Gray Redemption (Tom Gray #3) (13 page)

Mansour stepped through and
found himself in an antechamber.  Through toughened glass he could see
people inside the laboratory wearing protective suits complete with breathing
apparatus.  One of them noticed his presence and entered an inner door into
a chamber, where jets of what looked to Mansour like steam filled the small
area for a few seconds.  Extractors sucked the vapour from the air and
moments later Professor Uddin emerged and removed his headgear.

“Thank you for taking time to
see me,” Mansour said after greeting him.  “I appreciate that you are very
busy.”

Uddin assured him that is was no
inconvenience,
and Mansour noted how nervous the
scientist was.  Al-Asiri had told him that Uddin had been like a lamb in a
lion’s den when they’d met at the hotel, and Mansour was glad to see the same
reaction.

“The Emir tells me you are doing
some fine work here,” Mansour said as Uddin led him to a small office. 
“He is delighted with the progress you have made.”

Uddin seemed to relax a little
at the praise, but Mansour soon took the smile off his face.  “However, he
would prefer you to do more testing on the virus before we unleash it on the
world.  He is not completely satisfied with the figures you presented to
him.”

“We…
er
…”

Mansour waved off any attempt at
an excuse.  “I spoke to the Emir and we agreed that this operation should
only go ahead when we are completely confident of success.  As that isn’t
currently the case, we are going to postpone it while you conduct further
tests.”

Uddin looked worried, but Mansour
allayed his fears.  “The Emir is not angry with you, but he does think it
prudent to wait.  He had wanted to use an upcoming window of opportunity,
but others will come along.”

The professor let out a sigh,
grateful that he hadn’t incurred Al-Asiri’s wrath.

“Despite this, the window
remains open, and the Emir wants to make full use of it.  Tell me about
the other variants you and your team have been working on.”

Uddin explained that the vast
majority of time had been spent on Al-Asiri’s pet project, but they did have
another strain of the virus that was much more aggressive.

“It is a natural variant of
Reston Ebolavirus, which originated in the Philippines.  Reston has been
found in several indigenous animals, from crab-eating macaques to pigs,
although as yet it hasn’t claimed any human lives.  Our strain has been
genetically modified to enhance the cytopathic effect — the breaking down of
cellular tissue.”

“Why not just use Ebola
itself?”  Mansour wondered aloud.

“Governments from all over the
world — governments with much better resources than we have here — have been
trying to find a cure for Ebola Zaire since it was first discovered in
1976.  They have tried and failed, and only recently the US military cut
funding to two private companies searching for an effective antidote.

“If they cannot find it, there
is very little chance of us stumbling across the answer.  Even with our
own creation, we are not yet able to reverse the effects.”

 “What does it do to those
exposed to it?”  Mansour asked.

“It causes irreparable damage to
the liver and kidneys,” Uddin told him.  “Failure takes place just
forty-eight hours after infection, leading to major haemorrhaging and
eventually death within the next twenty-four hours.”

“What about an antidote?”

“We have been unable to prevent
death once the subject has become infected,” Uddin said.  “Those subjects
who were given the vaccination prior to infection did survive, but they
suffered severe damage to their organs.  We need to do a lot more work on
this before we can be confident it is ready for use.”

“It seems to me that it is ready
now,” Mansour smiled.

“I agree it has the effect we
were looking for,” Uddin said, “but until we are able to control it, we cannot
consider using it.  With international travel so common, a strain this
virulent could reach almost every major population before it was ever
discovered.  It would create a pandemic within weeks.”

Mansour was impressed with the
projected reach, but the target he had in mind would only claim around a
thousand lives.  Al-Asiri’s vision of breeding westerners out of existence
was flawed at even the most fundamental level: it wasn’t the people that were
the issue; it was the people leading them, the policy-makers who determined
which countries were to be invaded, which villages were to be bombed.  He
had no real issues with the people of Britain or the United States: they simply
followed their leaders like sheep.  No, more like lambs being led to the
slaughter by warmongers fuelled by greed.  They dressed it up as a crusade
to rid the world of tyrants, but their sole agenda was to get cheap access to
the Arab world’s oil supply.

 The internal conflicts in
Libya and Syria epitomised this.  When Tripoli used deadly force to put
down the uprising, the US and Britain mobilised troops immediately and were
instrumental in the fall of Gaddafi.  Yet the troubles in Syria started at
around the same time, and eighteen months later the UN were still dithering and
threatening worthless sanctions.  Russia and China were the major
suppliers of arms to Damascus and were vetoing any resolutions at the UN, and
the western powers conveniently used this as the main reason they couldn’t take
any decisive action to stop the massacres.  Mansour knew that even if the
eastern superpowers voted in favour of military action, the cost of an invasion
would greatly outweigh the financial gain to the likes of Britain and
America.  They would continue with the rhetoric while waiting for the next
oil-rich country to implode.

“My target is a building which
is protected against chemical and biological attacks.  However, they would
be expecting an attack to come from the outside, not within the building
itself.  If it were released in such a place, would it be able to escape?”

Uddin admitted that without
schematics of the defences, he couldn’t offer any guarantees, but he did think
the efficacy of the virus would be severely diminished.  “The air within
such a building would most likely be filtered through sophisticated scrubbers,
ultraviolet lights and a host of other defences.  It could be destroyed
within minutes.”

“What if the filtration system
was inactive during the initial release and no-one was allowed to leave the
building.  Would that make a difference?”

“It certainly would, but it
would depend on the size of the building and the number of people within
it.  The more people, the less effective the defences would become, but
eventually the virus would become so prevalent that everyone within the
building would succumb.”

The news was exactly what
Mansour wanted to hear, and he instructed the professor to prepare as much of
the virus as possible within the next few days.  “I will also need a way
of transporting it via aeroplane and through customs without arousing suspicion. 
What would you suggest?”

