The Secret (Dr Steven Dunbar 10) (16 page)

It was six-thirty p.m. when Steven got back to the Home Office, the last twenty minutes having been spent in
London’s evening rush-hour traffic. He was pleased to find John Macmillan still there where he was deep in conversation with the two computer experts. ‘Ah, there you are,’ said Macmillan when Steven knocked and entered. ‘Productive day?’

The expression on Macmillan’s face suggested he knew about the helicopter requisition. ‘Very,’ Steven replied confidently. ‘How about you folk?’

Macmillan now adopted an expression that suggested his ace had just been trumped by a partner in a card game. ‘We’re not quite there yet but we’ve been making good progress. Louis and Elspeth have identified correspondence between Dr Hausman and Fort Detrick and between Dr North and . . . the Prime Minister, no less.’

‘I’m impressed,’ said Steven. ‘Well done.’

The computer experts, Dr Elaine Fiddes and Dr Louis Henderson, smiled in the self-deprecating way that academics did when being interviewed by the media about their latest discovery. He half-expected one of them to say, ‘Of course, more work needs to be done.’

‘We’ve still got a bit to do,’ said
Henderson.

‘
Mmm,’ agreed Fiddes. ‘We’ve identified several messages with the criteria you specified and we’ve traced their paths but what we haven’t managed to do is to decipher the contents as yet but we definitely think it possible with suitable techniques. Another day perhaps.’

‘Maybe two,’ cautioned
Henderson, making Steven wonder unkindly what their daily rate was.

‘They’ve uncovered more than one reference to something called, “the discovery”,’ Macmillan interjected.

‘Sounds promising,’ said Steven. ‘In fact, it sounds exactly what we’re looking for.’

Macmillan smiled. ‘These good people are now going to take a break before continuing into the evening. Jean has arranged for food to be brought in. Their families have been very understanding.’

‘We’re all very grateful to you,’ said Steven. ‘This really is important.’

Jean Roberts, who had also stayed behind to organise the ordering and delivery of take-away food for the experts, announced that the food had arrived. Macmillan thanked her and ushered
Fiddes and Henderson out of his office and into Jean’s care with more thanks. He closed the door. ‘Now, about this helicopter charter business?’

Steven explained about the request from Scott Jamieson and all that had transpired from his flight to
Yorkshire. ‘In effect, we have a successful completion to Scott’s investigation. We know exactly who’s been behind the ME attacks all along – although we’re not sure why – and MI5 remains in our debt as long as we care to keep our mouths shut about their involvement. I also suggested to Ricksen that Khan be blown away on sight.’

‘Not sure that’s a term HMG would be too keen on,’ said Macmillan.

‘Eliminated with extreme prejudice if you prefer, sir – with the appropriate paperwork in place, of course . . . duly signed by a Defence minister, the Bishop of London and Coco the Clown.’

‘Don’t push it,
Dunbar. Do you realise how much a helicopter costs per hour?’

Steven smiled and so did Macmillan after a moment. ‘Bloody well done,’ he said. ‘Look I’m going to stay on here until the computer people call it a night so why don’t you go home? I’ll call if they come up with anything.’

‘Thanks,’ said Steven. ‘That’s good of you.’

‘Not entirely altruistic,’ said Macmillan. ‘Lady Macmillan is having her pals round to play bridge this evening. I’m better off here. I might knock over the cauldron.’

Steven set off home to Marlborough Court. It had been a long day and the noise of helicopter rotor blades still seemed to be beating somewhere inside his head. His plan was to run a hot bath, take a drink through with him and settle back in the suds before calling Tally on the mobile. He’d have to keep his other mobile – the Sci-Med Blackberry – beside him in case of any developments at the Home Office but, with a bit of luck, he might have a decent soak and time to unwind after a day that had seen him sprint from the heart of London to the Yorkshire Moors and back again. The only thing militating against this at the moment was the fact that he was being followed.

It had started as a suspicion – a casual sideways glance when crossing a road had picked up a male figure about thirty metres behind, nothing that warranted a second thought until the same figure registered in the same position at the next crossing. This time it did merit a second thought and a third and a fourth. All thoughts of a relaxing evening vanished in an instant to be replaced by nerve tingling awareness.

He quickened his pace for the next two hundred metres and then, as he spotted a litter bin up ahead, he pulled out a tissue from his pocket and pretended to blow his nose. As he reached the bin, he paused and turned slightly to drop the tissue inside – just enough to confirm that his tail was still about thirty metres back. He had quickened his pace too.

