The Lazarus Strain

TWELVE

Steven bought a selection of morning papers and read them over breakfast. They did not make for happy reading. ‘Police Consider Racial Motive in Crick Killings’ in one was rivalled by ‘Animal Activists Not To Blame?’ in another. He read each story carefully to make sure that they did not contain any information other than Kevin Shanks’s claim that a third man, ‘Ali’, had been responsible for the murder of Timothy Devon and that a woman witness had described the three men involved in the immolation of Robert Smith as being of possibly Asian origin.

He understood that the main concern of the police would now be an outbreak of racial violence but he himself had other things to consider. He tried to put himself in the shoes of Ali and his companions. They would know that their animal rights cover had been blown but would that panic them into changing their plans or could they be past the stage when that mattered?

Steven was pondering this over his third cup of coffee when his phone rang. He was surprised to hear Leila Martin’s voice.

‘I need someone to tell me what’s going on,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I have had four separate telephone calls from different government departments over the last twenty-four hours asking when my vaccine strain is going to be ready and now I’ve just read in the papers that it wasn’t animal rights extremists who attacked the institute and killed Tim. When is someone going to tell me what’s happening?’

Steven felt surprised that Leila should think it his job to tell her but recognised that she did have a right to feel concerned, maybe even aggrieved that no one had seen fit to keep her abreast of what was going on. He silently blamed Nigel Lees but then, as he admitted to himself, he was only too happy to blame Nigel Lees for anything.

‘I’m not sure there’s anything I can really tell you, Leila…’ he said, stalling for time.

There seemed to be a long pause before Leila said, ‘You’re right, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I called you… it was just that you left your card the other day and I was so angry I suppose I just wanted to talk to someone who might know something. I’m sorry I bothered you.’

‘You didn’t. Feel free to call me any time you like.’

‘Look… about your dinner invitation…’ said Leila.

‘It still stands,’ said Steven, hoping to sound casual but feeling an undeniable frisson of excitement at the prospect of spending an evening with Leila Martin.

‘There’s nothing I can do here to make the seed virus grow any faster. It just might do me good to have an evening away from here. I feel under so much pressure to succeed…’

‘Pick you up at seven thirty?’

‘Thank you Steven.’

‘At the institute?’

‘No, I’ll have to change. I’m renting a cottage outside Guist. Come there. It’s called Lion Cottage.’

‘Lion?’

‘There are ornamental iron lions on the eaves.’ Leila gave him directions on how to find it.

‘Sounds very old,’ said Steven.

‘The plumbing certainly is.’

‘Well, well, every cloud has a silver lining,’ murmured Steven as he put away his phone. Just when he thought life was on a downward spiral, fate had taken a hand and decided to cheer him up. Leila Martin was the most exciting woman he had met in ages. As he tried to get his thoughts back into order, he considered calling Giles to ask how bad the night had been but then decided against it. If Giles had been up all night he might well be sleeping. He would wait until the policeman called him. He thought it might be him when his phone rang thirty minutes later but it was John Macmillan.

‘Word has come from on high that someone wants the Crick affair cleared up before it has any chance of interfering with the election. All the stops are to be pulled out.’

‘Nice to know our leaders have a sense of priority,’ said Steven. ‘What exactly does pulling out all the stops mean in this case?’

‘I’m not sure I know myself,’ confessed Macmillan. ‘But it sounds good… “and that’s what’s important,”’ they both intoned.

‘Seriously, there’s going to be a high level meeting tomorrow at 11.30 to decide on a course of action and just how we should deal with an outbreak of Cambodia 5 should the worst come to the worst. Your presence has been requested.’

‘I don’t suppose I could get away with washing my hair?’

‘Damned right you couldn’t. You started all this.’

‘I’m not sure I’ll have anything to contribute,’ said Steven. ‘Don’t they have plans for just such emergencies? They seem to practice enough with people in Casper-the-friendly-ghost outfits running around the underground and others playing doctors and nurses in the streets.’

‘Sometimes Steven, I find your lack of reverence for authority a little hard to take,’ said Macmillan.

‘Sorry. Call it gallows humour.’

‘In this instance I’d rather not. Be here at 11a.m.’

Frank Giles called at 2.30p.m. ‘I thought I wouldn’t disturb you,’ said Steven. ‘Rough night?’

‘No worse than we expected, I suppose,’ said Giles. ‘But you’re right; I did have a kip this morning when I got in. It was mainly drunks having a go at Asian premises — nothing like chucking a brick through the corner shop window to gain the moral high ground — but it could be worse tonight after the coverage in this morning’s papers. I take it you saw?’

Steven nodded. ‘Any word from your bosses about spooks moving in?’

