Lost Causes (17 page)

The headline news next morning was that terrorist attempts to contaminate drinking water at pumping stations supplying large parts of four major British cities had been foiled by police. It was not yet known whether other attempts had been successful or if the captured terrorists had been responsible for the first attack. The population was urged to remain vigilant. All water should be boiled until the all-clear was given.

There was an air of so-far-so-good about the COBRA meeting at ten that morning.

‘I wouldn’t like to go public on it right now,’ said the Home Secretary, ‘but I think we may have got them all. All pumping stations have been examined thoroughly and none report any signs of interference during the night. I think we have to congratulate the police and our security forces on a job very well done.’

‘Was it a breakthrough or a tip-off?’ asked Steven. He thought it was a reasonable question to ask but the slightly embarrassed looks that passed between the heads of MI5 and Special Branch and the Metropolitan Police commander seemed to suggest not.

The MI5 man cleared his throat and said, ‘We did receive a tip-off, but it’s not clear at the moment whether or not it came from one of our undercover people.’

‘I see,’ said Steven.

‘I’m sure you appreciate the dangers involved in placing operatives in dangerous situations. We have to keep
information
about them as secret as possible.’ 

Even from each other, thought Steven, seeing what he thought might be a case of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing.

‘No matter,’ said the deputy Prime Minister, intervening. ‘The main thing is we have eight terrorists in custody.’

There were murmurs of agreement round the table.

‘Do we know anything about them?’ asked Steven.

‘First reports suggest they’re home-grown and very young,’ said the Met commander.

‘And presumably Asian?’

‘Yes, but born in the UK.’

‘But they must have been subject to outside influence, and given assistance,’ said Norman Travis. ‘You don’t exactly find cholera cultures in the cupboard under the sink.’

The MI5 head nodded. ‘It’s almost certain we’re looking at disaffected youths being exploited by Islamic terrorists for their own ends.’

‘After being recruited locally,’ added the Met commander bitterly. ‘This damned Afghan war is making it all too easy for these Fagin-like figures.’

‘Be that as it may …’ began the deputy PM, coughing to cover his embarrassment, ‘it’s a truly sad reflection on our society that British-born youths should feel so … un-British.’

The expression on the Met commander’s face suggested that such social considerations were the last thing on his mind. ‘Well, they’ll have the rest of their natural lives to reflect on their Britishness or lack of it from behind bars,’ he growled. ‘Perhaps we should be more concerned with those who’ve died and those who might yet join them.’

‘Indeed,’ said Norman Travis. ‘Our first priority must be to remain focused on stamping out the epidemic we still have on our hands. We can’t afford to let down our guard even if we have – hopefully – deactivated its source.’

‘Hear hear,’ said several round the table. 

‘So we continue with the preventative measures we’ve put in place?’ said the deputy PM.

Everyone agreed.

Steven walked back to the Home Office wondering why he didn’t feel a whole lot better than he did. The capture of what looked to be the whole terrorist strike force was a major triumph, and yet he found himself feeling uneasy without knowing why.

‘Wonderful news,’ said Jean Roberts when Steven walked in. ‘Aren’t our police wonderful?’

‘We are indeed blessed,’ replied Steven, tongue in cheek.

‘Oh, come on, Steven, I know you and Sir John have had your differences with the police and intelligence services over the years, but you have to admit they’ve come up trumps this time.’

‘You’re right; they have.’

‘All the health boards you asked about have now reported back. None of them knew anything about any new scheme coming into operation in the autumn.’

‘Thanks, Jean.’

Steven had barely sat down in his office when the phone rang.

‘They’ve caught them! I can hardly believe it,’ said Tally.

‘It’s real enough.’

‘This is just what we need to get on top of things,’ said Tally. ‘It’ll give us time to get everyone vaccinated so even if there’s another attempt we’ll be prepared. Is something wrong? You seem a bit distant.’

