The Gulf Conspiracy

TWO

Lt. Colonel James Blamire arrived at the television studio in plenty of time to confer with his American counterpart as they’d previously arranged. A few inches shorter than the gangling Blamire but broader and with an iron-grey crew cut in contrast to the Englishman’s thinning fair hair, Marine Colonel Max Schumacher got up and held out his hand when he saw Blamire come in through the door.

He smiled and suggested, ‘Why don’t we walk and talk outside?’ He picked up his briefcase from the side of his chair.

Blamire, noting the number of people in the room and the noise being made by the technicians as they went about their business of preparing for a press conference, grimaced and nodded his agreement.

The two men made their way to a side exit, stepping carefully over cable lines and easing between satellite broadcasting equipment to leave the studio, pausing only to tell the floor manager who was clutching a clipboard in one hand and gesturing to a man setting up the lighting gantry with the other, that they would return in plenty of time for the start of the conference.

‘The word is out that some of the press are going to be asking awkward questions about Saddam’s use of CB weapons,’ said Blamire.

‘I’ve heard that too and I’m not exactly relishing it. I don’t suppose you’ve any idea what they’ve got?’

‘’Fraid not. I tried my sources but no joy. Hopefully it’s just the stuff of rumour but by God, there’s plenty of it going about.’

The two men continued their slow walk in silence until Schumacher broke it by saying, ‘Between you and I, 513 Military Intelligence have filed a report of anthrax being found in King Khalid City,’ said Schumacher. ‘Thought you should know.’

‘One of our field labs has identified Plague bacillus at Wadi al Batin,’ said Blamire.

‘Jesus.’

‘But there is to be no change to the official line,’ said Blamire.

‘Which makes our position about as comfortable as sitting on a barbed wire fence,’ said Schumacher.

‘Trotting out the same old crap like some military parrot.’ said Blamire. He recited, ‘There is no confirmed evidence of Saddam ever having used CB weapons intentionally.’

‘Note the all-important use of the word, “intentionally”,’ snorted Schumacher. ‘The Iraqis use plague and we use semantics. Still, I guess in some quarters of the UN this would be regarded as progress.’

‘If either of these reports has been leaked to the media — despite the fact they’re top secret — Joint Intelligence suggests that we point them in the direction of air strikes carried out on Saddam’s labs.’

Schumacher smiled and said, ‘An unfortunate but unavoidable fall-out carried on the desert wind?’

‘Precisely. These facilities posed an unacceptable threat to the civilised world and had to be destroyed. Any collateral damage due to escaping micro-organisms is to be regretted.’

‘Think the media’ll swallow it?’ said Schumacher.

‘Personally I’d prefer if they swallowed the bugs and got off my bloody back. I’m fed up pandering to a bunch of holier-than-thou scribblers so that Joe Public can watch the bloody war on television.’

‘Know how you feel,’ agreed Schumacher.

‘There is one thing that bothers me though,’ said Blamire. ‘I don’t quite understand why we’re bending over backwards to pretend that Saddam isn’t using CB weapons when he damn well is.’

Schumacher looked at Blamire sideways. ‘You’re serious?’ he said. ‘You really don’t know?’

‘No, I don’t,’ confessed Blamire.

‘We sold him the weapons, James. Uncle Sam supplied him with the bugs less than six years ago and George Bush reckons the American people couldn’t quite handle that fun piece of information right now, particularly if our boys should start dying of a plague with stars and stripes written all over it.’

‘Oh what a tangled web we weave,’ sighed Blamire. ‘What exactly did you lot give him?’

‘From what I can make out, just about anything he asked for in the mid-eighties. Anthrax, Plague, Clostridia, Brucella, you name it. Oh, and Sarin nerve gas for good measure.’

‘Jesus.’

‘And d’you know the really cute thing? He was supplied with seed cultures from the American National Type Culture Collection at the rate they charge our research labs at home. Less than sixty dollars a throw.’

‘Good God.’

