fashion and were alone when they met their end. Nothing was taken from either house, despite a small fortune being available in both cases in the way of jewellery and the trappings of wealth.’

‘So, robbery wasn’t the motive,’ said Steven, ‘the killer wasn’t trying to get a safe combination out of them.’

‘No, and the police haven’t come up with anything else resembling a motive.’

‘Could be the killer was settling some kind of score with the medical profession,’ suggested Steven, ‘but that doesn’t sound right considering who and what they were.’

‘Agreed,’ said Macmillan. ‘Giving pain relief and designing artificial limbs don’t usually figure much in revenge crime against medics. Botched surgery and mistakes over drug doses are more usually in the frame.’

‘Bizarre.’

Jean has gathered some details at short notice on the two men. ‘Let me know what you think when you’ve had a chance to look at them.’

Steven left Macmillan’s office and sat down in front of Jean Roberts’ desk. ‘I hear you have some light reading for me?’

Jean smiled and looked over her glasses at him. ‘Slim pickings I’m afraid.’ She took out a file from her desk drawer and handed it over, saying, ‘The entirely uneventful lives of Dr Martin Field and Dr Simon Pashley. I felt as if I were compiling the CVs of two successful men without a stain on their characters or any suggestion of wrong-doing — not even running through a field of wheat. No suggestion of money worries, far from it, both men were wealthy. Medical consultants are usually pretty well off, but even by their standards, these two were top of the heap. Big houses in smart areas, holiday homes in sunny climes, children at universities without having to eat beans on toast every day.’

‘So, you didn’t spot any possible motive for the killings?’

‘Jealousy?’ joked Jean.

‘Me too,’ said Steven. He thanked her for the file and said that he would need to interview the widows of the murdered men, starting with the London based one. ‘Where does she live?’

‘Notting Hill.’

Steven spent the afternoon at home, reading through the notes Jean had prepared and coming to much the same conclusions. Neither man had ever put a foot wrong as far as he could see and there was no obvious connection between the two of them. They had grown up in different cities, gone to different schools, different universities and had worked in different hospitals as they rose quickly up the career pole. Likewise, there was nothing to suggest that their wives had any friendship or link. If there was anything connecting the two dead men, it must have happened after they had risen to the top of their respective fields, maybe very recently, maybe at a medical or scientific conference. He found that Jean had photocopied the most recent of the pair’s published scientific papers to give him a feeling for what they did and smiled. She thought of everything.

Steven was pleased to see that Field’s latest paper had been published in Nature, perhaps the most prestigious scientific journal in the world. This meant that firstly, the contents of the paper had been judged to be of significant importance to people working in the same field and secondly, that it would be written in such a manner as to make it accessible to scientific readers working in different fields. Lesser journals tended to exclude casual readers, often by virtue of publishing papers using technicality to obscure the fact that not very much was being said at all — another brick in the wall of career-building scientists.

It quickly became obvious to Steven that Field’s current work on pain relief given to people suffering from terminal conditions had been centred on delivering such relief remotely in order to make the patient less dependent on nursing staff for palliative care and, if reliability could be established, the aim was that patients could safely be allowed to continue their own care at home.

Hospices for the terminally ill were widely regarded as being wonderful and rightly so, but there weren’t enough of them. If Field’s work on slow-release systems of giving pain relief were to come to fruition, it would be a win-win situation. As more patients were stabilised and sent home to see out their days in comfort, more could be admitted for care.

Steven couldn’t face reading through another scientific paper so he opted instead for fresh air and a walk. When he did this, he nearly always found himself drawn to the Thames and today was no different. At three in the afternoon on a sunny day in May the Embankment wasn’t too crowded although Japanese tourists ensured it wasn’t empty either and demanded that he execute occasional slalom moves to ensure not intruding on smiley pics.

Although he’d come out for a break, he found it impossible not to continue thinking about the two dead men. It had been the Sci-Med computer that had highlighted both of them being leading medical professionals. Their deaths had not made it to the national press — perhaps because the police had not released sufficient detail. It seemed that murder without lurid detail could be dismissed as a parochial affair and yet... the tourists with their cameras had reminded him of how global we had become. The great cities of the world were all complaining about the sheer numbers of foreign travellers pouring onto their streets. People were constantly on the move. This was not a happy thought when viewed in the light of the current Ebola epidemic in DRC, but it did have a relevance when thinking about the two dead men. He wondered if any other top medical professionals had met a sorry end recently... perhaps in other countries?

Steven called Jean when he got back to his flat and asked if she would put in a request to Interpol to carry out a search. He settled down and started working his way through Simon Pashley’s latest scientific paper. Unlike Field’s paper in Nature, it was hard going although it too had appeared in a prestigious journal and therefore had been published on the recommendation of expert peer reviewers beforehand. Steven picked up that it wasn’t so much the design of prosthetic limbs that Pashley had been involved in but the control of their movement through electronics, particularly micro-electronics. After half an hour, Steven took on board that small was beautiful and left it at that.

It was after eight before Tally got home from the hospital. ‘Sorry I couldn’t phone earlier,’ she said, ‘I was called to another meeting in late afternoon and we were asked to leave phones outside.’

‘Everything all right?’ asked Steven, not sure whether he should ask in the circumstances.

‘It was a follow up from yesterday’s meeting about the Ebola outbreak,’ said Tally.

‘Please don’t tell me it’s arrived here?’

‘No, nothing like that... yet, but there are fears that we are not getting a true picture of the situation. The last outbreak caused so much damage to commerce in DRC that the belief is that people are covering up possible cases of Ebola — they’re simply not reporting them so that prospective trade customers won’t be scared off.’

‘What are they doing with them?’ Steven asked.

‘They’re being nursed at home by the families who keep them hidden.’

‘Until they all go down with it,’ Steven murmured.

‘Exactly, the authorities know what’s going on, but they have an interest in keeping everything low profile too. They introduce curfews and legislation to stop the movement of people, but this is largely for the benefit of outside observers: they know they can’t enforce them. River traffic is banned at night, but with six hundred kilometres of Congo River between Mbandaka and Kinshasa and countless tributaries joining it, there is no possibility of patrolling it.’

‘Could get messy,’ Steven sighed.

‘There’s more,’ said Tally. ‘It’s now believed that the latest outbreak possibly started as far back as December 2017 and wasn’t reported until it reached Mbandaka and the DRC Ministry of Health finally reported it to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on May 8th this year.’

‘So, things could be even worse than we’ve been led to believe?’

‘Published numbers cannot be relied on.’

‘Sounds like the big money initiative has got off to a very big test.’

‘WHO are still hopeful about being able to contain it. They’re pointing out that people learned a lot from the previous outbreaks. They’ve been educated about safe burials and burning any clothes and bed linen used by victims. They understand the importance of washing and using disinfectants and fears of vaccination are not as widespread as they used to be. Every effort is being made to help them understand what ring vaccination is all about — at first, they couldn’t understand why sick people were being ignored while healthy people a kilometre away got injections. A lot of circles have been drawn in a lot of sand to demonstrate why the virus can’t spread once it’s been surrounded by immune vaccinated people.’

Steven’s lapse into silence prompted Tally to enquire about his day.

Steven told her about the two murders and how he was struggling to see a connection between the dead men.

‘Did you say one of them was named Pashley?’ Tally asked.

‘Simon Pashley.’

‘From Leicester?’

‘Of course,’ Steven exclaimed. ‘I’d forgotten about you working in Leicester when we first met, did you know him?’

‘He was quite an orthopaedic star,’ said Tally. ‘I didn’t know him personally but what I do remember is that he had a Rolls Royce — just like consultants did in the old movies.’

‘Ooh — err, Matron,’ said Steven, making a bad allusion to Carry On films.

‘That sort of thing. But, seriously, he was regarded as a bit of a genius in his field.’

‘Prosthetic design,’ said Steven.

‘I think it was more the control of such devices, but I may be wrong.’

‘No, you’re quite right,’ Steven assured her. ‘I’ve just spent an afternoon wading through one of his papers.’

‘Heavy going?’

‘Certainly was, but my electronic expertise begins and ends with the TV remote.’

‘How about the other man? I take it he didn’t work in the same field if you can’t see a connection?’

‘Pain relief,’ said Steven, ‘a leading expert in palliative care.’

‘Why would anyone want to kill these people?’ exclaimed Tally. ‘Are you sure there’s a connection, not just an awful coincidence?’

‘Both were murdered in exactly the same manner’

‘Which was?’

‘They were exsanguinated.’

‘They had the blood drained out of them?’ Tally exclaimed with a horrified look on her face.

‘And not by having their throats cut,’ said Steven, ‘that would have been too quick. The killers accessed and opened up their femoral arteries so their victims could watch their lives drain away.’

‘Oh my God,’ Tally exclaimed, obviously feeling quite queasy.

‘Nothing has come in yet,’ Jean replied when Steven arrived at the Home Office next morning and asked about a response from Interpol and beyond. ‘But I have arranged a meeting for you with Mrs Field, Dr Field’s widow.’

‘Well done,’ said Steven, ‘that couldn’t have been easy, it’s a bit soon...’

‘Takes a woman,’ said Jean.

‘And a special one at that.’

‘I simply assured her that we were as keen to see her husband’s killer brought to justice as she was,’ said Jean, slightly embarrassed but not displeased.

‘How did she sound?’ Steven asked. ‘Fragile?’

‘I wouldn’t say that. She seemed calm and self-assured, like a woman brought up not to display emotion in public, if you know what I mean?’

‘I do,’ said Steven.

Next morning, Steven turned up at a substantial house in Notting Hill at the appointed hour of eleven’.

‘Hello, I’m Martha Field,’ said the smiling woman who opened the door.

Steven shook hands with an elegant woman of around forty years old and was invited to follow her through to the conservatory. ‘Such a beautiful morning,’ she said. ‘So nice to see the sun after the winter we’ve had.’

Steven agreed.

‘I’ve just made some coffee. Would you like some?’

Steven smiled and nodded. ‘Black, no sugar please.’ He ended the polite ritual by taking a sip and saying, ‘I hate to trouble you at a time like this, Mrs Field, and I’m sure I’m going to ask you things the police already have, but, when there is no obvious reason why anyone would want to kill your husband, we’re all struggling.’

‘I understand, Dr Dunbar.’

‘I’m taking it for granted you’ve no idea who’d want to kill your husband, he didn’t have any enemies, he wasn’t a secret gambler and had no money worries?’

‘About sums it up.’

‘Are you rich, Mrs Field?’

Martha Field recoiled a little from the directness of the question before saying, ‘We’re... I suppose you could say we were fairly well-off.’

‘No, I mean rich.’

‘I’m not sure what you mean exactly, Dr Dunbar.’

‘Bank accounts into seven figures...’

‘Martin dealt with our finances. I honestly couldn’t say.’ Martha Field’s smile muscles were excused further duty. ‘Is this really relevant to my husband’s death?’

‘What kind of car did your husband drive, Mrs Field?’

‘Really, this is getting ridiculous...’

Steven waited silently for a reply.

Martha Field softened her expression and managed a slight smile. ‘Actually, Martin’s one failing was for cars, for some reason. Don’t ask me why... men and their cars I suppose.’ She threw her hands in the air and said apologetically, ‘He drove a Maserati.’

‘Nice car,’ said Steven. ‘Better than a Ferrari in my book.’

‘I’ll never understand men and cars.’

‘I’ll never understand women and shoes,’ countered Steven with a smile. ‘You have a lovely home here, Mrs Field, is this your only one?’

The coolness returned like morning frost. ‘No, we have a place in the Dordogne, Dr Dunbar. My husband was a very successful man, but he also helped thousands of terminally ill people in coming to a much better end than they might otherwise have done.’

‘I’m sure you’re right, Mrs Field and I’m sure their families are very grateful.’

‘They are, Dr Dunbar, ‘now if you’ll excuse me...’

Steven paused for a moment before accepting his dismissal with a slight smile. He went back to the Home Office.

‘How did it go?’ asked Jean Roberts.

‘Asking the English about money is never a very good idea,’ Steven replied.

‘Then why did you?’

‘I was struggling to think of any line the police wouldn’t have pursued with her, then I remembered something Tally told me about the other murdered man — she knew him vaguely when she worked in Leicester. She told me he drove a white Rolls Royce.’

‘Wow.’

‘Martin Field drove a Maserati.’

‘Wow again.’

‘Big house in Notting Hill, holiday home in the Dordogne, drives a Maserati... The other guy drives a white Rolls Royce... I know the pair of them were medical consultants at the top of their game, but something about it doesn’t feel quite right...’

After a few moments, Jean said, ‘You know, I think I see what’s wrong.’

Steven raised his eyebrows.

‘It’s their specialties, palliative care and prosthetic limb control... you’re not exactly going to have private patients banging on your door. You won’t need a place in Harley Street to pander to the rich and famous, will you?’

‘You are a star,’ said Steven. ‘The two of them are famous in medical and scientific circles but it would be fame without fortune. Neither was a surgeon charging ten grand a pop for new hips or knees or shed loads of cash for plastic alterations to your looks. The connection between the murdered two — if there is one — is the fact that they became rich for another reason.’

‘I think we can wear our pants outside our trousers from now on,’ said Jean.

‘I’d really rather you didn’t,’ said John Macmillan coming out of his office: he had heard what was going on. ‘Bit showy for Sci-Med, don’t you think?’

‘Maybe you’re right, sir,’ said Steven sharing a secret smile with Jean.

‘Actually, there’s some more news, Sir John,’ said Jean. ‘I hadn’t got around to telling Steven, Interpol has come up with a third murder.

The two men looked at each other but didn’t have time to say anything before Jean continued.

‘And possibly a fourth.’

Three

‘There have been two murders, one in Paris and one in Geneva, almost identical to our two, but neither were doctors or scientists. Phillipe Lagarde worked for the World Health Organisation in Geneva, he was a high-level strategist charged with making the logistical decisions in accordance with WHO’s global strategy for wiping out infectious disease. The other man was an investment banker; based in Paris. No further details as yet.’

‘Any obvious connection between the two?’ Steven asked.

‘None at all,’ said Jean. ‘The French and Swiss police have had as little luck as we have in establishing a link between victims.’

‘So, where does that leave us?’ asked Macmillan. ‘We have four murder victims in three countries with little or no connection to each other apart from the distinctive method of their demise. Sci-Med’s interest lies in the fact that two were senior UK medical specialists enjoying perhaps a questionable degree of wealth. In view of what Jean has come up with about two further murders, is this enough to sustain Sci-Med involvement?’

‘I think the fact that one of them is some kind of decision maker in the World Health Organisation maintains the medical thread,’ said Steven.

‘And the investment banker?’ Macmillan asked.

‘The drummer,’ said Steven.

In response to blank looks, he invoked his love of jazz. ‘There are those who claim a jazz quartet comprises three musicians and a drummer.’

Jean said, ‘Maybe the drummer being an investment banker is connected to the wealth of the two English victims.’

Macmillan said, ‘I think we have talked ourselves into continuing our interest for the moment. Any ideas?’

‘We should try to find out just how well-off Field and Pashley were,’ said Steven. ‘That might tell us whether they’ve been involved in something dodgy or whether we are reading too much into a couple of holiday homes and two fancy cars.’

‘Good idea,’ said Macmillan.

‘No problem getting the info from UK banks,’ said Jean, ‘but, if we’re talking Swiss bank accounts and off-shore shenanigans, it might get a bit trickier.’

‘The government has been making inroads into obtaining information about secret Swiss accounts,’ said Macmillan. ‘It’s not as easy as it used to be to squirrel away cash in Zurich. If we link our request to an ongoing murder and high-level crime investigation there’s a chance, we can make it difficult for the gnomes to refuse.’

‘Sounds promising,’ said Steven.

‘But it won’t tell us what the dead four have been up to.’

‘No,’ agreed Steven, ‘It will however, give us a sense of perspective, tell us if they’ve been stealing sweeties or planning to topple governments.’

Jean asked Steven if he still wanted her to set up a meeting with Simon Pashley’s widow.

‘Not right now,’ he replied. ‘Let’s wait until we have more info about how much money has been floating around. If it’s significant, we can tackle both widows over what they knew about it.’

Steven told Tally about the latest two victims.

‘Don’t you think this is a matter for the police?’

‘We spoke about that,’ said Steven, ‘but with two senior UK medics and a WHO official involved, John thinks that’s enough to maintain Sci-Med’s interest for the moment.’

‘Mm,’ said Tally doubtfully. ‘All I see is torture, murder and the involvement of an investment banker, not exactly a cocktail for peace of mind.’

Steven told Tally about the plan to find out more about the sums of money involved.

‘If it warrants murder, I can’t see it turning out to be a few quid in backhanders from a pharma company, can you?’

‘No,’ Steven agreed, ‘I can’t.’

‘So, when you find out it’s big bucks, what then?’

‘If we think there are any scientific or medical concerns, we try to find out who paid them and why they did it.’

‘Just like that.’

Steven sensed he was on a collision course with Tally and didn’t like the feeling. It wasn’t the first time the dangers of his job had become a factor in their relationship.

‘Steven, if people out there are prepared to torture and murder in the most horrible way, how do you think they’re going to feel about you poking your nose in?’

‘What’s that saying about evil triumphing if good folks do nothing?’ Steven snapped.

‘Why do you always have to be the good folk?’

‘Because it’s my job and I’m good at it. I am not some amateur poking my nose in, as you would have it.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, I just can’t bear to see you put yourself in harm’s way when we have a large police force...’

‘Other good folk,’ said Steven.

Tally conceded the point with a slight smile.

‘Tally, Sci-Med only exists because the police don’t always have the necessary expertise to understand what’s going on in science and medicine. We’re there to provide that expertise, not to engage in heroics. Once we see what’s going on, we will be only too happy to hand things over to the police... promise.’

Tally nodded, but said, ‘It doesn’t always work out that way, does it?’

It was Steven’s turn to concede the point.

‘It’s only because I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

A hug ended the discussion.

Steven asked Tally about her day.

‘Busy, but well organised and with everything I needed to hand.’

Steven smiled. Tally had never quite got over the difference she’d found in moving from an NHS hospital in Leicester to a well-funded, world famous hospital like Great Ormond Street in London where the great and good were always keen to associate themselves with it.

‘You know, there’s one thing that keeps troubling me,’ said Tally. ‘I’ve been getting daily updates on the Ebola situation in DRC–I suppose it’s because I was the hospital rep at the initial meeting.’

‘And?’

‘I don’t understand why the subject has disappeared from public consciousness. The press isn’t bothering to cover it and things are not going well.’

‘Yesterday’s news,’ Steven suggested.

‘But it shouldn’t be,’ Tally retorted, ‘A disease like that could wipe us all out and we seem to be burying our heads in the sand or arguing about trade tariffs and Irish borders.’

‘You don’t think they’re getting on top of things with all the money that’s been flooding in to finance volunteers and equipment?’

‘I think it’s proving hard to vaccinate in clever circles made on maps when it takes all day to travel twenty kilometres because there are no roads. Successful vaccination is largely dependent on getting to contacts as quickly as possible and that needs planning and management. Apart from that, the volunteers are running up against witch doctors who tell people that vaccines are a western plot to poison them and give them herbs instead, and then there are those who claim to be able to cure Ebola by prayer alone.’

‘I was about to say it’s another world,’ Steven confessed, ‘but it’s not.’

No, it’s not,’ agreed Tally. ‘I just wish the authorities would wake up to that before it’s too late.’

Tally withdrew a thick file from her briefcase and answered Steven’s inquiring gaze with, ‘I have to get up to speed with DRC if I’m to keep getting these updates. They keep saying they’d welcome comments and I can’t comment unless I know what I’m talking about.’

‘The government seems to manage,’ said Steven, narrowly avoiding a swipe with the file. ‘I take it we’re not going out for a drink then?’

‘No, we’re not.’

‘Okay, I’ll go for a run instead.’

Steven liked to keep fit, but didn’t like gyms, preferring instead to run through streets and parkland. The length of the run would vary with how much he had on his mind. The idea was that he would run at an undemanding pace until he felt better about the things that were troubling him and then increase his pace so that the last fifteen minutes would leave him drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. He would finish off with a variable number of press-ups — variable because he did them until he no longer could and collapsed to lie with his cheek on the ground. This always made him remember his training with Special Forces when a drill sergeant would look down at his exhausted body in the Welsh mountains and suggest, ‘Let’s do that all over again... shall we?’

Giving up was not an option. You didn’t give up. Your body did... but you didn’t.

‘Yugh,’ Tally exclaimed when Steven came through the door, ‘don’t come anywhere near me like that... and don’t drip on the floor.’

‘Yes dear,’ Steven replied meekly, but the joke appeared lost on Tally who had gone back to concentrating on her papers. ‘That it has come to this...’ Steven continued the joke sadly as he headed for the shower.

He was half way through a second chorus of April Love when he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and whirled round to find Tally standing there naked. She took the sponge from his hand and put her finger to her lips to suggest he didn’t speak.

‘It hasn’t quite come to that, Dunbar...’

Two Weeks Later

Steven found Jean Roberts gazing out of the window when he arrived on Tuesday morning. She didn’t turn around when he closed the door, so he asked, ‘Everything all right?’

Still without turning, she said, ‘You know that feeling you get when you feel a storm is coming and you’re just waiting for first giant raindrops to fall before all hell is let loose...’

‘Yes...’

‘I have it. There’s something going on and I’m not party to it: it’s making me uneasy.’

‘Get it off your chest.’

‘People have stopped answering my enquiries. The banks are usually very helpful when it comes to giving account information — they know we’ll have a good reason for asking, but not this time. The Fraud Squad hasn’t responded to my request for help in accessing Swiss bank information and Interpol haven’t got back to me with any more information about the dead banker. They said they would and also put out a wider net for any more reported murders like the ones we’ve seen. I keep thinking the information has been coming in, but someone or something is stopping me seeing it.’

‘John will hit the roof if that’s the case,’ said Steven. ‘You know what he’s like when it comes to preserving our independence. You interfere with that at your peril, even if you’re the Prime Minister.’

‘I could be imagining it...’

‘I doubt it,’ said Steven, ‘Your gut feelings have always been right in the past. If you think something’s not right... it isn’t.’

John Macmillan arrived in the office, obviously in a bad mood. ‘Five o’clock in the morning,’ he fumed. ‘Would you believe it? Five o’clock in the bloody morning and the Home Secretary calls me to apologise for not calling me yesterday, says he owes me an explanation but it can wait until after the meeting.’

Steven and Jean exchanged glances. ‘The meeting?’ Steven enquired politely.

‘Sorry, yes, we’re having a meeting at Albert Embankment at eleven. MI6 are hosting, but MI5, Special Branch and the Met will also be present. Apparently, Jean has opened Pandora’s box.’

‘Really?’ exclaimed Jean.

‘She has been asking perfectly legitimate questions,’ Steven interjected. ‘Does this mean we’ve intruded on someone else’s pet investigation?’

‘Far from it,’ said Macmillan. ‘From what I hear, no one has the faintest idea what’s going on.’

The Home Secretary opened proceedings by apologising for his lack of familiarity with what he called, ‘the usual channels’ — he had only been in the job for a couple of months — and offered this as his reason for ‘a lack of correlation’ in departmental interests.

‘I shall do my best to summarise what I’ve been told and hope that we will all be able to see a bigger picture... should there be one.’

The Home Secretary turned to Macmillan. ‘Sir John, your people have been investigating the deaths of two senior medical scientists who were found dead after being subjected to a particularly horrible death. A request to Interpol led to the highlighting of two further murders involving the same MO, a Swiss strategist working with the World Health Organisation in Geneva and a French investment banker based in Paris. More recently, one of your people asked the Metropolitan Police for help in securing details about the two English victims’ financial status. Might I ask why?’

Macmillan nodded to Jean who answered, ‘I made the request, Home Secretary, preliminary enquiries suggested that both men enjoyed a lifestyle which we suspected might be well beyond their apparent means.’

‘But both were very successful medical professionals,’ countered the Home Secretary.

‘In specialties that would not allow them much if anything in the way of private practice,’ Steven pointed out.

‘Ah, where the real money is,’ said the Home Secretary. ‘Understood, and what have you learned?’

‘We haven’t heard back from the Met, sir.’

‘Chief Superintendent?’ said the Home Secretary, raising his eyebrows and turning to a silver haired woman wearing police uniform.

‘We were in an unusual situation, Home Secretary. We received much the same request from more than one party. At that point I decided not to respond to anyone until you were brought into the loop.’

‘Who or what were these other parties, chief superintendent?’

‘MI5 and MI6, sir.’

‘Both of them!’ exclaimed the Home Secretary. ‘Who’d like to go first?’

A man Steven knew to be a senior MI5 Intelligence officer smiled and said, ‘We have been watching a man named Jeremy Lang for some time, sir. He operates as a high-end London estate agent dealing in expensive properties, but we believe his main focus has been in money-laundering for Russian would-be London residents. Unfortunately, he passed away recently — from natural causes as far as we know — but we managed to get our hands on his books, so to speak. Among the Russian names, were two English ones, Martin Field and Simon Pashley. We wanted to know why and made a request similar to Sci-Med’s to the Met for bank account information.’

‘That leaves you, C, what was your interest?’

The head of MI6 cleared his throat and said, ‘We were aware of the murders of Field and Pashley, and of Sci-Med’s request to Interpol for details of any matching crime, which unearthed two more victims, the French investment banker and the WHO strategist. We extended the search even further and found one more, Dr Samuel Petrov, who was killed in the same manner. At the time of his death, he was working at the University of the Negev in Beer Sheva in Israel but had moved there from his previous employment in the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia in the USA. He was Jewish, and as such, had been eligible for Israeli citizenship, which had been granted, but it did look to us a bit of an odd move. People leaving places like CDC tend to attract the attention of intelligence services. We were able to share information with our US colleagues regarding similarities to the European deaths; they were able to tell us about Petrov having come into a great deal of money, secreted away in foreign accounts with no obvious source. Looking for links, we too asked the Met about the financial standing of the two Englishmen.’

The Home secretary shook his head and said, ‘Certainly complicated. Well, Chief Superintendent, put us out our misery.’

‘I can confirm, sir, that the two Englishmen had also received large sums of money over the past two years. Both had Swiss bank accounts and... off-shore interests. None of it was ever reported to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, so I think we can assume that the money came from Russian ex pats using Jeremy Lang’s laundering expertise along the way.’

‘Although not in acquiring London property,’ said Steven.

‘Not in property,’ agreed the chief superintendent.

‘How big were these sums of money?’

‘We think in the region of ten million US dollars... each.’

There were gasps in the room. ‘Not stealing sweeties, then,’ muttered Steven.

‘This tends to put everything in a new light,’ said Macmillan. ‘We are dealing with something much bigger than we imagined. Unfortunately, that is about all we know. We don’t know what these people were being paid to do: we don’t know why they were murdered and we don’t know by whom... or am I wrong?’

Macmillan looked at the head of MI6 directly.

‘Well, C,’ said the Home Secretary.

‘We do know a little more, sir, at least we think we do. We think that the killings were not just sadistic, they had elements of ritualised execution to them.’

Steven asked, ‘What made you think that?’

The MI6 chief exchanged a quick glance with the Home Secretary who nodded, adding, ‘We have no secrets from Sci-Med.’

Steven noted that Macmillan’s expression remained Sphynx-like.

‘The torture comprised removing small segments of flesh from each victim until access to the femoral artery was achieved. The artery was then opened and the victim allowed to bleed to death. We think this all may have been an allusion to an ancient execution method known as, death by a thousand cuts.’

‘Does that help in knowing who they are?’ Steven asked.

The head of MI6 took a deep breath and said, ‘Only in as far as saying, we believe the perpetrators of these crimes were Chinese.’

There was a long silence which made Steven remember a line from WH Auden, Stop all the clocks. It was broken by the Home Secretary asking quietly, ‘When you suggest the murderers were Chinese, are you saying that they were Chinese... or the Chinese?’

‘Impossible to say at this stage, Home Secretary, but we can’t rule out official involvement. As Sir John has pointed out, we seem to be dealing with something bigger than any of us imagined.’

Four

‘Did you see the look on the Home Secretary’s face when C couldn’t rule out the possibility that the Chinese establishment might be involved?’ Jean asked Steven when they returned to the office. John Macmillan had stayed behind to have a private conversation with the Home Secretary.

‘That’s all he needed to hear after us falling out with the Russians over the use of a nerve agent on our streets,’ said Steven. ‘We mustn’t openly accuse the Chinese of anything without having absolute proof of who did what and why or people are going to wonder what the hell’s going on in our country.’

‘How do you think the PM will play it?’

‘I just hope she keeps quiet for the time being,’ said Steven. ‘And, please God the Foreign Secretary follows suit. We need to know more, much more. Right now, we have more questions than answers.’

‘Dare I ask who you think is going to be tasked with continuing the investigation?’ Jean asked.

‘That’s the kind of question which could keep me awake all night,’ Steven confessed.

‘I take it you don’t think this is something that will be decided this afternoon?’

‘Steven shook his head. ‘The PM and cabinet will have to be informed. Special advisors will be called in.’

‘Could be self-defeating,’ said Jean. ‘The more people involved the greater chance of a leak.’

‘If that happens, the Daily Mail will decide what needs to be done.’

‘And with that happy thought...’

The new message indicator on Jean’s computer beeped and she brought it up on her screen. ‘Interpol,’ she said. ‘The dead investment banker was one, Marcel Giroud. He worked for one of the big French banks until a year ago when he decided to go it alone and set up as an independent financial advisor.’

‘After receiving the promise of some upcoming very large commissions...’ suggested Steven. ‘People like Field and Pashley would need expert financial help when it came to being paid and hiding huge sums of money.’

‘And neither would be likely to know any investment bankers let alone dodgy ones.’

‘Also true,’ said Steven. ‘A middle man would be required. Enter Jeremy Lang. the man Russian expats in London approach to move money around and the man with Field and Pashley’s names in his book.’

‘Lang does property deals,’ said Jean. ‘Maybe he sub-contracted to a pal who did under the counter investments...’

‘A man like Marcel Giroud...’

‘I think we’re beginning to see a chain,’ said Jean.

Steven’s phone rang. He listened and replied with a simple, “Understood”

He turned back to Jean, ‘It was John, discussions are ongoing. He’ll be going home straight afterwards.’

‘That sounds like Sci-Med’s involvement might be over,’ said Jean.

‘Let’s not count our chickens.’

Steven’s phone delivered a message from Tally on his way home. She’d be late home, she was going to another meeting about the situation in DRC.

The sun came out from behind the clouds it had hidden behind all morning and encouraged Steven to find a seat on the Embankment and enjoy the feeling of warmth on his face. He wasn’t quite sure what to think about the murders, or indeed how much effort he should be putting into thinking about them now that there were so many players involved. The Met would concentrate on the crime of murder, Special Branch would be interested in the huge sums of money paid to the two English victims, MI5 would focus on foreign agents operating in the UK — as would MI6, although their interests would have an international dimension, adding French, Swiss and Israeli victims to the overall scenario and trying to figure out what exactly had made the Chinese so angry. Against this backdrop, the fact that two of the victims had been senior medical scientists seemed to pale into irrelevance. Perhaps Jean had been right, Sci-Med’s involvement might be coming to an end before it had really started.

It was after 9 pm before Tally arrived home and flopped down into a chair, kicking off her shoes and sighing as she looked up at the ceiling.

‘Would a drink help?’ Steven asked, amused at her display of exhaustion.

‘A large one.’

Steven returned with a large gin and tonic for Tally and a beer for himself. He tried interpreting the range of emotions flitting across Tally’s face but failed. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

‘I’m just so angry and frustrated,’ she replied. ‘People who should know better are really not taking the DRC outbreak seriously. Officially, less than fifty people have died, but the real figure has got to be much higher. It’s being distorted for a whole variety of reasons; they’re thinking more about trade and profits than... staying alive.’

‘But surely the money and resources being poured in has achieved something?’

‘Yes, but that can only work if it has the support of the population and competent management.’

‘Are you saying it hasn’t?’ Steven asked.

‘It hasn’t been required before on this scale. It requires a culture shift,’ said Tally. ‘The DRC people are naturally touchy-feely — they’re used to hugging and shaking hands all the time so when they’re told to stop, they resist, particularly when this extends to comforting the bereaved and saying goodbye to the dead. Health workers know they have to get rid of dead as quickly and cleanly as possible and, to that end, they have trained burial squads to dispose of the dead, but this has led to families stealing bodies back for ‘proper’ respectful funerals and so spreading infection.’

‘Sounds awful,’ said Steven.

‘Happily.... and that’s not a word I use often these days... the initiative is having more success in towns than in country areas because radio and television are available to spread the word and give advice. Children attending school are taught about safe personal hygiene and how Ebola can be defeated through vaccination, but rural populations can be a real problem. Witch doctors persuade people to have nothing to do with Western medicine, assuring them that the old ways are best and Ebola is an evil invention of white people who want to steal their country’s resources. If sickness breaks out in their villages, attempts are often made to hide it so that evil white people stay away.’

Steven thought for a moment before saying, ‘You know, I can understand that behaviour if this was the first outbreak of Ebola that DRC has suffered, but it isn’t, is it?’

‘It’s the ninth,’ Tally declared.

‘The ninth!’ Steven exclaimed, ‘I didn’t realise there had been that many. With all that previous experience, you’d think that they would be much better prepared to deal with things?’

‘You have a point,’ Tally agreed. ‘But you also have to remember that there was no vaccine available in the past. It wasn’t until the 2014 — 16 outbreak that a vaccine appeared.’

‘When white folks were threatened,’ Steven suggested.

‘Not so much white as rich,’ said Tally. ‘But that’s always been the way. Pharmaceutical companies have no interest in producing vaccines for countries that can’t pay for them, people shouldn’t pretend otherwise. Like any other business, profit is what they’re about.’

‘Presumably someone paid them this time if vaccination is available?’ said Steven.

‘I just hope the World Bank will have come to some agreement under the terms of the new Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility.’

‘Are the countries surrounding the DRC getting the same attention?’ Steven asked.

‘They’re hoping the virus won’t reach them.’

‘It crossed borders last time,’ said Steven. ‘I remember Simone being in the thick of it in Sierra Leone’

‘Yes,’ agreed Tally. ‘Sierra Leone was badly affected, thousands died.’

‘You’re becoming an Ebola expert,’ said Steven.

‘It’s like watching a horror movie, you want to look away, but you just can’t.’

‘Do you have any clearer view about the possibility of it coming here?’

‘That would be the scariest movie of all, if it did,’ said Tally. ‘We have to do everything we can to stop that happening. We really do.’

‘Not too well prepared after all then?’

The look on Tally’s face served as her reply. Steven was left in no doubt as to the strength of her conviction.

‘How was your day?’ she asked.

‘Our UK murder investigation developed into a multi-million-dollar international affair possibly involving world powers.’

‘Tell me you’re joking.’

‘Nope.’

Tally had developed the habit of going over to the window last thing at night to look up at the sky and give her prediction about the weather for the following day.

‘Well, what’s it going to be?’ Steven asked.

Tally paused as something else caught her attention. ‘They’ve not made you a government minister by any chance, have they?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘There’s a black ministerial Jag parked across the road.’

Steven got up to join her but had to pause when his phone rang. Glancing at the screen, he said, ‘It’s John.’

Tally made a face and looked at the clock. It was nearly midnight.

‘A car has been sent for you,’ said Macmillan. ‘We need you here.’

‘Who’s “we” and where’s “here”?’ Steven asked, channelling Tally’s obvious displeasure.

‘Downing Street,’ snapped Macmillan, answering both questions and ending the conversation.

‘Wow,’ said Tally. ‘Is there something you’ve not been telling me?’

‘That’s going to be my first question,’ said Steven, putting on his shoes and giving Tally a farewell peck on the cheek.

The door to number ten opened as he neared and Steven found John Macmillan waiting there.

‘Sorry about the drama,’ said Macmillan. ‘Ready?’

‘Sure,’ Steven replied — not entirely sure what he was supposed to be ready for. Macmillan led the way to where the PM was waiting.

‘We have a problem, Dr Dunbar,’ said the PM. ‘And we think it might well be a big one.’

Steven waited to be told more, but the ensuing silence compelled him to ask.

‘That is our problem, doctor,’ replied the PM, ‘we don’t know what it is, but we do know it’s there.’

‘A bit like dark matter, Prime Minister,’ said Steven, attracting a black look from Macmillan.

The PM chose to ignore the comment and continued, ‘Millions of dollars are changing hands, Russian expats here in London are most likely involved, torture and murder are being committed, not only here in the UK, but across the globe, and there’s a possibility that the Chinese are up to their necks in it.’ The PM stopped referring to her notes and looked Steven directly in the eye. ‘Any ideas?’

Steven employed a respectful pause before saying, ‘I’m afraid not, Prime minister... I rather thought that the presence of the police, MI5 and MI6 at our earlier meeting suggested that you and the government had it well-covered.’

‘These people all have a role to play, doctor, and they are all very good at what they do... in fact, they may even find out quickly what these dreadful people are up to, but I have to consider the possibility that they may not and the longer we are exposed to not knowing, the more danger we may be in.’

‘Yes, Prime Mister.’

