Miasma

Fourteen

Flying back to London by helicopter only served to exacerbate the feelings of embarrassment Steven felt. What a waste of everything.

Scott sensed his mood and said, ‘There’s a reason for what happened, mate, you can’t see it right now, but you will, sometimes you just have to come at things from a different direction.’

‘Right,’ said Steven sounding less than convinced.

‘You know the wheelbarrow joke, right?’

‘Hit me.’

‘This docker leaves work pushing a wheelbarrow with a tarpaulin over it and security stops him. Open it up!’ The guy removes the tarpaulin and the barrow is empty. This goes on three or four times a week for a month and always with the same result until finally the security guy gives up. ‘Okay, I’m not going to charge you with anything, you’re driving me mad, just tell me what you’re thieving.’

‘Wheelbarrows,’ says the guy.

Steven managed a shake of the head and a small smile. ‘Thanks, Scott,’ he murmured.

‘Maybe you’re looking at the tarpaulin, mate.’

John Macmillan took the news without a change of expression save for a slight raise of the eyebrows. Jean was more vocal. ‘Someone must have switched the flasks,’ she said.

‘And we are spoiled for choice,’ Steven sighed. ‘The chain is pretty long. It could have been someone in the Israeli lab or the Israeli intelligence services when they were called in, or the CIA when they became involved or Interpol or even MI6 when it was decided to bring the container to Porton although, frankly, I’m struggling to believe any of these.’

‘That’s not your only problem,’ said Jean. ‘Someone told the Russians where you and Jane Sherman would be yesterday and around what time.’

‘What Jean says is true,’ said Macmillan. ‘It’s clear that the Russian oligarchs and their hired lackeys are determined to protect their interests by killing people if necessary and yesterday it became clear that someone on the inside is helping them. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the assassin was driving on Westminster Bridge at the same time Steven and Jane were walking over it. It’s not someone inside Sci-Med so it’s someone inside MI6... and finding that person will not be as daunting as it sounds.’

Jean and Steven exchanged glances.

‘We know that Jane Sherman was at a meeting in Westminster yesterday morning as was Steven, albeit a different one,’ Macmillan continued. ‘I think she told someone at her meeting that she was having lunch with Steven afterwards and that someone betrayed her schedule to the Russians who saw the chance to take out both Jane and Steven at the same time. That someone gave the Russians an update on the exact time the pair of you were leaving Westminster and that’s how they knew where you would be and when. MI6 don’t have to search through their ranks for the mole, the mole was one of the people at her Westminster meeting.’

‘I’m glad you are on our side, John,’ said Steven.

Steven left the Home Office; it had been a long day. There was no question of Sci-Med even considering investigating how Petrov’s flask had come to be changed or who had done it — it would be way out of their remit and far too big a task for them to even consider attempting. What was even more depressing was that it was doubtful that the intelligence services would pursue it too vigorously either as it wasn’t essential to their main investigation, which was concerned with corruption in world aid agencies and how widespread it was. Knowing what the original contents of the flask comprised was of course, important for his investigation, not knowing that or even seeing a new way of finding out was going to bring it to a complete halt.

Steven had taken to using standard precautions when under threat. He would enter and leave the Home Office at varying times and by using a number of different access and exit points. Although Macmillan hadn’t said as much, he knew that he was under police surveillance although not overtly so. He had spotted his minders on occasion, as was inevitable as he was keeping his own look-out for possible problems. He chose not to acknowledge their presence — something that might be construed as insulting.

Steven closed the door of the flat and stood with his back against it, embracing the silence at the end of a bloody awful day. Only, it wasn’t the end; he still had to explain to Tally why he hadn’t answered her call last night and then bring her up to speed with what had been going on. He feared it would be a conversation they’d had before.

‘Thank God,’ said Tally when Steven answered immediately. ‘I’m thinking something must have gone very wrong yesterday?’

‘It did,’ said Steven, sounding as tired as he felt. ‘Our Russian friends decided that I and MI6 had to be discouraged from interfering in what they are up to.’

‘Was violence involved?’

‘Yes.’

‘Serious?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’d rather not talk about it?’

‘Not right now.’

‘Understood,’ said Tally softly, ‘There’s no real need for me to tell you to take care, but I’m going to do it anyway.’

‘And on this occasion, I have to say that to you too. ‘Has anything changed?’

‘I can’t say that it has, there is very little information that can be trusted emerging from Kivu Province although the government is insisting that the outbreak is being contained.’

‘Let’s hope they’re right.’

‘You asked about the names of people involved in a vaccination schedule that went terribly wrong according to my friend, Monique. The WHO official in charge was someone named Lagarde... Hello, are you still there?’