Khan couldn’t afford to kill him: he needed him alive to have any hope of getting his hands on the key that meant so much. Apart from that, the streets were too busy to pull a gun out and hope to remain unnoticed. He too was inhibited: opening fire on a busy
London street was not an option. He decided to force the issue. He changed his route and turned down a lane leading to the river. The lane was home to the premises of a van hire company whose vans he knew would be parked on both sides of the lane as their yard was too small to house their entire fleet – something that the neighbouring businesses continually complained about but tonight, this was exactly what Steven was counting on. Khan wouldn’t realise it but he was no longer the hunter; he’d just become the hunted.

Steven made to cross between two of the white vans, knowing that he would be out of sight until Khan picked him up again on the other side only he didn’t cross. He remained between the two vans and counted to five before returning to the same side where he ran back fifteen metres or so before moving between another two vans and standing still. Khan, not seeing him on the other side would return to this one. Steven crossed and ran back another few metres before doing the same again. He repeated this until he was sure he was behind Khan.

Steven sneaked a look from behind one of the vans and saw Khan standing in the middle of the lane, looking towards the end as if puzzled. He looked up at the buildings on either side as if wondering which one his quarry must have gone into but they were all in darkness. Steven read his mind: Khan would have to assume it was a lost cause and turn back.

Steven withdrew his pistol and waited between the two vans for Khan to pass by. As he did so, Steven levelled the
Glock and said, ‘Psst.’

Khan froze in his tracks then turned slowly to have the street lights reveal that he wasn’t Khan at all. It was Bill Andrews.

Andrews took in the gun and said, ‘Steven, buddy, what the hell?’

‘Remove your weapon and place it slowly on the ground.’

‘What the hell is this?’

‘Do it.’

Andrews did what he was told, still protesting, ‘Steven, come on man, we’re on the same side.’

‘Now step back.’ Steven picked up the weapon and put it in his pocket. ‘Now start walking down the lane. I’ll be right behind you.’

When they reached the junction at the end, Steven ordered Andrews to cross the road and start descending the old stone steps he’d find on the other side. They led down to the Thames which, at half-tide, was lapping over the green slime on the bottom three or four steps.

Andrews could now see that there was no destination ahead other than the sluggish river and panic appeared in his voice – albeit controlled panic. ‘What the hell are you doing, man? What are we doing here?’

‘Justice for Simone,’ said Steven. ‘Time to pay for what you did to my friend.’

‘This is crazy,’ exclaimed Andrews. ‘I had nothing to do with that, Steven. As God is my witness I believed it was an accident until last week when I found out about
Ranjit Khan. That’s why I was following you; I came to warn you about Khan.’

‘Sure you did. You pretended not to know Khan when I spoke to you in
Paris when in fact you and he had been buddies for years. You even played houses when you were at Harvard together.’

‘Sure we did, but come on man, he was Pakistani Intelligence and I – as I suppose you now know – am CIA. We didn’t want to advertise any intelligence interests at the time.’

‘You told me he’d returned to Pakistan when in fact he flew to Paris where he killed Aline Lagarde.’

‘Christ, man, I thought he
had
returned to Pakistan. I genuinely thought that. I didn’t know the bastard had a different agenda. That’s what I came to warn you about.’

‘You and Khan killed Simone. You were working together.’

‘No,’ insisted Andrews, ‘you’ve got it all wrong. It was just like I told you; I lost my contact lens and made a stupid joke about it. The next thing I knew was that Simone was over the balcony.’

‘Khan put her over . . . while you created a diversion.’

‘Look, it didn’t occur to me at the time that Khan had anything to do with it: I didn’t think he had any reason to, but in the light of what I’ve learned recently . . . that might well be true. But I swear to God, I personally had nothing to do with it.’

The water level had risen so that the
Thames was now lapping over Andrews’ shoes. He seemed not to notice as he looked pleadingly at Steven.

‘Remove one of your contact lenses,’ said Steven.

‘What?’

‘You heard. I don’t think you wear contact lenses. If you do, I just might believe you. If you don’t, it was a diversion in
Prague and it’s kiss-your-arse-goodbye time.’

Andrews seemed to freeze completely for a few seconds: Steven suspected that he must be contemplating one last desperate move to save his skin. He moved the
Glock slightly to emphasise that he was entirely focused on the matter in hand and could pull the trigger faster than Andrews could mount any last ditch attack. ‘I’m waiting.’

Andrews put his hands to his face and went through the motions of removing a contact lens. Steven remained suspicious, thinking that this was exactly what he’d do in Andrews’ position before going for a last minute lunge.

