The Secret (Dr Steven Dunbar 10) (13 page)

Steven left Liam and headed off to walk by the river. He was glad that he now had help on the inside
, and the revelation about the disk was exciting. If Simone had thought it necessary to keep the disk and its key separate, she might have suspected there was more to it than vaccination schedules. Alternatively, she might simply have assumed that the disk and the card were copies of the same information – proof of faulty vaccination practices – and she’d kept them separate because she’d been unsure about whom among her colleagues she could trust.

Despite making good progress he started to feel very uneasy about what he was planning next. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d crossed the line of what was strictly legal in the course of an investigation – sometimes it was unavoidable – but this time it was different
. It was just . . . downright stupid. That was the depressing conclusion he reached as he leaned on the embankment wall to take in the view.

Below him, about thirty metres away, a man in a knitted hat was sweeping
the exposed low-tide mud with a metal detector, wholly captivated by the prospect of unearthing buried treasure. Steven couldn’t help but see the parallel. He’d been planning an unauthorised entry to a university lab to search for the answer to a puzzle but there was something that he’d been failing to properly acknowledge. He was seeking to uncover a secret that the governments of the UK and the US and their intelligence services didn’t want him to know. Was he out of his mind? He had to be if he really believed he was going to find it lying around. The guy with the metal detector had more chance of coming up with the Koh-i-Noor.

Steven was tempted to abandon all thoughts of a break-in, either assisted or unassisted
, but steeled himself to go on thinking things through from every angle as he’d done so often in the past. At last he thought he might have found a loophole. The work that Hausman was doing might be top secret but it wasn’t being carried out in a top security lab like those you’d find at Fort Detrick or Porton Down. Why not? Because . . . the North lab was a more suitable place for the work . . . but this had to be for scientific not security reasons. That was the compromise that must have been made. The North lab must have expertise that was relevant to the work. There was a connection with polio.

Steven felt a little better. His conclusion fitted well with what Liam had told him about Tom North
's being in on what was going on – something he’d been unsure about. It also made sense because he would have had to agree at some point to taking Hausman into his lab, although perhaps he’d been under some government pressure to do so.

U
nfortunately, according to Liam North’s office had been cleared out so any carelessness an academic might have shown in record keeping or file storage couldn’t be exploited. Hausman was a different kettle of fish. He was CIA; it would be second nature for him to cover his tracks.

Steven cursed under his breath as he seemed to be back where he started . . . but he wasn’t.
Hausman might be rock solid but the lab
and its resources
weren’t. Hausman would have had to use – and still be using – the university computer system, its servers and IT provisions. Could this be the Achilles heel he was looking for?

Next day Steven
talked things through with John Macmillan. ‘With a bit of luck we might still be able to access some of Tom North’s stuff on the university computer system as well as have a go at accessing stuff from Hausman.’

‘You mean on their servers and back-up systems?’

‘Precisely.’

Macmillan nodded. ‘So how do we go about doing it? It’ll require a high degree of computer expertise . . . which gives us a bit of a dilemma. Under normal circumstances we’d just call in expert assistance from one or more of our consultants . . .’

‘But in this case we can’t because we’d be soliciting their help in committing an illegal act,’ Steven completed.

‘An illegal act against our own government. Difficult.’

Both men sat in silence with the distant sounds of London traffic appearing to become louder because of the quiet in the room. Eventually, Macmillan posed a question. ‘We’ve been assuming that all the authorities are in on this secret. Can you think of one that isn’t?’

Steven thought back to t
he meeting they’d had with the Foreign Secretary and heads of the security services. Who was present . . . and who wasn’t. ‘The police?’ he ventured.

‘The police,’ Macmillan repeated with a smile. ‘It’s my guess that someone decided that
London’s boys in blue didn’t need to know what was going on.’

‘Maybe time for a lunch with Charlie?’ Steven suggested. He was referring to Chief Superintendent Charles Malloy, a friend of Macmillan’s who had been helpful to
Sci-Med in the past. Steven knew and liked him too. He was his own man and didn’t always go by the book – maybe something that had denied him access to the very top of the career pole.

Macmillan nodded. ‘We’ll have to be very clear about what we’re asking of him. It could be his head on the block as well as ours.
'

Steven agreed.

‘So what are we asking?’

‘Supposing the police had some reason to enter
City College and confiscate computer equipment . . . lots of it,’ suggested Steven.

‘What reason did you have in mind?’

