Hot Zone (Major Crimes Unit Book 2) (5 page)

D
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Hart was still sobbing in Howard’s arms when help finally arrived. It was only
a couple of nurses, but Howard was still glad to see them, for they would be
far more useful in dealing with the situation than he. Did Dr Hart have AIDS
now, or was HIV different? He cursed himself for being so ignorant as not to
know. Dr Krenshaw had a point about the West caring little about maladies which
did not affect them. The public knew more about the top ten pop chart than it
did the top ten deadliest diseases.

“The syringe could have been full of water,” he said
soothingly to Dr Hart, who continued to cling to him desperately. “It was
probably a bluff. A good one because it worked. There didn’t even need to be
anything dangerous inside the syringe for him to make me back off. I’m sure you’re
fine. It’s okay. It’s…” His mouth kept moving but he had idea what words to
say.

Dr Hart tried to get a hold of herself, turning her sobs
into choking shudders. “G-G-G0…go after him.”

Howard took a moment but then understood. He couldn’t help
Dr Hart, but he could sure as hell go after Dr Krenshaw and bring him to
justice. If the syringe had been a bluff, the quickest way to find out would be
to put Krenshaw’s balls in a vice and ask him. He placed the doctor into the
concerned care of the two nurses and clenched his fists. “Dr Krenshaw. Where
did he go?”

“Towards the car park out back,” one of the nurses replied.
“He stopped by the staffroom to grab his briefcase but then went out the fire
exit. You may still catch him.”

Howard took off like a horse out the gates. He spotted a
sign for the staff car park and careened around the corridors towards it. Even
before he made it outside he spotted Krenshaw through the wide glass doors. The
doctor was running for his life but was skinny and unfit, carrying what looked
like a heavy briefcase. He was beating it across the car park, but Howard was
right out the door after him. This time, he had no qualms about pulling out his
gun and firing it. He aimed a round into the air.

Krenshaw froze in his tracks, crouching down and turning
slowly to face Howard. A couple of bystanders leapt for cover behind their
cars.

“Give yourself up, Doctor. Or I’ll be forced to shoot you.”

Krenshaw didn’t look afraid. In fact he seemed amused. In
his free hand he held a small glass cylinder.

Howard stayed where he was but kept his gun levelled. “What
do you have in your hand, Doctor?”

Krenshaw’s lips drew back like a curtain into the delighted
grimace of a corpse. “Just a concoction I whipped up. Weaponised Dengue Fever,
if you must know. Symptoms start with fever, headaches, nausea and vomiting,
before progressing to a rash and fluid in the chest. The beauty of this
particular strain is that it is highly symptomatic. You see, the more typical
strain affects less than one-quarter of infected patients. This will infect
over 90% with the most severe case. I carry it with me everywhere. Call it an
insurance policy. You try to stop me and I smash the phial, which contains a
highly concentrated dose of the disease. It may not cause an epidemic, but it
will, at the very least, infect you and me, and perhaps a few dozen sick
children inside this hospital.”

“Have you not already infected them with something nasty?”
asked Howard. He dared not take another step forward and was forced to stall
for time. Maybe he could shoot the doctor without the phial smashing, but the
fear of what was inside escaping made his blood run too cold to try.

“Alas, no,” said Krenshaw. “I was just about to begin my
rounds. You see, I like to do my most important work at night and evening is
nearly upon us. Morning and afternoon seem like queer times to give people
death sentences, don’t you agree?”

Howard felt sick. “You were going to infect a bunch of
children. You’re mad.”

“I am very sane, I assure you. In fact it takes a huge level
of sanity to make the sacrifices I am making. I want to change the world for
the better. Infecting a bunch of sickly white children with HIV is a means to
an end. They would get the best care, maybe even live full lives, but the fear
would be enough to get this country to pay attention.”

“Your mission is over, Doctor. Just hand the phial over and
give yourself up.”

“Hand it over? Are you so sure you want to take this from
me? You have gone quite a striking shade of alabaster.”

Howard tried to swallow, but there was a lump in his throat.
He spoke in a squawk. “Nobody else is getting sick today, Doctor. This isn’t
the way.”

“It is the only way.” Krenshaw tossed the phial into the
air.

