Scorpion's Advance (11 page)

The slight smile was still on Mirit's face as she nodded and left the room.

Anderson felt distinctly uneasy. There was nothing he would have liked more than to believe it had been a terrorist that had shot at him in Caesarea, but he could not believe that and he suspected
Mirit Zimmerman had some unspoken reason for not believing it either. He wondered what it was.

Anderson was discharged from hospital in the morning and returned to Tel Aviv, pausing only briefly at his apartment before going up to the university where he found Myra Freedman alone in the main lab. He had to explain the head bandage before finding out what stage the toxin tests were at.

'Cohen inoculated the animals last night and set up two drug tests, tetracycline and ceporin,' Myra told him. 'He said that he would be in to see you this morning but hasn't appeared yet.'

'I'll check the animals,' said Anderson.

The door to the isolation suite was locked when Anderson tried it but the rattle attracted a technician who came over with the keys. It was strangely quiet, thought Anderson. He read the labels on the cages and found the toxin tests. Cohen had inoculated six mice, each with a different dilution of the filtered fluid from the plasmid-Galomycin mix. In addition he had inoculated two control animals, one with the neat fluid and one with only sterile culture medium.

Anderson examined the control mice first. The one which had received the undiluted fluid was stiff and dead, the other alive and well. Controls OK, now for the dilutions. One in a thousand . . . Dead. One in ten thousand. . . Dead. One in a hundred thousand . . .
Dead. The hair rose on the back of Anderson's neck as he went along the line. Last one. One in ten million . . . ‘Dead. Good God Almighty!’ said Anderson under his breath. 'Can't be ... Please God, it can't be.' He rechecked the dilution figures on the labels. There was no mistake.

Before returning to the lab, Anderson looked at the two guinea pigs used for the new drug tests. Both were dead.
Galomycin was not the only drug to trigger off the plasmid. Tetracycline and ceporin would be just as lethal. It was shaping up to be one of those days with a vengeance.

There must be some mistake,' exclaimed Strauss, when Anderson told him of the toxin tests. This would mean . . . ' He paused to reach behind him for a book, flicking through the pages till he found the information he was looking for. 'Yes, this would mean that the toxin from the plasmid is ten times more lethal than that from the bacterium
Clostridium botulinum.
And that, Doctor, as we both know, is the most powerful poison known to man.'

'I rechecked Dr Cohen's labels. There is no mistake.'

'Is Dr Cohen in the lab?'

'No,' said Anderson. 'Myra said that he hasn't been in this morning.'

'Repeat the experiment, Doctor.'

'Very well.'

'And, Doctor?'

'Yes?'

'What happened to your head?'

'I hurt it on the beach.'

Anderson told Myra of Strauss's decision. ‘I’ll inoculate the cultures,' she said. On finding the fridge empty Anderson asked her where the Galomycin was. 'In Cohen's lab. He used it through there yesterday.'

Anderson walked into Cohen's empty lab and looked in the fridge. He found the
Galomycin but as he stood up again he thought he detected a peculiar smell, an unpleasant smell, a smell that filled him with foreboding. It was the indefinable smell that all medical people come to associate with death.

Anderson's increasing heart rate made his head wound pulse painfully as he walked slowly across the lab to Cohen's bench and looked down behind it to have his worst fears realized. Cohen was lying
spread-eagled on the floor; he had been dead for some time and the bared teeth and agonized expression told Anderson exactly how he had come to die.

Before doing anything else, Anderson told Strauss what he had found. Together they returned to Cohen's lab and locked the door behind them.

'Plasmid death,' said Strauss, looking at the face.

'Unmistakable,' agreed Anderson.

Strauss knelt down stiffly beside the body and murmured, 'Poor Arieh. He was always so careful.'

'Yesterday we didn't know how powerful the toxin really was,' said Anderson. 'He must have been working with the pure stuff.'