Steven struggled with a response. ‘Something is wrong,’ he confessed, ‘but I don’t know what.’

‘I know that feeling,’ said Tally. ‘Sometimes I get it with the kids at the hospital. All the lab results are telling you one thing but you know in your heart that it’s not the whole story: there’s something else going on.’ 

‘That’s it exactly,’ said Steven. ‘The jigsaw looks complete but you’re left with one piece in your hand.’

‘Go and see Sir John,’ said Tally. ‘You and he have this thing … You can probably work it out between you.’

Steven called John Macmillan’s home but was told by his wife that he was at the hospital having a check-up. ‘Nothing wrong, I hope,’ said Steven.

‘Far from it. He wants to go back to work.’

Steven sympathised with her and made arrangements to call round later. He spent the next few minutes standing at the window looking out at the traffic, trying to decide what to do next. He took out his mobile phone and flicked through the contact list till he got to John Ricksen, then hesitated for a few moments before pressing the dial button.

‘Ricksen.’

‘John, it’s Steven Dunbar. How are things?’

‘Sci-Med calling MI5 to ask how things are? I don’t think.’

‘There’s just so much cynicism in the world today …’ Steven lamented.

That drew a laugh from Ricksen. ‘Out with it, Dunbar. What are you after?’

‘All right. I’d like to talk.’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘You can buy me lunch.’

The two men arranged to meet at the Blue Boar, a pub by the river, at one o’clock.

Although not close friends, Steven and Ricksen, an
intelligence
officer with MI5, had crossed paths several times over the years, and had come to respect each other despite the lurking departmental rivalry which had MI5 believing Sci-Med had a little too much freedom to operate as they saw fit, and Sci-Med asserting that MI5 lacked imagination.

The two men shook hands, and Steven ordered a couple of beers. ‘You guys must be feeling pretty pleased with yourselves,’ he said as they sat down. ‘I take it it was 5 who made the breakthrough?’

Ricksen took a sip of his beer. ‘Not exactly,’ he said slowly.

Steven let his expression ask the question.

‘It’s all a bit embarrassing. The informant gave details of all four proposed attacks on pumping stations but our people on the inside knew nothing at all about any of them. The same goes for Special Branch.’

Steven frowned. ‘If the operation was being kept that secret, how come one informant knew details about all four attacks?’

‘Exactly. The information had to have come from the very top, but we’ve no idea who. That’s a worry. It suggests that there may be home-grown terrorist operations out there that we know nothing at all about.’

‘And MI6 are still certain they didn’t come in from abroad?’

‘Absolutely. In fact, we know that the eight in custody have never been outside the UK in their lives. All are under twenty – they’re been-nowhere, done-nothing dumbfucks full of Islamic shit that someone rammed down their throats till they believed it. And here’s the killer … They were all actually on our books.’

Steven’s eyes opened wide. ‘Now I can understand where the embarrassment comes in.’

‘We keep an eye on all the young firebrands in the Asian communities who sound as if they may be destined to cause trouble. Mostly it’s just running off at the mouth, but they invariably attract the attention of local recruiters and the next step can involve them disappearing for a “holiday” to the old country to see their roots for the first time – visiting
Great-uncle
Asif or some such crap. They actually spend their time in the training camps on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and come back ready for business – able to strip down a Kalashnikov blindfold and handle Semtex like it was Play-Doh. But these eight were different: they were obviously recruited, but not through the usual channels or we would have known about it, and none of them went abroad.’

Steven let out a low whistle. ‘So the organ grinders are here in the UK, not just the monkeys.’

‘That’s what it looks like.’

‘But one of them blew the whistle.’

‘How lucky was that?’

Steven digested this comment in silence for a few moments before asking, ‘I take it none of them is saying very much?’

Ricksen smiled wryly. ‘I think the truth is that none of them knows very much. They’re all low-level operatives, told exactly where to go and what to do, and all of them are so full of holy shit that they didn’t question anything.’