‘Porn,’

Macmillan raised his eyebrows.

‘As bad as it gets. We find a way to plant the stuff on their system and tip off the police. Once we have the gear, Charlie lets our experts examine everything only it won’t be porn we’ll be looking for.’

‘The “planting” bit makes me nervous,’ said Macmillan. ‘Charlie would have to agree to it from the outset.’

‘Of course,’ Steven said. ‘In fact, I was thinking, maybe he might come up with the material we need. You know, stuff confiscated by the police? I mean, I don’t think I could convince Tally I was working at home without sustaining grievous bodily harm.’

‘Lady Macmillan might not be too amused either,’ said Macmillan. ‘I’ll ask Jean.’

‘For porn?’

‘To set up lunch as soon as possible.’

Steven decided to say nothing to Liam about the proposal until Macmillan had approached Charlie: he now knew that would be on Thursday. It promised to be a big day for more than one reason, as Tally would be interviewed for the Great Ormond Street job then. She was taking two days' leave and would travel to London on Wednesday, staying overnight at with him at Marlborough Court before returning to Leicester after the interview to be on duty first thing on Friday morning.

That
left Wednesday as a bit of a limbo day. Steven passed the morning cleaning and tidying the flat and thinking about how they might ‘infect’ the City College computer system, assuming Charlie Malloy agreed to the plan – and the more he thought about that the less likely it seemed. He hadn’t come to any conclusion by the time Tally arrived and admired his efforts.

Steven found her looking out of the window when he brought coffee through from the small kitchen. ‘Penny for them,’ he said.

‘I was wondering what it would be like to live here,’ she replied.

‘And?’

‘I think it would be just fine.’

They set off for lunch ‘somewhere in the country’
in accordance Tally’s request when he’d spoken to her the night before – ‘Somewhere where I can take in great breaths of clean, fresh air without the remotest suggestion of hospital smells.’

Steven had decided to put aside thoughts of work for the day and offer Tally his full support
, although it did occur to him as they drove out of town, heading for the south coast, that the fact that Liam hadn’t contacted him yet probably meant that he’d failed to locate the disk.

‘How are you feeling?’ he
asked when they’d placed their order at the country pub he’d decided on.

‘Exactly how you think I’m feeling,’ Tally replied with a
wry smile. ‘I think I may have over-reached myself in applying for this one.’

‘Nonsense. You couldn’t do any such thing. You’re the best. I keep telling you that.’

‘You do and I thank you for it but I think I’m the realistic one in this duo. I mean, Great Ormond Street, what was I thinking of?’

‘You’ll see tomorrow. You
r references will be fantastic and they’ll see in you exactly what they’re looking for: an outstanding physician who cares deeply about her patients – to the extent that she refuses to take a holiday even when the job is threatening her health.’

‘
Let’s not go there. There’s nothing wrong with my health,’ Tally growled.

‘Nothing that a holiday wouldn’t cure.’

‘Dunbar!’

The waitress, a
pleasant Australian girl who was ‘doing Europe’, returned with their food and interrupted what Tally was about to say. Tally and Steven sat looking at each other while the plates were placed before them, Tally adopting a mock threatening expression while Steven favoured a smug, schoolboy grin.

‘Things will be easier when you’re a consultant,’ said Steven, continuing with the tease. ‘We’ll be going away all the time.’

‘Are you going to stop this?’

‘Mind you, in my experience, there are certain things you’ll have to do if you hope to be accepted as a real medical consultant.’

‘Like what?’

‘Wear red trousers and
a bow tie, adopt a very loud voice and play golf.’

Tally couldn’t stop herself laughing. ‘You’re impossible,’ she said.

By Thursday evening Liam Kelly was disappointed that he hadn’t heard anything more from Steven Dunbar. Over the past twenty-four hours
he had undergone a change of heart. His initial reluctance to become involved in anything not entirely above board had been replaced by the seductive thought that he might actually be entering the world of spies and secrets; Bond film territory. He recognised it was a bit soon to be changing from Guinness in the students’ union to vodka martinis at the Ritz – damn, he couldn’t remember if they should be stirred or shaken – but to a 22 year-old red-blooded male the idea of being part of a scenario involving top secret defence establishments, the CIA and classified research was proving very exciting indeed.

Maybe if his association with Steven were to go well, a position with
Sci-Med might even be a possibility – after he’d finished his PhD, of course. His research was still important to him, and, up until now he hadn’t even considered an alternative to a career in academia, but it wouldn’t do any harm to widen his horizons a little.

