The Secret (Dr Steven Dunbar 10) (14 page)

It had been a bad day, Stev
en decided. He’d been harbouring notions of some kind of double celebration at the end of it with Tally being told she’d got the job at Great Ormond Street and Charlie Malloy agreeing to the scheme that was going to see progress in the investigation at a rate of knots. Instead, Tally had turned up at the flat at four thirty, feeling less than optimistic about her chances after a long day of interviews which she thought hadn’t gone well. ‘I think maybe I let my tongue run away with me on more than one occasion,’ she reported. ‘And I’m pretty sure I didn’t say what they wanted to hear.’

Steven had tried reassuring her that they wouldn’t be looking for a subservient, box-ticking wimp as one of their consultants: they’d welcome a woman with strong views and a sense of what was right rather than what was politic but failed to convince even himself. They both knew the establishment tended to prefer people who ‘fitted in’, people who, like the royal family,
tended to avoid expressing views on anything.

Tally had now set off back to
Leicester. She’d let the evening rush hour pass before saying good-bye with an attempt at being cheerfully philosophical about what she feared would turn out be failure. There had been an underlying despondency about her however, that Steven had found infectious. He poured himself a drink and slumped down in his favourite chair to put his heels up on the window sill. Feeling that she’d enough to worry about, he hadn’t mentioned to Tally that he himself had a reason for feeling low. John Macmillan had returned from lunch with the news that Charlie Malloy had dismissed their plan out of hand. ‘Plain, bloody lunacy,’ he’d called it.

Steven had to smile as he
couldn’t help but see the funny side of it. It had been his idea and Malloy was probably right but Macmillan had been the one to suffer the brunt of the policeman’s attack on the ‘bloody madness’ of expecting the Met to plant porn on university computers in order to hand them over for examination. What was he thinking of? Macmillan had confessed to feeling like a naughty schoolboy being dressed down in the headmaster’s study by the time Malloy was finished. The thought of silver-haired mandarin, John Macmillan, standing with head bowed, nervously examining his shoes while biting his lip brought another smile from Steven and a slight shake of the head.

So whe
re do we go from here? he pondered. He still hadn’t heard anything back from Liam so he had to assume that the boy had drawn a complete blank in trying to locate the disk. Another possible avenue had closed. He made a mental note to contact Liam on Friday to arrange a meeting. Maybe searching through Hausman’s stuff in the middle of the night really was becoming the only option – another depressing thought.

He turned on the TV and flicked through the channels looking for diversion. A documentary on fishing failed to excite, similarly, a programme on house renovation. A few seconds of an ‘alternative’ comedian only made him realise
how much he missed Morecambe and Wise. Maybe it was the way he was feeling but nothing appealed for more than half a minute. Conceding defeat before his thumb grew tired, he made coffee and put Stan Getz on the stereo instead, only to find that
Jazz Samba
seemed totally at odds with the sound of rain battering on his window. He waited up until he’d heard from Tally that she was home safe before turning in.

Steven’s hopes of a good night’s sleep to put an end
to his day of frustration and disappointment and set him up for the challenges of a brand new dawn proved elusive. He tossed and turned as elements of both his investigative and personal life swirled around in the margins between sleep and consciousness like pieces in a weightless jigsaw, all stubbornly refusing to click into any cohesive picture. It was almost a relief when his phone insisted he wake up at 3 a.m. It was John Macmillan.

‘I’ve just had Charlie Malloy on the phone. Two bodies have been discovered by night security at
City College.’

Steven was suddenly very
wide awake. Knowing that he wasn’t going to like the answer, he asked, ‘Do we know who?’

‘Dan
Hausman and Liam Kelly.’

Steven felt a tsunami of conflicting emotions engulf him. ‘Oh Christ,’ he murmured. He was already playing out a scenario where Liam had taken matters into his own hands to investigate
Hausman and had been caught in the act. Somehow, in the resulting altercation, both men had died.

Macmillan wiped out the
imagined scenario. ‘Both were shot. Charlie thinks a pro job, back of the head.’

Steven was attempting
to think up a new scenario when a sudden thought diverted him and he asked, ‘Why did Charlie call
you
?’

‘Because he’s a nice man,’ replied Macmillan. ‘He saw the opportunity to help us out despite his earlier misgivings about our sanity. His boys will remove every bit of computer equipment they can lay their hands on, ostensibly as part of their murder investigation. They’re doing that right now. He said he’s got a feeling that official shutters are going to come down on these killings as soon as MI5 and their pals get their act together. Charlie will let us know where and when we can access the computers
just as soon as he can. I’ll see about calling in a couple of our consultants. I take it you’ll make yourself available to brief them on what they’re looking for?’