‘You don’t think the fact that someone informed on them might change their outlook?’

Ricksen shook his head. ‘Because none of them knows anything about the size of the organisation they were working for, they just assume that someone somewhere up the chain of command betrayed them and will get his just desserts in the life to come. One of them did say something interesting, though. He claimed he was set up.’

Steven saw the difference. ‘Set up, not betrayed; that is
interesting
. Name?’

‘Anwar Khan, caught in Glasgow, possibly one of those who carried out the attack in Edinburgh.’

As they sat with coffee, Ricksen said, ‘I can understand
Sci-Med’s
interest in the fact that it was a cholera attack but why the interest in who carried it out?’

‘I wish I could give you a straight answer,’ said Steven. ‘I just have this feeling that something’s not quite right. Ostensibly I’m looking at a terrorist attack on the UK using a biological weapon. But when I consider the overall picture, the bug they used, the people who carried out the attack, the fact that they were betrayed – or set up – there’s something not quite right.’

‘You mean they’re going to hit us with smallpox while we’re all patting each other on the back?’

‘Christ, I hope not …’

Steven went over to see John Macmillan at four o’clock and found him in excellent spirits. ‘A better day, eh, Steven? Not only have I been given the all-clear to return to work on a
part-time
basis but the security services finally get their act together and nail the terrorists.’

‘It turns out they had little to do with it, John.’ Steven told him what he’d learned at his lunch-time meeting with Ricksen.

‘Damnation,’ said Macmillan. ‘I’d assumed that Special Branch or one of 5’s insiders had come up with the goods.’

Steven said not. ‘One unknown person, apparently in full possession of all the details of four separate operations, gave the lot away to the police.’

‘But why?’

‘Why indeed. It must have been someone at the top of the chain to have access to that much information.’

‘So it won’t take them long to figure out who it was. But the informer must know that, and yet he hasn’t asked for police protection, I take it?’

‘No.’

‘So what had he to gain? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Nothing has made any sense for weeks,’ said Steven glumly.

‘What else is troubling you?’

‘One of the disks we recovered from Charles French’s house outlined plans for a reintroduction of the Northern Health Scheme in the autumn. There wouldn’t have been time.’ 

‘Is that really relevant?’ asked Macmillan, still thinking about the terrorist informant.

‘I don’t know,’ Steven confessed. ‘But … I’m beginning to think it might be.’

Now he had Macmillan’s full attention. ‘Go on.’

‘Suppose we were
meant
to discover the plans for a
reintroduction
of the old Northern Health Scheme and where it was destined to happen.’

‘But the disks French’s wife handed over were genuine. The details agreed in every way with what we worked out happened in the north all these years ago.’

‘But the plans for a relaunch of the scheme were listed on a separate disk,’ said Steven. ‘Someone could have added that for our benefit.’

‘The end result being that we would see it as a failed operation …’

‘And take no further interest in it … or them … or
whatever
else they might be planning on doing.’

‘But they all died,’ said Macmillan.

‘Except the bomber,’ Steven reminded him. ‘The one thing that didn’t make sense. An insider who destroyed the old guard in order to do … what?’

‘Hopefully nothing while we’re in the middle of a terrorist attack.’

‘Which doesn’t make sense either,’ said Steven, a comment that made Macmillan raise his eyebrows.

‘In what way?’

‘Just about every way,’ said Steven. ‘Cholera was an odd choice for a bio-attack.’

‘It’s a horrible disease.’

‘But there are worse, much worse, if
you
rather than nature are in the position of deciding which microbe to use.’

Macmillan conceded the point with a shrug. 

‘Where did eight disaffected Asian youths living in the Midlands get cultures of cholera from?’

‘Presumably it must have been grown in laboratories abroad and brought into the country.’

‘MI6 are adamant that they would have heard something about such an operation, and yet they heard nothing.’

Macmillan made a gesture with his hands indicating ambivalence.

