The Gulf Conspiracy

ELEVEN

Cecil Mowbray handed his coat to the hovering waiter without making eye contact with the man and sat down. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

Donald Crowe waited until the waiter had moved out of earshot before leaning over and saying, ‘Sci-Med has started asking questions about Gulf War vaccines. They’ve requested a meeting with the powers that be at Porton. Dunbar’s behind it. He must know something.’

‘Relax,’ said Mowbray. ‘All the old vaccine stocks have been destroyed in response to the outcry from the veterans’ associations. You can’t investigate what doesn’t exist any more. Can you?’

Crowe’s silence conceded the point.

‘But you’re right about one thing; this is down to Dunbar,’ said Mowbray. ‘He does know more than we’ve been giving him credit for. He knows that Sebring was in touch with the journalist, Martin Hendry before he died.’

‘How?’

‘He went to back to talk to Sebring’s wife a few days after the funeral. It must have been her who told him.’

‘But I spoke to her at length before the funeral,’ said Crowe. ‘She didn’t tell me anything about that.’

‘She must have found Dunbar more persuasive. In fact, she seems to have formed… an association with Dunbar.’

‘Good God, her husband’s only been dead a matter of weeks. What’s the world coming to? Cheap tart.’

‘Not for us to judge,’ said Mowbray.

‘God Almighty man, this means she could have been lying all along when she told me Sebring never talked about his past! Maybe he told her everything and now Dunbar knows too!’ said Crowe.

‘Possible but I think not,’ replied Mowbray calmly. ‘Dunbar turned up at Hendry’s flat in Manchester looking for information. He talked to Hendry’s girlfriend too but only after my people had made sure nothing incriminating had been left lying around and that she couldn’t tell him anything anyway. He wouldn’t have done that if he already knew all there was to know, would he?’

‘I suppose not,’ agreed Crowe. ‘But I worry about what he’s going to do next.’

‘He’s going to Glasgow to talk to a Gulf War veteran named Angus Maclean,’ said Mowbray.

‘How on earth do you know that?’

‘We still have the tap on Sebring’s phone.’

‘Well, thank God for that,’ said Crowe. ‘At least it gives us a slight edge. What can this man Maclean tell him?’

Mowbray shrugged and said, ‘Absolutely nothing. He’s a well-known Gulf War activist, a trouble-maker; full of wild theories but with nothing of any substance to back it up. Think Don Quixote and you won’t be far wrong.’

‘The name’s vaguely familiar,’ said Crowe.

‘Maclean was trained at Porton. He was one of our Secret Team in the Gulf War,’ said Mowbray. ‘Maybe you came across him at the time.’

‘I don’t remember him but if that’s the case maybe he knows more than you think?’ said Crowe.

Mowbray shook his head. ‘We’ve been keeping tabs on him for years. He’s suffered the traditional fate of all long-term anti-government rebels; he’s become part of the establishment. He’ll probably end up with a gong in some New Year’s honours list in the near future.’

‘If you’re sure,’ said Crowe.

‘Don’t lose any sleep over it,’ said Mowbray. ‘Everything’s fine. Just you concentrate on what you have to do. Any news?’

‘Ready for final briefing in two weeks,’ said Crowe.

‘If you’re sure keeping everything a secret until the last minute is still the best idea?…’ said Mowbray.

‘It is,’ said Crowe. ‘There’s very little for your people to take on board. It’s all very simple. What about Everley?’

‘He’s already up there, making friends and influencing people,’ said Mowbray. ‘Keeps him out the way.’

‘Good.’

It was after eleven before Steven got back to Jane’s house. He was tired after a long day but any suggestion of fatigue disappeared when he saw her standing at the door.

‘I’m glad you came back,’ she said.

Steven took her in his arms and kissed her hungrily. ‘You look wonderful,’ he said.

‘I thought we might have a late supper,’ said Jane. She made a little movement with her head over her left shoulder.

Steven looked and saw the table set with a bottle of wine sitting in an ice bucket and candles lit. ‘Great idea,’ he murmured, giving Jane’s neck some serious attention. ‘Bur first things first.’

‘Would I be right in thinking you are considering an alternative order of priorities, Doctor?’ murmured Jane.

‘Clairvoyant too,’ said Steven, leading her towards the stairs. Jane made to go up first but Steven, catching sight of her bottom, pulled her back into him and cupped his hands over her breasts. Jane responded by gyrating her bottom against him, giggling as she felt his hardness. ‘At this rate,’ she murmured, ‘I fear we’re not going to make it to the bedroom.’

‘That… is a very real possibility,’ said Steven as he hitched up Jane’s dress over her hips and slipped his hand into her panties to find her already wet.

