The Lazarus Strain (16 page)

Adopting an air of resignation, Macmillan said, ‘Unfortunately, I have to agree with you . . . which leaves us with potentially a very big problem.’

‘What happened to the real Chloe; where is she; who has her and what do they intend doing with her?’

‘That just about covers everything,’ said Macmillan. ‘How is Dr Martin coming along with the vaccine?’

‘She’s optimistic, I understand.’

‘Thank God for that,’ said Macmillan. It sounded heartfelt.

‘Have you heard how the Elwoods are?’ asked Steven.

Macmillan looked thoughtful. He said, ‘Actually no. Lees was supposed to phone me last week about their condition. Strikes me, the way things are going, no news could be bad news.’ He pressed the intercom button and asked Jean Roberts to get him Nigel Lees at the Department of Health. Sitting back in his chair he crossed his legs and said, ‘So where do we go from here?’

Steven sighed and said, ‘Frank Giles of the Norfolk Police is faced with looking for someone named Ali in the Asian community and I’m left looking for a monkey that’s disappeared into thin air.’

The phone rang and Macmillan asked Lees about the Elwoods. Steven watched his face as he listened to the reply. It was not encouraging.

Macmillan replaced the receiver with deliberate slowness. ‘David Elwood is dead,’ he said. ‘Officially, bronchial complications setting in after treatment for animal bites . . . can happen in the elderly.’

‘And unofficially?’

‘Cambodia 5.’

‘And his wife?’

‘Not at all well. Could go either way.’

Steven shook his head and said, ‘What a mess. And all to be swept under the official carpet.’

‘Right now, we have other things to worry about,’ said Macmillan. ‘There’s a meeting of the
Earlybird
committee tomorrow. I’m going to voice your concerns about the virus.’

‘The monkey that attacked the Elwoods,’ said Steven. ‘It was one of the test animals which
had
received Devon’s experimental vaccine.’

‘Your point being?’

‘The vaccine didn’t work,’ said Steven. ‘The animal was infectious. I want to call Code Red status on this.’

Macmillan got up from his desk and walked slowly over to the window. Snow had just started to fall. ‘At times like this, Steven . . . retirement and the south of France seem very attractive . . . but you’re right. Code red status is granted.’ Almost as an afterthought he added, ‘You don’t suppose Dr Martin is using the same seed strain for her vaccine, do you?’

‘Maybe I’ll ask her,’ said Steven.

Requesting Code Red status meant that the investigator on the ground had decided that preliminary investigations were over and that there was a serious Sci-Med investigation to be made. If granted, all the stops would be pulled out to support that investigator and he would no longer be reliant on voluntary cooperation from police and other authorities. He would have full Home Office backing in making any requests he saw fit. He would have access to a wide range of auxiliary services ranging from lab support to the supply of weapons. Three admin staff in the Home Office would operate twenty four hour cover on a special telephone line for requests and inquiries coming in at any time of the day or night and special finance arrangements would be set up through the supply of two credit cards.

‘Jean will make arrangements and let you know in the usual way,’ said Macmillan.

When he got back to the flat, Steven wondered if he should phone Frank Giles and tell him of his suspicions surrounding the death of Robert Smith. He recognised that his reluctance had more than a little to do with the fact that he hadn’t been totally honest with Giles about the virus carried by the escaped animals. What made him even more uncomfortable was that he had used the same ruse as Nigel Lees in telling Giles that it was influenza without elaborating any further on the strain. He convinced himself that their motivation in doing so had been different. Lees had been trying to cover up a serious mistake in judgement while he had been . . . what exactly had his intentions been? He supposed after a moment’s thought that he had been afraid that Giles might have felt obliged to tell his superiors about the true identity of the virus and they in turn would have made the matter public, not out of concern but in order to protect themselves – the prime motivation for any form of warning being issued these days. He felt strongly that ‘Beware of Falling Rocks’ should be subtitled ‘Just so you can’t sue us’.