‘Not a thing. Of course, they could be keeping it a secret.’ Giles chuckled as he saw the irony in such a situation. ‘Little do they know that I know that they know that I know… So, apart from keeping a look out for people called, “Ali” and following up reports of monkeys being seen on the streets, is there anything else we should be doing in our spare time?’

‘Reports of people falling ill,’ said Steven.

‘With flu, you mean?’

‘Exactly that.’

‘And if we should hear?’

‘Let me know and we’ll take it from there.’

Steven arrived at Lion Cottage just before 7.30p.m., having given himself plenty of time to find it — he only missed the turn-off once. He was invited in by a vivacious looking Leila Martin. ‘Not quite ready,’ she said. ‘Take a seat or better still, run around and keep warm otherwise you might freeze to death.’

Steven had noticed that the cottage was cold. ‘Heating problems?’ he asked.

‘I think the “problem” is that there isn’t any,’ said Leila. ‘The radiators seem to be full of cold bricks as far as I can tell.’

‘Ah, storage heaters,’ said Steven. ‘Specially designed to heat the house while you’re out and maintain fridge-like conditions while you’re at home. It’s a British tradition. Builds character… Quaint cottage though.’

‘Right now, I would happily swap ‘quaint’ for a nice warm apartment,’ said Leila. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I thought we’d try a restaurant over in King’s Lynn. Someone at the hotel recommended it.’

‘As long as it’s warm,’ said Leila, coming back into the room and picking up her handbag from a chair. ‘Will I do?’

‘You look stunning,’ said Steven. And he meant it. He’d heard that most women had a ‘little black number’ in their wardrobe but was prepared to bet that most women wouldn’t look like Leila in it.

‘I’m tempted to put a sweater on top,’ she said.

‘Oh, don’t,’ said Steven and their eyes met for a moment.

‘Let’s go,’ smiled Leila, wrapping a leather blouson round her shoulders.

To Steven’s relief, the restaurant was warm and welcoming and neither too crowded nor too empty. He immediately felt comfortable and saw that Leila was beginning to relax too.

‘God, it’s so nice to get away from the lab for a while,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to feel as if I was in prison. So tell me, what is all the panic about?’

‘You saw the papers this morning. The police have changed their minds. They no longer think that animal rights extremists were behind the attack on the institute or the murders of Professor Devon and Robert Smith and that of course, has certain implications…’

‘But the mess… the slogans everywhere… the leaflets…’

‘Red herrings,’ said Steven, watching to see if Leila was familiar with the expression. She was.

‘And you? What do you think?’

‘I agree,’ said Steven.

‘But what other reason could there be?’

‘The worst scenario would be that the attackers knew about the Cambodia 5 virus and wanted to get their hands on it.’

‘Oh, my God,’ said Leila. ‘But Smithy, the animal man, why kill him? He didn’t know anything about viruses, poor man.’

Steven told her about the doubts raised by Smith over the last monkey brought in by the army.

‘But this is terrible!’ exclaimed Leila.

‘But it does explain why so many people have been asking you about the progress of your vaccine strain,’ said Steven.

‘Of course,’ said Leila. ‘They think someone is going to use the Cambodia 5 strain as a weapon and they need the vaccine.’

‘We know that they didn’t manage to get their hands on the concentrated, pure virus, which Devon had in the special safe in his room, but there is a very real chance that they will be able to recover it from the infected monkey if that’s really what all this is about. I say “if” because this is still all conjecture.’

‘It doesn’t bear thinking about,’ said Leila.

‘I’m afraid it does,’ said Steven. ‘A great deal of thinking about, but not necessarily by us and certainly not tonight. What d’you say we have an evening without talk of labs and viruses and “what-ifs”?’

Leila appeared to relax. She smiled and said, ‘Agreed, but thank you for telling me, Steven.’

It was just after midnight when they got back to the cottage. ‘Would you like to come in for coffee… if you don’t freeze before it’s ready?’ asked Leila.

Steven walked her up the path to the door with his arm round her shoulder. ‘Brr, you’re right,’ he said as they got inside and didn’t notice any perceptible change in temperature. ‘Don’t you have any other form of heating?’

‘There is an old electric fire in the bedroom,’ said Leila. ‘It keeps me alive while I’m dressing. Why don’t you bring it through while I make the coffee?’ She pointed to an arched wooden door. ‘Through there.’

Steven ducked his head and walked through. The whole house seemed to smell of cold and damp although it was mixed with a hint of Anais anais perfume in Leila’s bedroom. He smiled as the thought occurred to him that he had made it into Leila Martin’s bedroom and he couldn’t resist a sideways glance at the bed where an old fashioned patchwork quilt sat on top of what appeared to be a mountain of blankets in front of a dark mahogany headboard. He unplugged the ancient, one bar electric fire that sat in the middle of the floor: it had rust patches all over its reflective back plate and a badly frayed flex. He brought it through to the living room and plugged it into the wall. The smell of burning dust started to compete with the smell of damp.