‘And the bastard didn’t even pay.’

‘So now he can grow as much as he wants at any time from these damned seed cultures.’

‘Yep,’ agreed Schumacher. ‘Just thank Christ he can’t deliver them properly or we’d be in even deeper shit. These old Scuds are about as useful as wheelbarrows when it comes to actually delivering CB weapons.’

‘At least the vaccines seemed to be doing their job too,’ said Blamire. ‘There’s been no outbreak of disease that I’ve heard about.’

‘No,’ agreed Schumacher.

‘Mind you, the nerve gas could be a bigger problem,’ said Blamire. ‘I suppose we could have used the same “fall-out from a destroyed lab facility” angle if it wasn’t for a couple of well-observed airburst incidents involving Scuds.’

‘I heard about that,’ said Schumacher.

‘And compounded in one case by a fuck-up when they sounded the all clear before the damned stuff had had time to dissipate. You’d almost think that someone wanted to expose the troops to the stuff.’

‘You know, it’s odd you should say that,’ said Schumacher, pausing to light a cigarette, ‘I’ve been worried about these PB pills they’ve been dishing out to the guys. Do you know what they are?

‘They’re just pills as far as I’m concerned,’ said Blamire, shrugging. ‘Not my field, I’m afraid. They’re supposed to counter the effects of nerve gas, aren’t they?’

‘With certain provisos,’ said Schumacher. ‘One, the substance they contain, pyridostigmine bromide, is toxic itself, especially if you should happen to take too much of it.’

‘I take it that’s why the troops are instructed only to take them immediately before a gas attack,’ said Blamire.

‘Correct but it’s not clear to me how you can tell when that is exactly,’ pointed out Schumacher.

‘Good point.’

‘So you can understand the temptation to pop these pills every time every time the guys hear a plane engine come over and that can be dangerous. Nobody knows the long-term effects of PB overdosing.’

‘You seem to know a lot about these things.’

‘Enough,’ agreed Schumacher. ‘I spent some time at Fort Dietrich. But you know the really weird thing? PB isn’t effective against all nerve gases. In fact, there’s one gas where it actually makes the effects worse. Want to take a shot at it?’ Schumacher glanced sideways at Blamire.

‘Sarin?’

‘Yep, Sarin.’

‘The one gas we know Saddam has for sure? ’

‘Exactly. PB works well enough against the effects of Soman and Tabun but when combined with Sarin, it can be a deadly combination. Even tiny concentrations of Sarin in the air can cause problems for someone who’s been taking PB pills.’

‘Have you said anything about this to anyone?’ asked Blamire.

‘Are you kidding? I like being a colonel. The uniform of private, first class, wouldn’t suit me. No one’s supposed to know we gave Sarin to Saddam. Remember?’

‘Silly me,’ said Blamire. ‘So our masters are prepared to have the troops exposed to unnecessary danger in order to avoid any political embarrassment?’

‘Seems like it.’

Both men stopped to watch a number of jeeps draw up some three hundred metres away outside the studio building and a number of senior officers get out. Even at a distance the men could see that the bulky figure of General Norman Schwarzkopf was among them.

‘Personally I’m counting on Stormin’ Norman putting an end to this odyssey of fun and getting all our asses out of here by the end of the month,’ said Schumacher.

‘Amen to that,’ said Blamire. ‘We’d better get back; it’s almost showtime.’

Blamire and Schumacher took their places at opposite ends of the long table fronting rows of collapsible seats provided for members of the press corps. TV and film cameras were manoeuvred into position and lighting adjusted as General Schwarzkopf took centre stage behind a sea of microphones bearing the logos of their stations. He was flanked by US and British commanders and was the first to be questioned on the progress of the war.

Schwarzkopf handled the press with his usual aplomb and great good humour and the press responded with laughter and even, on occasion, applause. The general was always good copy. He was a tough, straight talking, all action American hero and that was exactly what the folks back home wanted to see on their TV sets — and that went for both sides of the Atlantic. When British commanders were questioned it was as if the lights had been turned out and a speak-your-weight machine had taken over.