Howard felt his eyes almost fall out of his head as he
watched the small glass bottle arc towards him. His legs tried to carry him
away, to run, but he knew it was wrong thing to do, so, with a diving lunge, he
threw himself forwards instead. The phial was tiny, but as it tumbled it caught
the dimming sunlight and glinted. It gave Howard something to focus on. He hit
the pavement hard, chin striking the ground and sending him dizzy. For a few
seconds, he forgot himself and lay there in a daze. When he got his wits back
he panicked and looked around urgently. He opened up his hands and almost wept
when he saw the intact phial clutched in his right fist. His relief turned to
fury, though, when he saw the word INSULIN printed on the label. It had been a
bluff.

Howard clambered back to his feet, ignoring the spike of
pain in his left kneecap where it had struck the pavement. Krenshaw had already
made a run for it and had gained a good lead. A parked car up ahead blinked and
beeped as the doctor unlocked it with his key fob. There was too much distance
between them now for Howard to get to Krenshaw before the doctor hopped in his
car and drove away.

Howard brought up his gun, drew a bead, and fired. His round
struck the bumper of a car and ricocheted. There were still bystanders hiding
in cover and they yelled out in fright now. Howard couldn’t risk them getting
hit. He lowered his gun and sprinted, hoping against hope that Krenshaw would
fail to escape in time. But Krenshaw was almost at his car and seemed to
realise he was home-free. He turned around to smirk at Howard.

“Until next time,” the doctor gloated, clutching the
briefcase to his chest like it was a prize.

There was the sudden screech of skidding tyres.

Two jet-black vans pulled up behind Krenshaw, making the
doctor spin around in fright and stumble on his heels. Two burly men in
balaclavas hopped out of one of the vans and grabbed Krenshaw before he even
knew what was happening, then they bundled him inside the van and held him down
on the floor as he struggled. A third person hopped out the front of the other
van and ran around to close the side door of the other. This person wasn’t
wearing a balaclava and was, in fact, a woman.

Howard tripped and stumbled, before stopping completely. In
front of him was a woman who’d gone missing more than four months ago and not
been heard from since. A former colleague.

Sarah noticed Howard standing there and froze with the same
shocked expression that he no doubt wore on his own face. The driver of the van
shouted at her and she got moving again, slamming the side door shut of the first
van before hopping back into the front passenger seat of the other. Then both
vans took off, tyres squealing as they took off around the corner and
disappeared.

Howard stood rooted to the spot for so long that he began to
shiver from the cold. He couldn’t believe who he had just seen: Captain Sarah
Stone.

H
oward
found Dr Hart sitting inside a small waiting room with a sofa and coffee
machine. There was a nurse beside her, rubbing her back as she prodded
anxiously at the red spot on her neck. The nurse left when Howard entered.

“Are you okay?” Howard asked Dr Hart. She was a pretty
woman, not much over forty, but right now she was haggard and grey and her
blonde hair seemed almost white. She didn’t say anything in reply to him, just
stared at a spot on the wall, barely blinking.

“Krenshaw was bluffing,” said Howard enthusiastically. He
plucked the insulin phial from his pocket and showed it to her. “He convinced
me this was Dengue Fever but it’s just plain old Insulin. The syringe he
stabbed you with was probably nothing.”

“They’ve pried open his locker,” she eventually said, a
detached numbness to her voice. “You should go take a look.”

Howard took her advice and left her alone. On his way to
find a nurse to direct him, he took out his mobsat and placed a call though to
the Earthworm, MCU’s base of operations. He went straight through to Director
Palu.

“Howard. Update me.”

Howard cleared his throat and began. “My investigation at
Whiteknight seemed to confirm the epidemic was engineered and led me to a
suspect named Dr Alistair Krenshaw. I tracked him down to Reading Children’s
Hospital where he was planning to carry out a second act of terror. This time a
mass infection of the HIV virus on already sick children.”

“You stopped it?”

“I did, but Krenshaw managed to escape. He was…abducted.”

There was a brief pause before Palu spoke. “Abducted?”

“Two black vans pulled up right behind Krenshaw and two men
leapt out and dragged him into the back. Palu… Sarah was with them. Sarah
Stone.”

The next pause was even longer.

“I know,” said Howard. “It doesn’t make any sense, but it
was her, I swear. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

“Then, where the hell has she been? And who is she working
with?”

Howard stopped in the middle of the corridor and leaned up
against the wall, groaning. “I have no idea, but whoever she is with has the
doctor and I am positive Krenshaw is our man. What is Sarah involved in?”

“Do you have a description of the men she was with?”

“No. They were wearing balaclavas.”

“I’ll have Jessica check CCTV for the area. I’m sure the
hospital will have something.”

“Check the rear car park,” said Howard. “That’s where the
black vans arrived.”

“Do you have any other leads?”