The professor looked
nervous.  “I have to reiterate that this virus is not ready to be
used.  If just one person were to get out of the contaminated area, there
is no telling how fast it could spread.  The incubation period — the delay
before the onset of symptoms — is two days, but the virus can be passed to
others within a few hours through close contact.

“I really think you should
reconsider, at least until we have a working anti-virus.”

Mansour’s glare told Uddin that any
further dissension would not be tolerated, and the professor reluctantly stood
and picked up an inhaler from a shelf.  “This is capable of storing the
virus for seventy-two hours,” he said, his voice edgy.  “If you press
here, it works just as it should.”

As promised, a small cloud of
mist shot out when the cartridge was pushed into the device.  “When you
first insert a new canister, it breaks the initial seal and works like a normal
inhaler.  However, if you were to hold it pressed in for a count of ten,
you activate a second valve which releases the entire contents of a hidden
compartment in one continuous burst.”

“You mean it can be activated
and left unattended?”  Mansour asked, and Uddin nodded. 

“We tried to design it with
built-in latency to give the person activating it a chance to clear the area,”
Uddin told him, “but that introduced too many extra components which would show
up on security scanners, such as airport X-Ray machines.”

Mansour liked the simplicity,
and it should easily pass a cursory inspection at any border.  The fact
that it required someone to sacrifice their life to deliver the virus was not a
problem:  There were plenty of true believers willing to take on the task
in the name of Allah.

“What kind of coverage will I
get from one canister?”  Mansour asked.

Uddin thought about it for a
moment, searching for a suitable comparison.  “If you were to activate one
canister in a large airport baggage hall, it would infect everyone in a ten
metre radius in moments, and it would travel to all adjoining areas within five
minutes.  It would take less than an hour for the entire airport to become
contaminated.”

The projection once again
pleased Mansour, especially as the target he had in mind was similar in size to
a major airport terminal.  “How many of these canisters can you provide in
the next twenty-four hours?”  He asked.

Uddin did a quick mental
calculation.  “We can have two, perhaps three capsules ready,” he replied.

“Two will suffice,” Mansour told
him.  “Taking any more than that through Heathrow’s customs channels could
arouse suspicion, but carrying your inhaler and a spare would be seen as normal
for most travellers.”

He rose from his chair.  “I
will return in two days.  Please have them ready when I arrive.”

The professor considered one
more attempt at dissuading Mansour from this course of action, but instead he
held his tongue and assured him that everything he needed would be waiting on
his return.  Mansour paused at the door.  “This goes no further than
the two of us,” he warned the old man.  “As far as your team are
concerned, you are going to deliver the original virus as planned.  Do you
understand?”

Uddin nodded meekly, and Mansour
left.

Once alone in the office, Uddin
slumped in his chair and wiped the sweat from his forehead.  Designing the
virus for use on their enemies was something he was comfortable with: whether
they died from a bomb, bullet or bug was immaterial.  What he couldn’t
accept was the possibility that his creation might be unleashed on the entire
world.  It would not differentiate between Muslim or Christian, Hindu or
Buddhist; it would simply strike down everyone it touched. 

Could it be contained within the
building Mansour was targeting?  Without knowing the layout of the
building, the intended release point and the number of exits, he simply
couldn’t say.  Even the counter-biological defences Mansour mentioned
could prove to be inadequate, but he couldn’t be certain unless he had the
chance to look at the specifications.

Uddin wrestled with his conscience
for some time, but he knew that if he didn’t fulfil Mansour’s wish, the only
thing he could look forward to would be death.  Not just for him, but for
his entire family, too.  And it wouldn’t be as quick as a bullet to the
brain.  He was certain that he would be made to watch his family die
before he himself was killed, and the thought sent a shiver through his body.

With a heavy heart he stood and
slowly walked back to the laboratory, suddenly feeling a lot older than his
fifty-eight years.

Chapter
9

Sunday
May 6th 2012

“We’ve got the location of the
website!”

Veronica Ellis was in the middle
of weeding her garden when the call from Gerald Small came through to her
mobile, and she was glad of the interruption.

“Where is it?”

“A flat, here
in London.
  Hamad’s preparing to take a team to the location.”

“I want you to go with them,”
Ellis said, and hung up.  She tapped the phone against her temple as she
absorbed the new information, and after a couple of minutes she called Hamad
Farsi.

“I don’t want you bringing
anyone in,” she said when the intelligence officer answered.  “The person
we are after is in South Africa, so anyone manning the equipment has to be an
associate.”

“Makes sense,” Farsi
agreed.  “What’s the plan?”

“Find out if the flats in the building
are connected to the gas network.  If they are, pretend there’s a leak and
clear the street, but when you get to the target flat I want you to secure it
and keep the occupants there.  We don’t want whoever is in Durban to know
they’ve been compromised.”

The phone went silent as Farsi
relayed the instructions and a minute later he told Ellis that gas was supplied
to the entire street.

“Okay, so that’s your
cover.  I want you to take Gerald along to analyse the setup and confirm
that we have the right people.”

Farsi confirmed the order and
Ellis told him to forward all the information they had to her laptop. 
Gardening forgotten, she went into the house to get changed.  Once
suitably attired for a day in the office, she found the details she’d requested
waiting for her.

The council-owned flat was being
rented by Carl Gordon, and his record showed one previous conviction for a
computer-related offence.  He certainly sounded like their man.

She packed her laptop into her
briefcase and drove the twenty-minute journey to Thames House, arriving just as
Farsi and his team were getting ready to leave the office.

“Gordon’s file says he lives
alone,” Hamad told her as he donned his reflective jacket, “so we don’t expect
to encounter much resistance.”