Blamire was beginning to think that his fears about CB weapons questions had been unfounded when a slight woman with a French accent and wearing fatigues got to her feet and announced her credentials as representing a French radio station. She asked if there was any truth in the rumour that a field laboratory team had recently detected the presence of the anthrax bacillus in Dahran.

Schwarzkopf waited until the hubbub had died down and said, ‘I am unaware of any such thing, young lady. How about you Max?’

Max Schumacher shook his head and said, ‘No sir.’

‘And plague bacillus at Wadi al Batin?’ continued the journalist.

Schumacher glanced at Blamire who took his cue and fielded the question for him. ‘We are certainly not aware of any deliberate use of any offensive micro-organisms against Allied forces,’ he said.

‘How about accidental use?’ asked the woman, picking up on the operative word amidst laughter from the floor. Her accent made the word seem sexy.

‘That’s really not as daft as it sounds,’ said Blamire, using the PR trick of smiling disarmingly as if taking the assembly into his confidence. ‘The fact of the matter is that our air crews have been having some success in destroying Saddam’s microbiological research facilities.’ He paused to allow the journalists to work out what he was going to say next and feel good about it. ‘Unfortunately,’ he continued, ‘it is possible that a certain amount of dangerous fall-out has escaped and although of course, we regret it, the simple fact of the matter is that it’s just not possible to contain and destroy everything inside these buildings when high explosive is being used.’

Blamire hoped that the French woman might be satisfied with his answer — as everyone else seemed to be — but she remained standing, small and slim but ram-rod straight and exuding the self confidence of someone who saw herself on a mission of truth. Her hair was swept back in a ponytail and the camera lights were reflecting off her frameless glasses. ‘So what sort of bacteria can we expect to be in the air around us?’ she asked.

‘I really don’t think that’s going to be a major problem,’ replied Blamire. ‘We would anticipate that any escaping organisms would dissipate to statistical insignificance anywhere outside a radius of two miles from source. As for the identity of these agents, well, of course, that’s impossible for us to predict.’

‘Is it really, Colonel?’ said the French journalist. There was clear doubt in her tone.

For one awful moment Blamire thought that she was about to accuse them openly of knowing perfectly well what organisms Saddam had access to and where he had got them. As fate would have it, however, another journalist got to his feet and said, ‘Tom Coogan, NBC News: maybe the rest of us could get a question or two in here?’

The French woman deferred to him reluctantly and sat down. Coogan asked Schwarzkopf if he intended taking his ground forces right on into Baghdad and occupying it.’

‘I’m a soldier. I do what I’m told. I go where they tell me,’ replied the general and good humour returned to the meeting.

Blamire had a few words with Schumacher after the briefing was over. ‘It can only be a matter of time,’ he said. ‘We can’t go on like this. That French woman clearly knows what’s been going on.’

‘It might not be that much of a problem if things go on the way they’re doing at the moment,’ said Schumacher. The bombers have destroyed so much of Saddam’s hardware that the Iraqis will be reduced to using catapults by the middle of March assuming they last that long. Once Norman really starts rolling with the ground offensive, they might not make it to the beginning of March, let alone the middle.’

‘Something could still go seriously wrong,’ said Blamire. ‘We’re talking about a megalomaniac with his back to the wall. Saddam could still go after the Israelis with CB weapons.’

Schumacher shook his head and said, ‘The Israelis have been patient. They’ve accepted that they have to stay out of this fight or our Arab allies will be hopelessly compromised. They just could not afford to be seen fighting on the same side as the Israelis against a fellow Arab state. But, if what you suggest should happen, it will be out of all our hands. The Israelis will reduce Baghdad to a pile of radioactive dust no matter what anyone says.’

Blamire grimaced at the thought.

‘My money is still on Norman kicking Saddam’s ass,’ said Schumacher. ‘Cheer up. We’ll all be home by Easter.’