Steven had mentioned at one point that all
Sci-Med investigators had to be well qualified in either science or medicine so he was on track there. He didn’t know what other qualifications were required but he could see himself presenting his ID, just as Steven had done . . . the embossed government crest . . . the photograph . . . Dr L. Kelly, Her Majesty’s Sci-Med Inspectorate. Pulling power or what?

Liam put aside the scientific paper he’d been reading
; new work on viral receptors had momentarily become less intriguing than wondering how he might speed things up in his other ‘mission’. He’d managed to sneak a look through the stuff on the shelves above Dan Hausman’s desk that very afternoon but without success. There had been no sign of the disk but he’d had to hurry as there were others around in the lab and any one of them might have come into the small office area at any moment. His heart had been pounding and he’d felt physically sick when doing it – perhaps not the best of starts to his new career but lost ground might be recovered if he were to go back to the lab tonight and conduct a more thorough search. He would don a pair of surgical gloves and work his way through the drawers of Dan’s desk.

Steven could not fail to be impressed if he were to turn up with the disk and casually hand it over. It would be a big step in the right direction. He could even see them having a celebratory drink afterwards, just a couple of guys who’d outwitted the CIA in the interests of Her Majesty’s Government. He put on his denim jacket, checked the back pocket of his jeans for his lab card-key and told his flatmate he was ‘going out for a bit’.

Despite having gone into the lab after hours many times before, tonight seemed distressingly different for Liam. He felt nervous, he felt anxious, but most of all he felt guilty. The night was full of eyes, watching him and reading the sign
up to no good
he felt must be tattooed on his forehead. He hated himself for feeling that way – even his palms were sweaty as he inserted his card-key into the lock and stabbed in his code with his index finger. He didn’t realise that this was the way most normal, law-abiding citizens would feel in a situation like this – about to knowingly do wrong with possible serious consequences.

The darkened entrance hall
did have lighting but only dim night-lights that seemed to magnify the size and imagined malevolence of the shadows as Liam made his way to the lifts. He was glad he was wearing trainers: they were quiet and didn’t echo. The lift machinery ground into action and a car started its descent, immediately making him wonder why it wasn’t at ground level in the first place. Someone must have recently gone up in it.

So what? said the voice of common sense inside his head. Lots of people came and went at all hours of the day and night in a place like thi
s. It was a research institute for God’s sake. Research wasn’t a nine till five job. He knew that and yet . . . Someone had been smoking in the lift was his first thought as he stepped inside and pressed the button. Not allowed, definitely not allowed. Mind you, it could have been someone who’d been smoking outside the building and the smell had still been clinging to their clothes. Shit, he’d gone from being 007 to working for Health and Safety.

The lift stopped and, for a moment, Liam considered going right back down again and making a run for home. His flirtation with the world of shadows and adrenalin rushes was over. This really wasn’t his thing; he was a nervous wreck. A life in academia would be just fine. The world of woolly sweaters and bicycles, seminars and blackboards beckoned him back.

He held down the ‘door open’ button for a full five seconds before finally overcoming his angst and stepping out over the threshold. It’s your own lab, man; you’ve every right to be here, said the voice of reason. Don’t be a complete girls’ blouse. He managed a brave but tuneless whistle as he walked along the corridor to the lab. There it was again, a vague smell of tobacco.

As he reached the frosted glass swing
doors to the North lab, he imagined a change in the darkness inside, a change that he couldn’t quite put his finger on but had to ascribe to the blue funk he was in. The lights weren’t on inside but the many windows allowed in light from neighbouring buildings and the street lights below. He turned on the lab lights and paused while the fluorescent strips stuttered into life. The lab looked just like it always did.

Liam walked over to his bench and lit the Bunsen burner. He wanted to create the suggestion of a reason for his being here should a security man look in. He perched on his stool, taking comfort for a moment from the sound and warmth of the burner flame and the air of normality it was providing. He shook his head and just couldn’t understand his nerves. What an idiot.

Liam got together a series of bits and pieces of lab glassware and a bottle of culture medium. He really would set up a few cultures before he left just in case anyone should suspect that he’d been in and ask about it. With that done, he took out a pair of latex gloves from the box above his bench and put them on as he walked towards the closed door of the side room where Dan had his desk.