Anderson was examining the bits and pieces lying on Cohen's work area, trying to deduce what had happened, when Strauss called him back to the body. He pointed to Cohen's right hand and to a cut in the surgical glove he was still wearing. Dark blood stained the inside where it had spread by capillary attraction between the skin and the tight-fitting glove.

Anderson nodded. That looks like it,' he said, looking around the floor by the body for something that could have made the cut. He found what he was looking
for, a thin scalpel fitted with a number eleven blade. He showed it to Strauss who shrugged then shook his head in sorrow. 'Damn, damn, damn,' he said as he got unsteadily to his feet.

Anderson looked down at Cohen's body while Strauss picked up the phone. Poetic justice? he wondered. He heard Strauss say, 'There has been an accident in my laboratory. Dr Cohen is dead.'

The death of
Arieh Cohen put an immediate stop to working with the plasmid and its toxin in the open lab. Strauss insisted that the maximum containment facility in the basement of the building be opened and used for all future work. It was agreed that only Anderson and Myra Freedman would work there, with a supply of lab animals being put in for them.

Anderson was depressed at the thought of having to work under the restrictions imposed by the containment suite but agreed that it was now imperative. Such facilities were designed for work with the most highly dangerous materials where the prime consideration was to prevent their escape to the outside world.

The first line of defence in the system was the use of differential air pressure. The suite was constantly maintained at a lower atmospheric pressure than the area surrounding it so that no air could escape. People working in the suite had to get in and out, of course, but such movement was restricted by the elaborate entry and exit procedures which demanded that workers remove all their outside clothes and pass through a series of airlocks and showers before donning the masks, coveralls and boots they would wear for the duration of their work period. Leaving meant stripping and showering again. No article was ever removed from the containment suite without first being rendered safe; in the case of biological contamination, by passage through a sterilizing autoclave equipped with double doors and embedded in the wall of the suite.

For the protection of
workers inside the facility, inoculation hoods were standard for dealing with bacteria and viruses. These were glass-fronted cabinets fitted with armholes and a range of internal lighting options including ultraviolet for disinfection when not being used. The base was a watertight tray which could be flooded with an appropriate sterilizing agent should accidental spillage occur. The degree of protection afforded by these cabinets was, to a certain extent, offset by the loss of sensitivity imposed by using the gloved armholes. No one liked them. Everything seemed to take twice as long.

When the differential air pressure had stabilized in the containment suite, Anderson showered, donned protective clothing and passed through the airlock. He adjusted his respirator mask till it seemed comfortable but knew from past experience that there was no position that would seem right after a couple of hours. Myra Freedman joined him in similar garb, gown, Wellingtons and respirator. He saw her eyes smile above the mask and nodded. It was going to be a long day.

'Thank God!' said Myra as they met outside the airlock. 'I feel like a nun.'

The elevator took them up to the sixth floor where Strauss was waiting. 'Everything all right?' he asked them. Anderson told him that
they had repeated Cohen's experiment with even more dilutions and set up two more antibiotic tests. 'Excellent. A word, if you please, Doctor.' Anderson made a face at Myra Freedman and followed Strauss into his office. 'I had a call from the military authorities in Hadera,' said Strauss.

'Oh,' said Anderson.

'Your "accident" on the beach was a little more dramatic than you had me believe.'

Anderson apologized, saying that he didn't want any fuss to distract them from the real problems.

Strauss smiled. The stiff upper lip of the English, eh?'

'I'm Scots,' said Anderson.

'Forgive me,' said Strauss with another smile. 'Mrs Strauss and I would be delighted if you would join us for dinner this evening.'

Anderson enjoyed the evening with Jacob and Miriam Strauss. He had hoped that Strauss might speak again of science and medicine as he had on the first occasion in his office, but it was not to be. Out of deference to Miriam, who was not a doctor or scientist, the conversation was kept more general. Anderson told them about his family home in Dumfries and what he and his sister had got up to when they were young and running free on the hills of Galloway. Miriam laughed loudly and shook her head in mock despair. 'I can sympathize with your poor mother!' she said.