‘The BBC would like us to send someone along to answer allegations that many of our servicemen have been falling ill after returning home from the Gulf, minister. What shall I tell them, sir?’

‘Bloody BBC! Whose side are they on? We win a war and all they can do is whinge about a bunch of squaddies who’ve got flu for God’ sake. Whatever happened to pride in one’s country?’

‘They say the Americans have been experiencing similar problems, Minister,’ said the hapless secretary, who had heard it all before. ‘They’re calling it, Gulf War Syndrome.’

‘Poppycock,’ retorted the minister. ‘Mamby pamby nonsense. For God’s sake, what’s happening to us? We never read about Agincourt Syndrome in our history books, did we?’

‘No sir.’

‘Damn right. Nor Crecy Syndrome nor Waterloo Syndrome. Our soldiers were men in these days.’

‘Yes sir, shall I tell the BBC no?’

The minister shook his head. ‘Oh, I suppose not,’ he sighed. ‘Ask Jeffrey if he’ll go along. Get him to assure them that we are looking at the situation in great detail and seeking the best medical advice available. The welfare of our troops is our primary concern, you know the sort of stuff. Jeffrey knows the form.’

‘Yes sir.’

As the secretary left the room, the minister took out a file from his desk and flipped it open. It was headed, Top Secret, Gulf War Syndrome.

‘England in the autumn, eh Warner? Our England. Who’d want to be anywhere else?’ said Sir James Gardiner. He was looking down from the bay window of a first floor room at the trees in the garden. ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and all that. So sad, don’t you think? Another year of our lives gone, but with such a beautiful requiem.’

Warner grunted his agreement. ‘If only more people realised it. Maybe they’d be less inclined to sit back and let the country go to the dogs.’

‘With a bit of luck our success in the Gulf War might put some backbone into them,’ said Gardiner.

A bonfire of leaves, lit in the early afternoon, was still smouldering and sending tendrils of smoke up into the still evening air. The smell of burning leaves was everywhere.

‘Let’s join the others,’ said Gardiner.

As was usual at such meetings, Gardiner took his place at the head of the table.

‘I thought it best we meet in view of the press coverage being given to something I understand is being called Gulf War Syndrome,’ said Gardiner. ‘Does this have anything to do with what happened at Porton a year ago? And if so, just how much of a problem we can expect?’

The question was addressed to Dr Donald Crowe, leader of the Beta Team at Porton Down Defence Establishment.

‘I think we have to face the fact that the accident may have something to do with it,’ said Crowe. ‘But there are a great number of other factors to be considered which, if I may so, tend to work in our favour.’

‘Explain.’

‘Veterans of the war have apparently been coming down with a wide range of symptoms.’ He read from his notes. ‘Chronic fatigue, intermittent fever, night sweats, headaches, skin rashes, abdominal bloating, diarrhoea and so it goes on: the list seems endless. This in itself should prevent these symptoms from ever being assigned to any one particular condition.’

‘But in reality, all these things are due to contamination of the vaccine?’ asked Gardiner.

‘Far from it,’ replied Crowe. ‘Saddam did us a favour with his primitive attempts to use CB weapons in the war. Inadvertently and most obligingly, he created a very convenient smoke screen.’

‘You mean that some of the illness may be due to the effects of these weapons rather than our agent?’

‘Almost certainly.’

Gardiner appeared to relax a little and others took their cue from him.

‘Our American friends also did their bit by not being entirely explicit about the use of PB as an antidote to nerve gas attack,’ said Cecil Mowbray. The speaker was a dapper man in his early fifties, whose intelligent but cold eyes and propensity to listen rather than speak in company marked him out as a natural for a career in intelligence. He had worked for MI5 for some twenty-five years, ever since leaving Cambridge with a First in classics. ‘Quite a number of forces personnel suffered the effects of over-dosing and unfortunately a small number suffered the combined effects of Sarin gas and PB ingestion.’