‘Thank you so much for tonight,’ said Leila as she came through from the kitchen with two steaming mugs of coffee. ‘It was so nice to escape for a while.’

‘Then we must do it again,’ said Steven.

‘That would be nice,’ agreed Leila. ‘But I have a vaccine to make and so many people seem to be depending on it… Excuse me… I’ll just have to put on a sweater.’ Leila shivered and rubbed her arms before disappearing into the bedroom and coming back a few moments later wearing a heavy knit sweater over her ‘little black number’. She hugged herself with crossed arms and Steven smiled as she re-joined him on the couch. ‘You have an open fireplace,’ he said. ‘It’s just a question of getting something to burn in it, logs, coal…’

‘Maybe start with the furniture,’ said Leila, looking about her.

Steven conceded that she had a point. The cottage appeared to have been furnished from jumble sales of long ago.

They finished their coffee and Leila said, ‘Well, I should really get some sleep now.’

‘Me too,’ agreed Steven. ‘I’ve got an early start. I have to drive to London for a meeting at the Home Office.’

‘About the virus?’ asked Leila.

‘And what they intend doing about it should it get free,’ said Steven, getting to his feet.

‘Thank you again,’ said Leila, getting up too.

‘Don’t mention it.’ Steven leaned towards her and kissed her gently on the lips, hoping she wouldn’t pull away but giving her the opportunity. When she didn’t, he put his arms round her and brought her closer. She seemed to melt into him easily enough and the surprise he felt when she parted lips brought on such a feeling of excitement that he moved his hands down her back, over the hem of the long sweater and on to her bottom. He felt a resistance begin in Leila’s body and relaxed his grip. ‘Not tonight,’ she murmured in his ear.

‘I’d like to see you again,’ Steven said.

‘You will,’ said Leila. ‘Now go before we both freeze to death.’

The hubbub in the room died down as the Home Office minister brought the meeting to order. ‘I need hardly remind you why we are here, ladies and

gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Sci-Med have identified and reported to the Earlybird committee what might well be a serious threat to the security of our country and we are here to consider our response. For once, we know what the threat is rather than having to deal with a vague notion. It’s the Cambodia 5 virus and you have all been briefed on its capabilities.’

‘There was no mention in the briefing notes of a mortality rate for Cambodia 5,’ interrupted one of the intelligence services people.

Nigel Lees accepted the nod from the Home Office minister and answered. ‘That’s because we simply don’t know,’ he said. ‘There has never been an outbreak of Cambodia 5 to provide us with precedent. If it should turn out to be similar to the 1918 flu virus, we can expect something around 30 percent fatality. If the very worst should happen and the avian mortality rate should prove transferable to humans then we could be looking at… 90 percent?’

There were gasps around the table. ‘Nine out of ten will die?’

‘If the very worst comes to the very worst.’

‘The key to dealing with the problem is isolation,’ said Lees. ‘And the key to that is preparation. We must be on the look-out at all times. The merest suspicion of people going down with flu must be acted upon and the victims kept in isolation to contain spread of the disease. There’s no treatment for the virus and as yet — although we are hopeful — no vaccine against it, so the only way to stop it is to prevent people getting it in the first place. Warnings are being sent out to all hospitals, clinics and doctors’ surgeries. Vigilance is the key.’

Vigilance is the key, thought Steven. Another bloody sound bite. Did the whole world speak in them these days?

‘How much time do we have?’ asked a woman from the General Nursing Council.

The question was passed to a man identified as a microbiologist attached to Defence Intelligence Services. ‘That rather depends on who the opposition are and how well they are organised.’

‘So you don’t know for sure that it’s al-Qaeda?’

‘Far from it, all we have to go on is that one is named “Ali” and they all look Indian or Pakistani. Even that’s not reliable as the witness wasn’t capable of that degree of identification.’

‘Ye gods,’ said someone and there were sighs of agreement.

‘The fact that they would need decent lab facilities and the wherewithal to isolate and grow up pure virus from the escaped monkey tends to work in our favour,’ said the microbiologist. ‘Even if they’ve got suitable premises, it will still take some time to obtain enough pure virus to mount an attack of sufficient magnitude to ensure an epidemic. It has to be grown up in fertile hens’ eggs.’

‘Strikes me that not too many people order up fertile hens’ eggs,’ said Steven. ‘That might be a way of getting to them.’

‘DIS are on that as we speak,’ smiled the microbiologist.