‘The cholera strain they used is sensitive to antibiotics, when it’s the easiest thing in the world for a lab to make bugs resistant and therefore treatment harder. They didn’t bother doing that.’

‘Even we get a bit lucky sometimes,’ said Macmillan with a half-hearted smile. When Steven’s expression didn’t change, he added, ‘Fair enough, it is a bit odd. So why didn’t they?’

‘I’m still thinking about that.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The spread of the epidemic has been surprisingly limited.’

‘I’ve been impressed with the way the authorities have responded,’ said Macmillan. ‘They’ve been on the ball from the word go.’

‘I know they’d like to believe that, and people will take credit wherever they can, but, as you said, cholera is a horrible disease … and spreads like wildfire. Do we really put it all down to good management?’

Macmillan sat with one hand under his chin, his index finger tapping his lower lip as he appeared to think back to his own experience of seeing the full horror in his youth. ‘Point taken,’ he said. ‘But what are you getting at?’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Steven. ‘I just need to … share my angst.’

Macmillan smiled.

‘And now, just as the terrorists are about to launch a second strike, someone shops the lot of them. As John Ricksen said, how lucky was that?’ 

‘So where does that leave us?’

‘All at sea.’

‘And in which direction do you intend rowing?’

‘I need to turn suspicion into fact,’ said Steven. ‘That means asking questions. I need to know if we were set up to believe that we foiled the Schiller Group’s plans. If we were, it would mean they’re still active.’

‘In which case you could be putting yourself in very grave danger,’ said Macmillan. ‘I suggest you call a full code red on this and pay a visit to the armourer.’

Steven nodded reluctantly. He disliked carrying weapons, and only did so when his life could be in real danger, but there was no denying the truth of what Macmillan had said. ‘I’ll go round first thing in the morning … and then have another word with Maxine French.’

The next day, having duly signed for a Glock 23 pistol and a supply of .40 calibre ammunition and been fitted with a shoulder holster, he went into the Home Office and asked Jean Roberts to call Maxine French. Would it be convenient for him to pop over and see her some time – preferably that morning? He could tell by the expression on Jean’s face that she was getting a positive response, and got up from his chair in anticipation.

‘She’d be delighted to see you,’ said Jean, putting down the phone. ‘She suggests you join her for coffee at eleven.’

Maxine welcomed Steven and left him admiring the view while she made coffee and returned with everything on a silver tray.

‘How can I help you, Dr Dunbar?’

‘Mrs French, the last time I saw you you very kindly handed over some disks that your husband had been keeping safe.’

‘Yes, government property, you said. Is something wrong?’

Steven still wasn’t sure in his own mind how to approach the problem, but now, faced with the smiling Maxine French, he had to make his decision. He took a sip of coffee. ‘Did anyone else have access to the disks you gave me?’

‘Yes,’ said Maxine, matter of factly, making the word music to Steven’s ears. ‘An executive called round from Deltasoft. He seemed to know about the disks, and said that when he was clearing Charles’s office he had come across the latest versions, which Charles obviously hadn’t had time to bring home. We exchanged them. I’m sorry. I should have mentioned it.’

‘No problem,’ said Steven. ‘No problem at all.’ He felt both relieved and apprehensive. The good thing was that he had made progress: he now knew for sure that Sci-Med had been set up to believe that there had been a plan to reintroduce the old Northern Health Scheme and it had ended with the explosion in Paris. There had never been any such plan, but knowing that now raised many more questions.

‘Did you know the man who came to see you?’

‘No, but he showed me ID. It’s quite a large company,’ said Maxine. ‘And I wasn’t involved in it at all. I think it fair to say I took as much interest in Charles’s computer business as he did in my charities. Not-a-lot, as that chap on the telly used to say.’