‘I want you involved in finding out what all this is about.’

Steven suddenly felt very lonely and didn’t quite know what to say.

John Macmillan helped him out. ‘I think the Prime Minister is very aware of why Sci-Med was set up in the first place, Steven,’ he said. ‘These other bodies have great expertise, but it may be the wrong kind in this instance when considering that two of the dead people were major figures in medical science.’

‘I see,’ said Steven.

‘Sir John tells me you are the best there is when it comes to understanding what clever scientific people might get up to when they go off the rails and I know that to be a fact. We have had cause to be very grateful to you in the past. What I would like this time is for you to investigate this business independently in your own way without any reference to chain of command. The only person you will report back to, outside of Sci-Med... is me.’

Steven immediately saw problems, but the PM read his mind. ‘You will, of course, have access to the findings of the other bodies involved, which I will share with Sir John, but you will not be obliged to share anything with them that you don’t want to.

‘I see.’

‘Sir John has told me about the code-red status system Sci-Med uses and I personally will see to it that it be supplemented in any way you think necessary... provided of course, you agree to take this on.’

The Sci-Med code-red sounded more dramatic than it actually was. When a preliminary inquiry was upgraded to full investigation status, the investigator was given code-red status. This implied that he or she would receive special support — financial through being given no-limit credit cards, having the right to ask for local police support and getting it without question on showing a Sci-Med ID card, having access to a special telephone line manned 24/7 for the supply of advice, equipment and help, and, if deemed necessary, the right to bear arms.

‘Well?’ asked the PM. ‘Will you help us find out what this is all about?’

‘Of course, Prime Minister.’

Steven took off his shoes and tiptoed through the flat, trying not to wake Tally whom he knew had an early start. He poured himself a whisky and sat down to ponder what he had let himself in for.

‘Well, what did they want?’ asked Tally behind him.

Steven started to apologise for having woken her but Tally stopped him. ‘No, I couldn’t sleep for worrying about what they were going to ask you to do.’

Steven told her.

‘A separate investigation?’ Tally exclaimed. ‘When they already have the police and both UK intelligence services lined up?’

‘That was my first thought too,’ Steven agreed, ‘but the PM reminded John why he had been given permission to set up Sci-Med in the first place — to supply the expertise the others don’t have.’

‘Clever,’ said Tally.

‘She also took pains to point out that the huge sums of money being handed out suggests that something really big is involved and it might be very much in the UK’s interest to find out what that is.’

Tally rubbed her forehead and said, ‘So, your contribution is to be... intellectual rather than practical? The police and the spooks will hunt down the villains and you’ll tell the PM what it’s all about?’

‘More or less.’

‘Have you actually any idea what they have been up to?’

‘No.’

‘Not exactly a flying start then.’

‘I can only do my best,’ said Steven.

‘Why am I thinking of Rodin’s, The Thinker, laughed Tally, resting her chin on her fist.

‘Go back to bed.’

Tally had already left for the hospital when Steven woke and lay for a few moments wondering if the events of the previous evening had been real or some kind of strange dream. His conclusion that it had been real left him with neutral feelings and he knew he wouldn’t feel any better until he had formulated some plan of action. He took a leisurely shower and smiled when he remembered what Tally had said about the Rodin sculpture. He did have a lot of thinking to do, but first, he would go in to the Home Office and see if John had any thoughts about the Downing Street meeting or any other input to offer, then he would ask Jean to seek out more details about the murdered men, particularly Samuel Petrov, the late-comer to the scene.

‘John isn’t in yet,’ said Jean. When Steven arrived at eleven. ‘I hear you boys had a late night.’

‘How did you know?’

‘John left quite a long message for me on the machine, I understand you’re going code-red, but not on the murders?’

‘That’s right. I’m to work alone on the reasons behind the murder and mayhem.’

‘I took the liberty of setting some things up for you,’ said Jean, handing Steven his code-red ID and credit cards and asking if he wanted to book time to see the armourer. Steven said not but asked her to dig out as much information as possible on the victims.

‘I’ve already made a start on that,’ said Jean. ‘More will be forthcoming.’ She handed over a slim plastic file holder.’

Steven thanked her and asked, ‘Anything on Petrov in here?’

‘Russian by birth, the son of a wealthy father who made a fortune out of mining after the end of the USSR era. Unlike his father, junior wasn’t business minded and chose to follow an academic path. He studied microbiology in Moscow and then obtained a higher degree from Edinburgh University who had a special scheme for supporting Russian students interested in pursuing research in molecular biology. His particular interest was in vaccine design and he went on to serve out a couple of post-doctoral fellowships, one at the Institut Pasteur in Paris and the second at Lund University in Sweden before moving to CDC Atlanta in the USA. He seemed to have settled there before surprising everyone by announcing a move to Israel and applying for Israeli citizenship — he was Jewish and Israel has a policy of giving citizenship to anyone who is Jewish. He approached the University of the Negev and asked if they might give him lab space to continue his work on vaccines and they agreed — an easy decision as the World Health Organisation had agreed to provide him with financial support.’

‘Good,’ said Steven, something which got an enquiring glance from Jean.

‘I wasn’t entirely convinced that Sci-Med should be involved in this affair,’ said Steven, ‘but Petrov being a scientist with a WHO connection makes it four out of the five victims having something in common however tenuous.’

‘My grandmother always used to say, Begin a jigsaw at the corners and the rest will fall into place.’

‘Wise words,’ said Steven with a smile.

Five

Steven sat down at the table at home and spread out the information Jean had provided for him. He rearranged it in small, neat piles in a row, one for each of the murder victims, sub-divided further into personal and professional details. He already knew that there was no obvious or likely personal connection between the five so he wanted to see if he could forge any kind of professional one, something that might suggest why five people who had never met or communicated directly might be working towards the same goal.

He had the latest publications from the two Englishmen but nothing for Petrov as yet, apart from the fact that he was a microbiologist who had decided to opt out of the academic rat race and apply to become an Israeli citizen working at a small university in the middle of the Negev desert. The estate agent, Lang, whom everyone seemed to know was laundering money for Russian expats by helping them convert dodgy roubles into desirable London properties was less of a problem. The appearance of the dead Englishmen’s names on his books suggested strongly that Russian expat money had been used to pay them and he had been tasked with cleaning it up. Although no clear link had as yet been established between Lang and the dead French investment banker, Marcel Giroud, Steven felt confident it might still appear. He got up to make coffee.

He thought it reasonable to dismiss Lang and Giroud as just two money-men and to exclude them from consideration for major roles in whatever was going on. He downed the espresso and approached the slim file on the World Health man, Phillipe Lagarde. Steven wasn’t sure what his job description as ‘vaccine strategist co-ordinator’ meant, but, as he read, it became clear that he had played an important role in the WHO’s ambition to wipe out infectious disease from the planet. They had already succeeded in eliminating the scourge of Smallpox and were coming close to wiping out Polio if they could clear the final difficult areas where it was still clinging on — the Afghan/Pakistan border country being the most challenging and where Lagarde had been working in the months leading up to his death. He had been engaged in the geographical mapping out of vaccination plans and in dealing diplomatically with the fears and concerns of the locals. Lagarde’s former foreign postings before working the wild country of the Afghan border had been to Uganda and formulating protection of the Democratic Republic of Congo during the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak.

‘Respect,’ Steven muttered, feeling the kind of admiration he had felt for Simone and all those who dedicated their lives to the fight against disease under the most demanding of conditions There was nothing in the file as yet about Lagarde’s financial status.

Some more information arrived by encrypted messaging from Jean. Steven scanned through it for anything more on Samuel Petrov and was happy to find that there was. He had been a well-respected scientist with several publications on vaccine design using the techniques offered by molecular biology to alter the genetic composition of microbes. His decision to move to Israel had come as a complete surprise to his colleagues who could only come up with vague suggestions about the strong pull Israel had for Jewish people. He himself had offered no reason. There was a lack of recent published work because of his employment at CDC Atlanta where secrecy was always a factor, but his reputation had been good enough to attract WHO support. There was no information about how his work at the University of the Negev had been going at the time of his death.

Steven acknowledged the fact that he had been ignoring the suspected Chinese element in all of this. All he had to go on, of course, was MI6’s suspicion that the killers had been Chinese — possibly with official backing. If they were right, the implication was that whatever the five victims had been involved in was more than a little annoying. Were there more murders to come?

Steven was toying with this thought when the house phone rang. It was his daughter, Jenny.

‘Hello, nutkin, what a nice surprise, I usually have to wait for boyfriends to get off the line before I get to speak to you.’

‘Oh, come on, Dad, it’s not that bad,’ Jenny insisted in a tone that made Steven smile to hear her sounding so grown-up... and giving him distinct echoes of her mother, Lisa.

Steven had met and married Jenny’s mother Lisa many years before when she had been a nurse at a Glasgow hospital and he had been working on an investigation up there. Jenny had been born a year later but Lisa had developed a brain tumour shortly afterwards and died before Jenny had had the chance to remember her. After much heart-searching, Lisa’s sister, Sue had persuaded him that the sensible option would be that Jenny be brought up as one of her family along with her own two children who were only slightly older. Her husband Richard — who had readily agreed — was a country solicitor and the family lived in the village of, Glenvane, in Dumfriesshire, an area of great natural beauty in Scotland. It had worked out well.

‘So, tell me all your news,’ Steven encouraged.

‘I wanted to ask you something, Dad.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Well, it’s been a while since we chatted about what I might do when I left school.’

‘And you’ve come to a decision?’

‘I’d really like to be a nurse...’

‘I think that’s wonderful.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes really, why do you sound so surprised?’

‘My teachers say I should be going to medical school with my grades and you would be disappointed if I didn’t.’

‘Nothing could be further from the truth, Jenny. I’m delighted, as long as you realise what you’re taking on. Being a nurse often means seeing people at their worst; it can be far from glamourous.’

‘I think I realise all that, Dad and I think I really do want to train as a nurse.’

‘That’s exactly the way you should feel, nutkin, I couldn’t be more pleased.’

‘Jenny wants to be a nurse,’ Steven announced without turning when Tally arrived home.

‘I know,’ whispered Tally, coming up behind him and placing her hands on his shoulders. ‘She called me a couple of days ago to ask how I thought you would take it.’

‘What a sneaky pair,’ Steven exclaimed, ‘what did you say?’

‘I told her you would be delighted to see her follow in her mother’s footsteps and that she’d make a great nurse. Was I right?’

‘As always.'

Tally ruffled his hair as she turned to take her coat off and go put her bag away. ‘Another of life’s milestones as you like to call them.’

‘She’s obviously put a lot of thought into it and knows her own mind. I was quite impressed... and proud’

‘And is therefore about to do the right thing...’ said Tally in a tone that alerted Steven to something else coming. ‘Give me a moment,’ she said in response to Steven’s look.

When she returned Tally sat down beside him and took his right hand in both of hers. ‘I’ve made a bit of a decision,’ she said.

Steven felt a hollow appear in his stomach. He couldn’t find words to voice his unease.

‘I’m going to go to the DRC.’

Steven was stunned. ‘That’s crazy.’

‘No... no, it isn’t, I’ve thought it through and I think it’s the right thing to do. It’s become clear they have money and resources, but they are sadly lacking in managers who know what they’re doing and what needs doing.’

‘And that’s you?’

‘Yes.’

Steven struggled to find the right questions to ask. ‘Did you volunteer or were you asked?’

‘I was approached after one of the Ebola meetings by someone who feels like me that our best, and maybe our only line of defence against an outbreak in the UK is to stop it coming here in the first place. The new investment programme for dealing with the threat of pandemics involves the recruitment of area managers to assist experienced regional managers. This should speed up response times and make sure volunteers are in the right place at the right time. Vaccination teams will be primed and ready to round up contacts of every Ebola case reported and vaccinate them quickly. They already have the personnel for the teams, but they need direction and good management. Intelligence centres will be set up in different regions of the country to corelate area reports and direct resources accordingly.’

‘Why you?’

‘I’m good at seeing the big picture and I’m fed up with my country looking the other way. I can see what needs doing and, on a personal level, I think it’s the right thing for me to do. I’ve sailed through life on a sea of middle-class niceness, protected at every twist and turn from anything resembling danger or hardship — a bit like the audience at a book festival — they know there’s something foul and nasty out there: it’s intriguing — even exciting, but the closest they’ll ever come to it is reading about it. My journey has brought me to a senior post at a top London hospital with everything I need at my fingertips, being praised and thanked routinely on an almost daily basis. I really feel the need to do my bit properly.’

Steven looked around the room as if searching for inspiration and the words to express it. ‘I really want to shake you,’ he said. ‘You get thanks and praise because you’ve earned it and you deserve it. You get it, not because you’re a pop star or a member of the royal family, but because you’re a bloody brilliant doctor and many children are alive because of you. It wasn’t luck that brought you to Great Ormond Street, it was sheer ability, a case of giving the best tools to the best practitioners.’

‘Thanks for that,’ said Tally in a small voice. ‘The hospital is prepared to give me leave and have assured me of their support...’

‘I suppose there’s nothing more to say...’ said Steven feeling helpless.

‘Yes, there is... I need your support too.’

The lump in Steven’s throat prevented him from saying anything. He Took Tally in his arms and held her tight for a long while. When he finally found words he whispered, ‘You have it, of course you do... if I can’t change your mind.’

Tally’s squeeze on his arm as she let go of him told him that wasn’t going to happen.

Worry over what Tally was about to do played a significant role in intruding on Steven’s thinking on the following few days. He found himself working on auto-pilot, moving names around on sheets of paper, altering the order, playing around with dates but a central pattern stubbornly refused to appear.

After three days, he took a mental step back and examined what working hypothesis he had come up with. A number of highly successful people who had no apparent connection with each other had been paid a great deal of money to use their expertise in order to design or do... what? Whatever it was, it had upset other people — possibly Chinese — greatly and they had responded with extreme violence. Was it over? Had they finished?

Steven acknowledged that the sense of frustration he felt was almost certainly due to a “cell network” being used. This was common in intelligence operations where individuals involved in secret operations were only told what they absolutely needed to know. This protected others in the network should one of them be captured and tortured. The ideal network would comprise people who didn’t know each other at all. Such a network however, might work well for operations like carrying out attacks on targets in occupied territories in times of war, but whether it could be scaled up in complexity, demanding the contributions of highly technical experts, but in different specialities, to work together without ever meeting, was another question. But maybe he was looking at the answer.

There would have to be at least one person who knew everything, but getting to that person seemed a long way off right now. Perhaps the way to tackle the problem of the “cell” was to think from the bottom upwards instead of top down. In Steven’s experience the driving force behind almost everything was either money or political ideology. The fact that Russian ex pat money was behind what he was looking for suggested that it was the former. These people were all very rich and had given up on politics. It could be argued that they didn’t need any more money, but, again, in his experience, people with money always wanted more. Millionaires wanted to become billionaires. Billionaires, trillionaires and so on. These people however, would be investors in the project, not world leading experts in science and medicine like Field and Pashley, but big successes in business and making money, mostly in oil, gas, mining, shipping, who had been persuaded to part with a fortune in order to make a bigger one.

Steven was pleased with this line of thought because, at a stroke, he had rid himself of the spectre of politics, something which had been lurking in the background ever since MI6’s suggestion that the Chinese government might be involved. But, why would the Chinese government get so upset about a bunch of Russians coming up with a scheme to make money? They wouldn’t... Unless, of course, it was their money they were stealing?

For some reason, Steven couldn’t see this being the answer. It was too simple. Whatever else they were, Russian oligarchs were not stupid and attempting to steal from the Chinese government would be a stupid thing to do. The Chinese element in this story was more likely to be based on private enterprise. Chinese money-makers were much more likely than Chinese politicians.

Steven rubbed his eyes and decided he needed a break from theorising; he made a small list of things he needed Jean’s help with. He remembered Special Branch saying at the initial meeting called by the Home Secretary that they had been interested in getting their hands on, Jeremy Lang’s “books”. They, of course, were looking for details about the Russian, money-laundering house purchases he had been involved in. If they had managed to lay hands on any such information, he would like to see it. It might contain the names and details of Russians who had used Lang’s services, but not to buy fancy London homes.

Secondly, and now that they had established just how much money their husbands had come into, it would be worth interviewing the widows of Martin Field and Simon Pashley to find out just how much they knew about it all. He didn’t want to do this himself — he had already spoken to one of them, but this was before the figure of ten million had come to light — he would suggest to John Macmillan that another Sci-Med agent be tasked with interviewing both women. The man he had in mind was Scott Jamieson if he wasn’t already too involved in something else — if he was, he wasn’t working under a code-red — Steven had just checked. Scott was not only a friend he trusted, he was an extremely skilled interviewer. If the ladies were hiding something, Scott would sense this and get the truth out of them. Faux outrage wouldn’t stand a chance.

The days passed with Steven and Tally being careful not to upset each other, but the DRC elephant was very much in the room. Steven’s head was constantly full of the stories Simone Ricard had told him about the realities of being caught up in an Ebola outbreak, but he felt agonisingly unable to share them with Tally. He recognised that they had had the argument and that he had lost. Tally had made up her mind to go and she wasn’t going to change it. Anything he said now would be rightly construed as him applying unfair pressure and this would only create a rift between them at what would be entirely the wrong time.

Tally, for her part, felt that she could not share the details of what she had been learning and doing at the preparatory course for fear of upsetting and alarming Steven even further. She couldn’t even share her fear that much of what he had said at the outset was probably right. Her planned role in DRC was that of organisation and management of medical teams and general resources in a relatively small area, but the dangers inherent in being so near the reality of what the virus from hell could do could not be ignored, especially after days like today when she and others about to travel to DRC had spent hour after hour practicing the donning of protective clothing, boots and visors and checking each other carefully for weak points before going through the rigmarole of disinfecting each other before removing contaminated clothing and starting all over again.

Tally could not help but feel that, in full gear, she and the others looked exactly like illustrations she’d seen of plague doctors of long ago. This led to the uncomfortable thought that, when it came to treating a disease like Ebola, modern medicine could not do much more than these practitioners of long ago. Vaccines could prevent humans from contracting viral diseases in the first place, but once the virus had struck and the disease had developed inside you, you were on your own. Good nursing care from brave, volunteer nurses might just help you stay on the right side of the line between life and death, but there was little medics could do to help.

‘Any side-effects from the vaccination yet?’ asked Steven. Tally had been given the Ebola vaccine three days before.

‘No,’ Tally replied, ‘and what do you mean, “yet”?’ she added, making it into a joke.

‘Sorry, I just thought with it being an experimental vaccine there might be problems.’

‘You’re right, there have been some reports,’ Tally admitted, ‘bur nothing serious, so fingers crossed.’

‘I take it they’ll monitor antibody levels to make sure you have a good level of protection?’ Steven asked.

‘Of course,’ said Tally.

‘Good. So, what’s on the cards for tomorrow?’

‘Oh, more of the same, I guess,’ Tally replied. ‘Lectures on safety, practical classes on the handling of equipment, question and answer sessions with people who were in West Africa during the 2014-16 outbreak, and who can provide useful local knowledge.’

Tally had given a broadly general reply. She had omitted to mention that the main topic for the following day would be the safe disposal of the dead.

‘Have you been given a date?’ Steven asked.

‘To be confirmed,’ said Tally, ‘but next Thursday seems likely.’

Steven nodded.

‘Your turn,’ said Tally, breaking the ensuing silence. ‘How’s your investigation going?’

‘Jean hopes to have some new information for me tomorrow. Hopefully it will help support my working hypothesis that a small group of brilliant people were paid a lot of money by Russian oligarchs living in London to come up with something that annoyed some Chinese people a lot.’

‘But you still have no idea of the nature of what they were doing?’

Steven shook his head. ‘Scott Jamieson is interviewing the widows of the two English victims to see if they might know more about their husbands’ big pay days than they care to admit and John Macmillan is asking the PM for a copy of Special Branch’s notes on the money-laundering estate agent.’

‘That sounds promising,’ said Tally, ‘depending on how many Russians he had on his books and whether all of them bought houses.’

‘Exactly,’ said Steven. ‘The ones who used his talents for putting money through the washing machine but not to buy houses are the exactly the ones I’m looking for.’

Six

‘I’m afraid the PM’s office is proving slow at handing over the copies of the Special Branch material you asked for,’ said Jean Roberts.

‘Well, I can’t say I’m too surprised about that,’ said Steven.

‘You know what they say about things that seem too good to be true.’

‘Quite,’ said Steven, ‘but that was the deal. The Prime Minister assured us personally that we would have access to any material that the police and security services came up with. Perhaps John might help with a little memo to the PM?’

‘I’ll ask,’ said Jean. ‘On the bright side, I’ve come up with a bit more info on Samuel Petrov. He’s the son of Dmitry Petrov, a wealthy Russian expat currently living in London.’

‘What do we know about Daddy Petrov?’

‘We know that he is very rich and still controls mining interests all over the Russian Federation from his base here in London. Father and son had a big fall-out over Sam’s reluctance to join the business after he graduated and didn’t speak for several years, but we think the rift has been healed somewhat and they are known to have seen each other several times before junior’s move to Israel.’

‘Excellent,’ said Steven, ‘a dead body in the Negev has links to Russian expats here in London. Another link in the chain. Let me know if any Special Branch stuff turns up. I’m going to spend time with Tally before she leaves for DRC on Thursday.’

Jean nodded. ‘Wish her good luck for me.’

Steven drove Tally the seventy-five miles or so up to RAF Brize Norton on Thursday morning where she was to board an RAF flight taking supplies and volunteer medical personnel to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The nurses among the medics were NHS volunteers from all over the UK while the doctors came almost exclusively from the British arm of Médecins sans Frontierès.

As they gathered on the tarmac, Steven could see that Tally’s fellow travellers were of an age that suggested this might be their first experience of volunteering. Smiles and good humour were the order of the day, but, he suspected, this was covering a multitude of nerves.

Conversation between himself and Tally had been limited on the journey up, but not uncomfortably so. They had known and loved each other long enough to be at ease with silence and know what each other was thinking. Hugs before boarding were enough... although Steven did give in to asking, ‘Got your phone?’

‘Of course, I have,’ Tally assured him with an extra hug. ‘Talk to you later.’

Despite Tally’s assurance that she would be supplied with utilities like a phone, Steven had persuaded her to carry a satellite phone he had obtained for her and got her to agree that she would carry it with her at all times without advertising the fact. As a further security measure, it was only to be used one way — she should call him on it.

Steven answered a call from Jean Roberts on his way back to London. She reported that she now had the information gathered by Special Branch on Jeremy Lang’s Russian clients. Steven thanked her and said he would pick it up as soon as he got back. He ended the call on the car phone only for it to ring again. It was Scott Jamieson.

Jamieson began by asking, ‘Where the hell are you?’

Steven smiled at the sound of his friend’s voice. ‘In my car,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got the hood down.’

‘Still got the Porsche then?’

‘Can’t bear to part with it,’ Steven replied.

‘Must be getting on a bit now?’

‘To me, she’s as beautiful as the first day I saw her,’ replied Steven, talking about the second love of his life, a Porsche Boxster, he’d had for six years.

‘Fair enough,’ said Jamieson. ‘I’ve just been to see Mrs Field; we had quite a long conversation.’

‘How did you find her?’

‘Not too difficult to fathom, Upper middle class with all the usual attributes, hugely loyal to her husband, believed anything he said without question. She couldn’t think of any meetings he’d had with people she felt suspicious about and hadn’t noticed any changes in temperament come over him. She didn’t like speaking about money, of course — very vulgar. The bottom line is, I really don’t think she had any idea about how much hubby had squirreled away or where it came from. Boy, is she going to get a surprise one day soon, unless, of course, HMG find some way of confiscating it.’

‘Well, I think we can agree on all that,’ said Steven.

‘I’m going up to Leicester tomorrow to see Mrs Pashley. I don’t think you talked to her?

‘No.’

‘I’ll get back to you after I’ve seen her.’

The book that Special Branch had recovered from the late Jeremy Lang’s belongings must have been like a dream come true for them, Steven thought as he thumbed through the contents. It contained a list of all the clients he had acted for during the past three years, the properties they had purchased and the prices they had paid for some of the finest houses in London. Steven smiled as he imagined an estate agent’s windows displaying them.

Among the lists of Russian names, Steven found what had attracted Special Branch’s interest, the presence of two English names, Martin Field and Simon Pashley although no property purchase was mentioned. Steven started going through the Russian names, looking for those with no house purchase made. He was making a separate list of them when his sliding index finger stopped at a name that rang a bell and wasn’t Russian. Marcel Giroud was there and that was the name of the dead French investment banker who left a big bank to set up on his own before coming to a sticky end.

Steven felt that he’d made progress. He could now move his theory on. Russian expats living in London had invested in a scheme to make a lot of money. They had used Jeremy Lang, their tried and trusted money-launderer, to pay the two dead Englishmen for as yet unknown services. Lang had sub-contracted the task to Marcel Giroud because his own expertise was confined to property deals. He needed the expertise of an investment banker for manipulating investments. It was possible that Giroud had also been involved in paying Phillipe Lagarde, the World Health man and Samuel Petrov, the vaccine designer, although that had yet to be confirmed.

Apart from the investors, Steven knew the names, nationalities and professional expertise of all the players involved. He had eliminated two of them from his thinking — Lang and Giroud were solely concerned with the financial elements of the operation so he should be able to concentrate on the remaining four and figure out what they might be up to. An hour later, he was still thinking the same thing. What could a Russian vaccine designer, an English pain management consultant, a Swiss WHO strategist and an English prosthetic limb controller be collaborating over?

This being her first day away, the arrangement was that Tally would phone when she could because she wasn’t sure how long it would take to be briefed and settle in. Happily, there was only a one-hour time difference between DRC and the UK so that wouldn’t be a factor. The phone rang and Steven snatched it up. It was Scott Jamieson.

‘Steven hid his disappointment and exchanged small talk with Scott before asking, ‘How did you get on with Mrs Pashley?’

‘She’s one of these wives who assume their husband’s status in society should be their own — if he’s a big shot, she thinks she’s a big shot too. I think she feels that half his achievements were down to her.’

‘Is she a medic too?’ Steven asked.

‘No, a primary school teacher.’

‘Mm,’ said Steven, ‘did you learn anything?’

‘I don’t think she knew any more about sudden wealth than Martha Field, but I do think I made some progress.’

‘Really?'

‘I encouraged her to speak about her husband’s work and she was in her element, recounting what “they” had achieved. I suggested that her husband’s expertise must have been in great demand across the globe and she agreed.’

‘Smart move.’

‘She listed a number of countries and organisations that had sought his help. I appeared hugely impressed and suggested that there were probably not enough hours in the day for him to help everyone. How could he possibly choose? She told me that that was exactly the case — so much so that he had had to put his own clinical work on hold to help out with a recent important plea for assistance. I pointed out it must have been a very deserving cause to warrant that and she confided in me. She whispered, “It was an official request from the Russians”. I sat there wide-eyed in admiration and she explained that large numbers of Russian troops had returned from their ill-fated exploits in Afghanistan with limbs missing and they were desperate for help in designing decent artificial limbs. Apparently, Simon met with a “high-level Russian doctor” in London who had made out such a good case that he felt he couldn’t refuse.’

‘I’ll bet,’ said Steven. ‘After hearing ten million good reasons.’

‘At this point, I pushed my luck and made up a Russian name. I said, that would probably have been, Dr Mikhail Ivanov...’

She said, no, his name was, Malenkov, Dr Sergei Malenkov.’

Steven wrote down the name and said, ‘Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.’

He thanked Scott, adding the promise of beer when they next met up and was about to start foraging around for the Special Branch list on his desk when the phone rang. This time it was Tally.

‘God, it’s been a long day.’

‘I’ll bet it has,’ said Steven. ‘Are things better or worse than you expected?’

‘Better, I think, thanks to the World Health people and Med sans Frontierès,’ Tally replied. ‘They are obviously used to dealing with new people arriving and provided an excellent briefing as well as handing out packs of supplies and equipment. We’ll all spending our first night here near the air base and tomorrow we’ll split up and go off to our respective areas to get the new management structure up and running.’

‘Which area are you being sent to?’

‘Equateur Province in the North-west.’

‘That’s where the current outbreak started, isn’t it?’ Steven asked.

‘You’ve been doing your homework,’ said Tally. ‘It kicked off in a small village up there, but wasn’t reported to WHO until cases stared appearing in the nearby town of Mbandaka and the cat was out of the bag.’

‘What sort of area are you going to be looking after?’

‘It’s a fair size but not heavily populated, mainly small villages spread over a wide area.’

‘Without much in the way of roads... easy to get lost.’

‘I’m here to manage from a central point, Steven,’ Tally assured him. ‘I don’t plan on travelling much. If I do have to go anywhere, I’ve got an old Land Rover at my disposal and I’ve got a tracking device.’

‘Sorry, I just can’t help worrying about you.’

‘I know,’ said Tally softly, ‘and I love you all the more for it.’

‘You had better get some sleep.’

‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

Steven sat still, letting the silence surround him for a few minutes, wanting to believe that Tally was going to be perfectly safe, but not quite managing. He got up to make coffee before returning to the notes recovered by Special Branch. He found what he was looking for on the third page and allowed himself a small smile. The name, Sergei Malenkov was half way down. Steven knew that, if he had been playing poker, he had just drawn successfully to an inside straight. ‘You beauty,’ he murmured, before calling Scott Jamieson to tell him.’

‘Glad it worked out. Anything else you’d like me to do?’

‘Actually, yes,’ Steven replied, thinking on his feet, ‘How do you feel about seeing Mrs Field again?’

‘Sure, if you think that will help. What am I looking for?’

‘I know you thought she didn’t know anything, but I’d like you to ask her if you might take a look at her husband’s appointments diaries. She may have heard her husband mention Malenkov’s name without having any reason to remember it. It could have been something as simple as a one-off meeting, but if it turns out that Field did have any kind of contact with Malenkov, we’d know for sure that he is a big player — maybe the big player — and was involved in setting the whole lot up.’

‘Understood.’

Steven had to admit to himself that he wasn’t going to get anywhere by looking at the four dead men as a single group, hoping to see how their skills could be combined to achieve one specific end. He needed to know more about them as individuals, more about their specific interests, more about their aims and targets, more about what they had succeeded in doing and what they had failed to do. Jean had provided him with recent publications by the two Englishmen and he had skipped through them, picking up on the broad general aims of the research and what had been achieved in the current paper. He would have to go through them more thoroughly.

Steven started with Martin Field’s paper on advances in controlling pain in terminal patients. He had picked up from his earlier reading of the work that the aim was to be able to deliver pain relieving drugs remotely instead of having to rely on nursing and medical staff having to give it orally or by injection. This, he hoped, could be done by releasing drug doses in response to a remote signal.

The problem facing Field and his colleagues was that they needed ways of delivering more than one drug — palliative care often demanded the use of multiple drugs. To do this would require separate signals for the release of each drug, probably at different times and with varying frequency. So far, they had come up with a regime capable of dealing with the administering of two drugs, each of which would be released by a separate signal. They needed more and better, more reliable signals before the research became a practical proposition and could make the leap to clinical use.

Steven sighed as he tentatively made his way into Simon Pashley’s paper, which he had struggled with before, and given up on after concluding that the goal in prosthetic control was basically to make everything smaller. Before beginning, he had taken the precaution of looking out both English language and medical dictionaries to sit handily beside him, but their availability didn’t stop him becoming frustrated as he struggled through the text. At one point he threw back his head and complained, ‘Just what the hell is interdigital, metacarpal control array independence?’

The answer came as he stared up at the ceiling and worked through the words... interdigital — between the digits... metacarpal — pertaining to the hand bones between wrist and fingers... control array independence — individual control of more than one switch on a linked mechanism. It was obvious! Pashley was working on a controller which would permit a prosthetic hand to have working fingers. The mechanisms would be small enough to fit between the fingers and each finger would be able to move independently.

Steven felt a sudden adrenalin rush as he suddenly saw that he had made the connection between what Martin Field had been doing and what Pashley was doing. Someone else had seen possibilities in what the two of them had been doing and commissioned them at great expense to come up with a delivery system which could be wirelessly controlled to release more than one therapeutic drug.

Letting his thoughts run on free reign, Steven could imagine some powerful pharmaceutical company understanding the fortune to be made from such a system, were it to be refined and brought to the market place, but such a theory had no place for Chinese murderers.

Steven went in next morning to speak with John Macmillan who asked the obvious question, ‘How does an ultra-sophisticated drug delivery system warrant both Russian and Chinese interest?’

‘I have no idea,’ Steven confessed, ‘but I’m working on it.’ He felt a little deflated at Macmillan’s apparent lack of appreciation of his establishing the link between the two English scientists, but had to suppose, in the overall view of things... it wasn’t much.

‘There is one thing...’ said Macmillan as Steven got up to leave. He could sense Macmillan’s discomfort. ‘Oh, yes?’

‘I’m getting the impression that the Prime Minister was overly optimistic when she promised to pass on intelligence information to you under the table, so to speak. It’s proving more difficult than she thought.’

‘In what way?’

‘It’s not the sort of thing she can put in a brown paper bag and have someone hand over to Jean in the supermarket without arousing suspicion.’

‘Does that mean she’s not going to do it after all?’

‘No, no,’ Macmillan assured him. ‘It’s just that your involvement might not be the secret she hoped it might be.’

‘I see.’

Steven took a few moments to think through the implications of this.

‘I know how you feel about firearms,’ began Macmillan, ‘but better safe than sorry?’

‘Agreed,’ said Steven flatly. He was thinking about the five victims and how they had met their end. ‘I’ll see the armourer.’

Steven left the office and approached Jean. ‘Anything new?’ he asked.

Jean sensed an edginess in Steven and, looking at her screen, knew why. She said softly, ‘A little note has appeared, asking me to make an appointment with the armourer for you.’

Steven nodded and thanked her.

‘I did get a little more on Phillipe Lagarde,’ she said, ‘more times and dates than anything else. Jean handed him the information.

Steven saw what Jean meant. The dates of Lagarde’s WHO secondment to Afghanistan were given along with the route he had planned for teams to take along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, providing protection against Polio for the villagers. The dates for his previous secondment to the Democratic Republic of Congo were also given as were they for his time in Uganda. He had gone to DRC in early 2016 and had concentrated his efforts in providing vaccination against Ebola to people in Equateur Province in the north of the country.

‘I hope he did a good job,’ Steven said. He responded to Jean’s enquiring glance with, ‘That’s where Tally is.’

Seven

Tally spent her first full day being shown around the area in Equateur Province she was now responsible for. She wanted to see the villages for herself and get a feeling for their size and the accessibility of their locations. She was accompanied by two young people, Mary Kelly, a nurse with Med sans Frontierès and Hans Weber, a World Health Organisation administrator, who both had experience of working in the area and who had been seconded to come along to answer any questions she had.

After passing slowly through two villages Tally asked if they might stop in the next one so she could walk around and get a feeling for the place, having heard tales of local resentment towards foreign outsiders coming in to interfere with traditional life. She had also been warned that not all people — especially in rural areas — thought vaccination a good thing. A number did not believe that Ebola was a disease at all — it was a curse placed on those who strayed from the path of their elders.

After twenty bone-shaking minutes of bumping along dusty tracks that often hid their presence in undergrowth they arrived at the next village, which Mary Kelly gave Tally some statistics about, reading them in a gentle southern Irish accent, which Tally thought went well with her dark red hair, although she found herself wondering what a young girl who couldn’t have been qualified for more than a couple of years was doing here. She had assumed that volunteers were usually older, having seen a bit more of life and encountered a wide range of experiences which had possibly contributed to their selfless act.

‘This village lost thirty-seven people to Ebola in the 2014-16 outbreak,’ said Mary, ‘but of course, there was little or no vaccine available to protect villagers at that time.’

‘How about this time?’ Tally asked.

Hans Weber, the young Swiss administrator seconded from WHO to help Tally settle in, responded, ‘There still isn’t enough vaccine for universal use. It’s still classed as experimental, which means that there are sorts of restrictions on it use, but it’s certainly better than nothing and believed to be very effective if you fall into the group qualified to get it, that being contacts of known cases, both physical and geographical, and of course, all those involved in the treatment of Ebola victims. I take it you’ve had the vaccine?’

Tally agreed that she had.

Mary said, ‘There are no cases in this village at the moment, but there are in the next one we’ll be coming to...’

‘Four,’ said Hans... ‘that we know of.’

‘You think there may be more?’

‘People tend to hide the fact that there’s illness in the family as long as possible, hoping it’s not Ebola and, with their own care, their loved ones will get better. If the news gets out that there’s Ebola in the village, it affects everyone in terms of jobs and trade and general social interaction. No one wants anything to do with you. Business grinds to a halt.’

‘Understandable,’ said Tally.

‘There are a couple of possible contacts in this village,’ said Mary. ‘We approached them to offer them vaccine, but they wanted nothing to do with it.’

Tally made a sympathetic face. ‘I can see what you’re up against. Nothing’s ever easy, is it?’

Mary and Hans smiled. ‘She’s a quick learner,’ said Hans.

‘I think I’d still like to have a walk around,’ said Tally.

‘Would you like us to come too?’ Mary asked.