Howard sighed. “Not yet. I’m about to search Krenshaw’s
locker and see what I find. Can you have someone gather everything we have on
the doctor?”

“Of course. Good work, Howard. We’ll catch Krenshaw; only a
matter of time.”

“I’ll keep you updated.” Howard ended the call, found a
nurse, and asked to be taken to Krenshaw’s locker. Inside the staff changing
area, there was another nurse already there waiting for him.

“This is the doctor’s locker,” the woman told him,
indicating which one she meant.

The locker was hanging slightly ajar, so Howard fondled the
edge and swung it open wider. Inside was not a comforting sight. The top metal
shelf was stacked with phials of clear liquid. A bundle of unsealed syringes
right beside them.

“Do we know what’s inside them?” asked Howard of the nurse.

“We’ll need to get them to a lab, but I can tell you they aren’t
legally endorsed.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that these didn’t come from an approved
pharmaceutical supplier. They’re either black market or, worse, homemade.
There’re no labels, no serial numbers. Even the bottles aren’t NHS issue.
Whatever is in these phials didn’t come through the system.”

Howard thanked the nurse and asked her to bring Dr Hart to
him. She would still be understandably distraught, but he needed answers.

She appeared five minutes later, back in charge of her
emotions, yet slightly timid in voice. “What can I do for you, Agent Hopkins?”

“Is there any way of finding out what is inside these
phials?”

“They can be tested for HIV fairly quickly, if that’s what
you mean? I’ll contact the lab and fast track it myself.”

Howard nodded grimly. “What are you going to do about
yourself?”

She shrugged, almost as if she didn’t care. Howard thought
it more likely the numbness of shock, or maybe she just knew there was little
she could do. “I’ll have to start on anti-retroviral immediately,” she explained,
“whether I am infected or not. It will take three months or so before any blood
tests will be reliable.”

Howard put himself in the doctor’s shoes and felt quite
sick. It was going to be a long three months of hell while she was forced to
wait for results on whether or not she was gravely ill. “Krenshaw admitted he
never managed to infect any of the children,” he said, hoping it would give her
some solace.

“You let him get away, though?”

Howard didn’t take it personally. If anyone had the right to
apportion blame, it was Dr Hart. “I’m sorry. I have all my people working on
it. We’ll get him, I promise.” He chose not to complicate matters by explaining
about the black vans and his former colleague appearing to snatch Krenshaw away
just as he was about to get away.

“I need to go back to Whiteknight,” she said, looking away
from him. “I can get treatment there and I need to get back to trying to deal
with the Ebola epidemic.”

Howard nodded. Any friendliness that had existed between
them was now gone, extinguished the moment Krenshaw plunged a syringe into her
neck. Howard had failed the woman, and could tell that Dr Hart regretted ever
having met him. He regretted it, too, but for different reasons.

“If you need anything…”

Dr Hart nodded, turned around, and left.

For a while, Howard stood alone in the locker room, staring
at the collection of unlabelled liquids in the locker and shuddering.
Eventually a nurse came in and started loading everything into a padded yellow
crate. “I’ll get this sent straight to the pathology lab in Slough,” she told
him. “If you leave me your details, I’ll have them call you with the results.”

“Thank you.” Howard left her his details and thanked her,
then exited the hospital as quickly as he could and stood out in the fresh air of
the newly arrived night. It felt good to be in the open, out of the
claustrophobic confines of the hospital. His breaths were longer, steadier,
and, as he walked over to the curb where his MCU Range Rover was parked, he
began to feel better. He wondered where Dr Hart had gone and how she was
getting back to Whiteknight. Running, probably, if it got her away from him.
The thought of her alone and scared brought tears to Howard’s eyes as he
finally allowed himself to acknowledge how much today’s ordeal had upset him.
He’d been relentlessly afraid the entire time, but it was Dr Hart who had been
hurt.

A shrill ring caused Howard to flinch from his thoughts and
pull his mobsat from his coat. He answered the call and placed it to his ear.
“Hopkins.”

“Howard!” It was Jessica Bennett, a Georgia gal transferred
from MCU America and currently his closest colleague, as well as probably the
smartest person he knew. She, too, was a doctor but specialised in the mind
rather than the body. “I checked the hospital CCTV and got a good look at the
black vans. I saw the men you saw. Was that really Sarah?”

“I’m certain of it. I looked her right in the eye.  Not
like she could be mistaken for anyone else with those scars of hers.”

“I thought she was dead.”

“Me too. Looks like everything we assumed was wrong. She’s
working with someone and they have Krenshaw.”