The real question he had to ask himself was, would the police investigation take a different course if he gave them a possible alternative motive for Robert Smith’s death? At the moment, they would be mounting a major offensive to tackle the animal rights brigade over the identity of Ali, hoping it might lead not only to him but also to the three Asian men in the Land Rover who had murdered Smith. He couldn’t see that changing even if he told Giles about his suspicions. For the moment he would let things take their course. It might be Machiavellian, but media pressure was on the police right now to hunt down Smith’s murderers and that was fine by him: he didn’t want to ease it any by throwing them a ready-made diversion concerning a monkey’s identity and a possible health hazard.

Steven’s mobile announced an incoming message. It said, ‘Dunbar: Code Green’, indicating that his Code Red status had been activated. It also listed a telephone number. Steven called it and made his first request to the duty officer. ‘I need to know something about how you buy monkeys in this country,’ he said. ‘How you go about it, who does it and who has been doing it over the past three months?’

ELEVEN

Steven called the Crick Institute and asked to speak to Leila Martin, telling the operator who he was and stressing that it was important. He still had to wait for over a minute but smiled when he heard the French sounding, ‘’Allo.’

‘Dr Martin? This is Steven Dunbar of Sci-Med.’

‘I remember, the science policeman.’

‘If you insist,’ said Steven. ‘Look, I know you must be terribly busy working on the vaccine but I’d really like to speak to you. There’s something I have to clear up and the sooner the better.’

‘I’m sure I’ll be here in the lab whenever you care to call,’ said Leila. ‘My social life seems to be a thing of the past.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Steven. ‘I know you’re in a race against the clock but it is important or I wouldn’t have bothered you.’

‘If you say so.’

‘It shouldn’t take long,’ said Steven. ‘How about tomorrow morning around eleven?’

‘I’ll be here.’

The first thing that struck Steven next morning when he saw Leila Martin walk towards him was that she managed to look sexy even in a loose-fitting lab coat. Not too many women managed that.

‘Nice to see you again,’ he said.

‘As you’re a policeman, I’m not sure I can say the same for you,’ said Leila, but she was smiling when she said it. ‘We can talk in my office.’

Leila took off her lab coat and hung it on the back of the door before smoothing her skirt and choosing to sit down and face Steven in front of her desk rather than from behind it. He couldn’t help thinking about the old Hollywood ruse of making beautiful actresses wear glasses when they wanted to suggest intelligence. Leila wore glasses. He couldn’t help but notice the sound her stockings made when she crossed her legs.

‘How can I help?’ she asked.

‘You probably remember that one of Professor Devon’s escaped experimental animals bit a member of the public?’

‘I remember well enough but the animals didn’t escape,’ corrected Leila. ‘They were deliberately set loose by the unspeakable people who murdered Tim Devon.’

Steven conceded the point. ‘The man who was bitten died a couple of nights ago in a private clinic. His wife is now also very ill.’

‘Are you going to tell me that they were infected with the Cambodia 5 virus?’ asked Leila.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Oh my God, that is awful.’

‘I take it you knew nothing about Professor Devon working with Cambodia 5?’

Leila shook her head. ‘I knew of course, that he was running some experiments that he couldn’t talk about – we all knew that - but not that he was working with Cambodia 5 here in the institute. I didn’t know about that until the people from your Department of Health approached me after Tim’s death and asked me if I would continue development of the vaccine.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Steven. ‘The thing is, the animal that bit the dead man had been vaccinated before being challenged with Cambodia 5 and yet it still proved to be infectious . . . We were wondering if you were using the same seed strain for your vaccine?’

‘Because if I was, it would be no good?’ said Leila.

Steven nodded.

‘Relax, Dr Dunbar. Professor Devon left notes on three possible seed strains he had constructed and hoped could be used against the Cambodia 5 strain. I found a slight flaw in the one he chose to try first so I rejected that in favour of one of the others when I took over.’

‘A slight flaw?’ said Steven, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.

‘No criticism of the professor intended,’ said Leila reading his mind. ‘Tim didn’t have the results of some tests available to him when he had to make the decision. Certain aspects of the haemaglutinin structure made the strain unsuitable for vaccine production.’

‘I see,’ said Steven. ‘Can I ask how your work is going?’