‘More smoke,’ said Warner.

‘It’s a pity of course, that the Iraqi use of CB weapons can’t be made public,’ said Crowe. ‘For obvious reasons.’

‘There’s public and then there’s public,’ said Warner. ‘Rumour was rife in the Gulf. The tales of conspiracy and cover-up that our dear friends in the media are so fond of will keep them chasing their tails rather than come sniffing at anything closer to home.’

‘I anticipate the fact that the Americans supplied Saddam with these weapons will become public knowledge over the next few years but, by that time, the war will be something of a distant memory in public consciousness and therefore this will not be such an issue,’ said Mowbray.

‘You seem to be suggesting that we have nothing to fear from Press interest in this Gulf War Syndrome thing and that we’re in the clear?’ said Gardiner.

‘I believe that to be the case,’ said Mowbray.

‘I agree,’ said Crowe.

‘I’m not sure that congratulations are in order, Crowe: this should never have happened in the first place, but I suppose it could have turned out much worse. I take it that none of the personnel affected by the accident will suffer any long-lasting effects?’

There was a long pause before Crowe, picking his words carefully, said, ‘We would sincerely hope not, Sir James. It was a very early version of what we were working on so we didn’t assess it in any great detail at the time but I really think we can put this affair behind us.’

‘Good. All’s well that ends well eh? I take it no embarrassing questions were ever asked at Porton and you cleaned up behind you, so to speak?’

Crowe cleared his throat as if taken by surprise by the question. ‘The project was abandoned and everything destroyed as you directed,’ he said. ‘No questions were asked.’

‘What about the people on your team?’ asked Gardiner.

‘Dr Sebring had great difficulty in coming to terms with the accident. He felt responsible — as indeed he was.

Gardiner diverted his eyes momentarily from Crowe to hide his distaste at Crowe once again distancing himself from blame.

‘He had to seek medical help,’ Crowe continued. ‘He was on sick leave for some considerable time and when he eventually did return he decided that he no longer wanted to do the same kind of work and left our employ. It was probably for the best really.’

‘And the others?’

‘One other man left; the remaining two have been reassigned to different projects.’

‘I take it they all understood the full implications of the Official Secrets Act?’

Crowe was about to offer assurances when Mowbray interrupted. ‘I don’t think we need have any worries on that score. Low-level surveillance has been kept on them ever since the break-up but everything seems fine. Sebring has been taken on as a lecturer at the University of Leicester. Michael D’Arcy is currently employed by a pharmaceutical company here in Kent while Lowry and Rawlings are, of course, still at Porton.’

‘Working on malaria,’ added Crowe.

‘Good,’ said Gardiner.

‘Obviously, there may be financial implications for HMG if the numbers of sick veterans continues to grow,’ said Rupert Everly, adopting his grave concern expression. ‘That in itself might well keep this so-called Gulf War Syndrome in the public eye.’

‘Cries for compensation, you mean?’ said Gardiner sourly. ‘Let’s hope HMG takes a strong line on that. Give it to one and they’ll all be after something for nothing.’

‘Come, that’s a bit harsh, James,’ said Warner. ‘After all that went on in the Gulf, some of these soldiers are genuinely ill.’

‘The state already makes provision for people who are genuinely ill,’ retorted Gardiner. ‘There’s no need to recognise a whole new syndrome, especially one that doesn’t actually exist. When you take the Queen’s shilling, you take your chances. That’s the way it’s always been.’

‘When the guns begin to shoot, my lad, when the guns begin to shoot,’ said Warner. ‘Mind you,’ he added, smoothing his moustache with thumb and forefinger, ‘We usually just had to fight the other side…’

‘We’ve just been assured that there will be no lasting effects from this damned thing,’ snapped Gardiner, bristling at the remark.

‘I sincerely hope and believe that to be the case,’ said Crowe, realising with some obvious concern that he was the source of assurance Gardiner was referring to. ‘Of course, there’s no way of being absolutely sure…’