Liam wrinkled his nose as competing smells reached him; one was that damned tobacco smell again and the other was . . . human vomit. He put his hand to his
face – adding latex to the mix – and stopped in his tracks. What the hell was going on? His nerves had returned like a swift incoming tide. Was he really smelling these things or was tension screwing up his senses?

Once again he was tempted to turn and head for home but the office door was only a metre away and his bench alibi looked just fine – as if he’d been working for the past thirty minutes. Five minutes more and he’d be done searching through the drawers. Surely he could hold himself together that long? Of course he could.

Liam opened the office door and light from the main lab entered to reveal a tableau from hell. An Asian man was standing there, pointing a pistol fitted with a silencer at him. Slumped in his desk chair and secured with tape was Dan Hausman. His face, swollen and distorted, spoke of the agony he was clearly in; a pool of vomit where he’d thrown up lay at his feet. Liam felt sickness well up in his own throat.

‘Come inside. Shut the door behind you,’ sa
id Dr Ranjit Khan of Pakistani intelligence.

Liam did as he was told
.

‘Sit down in the other chair, back to me.’

Once again Liam complied. His fear was such that he had difficulty controlling his limbs and his mind was rebelling against taking in any more horror but he could now see that the damage to Hausman’s face and bare chest where his shirt had been ripped open had not been done by beating. The thick glass bottle on the desk and the glass dropper beside it testified to that. Smoke was curling up from the neck of the open bottle. Liam recognised the swimming baths smell – the fumes of hydrochloric acid. Hausman’s left cheek was blistering badly and his lower lip was already deformed.

Lia
m struggled to say something and Khan hit him sharply across the back of his neck with the side of his hand, a blow hard enough to stun him and make sure that he was only vaguely aware of being trussed up with tape like Hausman. When he struggled back into full consciousness his assailant asked, ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Liam Kelly . . . I’m a student.’

‘Your colleague here has something I want, Mr Kelly. He’s being rather awkward about it. But then he’s CIA . . . all that training.’

‘CIA?’ exclaimed Liam, hoping that somewhere in his croaking reply, surprise had registered.

‘I keep telling you . . .’ groaned Hausman through burnt lips, ‘I don’t have the damned key . . .’

‘Of course you do,’ said Khan with a calm assurance that Liam found chilling. ‘You’re a credit to your service
, but perhaps you’ll feel differently about things when you watch me trickle acid slowly down Mr Kelly’s forehead and see it enter his eyes.’

Liam lost control of his bladder sphincter as his head was jerked back by the hair and Khan filled the pipette with acid. ‘Aren’t you CIA chaps supposed to protect the innocent? Or is that just so much American crap, the sort of stuff your president spouts every time he steps in front of a camera?’

‘He hasn’t got it,’ said Liam, his voice becoming a scream, having risen a full octave. ‘It didn’t come here. Dr Ricard sent it somewhere else.’

Khan seemed surprised. ‘What the hell do you know about this?’

‘Not much,’ Liam gasped as his head was jerked back further. ‘Just that she sent the key you’re looking for to a friend.’ He couldn’t take his eyes off the glass dropper and its contents. It was being held about six inches from his face. The fumes from the open bottle of acid on the desk were already attacking his nasal mucosa.

‘What friend?’

‘Dr Steven Dunbar of the Sci-Med Inspectorate.’

‘Where do you fit into the picture?’

‘Steven has the key; he doesn’t have the disk.’

‘So he asked you to get it?’

‘Sort of.’

‘That’s why you’re here?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s
Dunbar’s interest?’

‘Dr
Ricard was his friend. He doesn’t believe her death was an accident.’

Khan didn’t comment but he put down the dropper and replaced the top on the acid bottle. ‘Is that his only interest?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why did he want the disk?’

‘If Dr Ricard sent him the encryption key, he thought she must have had a reason.’

Khan nodded, seemingly satisfied.

Liam could see that Hausman was losing consciousness. He desperately needed medical help. Liam said so to Khan.

‘Indeed,’ Khan agreed. ‘Where do I find
Dunbar?’

‘I don’t know.’

Khan looked sceptical. ‘So how did you plan to tell him if you’d been successful?’

‘He gave me a phone number.’

‘Give me it.’

‘It’s on my phone.’

Khan removed Liam’s mobile from the pocket of his denim jacket and flicked through Contacts. ‘Steven D?’

‘That’s him.’

Khan nodded and picked up his pistol, which he’d laid down while he held Liam. He checked the tightness of the silencer before shooting both men through the back of the head.