‘Of course,’ said Steven. He recognised that this was a big step forward but Liam Kelly’s death was stopping him sounding enthusiastic. ‘It had to be Khan,’ he said. He was trying to think clearly and logically but thoughts of Liam kept intruding. Liam was little more than a boy, a bright student at the very outset of his career with everything to live for and now he was dead . . .
thanks to him.
The accusation was loud and clear. If he hadn’t approached Liam, none of this would have happened. Live with that Dunbar, if you can.

Macmillan picked up on a few muttered expletives at the other end of the phone. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked Steven.

Steven ignored the question and asked, ‘Did Charlie have anything else to say about the deaths?’

‘Quite a bit, none of it good.
Hausman was tortured. Acid was involved.’

Steven screwed up his face as the horror levels kept rising. ‘So Khan wanted something . . . or wanted to know something . . . but he’s Pakistani Intelligence; he knows what’s been going on,’ he argued.

‘Maybe not everything,’ said Macmillan. ‘Pakistan’s a mess. No one knows who to trust in government. The political parties loathe each other and no one’s sure what the army has in mind. The intelligence services are fractured and probably pursuing their own agenda while the Americans are reluctant to tell them anything they don’t have to know. That’s how they got to Bin Laden. There are those who say if the Pakistani government had been told in advance of the operation, Bin Laden would have disappeared like snow in July.’

Steven nodded and took everything on board. ‘So it’s possible Khan knows something but not everything.’

‘But he wants to know everything . . . badly.’

‘And Liam?’ Steven asked in trepidation.

‘It’s cold comfort I know but there was no sign of torture.’

Steven was ready to snatch at any crumb of comfort that was offered. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Khan must have accepted that Liam didn’t know anything . . .’

‘Possibly, or maybe Liam appeared on the scene later, maybe even by accident, by which time Hausman had told Khan what he wanted to know,’ suggested Macmillan.

Steven wanted to embrace this suggestion with all his heart – the idea that Liam had gone into the lab for some reason unconnected with this whole sorry business – maybe something to do with his research – and had come across Khan and
Hausman by accident was exactly what he wanted to believe but . . . There was always a but . . . ‘You said Dan Hausman was tortured. Did Charlie say . . . how badly?’

‘He was a real mess. His face was practically unrecognisable according to Charlie.’

‘So he must have held out for quite some time . . . or couldn’t tell Khan what he wanted to know . . . because he didn’t know himself . . . and Khan didn’t believe him.’

Both men imagined this nightmare situation for a few moments.

‘Charlie said the bodies were discovered during a routine security patrol in the small hours,’ said Macmillan. ‘By that time, Khan was long gone. That suggests he wasn’t interrupted during his interrogation. The fact that he executed both men at the end of it suggests strongly that he did get what he wanted.’

‘Unless of course, it was Liam who disturbed him and panicked him into giving up and leaving?’

Macmillan knocked that idea on the head. ‘Charlie says both men were found tied to chairs in a small office. He’d been questioning both.’

‘Okay, so he wasn’t disturbed,’ said Steven, sounding resigned.

Macmillan read his mind. ‘I think we have to accept that Khan now knows what we don’t.

Steven took this as a gentle reminder that he focus on the matter in hand and not dwell on things he could do nothing about like Liam’s death and how much he might be to
blame. He took a deep breath and said, ‘We’ll need copies of the PM reports, particularly ballistics. We can ask Le Grice in Paris to check them against the bullet used to kill Aline Lagarde.’

‘Let’s get a couple of hours sleep,’ said Macmillan.

Steven knew this was not possible in his case. He made some strong coffee and went over in his mind all that had happened. The flat was quiet, deathly quiet, a bit like the mortuary that Liam Kelly’s body would be lying in, a cold, white sheet covering the unruly red hair and the face that had smiled so much in life. Awful, absolutely bloody awful but, at least, he hadn’t suffered the hellish torture that Hausman had been put through . . . because . . . because . . . Steven ran through the possible reasons for this again . . . Liam was a student; he wouldn’t know anything about any top secret work going on in the lab . . . Hausman had finally broken and told Khan what he wanted to know . . . No, no, no, this was all wrong. Oh, so wrong.