‘God, I want you.’

‘I’d never have guessed,’ said Jane, reaching behind her to free Steven. ‘The only question now is geographical?’

‘Right here, right now,’ said Steven.

Jane bent forward to rest her hands on the stairs as Steven slipped her panties off and entered her from behind.

‘You weren’t kidding, were you?’ she gasped.

When Steven finally withdrew he eased himself sideways to lie down beside her on the stairs, his face beaded with sweat. ‘Bloody hell,’ he gasped.

Jane smiled. ‘Not quite the starter I was planning on,’ she murmured. ‘But nevertheless… very nice.’

Steven kissed her lightly on the forehead and said, ‘I adore you.’

Jane put a finger on his lips and said, ‘You hardly know me. Go shower while I go do things in the kitchen.’

Later as they sat talking and sipping coffee, Jane looked up at the clock and said, ‘Look at the time. It’s gone one o’clock. If you are planning on an early start in the morning…’

‘Let’s sit in the garden,’ said Steven.

‘What?’

‘It’s a warm night. Let’s sit outside for a little while.’

Jane looked as if she had tried but failed to come up with an objection. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I don’t think anyone’s ever invited me into the garden in the middle of the night before.’

‘You should never take summer nights for granted in England,’ said Steven.

They sat together on the swing they’d sat on last time, Jane with her head resting on Steven’s shoulder, the air heavy with the scent of honeysuckle and the sky above them studded with twinkling stars. ‘Look, you can see the dagger in Orion’s belt as clear as anything,’ murmured Jane.

‘A perfect night,’ said Steven. ‘Now, if only we could make time stand still.’

‘But summer’s lease hath all too short a date,’ said Jane.

‘But thy eternal summer shall not fade,’ said Steven squeezing her hand.

‘If only,’ said Jane.

Steven was about to set off for Glasgow in the morning when his phone rang. After a brief conversation he turned to Jane and said, ‘Change of plan. That was Sci-Med. Porton have agreed to talk about vaccines. They’ve accepted an invitation to a meeting at the Home Office this afternoon. I’ll have to go back to London.’

Steven was late in getting to the meeting, which was held in Macmillan’s office. He apologised, citing a lorry shedding its load on the motorway as the reason, and Macmillan performed the introductions.

‘Steven, this is Dr Robert De Fries. ‘Dr De Fries acted as liaison officer between the Porton establishment and the army medical authorities over troop vaccinations before the Gulf War.’

Steven shook hands with a saturnine man who didn’t bother to smile and appeared to look past him.

‘And this is Dr Jonathan Sked, deputy director of the Defence Establishment at Porton Down,’ said Macmillan moving on to a tall, angular man with a greying beard who had no problem with eye contact and whose firm handshake seemed reassuring. Steven sat down beside Macmillan to face both Porton men who also sat side by side with their briefcases at their feet.

Macmillan said, ‘We’re extremely grateful to you gentlemen for agreeing to meet us at such short notice.’

‘Yes indeed,’ echoed Steven. Flattery was always a good opening gambit.

‘How can we help exactly?’ asked Sked.

Macmillan nodded to Steven who began by saying, ‘You may know, Doctors, that we’ve been looking into the death of Dr George Sebring, a former employee of yours. Although the police initially thought his death to be suicide, he was in fact, murdered and our investigation has thrown up the possibility that his killing was connected in some way with his time at the defence establishment and what he was working on there. You have told us that he was a member of a team working on the development of an AIDS vaccine but we suspect there is a link between his work and rumoured problems with the vaccinations given to the troops. We’d appreciate any help you can give us in understanding what that connection might be.’

‘You are mistaken, Doctor,’ said Sked. ‘As a researcher, Dr Sebring would not have had anything to do with routine troop vaccinations. He was employed as a viral protein specialist. This is something I checked out thoroughly with Dr Crowe, who was his team leader at the time. I did this when you people first asked about his work.

‘With respect, Doctor, I don’t think the troop vaccinations were quite the routine matter you suggest,’ said Steven. ‘History records that it was extremely difficult to get any information at all out of Porton about what exactly the troops were given.’

Sked spread his hands in a gesture of concession. ‘I admit there were problems in that certain components on the vaccination schedule were classified. This fact gave rise to rumour and counter rumour. You know how these things can get out of hand.’

‘Perhaps Sebring worked on some classified aspect of the schedule that you don’t feel at liberty to divulge?’ suggested Steven.

‘No,’ said Sked firmly. ‘It’s not a case of hiding anything. As I said, I checked all this out with Dr Crowe.’

‘Are these vaccine components still classified?’ asked Steven.