Tally shook her head. ‘Unless you advise otherwise?’

‘No,’ Hans assured her. ‘They won’t eat you. Surly indifference is usually as far as it goes.’

Tally started her walk, smiling as she went but generally being ignored. She couldn’t say she was surprised at what she saw thanks to previous exposure to what she was looking at on television. These days everyone knew what poverty looked like just as they knew what refugee camps looked like and drought and famine and civil war. With familiarity had come desensitisation. People might still say the words expressing horror and distress, but it had become an almost Pavlovian response before moving on. The feeling wasn’t there... until you were actually on the ground beside it instead of sitting on your couch munching potato chips.

Tally paused as she came to what was obviously a school class being held in the open. A young female teacher was lecturing a group of about fifteen children who were sitting round her feet on the ground. Tally admired the way she held herself; she was elegant and composed, suggesting effortless authority and was holding them in the palm of her hand until rapt attention was interrupted by her asking a question and a forest of hands jumped up.

The teacher became aware of Tally’s presence and looked across. Tally smiled and prepared to move on, but she saw the teacher start towards her and decided to wait.

‘Hello,’ said Tally, ‘do you speak English?’

‘I hope so,’ replied the girl, ‘that’s what I’m teaching them.’

‘Really?’ Tally exclaimed with a mixture of delight and genuine surprise.

‘I want them to have the best chance of a future. English is the language of so much in the world. Whenever two strangers meet with different home languages, they will choose English to communicate.’

‘You really are looking ahead,’ said Tally. ‘I’m, Tally by the way, I’m a doctor.’ She held out her hand.

‘Monique,’ said the girl taking it with a broad smile. ‘You are here to help with the outbreak?’

‘I volunteered to help manage it.’

‘Thank you,’ said Monique.

It was such a simple thing to say that Tally took an immediate liking to the girl.

‘And your friends too?’ Monique asked, looking back down the road to where the Land Rover waited.

‘Yes, they’re from Med Sans Frontierès and the World Health Organisation. They’re here to oversee the vaccination programme to keep people safe.’

‘Mm,’ said Monique. ‘I’m sure they mean well...’

‘But?’ Tally prompted.

Monique shrugged and said, ‘Many people don’t trust the needles.’

‘So I hear,’ said Tally, ‘I suppose it’s our job to reassure them. We all want your country to be free of Ebola.’

‘That’s what you people always say,’ said Monique.

Tally was puzzled. She had noticed Monique wince when she uttered the very word, Ebola and now her comment seemed to suggest that she might share her compatriots’ concerns. It was a strange situation. She had been feeling delighted and extraordinary lucky that she had met a local who spoke English, who was obviously educated and intelligent and could be possibly a hugely useful bridge between herself and the people she couldn’t communicate directly with and now, she had to be cautious about what she said next: she didn’t want to lose Monique. ‘You obviously have some worries about vaccination,’ she said gently.

‘The children are getting restless,’ said Monique, looking over shoulder.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Tally, ‘I’m sorry I kept you talking but I enjoyed our conversation.’

‘Me too,’ said Monique, smiling and clapping her hands as she walked back to her class. ‘Who can tell me...’

Tally continued her walk, absently taking in the sights and sounds but now preoccupied with thoughts about her meeting with Monique. All the stories she had heard about people being suspicious about vaccination she had been putting down to ignorance and superstition — often fuelled by witch doctors and adherence to ‘the old ways’. Monique would not be subject to these things and yet...

Tally stopped two more times to say hello to women she thought might respond but they weren’t interested and turned away.

‘Well, how did you get on?’ asked Mary when Tally got back to the Land Rover.

‘Interesting,’ Tally replied, ‘but not many wanted to talk.’

‘No one wants to talk about Ebola,’ said Mary.

‘Head in the sand syndrome,’ added Hans.

‘A bit unfair,’ said Mary, ‘I saw you met Monique Barbet.’

‘I did,’ said Tally. ‘She seemed lovely.’

‘She is. She was educated in Paris, spent time working in London and then came back to DRC — one of the few. People listen to her.’

‘Although she’s not without enemies,’ added Hans. ‘She’s seen as too big for her boots.’

‘Education can often be a big divider,’ said Mary. ‘Let’s move on.’

Tally got her first sight of a rural hospital in the next village. It was currently dealing with Ebola patients and didn’t look much like what she was used to seeing as a hospital — more a collection of huts with rudimentary fencing round it. A figure emerged from the door nearest them prompting a chill to run up her spine because of the protective clothing he or she was wearing. It wasn’t the Wellington boots or long gown or plastic apron that she found disturbing, but the hood and face visor that completely obscured the identity and personality of who might be wearing it — something that encouraged the imagination to run riot. A monster? A creature from outer space? A vision as far away as possible from the accepted caring image of a nurse. God knows what the patients must think, she wondered before reminding herself that a patient suffering from Ebola would be too engaged in their own nightmares to notice a new one arriving on the scene.

A second figure emerged and the pair went through the procedure of washing each other down and going through the disinfection procedure, a slow, careful and absolutely necessary procedure. The hoods and masks were removed to reveal two young and smiling female human beings, obviously relieved that their shift was over, sweat glistening on their faces, hair plastered to their heads.

‘Did you want to go into the hospital?’ Mary asked.

Tally said not. ‘No one should be going into these places without good reason and that includes us.’

Mary and Hans exchanged glances over seeing a new side to Tally, while she concentrated on the map of her region and the area she’d been given and said, ‘I can see there are six rural hospitals on my patch and a bigger one on the outskirts of Mbandaka, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, this one must be the one marked Alpha 3 on my map?’

‘Yes.’

Tally continued to ask questions with the aim of finding out what went on in the area she was to be managing under various conditions. She wanted to know what would happen when a patient fell ill in an area she picked out on the map at random, where they would be taken in the first instance, how long they would be held there, where they would be transferred to if thought appropriate, where and how they would be buried.

When Tally got back to the hut which was to be her management centre and had thanked Mary and Hans for their help and good company, she found a mound of paperwork waiting for her. Her planned peaceful evening after a tiring day disappeared in an instant.

Most of it was concerned with the help that had been flooding in from international agencies supporting the new initiative for dealing with serious outbreaks of disease. She was pleased to see that much of it comprised details of resources which had been already logged and listed and were available — very different to what usually happened when self-congratulation had been the order of the day from large countries when announcing monetary contributions which often failed to materialise or did without anyone following up on what really happened to it afterwards.

Tally got out her map again and started entering details of what was where in her region. It was so nice to have hard figures rather than rough estimates, which she noticed had been used in deciding how many cases of Ebola there had been. In the current outbreak. The May figures listed 46 cases of haemorrhagic fever of which 26 had died. 21 had been confirmed as Ebola, 21 as probable and four as ‘suspected’ The fact that four of the confirmed cases had occurred in the city of Mbandaka — some two hundred miles away from the village in her region where the outbreak was believed to have started was a worry. Many more cases could be out there, just not being reported.

Tally started going through the vaccination reports for her region. They listed the number of people who had been offered the vaccine, the number who had accepted and the numbers who had declined despite being possible contacts of confirmed cases. She entered these details on her map and looked at the big picture for almost a minute before letting out her breath in a long sigh. There was something wrong somewhere. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it would come to her. In the meantime, she picked up her phone to call Steven. She wanted his voice to be the last one she heard on a day that had been full of strange ones. There was no signal.

‘Oh, come on...’

Tally wandered around the room, holding the phone this way and that, complaining that there hadn’t been a problem yesterday before remembering that she had called Steven from the air-base not her new abode. She remembered the special phone that Steven insisted she carry and rummaged through her bag to find it still in the box he’d handed to her. She opened it to find the satellite phone and a solar energy charger as well as a conventional one. She felt guilty at not having checked out the phone earlier as she turned it on. She was left hoping that Steven might have charged it before giving it to her. He had.

Tally spent the following few days becoming accustomed to her new working environment and accepting the limitations imposed on progress by an unreliable communications network and a power supply that seemed more off than on. Each evening she would meet up with volunteers who updated her with information of their own as well as voicing accumulated doubts, fears, opinions and complaints about the way things were going.

This evening they had been discussing the various theories about where Ebola had come from in the first place. Its natural host had not been identified although there was a strong suggestion that fruit bats were the source. If this were so, these creatures could be responsible for infecting many other animals in the jungle like monkeys, antelopes, chimpanzees, regarded by many in the north of the country as delicious ‘bushmeat’.

It was during the last of these discussions that Tally had managed to give voice to something that had been puzzling her. She said, ‘I know that more Ebola outbreaks begin here in DRC than anywhere else... why do you think that is?’

‘More bushmeat is eaten here,’ said Hans Weber.

‘Even after being warned that it could give them Ebola?’

‘It’s hard to change people’s habits,’ said Hans.

‘True,’ Tally agreed, but modified her puzzled agreement with a slight shrug before adding, ‘Another thing I wonder about is vaccination.’

‘What about it?’

‘I know it wasn’t available at the outset of the 2014 epidemic, but it did become available — albeit late on in 2016 in experimental form with limited stocks. You’d think that quite a number of contacts up here would have been given it and be immune.’

‘Uh huh,’ agreed several of the volunteers, waiting for more.

‘Well, what I’m trying to say is that when you add to them the people up here who contracted Ebola and survived, you’d have a population, many of whom would be immune to the disease, making the north-west the last place you’d expect a new outbreak to occur.’

‘Good point,’ said Hans, ‘although I’m not sure we could ever come up with reliable numbers to do the maths. The only facts we know for sure are that DRC has had nine outbreaks since 1976, four of them in Equateur Province — 1976, 1977, 2014, and now 2018.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Tally with a smile, ‘My problem is that I can never accept anything without scientific evidence to back it up. I know it’s very probable that fruit bats might be the natural reservoir of haemorrhagic viruses like Ebola, but until someone comes up with clear and incontrovertible evidence, I’m going to keep an open mind.’

‘Good for you,’ said Mary Kelly, the Irish nurse. ‘It’s never easy to swim against the tide.’

‘Much easier to go with the flow,’ said Hans.

The meeting ended but Hans Weber and Mary Kelly stayed behind, knowing that they would no longer be baby-sitting Tally from the following day and checking that she was comfortable with everything.

‘Absolutely,’ said Tally, ‘and many thanks for your help. What have you guys got lined up for tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Refrigeration,’ exclaimed Hans with an exasperated sigh. ‘The vaccine has to be kept at a temperature below minus 60 degrees Centigrade and you know what the power supply is like in this country.’

‘I do,’ Tally agreed.

‘And I’m meeting with the Red Cross volunteers who have recently arrived,’ said Mary. ‘I’m going to listen to their initial thoughts.’

‘It must be difficult dealing with so many different aid organisations,’ said Tally.

‘Think of a minefield,’ said Hans, ‘only with egos instead of mines. Tread carefully.’

Eight

Steven wasn’t alone in pounding the pavements on a pleasant evening, although he felt decidedly scruffy in faded T-shirt and track suit bottoms when compared to his fellow keep-fit enthusiasts, many of whom would not have seemed out of place on a cat-walk in Milan. It seemed that wealth had to advertise itself on every conceivable occasion.

He had chosen a route which would allow him to pass by the Islington town-house owned by Dimitry Petrov when fate and a change of the Russian establishment had led to his becoming a Londoner. The house was a dark stone affair lacking any outward sign of ostentation in keeping with its neighbours. Seven figure price-tags spoke for themselves. Bells and whistles were not required.

Steven had no good reason for choosing the route he had other than feeling he needed something more than names on pieces of paper to work with. Seeing where one of them lived would be interesting and take his mind off the fact that his own flat was empty and Tally would not be coming back any time soon.

On the second lap of his chosen circuit, Steven became aware of a dark stretch limousine turning into the street he was about to enter on the other side. It moved slowly and drew up outside the Petrov residence. Steven’s immediate thought was that this might be interesting. He paused and pretended to deal with a loose shoe lace while a well-built man wearing sunglasses — despite the absence of sun at that time in the evening — got out of the front passenger door and appeared to look around for signs of threat before opening the pavement-side rear door and permitting a late middle-aged man with a mop of swept-back, white hair to emerge. The cut of the man’s suit as he straightened suggested that he belonged in the world of stretch limos and expensive property. He said something to sunglasses who kept up surveillance of everything around him while he listened and then nodded.

Fearing that he might be taking too long to tie up his lace and was about to attract more than the cursory glance from the heavy, Steven undid the shoe and removed it completely before going through the motions of shaking out an imaginary stone that had been annoying him. With the performance over, he stood upright to push his foot back into the shoe before bending down again to do up his lace, but, just as he finished, he surreptitiously slipped his hand into his pocket and brought out his mobile phone.

When Steven saw the sunglasses swivel away to the right, he seized the chance to take a couple of shots of the well-dressed man, but then it went wrong. Almost simultaneous with the click of the shutter, the bodyguard shouted something at him and it didn’t sound like ‘Good Evening’. Steven realised that he had made the elementary mistake of thinking the man had been looking elsewhere when, in fact, it had been his sunglasses that had been looking elsewhere. Behind their reflective lenses, his eyes had been fixed on him: that’s why bodyguards wore the damned things.

The shout made the well-dressed man turn around as he reached the door of the Petrov residence and Steven, despite the sudden rise in his pulse rate, took a couple more camera shots before taking to his heels as the heavy made to cross the road towards him, pausing only to secure an earpiece in his left ear.

Steven didn’t imagine for a moment that the heavy would chase him, thinking he just wanted to shoo him away... but when he glanced round, he saw the man was still in hot pursuit and appeared purposeful. Why? he wondered, Why in God’s name?... He was just a scruffy jogger who had taken a phone camera shot of someone getting out of a posh limo. This was an everyday occurrence in London where pop and film stars got in and out of ostentatious vehicles all day long — often actually hoping to be photographed. It was well-known that newspapers paid big bucks for exclusive images of those currently in fashion. He could hardly be seen as a threat to his employer... Why didn’t the heavy see that? Didn’t he realise he had left his boss exposed and alone? No, he hadn’t, he reminded himself, the man would be safely inside the Petrov house.

When Steven risked another glance, he saw that the heavy wasn’t gaining on him but wasn’t falling back either. What was more worrying was that his right hand was reaching inside his jacket for something and, in the current situation, he suspected it wasn’t a handkerchief. This was becoming ridiculous. He really couldn’t be intending to use a gun on a jogger in a London street... could he?

Steven’s failure to convince himself resulted in his upping his pace and it was hurting. He desperately needed an alternative strategy. The man intent on catching him was obviously as fit as he was and the fact that he was associated with Russian oligarchs suggested he wouldn’t have been recruited from the ranks of local nightclub bouncers. He would be a pro — a thought that awoke in Steven a real longing for the 9mm Glock he had picked up from the armourer yesterday — the one he’d put securely in the safe at home... and left it there. When fate threw a curve ball...

Steven had been opting to run through narrow lanes, hoping to shake off his pursuer, but also looking for opportunities to be briefly out of sight, hoping to spot some feature which might give him a chance of gaining the initiative, but the real risk of a gun being used made him think he should be heading for a heavily populated area. A pro wouldn’t be so foolish as to use a weapon on a crowded street. He could see that two hundred metres ahead, a street running across at right angles seemed much busier and headed for it.

The heavy saw what he was intending to do and the left side of Steven’s face was suddenly peppered with stone fragments as his pursuer opened fire, hitting the wall beside him. There had been no sound of a gunshot, although Steven recognised the thwack of a silenced pistol as a second shot narrowly missed him before ricocheting off an iron down-pipe with a fading whine.

There were no turnings off the lane he was on and he still had over a hundred metres to go as he introduced a desperate zig zag to his run.

Up ahead, a small red car turned into the lane and stopped before a young woman, searching in her handbag and obviously in a hurry, got out and hurried towards a flat entrance to disappear inside. Steven immediately zig zagged towards the car, praying that she’d left her keys in the ignition. A bullet smashed into the car’s offside headlamp as he reached it and threw himself inside, struggling to get his knees under the steering wheel, which was too close to the seat for his six foot plus frame. His pursuer had stopped running to adopt the classic taking-aim position, spreading his feet, holding his weapon in both hands as Steven clumsily managed to find first gear and press his foot to the floor. The car’s rev counter roared into the red zone as it hurtled towards the heavy who managed to get off one more hurried shot before throwing himself to the side to avoid being run over, something he didn’t quite manage as Steven felt the nearside of the car hit him a glancing but substantial blow in the chest.

Steven slowed after a further fifty metres to check the rear-view mirror for signs of physical damage he’d inflicted. The heavy was getting up unsteadily to his feet, crouching and holding his ribs but still very much alive. Steven had no wish to provide him with any more target practice so he accelerated away, reaching down to slide the driving seat backwards for some semblance of comfort. A last glance in the mirror before turning out of sight suggested that the injured man was holding a phone to his ear.

Steven pulled off into a quieter street and sat for a few moments, calming down and getting his breath back while his phone brought up his map location. He called the Sci-Med duty officer and gave him details of what had happened.

The duty man calmly recorded them and asked a few questions of his own, finishing with, ‘How would you like this handled?’

‘As discreetly as possible,’ Steven said. ‘The police will probably have been called about a stolen red car — the one I’m sitting in. Try to intercept any police action on this and stop it. Have Special Branch handle it. The Russian in question is armed and will be heading back to this address.’ He read out where Dimitri Petrov lived. ‘where a black limousine and its driver may still be waiting for him — The Russian has chest injuries, maybe more.’

‘Understood.’

‘I’m going to leave this car now at the location I gave you in case patrol cars have already been asked to look out for it.’

‘Understood.’

‘And inform Sir John what’s been going on.’

‘Will do. Do you need transport?’

‘No... I’m fine.’

Steven got out of the car and straightened up before massaging the small of his back with both hands and deciding a Nissan Micra wasn’t for him. He brushed away some stone fragments from his shoulders that had managed to stick there and checked his shoelaces before setting off at a slow jog back to normality. When he got in, Steven poured himself a large drink and slumped down into his favourite window chair to put his feet up on the sill and reflect on the events of the past hour.

Surprising didn’t quite cover it. Why on earth had the Russian gorilla been so determined to hunt him down? To all intents and purposes, he had been an evening jogger who had taken an impromptu snapshot of a fancy limo and whoever happened to be getting out of it. Who the hell was the owner who demanded such privacy? Was an armed response the price to be paid for gazing upon his countenance? Steven drained his glass and headed for the shower.

‘Where have you been?’ Tally asked when Steven answered the phone with a towel wrapped round him. ‘I’ve been trying to call you for the past hour.’

‘Sorry,’ said Steven. ‘I went out for a run. I went a bit further than I originally intended. How are you getting on?’

‘I’m well into the way of things,’ said Tally. ‘and after reading all the reports, I’m even letting myself feel more optimistic than I thought I might be. The measures taken to isolate pockets of infection are working well... although.’

‘Go on,’ Steven prompted.

‘Well, my one worry is that what I’m telling you is based on the figures I’ve seen coming in and there’s always the chance that I may not be seeing the whole picture.’

‘Under-reporting?’ Steven asked.

‘I’m hoping not but the authorities keeping it quiet for the first five months hasn’t helped.’

‘So, the damage to business might well be done anyway,’ said Steven.

‘Well, we’re all hoping that the new initiative is going to pay off. I’ve put in a request for the official WHO report produced after the end of the 2014–16 outbreak.’

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Similarities in the pattern the spread took back then.’

‘Don’t you have enough to do?’ joked Steven.

‘There’s really not that much to do in the evening.’ Tally replied.

Steven felt relieved that he had managed to get through the conversation without telling Tally anything about his awful evening. She had more than enough on her plate without worrying about him.

John Macmillan rang next to say that Special Branch had not managed to trace his assailant or the limo. They had taken care of returning the little red car to its rightful owner and they would also arrange for its repair. ‘They don’t want an insurance company finding the bullet that smashed the headlight and reporting it to the police.’

‘Of course,’ said Steven.

‘We’ll talk more in the morning.’

Next morning, Steven asked Jean if she would run a check on the photos he’d taken on his phone.

‘Anything to go on?’ she asked.

‘Almost certainly Russian,’ said Steven. ‘He was visiting Dimitri Petrov with a gorilla friend who shouted at me in Russian.’

Steven went through to John Macmillan’s office and went through what had happened all over again.

‘Damned Russians,’ said Macmillan. ‘You can’t move in Mayfair for them. London is awash with Russian money of dodgy origin. Every time you cross the road you run the risk of being knocked down by some Russian kid driving a Ferrari he got for his birthday. Are you really sure this character was determined to kill you?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Steven. ‘He knew what he was doing.’

Macmillan let out his breath in a long sigh as his anger gave way to resignation. ‘What’s our country coming to?’ he murmured, ‘As long as you’ve got the money you can come here and do as you damn well please. You only have to show you have ten million in assets and it gets you a UK investment visa with permanent residence after only two years. It’s pretty obvious the police have been steering clear of them, going easy, looking the other way and now we’ve got nerve agents being used on our streets and gunmen running around Islington taking pot shots at joggers.’

Steven was used to seeing John Macmillan in fighting mode. Over the years he’d seen him take on cabinet ministers and win. He had made a prime minister back down on one occasion. His only yardstick lay in being sure he was right. The odds against him had never mattered as long as he was convinced that he was doing the right thing. But now, he was seeing a man who was coming close to exasperation with a political class that seemed to march to a very different drum, constantly avoiding action in favour of seemingly endless discussion and debate. He hid any sign of his thoughts as Macmillan looked up from his desk and asked, ‘Have you seen the armourer?’

Steven said that he had, but added, ‘There’s no reason to believe that chummy last night had anything to do with what we are interested in.’

‘Maybe not, but he was a Russian bodyguard and he was chasing you.’

‘Point taken.’

Steven left Macmillan’s office and found the missing ‘reason to believe’ as Jean handed him a file and said, ‘Here is the information you asked for on Sergei Malenkov and furthermore, we have a positive ID for the man in the photo you took last night.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Sergei Malenkov.’

Steven sank down into a chair opposite Jean’s desk. ‘Well, well, well,’ he muttered.

‘Good or bad?’ Jean asked.

‘Surprising,’ said Steven. ‘Malenkov is turning out to be a big player, the man who probably knows exactly what has been going on, the man who recruited and paid Martin Field and probably Simon Pashley too — Scott Jamieson is looking into that as we speak — but why was he calling on Dimitry Petrov?

‘He could have been offering his condolences on the death of his son,’ Jean suggested

‘A good thought,’ said Steven. ‘But, if these two know each other well, maybe Petrov knows what it’s all about too.’

‘An even better thought,’ said Jean.

Steven read through the file on Malenkov. He was enormously wealthy — even by Russian oligarch standards — something he had achieved through Russian mining interests, which were still substantial, despite several acrimonious disagreements with the current regime in Mother Russia. Steven immediately saw the parallel with Dimitry Petrov. Maybe these two were even business partners.

There was one major difference however, Malenkov had not moved to London; he still lived in Moscow where he enjoyed a lifestyle commensurate with his wealth. He was regarded as a brilliant business strategist, but someone who resented the interference of political ideology in what he saw as strictly business decisions, hence his uneasy relationship with the ruling elite. Steven thought he was ticking a lot of boxes.

Scott Jamieson called in late afternoon. Simon Pashley’s widow had allowed him to go through her husband’s things — those that hadn’t been removed by the police for their murder investigation. He had found what he was looking for in two appointment diaries. The first had been listed as lunch with Sergei Malenkov at a London restaurant some eighteen months ago — probably the first meeting between the two men as Malenkov’s name had been spelt out in full. A further meeting had been listed as lunch with S.M. at the same London restaurant around six months ago.

‘Perhaps to discuss success of Pashley’s contribution and details of how payment would be made,’ suggested Steven. ‘You did really well, did you have to tell Mrs Pashley what you were looking for?’

Jamieson said not. ‘I feigned disappointment at not finding anything and thanked her for her cooperation.’

‘Excellent, we’ll have that beer soon.’

‘Several.’

Several things had become clear. Sergei Malenkov, the brilliant businessman, was a major player if not the major player in what he was investigating. So why was he still alive when the other players had been assassinated? Steven went for the simple explanation; Malenkov was not an expatriate, he lived in Moscow not London and setting up a killing on Malenkov’s own patch, would be a much tougher proposition. It would be easier to wait until he ventured abroad.

When he did travel abroad, Malenkov made sure he was still not an easy target. Steven had experienced this for himself. The Russian moved around in a limo which could well be armoured and was accompanied by at least one bodyguard who was alert and knew what he was doing — probably ex-KGB.

Steven struggled with one question that needed answering. Why had Malenkov risked coming to London at all when everything had gone so disastrously wrong and what did he want with Petrov? Between them, they controlled a great deal of the mineral mining interests across the Russian Federation, so he supposed they could be collaborating over business... but it could be something else. Petrov had lost his son and that may have united the pair against a common enemy. The prospect of a street war between Russians and Chinese on the streets of London did not bear thinking about.

Nine

Tally worked hard over the next few weeks to establish herself in the newly created tier of area management, corelating the response of the various volunteer groups within her assigned area. She understood the need for cooperation and knew what could happen when the desire of volunteers to help in a crisis situation became a competition between well-meaning people — they would end up getting in each other’s way. Television pictures from disaster areas around the world all too often showed pictures of eight or more people attempting to carry a single stretcher as they sought to attract albeit deserved credit for their efforts. This was human nature, something that Tally knew had to be accepted and accommodated. Attempts to change human nature were always doomed to failure, but good management could prevent conflicts arising in the first place.

Rather than just tell various individuals and groups simply what she wanted them to do, she would tell them why she was making her request and explain how their efforts would fit in with what she was asking others to do. People liked being kept in the picture and responded well.

Unfortunately, creating harmony among the volunteers was not the only challenge she had to deal with. It was clear that a certain number of the indigenous population were seeking to minimise the seriousness of the situation in order to protect their continued trade and employment situations, which was not only being put under strain by fellow workers going down with the disease but also by the fact that frightened immigrant workers were seeking to flee the country.

Although difficult to quantify, the problem was thankfully not as marked as it had been in previous outbreaks because of the financing of radio and television information channels and the handing out of leaflets, but it was still there and new drawbacks were being discovered — not least that the leaflets were being printed in languages which many of the population didn’t speak. A large number of minority languages were spoken in DRC and translators were thin on the ground.

The problem of the vaccine having to be held at extremely low temperature had been addressed by organising the few freezers capable of maintaining temperatures lower than -60 degrees centigrade in a chain system across the region so that time outside the freezer was kept to a minimum as the vaccine travelled to targeted groups who had already been identified as contacts and assured by other volunteers that help was on the way to keep them safe. They would be prepared and ready when the vaccine arrived.

Tally was updating the big map of her area with information that had come in from the volunteer groups, which it did on a nightly basis, when a man drew up in a Land Rover and, after dusting himself down, announced himself as, Marcus Altman. Tally could see that he was tall, European and heard that he had a German — maybe Swiss accent. He seemed vaguely familiar.

‘WHO,’ prompted Altman. ‘I’m the regional controller, I gave the inauguration talk when you arrived.’

‘Oh, of course,’ said Tally, feeling embarrassed. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve been meeting so many new people, I think I’m on overload. Please come in.’

‘I’m doing the rounds of the area managers to see how things are progressing,’ Altman explained. ‘But I think I can see that for myself,’ he added, ‘alluding to the map Tally had been updating and bending over to look more closely at it.’

‘Rather well,’ said Tally, joining Altman, ‘If the numbers we have are a true reflection of the situation, things are rapidly coming under control. The vaccination team completed their latest circle yesterday.’ She pointed to the red circle she had been completing, ‘and no new cases have been reported for over two weeks. How are the other areas doing?’

‘Much the same,’ said Altman, ‘Things are looking good all round, providing, as you say, we can trust the numbers and cases aren’t being hidden.’

‘Do you think they are?’ Tally asked.

‘We have to be a little cautious,’ said Altman, ‘because that’s always happened in the past, but, this time, I’m hopeful the measures taken to educate the public combined with the rapid influx of finance and skilled volunteers like yourself has paid dividends and, of course, a decent supply of vaccine has made all the difference. Providing there are no new cases, I think the Health authorities will be prepared to make an optimistic statement very soon.’

‘Sounds like a big success story for the investors who funded the new initiative,’ said Tally, ‘who had to cover her mouth a little and shake her head slightly.’

Altman noticed. He said, ‘Investing in disease and human suffering does seem a little strange, I agree, but we have to be single minded and concentrate on the bottom line, no?’

Tally conceded with a nod. ‘And to the future,’ she said. ‘When the people see how successful western medicine has been this time, there should be even less suspicion and opposition next time.’

‘A good way to look at it,’ said Altman, ‘but let’s hope there won’t be a next time.’

‘I never thought in my wildest dreams that the outbreak would be brought under control this quickly,’ said Tally, ‘I suppose, like everyone else, I was thinking in terms of the last one and the nightmare it turned out to be.’

‘Don’t underestimate the contribution you and your fellow volunteers have made,’ said Altman. ‘It took tremendous courage to come here in the first place, knowing what happened across West Africa last time when thousands died... Why did you come here?’

Tally didn’t expect the question and couldn’t find an answer. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I suppose I thought it was the right thing to do.’

Altman smiled and nodded before opening the rucksack he’d been carrying to take out a large envelope, which he handed to Tally. ‘I understand you wanted to see this; it’s the WHO report giving details of the last outbreak when it ended in 2016.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Tally, ‘I asked your colleague, Hans Weber, if I might see a copy although it now sounds like I won’t be needing it after all.’

‘How so?’

‘Call me a geek, but I’ve always had an interest in epidemiology,’ said Tally. ‘You can learn a lot about epidemics from studying how they spread in the past. I thought that looking at what happened last time might help in dealing with the current outbreak. Happily, it seems that sort of analysis won’t be needed, thank God.’

Altman smiled and said, ‘In which case, I’ll take it out of your way.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Tally. ‘I’m sure I’ll still find it an interesting read.’

Altman left and Tally finished adding updates to the map before sitting back to admire her handiwork — the marker-pen circles, crosses and numbers in boxes did look pleasingly like a situation under control. It was a good feeling, but it brought an odd feeling of mental tiredness with it, which she tried to analyse — one emotion at a time.

She was happy for the people of DRC who had suffered so much over the years from the hell of Ebola — they had been spared the nightmare of a repeat of the previous epidemic, and true, she was relieved that her own personal experience had been nowhere near as bad as she had feared before coming here, but there were feelings of regret that she had put Steven and her friends and family through so much worry because of some inner desire, which she still didn’t fully understand although she now remembered that Steven had once maintained that doing the right thing can be so much more difficult than people imagine. She called him.

‘You’re kidding,’ Steven exclaimed when Tally told him there was a chance that the Ebola outbreak was under control and it was possible it would soon be declared over, ‘All over in a couple of months? That is absolutely wonderful.’

‘Well, it was nearer six months if we factor in the time it took the authorities to admit there was a problem, but I have to admit it’s taken me by surprise too. ‘I suppose I’d been assuming I would be here for much longer.’

‘Me too,’ agreed Steven. ‘God, it’s such a relief to know that you’ll be coming home soon; I guess we owe — what do they call it? the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility a big apology. I really didn’t think it would work.’

‘I was a bit doubtful myself,’ Tally agreed, ‘but I thought the new area management scheme was a good idea and let’s not forget the vaccine. Having more vaccine available made an enormous contribution to stopping the spread of the disease in its tracks. I don’t think I understand why it’s still regarded as being experimental, you’d think it would have progressed to full accreditation after its success last time.’

‘Good point,’ said Steven. ‘We should ask about that, but something tells me we may not like the answer.’

‘Money?’

‘What else.’

‘Anyway, experimental or not, maybe more of the local population will have trust in modern medicine from now on.’

‘I’d like to think so, but something tells me witch doctors and weird religious beliefs aren’t going to go away anytime soon.’

‘Have you any idea when you might be coming home?’

‘We’ll have to wait for the official announcement and then, say, another couple of weeks to wind down. Hey, you haven’t told me anything about your investigation, how’s it going?’

‘Slowly,’ Steven replied. ‘I know quite a bit about the players, but very little about the plot.’

‘It’ll come together, you’ll see.’

‘You can always help with your input when you come home.’

‘A happy thought.’

Steven couldn’t stop smiling. He had been expecting to deal with the likelihood that Tally would be away for many months and in constant danger, but now, quite suddenly, it was all going to be over and she was coming home. It seemed too good to be true. He immediately regretted having that thought, remembering the warning that usually followed such a notion. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. He couldn’t ignore this, but he could argue against it. While it was true that Ebola cases had been concealed in the past and numbers manipulated in a futile attempt to protect the country’s economy, he felt confident it could not have happened this time. There were simply too many volunteers and savvy observers from global organisations on the ground that the truth could not successfully be disguised.

Thinking along these lines made him reflect on the fact that Tally had earlier told him that this was the ninth Ebola outbreak that DRC had had to deal with. It was surprising that they had any economy left to worry about. He resolved to find out more about this when he had more time. In the meantime, he had to prepare for a meeting with John Macmillan and the Home Secretary in the morning to discuss his own progress.

The Home Secretary opened proceedings by asking, ‘How are things looking from your perspective?’

‘Rich Russian expats living in London are involved in a scheme to make themselves even richer,’ said Steven. The man I believe to be the brains behind it all is another Russian, who is not an expat, but does tend to come and go despite still being resident in Moscow.’

The Home Secretary’s eyes widened. ‘Russian government?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ Steven replied. ‘His name is Sergei Malenkov and he has always had an uneasy relationship with the Kremlin. He’s a businessman first and foremost with a huge fortune accumulated through mining interests across the Russian Federation. I came across him by discovering him as the one who recruited Martin Field and Simon Pashley to the operation and arranged payment, firstly through the expats’ laundryman, Jeremy Lang. He in turn passed them on to his contact, Marcel Giroud in Paris. It’s possible he also recruited and arranged payment for the other two, Lagarde and Petrov, but I don’t know that for sure.’

‘Do you know anything at all about what they’ve been doing to annoy the Chinese government so much?’ asked the Home Secretary.

Steven shook his head and said, ‘Contrary to what MI6 thinks, I’m not so sure the Chinese government had anything to do with it. I think we may be looking at private enterprise.’

‘But surely the sheer amount of money involved would suggest...’

‘Access to huge wealth,’ Steven interrupted, ‘the Chinese equivalent of the Mafia perhaps. I think what we’re seeing may be a collision between Russian and Chinese private enterprise with monumental sums of money at stake.’

‘For lovers of communist irony everywhere,’ said Macmillan with a world-weary shake of the head.

‘So, where do we go from here?’ the Home Secretary asked.

‘You know,’ said Macmillan, ‘we don’t even know for sure that what Malenkov has been up to is illegal. We’ve been assuming it is because of the huge amounts of money being invested, but we don’t know that is the case.’

‘The direct route would be to take Sergei Malenkov in for questioning,’ said Steven, ‘but I’m not sure that would get us anywhere. We don’t have anything to charge him with and he’s hardly likely to invite us all into the library to hear him fess up to what he’s been doing.’

‘True,’ agreed the Home Secretary, ‘The only crimes committed on British soil apart from possibly tax evasion have been the murder of his two collaborators, Field and Pashley and we can safely assume he had nothing to do with that: they were on the same side.’

‘But he did come back to London again...’ said Steven thoughtfully.

‘Sorry, I’m not with you.’

‘Well, his operation goes pear-shaped in a big way with multiple murders of the people who made it all possible. He must realise that the opposition must be after him too, and yet, he takes the risk of leaving the relative safety of Moscow to come to London to meet with Petrov senior. That suggests to me that his operation might still be up and running, but maybe he needs support.’

The Home Secretary cleared his throat before saying, ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Steven.’

‘How bad?’

‘The Prime Minister’s plan to have you work alone without the knowledge of the police and security services became impractical when these good folks began to suspect that their work on the case was being leaked. They, of course, did not realise it was being leaked to Sci-Med by the Prime Minister of all people and it became a bit of a mess.’

‘The best laid schemes o’ mice and prime ministers...’ said Macmillan.

‘Quite,’ said the Home Secretary, sounding less than amused. ‘Anyway, her original plan was that you could work on the case without anyone leaking that fact to the opposition and you becoming a target.’

‘Are you going to tell me that I have become a target?’ said Steven, sensing that the slight silence that followed was a politician’s way of avoiding the word ‘yes’.

‘Last night, you requested help from Special Branch.’

‘And very grateful I was to them.’

‘You sent them to an address in Islington in pursuit of a Russian heading for a limousine that was parked there?’

‘Yes, but they were too late.’

‘One of the officers noticed something on the building at that address, something he had come across before, an array of small camera lenses spaced along the front elevation of the house, hardly noticeable to anyone not looking for them. He tells me that they are not just normal security cameras; they are the type that are permanently linked to high-grade face recognition software. It’s of course, highly possible that you in the position you have been in for years would be on it. The house owner would have been able to alert his guest to anyone outside who was recognised.’

‘And I was standing across the road.’

‘Precisely, the Russian you met last night was not some thug going over the top in pursuit of a jogger with a mobile phone, he was a professional going after Dr Steven Dunbar of Sci-Med with the intention of killing him.’