‘There you go,’ said Andrews, holding out his right hand, palm upwards.

It was too dark for Steven to see. ‘Turn around: put your hand behind your back and then open it.’

Andrews complied, the water now sloshing round his ankles.

Steven moved down two steps and pressed the barrel of his gun against the back of Andrews’ neck. ‘Don’t move a muscle,’ he warned. He looked down and saw the lens sitting in Andrews’ palm. He removed it with the tip of his index finger then replaced it. ‘You live to fight another day.’

Steven replaced the
Glock in its holster and took out Andrews’ gun from his pocket. He removed the magazine and threw the clip in the river before handing the weapon back to Andrews. ‘You’re not out of the woods yet.’

‘What happens now? Where are we going?’ asked Andrews at the top of the steps.

‘My place.’

With Andrews sitting at his kitchen table, his socks and shoes drying on a radiator, Steven put a mug of coffee down in front of him and said, ‘Now, tell me everything.’

‘Only a few at the very top know everything,’ said Andrews ruefully.

Steven didn’t feel inclined to argue. ‘Then tell me what you do know. Tell me why my friend and four other people have been murdered and tell me exactly what your lot and mine have been up to in
Afghanistan.’

‘As I understand it, we’ve been trying out an agent developed at
Fort Detrick on remote populations of people in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. I know it sounds awful but I’m told it was absolutely essential to carry out this work in the national interest of our countries.’

‘Why?’

Andrews grew uncomfortable. ‘I don’t rightly know.’

This elicited a cold, blank stare from Steven.

‘I really don’t. To be honest, the agent didn’t appear to make people that sick but I was told that there was to be more than one stage to the operation. Fort Detrick and your Porton Down were preparing the next stages.’

‘Go on.’

‘Your friend, Simone and her team came across one of the villages by accident. I don’t think she realised what was going on but she was pretty upset about the children’s vaccination schedules and wanted to complain about that. It was no big deal for us. By that time all the right people had been told about the CIA teams looking for Bin Laden’

‘So why kill her?’

Andrews swallowed nervously. ‘I swear to God, man, I don’t know. I had nothing to do with it.’

‘But?’

‘Presumably, Simone knew more than she let on or maybe she got hold of something that really pissed somebody off.’

‘
Like Khan?’

‘I guess. We thought Khan was with us but it turns out that he is part of a Pakistani faction that has plans for taking on
India in a big way. The old enemy.’

‘How did you reach that conclusion?’

‘My boss told me something had gone badly wrong. The guys at Fort Detrick were ready with the final stage of the experiment – or whatever you want to call it. One of their top scientists was sent out to a top-level meeting in Pakistan with a CIA led team. The guy was supposed to bring our allies up to speed but they never made it. They set off from Islamabad one morning with a guide from Pakistani Intelligence and disappeared off the face of the planet. We think the guide set them up.’

‘So the information fell into the wrong hands?’

‘We thought not. The agency didn’t trust Pakistani Intelligence. They had a plan B in place if there was any kind of double cross. It was deployed when our guy didn’t call in by a certain time and we thought the info had been destroyed along with the punks who ambushed our guys but new intelligence says not. Khan’s behaviour suggests it’s still out there somewhere.’

Steven didn’t tell Andrews
what it was or where. ‘But presumably Fort Detrick still has all the details?’

‘Oh sure, it’s just a question of them not wanting the
info to fall into the wrong hands.’

‘Or any hands other than theirs,’ said Steven.

Andrews shrugged. ‘Hey, maybe that’s what Simone discovered?’

‘Maybe.’

‘So where do we go from here?’

‘I take it you’re taking steps to deal with Khan, now he’s no longer one of your pals?’

Andrews looked uncomfortable again. ‘Khan’s crimes are seen as a European affair. We don’t like to . . . interfere in the internal affairs of our allies.’

‘Isn’t that just the sweetest thing . . .’ said Steven.

Andrews looked down at the table top. ‘What do you intend to do now?’ he asked.

Steven shook his head. ‘Just go,’ he said. ‘Just go.’

Nothing more was said as Steven waited for Andrews to put his socks and shoes on before showing him the door. Steven opened the kitchen window to let out the lingering odour of Thames-soaked footwear before closing the door behind him and going through to the lounge where he poured himself a drink.

‘Jesus,’ he muttered as he started to assess what he’d learned from the encounter with Andrews. Not a lot was his conclusion although it was nice to have what he’d already worked out confirmed. The British, US and Pakistani governments had colluded over the testing of a new bio-agent on people in the North West Frontier – or whatever they called it now. If that was good enough f
or Kipling, it would do for him he thought, feeling bolshie about the whole business.