Sked shook his head, ‘No, all the vaccines were declassified by MOD at the end of 1996.’

‘Can I ask what the classified vaccines were?’

‘There were three: anthrax, pertussis and plague.’

‘The Ministry said at the time that there were five or six,’ said Steven, referring to his notes.

‘There was a misunderstanding,’ said De Fries, speaking for the first time and interrupting what was shaping up to be an awkward pause, ‘But I think I can cast some light on this. Our records show that cytokines were being incorporated into the vaccines given to the troops. This was actually the first time such technology had been used. It was believed that this would boost immune response, giving more effective protection to the troops. At one point, when the manufacturers reported that cytokines were running low, a request was put to Dr Crowe’s team for a supply of HIV gene envelopes to be used as a substitute — it was thought that they would be just as good in stimulating a heightened immune response.’

‘Dr Crowe didn’t tell me that,’ said Sked, sounding annoyed.

‘It probably slipped his mind,’ said De Fries. ‘It was no big thing.’

‘At least we have established a connection,’ said Steven.

‘Hardly that,’ countered De Fries.

‘I’m no expert,’ said Steven, ‘But wouldn’t using HIV envelopes also suggest an attempt at providing some level of protection against the HIV virus itself?’

‘At first glance, possibly’ said De Fries, ‘But there was no such intent. As I say, their use in this case was to boost a general immune response.’

‘There has never been any suggestion of anyone ever having contemplated the use of HIV as a weapon,’ added Sked.

‘Of course not,’ said Steven dryly.

Macmillan shot him a warning glance and said pleasantly, ‘I must admit I’m a little puzzled too about the use of these gene envelopes. If, as we know, Dr Crowe and his team were trying to develop a vaccine against AIDS then surely they might have been said to have had a vested interest in the outcome of the use of these gene envelopes on the troops?’

Sked bristled visibly and said, ‘There is absolutely no question of anyone at Porton having experimented on the troops. Let’s be absolutely clear about that.’

‘Of course not,’ said Macmillan. ‘Well, it sounds as if we’ll have to look elsewhere for the reason that George Sebring suffered a nervous breakdown and spent the remainder of his life suffering from chronic guilt and periodic nightmares.’

‘I’m afraid you will,’ said De Sked. ‘There was nothing at all in his work at Porton to account for anything like that.’

‘How about the other members of Dr Crowe’s team?’ asked Steven.

‘What about them?’

‘Their state of mind.’

‘Dr Crowe himself has certainly never struck me as a man who had difficulty sleeping,’ said Sked. ‘Nor should he have any reason to.’

‘Lowry and Rawlings are absolutely fine too,’ said De Fries.

Steven remembered from the information supplied earlier by Porton, that there had actually been five people in the team led by Crowe. Mention had been made of four, Crowe, Lowry and Rawlings and Sebring who was, of course, dead. He was about to ask about the member who hadn’t rated a mention when he thought better of it. It might have been an innocent omission but it just might have been deliberate, in which case he would try to mine the information from another source.

‘Would you object if we had the vaccines that Crowe’s team contributed to analysed independently?’ asked Steven.

‘Not possible, I’m afraid,’ replied Sked coldly. ‘We’ve just had to destroy all remaining stocks of it in response to press hysteria and recent objections.’

‘From the Gulf War veterans’ associations,’ said De Fries.

‘Her Majesty’s Government were, naturally, sensitive to their concerns,’ said Sked. ‘Although this in no way implies that there was ever anything wrong with the vaccines.’

‘Of course not,’ said Macmillan.

‘Surely there must still be a vial or two lying around?’ said Steven.

‘Everything was destroyed,’ said De Fries. ‘With respect, Doctor, I really must point out that these vaccines underwent several independent analyses over the past ten years. Nothing was ever shown to be wrong with them.’

‘It was just a thought,’ said Steven.

‘What do you think?’ Macmillan asked Steven when the others had gone.

‘We’ve learned one thing,’ said Steven. ‘Crowe’s team must really have been working with the HIV virus; otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to supply HIV gene envelopes when asked.’

‘So you were wrong to doubt that?’

‘What I doubted was whether they were trying to design a vaccine against the virus,’ said Steven.

‘You’re not suggesting that they were trying to design a weapon based on it?’ said Macmillan. ‘You heard what Sked said.’

‘I heard,’ said Steven looking doubtful. ‘It may not have been official policy to think about HIV as a putative weapon but it wouldn’t be the first time that a scientific team has been given its head to see where a particular road might lead — unofficially, of course.’

‘And you think Porton might have harboured such a team?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘Maybe I should ask a few quiet questions in the corridors of power,’ said Macmillan.