'Do you have any family?' Anderson asked.

Miriam's face clouded a little before the smile returned and she said, 'Two boys.
Dov, he's a biologist like his father. He works in America.'

Anderson looked at Strauss, expecting him to say something but he appeared to avert his eyes. He looked again at Miriam.

'And Jacob, our youngest son. He was killed in the war, doing his military service.'

Anderson felt bad. He wished that he had never asked. Now both his hosts were looking at the floor.

'Your glass is empty,' said Strauss, breaking the spell. Anderson returned to his apartment building just after eleven-thirty and found that some of the American students were sitting on the lawn outside with guitars and the inevitable folk songs. Miles Langman was with them. He came over as he saw Anderson and greeted him like a long-lost brother, asking where the hell he had been for the last two days. Anderson looked at the smiling face and gave it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Langman was just a friendly guy, interested in everything. Americans were like that. . .

'It's a long story.'

'Want to talk?'

'Sure.'

They stopped at the second floor while Langman collected beer from the fridge then climbed up to the roof to sit with their backs against the parapet. Anderson let out a long sigh.

'Problems?' asked
Langman.

'It's been one shit-awful day,' said Anderson. 'Make that two,' he added, touching the wound on his head. He told
Langman of his trip to Caesarea and his discovery that Klein hadn't actually gone there when he had left Tel Aviv.

'A girlfriend?' suggested
Langman.

And
erson shrugged. 'I think that's probably when the little bastard did the secret cloning with Cohen from the lab, but now we'll never know.'

'Why not?'

Anderson told him of Cohen's death.

'
Oooooeeeee,' sighed Langman. 'Acid. Terrorist bullets. People dropping dead. It's not much of a vacation.'

'It was never going to be that.'

'If Cohen and Klein are both dead, what are you going to do now?'

'Find a drug to wipe out that bloody plasmid and get my arse out of here.'

'Figures.'

'Mind you,' said Anderson, after a sudden thought about what
Langman had suggested earlier. 'If Klein
did
have a girlfriend, she might know where his lab book was. She might even know where he went during the missing ten days . . . ' The idea brought him out of his depression.

'How will you find out?' asked
Langman.

‘I’ll ask Myra.'

Anderson had a restless night. His sleep was constantly disturbed by a dream of the beach at Caesarea in which he was running on sand so soft that it threatened to swallow him, and always, in the background, was the beautiful Mirit Zimmerman, smiling at him in a strangely distant way and moving slowly backwards into the sea. Anderson woke for the umpteenth time as the sand was about to cover his face. He got up, switched on the electric kettle and showered while it boiled. By the time he had freed himself of sweat and drunk his coffee he was sure of one thing. He had to see Mirit Zimmerman again and find out what she really knew about the attack in Caesarea.

Strauss provided Anderson with the telephone number of the military authorities in
Hadera. He phoned before going down to the containment suite, using the pretext of a lost camera.

'One moment,' said the voice,
‘I’ll see if she's on duty.' The moment became a minute, then two. Anderson twisted and untwisted the phone wire round his index finger as he waited.

'You have lost a camera, Dr Anderson?' said
Mirit Zimmerman's voice. She sounded puzzled.

'Actually . . . no,' Anderson confessed.
‘I needed an excuse to speak to you.'

'What about?'

'Did you catch the terrorist up in Caesarea?'

'No.'

'Did you find any evidence of terrorist activity in that region?'

'Really, Doctor, I don't
think that I can discuss . . .'

'Forgive me,' interrupted Anderson, 'I know that this must sound most improper. It's just that... I don't think it was a terrorist who attacked me.'

'Oh?'

'And I don't think you do either.'

'I don't remember saying anything to give you that impression.'

'You didn't have to. I saw it in your face.'

'I don't think that we can discuss this over the telephone.'