‘Good to know,’ said Steven, putting a brave face on things, but feeling sick inside.

‘The same will probably apply to the two Special Branch officers,’ said Macmillan, ‘the cameras will have recognised them too if they’ve been in the service for any length of time.’

‘Indeed,’ said the Home Secretary.

‘Well, the fact that our Russian friends know that the British security services and Dr Steven Dunbar are on to them, could work in our favour,’ said Macmillan, ‘especially if they’ve got the Chinese mob going after them as well. Can’t be too comfortable.’

Steven smiled at Macmillan’s skill in making everything seem hunky dory. ‘Thank God I’m not one of them,’ he said with merest suggestion of sarcasm and getting a slight smile in return from Macmillan. The Home Secretary missed the joke.

Ten

Steven opened the safe in his flat and took out the 9mm pistol he had been issued with. He sat looking at it for a few moments with a heavy heart before conceding the need for it in his current situation. He loaded it, slipped on the Burns Martin shoulder holster he had asked for and adjusted it for fit before inserting the weapon and putting on his jacket to see how well it would be concealed. It would do.

Although he was really no stranger to firearms and what they could do, he hated having to carry one on the streets of London. It was so contrary to what British life should be about. It seemed to him that we had done so well for so long with an unarmed police force enforcing law and order and, in doing so, avoiding the mayhem seen so often on the streets of so many other countries, but he had to accept that things were changing, and for the worse. It was no longer unusual to see news reports featuring heavily armed police officers bursting into premises like Star Ship troopers on the rampage. Holiday makers had become accustomed to seeing them patrol the concourse at UK airports, seemingly carrying enough firepower to take over a small country. Just what they imagined they were going to do with these weapons in a crowded airport escaped him.

It had not been pleasant to hear that the attempt on his life last night had been targeted and deliberate and not the over-the-top action of a trigger-happy heavy to a snap-happy jogger, but — and it was a big but — he reckoned the attempt had been made to prevent the photo he’d taken leading to the identification of Sergei Malenkov and the announcement of his presence in London and now it was too late to do anything about that; the cat was well and truly out the bag. All the security services would be working overtime on Mr Malenkov. He personally and his phone pics were no longer relevant.

Steven thought about what John Macmillan had said about not knowing if what Malenkov was doing was illegal. It seemed an odd thing to say, considering the number of bodies and shed loads of cash swilling around, but it did open up a new avenue of thought.

Assuming that money was at the very heart of it — an easy assumption to make in a world where it was at the heart of practically everything — it was still possible for something legal to be so startlingly good and life-changing that it generated fear and antipathy in others to a degree that they would wish to destroy it. He was thinking of stories of engines being invented that ran on water and cost nothing to run — wonderful, except to those who had billions of dollars tied up in the oil and automotive industry. It was reasonable to assume that, one way or another, the water-fuelled engine would not see the light of day.

It wasn’t difficult, but certainly uncomfortable to think of similar situations. Should someone come up with a simple, universal cure for cancer, it would undoubtedly be a threat to the many millions of dollars tied up in cancer research. Thousands of people across the world depended on the presence of cancer for careers, salaries, car loans, mortgages, school fees etc. It might pose an awful moral dilemma, but it would be hard to jump for joy in the street after seeing your job and your house disappear.

Could Malenkov have come up with something so novel or so brilliant that it was worth so much on the one hand but threatened others so much on the other that it might lead to violence and murder? It seemed unlikely, but continuing along these lines, Malenkov had needed the contributions of the murdered people, Field, the expert in remote drug delivery, Pashley, the expert in micro-control systems, Petrov, the vaccine designer and Lagarde, the WHO strategist in eliminating disease. Malenkov, who wasn’t a medic or a scientist, but a brilliant businessman, had seen an opportunity not obvious to others but requiring the skills of these people.

Steven could sense that he was about to start going around in circles again and put a stop to it. He didn’t want to think any more about Malenkov and what he was up to; he needed to take his mind off it all for what remained of the evening. To that end, he’d seek the assistance of Miles Davis and a couple of drinks. It was as he was pouring the first of these and Miles was launching into, Kind of Blue, that he remembered he had intended to find out a bit more about the Democratic Republic of Congo and its troubles. Wikipedia would give him a start.

Tally had no trouble in getting a good night’s sleep after learning that she would soon be returning home to the life she had put on hold — much sooner than she had ever imagined. She had no regrets about volunteering and believed that she had done the right thing in responding to the request for help in setting up a new crisis management scheme, but on the other hand, she felt she had done her bit and had no wish to repeat the experience. The system was up and running and had proved itself. It would undoubtedly be used again, but please God, not for a while: the people of DRC, and Equateur Province in particular, deserved a break. She would return to doing her very best for sick children in her own country.

She lay for a while thinking about what she personally could take from the experience and concluded not much. Most of what she had seen and heard had been as expected. The volunteers she’d met along the way were thoroughly decent people responding, as she herself had done, to that desire to help others in times of need, a human trait to be much admired but seldom satisfactorily explained, especially when it was pursued against all the odds. She personally had been working with figures and calculations, moving pieces around on a map but she remembered all too well seeing nurses emerging from long shifts on Ebola wards, the tired smiles on their faces as they removed their protective goggles and visors to breathe in fresh air and wipe the sweat off their faces. That was truly something else.

She had not made contact with many of the local population, but, when she had, it had reinforced her view that people are people all over the world. Language could be a barrier, and nowhere more so than in DRC, but so much could be conveyed through looks and smiles. People sensed who meant well and who didn’t. There had been fear and suspicion to overcome, but the patience of the volunteers had triumphed in the end, although... Tally remembered the teacher she had met shortly after arriving, Monique, the charming, educated girl who spoke English well. Tally smiled when she remembered her joking that she had to as she was teaching it to the local children. But then, there had been a strange moment when she had brought up the subject of reluctance among some locals to accept vaccination against Ebola. Rather than agree with her in decrying the influence of superstition and nonsense from witch doctors, Monique appeared to share the people’s concerns and had put an abrupt end to the conversation. It still seemed strange in retrospect. Tally thought she might go seek out Monique again before she left, hoping that she might learn more.

Tally went through the morning reports from the groups in her area, humming to herself when she saw the recovery trend continue.

‘Well, girl,’ she murmured to herself, ‘If you were allowed to pick an Ebola outbreak to volunteer for... you couldn’t possibly have done better.’

Although there had been a five-month delay before an official declaration had been made by the Health Authorities in May 2018, it was beginning to look like it was all going to be over before the end of July. The death toll looked like it would come in at under fifty as opposed to the thousands who had perished back in 2016.

It occurred to Tally that she might suggest a little celebration for the volunteers in her area but wasn’t sure how to go about this. She thought she might contact Marcus Altman, the WHO regional controller who had come to visit her at the outset and ask for his advice.

‘Great idea,’ said Altman, ‘they deserve a bit of relaxation, but maybe you should wait until the official announcement is made...’ He answered Tally’s questioning pause by adding, ‘otherwise certain gentlemen of the press — who seldom venture outside their hotels — will jump on you. You know the sort of thing, Aid workers party while sick people suffer.’

Tally did not recognise that sort of thing — quite the reverse in her own experience at Great Ormond Street where the press had always been so supportive — but she understood the reasoning. It sounded as if Altman had had quite a different experience. She asked a few questions about how she could go about obtaining food and drink for her little get-together — she had been psyched out of calling it a party — and Altman assured her he could take care of that when the time came. He would be in touch when the official announcement was made. Tally thanked him but felt deflated. Why on earth would the press want to paint a bad picture of people who had put their lives on the line to help others?

With decisions made for the routine of the day — only one request to issue for a follow-up to a family recorded as being missing when the team had last visited the village — Tally felt that they would soon be entering the more or less automatic wind-down phase of the area operation and took advantage of the current lull in demand to go through the WHO report on the 2014-16 outbreak.

She started by writing down the official date of the start of the outbreak in 2014, when Ebola had been confirmed in a small village, although she reminded herself that all dates were unlikely to be accurate because of slowness in reporting — the more remote the village the longer it would take to attract attention — and also slowness in getting lab confirmation that the disease a patient was suffering from was actually Ebola.

Tally found herself drawn into the full horror of a major Ebola epidemic, the tragic stories of whole families being wiped out because of their insistence on looking after their own rather than accepting professional help and consequently all of them becoming infected and dying. Even then, the tradition of close personal contact with the deceased in a last display of love and affection from friends and neighbours caused yet more infection. Villagers fled with predictable consequences for neighbouring villages and so the circle widened.

Tally plotted the spread to new locations using dates and checking the locations on a map of the province, checking if the limited availability of vaccine at the time had made a difference. Not much, she concluded as she watched what she saw appear as a traditional spread of an epidemic on the rampage and then... it all went wrong.

Tally couldn’t believe her eyes. Ebola suddenly appeared to have broken out all over the place... all over the country... and in neighbouring countries. She checked the dates over and over again and then the locations and then re-checked the numbers, but, unless there had been a monumental screw-up in the data she was looking at, there was something awfully wrong. There had to be some simple explanation but she couldn’t think of it. It really looked as if the people responsible for the report statistics had stopped collecting data and made the whole lot up.

Tally could feel a pulse beating in the side of her neck. She shook her head and searched for that simple explanation she felt must be lurking somewhere. ‘What am I not seeing?’ she murmured, throwing her head back as if searching for inspiration. Start with the facts! Always start with the facts, Tally.

She was looking at an epidemic that had ended two years ago; there were lots of facts. It was true that the epidemic had spread far and wide and into neighbouring countries. These facts were beyond dispute, it was the kinetics of the spread that had thrown her. They were all wrong... but two years had passed since the end of the epidemic. She didn’t know when the report she was looking at had been released, but surely someone else must have noticed this... or didn’t it matter? Maybe it didn’t, was her awful conclusion. This was Africa... eleven thousand people had perished in an outbreak of disease... eleven thousand African people to add to the thousands who had died of starvation... the thousands who had died in civil unrest... drought, famine... the list was endless. Perhaps the only thing to concentrate on in the WHO report was the fact that that particular epidemic was long since over. She should move on. None of the eleven thousand were coming back, least of all to re-plot themselves on the graph.

So much for epidemiology, Tally thought with a wry smile. Studying the spread of the disease had not helped at all in this case. She couldn’t explain what she was seeing, but, on the other hand, the rapid end to the current outbreak suggested that epidemiological help wasn’t needed. An effective vaccine and a well-organised force of volunteers had done the trick. But somehow, she knew that the numerical puzzle was going to stay with her.

Tally held her get-together two days after the outbreak in Equateur Province was declared over in the third week of July. It was an easy and relaxed affair with all the volunteers feeling both relieved that they come through unharmed and looking forward to returning home after a one-off experience or at least having a break before answering their next call as was the case with those who served with the major aid sources like Med Sans Frontierès, the Red Cross and World Health Organisation.

Tally managed to snatch a quiet moment just to observe the fifty or so people from her area laughing and chatting. It was a very long way from being a sophisticated cocktail party — plastic cups and plates, warm beer and various snacks brought over from the main WHO control centre by Marcus Altman — but no one was complaining; no one was bitching about anything. Everyone was happy.

Marcus Altman saw Tally standing alone and came over with his young colleague, Hans Weber.

‘A big success,’ said Altman.

Tally had to agree. ‘Thanks to you,’ she said. ‘You must tell me how I pay for everything.’

‘Forget it,’ said Altman. ‘I should have thought of doing this myself.’

‘But you have lots of areas to look after,’ Tally protested.

‘Please forget it,’ Altman assured her.

‘We need a celebration for the aid volunteers in the whole province,’ said Hans, ‘like the Munich beer festival.’

‘My God, the press would have a field day with that,’ said Altman.

‘Bastards,’ said Hans, quickly apologising to Tally for his language.

Tally dismissed the need for apology with a shake of the head. She could see that Hans was enjoying the beer, warm or not.

‘Are you finished with the WHO report on the 14–16 outbreak?’ asked Altman.

‘Oh yes, sorry, I didn’t realise you wanted it back,’ said Tally.

‘It’s just that it’s the only copy I have, but if you chucked it, don’t worry, it’s not important. I don’t suppose you had time to read it?’

‘I did, actually,’ said Tally, ‘did you?’

Altman smiled and said, ‘Reading reports is for politicians, not for people on the front line. Why? was there something wrong?’

‘I’m not sure “wrong” is the right word. Come, I’ll show you.’

Altman and Hans followed Tally inside to the table where her map was laid out. ‘The epidemic followed the usual rules of spreading up until this happened,’ she pointed to an end to concentric circles and the appearance of her crosses all over the map. ‘All the figures go haywire; they’re all over the place.’

Altman looked closer before announcing triumphantly, ‘Rivers.’

‘Rivers?’ Tally repeated.

‘You’ve overlooked the relevance of rivers. They are used as a major form of transport in African countries with little in the way of roads. Your early circles represent the spread of disease from the small villages where it started across land where there are often no roads at all. It’s quite slow, but people carrying the disease can be many miles away very quickly when travelling by river and new cases suddenly appear in the destinations of their river journeys.’

‘Ah,’ said Tally, ‘that would explain it. Thank you, Marcus. I’ve just learned that traditional epidemiology shouldn’t be employed when so many rivers are involved.’

‘Let’s join the others,’ said Hans examining his empty beer cup.

Tally did her best to circulate through the groups of volunteers, many of whom she hadn’t had to the chance to meet face to face with during the relatively short time she’d been here. She was pleased at the response she got when introducing herself. Everyone seemed pleased with how she’d done her job and spoke of how efficient everyone had been in interacting with each other.

Tally was pleased to come across Mary Kelly and they hugged before Tally thanked her for being so kind to her when she’d first arrived.

‘It was a pleasure,’ said Mary, ‘and you’ve been a big success.’ She asked about Tally’s plans for returning home.

‘I haven’t made any yet,’ said Tally. ‘There are one or two things I have to do before I get down to it. I thought I might go and see Monique Barbet and hear what she thinks about the way the latest outbreak was handled. I got the impression she wasn’t too impressed with aid efforts the last time Ebola struck.’

‘She’s just a troublemaker,’ said Hans who had joined them and whose speech was becoming slurred.

‘Who’s a troublemaker?’ asked Marcus Altman who had also joined them.

‘Monique,’ said Hans, without bothering to add a surname.

‘Nonsense,’ said Altman, ‘she’s just an educated woman who likes to question everything — a woman of her time.’

Everyone laughed and Hans slunk off to get a refill.

‘You sound cheerful,’ said Steven.

‘I’ve been giving a party,’ said Tally.

‘Ah,’ said Steven, ‘then it’s true what they’ve been saying about aid workers.’

‘And what’s that?’ Tally asked.

‘The press have been running stories about aid workers exploiting vulnerable people in crisis areas across the world.’

‘I must have missed that,’ said Tally, ‘I certainly haven’t come across anything like that here,’ she added, but thinking it would explain Altman’s hostility when the subject of the press came up.

‘When are you coming home?’

‘Soon, I promise. Just a few things to clear up.’

Eleven

Steven rubbed his eyes and yawned as he shut down the article on DRC. It seemed an all too familiar tale of poverty and malnutrition among the people while the apparent vast mineral wealth of the country was exploited by others. The country had constantly been beset by wars and the corruption of its politicians who had been generally shunned in recent times after 88 million pounds of tax revenue from mining went missing. It took until 2013 for the rest of the world to accept that feasible measures had been put in place to counter corruption and encourage the flow of foreign capital back into the extraction of copper, cobalt and diamonds.

Diamond smuggling was still a problem, with a significant number leaving the country unrecorded and small unofficial mines operating in remote areas. There was ongoing conflict in North Kivu province on the eastern side of the country, a wild and lawless area plagued by violence where dozens of armed groups operated. Over a thousand people in the area around Beni, a city of over three hundred thousand people, had died through violence since 2014 and thousands more had been displaced from their homes.

Steven took some comfort from the fact that Tally was in Equateur Province, several hundred miles away to the west, but his biggest comfort was the thought that she was coming home soon.

Next morning Tally got into her Land Rover, an elderly vehicle that had been round the block more than a few times, and drove out to the village where she had first met Monique. She found her surrounded by children as she had been the last time and smiled as she witnessed the same enthusiasm. Hands shot up every time a question was asked and a chorus of small voices pleaded their case to be heard. One of the children waved to Tally and she waved back, causing Monique to turn and see her.

Tally wasn’t quite sure that Monique was pleased to see her, but she came over and managed a smile and a formal hello.

‘I thought I would come and say goodbye,’ Tally explained.

‘You’re leaving?’

‘The outbreak has been declared over, I’m going back to my hospital... to my children,’ Tally said with a fond look towards the children sitting on the ground, ‘they obviously adore you.’

‘They are keen to learn,’ said Monique, ‘that makes my job easy.’

‘You must be pleased that the outbreak is over so quickly this time?’

‘Of course.’

‘It made such a difference having more vaccine available.’

Monique looked down at the ground but didn’t comment. This was the situation Tally was looking for if only she could get Monique to open up.

‘You still have doubts about the vaccine?’

Monique shrugged.

‘I really don’t understand,’ said Tally gently, ‘the vaccine saved hundreds — maybe thousands of people and you still have doubts?’

‘The vaccine killed ten people... my family... my friends.’

Tally felt stunned. ‘When was this?’

‘In the last outbreak.’

‘Maybe they were given the vaccine too late,’ said Tally. ‘It doesn’t work with people who already have the disease.’

‘They didn’t have the disease,’ said Monique bitterly. ‘They were perfectly healthy and were told the vaccine would protect them, but it didn’t. They caught Ebola and died. All of them.’

Tally felt confused. The official report on the 2014-16 outbreak said that no one who had been given the vaccine had caught the disease. She said so to Monique.

‘They are lying.’

‘Who gave them the vaccine, Monique?’

‘The aid workers.’

‘Why were they given it, Monique, were they contacts?’

Monique shook her head. ‘There was no Ebola in the village.’

‘But vaccine supplies back then were very limited. Why did they give it to your people?’

‘They said it was a new vaccine — experimental, they called it — it hadn’t been fully tested but they were sure it worked. They said there might be a few side effects, but nothing serious.’

‘It sounds like the same one they’ve been using this time,’ said Tally, ‘it’s still classed as experimental... but it worked really well.’

‘Then we have to disagree,’ said Monique, ‘I really must get back to the children. I wish you a safe flight home.’

‘I’ll try to look into this before I go, Tally said, ‘and see what the explanation is. If I find out anything, I’ll come back and tell you.’

A shrug.

As Monique turned to go back to her class, Tally had one more question.

‘Monique, you said the vaccine killed ten people, was that the total number?’

‘Thirty-seven died.’

As Tally drove back on the bumpy trail, constantly tugging at the wheel to correct her course, she regretted having returned the official WHO report to Marcus Altman. She wanted to check on what she hoped she had remembered correctly, that no one who had been given the experimental vaccine in the 2014-16 outbreak had subsequently contracted Ebola. Something was wrong and it could be her memory. For that reason, she didn’t want to ask Altman for another look at the report. She felt she’d already made herself look silly by not considering river travel in her calculations. Maybe she would ask Steven to check for her.

‘We’ve finally heard something back from Beer Sheva University,’ said Jean when Steven arrived at the office. The tone of her voice suggested that it was not going to set the world on fire.

‘He was working on the design of vaccines that would give protection against diseases caused by killer haemorrhagic viruses.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Apart from the fact that he had a grant from the World Health Organisation to do it.’

‘We knew that,’ Steven complained. ‘Nothing about how successful he was being or what particular diseases he was working on?’

‘No, it beats me why it took the Israelis so long to tell us that,’ said Jean.

Jean had a habit of highlighting details that needed highlighting. ‘I wonder if MI6 knows any more than we do,’ said Steven.

‘Want me to tell them you’re on the way over?’

Steven nodded. ‘Ask if Jane Sherman will talk to me.’

An hour later, Steven walked over to Albert Embankment, showed his ID, jumped through the required hoops and waited until someone came down to escort him up to Jane Sherman’s office.

Sci-Med and the intelligence services were not exactly bosom buddies, but they were civil to each other and, when push came to shove, recognised that they were on the same side and behaved sensibly. This was better than the frostiness which existed between the police and the intelligence people — MI5 in particular — although rumours were that this had greatly improved lately thanks to the terrorist threat at home.

‘Hello Steven, haven’t seen you in ages.’

‘That’s why we’re still friends, Jane.’ He was rewarded by some semblance of a smile.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘We asked the University of Beer Sheva what Samuel Petrov was working on at the time of his murder and they took a long time to come back with “vaccine design”. I wondered if you folks might know a bit more?’

Jane Sherman smiled and said, ‘I don’t think the university is holding anything back, they’re just feeling embarrassed. As it turns out, they’ve no idea what he’s been doing.’

‘What?’ exclaimed Steven, feeling a stab of genuine alarm. ‘How could that happen?’

‘When Beer Sheva University learned that Petrov had expressed a desire to come and work there and that money from WHO would be forthcoming to support him, they provided him with a lab kitted out with what he would need for carrying out molecular biology on dangerous organisms — the haemorrhagic viruses. His stated plan was to disable them by altering parts of their genome so that they would no longer be able to infect people but would still produce antibodies which would act against the real thing when injected into people.’

‘Makes sense,’ Steven said.

‘Apparently there aren’t too many people working on that sort of thing because many of these diseases don’t affect people living in the affluent countries of the world. They’re largely confined to countries which have very little money. Support for research has to come from philanthropy and large charity concerns like WHO and the Red Cross. Beer Sheva was happy to be associated with the work but couldn’t afford to offer Petrov any technical assistance so he had to work alone while he was there. He seemed happy with that, saying that, at least, no one else would be in danger.

‘After the murder, the university had to get together a skilled team to enter Petrov’s lab, disinfect everything, make it safe and recover what they could of Petrov’s notes on what he had been doing and how successful he’d been, only the team didn’t find what they expected. They reported that Petrov must have been planning to leave. There was no trace of what he had been doing although it was clear the apparatus had been used. He had been using restriction enzymes and running acrylamide gels as you would expect for someone cutting and pasting nucleic acids, but everything had been sterilised and cleaned. The fridges and freezers had been emptied of virus stocks and their contents autoclaved so that there were no cultures of live viruses left to work with. There was however, a large circular container containing lots of packing material to protect one small sealed glass flask. The container was addressed to someone at WHO in Geneva and was obviously waiting to be sent off. The team didn’t want to open the flask without having any indication of what was in it so, after discussion with the university authorities, it was decided that WHO be contacted and asked what they would like done with the container. I understand that WHO said they would arrange for its pick-up.’

‘Did the university ask them what was in the flask?’

‘WHO said they didn’t know,’ said Jane.

‘So, why did they arrange for its pick-up?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why didn’t they just ask for it to be put through the steriliser like everything else?’

‘Wanting it back suggests they did know, don’t you think?’ Steven asked.

‘I do, Steven,’ said Jane in condescending fashion, ‘but an alternative explanation might be that the person at WHO being asked the question might genuinely not know, but might also feel that they did not have the authority to authorise its destruction without referring the matter to a higher authority. Haven’t you noticed? People don’t make decisions any more, they avoid them by referring them to someone else. The higher authority will be equally uncertain and call for a meeting, the purpose of which will be to share the blame involved in actually taking the decision. Corporate responsibility I think they call it.’

‘Blame-free guilt,’ said Steven.

‘Exactly.’

‘Well, you may very well be right, Jane,’ said Steven, ‘but, as my granny used to say, where there’s doubt... check it out.’

Jane’s demeanour changed. She held out the palm of her hand, a gesture designed to stop Steven who was getting up to leave. ‘Is that what you intend to do?’ she asked.

Steven sank back down slowly, looking for some clue in Jane’s facial expression, but not finding any. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘is that a problem?’

‘Would it suffice to say we at MI6, would rather you didn’t?’

‘No, it wouldn’t,’ said Steven. His facial expression had become as unyielding as Jane’s. ‘I want to know what Petrov was doing at Beer Sheva. It’s important to my investigation and it looks like I’ll have to go to Geneva to find out.’

‘There’s a danger you will trample all over something we are interested in.’

‘Then I suggest you tell me what that is and I will do my best to avoid doing any such thing.’

‘It’s more important than your... scientific interest,’ said Jane.

‘You missed out the words “little” and “unimportant”,’ said Steven getting to his feet.

‘Wait.’

Steven turned, but kept his hand on the door handle.

‘Please sit down.’

‘Please don’t tell me WHO has weapons of mass destruction,’ said Steven resuming his seat.

‘I’m sorry if I seemed to belittle Sci-Med’s interest. There is more than one investigation going on here and there’s a danger of paths being crossed and many months of work being wasted.’

‘I only know of one and I intend to pursue it.’

‘I can see that. I can even understand why you want to find out what your Ruskie expats have been up to; it’s intriguing, but there’s always a bigger picture...’

Once again, Steven made a move to leave.

‘What do you think of the World Health Organisation?’ Jane asked.

‘Big respect, a huge organisation that has done tremendous good in the world — they wiped out the scourge of smallpox for a start. I’m sure it will have its faults, but all big organisations do.’

‘And the Red Cross?’

‘Much the same.’

‘Med Sans Frontierès?

‘Yes, where are you going with this?’ Steven asked.

‘Nearly all of us think that way... and we’re right, but recently it has become apparent that these organisations have been infiltrated by organised crime and I’m not talking about the occasional wrong un.’

‘Why?’

‘Just think about it, access to hundreds of thousands of people across the globe, not seen by them as vulnerable people, but as a ready supply of drug mules, prostitutes, you name it, an easy way of advancing the interests of crime empires on a big scale.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Unfortunately, yes, the behaviour of some of these interlopers has been giving the game away of late and, if public trust is lost in big aid organisations and funding disappears, it could mean absolute disaster for so many.’

‘Point taken,’ said Steven. ‘How am I going to get in the way?’

‘Phillipe Lagarde,’ said Jane, ‘one of your murder victims.’

‘The WHO strategist.’

Jane nodded. ‘For some time now, he has been a person of interest to the intelligence services, shall we say, a selfless hero who risked life and limb to help the poor unfortunates of the world, and someone we think was doing quite the opposite. He was up to his neck in organised crime.’

‘Wow, but...’

‘WHO support for Petrov’s research at Beer Sheva was signed off by Lagarde and the flask found in Petrov’s lab was addressed to Lagarde in Geneva.’

Steven shrugged and shook his head. ‘In which case we all want to know what was in it.’

‘You could say. US Intelligence are expecting it to be a new, synthetic drug, highly addictive and useful in the cause of enslaving people for life. Do you have any thoughts on the subject?’

Steven felt embarrassed but confessed, ‘I thought it might be a new super-efficient vaccine, capable of conferring immunity to multiple diseases.’

‘I hope you didn’t bet your house on that,’ said Jane.

They both smiled and the conversation relaxed.

Steven said, ‘Ten minutes ago I was intent on flying to Geneva to find out what had happened to the flasks Petrov had been sending. I suspect that might have been a wasted journey?’

‘We managed to get Israeli help in intercepting the flask before it was collected for delivery to WHO,’ said Jane. ‘It’s on its way to England as we speak.’

‘Why England?’ said Steven.

‘A decision had to be made, CDC Atlanta or Porton Down in England, toss of a coin, England won — or lost depending on how you look at it, then maximum biological security had to be agreed on — the flask could contain anything for all we know, Lassa Fever, Marburg disease, Ebola or the latest Chelsea party drug.’

‘Keep me in the loop?’ Steven asked.

‘Will do,’ said Jane, looking as if she meant it.’

If there had been a can lying on the pavement outside MI6 headquarters, Steven would have kicked it into the back of beyond in a bid to free himself of the frustration he felt. He had come here hoping to get information about the vaccines Petrov had been working on and now he was leaving, feeling he’d just taken a giant step backwards. Whatever Petrov had been working on, he had obviously finished before his killers had got to him. His lab had been cleared for shut-down, leaving the only clue in the flask he had prepared for transport to WHO in Geneva.

His mood didn’t improve when he got back to the Home Office and sensed that Jean and John Macmillan were exchanging glances behind his back as if preparing to tell him something he was not going to like.

‘I take it you haven’t heard,’ said Macmillan.

‘Heard what?’

‘The authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have announced a new outbreak of Ebola.’

‘You’re kidding,’ said Steven, ‘How can they? It’s only a week since they announced the epidemic was over. What the hell are they playing at?’ He felt angry and confused at the same time. ‘There must be some kind of misunderstanding,’ he insisted.

‘That’s what we thought too,’ said Jean, ‘but they’re officially notifying it.’

‘Crazy, crazy, crazy,’ said Steven. ‘It has to be a left-over pocket of disease from the outbreak they’ve just declared over. Did they say where the new cases are?’

‘North Kivu Province,’ said Jean, referring to her notes.

‘But that’s a lawless hell hole, hundreds of miles away from Equateur... how in God’s name did it get there...’

Macmillan shook his head and said, ‘It didn’t travel from Equateur, they’ve had more than forty cases of haemorrhagic fever in Kivu and seventeen have been confirmed as being Ebola by lab tests. The real crunch came when genetic testing of the virus revealed it to be a completely different strain from the one in Equateur: that’s why they’re calling it a new outbreak; they have no option, it really is.’

‘The tenth,’ Steven murmured, feeling utterly dejected and not at all looking forward to an upcoming discussion with Tally.

‘I just can’t believe it,’ said Tally. ‘The world’s gone crazy... Less than a week since the end of one outbreak another one erupts... it’s just not possible... it’s just not fair!’

Steven could hear the emotion in Tally’s voice and it wasn’t making things any easier for him to persuade her that she must turn away from it all. ‘How did you hear about it?’ he asked.

‘The regional manager for WHO, Marcus Altman, called me this morning. He’s not sure what’s going to happen...’

‘Tally, what do you know about North Kivu?’

‘It’s hundreds of miles away from where I am.’

‘I’ve been investigating with help from the Foreign Office,’ Steven said, ‘it’s a little piece of hell on earth, completely without law and order with a civilian population living under the most atrocious conditions because so much in the way of housing has been destroyed in the continual fighting in the region. This has led to such severe overcrowding that Ebola will rage through the community like a forest fire after a long drought. The warring factions are completely without mercy and would put ISIS to shame when it came to inflicting pain and slaughter on their fellow citizens. You must not even consider going there.’

‘I haven’t been asked... no one has... no one saw it coming,’ said Tally, still sounding upset.

‘You might be,’ said Steven. ‘In the absence of any better idea, it will be an almost automatic thing for the authorities to ask those already in the country to carry on without putting any real thought into it and that could lead to absolute disaster. It’s clear thinking that’s needed not three cheers for the firemen as they walk into the flames never to return.’

‘We can’t just turn our backs, Steven.’

‘You must. It’s time for others to do the right thing, it’s a different response that’s needed.’

‘Which is?’

‘They have to stop the virus getting out of Kivu. Nothing else matters. Kivu is to all intents a war zone where no one can tell friend from foe. It’s pointless for outsiders to even try. All acts of human kindness will have to be side-lined and cold hard facts recognised. You know as well as I do, we cannot treat Ebola — we have nothing to treat it with — and highly skilled nursing will only save one in ten at great risk to the nurses. All efforts have to be centred on stopping the virus escaping and starting the pandemic we all fear could sweep the world. The only thing we have in our armoury is a vaccine and please God, we can get enough of it. It has to be used to create a belt of healthy immunised people round the whole infected region so that the virus cannot cross it. Viruses need living tissue to survive. If they can’t find someone new to infect, they will die. People trying to break out of the region have to be turned back.’

‘And if they have guns?’

‘They will have to be met by people with bigger guns.’

‘But, who...’

‘Surrounding countries will be keen to protect their borders and allowed to do so but United Nations action will be needed — and I mean action, not a bunch of freeloaders sitting on their arses passing resolutions.’

‘Oh my God,’ Tally murmured, ‘I need time to get my head round all this. I don’t know what to say.’

‘Please promise me you won’t agree to go anywhere before we speak again. I would get down on my knees and beg you to come home as quickly as possible if I thought it would do any good, but I know it wouldn’t and, ultimately, you will make up your own mind, so, promise me that?’

‘I promise.’

Twelve

It was strange for Steven to feel dread over the prospect of hearing from Tally, but that was how he felt as he waited for her to phone the following evening. When the call finally came, he let it ring more than a couple of times, still fearing that he was about to be told that she had decided to stay on in DRC and go to Kivu Province.

‘Hi, how are you?’ he said with a slight croak in his throat. Tally didn’t seem to notice. ‘It’s been such a strange day,’ she said, ‘the news of another outbreak has taken everyone by surprise and, because so many people were packing up and preparing to wind down, there’s been a real lack of communication all round. From what little I did manage to pick up here and there, it seems that what you said about Kivu was absolutely right; it’s virtually a war zone and the general feeling is that the new system of area management just won’t work there.’

Steven raised his eyes to the ceiling and silently mouthed, ‘There is a God.’

As an alternative to shouting yippee, he said, ‘That makes sense,’ as calmly and seriously as he could.

‘The good thing is that there are large stockpiles of vaccine ready to be used, starting with contacts of cases in the city of Mangina where the new outbreak started with 13 confirmed cases,’ Tally continued, ‘but the plan is to create a circle of immunity to cross all likely exit routes from the province while maintaining a safe distance for the volunteers. There’s no question of sending in people to hunt through a wild landscape riddled with groups of lawless bandits to offer vaccination.’

‘Good,’ said Steven... ‘I hope the bottom line is you’re still coming home?’

‘I think it does,’ Tally replied. ‘There are enough volunteers here with the skills needed to vaccinate people and, with no need for targeted area management, I still plan on coming home.’

‘Wonderful,’ said Steven.

‘There is something I’d like you to do for me,’ said Tally.

‘Ask away.’

‘Could you lay your hands on a copy of the 2016 WHO report on the last Ebola outbreak in DRC and check if anyone who received the experimental vaccine at the time died because of it?’

‘Will do, are you going to tell me why?’

‘I’ve become fond of a young teacher here — a very nice intelligent girl — who insists that friends and members of her family died after being given the vaccine, but I seem to remember reading than no deaths had been attributed to the vaccine.’

‘Maybe they already had the disease?’

‘Monique assures me they were perfectly healthy.’

‘And you think there may have been some kind of a cover-up.’

‘I don’t know what to think, the vaccine was very new at the time, but surely they wouldn’t have tried to hide something going awfully wrong like that.’

Unable to offer any reassurance, Steven said, ‘Okay, I’ll check it out... Actually, I thought you already had a copy of that report — you were going to study the spread of the previous outbreak?’

‘I gave it back,’ said Tally, ‘and I don’t want to ask for it again. It’s a long story. Are you going to tell me how your investigation is going?’

‘Some progress,’ said Steven, ‘it looks like Petrov had finished whatever he was doing in Israel before he was murdered. When the Israelis opened up his lab to make it safe, they found everything already sterilised and cleaned up. There was however, a sealed flask awaiting transport to WHO in Geneva, something he had been doing from time to time. Anyway, Israeli Intelligence managed to intercept it before it was collected and pretty soon the guys at Porton Down are going to analyse the contents.’

‘Sounds exciting.’

‘It’s hard to see how that is going to tell us why so many people have died over it.’

‘That’s what makes it exciting.’

‘Maybe you could do something for me, will you be seeing your teacher friend again?’

‘I said I would let her know if I found out anything about the vaccine given to her family.’

‘Did she say who administered it?’ Steven asked.

‘She just called them the aid people.’

‘Ask her if she remembers any names of those involved.’

‘Will do, can I ask why?’

‘It’s a long story...’

‘Touché,’ said Tally.

‘We can exchange our long stories when we’re together again... soon.’

‘A nice ring to it, stay safe.’

‘You too.’

If Steven were not absolutely fed up with the world and his dog declaring that they were on an emotional roller coaster in every other interview on radio or television, he might have been one of them. His fears surrounding the possibility of Tally staying on in DRC and putting herself in yet more danger had largely been dispelled, but the relief he should have felt was being denied to him by the twists and turns of his own investigation expanding to include the infiltration of major world aid agencies by organised crime. He was no longer looking at Russian oligarchs financing a project for which it had been necessary to bring top scientific brains on board, it now involved rogue elements embedded in world aid organisations, one of them a top WHO strategist. Steven rubbed his temples as he tried to figure out how this changed things.

On the positive side, he was no longer working alone. MI6 had given him valuable information on Phillipe Lagarde — the man he had been respecting for his selfless work in the fight against world disease. The fact that he was some kind of criminal had to be fitted into the puzzle. MI6 and the other intelligence services would continue to investigate the involvement of criminals in the ranks of aid providers, particularly in the exploitation of vulnerable people across the globe whenever and wherever disease and disaster struck, but it was still going to be up to him to shine a light on the scientific aspects of what had been going on within his small group.

Not for the first time, he found himself feeling grateful for a personal relationship, in this case his association with Jane Sherman. Their paths had not crossed that often but they respected and trusted each other in a world where that was far from the norm. What was more important was the fact that they understood each other’s jobs and accepted that only a minimum could be shared.