Steven smiled and wondered about Maxine’s marriage. He felt sure she’d been a loyal, supportive wife – probably the reason French had married her. She’d ticked all the boxes for service as a top-flight political animal’s wife. He hadn’t been looking for any sort of companion and she, coming from the same sort of background, hadn’t expected to be one.

‘Does the term Schiller Group mean anything to you, Mrs French?’ He watched Maxine carefully for a reaction, but none was visible. She shook her head.

‘Not in any meaningful way,’ she said, a reply that Steven found strange: his facial expression said so. Maxine explained. ‘I remember once at a dinner party we gave, one of the guests mentioned something about the Schiller Group and Charles told him to shut up. I thought it very rude of him but he was clearly very angry. I asked him about it later but he said it was something that didn’t concern me – something he said rather a lot, if truth be told. But then, I suppose that was because of his government involvement?’

Steven gave a knowing nod. ‘The price we all have to pay, I’m afraid, not being able to share things with our loved ones. Thank you, Mrs French. You’ve been a great help.’

He returned to the Home Office, feeling well satisfied with his morning’s work. He was particularly pleased that he’d managed to find out what he wanted to know without alerting anyone to the fact, particularly anyone connected with the Schiller Group.

Steven reflected that this was the first morning since the start of the emergency that there had not been a meeting of COBRA. There was one pencilled in for the following morning – more a case of not wanting to tempt fate by calling a complete halt to them, he suspected – but it was a sign that fear was being replaced by optimism. The epidemic could have been so much worse, as he’d noticed the newspapers were starting to point out when he flicked through the copies on his desk. Some of them were already taking to task the consultant microbiologists across the country who’d been predicting something much more serious.

Steven noticed that they were largely the same experts who’d been asked to pronounce on the swine flu ‘epidemic’, and was reminded of some questions of his own he wanted to ask. He needed to speak to someone about the course of the cholera epidemic and considered calling an old friend at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, but then he changed his mind. He needed something more than a strictly academic view. He called Lukas Neubauer at the Lundborg labs instead.

‘Steven, you have some work for me?’

‘Not right now, Lukas. I need to talk.’

‘Talk doesn’t put food in my children’s mouths. We could do with a big, juicy government contract down here. We’re bored stiff doing DNA analyses for paternity suit lawyers and
bacteriology
reports for councils closing down Chinese restaurants.’

‘Well, it keeps the Merc on the road,’ Steven joked, alluding to the Mercedes Lukas drove.

‘When would you like to come over, my friend?’

‘This afternoon?’

Dr Lukas Neubauer, a tall, Slavic-looking man, welcomed Steven with a smile and a firm handshake. ‘Maybe we can talk in the lab? I’ve got a couple of things on the go.’ Steven perched on a lab stool and rested an elbow on the bench while he waited for Neubauer to transfer a rack of tubes from one water bath to another and start a stop clock. ‘Now, what would you like to talk about?’

‘When you found that the cholera strain was sensitive to antibiotics, what was your first thought?’

Neubauer pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and put his head to one side. ‘I was surprised,’ he said. ‘But relieved too because it suggested the
Vibrio
had not been genetically altered.’

Neubauer’s reply had been simple and to the point, so he didn’t understand why Steven suddenly appeared spellbound. ‘Steven? Are you all right?’

‘Christ, that’s it.’

‘What’s what?’

‘That’s what we were meant to think. Did Colindale do any further analysis of the bug’s genetic make-up?’

‘I don’t think they did – everyone was so pleased that it was still sensitive to antibiotics. And, of course, it was quickly apparent that the enterotoxin had not been enhanced because people were recovering as long as they were kept hydrated.’

‘Can you get your hands on the bug? I can go through the usual channels but it might be quicker if we bypass them.’

‘I can ask my friend at Colindale. We have a licence to handle dangerous pathogens here so I can’t see any great problem.’ 

‘I need you to carry out a full analysis of it. Tell me
everything
you can as quickly as you can. Make it your number one priority.’

‘What are we looking for?’

‘I don’t know.’