‘You don’t think they’ll just infect a few people and let nature take its course?’ suggested someone else. ‘It is highly infectious.’

‘We think not. The newspaper stories will have alerted them to the fact that we didn’t fall for the animal rights motive at the Crick so they know that all GPs and hospitals will have been warned to be on the look-out for flu in the coming months. We think they’ll hold off and go for the big hit — always assuming that they have the lab facilities.’

‘If they do go for the big one, any idea what form it might take?’

‘Aerosol attack in a crowded place, rail station, department store, something along those lines.’

‘And if things should get that far?’

‘If things should get that far and no vaccine protection has been made available… an epidemic would be unavoidable.’

‘Supposing a vaccine was available, how long does it take to become effective in preventing infection?’

‘Thankfully, not long at all, two or three days should be sufficient.’

‘Nothing more has been mentioned about a 9/11 style attack on Canary Wharf,’ said the officer from the Metropolitan Police. ‘Can we assume that this has now been discredited?’

‘I rather think we can,’ said the Home Office Minister. ‘It seems as if the scepticism of DIS expressed at our last meeting was justified. It was a diversion.’

‘To divert attention from an attempted Cambodia 5 virus attack?’

‘That may well be the case.’

‘It didn’t stop certain government sources claiming success for smashing a planned attack on Canary Wharf though, did it?’ said someone.

The Home Office minister looked uncomfortable. He said, ‘Sometimes those at the interface between government and the media interpret things differently…’

‘Spin doctors,’ said the same person with obvious distaste.

‘I think such an interpretation is called lying in your own interests,’ added the London Fire Brigades officer.

‘I think internal explanations and apologies, where seen fit, have already been made,’ said the Home Office minister. ‘Although it would be fair to say that no deliberate intent to deceive was involved.’

Perish the thought, thought Steven.

‘When the first reports from DIS came in they had to be treated as a genuine al-Qaeda threat. It was only after interrogation that DIS started to suspect they were being fed erroneous information.’

‘Perhaps Colonel Rose would care to give us an update on what DIS obtained from the suspects under interrogation?’ suggested John Macmillan.

‘Not a great deal,’ admitted Rose. ‘The truth is they didn’t know much to begin with — that’s why we were led to them in the first place. They were low level people, sacrificed by al Qaeda in order to send us on a wild goose chase. The best we’ve managed to get out of them is a few more names, which we’re checking out, but it’s odds on they’ll be low level operatives too.’

‘Thank you, Colonel.’

‘Well, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the Home Office minister, ‘if there are no more questions or comments, I think I’ll call this meeting to a close. Perhaps the Sci-Med people would stay behind for a few minutes.’

Steven and Macmillan looked at each other. Macmillan’s shrug told Steven that he didn’t know either why they’d been asked to stay.

‘No need to look so worried,’ said the Home Office minister when he rejoined Steven and Macmillan after seeing the others out. ‘Sherry?’

The two Sci-Med men sat sipping what Steven expected Macmillan to call ‘a decent amontillado’ although he didn’t, while the Home Office minister took a phone call. ‘Nothing I couldn’t handle, Home Secretary… Absolutely, Home Secretary… Nice of you to say so, sir… I certainly will, they’re with me now.’

‘The Home Secretary sends his regards and his congratulations to you Dr Dunbar for seeing through the animal rights ruse.’

Steven gave an ‘all in a day’s work’ nod.

‘I thought it only right to keep you chaps abreast of our efforts to clear the decks for Dr Martin’s vaccine if and when it becomes available. We have reached agreement with the FDA in the USA and with our own people at MHRA. They have both agreed to give her vaccine their seal of approval subject only to routine tests for bacterial contamination before distribution — understandable I think in the circumstances, when that’s what caused all the problems last year at Auroragen.’

‘So it’s all coming down to a simple race between Dr Martin and al-Qaeda,’ said Macmillan.

‘I saw her yesterday,’ said Steven. ‘The vaccine seed strain has been constructed. It’s growing up in fertile eggs as we speak. It’s just a question of whether it grows up in time to be handed over to Auroragen.’

‘Latest possible date is February 21,’ said the Home Office Minister. ‘Any later than that and the company will revert to using the three strains recommended by the World Health Organisation.’

‘Has WHO been made aware of the situation?’ asked Macmillan.

‘Of course, but they can’t recommend incorporation of a vaccine seed strain that doesn’t as yet exist. They say they’ll have to advocate use of the best three known strains for the preparation of next year’s vaccine.’

‘And if Leila’s strain is ready in time?’ asked Steven, immediately wishing he hadn’t used Leila’s first name.

‘Then, like the FDA and MHPRA, they are prepared to nod it through with the minimum of paperwork.’

‘Good.’