Jane had not really wanted to tell him about the problem with WHO and the involvement of Lagarde, but in the ensuing game of verbal chess, she had accepted that his determination to pursue his own investigation could impact adversely on MI6’s interests and compromised. This was the best and most pragmatic outcome and both understood that. He hoped that Jane’s agreement to keep him in the loop might extend to him being present at Porton when Petrov’s flask was opened.

He had to admit that it did seem likely that US Intelligence would be proved right and a new addictive, synthetic drug, the backbone of modern-day slavery, would be making an appearance. There was one thing however, that he wasn’t comfortable with and made him start looking through his notes for dates until he found what he was looking for.

By the time the people at Beer Sheva had opened up Petrov’s lab with the intention of making it safe, Phillip Lagarde had been murdered so who had the Israelis spoken to at WHO when they called to ask what should be done with the flask? Someone at WHO had told them that the parcel would be picked up, but the intelligence services had beat them to it and stopped that happening

Steven remembered hearing that Petrov had sent material to WHO on more than one occasion so it sounded as if people there must have known about the relationship between Lagarde and Petrov. Lagarde had also been instrumental in securing WHO funds for Petrov, ostensibly to continue his work on vaccines when he decided to move to Beer Sheva, so, it couldn’t have just been a secret arrangement between the two of them... unless of course, there was a difference between what Petrov was supposed to have been doing — designing vaccines — and what he’d actually been up to.

Petrov had worked alone at Beer Sheva, none of his Israeli colleagues had ever had occasion to enter the high security lab he worked in, believing him to be working with deadly viruses, but what about Geneva? Was Lagarde the only one to know what was in the containers sent to them by Petrov and what had happened to the contents after that?

Steven wanted to investigate... but STOP signs were flashing inside his head. If he started asking questions of WHO in Geneva, it would quickly be construed as interference in what was an MI6 and US Intelligence affair and that could lead to general... unhappiness. Apart from that, it had been Jane Sherman at MI6 who had told him about Lagarde being under investigation and he didn’t want to betray her trust. On the other hand.... he didn’t think that contacting people at Beer Sheva University could be seen as interference. The Israelis had not done anything wrong and were not under investigation. All he had to do now was think how to approach them.

‘What exactly do you want to find out?’ asked Jean next morning when Steven voiced his hesitation about contacting the Israeli lab.

‘We know that Petrov — before he was killed — intended sending whatever he was making to Phillipe Lagarde at WHO in Geneva, and this wasn’t the first time he had sent off such a package. It would be good to know if they were all addressed to Lagarde or, if indeed, they were all sent to WHO in Geneva. I’d also like to know how they were sent — presumably he couldn’t use the normal mail service so some kind of courier service must have been employed.’

‘And a specialised one,’ said John Macmillan who had joined them. ‘He wouldn’t have wanted anyone interfering with the contents so he’d probably use the threat of dangerous organisms being inside to ward off official nosiness.’

‘The university would have supplied the necessary labelling and documentation,’ said Steven, ‘It’s not unusual for strains of bacteria and viruses to be exchanged between university labs.’

‘And it would be the perfect cover for new synthetic drugs if that’s what he was up to,’ said Macmillan.

‘So, what’s my interest?’ Steven mused. ‘What good reason could Sci-Med have for asking questions that the intelligence services may have already asked?

‘Press a different button,’ Macmillan suggested. ‘MI6 and US Intelligence are concerned with criminality and threats to their countries’ security on an international scale; we deal with threats to the UK arising from the actions of members of the medical and scientific community. I suggest you start by telling the Israelis exactly who you are and mention that you are aware of the serious questions being raised over what Petrov had been doing in their lab. You could suggest that you would like to be assured that none of the containers he had been sending out were addressed to premises in the UK — nonsense, of course, but I think it will sound reasonable enough — you can then tag on any of the other questions you want to ask as part of the general conversation.’

‘Brilliant,’ said Jean.

‘Absolutely,’ added Steven.

Steven said who he was and hung on the line while someone in Microbiology at Beer Sheva University went to find, ‘Dr Zimmerman’. The wait seemed to go on for ever before he heard someone fumble with the receiver.

‘Dr Eli Zimmerman here. I don’t think I’m familiar with the Sci-Med Inspectorate,’ said the voice.

Steven explained that they were a small investigative group and said what they did, adding, ‘We’ve been around for quite some time.’

‘I know,’ said Zimmerman. ‘I just checked.’

Steven smiled as he heard the reason for the wait.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘I understand that no one is very sure what Dr Petrov was working on in your lab, Doctor, but there has been some talk of him designing the kind of synthetic drugs which can be a substitute for heroin and are hugely addictive. I also understand that he sent out material from the lab from time to time?’

‘My understanding too,’ said Zimmerman.

‘I was worried he might have been sending such material to the UK. Can you assure me that was not the case?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘You don’t have a list of the addresses?’

‘Oh yes, we have a list, Dr Dunbar, it’s just that I can’t assure you. He sent two containers to the UK.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Steven for want of something better to say. He had been totally taken aback and now Zimmerman was laughing... This was all going splendidly. Not.

‘Fear not, Dr Dunbar, the two parcels Petrov sent to the UK were presents to his father in London, a bit naughty but he used the same containers and labelling as for the ones he sent to Lagarde in Geneva because it was easier and the courier could be relied upon to deliver them without interference from customs and the like.’

‘Which courier would that be, Doctor?’

‘MedTrans International.’

‘Ah, well known for moving donor organs around quickly and under controlled conditions,’ said Steven.

‘Indeed.’

‘Thank you for your help, Dr Zimmerman and for putting my mind at rest, I take it all the other packages he sent out went to Phillipe Lagarde in Geneva?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not too many, I hope?’

‘Four in all, I’m told.’

‘Well, I hope that the authorities at WHO managed to locate and deal with them if the rumours about synthetic drugs are true?’ said Steven pushing his luck.

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Zimmerman. ‘I understand Lagarde redirected them to other addresses almost as soon as they arrived in Geneva.’

Steven sighed despondently and said, ‘I suppose we can now expect another highly addictive drug plague to erupt on the streets of... do you know where Lagarde sent them, Doctor?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Well, let’s hope the relevant authorities can minimise the damage,’ said Steven. ‘Many thanks again for your help.’

Steven put down the phone feeling a very long way from being assured that all was well. He felt sure that Petrov’s story about sending presents to his father might be baloney. He could have used his ‘naughtiness’ as a cover for sending whatever he had been working on via a respectable specialist courier to a private address in London. Petrov’s father could well be involved in Malenkov’s operation.

‘Well done,’ said John Macmillan, ‘any thoughts on where you go from here?’

‘I’m going to talk to Jane Sherman again at MI6.’

Macmillan raised his eyes.

‘There’s a chance she might not know what we’ve just found out so, if I tell her, it might assure her that we are on side with her and redress the balance a little. We’ve been gathering crumbs from the MI6 table lately, let’s throw her a couple.’

‘Nice to have Machiavelli on our side,’ said Jean.

‘And then what?’ asked Macmillan.

‘So much depends on what was in the flasks that Petrov was sending out,’ said Steven.

‘You don’t go along with the synthetic drug theory?’

‘On its own, it does sound plausible,’ said Steven although his facial expression said that he was struggling. ‘But everything around it, the murders, the money... just doesn’t add up.’

‘Nerve agents are very popular these days,’ said Jean.

‘And plentiful,’ said Steven dismissing that suggestion too.

‘Well, it shouldn’t be long before Porton Down do their stuff,’ said Macmillan, ‘and the guessing games can stop. How is your good lady by the way?’

‘She should be coming home soon,’ said Steven. ‘I was worried she might consider staying on but the authorities have recognised that the micro-management system they came up with for Equateur has no chance of working in Kivu Province. It’s a question of circling the vaccination wagons at a distance to contain the virus. Actually, Tally asked me to look up something for her... I’ll be in the library if you want me.’

The WHO report on the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak was a little too esoteric for the library to have in hard copy so Steven sat down and used an online computer link to bring it up on the screen in front of him. It didn’t take long to find what Tally was concerned about. The report clearly reported that no deaths had been attributed to use of the experimental vaccine at the time, although several minor side effects had been noted. Steven turned to the summary at the end of the report and found himself mesmerised by the huge numbers. It was impossible not to imagine the sheer horror of the same thing happening in the UK, something that hadn’t happened on such a scale since the post-war pandemic of so-called Spanish Flu in 1918 or the sweep of bubonic plague in the mid seventeenth century. In his mind, he saw the disease spreading out from the site of any major airport in the country — one sick person arriving at the wrong time in the wrong place was all that it needed.

He turned the page and found the graph recording the spread of Ebola in the 2014–16 outbreak, starting with one case in a small rural village and edging ever outwards as people fled in all directions giving rise to a growing Catherine wheel of infection until... the epidemic was everywhere.

Steven turned off the computer link and sat for a few moments in the quiet of the library reflecting on how often Sci-Med had tried persuading successive governments that vaccination of the general population against a range of killer diseases should be undertaken, but, of course, vaccination plans didn’t win votes. He left the library and returned to the office to phone Jane Sherman.

‘Thanks for that,’ said Jane when Steven told her about Petrov’s father being sent a couple of containers from Beer Sheva. ‘To our shame, we seem to have assumed that everything was sent to Geneva.’

‘I think it suggests that Malenkov turning up in London to see Petrov senior at some risk to himself might have been some kind of important business meeting. Petrov senior could be involved in Malenkov’s project as much as his son.’

‘Agreed,’ said Jane. ‘Two mining magnates and a microbiologist...’

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Steven.

‘Agreed, but pretty soon we might know what it’s all been about. Porton are going to open the intercepted flask the day after tomorrow. Want to come along?’

‘Sure do.’

‘I don’t think we can expect anything dramatic, it will probably take them some time to analyse the contents, but maybe they can do some preliminary tests to keep us feeling involved.’

‘Is anyone else going from Six?’

‘No, just me, I don’t have the details yet but I’ll let you know tomorrow.’

‘Okay, but I’ll be attending a small meeting in the morning in Westminster about the latest outbreak of Ebola in the Congo. I don’t suppose you’ll be there?’

Jane said not but added, ‘I do however, have to speak to some people at Westminster tomorrow, it won’t take long, we could have lunch?’

They arranged to meet in the hall at noon.

Thirteen

‘How was your meeting?’ asked Jane.

‘Less than informative,’ Steven replied.

‘Of course, your lady is still in DRC,’ exclaimed Jane. ‘I’m sorry, I’d forgotten about that. I heard they’d announced a new outbreak just after the previous one had been declared over, what was that all about?’

‘They had to call it a new outbreak because genetic analysis by the lab found it was being caused by a new strain of Ebola.’

‘Does that make it better or worse?’

‘I don’t think anyone knows,’ Steven replied, still feeling frustrated by the lack of information given at the meeting he’d just attended. ‘The new outbreak is in a wild, bandit-infested region of the country where no one really knows what the hell’s going on. You can’t get access to any significant data. At the moment, no one knows how many cases there have been or how many deaths and that situation spreads fear and alarm everywhere else in the country. Frankly, I just want Tally out of there.’

‘I’ll bet.’

‘Sorry for being such a pain.’

‘No problem, let’s get some fresh air.’

They left the Houses of Parliament and stepped out into the sunshine of what was a beautiful, clear day to start walking over Westminster Bridge.

Steven looked up at the cloudless sky and said, ‘I feel better already.’

Jane paused at the half way point and leaned on the parapet to take in the view. ‘He was right,’ she said.

‘Sorry?’

‘Wordsworth.’

‘Of course,’ said Steven, ‘Earth hath not anything to show more fair than...’

‘... the view from Westminster Bridge,’ Jane completed.

They continued their walk, exchanging other possible candidates for the best view title. Jane offered having seen the Taj Mahal by moonlight and Steven countered with sunrise on Fujiyama in Japan, when his attention was diverted by the sight of a speeding vehicle entering the bridge. It looked all wrong.

The car, a Range Rover, was not weaving at all, it just seemed to be travelling far too fast. Jane saw it too. ‘Oh my God,’ she exclaimed. ‘What the hell does he think he’s...’

‘Get up on the parapet!’ Steven yelled above the noise of Range Rover engine which was being revved too high in low gear. He himself leapt up on the wall and turned to help Jane who was attempting to do the same, but, in high heels, her leading foot failed to make it and she fell down just as the Range Rover swerved to mount the pavement and its nearside front wheel hit her other leg on its way to scrape along the parapet wall. Jane’s screams filled the air.

The vehicle came to a halt after twenty metres or so, but its engine was still running and Steven suddenly realised that the driver intended to reverse back over Jane’s prostrate body. He took out his pistol and emptied the magazine through the rear window of the vehicle, aiming at where the driver would be although privacy glass prevented him having a clear view of the outcome. Mercifully, the vehicle scraped further into the parapet wall and its engine died.

Steven dropped down on to the pavement to help Jane whose injured limb was lying at a nightmarish angle to her body, crushed and twisted and with bright scarlet blood pumping out from a severed artery. His first thought was to stop the bleeding, he had to stop the bleeding. He threw off his jacket, following up by tearing off his shirt, despite the difficulty of having his shoulder holster in the way. He needed strips of material fast so he tore away at it until he had a useful strip of sleeve to wind around an area high up on Jane’s thigh.

The sound of police sirens grew louder as he fought to get the impromptu tourniquet tight enough to stem the crimson tide. Amazingly, Jane was not unconscious, she was semi-conscious and speaking in garbled fashion as if in the throes of a bad dream, but she was still able to respond with screams to the added pain Steven was causing her by doing what he had to do, STOP THE BLEEDING.

He couldn’t see the exact area where the blood was coming from because of her blood-soaked clothing and there was no time to investigate. The only thing that mattered was getting the tourniquet into place anywhere above the disaster area and he was relieved to see this happen just as he became aware of black-clad, armed and masked police all around them. They were shouting at him, telling him to do things he had no intention of complying with. He was holding the tourniquet, but knew it wasn’t tight enough. He needed something rod-shaped to insert into the weak knot he’d managed, something which would allow him to twist it round and increase the pressure. The repetitive shouting continued and prompted him to start shouting back, yelling who he and Jane were and what he was trying to do, although feeling that it should be bloody obvious. ‘You’ll find ID in my jacket.’

Steven saw his empty pistol lying beside him and realised that the barrel would do for tightening the tourniquet. He picked it up... and one of the policemen shot him.

The view from Westminster Bridge was anything but fair, it was black... jet black.

Steven regained consciousness, but not in a slow, sleepy way. His mind was suddenly full of twisted, broken limbs, scarlet fountains of blood and men in black pointing guns at him. He tried sitting up in alarm but pain in his head suggested that was not a good idea. He was lowered back down by caring hands and a female voice soothed him as he gazed up at a white hospital ceiling.

‘Welcome back,’ said the voice and Steven looked up at a young nurse who was quickly joined by another.

‘I’m alive,’ said Steven, sounding puzzled. ‘The police shot me, but I’m alive.’

‘One policeman shot you,’ said one of the nurses. ‘He was a bit hyped when he saw you pick up a gun. The armed police commander had heard what you had said and had decided against shooting you. When he saw one of the younger officers, fuelled by nerves, tighten his trigger finger he nudged the man’s weapon upwards with the barrel of his own, but a bullet creased the area near your temple.’

‘Jane!’ exclaimed Steven as everything came flooding back. ‘What happened to Jane?’

‘She’s in theatre as we speak. If it was you who applied the tourniquet to her leg, you saved her life.’

‘Her leg...’ said Steven, remembering the dreadful damage.

‘Too early to say.’

‘God, it was a mess.’

The nurse nodded.

The other nurse said, ‘There are lots of people waiting to talk to you when you wake up, but we won’t tell them if you don’t want to see anyone just yet.’

Steven said, ‘Thanks, but I think I should.’

The nurses left the room, leaving the door slightly open, which allowed a variety of hospital sounds to reach him as he relaxed on the pillow looking for any blemish in the smooth white of the ceiling. The musical background sounds of some radio or television programme was interrupted by a dramatic announcement of, ‘yet another terrorist outrage in central London.’

Steven strained to hear more but John Macmillan came into the room and closed the door behind him.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Just a scratch as they used to say in Western movies,’ Steven replied.

‘A bit more than that I understand,’ said Macmillan, ‘anther half inch and...’

‘I knew someone was bound to point out just how lucky I’d been,’ said Steven. ‘They tell me Jane is in theatre?’

Macmillan nodded. ‘No news as yet.’

‘And the guy who did it?’

‘Dead.’

‘Just the one?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ said Steven bitterly. ‘Terror related or lone wolf as they tend to call nutters these days?’

‘He was Russian.’

‘Ouch,’ said Steven after a short silence. ‘You know, that was the last though I had before the bastard went for us. The car wasn’t weaving; the driver wasn’t interested in killing anyone else, he headed straight for Jane and I. We were his targets.’

‘Afraid so.’

‘Looks like the Prime Minister was right when she suggested enough money will get you a mole in any organisation.’

‘I hope you’re not including Sci-Med in that assertion.’

‘No,’ said Steven. ‘Mind you, if Jean turns up next week driving a Maserati Ghibli and wearing a rock the size of Gibraltar...’

‘Good to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour,’ said Macmillan. ‘Let’s hope she keeps hers when I tell her what you said...’

‘Jean and I are okay,’ said Steven attempting a smile which hurt his head, causing him to gasp and Macmillan to get to his feet. ‘Take it easy,’ he said.

‘Who else is out there?’ Steven asked.

‘Various senior policemen from a number of different groups, but I and the head of MI6 will head them off: we have the Home Secretary’s approval. I also took the liberty of saying that you would not be making a complaint to the Police Complaints Commission about being shot.’

Steven nodded and said, ‘But maybe they shouldn’t wire them to the mains before sending them out on the streets with automatic weapons.’

‘It’s difficult,’ said Macmillan, ‘They have to believe they’re on the edge of disaster every time they’re called out.’

‘How about the car and the dead Russian?’

‘All gone, never happened, all a misunderstanding blown up by rumours, witnesses are famed for exaggeration; there will be no police or any kind of official confirmation to support what they think they saw happen.’

‘Fake news,’ said Steven.

‘Fake news,’ agreed Macmillan. ‘Time to rest your furrowed brow — no pun intended.’

Every time a nurse came in to check his pulse and blood pressure Steven would ask for news of Jane Sherman, only to be told that she was still in surgery. This went on until early evening when he noticed a certain reluctance in the nurse who came in to change his bandage. Sensing bad news, he didn’t ask immediately; he gave the nurse time to prepare her delivery.

‘Your colleague is out of theatre and she is stable...’

‘But?’

‘They couldn’t save her leg, I’m sorry.’

Steven nodded. He had the seen the awful mess her leg had been in, but felt there was no harm in wishing for a miracle.

‘Thanks,’ Steven murmured, ‘when do you think I’ll be able to see her?’

‘Mr Naismith — her surgeon — thinks it would be better to wait until the morning.’

Steven nodded again. ‘Okay.’

Next morning, Steven went through the hospital discharge routines before being allowed to get dressed, wishing that Macmillan might have cut through that red tape as well, but he hadn’t. Forms had to be completed in duplicate and signed by people who weren’t there at the moment but should be around soon. A request to the pharmacy for a supply of painkillers for his headache was being delayed due to lack of staff and his suggestion that he could deal with that himself was met with a rules is rules reply and a bit of tongue biting on his part.

The first thing Steven saw when he opened the door of the room the room was an armed policeman and it gave him a bad moment: he had overlooked the fact that there might be a police guard put on himself and Jane after what had happened. He had come so close to becoming a corpse riddled by ‘friendly fire’. He didn’t react outwardly, nor did he smile at the officer when the man held out his shoulder holster with the Glock in place. ‘Sir John asked that this be returned to you, sir.’

‘Is it loaded?’

‘No, sir, but it’s been cleaned and oiled.’ The officer handed a separate supply of 9mm ammunition. ‘People usually like to do that themselves.’

Steven nodded his agreement and backed into the room to do just that, looking out the window when he’d finished to consider the past twenty-four hours. He had just reloaded the gun that he’d used to kill someone yesterday, a day on which he himself had come so close to dying and, now... it was a brand-new day... and he was about to go see a colleague who had lost one of her legs. What would he say?

He let out a slight involuntary sound when he suddenly thought about the Today programme that he and Tally listened to in the morning. There came a point in the proceedings — Thought for The Day — when someone, usually of a religious persuasion, was invited to contribute their wisdom. ‘Well, sunshine,’ he thought, ‘what would you make of that one?’

As he left the room, the officer said, ‘Harry Thomson.’

Steven gave him an enquiring look.

‘The officer who shot you, he said to say sorry... he’s having counselling.’

Steven thought for a moment before saying, ‘Tell him... these things happen.’

‘Not long,’ said the nurse who held open the door to Jane Sherman’s room.

Steven entered and immediately stopped, unsure of what reaction to expect. Jane was lying with her cheek on the pillow, seemingly peaceful but looking very different to how he’d ever seen her in the past. She had always been the kind of person who gave away very little through facial expression — she didn’t smile much, nor did she tend to show annoyance; she had an invisible barrier between herself and the outside world. People had to wait for words to come, but that had all gone. She looked like the kind of person who was an open book, someone at peace with herself.

Steven supposed that pain-killing medication must be playing a part of all of this, but this wasn’t what he had expected. He approached and said her name softly.

Jane opened her eyes and turned her head slowly. ‘Steven, how are you?’

It seemed such a ridiculous question in the circumstances that Steven shook his head and said, ‘A scratch, but you...’

Jane interrupted with a raise of the hand. ‘Ssh, what’s happened has happened. Let’s not go through it all. Six pays me for my intellect, not running the two hundred metres hurdles...’

‘You are something else, lady,’ said Steven.

‘That’s also why Six pays me,’ said Jane.

‘Yes,’ agreed Steven and he meant it.

‘I don’t remember much after the car hit me, but I have a vague notion of gunfire. You?’

‘Yes.’

‘Islamic terrorist?’

‘A Russian hood, he was after us and no one else.’

‘Nice to know it wasn’t an accident. Did the police get him?’

‘No, I did... I shot him.’

‘Dead?’

‘Very.’

‘Before he could be offered counselling, understanding and an inquiry into his troubled past?’

Steven caught Jane’s mood. He looked at the flat area under the sheets where her left leg would have been and leaned closer. ‘I blew him to Kingdom come,’ he whispered.

A smile appeared on Jane’s lips. ‘Someone has to go after the bad guys, Steven.’ She closed her eyes and Steven nodded to the nurse who had appeared in the doorway.

John Macmillan tried to argue Steven out of going to Porton Down to witness the opening of Petrov’s flask. ‘You should take it easy for a couple of days, you never know with head wounds.’

‘I’m fine, really I am,’ Steven insisted, ‘but I could do with a smaller dressing. This thing is too dramatic.’ He touched the white bandage that had been wrapped round his head, just in his opinion, to keep a smaller square dressing in place.

‘I’ll fetch the first-aid box,’ said Jean.

Steven picked what he needed and went off to find a mirror. He returned with a small dressing, taped in place over his wound.

‘Good job,’ said Jean, ‘attracts less attention.’

‘And questions,’ said Steven.

‘I don’t want you going alone,’ said John Macmillan. He said it as if this wasn’t a sudden thought.

‘I don’t need a baby sitter,’ said Steven.

‘No, you don’t,’ Macmillan agreed, ‘but you’ve become a target for a bunch of powerful Russian criminals. I’ve asked Scott Jamieson to go with you... on the ground that the only thing better than an armed Sci-Med agent is two, armed Sci-Med agents. He’s on his way up from Kent. The Home Secretary is alerting Porton to the change in personnel.’

Steven smiled and said, ‘He’s already made a big contribution to the investigation and there’s no one I’d rather have guarding my back.’

‘That’s settled then, although Jamieson did make one condition... There’s no way on Earth he’s going to travel in that open-top Porsche of yours.’

‘The man has no taste...’

‘I’m taking no chances, I’ve arranged helicopter travel for the pair of you.’

Later, the two men drove to the designated helipad in Scott Jamieson’s Jaguar saloon.

‘Sounds like the old man’s being ultra-cautious,’ said Scott, ‘You must have upset someone real bad.’

‘Or MI6 did,’ said Steven.

‘So, what do you think is in this flask?’ Jamieson asked.

‘The best guess at the moment is that it’s some new synthetic drug, so addictive it will entrap an entire new generation.’

‘Aren’t heroin and crack cocaine good enough?’

‘With synthetics, all you need is a laboratory. There’s nothing to be grown and harvested, nothing to transport half way across the world, an end to the struggle of avoiding police and customs and coast guards and the like when it’s on the move,’ said Steven.

‘I guess,’ said Scott. ‘Put that way, you could have pop-up drug labs all over the place — very fashionable.’

‘Trust you to see a business opportunity.’

‘Are you on board with the drug theory?’

‘Not entirely,’ said Steven after some thought. ‘There are pieces that don’t fit and I don’t like that.’

‘If you smell a rat... there’s usually one not very far away.’

Both men looked down at the seven-thousand-acre science campus of Porton Down as it appeared below them.

‘So many years, so many secrets,’ said Scott.

‘And some better not to know.’

After ID checks and being relieved of their weapons both men were informed that the flask was to be removed from its travel container and opened under full bio-safety conditions, no chances were to be taken. Even although they personally were not going to be in the high security lab itself, but viewing from a gallery above, they were required to do don boots and protective clothing, which they did without question.

Their guide led the way through a series of check point doors, saying what each one was as they went until they reached a final door.

‘There are no windows of course, in the lab we’re using and the entire area is kept under negative pressure so that nothing airborne can escape. Air can only be released from the lab after passing through several filters and a decontamination process we won’t go into. This lab has seen some of the most dangerous organisms on the face of the Earth pass through it — organisms that are capable of putting an end to mankind.’

‘A sobering thought,’ said Steven. ‘It makes an addictive drug seem almost desirable, never thought I’d say that.’

‘You and me both,’ said Scott.

‘We’re going up here,’ said their guide leading the way through a side door. They mounted a short flight of steps leading to a viewing gallery fronted with armoured glass and took their seats. Their guide checked his watch. ‘They’ll be here in five minutes or so. There’s a standard procedure where the operators have to remove their outdoor clothes, shower and don full protective gear before passing through a final airlock into the lab.’

Steven nodded. He couldn’t help but think of the volunteer medics and nurses in DRC. They had protective gear, but no hi-tech lab to walk into. They would be faced with desperately ill patients on simple pallet beds in huts, some demented, all bleeding.

Three white ‘ghosts’, their faces obscured by visors, entered the lab carrying a tubular container about two feet long by one foot in diameter, which they placed on a cleared bench area next to some equipment.

‘Hello John, can you hear me?’ asked their guide.

There was no response from the lab.

The guide unhooked a secondary microphone from below the glass screen and tried again.

Still no response.

The ghosts looked up and made gestures indicating they had no sound. One of them appeared as if he was trying to speak loudly but the guide just had to shake his head and accept the situation.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said to Steven and Scott. ‘We won’t have a running commentary.’

The ghosts unscrewed the lid.

‘We know the Israelis opened the container,’ said the guide, and we know they didn’t open the flask, but we don’t know if they removed it from the container. The guys will check first to see if the flask is attached to anything inside.

‘You mean like a booby trap?’ asked Scott.

The guide shrugged.

One of the ghosts reached his gloved hands into the plastic packing material surrounding the flask and cautiously felt around it.

‘Plenty packaging,’ said Scott.

‘A bit like Amazon,’ said the guide causing smiles.

Satisfied that the flask was not secured in any way, the ghost removed a handful of the packing material and lifted it out to place it on the bench; he wiped away odd bits of packing clinging to it. One of his colleagues took over and held it steady while the third ran a scalpel blade around the seal holding the cap on and removed it.

‘They’ll do a few preliminary tests to see if the fluid contains nucleic acids or any other biological material,’ said the guide, ‘if not they’ll run a couple of spectrometer tests to see if they can identify any chemical substances present.’

Steven noticed the ghosts looking at each other as if acknowledging a problem, but the safety gear they were wearing made it difficult to discern what it might be. They seemed to repeat the first test before taking a sample from the flask to charge one of the spectrometers and set it running.

Steven leaned to the side to see if he could catch a glimpse of the screen on the instrument, hoping to see the spikes rise from the graph’s base line, but he couldn’t quite manage.

‘Anything?’ asked Scott.

‘Can’t see.’

More looks were exchanged between the ghosts before another sample was taken from the flask with a Gilson pipette and used to charge a second machine, which did its thing until the end of its cycle was signalled by the attached printer spewing out a short tongue of paper. The three ghosts gathered round the flask to read the data like witches discussing a new batch of toads. Eventually one of the ghosts raised his hand and made a cutting gesture across his throat to indicate they were finished.

The cap was replaced on the flask and it was left beside the container it came in. The cuvettes used to hold samples for the spectrometers were dropped from forceps into a beaker of what Steven assumed would be powerful disinfectant.

Their guide apologised for the failure in the communication equipment, but suggested that this would at least enable them to have coffee while they waited to be told what progress had been made. Steven and Scott were led from the gallery to a pleasant staff room where they were given coffee and engaged in small talk while waiting for the ghosts to appear in human form, something they did some ten minutes later, their hair giving away recent shower activity — two men and a woman smiled and shook hands with them, each giving their first name.

‘How did it go?’ asked the guide.

‘Well, we know exactly what it is,’ answered one of the men.

‘Wow,’ said Steven, ‘you folk have some fancy machines.’

‘We drew lots for who should have the honour of telling you and Jenny here won.’

Jenny, the female ghost, smiled and said after a small dramatic pause, ‘The fluid contains sodium chloride at a concentration of 0.85 %. It is physiological saline... it’s salt water, nothing else.’

Steven felt a mixture of bemusement and embarrassment. All this hassle for a small jug of salt water? It was beyond belief. People avoided looking at each other. Scott looked down at the floor; the ghosts seemed mildly amused, exchanging the briefest of eye contact with each other, and their guide was wearing a neutral, nothing-to-do-with-me expression. A joke? Could it be some awful joke, but who would have thought it funny? Petrov? Had he died laughing at the thought of the intelligence services of three countries transporting salt water across the globe? No, no, no, it made no sense. If the opposition felt so threatened, why had they tried to kill him and an MI6 officer yesterday? Why ruin their own joke?

After an agonising silence, Steven said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.’

Fourteen

Flying back to London by helicopter only served to exacerbate the feelings of embarrassment Steven felt. What a waste of everything.

Scott sensed his mood and said, ‘There’s a reason for what happened, mate, you can’t see it right now, but you will, sometimes you just have to come at things from a different direction.’

‘Right,’ said Steven sounding less than convinced.

‘You know the wheelbarrow joke, right?’

‘Hit me.’

‘This docker leaves work pushing a wheelbarrow with a tarpaulin over it and security stops him. Open it up!’ The guy removes the tarpaulin and the barrow is empty. This goes on three or four times a week for a month and always with the same result until finally the security guy gives up. ‘Okay, I’m not going to charge you with anything, you’re driving me mad, just tell me what you’re thieving.’

‘Wheelbarrows,’ says the guy.

Steven managed a shake of the head and a small smile. ‘Thanks, Scott,’ he murmured.

‘Maybe you’re looking at the tarpaulin, mate.’

John Macmillan took the news without a change of expression save for a slight raise of the eyebrows. Jean was more vocal. ‘Someone must have switched the flasks,’ she said.

‘And we are spoiled for choice,’ Steven sighed. ‘The chain is pretty long. It could have been someone in the Israeli lab or the Israeli intelligence services when they were called in, or the CIA when they became involved or Interpol or even MI6 when it was decided to bring the container to Porton although, frankly, I’m struggling to believe any of these.’

‘That’s not your only problem,’ said Jean. ‘Someone told the Russians where you and Jane Sherman would be yesterday and around what time.’

‘What Jean says is true,’ said Macmillan. ‘It’s clear that the Russian oligarchs and their hired lackeys are determined to protect their interests by killing people if necessary and yesterday it became clear that someone on the inside is helping them. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the assassin was driving on Westminster Bridge at the same time Steven and Jane were walking over it. It’s not someone inside Sci-Med so it’s someone inside MI6... and finding that person will not be as daunting as it sounds.’

Jean and Steven exchanged glances.

‘We know that Jane Sherman was at a meeting in Westminster yesterday morning as was Steven, albeit a different one,’ Macmillan continued. ‘I think she told someone at her meeting that she was having lunch with Steven afterwards and that someone betrayed her schedule to the Russians who saw the chance to take out both Jane and Steven at the same time. That someone gave the Russians an update on the exact time the pair of you were leaving Westminster and that’s how they knew where you would be and when. MI6 don’t have to search through their ranks for the mole, the mole was one of the people at her Westminster meeting.’

‘I’m glad you are on our side, John,’ said Steven.

Steven left the Home Office; it had been a long day. There was no question of Sci-Med even considering investigating how Petrov’s flask had come to be changed or who had done it — it would be way out of their remit and far too big a task for them to even consider attempting. What was even more depressing was that it was doubtful that the intelligence services would pursue it too vigorously either as it wasn’t essential to their main investigation, which was concerned with corruption in world aid agencies and how widespread it was. Knowing what the original contents of the flask comprised was of course, important for his investigation, not knowing that or even seeing a new way of finding out was going to bring it to a complete halt.

Steven had taken to using standard precautions when under threat. He would enter and leave the Home Office at varying times and by using a number of different access and exit points. Although Macmillan hadn’t said as much, he knew that he was under police surveillance although not overtly so. He had spotted his minders on occasion, as was inevitable as he was keeping his own look-out for possible problems. He chose not to acknowledge their presence — something that might be construed as insulting.

Steven closed the door of the flat and stood with his back against it, embracing the silence at the end of a bloody awful day. Only, it wasn’t the end; he still had to explain to Tally why he hadn’t answered her call last night and then bring her up to speed with what had been going on. He feared it would be a conversation they’d had before.

‘Thank God,’ said Tally when Steven answered immediately. ‘I’m thinking something must have gone very wrong yesterday?’

‘It did,’ said Steven, sounding as tired as he felt. ‘Our Russian friends decided that I and MI6 had to be discouraged from interfering in what they are up to.’

‘Was violence involved?’

‘Yes.’

‘Serious?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’d rather not talk about it?’

‘Not right now.’

‘Understood,’ said Tally softly, ‘There’s no real need for me to tell you to take care, but I’m going to do it anyway.’

‘And on this occasion, I have to say that to you too. ‘Has anything changed?’

‘I can’t say that it has, there is very little information that can be trusted emerging from Kivu Province although the government is insisting that the outbreak is being contained.’

‘Let’s hope they’re right.’

‘You asked about the names of people involved in a vaccination schedule that went terribly wrong according to my friend, Monique. The WHO official in charge was someone named Lagarde... Hello, are you still there?’

‘Yes, sorry, you took me by surprise. Lagarde was the murdered WHO official in my investigation.’

‘I thought the name was familiar, but hearing it out of context, it didn’t ring a bell.’

‘His last posting was to Afghanistan but I remember reading that he was in DRC a few years before that at the time of the big Ebola outbreak.’

‘Steven, you haven’t told me what was in the flask that Porton were going to analyse?’

‘Salt water.’

‘You’re not serious.’

‘ ’Fraid so.’

‘Oh dear, things are really not going well, are they?’

‘You could say. By the way, I looked up the report you asked me to. Officially there were no deaths attributed to the experimental vaccine back in 2014-16.’

Tally sighed and said, ‘I can’t say things are going wonderfully well for me either. Monique is a bright girl and she’s adamant the vaccine killed several members of her friends and family.’

‘I know she maintains they were perfectly healthy when they got the vaccine, but it could have been a close-run thing; they could have been incubating the disease at the time and it had just gone a bit too far for the vaccine to work.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Tally after some hesitation. ‘That would be the simplest explanation.’

‘Then go for it.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Take a day off,’ said Steven, ‘head for a beach, take a long walk.’

Thoughts of Phillipe Lagarde decided to accompany Steven on his south coast beach walk. On the face of it, it seemed a bizarre coincidence that his name should crop up in connection with Ebola vaccination in DRC in Tally’s neck of the woods, but the more he thought about it, the more unsurprising it became. Whatever else the man became involved in, he was working as a WHO vaccination strategist in DRC at a time when Ebola was rampaging through the country. He remembered reading that in the impromptu CV that Jean had composed for him a few weeks ago and feeling admiration for the man. He’d gone from the hell of fighting one disease in DRC to combating another, Polio, in the towering mountain passes between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But then, came his murder and the news from the intelligence people that Lagarde was implicated in the infiltration of major aid agencies by organised crime. He might be dead, thought Steven, but he had ruined an otherwise decent beach walk.

Tally decided to drive over to the regional aid headquarters for Equateur Province to see if she could get some clear indication of what was happening in Kivu as none of her nearest fellow area managers seemed to know. She arrived to find that Marcus Altman, the WHO regional manager was currently travelling round Equateur to make sure that they really were clear of the disease and wasn’t expected back for three days. She explained that she was seeking information about the situation in the north and was met with shrugs and apologies. One Red Cross man said, ‘It’s every bit as bad as we thought: the last reliable figure we had was 130 deaths around the city of Beni and people were fleeing south.’