Steven kicked off his shoes when he got in. He poured himself a cold Stella Artois and plumped himself down in his favourite seat by the window. He put his feet up on the sill and looked up at the clouds as he tugged his tie loose. He had made progress but there was still something he was missing. Even if, in what the press would no doubt call a nightmare scenario, Sebring had been engaged in developing the AIDS virus for use as a weapon, his plan to confess all to the papers would have been no reason to kill him. To a cynical public it would just have been a case of yet one more disaffected government employee blowing the whistle about something or other. With an ex MI5 officer currently spilling the beans to the papers about the incompetence of the intelligence service, one more horror story about the development of biological weapons wasn’t going to make much of a ripple. It would just be one more virus to worry about along with smallpox and plague but at least it would be our side developing it this time — and now for the sports results and the weather… There had to be more to it. If Sebring had been seen as such a threat he must have known something more than what he was seeing but as to what it was…

Steven found that he was thinking his way round in circles, a sure sign that he should stop. He looked at his watch and decided his daughter should be home from school. He dialled the number and his sister-in-law answered.

‘Hello Sue, how are things?’

‘Wonderful!’

‘Really?’ asked Steven, slightly taken aback at the enthusiasm of her reply.

‘First week back at school for the three monsters after six weeks?’ said Sue. ‘School holidays are all very well but gosh it’s so nice to have them off my hands again,’ she laughed. ‘I’ve got my life back. I went shopping, had my hair done, had coffee with the girls. Marvellous. I feel like a new woman.’

‘Now I feel guilty,’ said Steven.

‘You know I didn’t mean that,’ said Sue. ‘I take it you’d like to speak to your particular monster, I’ll just get her.’

‘Hello Daddy,’ said Jenny’s voice after a short wait. ‘I’ve got a new teacher.’

‘Have you, Nutkin? That sounds exciting.’

‘Her name’s Miss Campbell and she’s got big teeth.’

‘That’s not very kind, Jenny.’

‘Well, she has. She says that we might be going to war soon.’

‘Really?’

‘She says a bad man has been gathering lots and lots of weapons and plans to use them against the West — that’s us. Will you have to fight, Daddy?’

‘No, Jenny.’

‘Good,’ said Jenny. ‘Aunt Sue says Uncle Richard won’t have to either. She says he’s too old and fat.’

‘So that’s where you get your unkindness from,’ laughed Steven. ‘Let’s hope no one has to go and fight anyone and we can all do something more sensible with our time.’

‘Are you coming up to see me this weekend, Daddy?’

‘That may not be possible, Nutkin,’ said Steven, closing his eyes as he said it. ‘Daddy’s very busy. Maybe next weekend?’

‘All right, Daddy. Bye.’

‘Shit,’ murmured Steven as he heard the line go dead. What was Jenny thinking now, he wondered. That he didn’t care? That he didn’t love her? That she wasn’t important? ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

Steven looked up his notes for the phone number of the hospital lab in Glasgow where Gus Maclean worked, called it, but only to be told that Maclean was not on duty. He had called in sick that morning. Steven asked for a home number but was told that wasn’t possible. He asked to speak to the lab manager. When George Drummond came on the line, Steven explained who he was and asked for his help in contacting Maclean.

‘Gulf War business?’ asked Drummond.

‘You could say,’ agreed Steven.

‘Best I can do is call Gus and ask him if it’s all right to give you his number,’ said Drummond.

‘I’d be grateful,’ said Steven.

Drummond called back within five minutes to give Steven the number. He dialled it.

‘Gus, I’d like to come up there and talk to you again.’

‘What about?’ asked Maclean sounding hoarse.

‘Same as last time. I don’t know if you’ve heard but the journalist that George Sebring talked to is dead.’

‘Jesus, what happened?’

‘Suicide.’

‘And the story?’

‘No trace.’

‘Shit.’

‘Agreed. Can I come?’

‘21, Brandon Street, off Dumbarton Road. Top flat, first.’

‘Tomorrow morning?’ said Steven.

‘I’ll be here.’

Before going to bed, Steven called Jane in Leicester to say that he would be going to Glasgow in the morning.

‘How did you get on with the people from Porton?’ asked Jane.

‘They’re sticking to the official line that George and his colleagues were working on a vaccine against AIDS,’ said Steven. ‘But it emerged that they did supply a component of a vaccines the troops were given. I guess we can call that progress.’

‘It’s something,’ said Jane.

‘Trouble is, they’ve recently destroyed all the old vaccine stocks so we can’t subject them to any new analysis.’

‘One step forward, two steps back,’ said Jane.

‘Was it ever different?’