Andrews had said that carrying out the experiment was of the utmost importance to the security of all their countries although he didn’t know why. That, Steven concluded, was still a secret – the secret known by the few. He’d had enough for one day; he called Tally. He didn’t want to tell her anything about his day; he just wanted to hear her voice.

Macmillan called just after ten when Steven, feeling better after talking to Tally, was watching the news on TV. He killed the sound and listened expectantly.

‘The computer people have recovered the content of a letter sent from the prime minister’s office to Tom North. ‘It impresses on North that what they call “the discovery” must remain secret at all costs until such times as
Porton or Fort Detrick have come up with a way of dealing with what they term “the problem”. Make any sense?’

After considering for a few moments, Steven said not.

‘I’m going to tell the computer people to go home and get some rest,’ said Macmillan. ‘They’ve done well and with a bit of luck they’ll come up with more tomorrow.’

‘I was going to leave
off telling you this until tomorrow,’ said Steven, ‘but, as you’ve called, I had a bit of a run-in with Bill Andrews of the CIA earlier on . . .’

Steven heard the short intake of breath at the other end of the phone which translated in his mind into, “All I need”. ‘I caught him following me.
He insists he was going to warn me about Khan having gone rogue. After a bit of a chat, I think I believe him. He says Khan is part of some militant anti-India faction but he doesn’t know what he’s after.’

‘Did you tell him?’

‘No.’

‘Did you ask him about the secret?’

‘He doesn’t know any more than we do.’

‘Pity, still, let’s hope for a more productive tomorrow.’

Steven went through to the kitchen and closed the window: all traces of his earlier guest had now gone. He felt hungry but, as he hadn’t made a visit to a supermarket for some time, wasn’t quite sure what he had in store and he thought it too late to send out for take-away food.

The fridge revealed some bacon with a slightly greenish sheen to it when held at an angle and a small slab of cheddar cheese that Sir Alexander Fleming might have been able to make a significant discovery on in another era. The lettuce looked as if the US Air Force had attacked it with Agent Orange and the duck
paté might have served well in the pointing of brickwork. The cupboard above the fridge however, yielded a large tin of corned beef and a small one of baked beans which gave his morale a boost and prompted him to murmur, ‘And a Michelin star goes to . . . Steven Dunbar.’

As always, after a day in which a lot had happened, Steven was finding it difficult to unwind. His earlier pl
an to have a long soak had of course, been scuppered by the encounter with Andrews, something which had sent his adrenalin levels soaring and it was taking a long time for them to subside. He was no longer hungry; he didn’t want any more to drink; he didn’t want to watch TV but he knew if he went to bed, he wouldn’t sleep. He seemed destined to continue fidgeting until he realised there was a way he could speed the unwinding process up. He checked the weather outside from the window before changing into a track suit and trainers. It was one in the morning but he was going out for run. He would run until exhaustion freed him from restlessness.

An hour later Steven arrived back at Marlborough Court thinking he might have overdone it as sweat dripped from his face on to the floor of the lift and he
experienced the slight feeling of nausea that athletes encountered when pushing themselves to the limit. It passed without incident however and was replaced by a pleasant endorphin rush once he had showered and settled down with a cold
Peroni
beer. He was enjoying a warm feeling of well-being when the phone rang.

Phone calls were never welcome in the small hours of the morning; no one ever phoned with good news at that time. Steven answered in trepidation, running through a range of possibilities in his head. None of them applied.

‘Dr Dunbar?’

‘Who is this?’

‘Perhaps you’d like three guesses, Doctor?’

The cultured voice and Pakistani accent made Steven’s blood run cold. He
was talking to Simone’s killer, Khan.

‘You have somethin
g I want Doctor and I would be grateful if you would deliver it to me.’

Alarm bells were ringing in Steven’s head. Khan sounded too sure of himself, like a man about to show a hand of four aces. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Forget the nonsense, please. There isn’t time as you are about to appreciate. I want the memory card or the next time you see your daughter will be at her funeral.’

‘What?’ exclaimed Steven, feeling sick to his stomach. ‘
My daughter? What the hell are you talking about?’

Steven stopped when a familiar voice came on the line. ‘Daddy, Daddy, there’s a bad man in the house . . .’

‘Jenny?’

Khan was back on the line. ‘I don’t have to warn you about involving outside agencies.
That goes without saying. Start by flying into Edinburgh Airport with the card. Be there by noon and await my instructions.’