A familiar voice said, ‘Hi.’ And Tally turned to find Hans Weber, Altman’s assistant and the young man who, along with Mary Kelly, the MSF nurse, had escorted her through her first few days in DRC.

‘Hello, nice to see you,’ said Tally. ‘You’re not out on the road with Marcus?’

‘No, I stayed to look after the next batch of vaccine due in today. Was there something you needed?’

Tally shook her head, ‘No, I was looking for information about what’s happening up in Kivu. I heard the outbreak was being contained, then I heard it wasn’t, then someone said it was spreading at an alarming rate.’

‘It’s incredibly difficult to get information out of what’s virtually a war zone,’ said Weber. ‘People are afraid of the disease, but they’re also afraid of the rebels. On top of that they’re afraid of foreigners coming into their lives and doing things they don’t understand so they start doing things like hiding their dead.’

Tally’s eyes opened wide.

‘They’ve heard tales of foreigners — us — coming in and taking away loved ones and burning them so they hide them and, of course, end up infecting themselves. If time is not on your side and people don’t speak the same language, there’s a complete lack of communication and people doing what is exactly the right thing to do can look absolutely dreadful.’

‘Of course.’

‘Many are fleeing — or trying to flee but many will be killed by rebel groups if they come across them. If they make it to the south, people there don’t want anything to do with them and some have started fleeing themselves, alarmed by the rumours of mass invasion from the north. The mines are grinding to a halt as the miners decide it’s not worth putting their lives at risk by hanging around.’

‘You said rumours of a mass invasion, do really you think that’s likely?’

‘No one can say for sure. Perhaps rumours are worse than reality. The government school of thought is that the outbreak will be over within three to four months.’

‘So, the bottom line is that no one knows?’

‘Correct.’

‘There was one thing I wanted to ask Marcus about, perhaps you can help me. The official WHO report on the big outbreak in 14–16 said that no one died through use of the experimental vaccine.’

‘That’s right,’ said Weber. ‘It’s the same one we’re still using.’

Tally adopted a pained expression. ‘It’s just that Monique Barbet, the teacher in the village you took me too when I first arrived, is sure that the vaccine was responsible for the deaths of several friends and members of her family.’

‘How did they die?’

‘Ebola.’

‘I think that is your answer. They must have been in the early stages of the disease when they were given it, too late for the vaccine to be of any use.’

‘Mm, that’s what I thought, but she doesn’t think so. All things considered, I think you have to be right,’ Tally agreed.

‘I don’t think Monique likes us very much,’ said Weber, ‘it’s something we all have to get used to. We come to places of great danger to help, do the best we can and the people end up hating us.’

‘As if life wasn’t hard enough,’ sighed Tally. She drove back to her ‘area’ home, thinking about her day and feeling distinctly uneasy about what was happening to her life in general. She re-visited her feelings of guilt over having had such a comfortable, trouble-free life and remembered persuading herself that she needed exposure to some of the raw realities of life experienced by medical colleagues she would normally never meet. She had volunteered to join them to do what she could and she had, but now she felt the ground move beneath her feet. The anchors of stability she had taken so much for granted were disappearing and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling. At home, Steven was engaged in an investigation that had clearly put him into great danger — bad enough for him not to want to talk about it, although he had admitted violence had been involved — and she herself was in a country where no one knew exactly what was going to happen tomorrow.

According to some, Ebola was running riot across a large province in the north, a place infested by warlords and bandits. People were reportedly fleeing while the government, on the other hand were suggesting that things were coming under control and all would be well in a matter of months. Realists or cynics, according to your point of view, construed this as an attempt to stabilise economic interests by keeping mineral mining operational — possibly an unsuccessful gambit as there were stories of miners getting out fast, fearing an invasion of disease-carrying people from the north.

On a smaller scale, she was faced with keeping her promise to Monique Barbet about going back to her village to tell her anything she found out about the vaccine used for her family, if only to tell her that she must have been mistaken about her family’s state of health at the time. She suspected that Monique would dismiss her as ‘one of them’ and that would be an end to it.

The really troubling thing for Tally was that Monique was a very intelligent woman who had seen Ebola before and would be familiar with its stages of development... and, of course, she herself had recently learned that the man in charge of carrying out vaccination at the time in Monique’s village was one of the murdered people in Steven’s investigation. She couldn’t quite see why this could possibly have any connection to adverse effects of the vaccine on Monique’s family, but the information was there and it wasn’t going to go away. Rather than have this niggle away at her any more, Tally decided to drive straight on to Monique’s village and get it over with.

On the previous two occasions, Tally had found Monique teaching the village children outside the hut that served as the school. This time both the playground and school were empty when Tally parked the Land Rover and got out, but she had to concede that it was much later in the day than last time. She started walking around the village, hoping to meet someone to ask where Monique lived, but people tended to turn away when they caught sight of her, apparently remembering that there was something else that needed their immediate attention. It was an unpleasant feeling; Tally could see what Weber had meant about being hated. She was wondering what to do when she noticed two children playing outside one of the huts and walked towards them. To her relief they recognised her and smiled.

‘Monique?’ she asked.

They shook their heads slowly, but Tally tried again and this time one of them pointed to a large hut, standing on its own about fifty metres away. Tally smiled and thanked the children just as their mother appeared and shushed them inside without acknowledging Tally.

Tally tried telling herself that being totally rejected by society should be seen as a new experience and added to her list of new experiences, but it didn’t work. She felt awful. It took all her resolve to steel herself and approach the hut entrance, calling out, ‘Monique... Monique... it’s me, Tally.’

She was about to give up and turn away when Monique appeared in the entrance; her expression was neutral.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Tally, ‘I had hoped we could be friends, but it seems not. I promised I would come back and tell you what I could find out about the vaccination of your family and that’s why I’m here. ‘The official position is that no one suffered any serious side effect from the vaccine, which was experimental, but it’s the same one being used right now and it seems very safe and effective. Everyone is sorry about the deaths of your family and friends, but they say they must have been incubating the disease when they were vaccinated.’

‘That’s what you said last time,’ said Monique.

‘Yes, but I checked everything out thoroughly. It’s the only logical explanation. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s a lie.’

‘That’s what you said last time,’ said Tally, having difficulty keeping the anger she felt out of her voice. ‘Why do you keep saying that?’

‘They contracted Ebola three weeks after being vaccinated.’

Tally was shocked. Her face muscles struggled to find an appropriate expression. ‘There was something very wrong here. If the people had been incubating the disease at the time of vaccination, the vaccine wouldn’t have saved them and they would have gone on to develop the disease within a few days... not three weeks... definitely not three weeks.’

‘Yes,’ said Monique, ‘The aid team came back after three weeks to check that there had been no problem with the vaccine — they said they wanted to keep an eye on things. My friends and family all assured him that they felt fine and thanked the volunteers for protecting them.’ Monique snorted at the memory. ‘They all developed Ebola by the end of the week.’

‘This sounds crazy,’ said Tally, searching for an explanation. ‘Did the aid people give your family a second dose of vaccine when they came back?’

‘No,’ said Monique.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Absolutely, they just asked everyone if they were feeling all right, no side-effects, no pain, no sickness.’

‘And Voila they all got Ebola,’ Tally murmured.

‘I think you should go now,’ said Monique, beginning to look nervous. ‘My people won’t trust me if they see me talking to you all the time.’

‘Understood,’ said Tally. ‘but this isn’t over.’

Fifteen

The phone rang and Steven opened his eyes to see 2.57 a.m. on his bedside clock. The phone screen told him it was John Macmillan.

‘Big trouble, Steven, you’re not going to believe this, but we’ve got a case of Marburg disease on our hands.’

Steven was suddenly very awake.

‘A man has been admitted to the Royal Free Hospital with all the signs of Marburg; he works at Porton Down.’

‘My God, was he working with the virus?’

‘He’s not a scientist,’ Macmillan replied, ‘he’s an electrician on the maintenance staff; the last job he worked on was in the lab where they opened Petrov’s flask.’

‘But there can’t be a connection,’ Steven protested, ‘the contents were harmless.’

‘That’s what Porton say too.’

‘What was he doing there?’

‘There was a problem with the radio link between the lab and the viewing gallery.’

‘That’s right, it didn’t work.’

‘He was sent to find the fault. He did and repaired it, but next day, he reported feeling unwell when he was working on something else. Luckily, he wasn’t sent home. Porton has a set procedure for any member of staff falling ill: they automatically assume possible contact with something nasty and keep the patient isolated on the premises until a proper diagnosis is made. Usually it’s just colds and flu and stomach upsets like everywhere else, but occasionally it can be the real deal and, considering what they work on at Porton, this always triggers a full-scale alert and establishing exactly what happened becomes an immediate top priority, as in this case.’

‘Have they done that yet?’ Steven asked.

‘No, not yet.’

‘Not good,’ said Steven. ‘Surely they must know every job the man has been working on in the past week or so and where he might have been exposed to the virus?’

‘He’s been on holiday,’ said Macmillan. ‘Carrying out the repair to the intercom was the first job he’d been assigned to since coming back.’

‘Crazy, crazy, crazy,’ murmured Steven. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that he was on holiday in central Africa?’

‘Costa del Sol in Spain, like thousands of other Brits.’

‘His wife and family?’

‘Thankfully all well, he was at work when he started to feel ill.’

‘A blessing.’

Steven tried a recap of events. ‘We gather in a high security lab, with the scientists taking every conceivable precaution against possible exposure to any deadly microorganism in Petrov’s flask or any vapour arising from a concentrated hallucinogen and they find it contains nothing more dangerous than salt water. The next day an electrician goes into the lab to fix the intercom and comes down with one of the most hellish diseases on earth, Marburg disease. How?’

‘Is the question everyone is asking.’

‘Are they asking if the scientists who opened the flask could have missed something?’ Steven asked.

‘I think we both know that Porton scientists don’t make that kind of mistake,’ said Macmillan, ‘although it was the elephant in the room for a very short time until they themselves insisted that the contents of the flask be examined again by fellow scientists who agreed, of course, that it was salt water and nothing else.’

‘Good,’ said Steven. ‘I suppose they have stocks of Marburg virus at Porton?’

‘That would be a question they wouldn’t answer if past experience is anything to go by. It’s a very secretive place — as our first line of defence against biological attack, it has to be. What’s on your mind?’

‘If they carry out nucleic acid sequencing of the virus the electrician has gone down with and find out what strain it is, there’s a good chance they should be able to tell us where it came from,’ said Steven, ‘whether it’s one of Porton’s own strains... or a Russian one... or one from CDC Atlanta... or a new one altogether.’

‘I suspect they may already be doing that,’ said Macmillan acidly.

‘Of course, they are,’ said Steven, feeling embarrassed. ‘Sorry, this has put me a bit on edge. Do you know anything about the condition of the electrician — Damn, I hate calling him that, do you know his name?’

‘Tom, Tom Harland, age 37, married to Chloe, two daughters, nine and seven. He’s very ill, but probably in the best hospital in the UK to treat him.’

‘Good luck, Tom,’ murmured Steven.

‘I’ll let you know when I hear more.’

Steven let his head fall back on the pillow although going back to sleep was out of the question. Instead, he looked up at shadows on the ceiling while running through every expletive he could think of to describe the situation.

The situation was to get worse.

At ten o’clock next morning, Chloe Harland watched her husband die in the Royal Free Hospital. He was in a transparent isolation tent with two nurses wearing full bio-safety gear doing their best to keep him as comfortable as possible on a journey they were praying would end soon. Chloe had never felt so helpless or lonely. She had been obliged to put on full safety gear too, but her plea that she be allowed to hold her husband’s hand and at least say good bye to him had been declined. She was standing about three metres away from him but it could have been a million miles.

Chloe had lost track of time. She had rushed to the hospital as soon as she’d got the phone call suggesting she should come in, leaving her mother, who had come to stay for the duration of the crisis to look after the children. Everything had been done in such a hurry: there had been no time for the multitude of questions going around in her head. She had been helped into safety gear and a visor by nurses whose total attention was given over to making sure that everything fitted properly and all gaps were sealed before ushering her into the isolation suite where she could watch proceedings, separated from an inner tent by plastic. It was transparent but such a tangible barrier.

The change that had come over her family circumstances in the past few days had been so dramatic that she had difficulty in accepting any of it as being remotely possible. The awful writhing figure she could see through the transparent screen could not really be her Tom, the man who a few short days ago had been laughing and splashing about in the Mediterranean in the Spanish sunshine with their daughters while she took pictures on her phone to send to Granny and Grandad. Her Tom was fit and well, joking, smiling, his body showing the tan that two weeks in Spain had given him as he swept Janey, their youngest up into his arms and then took Ella, her sister, by the hand to walk up the beach towards her. She could see them, she could see them, she could see them... The... thing in the bed wasn’t Tom, it was something from a horror movie... Oh God, how could she think that? Oh God, make it stop, make it all stop...’

Chloe realised that something had changed when the nurses in the treatment tent suddenly stopped being busy. A sense of calm had come over the room and she became acutely aware of the sound of fans and filters. The restive figure in the bed had stopped moving and one of the nurses turned to look at her. Chloe couldn’t see her face behind the reflections on her visor any more than the nurse could see hers, but the gesture of dropping her head slowly and making the palms of her gloved hands face outwards as she let her arms go limp said everything.

A male figure, judging by his size, in biohazard gear, came into the room and Chloe guessed rightly at it being a doctor required to confirm the death of her husband. Rules were rules, times had to be recorded, forms had to be filled in and then it would be over... but not for Chloe, definitely not for Chloe.

Steven and John Macmillan were struggling to come up with an explanation for Tom Harland contracting Marburg disease when news of his death came in.

‘God damn,’ said Steven.

‘Poor man,’ said Macmillan, shaking his head in exasperation. ‘They have to find the cause, it’s imperative they identify the source.’

‘No question,’ said Steven.

The two men were talking in Macmillan’s office where Macmillan had put a stop on phone calls so that they could think and talk undisturbed. They were in the middle of considering the possibility that secret establishments like Porton might be tempted to use generally accepted secrecy to cover-up events that were not necessarily connected to national security... like accidents... or mistakes... when Jean knocked and came in.

‘Sorry, Sir John, the Home Secretary would like to speak to you, I think it’s important.’

Steven left the room with Jean who closed the door and put the call through before saying, ‘The Home Secretary sounded like a man under some stress.’

Steven made a face and said, ‘I could say it’s shaping up to be one of these days, but for the past week or so they’ve all been that.’

Macmillan emerged looking pale. ‘Three more,’ he said, causing Steven and Jean to look at each other.

‘Three more cases of Marburg.’

‘Where?’ Steven asked, almost dreading the answer: he had been assuming that luck had been on their side when Tom Harland had shown no signs of infection before falling ill at work where he could be quickly isolated. Now, he feared he was about to be told that Chloe and the girls had fallen victim.

‘Porton,’ said Macmillan, ‘Three more people on the staff, one technician and two cleaners.’

Steven’s relief was quickly wiped out by the new worry. ‘Where are they?’

‘Royal Free Hospital.’

‘Dare I ask where they showed signs of being ill?’

Macmillan paused before saying, ‘At home, I’m afraid.’

‘Weren’t they vaccinated after Tom Harland fell ill?’

‘Apparently there aren’t any regular vaccines against Marburg, although there may be a secret one.’

‘A secret one,’ said Steven. ‘Have Porton any idea what happened?’

‘Not yet.’

Steven struggled to contain his frustration. He wanted to point out that Porton Down was full of first-rate microbiologists and ask, why in God’s name could they not find a source of infection that must be right under their noses, but he didn’t. There must be a reason and shouting the odds wasn’t going to help. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the wall behind Jean’s desk and concentrated on searching for useful facts in a messy situation.

‘There cannot be two separate sources of the virus lying around, that would be stretching coincidence too far.’

‘Agreed,’ said Macmillan.

‘That means these four people got it from the same source. We know that the three latest cases had no direct contact with Tom Harland, so they didn’t get it from him; they got it from the same source as him.’

‘Agreed.’

‘The only job Tom worked on at Porton since coming back from holiday was in the lab where Petrov’s flask was opened. For whatever reason, that lab has to be the number one suspect.’

‘Porton have ruled that out,’ said Jean. ‘No one has been working with Marburg in recent months and, certainly not in that lab. Even if they had, it would have been thoroughly decontaminated afterwards.’

‘And I think we can assume that no one does that better,’ said Macmillan.

‘Stay with me, hear me out,’ said Steven. ‘The latest three all seem to have fallen ill at the same time; that tells us they all came into contact with the source at approximately the same time. What we have to ask is, did they have any reason to be in that lab together in the days after Tom Harland fixed the intercom and what were they doing there?’

‘That’s certainly worth finding out,’ said Macmillan, ‘but we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that this really ceased to be our investigation the moment they found nothing but salt water in Petrov’s flask. Before you say anything, I’m not suggesting for a moment that we should ignore something as awful as an outbreak of Marburg, but I am saying that we mustn’t lose sight of our own investigation.’

‘I take your point,’ said Steven, ‘but until the source of the Marburg outbreak has been identified we won’t know for sure that it has nothing to do with our thing.’

Macmillan looked doubtful. ‘Really?’ he said.

Steven didn’t back down. ‘Yes, really, none of us think that Petrov was really sending a flask of salt water to Geneva, agreed?’

Jean and Macmillan nodded.

‘The intelligence services think the original flask was removed and substituted, which I agree seems the most likely explanation, but suppose the original flask leaked — perhaps during the theft — and contaminated the container before the flask of saline was substituted.’

‘The whole container would have been destroyed. That was the only safe thing to do.’

‘But we are talking about a thief here,’ countered Steven. ‘He or she had what they wanted: they didn’t care about contamination of the container; they would have been under a great deal of stress, doing things in a rush, or maybe even working in the dark.’

‘True,’ Macmillan conceded.

‘If that were the case, we now know the original flask contained Marburg,’ said Jean.

‘I’m sure the people at Porton would have tested the container for contamination,’ said Macmillan.

‘You’re almost certainly right,’ said Steven, ‘and I know I’m clutching at straws here, but I think I’d like to talk to the Israelis again.’

‘Intelligence?’ asked Macmillan.

‘No, the people at Beer Sheva University. They were under the impression that Petrov was working with highly dangerous viruses. That was illustrated by the precautions they took when entering Petrov’s lab after his death — done with full bio-safety ritual. They opened the container they found there — the one addressed to Lagarde in Geneva, and found the flask, but decided against opening it — again showing extreme caution. I suspect they may have shown the same caution beforehand with the container and packaging itself. They may well have examined everything for nasty surprises.’

‘That’s certainly worth checking out.’

Steven called Eli Zimmerman at Beer Sheva University and exchanged pleasantries.

‘How can I help this time,’ asked Zimmerman, ‘still worried about new drugs sweeping your streets?’

‘Not this time,’ said Steven. ‘I have a question about the opening of the container found in what was Petrov’s lab. At the time, you and your people had every reason to believe that Petrov had been working with dangerous viruses and because of this, you took every precaution.’

‘Of course.’

‘I know you decided not to open the flask, but did you test the container and packaging for contamination before you made that decision?’

‘I’ll say we did,’ Zimmerman replied.

Steven was surprised at Zimmerman’s strong reaction. He waited for him to say more.

‘One of my people noticed that the flask had a tiny chip out of the glass round the lip; there were no signs of leakage, but it was enough to ring alarm bells in a situation like that so we tested everything surrounding it: there were no viruses, no fancy drugs. I mentioned the defect to WHO when I called them to ask what they wanted us to do and they said not to worry.’

‘Good,’ said Steven, feeling as if he had just struck gold by mistake. ‘Did you mention the flaw to the Intelligence people when they took charge of the container?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Zimmerman after a moment’s thought. ‘We knew there had been no leakage and I was so fed up with the whole business I just wanted to see the back of the damned thing and put an end to the whole Petrov business.’

‘Understandable,’ said Steven, ‘thanks once again for your help.’

‘Do you know what was in the flask?’

‘Saline.’

Steven told Macmillan and Jean that the Israelis had tested the container and its packaging and found nothing, almost dismissing this information by adding what he’d been told about the slight flaw in the lip of the flask.

‘Does that help?’ asked Jean.

‘Yes, if the flask they have at Porton has the same flaw, it’s the same flask. Porton showed the contents of the flask to be harmless and the Israelis have told us the container and packaging surrounding the chipped flask was harmless. It means that there was no switch of flask, and secondly that neither the container nor the flask has anything to do with people going down with Marburg.’

‘A bit of a Pyrrhic victory,’ said Macmillan, ‘but well done anyway, closing off blind alleys is always better than going down them.’

Not for the first time in his life Steven had the strange mixed feeling of triumph and disappointment. He had worked something out — which was certainly progress — but only to see that he had proved himself wrong. Macmillan had been right, he had stopped himself going up the blind alley he himself had created. He needed a break from thinking about it; he bought some flowers and went to see Jane Sherman in hospital.

‘Looks like flowers are the last thing you need,’ he said on entering what appeared to be a miniature version of the Chelsea Flower Show.

‘People are very kind,’ said Jane.

‘How are you?’ Steven asked, not smiling and looking her straight in the eye.

‘Very tired of being brave,’ Jane replied.

‘I think it was Shakespeare who said, reality has a habit of kicking you up the arse when you least expect it.’

Jane broke into a smile and said, ‘You always did have a sense of the ridiculous.’

‘It’s what keeps me insane.’

‘Stop it. What’s been happening?’

‘I take it you know about Petrov’s flask containing nothing but salt water and about the outbreak of Marburg disease among the staff at Porton?’

Jane nodded then Steven told her what she didn’t know — that the intelligence services could be wrong about the flask having been switched. It all depended on the flask at Porton having the little flaw in its lip.

‘Would you like me to ask?’ said Jane.

‘If you feel up to it, it would save me tip-toeing around peoples’ egos and going through the Home Secretary every time I want to know something people consider to be their secret and nobody else’s.’

‘Rumour had it you had some special arrangement with the PM as her blue-eyed boy.’

‘It didn’t quite work out and in any case, it made me feel uncomfortable. I much prefer cooperation.’

‘Like we have?’

‘Like we have.’

‘Good, I’m looking forward to being useful again.’

‘I’ll keep you in the loop.’

As Steven got up to leave, he noticed Jane staring into the middle distance. ‘Something wrong?’ he asked.

She snapped out of it and said, ‘If you’re right and there was no switching of flasks, why on Earth was Petrov sending saline to Geneva? And why were our rich Russian friends so keen to stop us investigating a little jug of water?’

‘Very good thoughts.’

‘Just doing my job,’ said Jane with a genuine smile that made Steven feel a whole lot better.

‘We’re a team.’

Sixteen

‘I have a conundrum for you,’ said Tally.

‘Join the queue,’ Steven joked. ‘My world is full of questions with very few answers on the horizon.

‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself,’ said Tally, making him smile. ‘I went to see Monique and told her what we all thought about her friends and family incubating the disease when they were vaccinated and she tossed a grenade into the works. Now, I just don’t know what to think.’

‘Shoot.’

‘They developed Ebola three weeks after receiving the vaccine.’

‘Three weeks?’

‘And there’s more, they fell ill just after the WHO aid team came back to check that no one was suffering any ill effects from the vaccine they’d been given.’

‘Were they given a second dose?’

‘That’s what I asked; she’s absolutely adamant they were not.’

Steven thought for a moment before saying, ‘The only logical explanation is that they were exposed to Ebola a few days before the aid people came back. It was an unfortunate coincidence that the team returned just as Monique’s people were about to fall ill.’

‘An unfortunate coincidence...’ Tally repeated.

‘Unless you can think of something else?’ Steven asked.

‘No, dammit.’

‘Mind you, the coincidence theory doesn’t sound all that convincing when you start to consider how ten people managed to contract the disease at exactly the same time... You’re sure there was no second dose given?’

‘Monique was adamant. They just asked questions about their health, saying they were keeping a close watch on those getting the experimental vaccine for any problems arising. The village people were even grateful and thanked them for their concern.’

‘In which case, coincidence must stay in the reckoning.’

Steven was enjoying a beer in his seat by the window, feet up on the sill, looking up at the sky when John Macmillan called.

‘Steven, the Home Secretary has informed me that Porton have identified the Marburg strain that their people have gone down with.’

‘God, that was quick.’

‘They are good,’ Macmillan reminded him. It was something Macmillan did on a regular basis when the role of bacteria and viruses in weaponry came up in conversation. He knew that Steven had a particular loathing of it.

‘I’m told it’s the strain which caused an outbreak in Uganda in 2017. It only lasted a few months thanks to prompt action by WHO and other aid bodies.’

‘How in God’s name did it end up in Porton?’

‘That has not yet become apparent.’

‘It must mean that a sample of the virus must have been sent to Porton from Uganda and somehow... accidentally, several members of their staff were exposed to it and contaminated.’

‘Porton say definitely not. They do not have live Marburg virus anywhere on the campus.’

Steven closed his eyes and asked in carefully measured tones, ‘In which case, do they have any idea how four people got infected by Marburg in a place that doesn’t have any?’

Macmillan cleared his throat and said, ‘The Home Secretary did tell me that Porton admitted to having freeze-dried stocks of Marburg for their research, but no live virus in use and certainly not that strain.’

‘Right.’

‘Doesn’t get any easier, does it?’

Steven thought he might bite right through his tongue before answering, ‘Quite so, sir.’ He turned off the lights and flopped down in his chair again to resume looking up at what was now the night sky.

Cold beer and an appreciation of the vastness of what was out there bestowed a sense of calmness on him that allowed him to think more rationally. He had been allowing prejudice to interfere with judgement, something that Tally had warned him about many times and he had tried to take on board with limited success. The longest-held one was his loathing of politicians of all hues.

Tally’s assertion that they couldn’t all be bad had still not been accepted by him. He was convinced that any politician being asked what two plus two equalled would find a way of avoiding the word ‘four’, just in case they were in danger of giving too much away. A lesser prejudice involved establishments like Porton Down and the work they did there. It all fell under the mantle of defence, but so did teenage boys in down-at-heel council estates carrying knives. No one ever admitted to developing microbes or carrying knives to attack others.

This prejudice however, was not as cast in stone as his feelings about politicians. He had come to accept that it was necessary to be capable of doing what the enemy was capable of doing and it was well known that before the collapse of the USSR, microbes had been weaponised on a large scale. Smallpox had been genetically altered to be even more lethal than it already was. The World Health Organisation had succeeded in wiping out smallpox as a disease affecting human beings through their vaccination programmes, but in some lab somewhere... the virus waited.

Steven recognised that he had immediately become suspicious when he learned about Porton insisting that they did not have live stocks of the Uganda Marburg strain that had infected four of its staff members. That was unjustified. They were very secretive by nature, but they would not lie to government about something like that: he had to accept that the strain had come to a lab in Porton from an outside source. — four people had been infected from the same source in this lab and it had nothing to do with Petrov or his flask. Really?

Next morning, Steven decided that he wanted to know every single thing that had happened when the four Marburg victims had been present in the lab in question. If CCTV had been on in that lab at any or all times, he wanted to see it, if any kind of written report had been made by any of the four, he wanted to see it — as well as any written instructions given to them about the jobs they were sent to do.

‘No more pussy-footing around,’ he told Jean. ‘The Prime Minister told me personally I would have her full support. Time for her to walk the walk.’

‘How many Weetabix did you have this morning?’ Jean responded.

‘We’re missing something, Jean,’ Steven said. ‘I know the people at Porton are bright and they have had access to all this from the outset and they must have examined everything in minute detail, but a fresh look won’t do any harm.’

A female intelligence officer from MI6 called Steven around noon. ‘I understand from Jane Sherman that you wanted to know if the flask sent to Porton from Israel had a slight flaw in the lip?’

‘That’s right,’ said Steven, not expecting anyone other than Jane to call him about this. ‘Is Jane okay?’ he asked.

‘She’s a bit under the weather this morning, I’m afraid,’ came the muted reply. ‘There’s some talk of post-surgical infection.’

‘God, I hope not...’

‘Anyway, the answer to your question is yes, the flask has the flaw you asked about.’

‘Thank you,’ said Steven quietly, now preoccupied with thoughts of Jane Sherman.

‘Bad news?’ Jean asked.

‘Good and bad, the flask at Porton has the same flaw so that puts an end to the switch theory. The bad news is that Jane Sherman is now fighting a post-op infection.’

‘Poor woman,’ said Jean, ‘I’m afraid my news is no better, the Royal Free reports that one of the two cleaners who contracted Marburg disease died during the night.’

Steven made a face and shook his head before asking, ‘Did we get any indication of the mortality of Marburg?’

‘Around ninety percent.’

‘My God, any sign of the families falling ill?’

‘Not yet.’

Just after four in the afternoon, Steven’s request to the Prime Minister’s office bore fruit and a car arrived from Porton Down with the material he’d asked for. There had been no CCTV footage of the electrician, Tom Harland, carrying out repairs in the lab, nor of the technician and cleaners working in the lab although the opening of Petrov’s flask had been recorded in full. An envelope containing paperwork accompanied the CCTV recording.

John Macmillan suggested they begin “at the very beginning” and watch the recording together. They looked on in silence as the container was carefully opened and one of the three ghostly figures in safety gear reached in to check the flask was free to move before removing a handful of packing material and putting it to one side while he slowly lifted the flask clear.

‘The container itself has been opened before,’ said Jean, noting that no seals had had to be broken on the lid.

‘Twice,’ said Steven, ‘once by the Israelis and again by Porton people checking the container and packing for any dangers.’

Steven, who was in control of the playback, stopped it momentarily to point something out, ‘You can actually see the flaw on the lip there,’ — he zoomed in for a clear view before letting it run on to the removal of the seal on the flask itself. Knowing that what they were watching was the very careful handling of a small flask of salt water tended to remove suspense from proceedings but Steven, if not the other two, steeled himself to watch every move unflinchingly.

‘See anything?’ asked Macmillan when it was over.

‘No,’ Steven admitted, telling the others he was going off to look through the paperwork, but pausing to arm himself with coffee from the machine in the corner.

Steven began with Tom Harland’s work sheet requesting a repair be made to the intercom system in the high security lab before moving on to the report submitted by him when the job was finished. He had found a “drift in frequency” to be the cause of the problem and had made the necessary adjustments before testing that all was well and signing off the job.

Steven found a third document with Tom Harland’s name on it. It was a minor-accident report as required by all employees to make, however small the incident. The electrician had cut the palm of his left hand when his screwdriver had slipped. It was ‘a nuisance’ but not bad enough to require medical attention; he had stemmed the bleeding and applied a small dressing later when he left the lab.

On the day following Tom Harland’s repair, Steven found a request submitted to cleaners to deal with any mess caused by his hand bleed in the lab. A note was appended stating that a technician should accompany them to ensure that all affected surfaces were clinically clean before signing off the job.

Steven had to remind himself that these perfectly innocuous things were the last things these four people did at Porton before contracting Marburg. Despite the fact that there was nothing remotely scary about any of them, an icicle was climbing up his spine. He found himself thinking of an occasion long ago in the mountains of Scotland. He had been hill-walking with a friend in wet, misty weather when, up on the tops, they had come to a narrow ridge connecting two peaks. He had found himself hesitant, knowing that there must be a degree of danger involved but one he couldn’t see because of the heavy mist. Half way across, the mist cleared and he could see a drop of a thousand metres on either side of him, causing apprehension to become full-blown fear.

At the moment, and without fully knowing why, he was feeling apprehensive... waiting for the mist to clear.

‘Find anything?’ Macmillan asked.

‘Not really, Steven replied on auto-pilot, ‘Tom Harland cut his hand while working in the lab, nothing serious. The cleaners and the technician were detailed to make sure everything was cleaned up.’

‘Not much to go on there.’

‘No,’ Steven agreed, but a hollow had appeared in his stomach. He just didn’t want to talk about it. He took the CCTV recording of the flask opening and went off to view it again on his own, something he did three more times, thinking he might be “looking at the tarpaulin” too much. Everyone’s concentration had been on the slow emergence of the flask from the container, he now took on board that the scientist doing this had removed a handful of the packing material before placing it in a dish on the bench beside him.

Steven fast-forwarded to the end of the piece to see the flask put back in its container and the lid replaced before it was removed from the lab. The packing material in the dish was left where it was. He rewound and replayed the scene, this time looking for anything resembling paper towels or tissues anywhere in the lab, but without success. His conclusion was that Tom Harland might have used the packing material left in the dish to stem the blood flow from the cut in his hand. Steven’s breathing pattern changed to short shallow breaths before he saw a big “but” coming up. The packing material was harmless, both the lab in Beer Sheva and the people at Porton had tested it... He could not let go. It was time to possibly make an absolute fool of himself.

‘John, I need you to get the PM to sanction a request,’ said Steven. ‘I need Porton to put Petrov’s flask, its container and all the packing material in a sealed container to be kept in biological isolation under the highest possible security.’

Macmillan looked at Steven as if he might be in need of an obvious kindly reminder. ‘But Steven, it’s harmless, you know it is.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘Do you have any evidence for this?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘And you seriously want me to have the PM issue this edict?’

‘Yes.’

Macmillan thought for a long moment before saying, ‘All right... I suppose we can buy an ice cream van between us to make a living.’

‘Thanks, John.’

Steven didn’t want to say any more and neither John nor Jean pressed him: they had seen him like this before and, with a bit of luck, some kind of breakthrough could be expected soon.

Steven went back into isolation to go through the material from Porton again and again until finally his eyes fixed on something else... the words “drift in frequency” — the cause given by Tom Harland for the breakdown in the intercom system. It didn’t sound all that strange when he thought about it. There would be a wireless link-up between the lab and the viewing gallery instead of a cable link. Wireless communication had become very common in recent times, but if either the transmitter or the receiver was to be altered from its allotted frequency, communication would cease.

Although there were lots of reasons for wireless connections to give trouble — he had experienced plenty of them himself — he had never heard of ‘frequency drift’ being one of them. The frequency of a wireless set-up was usually fixed and didn’t vary. Remote controls worked on one set frequency or another, they didn’t drift. He would have to ask Porton about this. He rushed back to the main office to see if John had made the call to the PM’s office.

‘He’s on the phone just now,’ said Jean, nodding to Macmillan’s office.

Steven entered with a perfunctory knock and snatched at the notepad on Macmillan’s desk to jot down the question he wanted Porton to be asked. He slid it under Macmillan’s gaze and was relieved to hear Macmillan say a moment later, ‘Just one more thing, Prime Minister, Steven would like some information about the wireless frequency used for communications in the lab, which their dead electrician, Tom Harland, was called upon to repair... Thank you, thank you so much, Prime Minister... yes, I’m sure he has excellent reasons for making these requests.’ Macmillan put the phone down, letting his hand rest on it while he shook his head slowly.

‘Thanks again, John,’ said Steven, letting his breath out in a long sigh.

‘Have you thought about possible tunes for the ice cream van?’ asked Macmillan.

Macmillan felt the spectre of the ice cream van coming a step closer when the Home Secretary called him; he was in a foul mood, wanting to know ‘just what the hell’ was going on. Somewhat on the back foot through not knowing himself, Macmillan had to listen to how much Porton had been annoyed by Steven’s requests. Who did he think he was, answering their own question by suggesting Steven was ‘some ex-forces medic who wasn’t even a microbiologist.’ Did he imagine that he knew better than the highly qualified staff at Porton Down? ‘What do you have to say?’ the Home Secretary demanded.

Macmillan, who had listened in silence throughout, said, ‘I shall have Steven apologise...’

‘I should think so too...’

‘... the moment Porton tell us all how and why two of their people have died of Marburg disease and another two lie dangerously ill,’ continued Macmillan. ‘As to who Steven thinks he is, he knows full well that he is the chief investigator of the Sci-Med Inspectorate and has my full backing. Perhaps Porton would do well to recognise that there is a difference between being knowledgeable and being bright. I don’t question the knowledge of Porton’s people but knowledge tends to result from book learning while brightness demands imagination, creativity, lateral thinking, ability to improvise and many other skills. Steven is “some ex-army medic” who has all of these qualities in abundance, something the Prime Minister has come to appreciate as illustrated by her giving him her full support or were you unaware that the request to Porton was sanctioned by her?’

The Home Secretary paused and swallowed audibly before saying, ‘Porton led me to believe the request had come directly from Sci-Med.’

‘... it happens., Home Secretary’

‘I’ll clear up any misunderstanding.’

Macmillan looked at the phone and then at Steven as the Home Secretary cut short the call, he looked thoughtful.’

‘I quite like Greensleeves,’ said Steven, which prompted a smile and the opening of Macmillan’s prized sherry cabinet. ‘Jean! Come and join us.’

Seventeen

Steven and John Macmillan decided to wait around to see if anything would come in from Porton, Jean sat with them until half past six when she apologised and said she had to run off to choir practice — Being a member of the Bach Choir was an important part of her life.

Just after seven-thirty, a message arrived saying that the request regarding the isolation of the container and contents from Israel had been complied with. A cursory apology for the ‘misunderstanding’ was also attached. The final part of the message gave a code for accessing a secure computer link, which would give details about the wireless intercom system which was repaired by Tom Harland.

Steven followed the link and found what he was looking for in the first sentence. Wireless links for communication within certain areas within Porton were protected from outside snooping through the use of unusual frequencies instead of the normal, 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz. These frequencies were subject to recurrent change, but could suffer from occasional drift, which was the case when Tom Harland was called in.