‘Oh Christ,’ murmured Steven as the truth dawned on him and sent a chill down his spine.
Hausman hadn’t told Khan what he wanted to know, Liam had. It wasn’t information Khan had been after; it was the disk and encryption key that Simone had sent. The disk had nothing to do with ‘vaccination schedules’ – that’s why it had been encrypted in the first place. Khan knew what was on the disk but no one in the North lab did and no one in the North lab knew that the encryption key existed. They had dismissed the disk as being damaged or irrelevant or both. The only person who knew that the disk was encrypted and who had the key was Liam. The bottom line had to be that Liam had told Khan he had the key.

Nervous exhaustion made Steven fall asleep in the chair at six a.m. but escape from angst was short-lived as daylight probed his eyelids and he woke after little more than an hour. For one glorious moment he thought he’d been having a bad dream but reality was quick to assert itself and insist he had to accept all that had happened. He padded through to the bathroom and turned on the shower, waiting for a few moments to let it reach temperature before stepping in to let the warm water ease away the annoying crick that had appeared in his neck.

Khan knew he had the key but he and Khan had never met face to face and Khan wouldn’t know where he lived. Thankfully, the only information he’d given Liam was his mobile phone number. It wouldn’t take Khan long to check out where Sci-Med was located if he didn’t already know but, for the moment, that was as far as went . . . unless of course, Khan still had credibility in Intelligence circles and could seek assistance. It was conceivable that only he and Macmillan knew that he was some kind of renegade and, at the moment, there was no point of contact between Sci-Med and the usual agencies so there was no way of checking.

Showered, shaved and shampooed, Steven put on a light blue shirt, Parachute Regiment tie and a dark blue suit. The idea was to look better than he felt. ‘Image over substance, Dunbar,’ he murmured, ‘way of the world these days . . .’ He made a slight adjustment to the holster under his left arm to ensure that the bulge was as snug a fit as possible and set off for the Home Office.

John Macmillan arrived just after he did and they took coffee through to Macmillan’s office where Steven told him what he now believed Khan was after.

‘I see,’ said Macmillan slowly. ‘Not a happy thought. He has the disk but you have the key. Well, one thing’s for sure, the contents must be more important than we imagined.’

Steven nodded. ‘You’re right but you can understand how it happened. Simon would have taken the envelope at face value when she came across it. After all, it said “vaccination schedules”. She would have taken it with her when she left, believing it to be evidence of poor practice by what turned out to be a fake aid agency team. She wanted to bring this to light at the Prague conference but, after the way she was treated, she became suspicious and posted the envelope to the North lab in London but first removing the memory card which she sent to me – she probably thought that the card was just a copy of what was on the disk and was making sure that the information wasn’t destroyed.’

Macmillan nodded and Steven continued. ‘The North lab saw “vaccination schedules” on the envelope and wouldn’t have attached much significance to it
either. They’d assume it was just Simone getting her point across about fake aid teams, not very interesting because, by that time, everyone knew about it.’

‘And they wouldn’t know about the existence of the memory card just as you didn’t know about the disk,’ added Macmillan.

‘Exactly and when they did look at it and couldn’t make head nor tail of it, they’d assume it had been damaged in transit just as I thought about the card.’

‘But together they contain information that Khan is willing to kill for. Details of the new bio-weapon?’ suggested Macmillan.

Steven made a face. ‘Why would that be lying around in a remote mountain village in Afghanistan?’

It was Macmillan’s turn to make a face. ‘Fair point.’

‘Unless it had been left there for someone to pick up?’ said Steven. ‘Simone and her team just happened to come along at the wrong time – or the right time depending on how you look at it.’

‘I can’t see the British or Americans leaving sensitive information in a place like that, can you?’

‘In which case I think it’s odds on the information must have been stolen and the village was being used as an intermediate staging post but by whom?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be much use to a mountain goatherd,’ said Macmillan. ‘I think we’re looking at the third element in this dirty affair, Pakistani Intelligence.’

‘And that’s where Khan comes in. Maybe he was the one who was supposed to pick up the envelope in the village?’ suggested Steven.

‘Hence his killing spree across
Europe. He’s been trying to get it back.’

‘He must have worked out that Simone had taken the envelope and questioned her about it at the
Prague conference. He must have spooked her so much that she put it in the post before he killed her to keep her quiet about what he was after. Then he went in pursuit of Aline in case Simone had given it to her but she genuinely didn’t know what had happened to the envelope, then he moved to London to confront Tom North who gave him the disk but maintained he didn’t know about the card, ditto Dan Hausman and then finally Liam who told him . . . that I have it.’