“It’s her daddy,” Jessica blurted out, her southern state
accent more prevalent when she wasn’t speaking slowly.

Howard unlocked the Range Rover and got in behind the wheel
where it was warmer and quieter. He adjusted the mobsat against his ear and
then continued the conversation. “Her father? How do you know?”

Jessica told him. “The men in the back of the vans were
wearing balaclavas, but I got a clear view at the driver who wasn’t wearing a
mask of any kind. I ran his face through the Interpol and military databases
and it came up as a wanted war criminal, Major Jonathan Stone.”

Howard flopped back against the leather driver’s seat. “That
makes no sense. Sarah’s father is a Major in the Army. Isn’t he SAS?”

“He was,” said Jessica, “but he went AWOL with a group of
his men almost a year ago. He was last seen in Syria, taking out an ISIS
leader.”

“Well, that’s good. He’s still on our side by the sound of
it.”

“No. He killed the ISIS leader on behalf of a Saudi Prince
who lost a cousin in a rebel attack. He was paid to do it.”

“He’s a mercenary.”

“Looks like it. He’s been off the radar since he
assassinated that ISIS leader, and Interpol had assumed he’d gone into hiding.”

Howard rubbed at his eyes, feeling exhauster. “What has
Sarah got herself into?”

“I don’t know, but if her daddy has Krenshaw, it’s because
somebody else is paying for him.”

“Any background on Krenshaw yet?”

“Not much. I’ve requested his work records from World Health
Alliance who employed him during his time in Africa. They haven’t gotten back
to me yet. He’s been back in the country for two years and has held senior
posts in the NHS the entire time. There’s nothing to suggest he’s dangerous.”

Howard huffed. “Believe me, he’s dangerous. I stood there
and watched him inject an innocent woman with HIV.”

“My Lord.”

“Yeah,” said Howard. “We need to get this guy, Jessica.”

“I have Mandy and Mattock checking out Krenshaw’s home and
his office at Whiteknight, to see if we can find any clue as to what his next
move might have been. I’ll keep working on Sarah’s daddy, see if I can figure
out where he might be operating out of. I ran the plates on one of the black
vans, but it came back as a stolen Nissan. They’ll probably shed the plates as
soon as they get chance.”

Howard cursed. “I swear, if I get a hold of Sarah...”

“Don’t assume she’s on the wrong side of this. We don’t have
the facts yet.”

Howard sighed. “No, you’re right. At least Krenshaw is out
of action for now. I would hate to think he was still at large with a dirty
syringe full of whatever he planned on unleashing next. Whiteknight hospital is
a nightmare, Jessica. Two hundred people dying in agony, dozens already dead.
Krenshaw planned on infecting a children’s hospital with HIV. The man is
capable of anything when it comes to his mission. He wants the UK to see the
suffering of Africa first-hand. He thinks his work will result in money and
effort being diverted to finding a cure for all of these diseases.”

Jessica moaned. “He’s a martyr. There’s no worse kind of
madman.”

“I know. He doesn’t want anything but to carry out his
mission. If he manages to get free, there’s no limit to what he might do.”

“Then let’s just hope that whatever Sarah is doing works out
for the best.”

Howard thought about Sarah for a moment. He had worked with
her for less than a month, but he knew that as much as she was aggressive and
unhelpful, she was a good person deep at heart. She had a strong instinct to
protect the innocent, but she also hated the United Kingdom for what it did to
her. If she was with her father there was no way of knowing what she was
involved in or what she was thinking. If they were both carrying a grudge
towards their country, there was no telling what they might do.

Howard had an idea. “Jessica, don’t focus your efforts on
Sarah’s father, focus it on Sarah herself. If we can work out what happened to
her — how she disappeared — we might be able to figure out how and why she
ended up with her father.”

“But we already searched high and low for her,” said
Jessica. “We couldn’t find anything. You, yourself, followed every lead you
could find.”

“We assumed then that a remnant of Hesbani’s crew was
involved with her disappearance. Now we know different. Look at known associates
of Major Stone, particularly the men who deserted with him. If we can find
anything on them we might be able to link it to Sarah and find out where she
is.”

“Okay, Howard. I’m on it. You stay safe, okay?”

“I’ll do my best. Just get back to me as soon as you have
something. I want to put a stop to this before Sarah ends up doing something
she’ll regret.”

“Sarah never struck me as a woman who regretted anything.”

“Then you don’t know Sarah at all. The woman I knew was
nothing but a list of regrets. Let’s not give her any chance to add to it.”