‘Unusual frequencies,’ said Steven out loud as if it were death sentence. ‘Oh dear.’

‘That all sounds perfectly sensible to me,’ said Macmillan, ‘I’m guessing it means something more to you?’

Steven shook his head, giving himself time to search for words. ‘Oh, my God,’ he said, turning to face Macmillan, ‘this is all beginning to make some dreadful sense, so awful I don’t want to believe it... the dead English scientists... I know what they were doing.... Simon Pashley, the specialist in tiny wireless motor technology... Martin Field, the expert in implant technology... together with Samuel Petrov, an expert in killer viruses... and all funded by Sergei Malenkov and his rich, Russian, London-based pals... Christ almighty.’

Macmillan who had been waiting patiently for information said, ‘Are you about to tell me that our ice cream van is being put on hold?’

The apparent spell that Steven was under was broken. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s the plastic packing material — the plastic packing material surrounding Petrov’s flask isn’t packing material at all, these little capsules contain Marburg virus.’

‘But it was tested and found to be completely harmless.’

‘It is on the outside, each pellet appears to be a simple little plastic bubble, but, when a certain wireless frequency is transmitted nearby, the capsules rupture and release, not the pain killers that Martin Field was planning on, but any killer virus Petrov chose to put inside.’

‘Who in God’s name would come up with something like that,’ exclaimed Macmillan, ‘and why?’

‘That’s what we’ll still have to work out,’ said Steven, ‘but first, I have to show I’m right and that isn’t going to be easy. We’ll have to ask our friends at Porton for help.’

‘You think?’

‘Without a doubt,’ said Steven, ‘we’ll need maximum security lab conditions and a scenario where it is safe to expose a few of these packing pellets to a range of wireless frequencies to see what happens. If I’m right, they’ll rupture and release what I’m sure will be the Uganda strain of Marburg virus. At that point we’ll need containment. Boy, will we need containment.’

‘Talk me through what happened to Tom Harland and the others.’

‘Tom cut his hand while he was working in the lab and looked around for something to stem the blood with. He ended up using some of the pellets the scientists had left lying in a dish on the bench. At some point, when he was playing around with wireless frequencies to restore the intercom system, he hit upon the trigger for the pellets. They ruptured and infected him through his cut.’

‘Of all the rotten luck...’ said Macmillan. ‘And the others?’

‘They thought they were coming into a safe lab environment to clear up any mess left over from Tom cutting his hand. They weren’t to know that the bloody pellets he’d dropped in a bin were heavily contaminated with Marburg virus. Not only that, the pellets still lying in the dish on the bench would have ruptured too and they would also be covered in Marburg. The cleaners and the technician infected themselves by coming into contact with them.’

‘Absolutely tragic,’ said Macmillan. ‘I’ll get in touch with Porton and tell them we need their help and expertise. The only other question now is how many people should be brought into the loop? The Home Secretary? The Prime Minister’s Office, MI6?’

‘The fewer the better,’ said Steven. ‘If I’m wrong, it’ll take me months to get the egg off my face and if I’m right, we don’t want it being leaked before we’ve figured out a whole lot more, I vote we tell no one.’

‘So, we approach Porton directly?’

‘Yes,’ said Steven, ‘tell them “some ex-army medic” would like to speak to them in confidence.’

‘Maybe not,’ smiled Macmillan, ‘but I’ll contact them. Maybe they’ll just assume this time the PM has given her backing.’

Steven decided to visit Jane Sherman in the morning, presuming that it would take time for Macmillan to arrange something with Porton. Unsure of what to take, after deciding that she was probably sick of the sight of flowers, he bought some expensive Belgian chocolates and, as an afterthought, two miniatures of Scotch malt whisky. He wasn’t sure if she drank alcohol, but if she did, she might be pleased, although she’d have to hide them from the staff — well, keeping secrets was what she did.

Jane was clearly pleased to see him and he thanked her for having Six come up with the information about the flaw in the lip of Petrov’s flask. He handed her the chocolates and got an appreciative response, ‘Good, I’m fed up eating roses,’ she said, looking around at the flowers. Steven got the joke. ‘I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about... these,’ he said, surreptitiously showing her one of the miniatures.

‘Dunbar, I think I’m falling in love,’ she said, sneaking it under her pillow before Steven brought out the other one. ‘Now, I definitely am.’

‘Good, I’ll know what to bring next time.’

Steven kept the conversation confined to Jane’s condition and what the plans were for future treatment mainly because he didn’t want to say anything about any upcoming events at Porton. Jane had not mentioned anything about the person who had leaked information about their movements being identified and he didn’t ask. Six would deal with it and, in intelligence matters there were always things it was better not to know. He did learn however, that Jane was considering herself ‘lucky’ because the surgeons had told her that there had been enough healthy tissue left on her leg for them to make a decent stump; this would be important when it came to fitting a prosthesis. Small mercies, Steven thought.

Steven left and made for the elevator, only to find that there was a sign on one of them saying it was being serviced — the company apologised for the inconvenience. The other one of the two seemed to be taking a long time on the top floor so he opted for the stairs. As he descended, he found himself humming Greensleeves.

When he reached the ground floor he paused, thinking he had heard someone groaning.

‘Hello,’ he called out, ‘is anyone there?’ He heard another groan in reply and pinpointed it as coming from the steps leading down to the basement. Half way down he found enough light for him to see a man’s trousered leg sticking out from the turn at the foot of the flight. The angle of his shoe suggested he was lying on his face. ‘Hang on there, I’m coming,’ he called out.

Steven turned the corner and found a policeman lying on his face, but his attention was immediately diverted by the silenced weapon pointing at his face. It was being held by the Russian heavy who had already tried to kill him, his face a picture of loathing.

The Russian kept up a stream of invective as he gestured that Steven turn and face the wall. The anger in the man’s voice was puzzling and unusual in a professional, Steven thought, guessing that the man he’d shot in the Westminster Bridge attack might have been a friend of his.

Steven’s pistol was removed and dropped, his cheek slammed hard against the wall and the silencer pushed into his throat. The Russian rant went on, giving Steven a few precious seconds to search desperately for anything in the situation he might use to his advantage. He knew two words of Russian and opted for one of them. ‘Niet, niet, niet,’ he said loudly as if in protest. The Russian stopped ranting, taken by surprise at Steven apparently speaking Russian: Steven could see that it would be much more satisfying for his attacker if he understood the abuse that was coming at him. The Russian appeared to ask a question.

As his attacker waited for a reply, Steven, who by now had remembered that his would-be killer would still be suffering from injured ribs after being hit by the car he’d been driving at the time, slammed his right elbow back into the man’s ribs, causing him to let out a yelp of pain. Steven had been counting on the man feeling so much pain that his hands would automatically and immediately fly to the area of impact. They did and Steven played his trump card by slamming the point of his other elbow into the man’s ribs on the other side to be rewarded by welcome cracking sounds as several ribs gave way and he slumped to his knees. Steven took a step backwards and shot out the heel of his right foot in a vicious kick into his opponent’s already agonised chest, knowing that the sharp edges of his broken ribs would probably puncture his lungs and render them useless. They did.

Steven collected both weapons from the floor, replacing the Glock in its holster and separating the silencer from the Russian’s gun to make it easier to carry. He examined the policeman, expecting the worst but finding that he was still breathing and had a strong pulse. He was unconscious from what looked like a single blunt wound applied to his head. He called the Sci-Med emergency number and gave details of what had happened, requesting medical assistance for the policeman and an intelligence service ‘clean-up’ for the Russian who had finally stopped making hissing and gurgling noises and was lying motionless, unseeing, with eyes wide open.

‘I’ll stay with the policeman until help comes. There is no need for an armed response unit, repeat, no need.’

As he waited, Steven reflected on how close he had come to death. There was no way the Russian could have known he was coming to the hospital today, he had only decided that himself after breakfast. This meant that he must have waited here every day for several days, gambling that he would come back to see Jane again. Steven hadn’t considered that possibility and it had damned nearly cost him his life. It was only good fortune that the Russian had lost his cool while he had managed to keep his long enough to figure out a weakness in his opponent, one, which, in the end, had saved his life. He felt slightly ill... perhaps more than slightly.

‘Are you all right?’ Macmillan asked when Steven appeared in the Home Office.

Steven genuinely didn’t know what to say. He made a face implying resignation and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Right now, I wish I was Roger Moore playing Bond: I could make some pithy joke about killing somebody and move on with a raised eyebrow and a cheeky smile.’

‘This is real life,’ said Macmillan. ‘All that adrenalin has gone and you’re feeling like a burst balloon lying in the dirt. Are you injured?’

Steven shook his head. ‘How’s the policeman?’

‘Concussion, he’ll be fine.’

‘Good.’

‘Actually, things might have been worse, but for MI5, they stopped three Russian tourists from entering the country at Heathrow; they had a tip-off they were hitmen coming here to carry out an assignment.’

‘Me?’

‘Possibly, you seem to be coming awfully close to finding out what they’re up to.’

‘Which brings us to Porton. How did you get on?’

‘They are keen to help in any way they can,’ said Macmillan, ‘but maybe you should take a few days off, clear your mind, get your breath back...’

Steven shook his head, thinking that Macmillan meant well, but was a million miles wide of the mark. The last thing he needed was time to dwell on all that had happened. More than anything, he wanted this whole business to be over, he wanted the Russians to be exposed and brought to justice, he wanted Tally safe home and he wanted his life back. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, ‘the sooner we get down there the better.’

‘Very well,’ said Macmillan. ‘We are not taking any more chances with the opposition. I’ve arranged for a police protective convoy to take us down. Armed Response will be in one of the vehicles.’

Subconsciously, Steven touched his head. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Time?’

‘I’ll set things up for a 3 p.m. pick-up and warn Porton. That’ll give us time for lunch at my club?’

Steven didn’t quite know what to say, he found the distance between being seconds away from death at the hands of a Russian hit man and having lunch at a London gentlemen’s club... a bit of a surreal stretch. ‘Fine.’

The police provided a four-vehicle convoy for the journey to Porton Down, Steven and Macmillan were ushered into the second vehicle — a black Range Rover, which Steven guessed might be armoured, judging by the way the doors swung: they were obviously very heavy.

‘You are probably thinking this is a bit over the top,’ said Macmillan.

Steven put his head back and smiled before saying, ‘I’m thinking this is just fine.’ He relaxed and resorted to people-watching through the privacy glass before the population thinned out and they picked up speed.

Three people at Porton had been detailed to greet them when they arrived, two were senior scientists and the third was the pleasant administrator who had acted as guide for Steven and Scott Jamieson when the Petrov flask was opened. With introductions complete, all of them moved into a room that seemed a little different from last time Steven thought, more board room than staff room.

‘Sorry again about the misunderstanding,’ said the scientist who had introduced herself as Dr Mary Penrose, ‘we weren’t aware of the background.’

‘No problem,’ said Macmillan. ‘It did seem rather an odd request to make, however, my chief investigator, Dr Steven Dunbar, will tell you exactly why he made it.’

Steven went through the step by step thinking and reasoning that had led to him coming to the conclusion he had. He was pleased to see the looks of dismay appearing on the faces of his audience.

‘My God,’ said Mary Penrose.

‘Wow,’ added her colleague, Dr Norman Burns.

‘Unbelievable,’ offered the former guide.

‘It’s still a theory,’ said Steven, ‘that’s why we’re here. We need proof.’

‘And proof positive will involve rupturing a few of these proposed killer capsules and releasing Marburg virus,’ said Mary Penrose, thinking and speaking at the same time.

‘Maybe an X-ray might be a good first step,’ Burns suggested.

‘I did wonder about that,’ said Steven, ‘but we can’t be sure how the pellets will respond to X-rays.’

‘I think we could set up a secure containment facility,’ said Mary Penrose. ‘If X-rays don’t rupture the capsules, they might well tell us if they are indeed more sophisticated objects than we thought and we can proceed from there. If we go directly to looking for a rupture frequency, we will definitely be releasing Marburg virus.’

‘Good point,’ Steven agreed. ‘I’m happy to go along with an X-ray.’

‘I’ll see to it,’ said Burns getting up from his chair. ‘Won’t take long.’

‘Coffee?’ asked the guide.

With Burns out of the room arranging for an X-ray of the capsules, the conversation turned to what it could all be about.

‘Why on Earth would anyone want to design something like this — if this is what they turn out to be?’ asked Mary Penrose. ‘They’re useless as an offensive weapon.’

‘Whatever the reason,’ said Macmillan, ‘it wasn’t some kind of academic exercise. An awful lot of money has been poured into it, and some of the finest minds employed to create it.’

‘No disrespect, Doctor,’ said Mary Penrose addressing Steven, ‘but I find myself hoping that you are completely wrong.’

‘Frankly, Doctor, I hope exactly the same thing,’ Steven replied.

‘Amen to that,’ added Macmillan.

‘This is absolutely incredible,’ announced Norman Burns, on his return. ‘Look at them!’

Several X-rays were slid around the table by Burns simulating the role of a casino dealer, all of them ruling out any possibility that Steven had been wrong. Vain hopes reluctantly gave way to grudging admiration as the intricate interior details of the capsules were revealed. Tiny chambers and even tinier motor technology were highlighted in hushed tones. Eventually, Mary Penrose, sounding sad and reluctant, said, ‘I suppose this means we move on to the final test of your theory, Dr Dunbar.’

Steven didn’t reply and it was left to Norman Burns to break the ensuing silence. He said, ‘When I saw the X-rays, I took the liberty of alerting the bio-safety team we put on stand-by.’

Mary Penrose nodded. ‘We had better brief them.’ She turned to Steven and asked, ‘Do we know anything about the wireless frequency we’re looking for?’

Steven said not. ‘I’m supposing Tom Harland would have started his search at the extreme of the range and worked backwards until he found the matching frequency for the intercom he was fixing. He must have hit the trigger for the capsules by accident.’

‘Makes sense,’ said Burns. ‘but it would have to be an extreme frequency that no one would use otherwise the capsules would rupture all the time.’

‘All the same,’ said Mary Penrose, ‘we should disable all wireless intercoms in the building until we’ve carried out the experiment.’

Nods of agreement were followed by Steven adding, ‘We have to make sure the bulk of the capsules are safely out of range too, otherwise there could be a massive release of Marburg virus.’

‘Good point,’ said Mary Penrose, ‘we can’t take any chances. I’ll have the original container secured and taken out of the building.’ She went on to outline the plan for the test. ‘I thought we’d use the high security lab that was used the first time. That way we can use the same wireless intercom that Tom Harland worked on. In the lab, six capsules will be placed in a glass container by our bio-safety crew and sealed. A small camera will be trained on it so we can see what happens on CCTV up in the viewing gallery and then the safety people will leave the lab — I don’t want them in there.’

Norman Burns took over. ‘When we’re ready, an audio technician with us in the gallery will access the audio transmitter and start changing the frequency. If the capsules rupture, Dr Dunbar will be proved right and the experiment will be over. Our bio-safety people will enter the lab to carry out decontamination... and the day will be done, any comments?’

There were none.

‘Let’s do it.’

Mary Penrose nodded to the audio technician who threw a switch gently with thumb and forefinger and started turning a dial slowly. The four others in the gallery sat, eyes glued to the six little capsules on the TV screen, not daring to blink and suffering growing tightness of their stomach muscles.

Steven was hyper aware of the seconds ticking by, knowing that the technician must have moved away from one extreme on the dial and was probably drifting through the more normal frequencies. He sneaked a look at his fingers, but couldn’t tell anything. He could sense however, that the others were beginning to move in their seats.

The silence was broken by the audio technician saying, ‘That’s it all the way, do you want me to try again?’

‘What do you think, Steven?’ asked Mary Penrose.

Steven wondered whether an end to formality had been prompted by the stress they had all been under or her taking pleasure in thinking he had been wrong. ‘Not sure,’ he replied, ‘give me a minute.’

The others exchanged glances while Steven appeared to stare unseeingly at the window in front of him. At length, he said, ‘The people who made these capsules were brilliant; I’m sure they thought of everything, including the dangers of the capsules being triggered accidentally in a world full of wireless signals. When Tom Harland triggered them, he was holding a handful over a cut in his hand... and he was working with the transmitter, possibly in his other hand.’

‘You mean there was no glass container between the signal and the capsules?’ said Mary.

‘Exactly, for safety’s sake, the capsules would not only require a signal at a very unusual frequency... the signal would have to have a clear path.’

‘That’s a good point,’ said Macmillan.

‘Well, doing the experiment with the capsules in the open presents certain problems,’ said Burns, ‘we can’t release Marburg into the air so it will have to be carried out in an inoculation hood.’

For Macmillan’s benefit, Burns explained that this was a glass-fronted chamber with an extractor fan attached to its roof to ensure that air could be drawn into the chamber but none could flow out. The extracted air would be filtered for decontamination. There were two armholes in the front to enable the operator to work with dangerous material inside, but, in this case, the plan would be to use one of the armholes to allow unimpeded sound access to the capsules.

‘I could rig up a frequency generator,’ suggested the audio-technician, ‘it would be more accurate than playing around with the lab intercom and we could identify the exact frequency.’

‘Yes please,’ said Mary, before turning to the others and saying, ‘All this is going to take a bit of time to set up. I suggest we go downstairs and wait somewhere a little more comfortable.’

Eighteen

They rose and stretched their limbs. Steven looked down into the lab as his attention was caught by one of the bio-safety people coming in to disconnect the CCTV camera and deal with the glass capsule container. He was wearing boots and protective overalls, but had taken off his hood and visor. He looked up at the gallery, unable to communicate because there was no intercom; he was looking for guidance as to where the capsules should be taken. He pointed at the glass container and Mary signed to him with five fingers, which Steven presumed was a lab number. The man held up his hand to confirm the direction.

Unfortunately, he was holding a handful of cable in that hand and it caught the edge of the glass capsule container, knocking it clean off the bench. It hit the floor and smashed into several pieces, causing him to throw up his hands in dismay. He looked up at the gallery, making a gesture of apology and Mary held up hers, wearing an expression somewhere between resignation and reassurance. The man bent down to recover the capsules and start clearing up... before recoiling in horror and attempting to leap backwards — unsuccessfully as it turned out because of the boots he was wearing. He tumbled to the floor and was left sitting there, making signs repeatedly to indicate that things had burst open.

‘The capsules have ruptured!’ exclaimed Steven.

Burns turned away immediately and smashed the glass over an alarm button on the wall, using the small hammer attached and filling the air with whooping sounds.

‘How in God’s name did that happen?’ demanded Mary to no one in particular.

Steven looked to the audio technician who had turned pale and he stammered, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t switch it off... I’d finished going through the whole range of frequencies and nothing had happened so I thought it was all over and done with. I didn’t bother switching the transmitter off completely because I thought I would be re-setting the intercom: it would still be transmitting at the highest possible frequency in the range.’

‘We all thought it was over and done with,’ said Macmillan reassuringly to the man who was obviously stricken with guilt.

‘Can you get on with restoring the intercom?’ Mary asked. ‘I have to talk to the man down there.

‘Sure,’ said the technician, who immediately got to work, still muttering about how sorry he was. He had communications up and running within a matter of minutes.

Mary looked down at the man below, ‘Terry, isn’t it?’

The man nodded, unable to take his eyes off the gaping capsules on the floor.

‘Terry, did you touch anything or did you feel anything touch you when the capsules opened?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I wasn’t conscious of anything.’

‘Good, you have been exposed to Marburg virus, but it can’t harm you unless you touched it or anything contaminated with it touched your bare skin. Norman Burns is organising a decontamination team who will be with you shortly and they’ll deal with what’s on the floor. They’ll wash you down with strong disinfectant as you stand in your overalls and then you’ll remove all your clothing before going through to the exit shower and spending at least ten minutes scrubbing yourself thoroughly. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, I’m sure you know the routine.’

‘Sure.’

‘We’ll send you off to hospital where they’ll keep you in, just to keep an eye on you for few days, but the chances are, you’ll be as right as rain, all understood?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good man. This took all of us by surprise, but, if it’s any comfort, you’ve just saved us the trouble of setting up another experiment. We already know the answer.’

Terry, a man of very few words in his current situation, did not comment.

Mary turned to the audio technician and said, ‘Charlie, do you think you can get someone to turn off that bloody awful noise?’ She glanced up at the still-whooping siren.

‘You bet.’

Steven had been watching Mary Penrose deal with the emergency and was full of admiration for her. She had been calm, efficient, decisive and concerned throughout and he wanted to tell her that, but, like many men in 2018, he was unsure about what he should and shouldn’t say to women any more. He settled for, ‘Well done.’

‘I think that’s something I should be saying to you,’ said Mary. ‘You were absolutely right in your thinking... although the world is a sadder place for it.’

‘She is absolutely right,’ said Steven to Macmillan on the drive back to London.

‘Who? About what?’

‘Mary Penrose and what she said about the world being a sadder place. Think of all the money and talent that has been poured into creating these damned capsules, Jesus! It makes you despair of the human race.’

‘Mm, unfortunately, people like us cannot afford the luxury of such proclamations from the moral high-ground,’ said Macmillan. ‘we have to figure out why the bastards did it.’

‘Touché,’ said Steven with a smile.

‘Don’t take it personally, I know exactly what you mean.’

The two men lapsed into silence, looking out the windows of the police Range Rover at the world flashing past until Macmillan said, ‘Penny for them.’

Steven laughed and said, ‘I haven’t heard anyone say that in years, but, as you’ve asked... I know the two English scientists took a shed-load of money for contributing their expertise and design skills and it looks awful, but I’m finding it hard to believe that either of them would have agreed to any plan that would have involved anyone using their lifetime’s work to murder people.’

‘You don’t think it’s a case of scientists handing matches to a baby and absolving themselves from all responsibility over what happens afterwards?’

‘I suppose... I suppose,’ Steven conceded.

‘But you think they may have swallowed some different story?’

‘I think it possible they believed they were doing what they were doing for genuine humanitarian reasons. They might well have accepted that they were designing something to enable multiple vaccine inoculations at varying times from one tiny implant and that some pharma company must have come up with the cash, perhaps looking for a world monopoly.’

‘But there was no pharma company money,’ said Macmillan, ‘The Russian expats have been financing it for their own ends and that can only mean making money — even more than the fortune they shelled out to make the damned things. Can’t see why myself, the capsules are pretty useless as a weapon; who is going to buy them.’

‘We’ll have to tell the World Health Organisation,’ said Steven. ‘We must assume that it was capsules Petrov was sending to Lagarde in Geneva in the other containers he sent from Beer Sheva.’

‘Do you think they might be lying around there?’

‘Actually, no,’ exclaimed Steven with a pained expression, suddenly remembering that someone at Beer Sheva had said that Lagarde forwarded the containers almost as soon as they arrived in Geneva.

‘To where?’

‘No one who was asked knew.’

‘Maybe we shouldn’t tell WHO just yet,’ said Macmillan, ‘it might get to the wrong ears.’

‘Agreed,’ said Steven, ‘but, who should we tell?’

‘I think the PM will have to be told.’

Steven seemed unsure, prompting Macmillan to say, ‘You don’t agree?’

‘It’s going to create an... unusual situation,’ said Steven. ‘We don’t know if MI6 found their snake in the grass and we can’t request that she keep Six out of the loop — same goes for the Home Secretary; Six is his responsibility.’

‘Oh my God,’ sighed Macmillan, ‘we’re faced with that old adage again, two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.’

‘The PM doesn’t actually know about our visit to Porton today,’ said Steven, ‘the last request she was involved in was over my asking them to keep the capsules somewhere isolated and safe.’

‘And what she doesn’t know can’t harm her?’

‘Just for the time being.’

Steven waited for Tally to call with what were becoming the usual feelings of trepidation surrounding the prospect of having to tell her the truth about anything that had been going on, so much so that he decided he would ask her if they could agree to avoid the subject of his investigation entirely until they were together again. He just couldn’t face the prospect of opening a cupboard so full of skeletons over the phone and then try telling her there was nothing to worry about. Amputated limbs, dead Russians, keeping secrets from the prime minister and Marburg virus being set free were just all part of the daily routine.

This line of thought brought Steven to considering what he was going to say or do if Tally announced that she was coming home in the next few days. He was staring at the Glock pistol hanging over the corner of a chair in its holster and thinking how much Tally hated seeing it in their flat... when the phone rang.

‘How good to hear your voice,’ said Steven.

‘And yours, I’m not even going to ask you where you were last night when I called, I’m just so relieved that you answered tonight. No, don’t say anything. I know you are engaged in some awful investigation and that you will be in danger whatever you say. I’ve learned from the past, I won’t ask any questions until I come home because doing so will make it even worse for you and I need you to concentrate on taking care. We can talk about things then.’

Steven felt a lump come to his throat. ‘We both have to concentrate on taking care.’ Feeling slightly silly, he asked, ‘How was your day?’ which made Tally laugh and Steven to think what a lovely sound that was.

‘Uneventful,’ said Tally, ‘none of us have managed to make plans because our regional manager, Marcus Altman, hasn’t returned from his tour round the entire region: he’s checking that there are no cases of Ebola being concealed. We’ll all just have to wait.’

‘Have you seen your friend, Monique again?’

Tally said not. ‘She doesn’t like being seen with me, the villagers start thinking she’s consorting with the enemy.’

‘Surely she knows you’re not the enemy.’

‘I think she does, but she’s the one who has to live here.’

‘Nothing’s ever easy,’ Steven said with a sigh.

‘Loving you is,’ said Tally out of the blue and the lump returned to Steven’s throat.

‘Are you still there?’

‘MI6 want to speak to you,’ said John Macmillan when Steven arrived at the Home Office in the morning.

‘Any idea why?’

‘C didn’t say.’

Steven noted Macmillan’s clipped tones and suspected that he wasn’t too pleased at not being told what was going on. He felt obliged to assure him that he didn’t know either. ‘Maybe he has some news about Jane Sherman,’ he suggested.

‘Only one way to find out,’ said Macmillan.

Steven made his way over to Albert Embankment, enjoying the walk but feeling curious about what he was going to hear. Good news or bad news, he wondered.

‘Thanks for coming,’ said, C, the head of MI6, not M as people imagined from the Bond movies.

‘I was actually preparing to go over to the hospital to see how Jane Sherman was doing when Sir John said you wanted to see me,’ Steven said, ‘Have you heard anything this morning?’

‘She’s holding her own, the doctors think they’ve found the right antibiotic combination. They’re optimistic.’

‘Good.’

‘I understand you and Jane have been... collaborating over a few things?’

‘There’s nothing like being run over by a Range Rover for bringing people together,’ said Steven, immediately regretting his hasty tongue.

C ignored the comment and said, ‘As Jane is hors de combat at the moment, is there anything you would like to tell me?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Steven thoughtfully, matching C’s steady gaze with his own.

‘Are you sure?

‘I think so... have you found the mole who leaked information about Jane’s whereabouts, which led to the loss of her leg?’

‘Point taken,’ said C after more than a moment’s thought. ‘We have, the problem has been... resolved.’

‘Good,’ said Steven, ‘then perhaps there are things we should talk about.’ He told him about the capsules and what had gone on at Porton.

‘Ah,’ said C. ‘We knew about Marburg disease going walk-about, now we know why.’

‘Perhaps you have some information for me?’ Steven suggested.

C smiled and said, ‘US Intelligence have been making progress with their investigation into world-aid authorities. They have discovered a network of some highly placed individuals who they believe are involved in a very high-level conspiracy, although they don’t know or aren’t giving details about at the moment. Phillipe Lagarde, you know about, I’ll give you the names of some of the others in case you should come across them.’ He handed over a memory stick. ‘It’s encrypted, but I’ve made you the addressee: you can open it with your log-in details. Read and make any notes you want to within thirty minutes. After that it will self-destruct.’

‘Thanks.’

‘When I exchanged a few words with Jane this morning, I mentioned I would be seeing you. She said to tell you, “Macallan”. That’s all, I’ve no idea what she meant...’

‘Our little secret,’ said Steven.

‘Cheers,’ said C, making Steven smile at his choice of word.

With two miniatures of Macallan malt delivered to Jane Sherman along with a warning to wait until her antibiotic course was finished, Steven went back to the Home Office and brought John Macmillan up to speed, telling him that C had been wondering about the apparent sharing of information between himself and Jane Sherman.

‘He knew about the Marburg problem at Porton, so I told him about the capsules after he assured me that the mole at Six had been dealt with. In exchange, he gave me some information about the progress US Intelligence has been making into infiltration of organised crime in world-aid organisations.’ Steven took out the memory stick he’d been given. ‘He gave me some new names, they think there is some big conspiracy currently active.’

‘Endless bad news,’ sighed Macmillan, ‘When it came to good versus evil in the world, I always used to think that good had the upper hand, now I’m not so sure.’

‘Then us good guys will just have to work harder,’ said Steven, noticing that he’d managed to make Macmillan smile.

‘Well,’ said Macmillan, ‘In that capacity, I am off to a meeting to discuss Brexit and its effect on security matters at the Foreign Office.’

‘Good luck with that.’

Steven sat down at his computer and inserted the memory stick C had given him. There were six names on it. Apart from Phillipe Lagarde — who had a little cross next to him — Steven only had eyes for one other and it brought him no comfort at all, Marcus Altman.

He knew that Altman was the WHO manager of the region in DRC where Tally was working and that he was currently checking the region for any last-minute problems before okaying a withdrawal. Tally had mentioned his name from time to time, suggesting that he was one of the more experienced and helpful people she had come across, a long-term employee of WHO, who had worked all over the world, often in dangerous situations, but then he remembered feeling much the same about Phillipe Lagarde without ever having met the man.

Altman’s name had come up again when he had insisted on paying for food and drink for Tally’s get-together for her area volunteers when the outbreak was declared over — although he remembered Tally saying that he had been nervous about any suggestion of throwing a party for fear of adverse press coverage. That might suggest he was aware of heightened scrutiny of aid organisations.

He muttered a series of expletives under his breath as he struggled to understand what was going on. To say that Altman’s name popping up and appearing to forge a connection between his investigation and Tally’s work was unwelcome would be a huge understatement.

Steven tried thinking of any other occasion when Tally had mentioned Altman’s name, but couldn’t come up with anything concrete, then he remembered an official WHO report, which Tally had asked him to check out for her. When he pointed out that she had already seen the report — she had requested it from the WHO manager, planning to check the spread of the Ebola outbreak back in 2014-16, Tally had agreed that that was the case, but she’d returned it and didn’t want to ask for it again. She had been reluctant to discuss her reasons, preferring instead to ask him to check for her. On that occasion she had been seeking reassurance that the vaccine used at the time had not harmed anyone. Was there something else in the report she had been concerned about?

Steven had read through that report too and recalled feeling appalled at the huge numbers of people who had been killed or affected through loss of family and friends. It had been a tragedy on a monumental scale. He hadn’t read the report in minute detail, but he did remember the graph charting the spread of the disease — the one that Tally would have been most interested in. It charted a normal spread until, at a certain point... the disease appeared to pop up everywhere at once. Did that catch Tally’s eye too? In a few hours he could ask her.

In the meantime, he went back to thinking about Phillipe Lagarde, brave, selfless Phillipe, who, according to US Intelligence was involved in high-level crime. Had he conned them all with his apparent care and concern in DRC at the height of an Ebola outbreak, and in Afghanistan when tackling persistent Polio outbreaks... and in Uganda... during an eruption of Marburg disease... Brave Phillipe followed disease around the globe... or did he really? was the thought that nailed Steven to his chair. Was it conceivable that it was the other way around... that disease followed Phillipe around the globe?

The familiar feeling of ice on his spine and a hollow in his stomach appeared as he steeled himself to think things through. He found himself beckoned into a world of absolute horror. The capsules were not one-offs, they were versatile — Steven backed off; what a word to use, but he couldn’t find a suitable alternative, adaptable? multifaceted? These words were kind and complimentary — how could they possible be used to describe a vehicle made to deliver a killer disease of choice? Marburg, Polio, Ebola, Lassa Fever... That’s what Petrov had been doing in the lab at Beer Sheva before sending them off to Lagarde to re-direct at will. The capsules were not designed as, or being used as, any kind of direct weapon, they were implants! Implants to be inserted under the skin of selected groups of people under the pretence of vaccinating them. At any time after that, the implants could be triggered by exposing the carriers to appropriate sound waves, causing the implants to rupture and epidemic disease to break out in the population.

Steven’s imagination was under severe challenge when it came to estimating the amount of damage that could be done in the world. It seemed limitless.

What kind of a sick mind would... Steven had to apply the brakes again; it couldn’t be that simple. This was a very long way from being the action of one sick individual... there were lots of people involved, rich people, clever people, brilliant people, successful people... there was still so much more to this.

Nineteen

There was no need for any more staring at the night skies or the undefined realms of the middle distance while he worked his way through a seemingly endless parade of unconnected puzzles. So much of it now made sense. The high number of Ebola outbreaks in DRC were first in line for scrutiny. The blame could not all be put on diets involving fruit bats, outbreaks were being caused deliberately and the perfect example were the deaths of Tally’s friend, Monique’s family and friends: they hadn’t been vaccinated against Ebola at all, they had been given implants of capsules containing Ebola virus. Three weeks later, Lagarde and his team had come back and triggered them off. They had been testing Petrov’s latest capsules and they had worked ‘perfectly’. All ten people had died, but not before infecting a further twenty-seven people in the village — an entirely artificial outbreak executed with all the cold objectivity of a laboratory experiment.

It just so happened that the capsules intercepted by Israeli Intelligence and triggered accidentally at Porton Down, had contained Marburg disease, obviously designed to trigger off an outbreak somewhere else in the world, but it could have been any killer disease that Petrov had brought with him to Beer Sheva University when he left CDC Atlanta, ostensibly to become an Israeli and work on vaccines. There was no indication of where these implants had been destined for. Uncovering that sort of information would depend very much on how many people were involved in promoting this nightmare... and, of course, why.

Despite all the progress he had been making, and at the rate he had been making it, Steven hit the buffers when it came to introducing money into the equation. When he considered the type of people involved — enormously wealthy Russians who had invested huge sums of money, the idea of creating worldwide mayhem could not be the motive. The sheer amount of money and the great risks involved dictated that they must be expecting huge returns on their investment. Where was that going to come from?

Steven looked at his watch and put an end to global thinking. Tally would be calling soon and he had to be careful. He wouldn’t be telling her any of this for the time being because she must be close to coming home and he mustn’t put her in any danger with a shock injection of frightening knowledge. There was no reason to believe that her regional manager, Marcus Altman, was a threat to her personally. She had found him pleasant and easy to get on with and that’s the way it should stay until she was safely out of the country.

There was one slight problem however, and it lay in Tally’s friendship with the teacher, Monique, and her claims that vaccination had been the cause of the deaths of her friends and family. Hopefully, Tally had accepted the coincidence theory they had spoken about and was also respecting Monique’s request that she stay away from her village. The last thing he wanted was Tally asking Altman lots of awkward questions about Ebola vaccination schedules.

He decided that he wouldn’t ask her about the type of vaccination Monique’s people had been given. He had intended to ask if it had been by upper arm intramuscular injection or had a small implant been used, but he was confident that he really didn’t need the confirmation and it would only make Tally want to know why he was asking. He had also planned to ask her why she had been reluctant to ask Altman for a second look at the WHO report on the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak: he wasn’t sure if he should still go there. If there was a chance that Tally had been alarmed by something else in that report and didn’t want Altman to know that she had, he needed to stop her taking it any further. He would ask.

Tally was an hour late in phoning, saying that she had been having a difficult conversation with fellow area managers. They were confused and frustrated over a lack of information about plans to wind down the operation in Equateur Province. This apparently was being caused by the time Marcus Altman was taking to travel round the region. ‘He was supposed to be away for three days, but it was now at least five,’ Tally complained.

Steven sympathised and told her she should have her bags packed, all ready to go when details were announced. ‘It can’t be long now,’ he encouraged.

‘I suppose not,’ Tally agreed, ‘but I think I might drive over to regional headquarters tomorrow, see if I can find out if anyone there knows what’s going on.’

‘Good idea,’ said Steven, ‘the logistics of volunteer repatriation can’t possibly all depend on one man, maybe the details are lying on his desk.’

‘That’s a thought,’ said Tally, sounding as if she had cheered up a little. ‘If it looks like they are, we should able to sort out permission from WHO directly to open them.’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Steven. ‘By the way, you never told me why you didn’t want to ask Altman for another look at the WHO report?’

‘Embarrassment,’ Tally replied, ‘When I read it the first time, I thought I’d spotted a big problem with the graph recording the progress of the outbreak in 2014. It looked as if there had been a sudden explosion in case numbers at one point. New cases were appearing all over the place. I pointed this out to Marcus...’

Steven swallowed, but stopped himself from saying anything.

‘... and he explained that this would be due to people using the rivers to escape the epidemic,’ Tally continued. ‘They were reaching their destinations and triggering off new waves of infection.’

‘Of course,’ said Steven, although there was now a very different explanation in his mind for the sudden leap in numbers and locations on that graph.