‘It all fits as they say,’ said Macmillan.

‘Not quite,’ said Steven. ‘I’m not sure where Bill Andrews and the CIA fit into all of this unless Andrews has gone rogue too and the pair of them are planning on selling to the highest bidder.’

‘There would probably be a considerable demand,’ conceded Macmillan. ‘And I take it you still believe Andrews was working with Khan over the murder of your friend?’

‘Everything points to it. He lied when he pretended not to know Khan when they knew each other very well from way back. Then he told me Khan had gone back to Afghanistan when, in fact, he was on his way to Paris.’

‘A couple of bad apples,’ said Macmillan.

‘And they’re both in London,’ said Steven.

‘Where is the memory card?’

‘In my desk drawer.’

‘Here or at home?’

‘Here,’ said Steven with a slight smile at Macmillan’s obvious priority.

‘We’d better ensure its security if you’re agreeable?’

‘Agreed,’ said Steven.

‘Good,’ said Macmillan, exchanging a glance that acknowledged both of them were ensuring that the location of the card would remain secret even if either or both of them were to be taken and subjected to coercion. If they didn’t know, they couldn’t tell. It was a bonding moment that few would experience. ‘I’ll ask Jean to put it in the system.’

As if on cue, Jean Roberts knocked and entered. ‘Sir John, the computer people you requested are here.’ She turned to Steven. ‘Steven, the new mobile phone you asked for is on my desk.’

Steven thanked her. He was destroying that particular link between himself and Khan, especially any chance of GPS tracking it might be possible to instigate on the old phone. He got up to go through to his own office.

Macmillan said, ‘I’ll brief our consultants in broad terms, remind them they’ve signed the Official Secrets act etc. and then pass them over to you. Let’s hope Charlie phones soon with details of where the stuff is and we can get started.’

‘I’ll go get that card.’

Macmillan had barely finished briefing the two computer experts retained on Sci-Med’s consultancy list and handed them over to Jean to take through to the guest room for coffee when the phone call from Charlie Malloy came.

‘John, I’ve really gone out on a limb over this,’ said Malloy.

‘I know Charlie and I really appreciate it.’

‘I’m doing the usual police thing of resenting any outside interference in what we see as a straightforward case of murder . . . even when the “outside interference” is coming from
HMG’s spooks, if you get my meaning.’

‘I can imagine, Charlie.’

‘There’s a limit to how long I can play the bloody-minded copper before they flush me and my pension down the toilet. I don’t really have a good reason for removing all that computer stuff.’

‘We’ll be as quick as we can, Charlie. Our computer people are waiting here and Steven is briefing them as we speak.’

‘Good, the gear is in a police warehouse at thirty-four Crompton Street Lane: the entry key is eight-seven-four-one.’

‘Got that. We’ll be as quick as we can and Charlie?’ Macmillan had a sudden thought.

‘Yes?’

Did you get Steven’s request about ballistics on the bullets?’

‘Yes, it’s being dealt with.’

‘It occurs to me that if you were the one to forward the info and request to Inspector Le Grice in
Paris and get confirmation, you would have your valid reason for removing computer equipment . . . you suspected an international element to the crime?’

‘Christ, John,
you’re not as dumb as I thought.’

‘Good to know, Charlie,’ said Macmillan urbanely. ‘I’ll let Steven know what’s happening.’

Steven had almost finished his briefing when Macmillan came in with the news that everything was ready. He waited until Steven had finished.

‘To conclude, we have very limited time on site. Anything that can be copied should be copied and brought back here for analysis. We are looking for any kind of correspondence – incoming or outgoing – from Professor Thomas North and Dr Daniel
Hausman with special emphasis on anything emanating from Fort Detrick in the USA and Porton Down in England. We suspect the primary versions of these messages will have been wiped but back-ups on the servers might still be there. Any questions?

The two consultants, one a woman in her thirties and the other a male around the same age, both academics, one with expertise in distance learning techniques and the other in communications security, shook their heads.

‘Good,’ said Macmillan. He turned to Steven and said, ‘I’ve arranged with Lukas Neubauer to meet you there. He’ll remain with these good people and deal with any requests they might make for services and equipment.

‘Good,’ said Steven. ‘Let’s go.’