‘Perhaps you would like to come down to the lab and see for yourself?’

‘I’d love to.’

‘You’ll have to gown up.’

Steven was shown to a cloakroom outside the lab suite where he changed into green surgical scrubs and put plastic covers over his shoes. He covered his hair with a surgical hood and adjusted his mask so that his mouth and nose were properly covered. He met Leila outside.

‘We will not be going into the virus lab itself,’ she explained, ‘but even so, I don’t want to risk introducing any contaminants from the outside world. As you know, if bacteria were to get into the egg culture room we would lose everything and there would be no time to start again. We all gown up, even for the outer rooms.’

Leila placed her key in the electronic lock outside the lab and entered a five digit code: the mechanism buzzed and the door clicked open. Leila nodded to the technicians who were working inside and led the way over to a long, rectangular window in the far wall. ‘That’s where the race is being run,’ she said.

Steven looked through the glass into an adjoining lab where row upon row of hens’ eggs were incubating under dull red lights.

‘The seed virus for a vaccine against the Cambodia 5 strain,’ said Leila. ‘It’s now just a question as to whether enough will grow up in time to make the schedule for commercial production.’

They both watched as a technician working inside the egg lab examined the eggs one at a time by holding them over a simple box with a light source inside it. The Technician, who was wearing a full biohazard suit, acknowledged Leila’s presence at the window and angled the box so that she and Steven could see what he could see. The light shining through the thin shell showed up the developing embryo inside. The extra heat from the light bulb made it move. Steven thought it looked like an ultra sound scan of a human foetus.

‘We inject the virus into the amniotic cavity,’ said Leila. ‘And let nature take its course.’

‘Can you monitor viral growth?’ asked Steven.

‘We occasionally withdraw amniotic fluid from a single egg to check the titre,’ said Leila. ‘One egg will yield about two millilitres of amniotic fluid containing several billion virus particles if the conditions are right.’

‘But of course, there’s no way of knowing whether the seed strain you’ve chosen will be effective against the Cambodia virus until you try it?’ said Steven.

‘That’s true,’ said Leila. ‘But we can do certain lab tests,’ said Leila. ‘Of course, animal tests are out of the question after what happened.’

‘Quite so,’ said Steven.

‘Tests on monkeys – the only real way to be sure if the vaccine would be effective or not - would have to be carried out at a secure facility such as Porton Down or Fort Dietrich in the USA and there won’t be time for that.’

‘So it’ll be lab tests or nothing if the strain is to make this year’s vaccine?’

‘
Oui
.’

‘Will that really be good enough?’ asked Steven. He saw the smile reflected in Leila’s eyes above her mask.

‘Depends on how great the risk of a pandemic is perceived as being,’ she said. ‘And how badly governments want to protect their citizens.’

‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

‘The seed strain won’t work and the vaccine won’t provide any protection at all against the Cambodia strain.’

‘Then it sounds like there’s nothing to lose by giving it a try if it’s ready on time,’ said Steven.

‘That would be my view too,’ agreed Leila. ‘But the American FDA and the British MHPRA may have different ideas. They may want a different third strain incorporated in the vaccine – one that has been tried and tested.’

‘And which would be no good at all against an outbreak of the Cambodian virus?’ said Steven.

Leila nodded ruefully and added, ‘But no one would sue them for having taken a risk with public safety.’

Beware of falling rocks, thought Steven.

‘How much do you know about flu virus?’ asked Leila.

‘I’m no expert.’

‘Come, I’ll show you what we’ve been doing with it.’ She led Steven into her small office in the lab suite and spread an illustration of the virus particle on the desk. ‘You see, it is these spike-like molecules – the haemaglutinins – that bind to receptors on the surface of the cell that we have been concentrating on. If we can stimulate antibodies in the human body to attack them we will prevent the virus entering the cell and if it can’t get into the cell . . .’

‘It can’t replicate,’ said Steven.

‘Exactly.’

‘Then I wish you all the luck in the world, Doctor.’

‘Leila, please.’

‘And I’m Steven.’ He seized the moment. ‘Perhaps I could repay you for the tour by offering you dinner?’