The call ended, leaving Steven feeling guilty about withholding so much from Tally, but knowing it was for her own good. If he had told her everything, Tally, being the open and honest person she was, would have been outraged and, he suspected, very bad at concealing what she knew, especially when Altman was around. To have her not know was the safest policy.

There were also unanswered questions surrounding who else among the volunteers out there were involved. For the time being, the nightmare would remain his and his alone.

Tally was not looking forward to the long drive over to regional headquarters, but the prospect of getting some new information sustained her over the lumps and bumps of Land Rover travel along jungle trails. There never seemed to be an appropriate speed to adopt. Too fast was unbearable and too slow was unbearable in slow motion. Either way, the safety belt chafed her shoulder through constantly restraining her and her teeth felt like they were being loosened in her gums. It was such a relief to bring the vehicle to a halt at regional headquarters that she sat with her head resting on folded arms on the steering wheel for a few moments, just to relish the quiet and the stillness.

Tally entered the building and immediately sensed that all was not well. People were standing around in small groups speaking in hushed tones. She caught the eye of another of the area managers from her region who detached herself from her group and came over. Helga Schmidt, a young trauma surgeon from Frankfurt, had had much the same idea as Tally and come over to see if she could get more information about a return to Germany.

‘It seems that new volunteers sent to Kivu Province have come under attack from the rebels and suffered heavy casualties,’ said Helga.

Tally shook her head and asked, ‘Who exactly are these rebels, what do they want?’

‘Originally, it was control of the mineral deposits they were after,’ replied Helga. ‘They thought foreigners were stealing what was rightfully theirs, ‘but the violence in Kivu has been going on for so long that I think killing has become a way of life for them. They have completely withdrawn from society and don’t seem to be too particular about who they attack and kill. Aid volunteers are seen as part of the conspiracy.’

Tally asked why everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

‘The bodies of our people up in Kivu are being brought back here first before repatriation is arranged to their homelands.’

‘This puts a new perspective on things,’ said Tally. ‘I’m feeling guilty about coming here to ask about my repatriation.’

‘Me too,’ replied Helga. ‘They keep telling me that Marcus Altman is dealing with that, but he still hasn’t returned yet from his inspection tour.’

‘Does he have an office here?’

‘I’m not sure, but you would think so as a regional manager.’

Tally gave the reason for her question.

‘We could take a look,’ Helga suggested, ‘I don’t think I want to bring this up with the people who are waiting for the bodies.’

‘Absolutely not.’

The two women took a slow walk around regional headquarters, which comprised a number of wooden storage containers linked together in rows and traversed by other containers at right angles.

‘Here we are,’ said Tally as she came to a door marked, M. Altman. She knocked before trying the handle just as a voice behind them said, ‘I thought it was you.’

The women turned around to find Hans Weber standing there.

‘Hello, Hans,’ said Tally, hoping her feelings of guilt were not too obvious in her voice. Helga opted for a silly grin.

‘I caught a glimpse of you as I came in.’

‘We’re looking for Marcus,’ said Tally.

‘He hasn’t come back yet.’

‘Aren’t you worried about him?’

‘Travel is difficult.’

‘For us too,’ said Helga, ‘we seem to be stuck here with no information.’

‘The outbreak in Kivu took everyone by surprise: there is confusion at all levels of administration.’

‘WHO is not part of the administration,’ Helga reminded him. ‘Do you know if WHO sent any details to Marcus about winding up things in Equateur?’

‘He didn’t say anything before he left.’

‘We were wondering if someone might have delivered details and left them lying on his desk,’ said Tally.

‘Ah,’ said Hans, ‘is it locked?’

Tally tried the handle. ‘Yes.’

‘Then I don’t think they could; Marcus has the only key.’

‘Who would have thought world health could be such a secretive business,’ said Helga and Tally noticed the look of annoyance that crossed Hans’ face. He didn’t get the chance to reply however, as the air was filled with sounds coming from outside the building. A number of heavy vehicles were arriving.

Hans left immediately, leaving Tally and Helga unsure of what they should be doing in their current uncomfortable situation. They had no wish to intrude on private grief, but the people who had died were aid volunteers, as were they, and therefore there was a bond.

Helga said, ‘They could only have been there a couple of weeks. Can you imagine? They were sent directly to a place like Kivu with the good wishes of their friends and families still ringing in their ears and now their parents, who are still probably feeling pride in their offspring, are going to be given... such awful news. What should they think? Was it all really worthwhile?’

Tally looked at her, wondering too about image and reality. She reckoned Helga was about the same age as she herself and asked, ‘Was this your first instance of voluntary work?’

‘Fourth,’ Helga replied.

Tally nodded. ‘Well done, you.’

The two women hung back as the groups of people broke up and moved outside to where the vehicles had cut their engines and the dust clouds from their wheels settled slowly back down to earth. Stretchers bearing shrouded figures were unloaded with as much dignity as possible in the circumstances and concerned people waited for their chance to identify them. Sobbing broke out followed by attempts to comfort those whose anxious wait had ended badly.

Tally noticed that a Land Rover was parked some way away from the heavy vehicles that had carried the dead and it seemed strangely familiar.

‘I think that’s Marcus Altman’s vehicle,’ she said to Helga.

‘Really?’ exclaimed Helga, sounding pleased. ‘I hope you’re right.’ She looked at the dead laid out on the ground, adding, ‘I need to get away.’

The two women walked over to the Land Rover, but were disappointed to see that it was not Altman sitting behind the wheel. The driver, cigarette in mouth, had noticed the pair of them taking an interest so Tally felt compelled to explain, ‘Sorry, we thought you were Marcus Altman.’

‘He’s dead,’ said the man.

‘What?’ exclaimed Helga. ‘He can’t be... what happened?’

The man shrugged and flicked ash off the end of his cigarette. ‘I was just asked to return him and his vehicle from Kivu along with the others,’ said the driver.

‘Kivu?’ exclaimed both women in unison, ‘What on earth was he doing in Kivu? That’s hundreds of miles away from where he was supposed to be.’

The driver shrugged again.

‘Where is he?’

‘Inside the building with the others. He’s not pretty... I mean, none of them are, but...’

‘Thanks for that,’ Helga muttered as she and Tally turned away and started towards the building.

‘I just don’t get it,’ said Tally, ‘what the hell was Altman doing?’

‘Maybe he had orders from WHO?’ Helga suggested.

‘In which case he would have told someone,’ said Tally. ‘but he told no one. ‘We should have had a good look in his Land Rover, there might be something there to tell us why he told people one thing then went off hundreds of miles in the opposite direction.’

‘Let’s go back and do it,’ said Helga.

Five minutes later Tally and Helga gave up on their search of the vehicle without finding anything to explain Altman’s actions.

‘Told you,’ said the driver, lighting up another cigarette

‘Yes, you did,’ said Tally. ‘Who do you work for?’

‘The police.’

‘You’re a policeman?’

The man smiled through a haze of exhaled tobacco smoke and said, ‘No, I work for the police from time to time. When they found out that the dead man was an aid worker, they asked me to return him and his car to this place.’

‘The rebels would have taken anything of value,’ said Helga, ‘I’m surprised they didn’t take the Land Rover.

‘The rebels didn’t kill him,’ said the driver.

Helga and Tally exchanged surprised looks, having made the same assumption.

‘He was killed in an apartment in the city of Beni where he was staying.’

‘I give up,’ said Tally.

Tally and Helga returned to the headquarters buildings where muted arguments were going on between senior reps of the aid organisations over how long they could be expected to store the bodies without refrigeration facilities and how they were going to overcome the problem.

Tally managed to catch the eye of Hans Weber and he broke off to come over.

‘We’ve just heard about Marcus,’ she said.

‘A tragedy,’ said Weber, shaking his head and looking down at the floor, ‘but an occupational hazard, we all live with that. He was unlucky, they all were.’

Tally noted that Weber seemed content to let them think that Altman’s death had been at the hands of the rebels like the others. She found it odd. She also took on board that Helga had said nothing about that to Weber: she apparently also found it odd.

‘Can we see him?’ Tally asked.

Weber’s face registered surprise.

‘He was our colleague, we should pay our last respects.’

‘Come.’

Weber led the way through to the shaded side of the building and paused outside a door with a hastily prepared WHO notice pinned to it to explain, ‘The victims have been separated by aid organisation, five were ours.’ He opened the door, causing Helga to involuntarily put a hand to her face.

‘There’s no refrigerated facility here,’ said Weber. ‘Marcus is the one at the far end, I’ll give you a few moments.’

Helga waited until Weber had left before whispering to Tally, ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘I want to see how he died, it may help to work out why he was in Kivu in the first place.’

Tally pulled back the shroud to expose Altman’s face and both women recoiled.

‘Look at the colour of him,’ said Helga, ‘He’s...’

‘had the blood drained out of him,’ completed Tally.

‘His throat hasn’t been cut,’ said Helga, taking a closer look at the corpse.

‘Do you have a knife or scissors on you?’ asked Tally urgently.

Helga came up with a small pair of scissors and handed them over. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she asked as she watched Tally make an opening in the shroud in the area of Altman’s upper thighs. She had to do it on both sides, causing Helga’s alarm to heighten, before she found what she was looking for.

‘They cut their way in to his femoral artery,’ said Tally, handing the scissors back and disguising the cuts in the shroud as best she could.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Helga, seeing that Tally seemed suddenly preoccupied.

‘I’m not sure...’ Tally answered vaguely. ‘I think Steven Dunbar may have some explaining to do...’

At that moment, Hans Weber returned. ‘All done?’

‘What was Marcus doing several hundred kilometres away in Kivu, Hans?’ asked Helga.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

‘He didn’t tell you?’

Weber shook his head.

‘After telling everyone else he was going around Equateur Province making a final check that all was well?’

Weber looked away.

Tally said, ‘Maybe a check on his room will tell us more.’

‘I think that is best left to the proper authorities,’ snapped Weber.

‘Of course, Hans,’ said Helga, ‘perhaps you would remind the proper authorities that the living would like some attention too?’

‘I’m sure everything is in hand. Now, if you will excuse me, there is a lot to do.’

As Weber locked the door of the makeshift morgue and walked off, Helga turned to Tally and asked, ‘How did you know the killer targeted the femoral artery?’

‘Call it intuition,’ said Tally.

Tally and Helga walked slowly to their cars to face their challenging drives back to their respective areas. Tally noticed that Helga was clearly upset. ‘Are you going to be all right?’ she asked.

When Helga looked directly at her she could see that she wasn’t. Her eyes were showing a mixture of uncertainty, even fear.

‘There’s something very wrong here, isn’t there? Marcus murdered in Kivu, you knowing how he was killed before you looked for the injury, the look on Hans Weber’s face when we questioned him. He’s going to find the cuts you made in the shroud. What’s going on, Tally?’

‘This is not the place to talk, come over to my place tomorrow, I might know more by then.’

Twenty

‘Have you been given a date yet?’ Steven asked as soon as he snatched up the phone.

‘No,’ Tally replied, ‘Marcus Altman has a problem.’

‘What kind of a problem?’

‘Terminal, he’d dead... he was found five hundred miles from where he should have been... his femoral artery had been cut after his killers made a slow approach to it... involving many cuts... ring a bell?’

‘Oh my God.’

‘What the hell’s going on, Steven?’

Steven took a deep breath. ‘Altman’s name appeared on an intelligence services list, which I saw for the first time yesterday. MI6 think that he was as much involved as Phillipe Lagarde in the infiltration of organised crime into world aid organisations.’

‘And you didn’t tell me?’ exclaimed Tally.

‘I... made the decision not to tell you because... I wanted you to live. You and Altman got on and I wanted it to stay that way because if I had told you everything I knew, you wouldn’t have been able to disguise your true feelings.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘Go on.’

Steven told Tally about the deliberate use of small implants to provide the means of spreading epidemic disease under the guise of vaccinating people. She was left speechless until she managed to splutter out, ‘But who in their right mind would do something like that?’

‘In this instance, a small group of Russians, mainly expats living in London but with homeland links. They are not insane, they have their reasons for doing it and it’s connected with money, but I haven’t figured out the details yet.’

Tally gave a deep sigh and, after a short pause, said, ‘That’s what happened to Monique’s family, isn’t it,’ she asked, ‘they were deliberately killed.’

‘I think so. Lagarde and co must have been testing out their latest way of spreading disease. They put small implants comprising Ebola virus in a tiny plastic shell under the skin of your friend’s loved ones. Three weeks later they turned up under the guise of care and concern and ruptured the implants using wireless technology.’

‘This is just all... I just can’t believe... I don’t know what to say.’

‘Exactly,’ said Steven, ‘do you honestly think you could have kept all that to yourself if I had told you? If Altman had suspected you were on to him, you would have been in great danger. As it is, he’s become a victim himself. It’s obvious the Chinese contingent are still pretty angry about what’s been going on.’

‘Do you think they’re some kind of vigilantes?’

‘No way,’ said Steven. ‘I’m still convinced it’s all about money. You said Altman was found several hundred miles away from where he should have been, where exactly?’

‘In an apartment, in the town of Beni up in Kivu Province.’

‘Kivu? And in a town that’s at the very heart of the latest outbreak of Ebola,’ said Steven, ‘pretty strong circumstantial evidence against him, wouldn’t you say?’

‘In the light of what you’ve just told me, yes, I suppose.’

‘How are the authorities dealing with this?’ asked Tally.

‘They don’t know yet.’

‘What!... Steven!’

‘I know, I know, I’m still trying to figure out what’s behind it all.’

‘But you can’t keep something like this to yourself.’

‘Tally, Tally, Tally,’ Steven pleaded, ‘it’s not as if nothing is being done. The intelligence communities of several countries are well aware of the infiltration of world-wide aid agencies — they know much more about it than I do; the information about Lagarde and now Altman came from them. They are dealing with it as a matter of global urgency: they know a clean-up is essential if public confidence is to be retained. It’s too late to stop the latest outbreak in DRC; it’s been caused by criminals hiding under the WHO banner, but if I can highlight what it’s all been about, it would be much more useful to those charged with bringing the crooks to justice and putting a stop to it all. I’m very close and that’s what the PM asked me to do, remember?’

‘Vaguely... something about intellectual input if I remember rightly...’

‘Some things have a habit of escalating,’ admitted Steven. ‘But the big test for you right now is to keep everything you’ve heard to yourself. You don’t know who’s a friend and who’s a foe; you must be all sweetness and light to everyone until you get on that plane home and please God, that will be soon.’

Just before Steven turned out his bedside light, a message came in on encrypted mail from the Home Office. The remaining patients in the Royal Free, suffering from Marburg disease, had died.

‘God bless,’ he murmured. ‘The perfect end to a bloody awful day...’

Recognising that falling asleep was now well-nigh impossible, he got up to make coffee on auto-pilot. He was about to switch on the TV to seek distraction, but then decided against. Distraction was always temporary and he was experiencing, in himself, signs of overload. There were just too many awful things going around in his head: he felt he was approaching some kind of tipping point and wherever that might lead.

Sitting with his head in his hands wouldn’t help, nor would howling at the moon, nor kicking the cat — he didn’t even have a cat... this last thought highlighted the ridiculousness of his train of thought and brought the suggestion of a smile to his lips. Self-pity and hopelessness had no place in his life, even when they were coming at him mob-handed, but Tally was right when she said he had to share what he knew. He would give himself another forty-eight hours.

Steven decided not to go in to the Home Office in the morning; lack of sleep and hovering feelings of depression over what people were prepared to do to each other induced a need in him to seek out signs of normality for a while. He wanted to see people going about their daily business, women pushing prams, men delivering parcels, clerks carrying briefcases, people arguing with traffic wardens — anything to reassure him that people planning to cause thousands of deaths by triggering off epidemics of killer viruses was far from the norm.

The warmth of the sun on his face and dappled light coming through leafy trees helped provide a healing balm that allowed him, after a couple of hours, to start thinking about his investigation again. The fact that the awful people behind it were not lunatics should now be viewed as something in his favour, he decided. As any detective knew, killers without reason or purpose were always the hardest to catch. He was dealing with focused, intelligent people and he was convinced the motive was money.

Steven’s logical start to analysis was interrupted by dark clouds rolling in from the west and the threat of rain becoming imminent. He had no desire to get soaked so he hailed the first cab he saw.

‘Just in time,’ said the driver as the clouds started delivering their load, riveting the roof of the cab. ‘Where to, mate?’

Steven told him and hoped for silence, but it was not to be. The driver offered up a stream of opinions. ‘What d’you think of all this Brexit crap, then?’ he asked.

‘Beyond me,’ Steven replied.

‘The world’s going crazy, mate, it’s just one crazy thing after another. We want to leave Europe; the Scots want to leave us. Why can’t we all just get along?’

‘Mm.’

‘And there’s another thing,’ said the driver as the traffic slowed to a halt. ‘Another one, look at him, a bloody electric car run out of charge.’

Steven saw an embarrassed man attempting to push his lifeless little car with its electric credentials emblazoned on its door, into the side of the road.

‘Good luck with that, mate,’ said the driver. ‘Christ knows where he’ll find a charge point round here... and if he does, it’ll be hours before his car will move. Bloody politicians have got no idea, they just don’t think before they announce their big plans and strut around on the world stage leaving us with no choice — we all gotta be green.’

‘Mm.’

‘What kind of car have you got then?’

‘A Porsche.’

‘Good man!’ exclaimed the driver with a guffaw. ‘What we need is someone like Jeremy Clarkson in parliament if you ask me, talk a bit of sense he would. Here we are, mate,’ he announced as they drew up outside Marlborough Court.

‘Nice talking with you,’ said the driver, acknowledging the tip with a smile and not appreciating that he’d done all of the talking.

Steven slumped down into his chair by the window and embraced the silence. He wasn’t absolutely sure, but he thought he might just have had enough normality for one day. After a few minutes, he acknowledged hunger pangs and got up to search through cupboards and the fridge for something to eat, but had to face up to the fact that he hadn’t bothered to do any shopping for quite a while and didn’t feel like going out. Cheese on toast would do.

Steven returned to his analysis and concentrated on DRC. How could a relatively small group of people make a lot of money out of causing an epidemic — no, successive epidemics — in a poor African country, riven by civil war and disease? The fact that they were a small number ruled out any kind of attempted coup. Even the rebels in Kivu Province seem to have given up on taking over government: robbery with violence was easier.

Mineral extraction, particularly diamonds, had been plagued by competition coming from the setting up of illegal mines in difficult areas of the country and copper and cobalt mining revenues had been subject to the attention of dishonest politicians, although Steven remembered reading in the material he had gathered on DRC when Tally first went there that elections had been promised and investment had cautiously started appearing again.

Steven dug out this material again and after a few minutes was glad he had. He latched on to two hugely interesting facts. Investment in cobalt mining was coming in almost exclusively from China and secondly, DRC was the source of sixty percent of the world’s cobalt.

Steven paused when he felt that there was something really important about this that he wasn’t seeing... but should be... The taxi driver! His tirade about electric vehicles and how politicians were determined to force everyone out of petrol and diesel-driven cars into electric ones. This was happening all over the world in response to growing concerns over climate change. Electric vehicles needed big, powerful batteries and battery production needed... cobalt... lots and lots of cobalt.

Steven felt a surge of excitement. Were Russian crooks creating the conditions for a take-over of cobalt stocks in DRC? He felt sure he was on to something; this was a breakthrough, but not quite the whole story.

He went back to reading about cobalt mining. DRC was the number one producer in the world with sixty percent. Number two was Russia, oh, you beauty, yielding forty percent of the world’s current supplies...

‘And demand for cobalt is about to go through the roof,’ murmured Steven, feeling he was almost there.

Biologist, Samuel Petrov, who had prepared the killer implants, had a father, Dimitry, a hugely wealthy Russian expat living in London whose money came from mining interests all over the Russian Federation. Sergei Malenkov, the Russian mastermind behind the whole affair, who had carried out the specialised recruitment for the enterprise and who had visited Petrov senior in London, was also hugely wealthy — again due to mining interests across the Russian Federation. Steven felt it safe to predict that these two would hold most if not all the rights to Russian cobalt supplies. They had not been mounting an aggressive take-over bid for the DRC rights held mainly by Chinese investors, they had gone a big step further, the Russians had deliberately set out to destroy DRC cobalt mining completely through continually initiating epidemics of killer disease in the country. No wonder the Chinese investors were furious.

Miners from abroad would be deterred from coming to work in DRC and local labour would succumb to disease or the fear of it. The cobalt mines would be rendered inert. Malenkov and Petrov senior along with a few London-based Russian expat investors would step up production and effectively control the world’s supply of cobalt. In the coming era of electric vehicles, America would no longer be the controlling influence of the world’s automotive industry, nor would China... a small cabal of Russians would.

Steven felt the adrenaline surge he’d been running on slip away to be replaced by a feeling of calm, He knew however, that he had little time to savour it: the feeling would soon be replaced by exhaustion, and the need to sleep — but not before he spoke to John Macmillan and asked him to set up the mother of all meetings. It was finally time to unburden himself and tell all.

‘There has been a change of plan,’ said John Macmillan when Steven arrived at the Home Office in the morning, ‘the meeting has been changed from Downing Street to MI6 headquarters.’

Steven, whose hopes for a good night’s sleep had been constantly interrupted by implications of his discovery vying for his attention, could only raise an eyebrow.

‘The PM feels that anything you have to say should be heard in the first instance well away from the notice of the press. COBRA meetings always attract their interest.’

‘How much did you tell her last night?’

‘The bare bones of what you told me.’

Steven was pleased to see that there was a lack of politicians present in the meeting room at Albert Embankment. Apart from the Home and Foreign secretaries the others present he recognised — with a couple of exceptions — as coming from either the intelligence communities or the police — professionals who knew what they were doing.

The Prime minister called the meeting to order and gave a brief preamble.

‘As some of you already know, I asked Dr Steven Dunbar of the Sci-Med Inspectorate to investigate independently a particularly disturbing situation which has attracted the attention of all of us in recent months, albeit in various ways and to varying degrees. Dr Dunbar has a track record of success in investigating complicated crime scenarios in science and medicine and I hoped that he might be able to bring together all our efforts in exposing something which appeared to involve the murder of brilliant scientists, millions of dollars emanating from Russian expats living in London, corruption among global aid agencies and epidemic disease caused by deadly viruses. I am pleased — and indeed terrified — to say that he has succeeded. Steven...’

It took Steven less than ten minutes to paint a brief but coherent picture of what had been going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who had instigated it and why. What he had to say was met with stunned silence. He sipped water while he waited for the first question.

‘The bastards are deliberately starting epidemics for financial gain?’ exclaimed an American voice.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re seriously saying that they are prepared to cause thousands of deaths for profit?’

‘It could end up being worse than that,’ said Steven, ‘they could wipe out humanity by mistake. People run from epidemics in all directions: they spread the disease. There’s no guarantee when it will stop.’

‘Is that what is happening in DRC?’

‘People are running at the moment, others are trying to stop them. It’s still spreading.’

‘From what you say, this technology could be used to cause outbreaks of any deadly disease?’

‘We saw the proof of that at Porton when capsules containing Marburg disease were ruptured by mistake.’

‘This could be worse than any tsunami or Chernobyl-like incident the world’s ever had to deal with.’

‘It could,’ Steven agreed.

The Prime Minister thanked Steven and took over, saying, ‘Now that Dr Dunbar has told us what all this is about, perhaps I can ask the police and the intelligence people to report on progress they have been making in their areas of interest in this dreadful situation.’

Steven and John Macmillan found themselves feeling encouraged by what they heard. Special Branch were ready to act on the Russian expats responsible for providing funding: they were waiting for Malenkov to make his next visit to London before raiding Dimitri Petrov’s house and simultaneously picking up all others concerned. The combined intelligence services of several countries were making good progress with rooting out the bad apples in aid organisations. It would take a while for all the small-time opportunist crooks to be exposed, but, more importantly, they were pretty sure that the big fish recruited by Malenkov had all been based in Geneva and most had already come to a sticky end thanks to Chinese investor involvement.’

‘Have any of the Chinese killers been brought to justice?’ asked the Prime Minister.

‘No, Prime Minister.’

‘Probably for the best, we really don’t want the sort of publicity that would generate.’

‘Ideally we don’t want any publicity at all,’ said Steven. ‘The merest suggestion that vaccination is being used for mass murder could cause enormous damage in the fight against world disease.’

‘There’s already growing opposition to vaccination in many countries,’ said the foreign minister.

‘It wasn’t helped in our own country by a charlatan scaremongering about MMR,’ added Steven.

‘Mass vaccination against viral disease is the best hope we have for the future,’ said John Macmillan, who emphasised the point by staring directly at the Prime Minister until she acknowledged with a nod and a slight raise of her hand. ‘Thank you, Sir John, I think your views on the subject are well known.’

The meeting broke up with the PM making a point of touching Steven’s arm and taking him to one side to thank him personally for what he’d managed to come up with.

‘We are not out of the woods yet, Prime Minister,’ said Steven.

‘No, but thanks to you we know what’s been going on in the woods,’ replied the PM with a smile. ‘I’m told your lady is still in DRC?’

‘I’m hoping she’ll be home soon.’

‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do.’

‘Thank you, Prime Minister.’

Tally was beginning to think Helga wasn’t coming when her Land Rover drew up outside in a late afternoon dust haze. ‘Sorry, there was a problem with some villagers, I had to sort it out.’

‘I thought you’d got lost,’ said Tally.

‘Not much chance with these trackers,’ Helga replied, tapping her wrist where all the new area managers had been fitted with sat nav trackers when they arrived in DRC to ensure that they wouldn’t get lost. She immediately wondered why Tally appeared to have turned to stone and the blood was draining from her face. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Tally stammered, trying to regain her composure, she couldn’t remember being so suddenly afraid before. She’d forgotten about the little bubble under her skin? Surely it couldn’t be what Steven had described, a tiny reservoir of Ebola virus waiting to be released, something that could end her life in the most horrible way possible?

She fought to convince herself it wasn’t, while Helga continued to wonder what the matter was. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Maybe you should sit down...’

Tally knew it was quite common for people to have tracking implants fitted if conditions warranted it. People working for large organisations and in security environments often had implants fitted with tiny chips to enable them to do such mundane things as open doors without keying in security numbers. It was part of everyday life, but remembering that it had been Marcus Altman who had presided over the fitting of trackers to the volunteers was pushing her over the edge. She immediately sprang into life and started hunting around for something. When she finally turned around, she had a scalpel in her hand, causing Helga to take a step back in alarm.

‘We must get rid of these trackers,’ said Tally, ‘I’ll do yours, you do mine, I’ll explain after we’ve done it.’ She resumed her search for some more bits and pieces and a small bottle of surgical spirit, which she used to clean and sterilise the area around the implant on Helga’s arm before opening the skin with the scalpel and removing the implant with forceps. ‘There, all done,’ she said, placing the implant carefully in a small dish. ‘Your turn.’

Helga removed Tally’s implant and Tally allowed herself a sigh of relief before saying, ‘We have to destroy these... by burning, I’m not going to trust disinfectant, it won’t get through the plastic.’

Although Helga had gone along with everything, she was clearly wondering if Tally had gone mad. ‘Right,’ she said, sounding unconvinced and looking wide-eyed.

Tally looked at her and understood, she said, ‘You asked me yesterday what was going on... there’s a lot to take in... but here goes, Marcus Altman and some of his friends have been deliberately causing outbreaks of Ebola by giving people sophisticated implants under the guise of vaccinating them... not everyone, just selected groups of people who would some time later be targeted to go down with the disease and then it would spread naturally as contacts became infected. The implants are harmless until they are caused to rupture by ultrasound... they then release live virus. I don’t know if ours are genuine trackers or two of the other kind, but we can’t afford to take chances... especially judging by the way Hans was looking at us.’

Helga nodded, still struggling with what she was hearing. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘Interpol and the intelligence services of several countries have been working on the infiltration of organised crime into global aid agencies; my partner, Steven, has been investigating what some of them have been up to. He told me about this last night. Tonight, I’m going to ask him to get us out of here as fast as he can, the authorities are taking far too long and I’m not sure why. Officially, Marcus was arranging it, but it looks like he had other things on his mind and if it now falls to Hans to make arrangements... well, that makes me uneasy. I take it you would like me to include you?’

Helga nodded. ‘Thank you, I think that would be for the best.’

‘Can you burn these things while I go over and see Monique, the girl I told you about? I’m going to give her the chance to come with us. When I come back, I’ll phone Steven.’

‘Of course.’

Tally looked at the dish. ‘Make sure they don’t splutter.’

Tally returned an hour later; Monique was with her. Tally had told her what was going on and she hadn’t taken too much convincing to agree to what was being proposed. Tally left Helga and Monique to introduce themselves while she phoned Steven. He didn’t answer, something Tally made light of, saying she’d try again in a short while. ‘Food,’ she exclaimed, ‘don’t know what I’ve got for a girls’ night in. Help me look.’

The three of them started searching through cupboards, collecting bits and pieces for a meal — Tally was deliberately using this in an attempt to relax the atmosphere. Hearing Helga and Monique laughing and apparently getting on suggested her plan might be working. She slipped away to try phoning Steven again. There was still no reply. Feeling slightly more uneasy this time, she decided to leave trying again until after they had eaten.

Tally finished her cupboard rummage and stood up triumphantly with a bottle of white wine in her hand — it had been left over from her get-together to celebrate the end of the outbreak in Equateur. ‘Specially warmed for the occasion,’ she joked.

They ate and drank, complementing each other on what they’d managed to do with what they’d come up with, but, as the conversation began to falter and minds returned to other things, Helga asked, ‘Why are they doing this?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tally confessed. ‘Steven had worked out what they were doing but not why when I spoke to him last night.’

‘It’s crazy,’ said Monique.

‘I’ll try him again,’ said Tally, draining her glass. ‘Is there anything you have to back to your village for?’ she asked Monique.

‘Nothing,’ replied Monique sadly.

‘Good.’

Tally went through to the one other room to try calling Steven again. This time he answered and she felt a flood of relief wash through her. ‘Thank God,’ she exclaimed, ‘Where have you been?’

‘Receiving the thanks of the PM and several intelligence agencies as it happens...’ said Steven.

‘You cracked it?’

Steven explained briefly what the Russian cabal had been up to, but sensed that something was wrong.

‘Well done,’ said Tally.

‘Why did you sound so relieved to hear from me?’ Steven asked.

‘I think we may be in danger,’ said Tally.

‘What!’ exclaimed Steven. ‘Who’s we? What’s wrong?’

‘Helga, one of the other area managers and Monique, the girl you already know about, they’re here with me right now. I don’t think we’re in immediate danger, but I suspect, Hans Weber, Altman’s assistant might be on to our suspicions and there’s no move being made to get us out of here. Can you help?’

‘After today, I think I could ask the PM for the moon and get it. I’m going to get John to get on to the Home Secretary and the PM right now. Can you give me your exact co-ordinates?’

Tally read them out from her phone.

‘Ring me back in an hour.’

Steven rang off and Tally returned to her guests. ‘Steven’s arranging something, I’ve to call back in an hour.’

‘You don’t think Hans might suspect?’ asked Helga.

‘Let’s hope not,’ said Tally. ‘I mean we’re not absolutely sure he’s a baddie... we just don’t like him and he doesn’t like us.’

‘True,’ Helga agreed, ‘but if he is, he’ll know I’m here with you if he’s been following us on the trackers — if they were trackers. This would be our last location before the signals were lost.’

‘Mm,’ said Tally, ‘happily, he doesn’t know Monique is here. If he did, that might really have set him thinking.’

Tally wasn’t sure if Helga was convinced. ‘Let’s see about sleeping arrangements,’ she said, ‘we’ll draw lots for the bed.’

This made the others laugh. Monique won the bed.

Steven checked her watch and phoned Steven.

‘I won’t burden you with details; all you need know is that a helicopter will pick the three of you up in the morning at 6 a.m. local time at the co-ordinates you gave me.’

‘Love you.’

‘Love you too.’

Tally told the others and everyone felt relieved. ‘We should try to get some sleep,’ she suggested.

Sleep came first to Monique and then to Helga while Tally lay awake, listening to sounds of the African night, wondering if she would miss them and deciding not. After a few minutes there came a sound she was not prepared for... it suggested that the hut door was being pushed open slowly and carefully. She and Helga were sleeping on the floor; both were facing the door, which Tally could now see really was opening. The growing view of the night sky however, was gradually blocked out by a seemingly enormous silhouette.

Tally got over the fear that was clutching at her stomach and threatening to paralyse her. ‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded as she rolled over and got to her feet, fumbling for her battery lamp without taking her eyes off the advancing spectre. The meagre beam illuminated a tall, ghostly figure just as Helga woke and screamed out in terror.

It wasn’t a ghost, Tally realised in the dim light; it was a figure wearing the full safety gear for dealing with Ebola patients. It didn’t speak but held out what appeared to be a TV remote in its gloved hand: it pointed and clicked, first at Tally and then at Helga.

Tally edged sideways towards Helga, pushing her along slightly so that the figure was between them and the door of the room where Monique was sleeping... but Monique wasn’t sleeping. She appeared silently behind the figure and Tally saw that she was carrying their empty wine bottle from earlier. She winced as Monique swung it round in a long arc before making contact with the back of the figure’s head with venomous force, causing it to crumple silently to the floor.

Helga did her best to comfort Monique who, filled with anguish at what she’d done, dropped the bottle and burst into tears while Tally knelt down cautiously beside the collapsed figure to pull away its visor and mask: it was Hans Weber. She stared at him for a few moments before feeling for a carotid pulse and finding none.

‘Good night, sweet Hans,’ she said coldly before getting to her feet. ‘May wings of angels speed thee... to the deepest pit of hell.’

None of the three was sure what to say for fully half a minute before Helga asked, ‘What’s this?’ She detached herself from Monique before picking up the ‘remote’ Weber had been carrying.

‘My bet would be the sound wave generator necessary for rupturing our... trackers,’ said Tally. ‘If he hadn’t woken us, he would just have triggered them and gone away. In a couple of days or so, we two volunteers would have gone down with Ebola. I’ll hang on to this, it’s evidence.’

‘But he did wake you,’ said Helga, ‘and he didn’t know Monique was here. God, we were so lucky.’

The three of them engaged in a long group-hug.

At six a.m., the sound of rotor blades brought smiles to their faces. They watched as a military helicopter landed no more than fifty metres from where they stood. A crewman appeared at the open door to beckon them and they ran over without looking back to be helped on board one at a time, Monique was first, then Helga and finally, Tally.

‘Thank you so much,’ Tally said as she grappled for hand holds.

‘Not at all,’ said the crewman, removing his helmet and microphone. ‘Nice to see you.’

‘Steven!’ exclaimed Tally, taking a few moments to get over her disbelief before hugging him tightly. ‘What are you doing here? I mean, how... I mean, how is it possible.’

‘I just love helicopters.’

‘Seriously?’ said Tally.

‘I told you I could ask for anything after briefing the PM and all the others as to what the Russian business was all about yesterday. She ordered the RAF to do what was required and with a bit of help from our allies, they did. I think I may have left my stomach on one of their aircraft on the flight down and, please God, they don’t send me the bill.’

‘I take it you know this man?’ said Helga.

‘Yes,’ Tally replied with a smile, ‘I know him.’

As time passed and the sound of the helicopter engines largely put a stop to conversation, they were all left alone with their thoughts. Steven noticed that Tally looked particularly troubled and drew her close to ask what she was thinking about. She gave a small dismissive shake of the head but he persisted until she turned to face him with a distant look in her eyes.

‘I was thinking... God help us all, Steven, God help us all.’

Author’s Note

Although MIASMA is a work of fiction, several facts have been employed in its writing.

In May of 2018, The Democratic Republic of Congo announced an outbreak of Ebola virus in Equateur Province — the ninth to occur since 1976. Unlike the West African outbreak, which claimed over 11,000 lives between 2014 and 2016, this new epidemic was unexpectedly declared over in mid-July of 2018.

Almost unbelievably, a new epidemic was announced at the beginning of August 2018 in another area of the country — Kivu Province, a wild. lawless area some five hundred miles to the east, plagued by violence and banditry — it had to be classified as a new outbreak rather than possible late spread of the old one because genetic analysis showed the cause to be a new strain of Ebola virus, the so-called Zaire strain.

The official explanation for continual outbreaks of Ebola in DRC blames the diet of the population, which includes fruit bats, the suspected natural host of the virus and animals subject to bites from these creatures — collectively known as ‘bushmeat’. As yet, there is limited scientific evidence to support this theory.

2018 has seen several news stories appear about rogue members of world aid agencies exploiting vulnerable people in the course of their duties. Naturally, it is hoped that these people are few and far between, but this does require vigorous investigation. It is not difficult to imagine that access to hundreds of thousands of displaced, vulnerable people could be an attractive ‘resource’ to organised crime.

At the other end of the scale from displaced vulnerable people we have an increasing number of wealthy people wishing to set up home in the UK — particularly in London and often Russian — with effects on property prices and constant suspicions of money laundering. At the time of writing, having assets of ten million pounds or more is sufficient to obtain an ‘investment visa’, leading to permanent residence after only two years.

Content

Ken McClure
Miasma

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Thirteen

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Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Author’s Note