'Then will you meet me?' asked Anderson.

'Doctor, if you have any information that could be of use to the authorities you must . . .'

'I know what I should do, Captain, but I have no
evidence, only bad feelings, scared feelings. I’d really like to talk to you.'

There was a l
ong pause before Mirit said, 'Very well. I'll be home in Jerusalem at the weekend; I'll meet you for lunch on Sunday.'

Anderson breathed a sigh of relief. Thanks. Where do I meet you?'

'The Jaffa Gate at noon.' The phone went dead.

Anderson found Myra Freedman, who had been waiting for him, and they took the lift down to the containment suite. He took the opportunity of being alone with Myra to ask if Martin Klein had had a girlfriend.

'Yes. Shula Ron, one of the undergraduates.'

'Where do I find her?'

'At home probably, it's vacation time. Why do you ask?'

Anderson told her about the missing ten days in Klein's life. 'I want to find out if she knows where he was, what he was doing.'

Myra pulled out the cage containing the mouse that had only received an injection of sterile culture fluid. It was alive and well and in a minority of one. By the end of the examination the bench was littered with the corpses of ten dead mice and two dead guinea pigs. Anderson lowered his respirator slowly and shook his head.

‘
Two more drugs today?' asked Myra quietly.

‘
Two more. But first I want to talk to Strauss.'

'So there's no mistake,' said Strauss when Anderson told him of the mouse tests.

"Fraid not. Botulism is no longer the world's most powerful toxin. We've got a new number one.'

Strauss said something in Hebrew but Anderson felt confident with the translation he guessed at.

'I have been doing some calculations,' said Strauss. He took a glass from the tray on his desk that held a water carafe. ‘This much plasmid toxin,' he said, holding out the glass, 'would kill all of Tel Aviv.' Anderson stayed silent. ‘The point is, Doctor, what do we do?' said Strauss.

'Have you informed the authorities?' asked Anderson.

'No, I have not,' said Strauss with great deliberation. 'I said Tel Aviv but I could have said Damascus or Beirut.'

Anderson was aware that Strauss was watching for his reaction but he still didn't say anything.

'How many people know about the plasmid?' asked Strauss.

'Quite a few,' said Anderson.

'How many people know of the toxin's true potency?'

'You, me, Myra Freedman.'

'So there's still a chance,' said Strauss thoughtfully.

'A chance?'

'Doctor, I will be frank. I do not want to hand this over to the authorities . . . any authorities. I do not trust the military mind.' He looked long and hard at Anderson before saying, 'I will undertake to destroy all sources of the plasmid in this laboratory if you will agree to do the same when you return ... no reports, no paperwork, just a simple act ... a simple human act for good.'

Anderson's mind played with the words. A simple act
, a simple, unprofessional act, a simple, unscientific act, a simple, career-destroying act, but, an act for good.

'Very well,' he said, I agree.'

‘Good,' said Strauss, with obvious relief.

'But,' said Anderson, 'there may be another source of the plasmid. We don't know for sure that Klein made it in this lab.'

'But where? When?'

Anderson told him about the missing ten days.

'I see.'

'To be brutally honest, Professor, I believe that Klein did the secret cloning during those ten days and I don't think he did it alone. I think
Arieh Cohen was involved.' Anderson waited for an angry reaction but it didn't come. Instead, Strauss sighed deeply and said, 'I didn't know about the ten days, of course, but I am bound to say that I have nurtured similar suspicions.'

'But why would they do such a thing?'

Strauss shook his head. 'Why do men do such things? What a question to ask a Jew, my friend.'

'It's just plain evil,' said Anderson.

'It's also puzzling,' said Strauss. Anderson waited for an explanation. 'Has it occurred to you that such a weapon might be considered rather primitive for this day and age?' Anderson shrugged. Strauss continued, 'I just can't understand why anyone, even someone evil, should set out to design a toxin when binaries and nerve agents took over a long time ago in biological weapons.'