‘Yes, sorry, you took me by surprise. Lagarde was the murdered WHO official in my investigation.’

‘I thought the name was familiar, but hearing it out of context, it didn’t ring a bell.’

‘His last posting was to Afghanistan but I remember reading that he was in DRC a few years before that at the time of the big Ebola outbreak.’

‘Steven, you haven’t told me what was in the flask that Porton were going to analyse?’

‘Salt water.’

‘You’re not serious.’

‘ ’Fraid so.’

‘Oh dear, things are really not going well, are they?’

‘You could say. By the way, I looked up the report you asked me to. Officially there were no deaths attributed to the experimental vaccine back in 2014-16.’

Tally sighed and said, ‘I can’t say things are going wonderfully well for me either. Monique is a bright girl and she’s adamant the vaccine killed several members of her friends and family.’

‘I know she maintains they were perfectly healthy when they got the vaccine, but it could have been a close-run thing; they could have been incubating the disease at the time and it had just gone a bit too far for the vaccine to work.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Tally after some hesitation. ‘That would be the simplest explanation.’

‘Then go for it.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Take a day off,’ said Steven, ‘head for a beach, take a long walk.’

Thoughts of Phillipe Lagarde decided to accompany Steven on his south coast beach walk. On the face of it, it seemed a bizarre coincidence that his name should crop up in connection with Ebola vaccination in DRC in Tally’s neck of the woods, but the more he thought about it, the more unsurprising it became. Whatever else the man became involved in, he was working as a WHO vaccination strategist in DRC at a time when Ebola was rampaging through the country. He remembered reading that in the impromptu CV that Jean had composed for him a few weeks ago and feeling admiration for the man. He’d gone from the hell of fighting one disease in DRC to combating another, Polio, in the towering mountain passes between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But then, came his murder and the news from the intelligence people that Lagarde was implicated in the infiltration of major aid agencies by organised crime. He might be dead, thought Steven, but he had ruined an otherwise decent beach walk.

Tally decided to drive over to the regional aid headquarters for Equateur Province to see if she could get some clear indication of what was happening in Kivu as none of her nearest fellow area managers seemed to know. She arrived to find that Marcus Altman, the WHO regional manager was currently travelling round Equateur to make sure that they really were clear of the disease and wasn’t expected back for three days. She explained that she was seeking information about the situation in the north and was met with shrugs and apologies. One Red Cross man said, ‘It’s every bit as bad as we thought: the last reliable figure we had was 130 deaths around the city of Beni and people were fleeing south.’

A familiar voice said, ‘Hi.’ And Tally turned to find Hans Weber, Altman’s assistant and the young man who, along with Mary Kelly, the MSF nurse, had escorted her through her first few days in DRC.

‘Hello, nice to see you,’ said Tally. ‘You’re not out on the road with Marcus?’

‘No, I stayed to look after the next batch of vaccine due in today. Was there something you needed?’

Tally shook her head, ‘No, I was looking for information about what’s happening up in Kivu. I heard the outbreak was being contained, then I heard it wasn’t, then someone said it was spreading at an alarming rate.’

‘It’s incredibly difficult to get information out of what’s virtually a war zone,’ said Weber. ‘People are afraid of the disease, but they’re also afraid of the rebels. On top of that they’re afraid of foreigners coming into their lives and doing things they don’t understand so they start doing things like hiding their dead.’

Tally’s eyes opened wide.

‘They’ve heard tales of foreigners — us — coming in and taking away loved ones and burning them so they hide them and, of course, end up infecting themselves. If time is not on your side and people don’t speak the same language, there’s a complete lack of communication and people doing what is exactly the right thing to do can look absolutely dreadful.’

‘Of course.’

‘Many are fleeing — or trying to flee but many will be killed by rebel groups if they come across them. If they make it to the south, people there don’t want anything to do with them and some have started fleeing themselves, alarmed by the rumours of mass invasion from the north. The mines are grinding to a halt as the miners decide it’s not worth putting their lives at risk by hanging around.’

‘You said rumours of a mass invasion, do really you think that’s likely?’

‘No one can say for sure. Perhaps rumours are worse than reality. The government school of thought is that the outbreak will be over within three to four months.’

‘So, the bottom line is that no one knows?’

‘Correct.’

‘There was one thing I wanted to ask Marcus about, perhaps you can help me. The official WHO report on the big outbreak in 14–16 said that no one died through use of the experimental vaccine.’

‘That’s right,’ said Weber. ‘It’s the same one we’re still using.’

Tally adopted a pained expression. ‘It’s just that Monique Barbet, the teacher in the village you took me too when I first arrived, is sure that the vaccine was responsible for the deaths of several friends and members of her family.’

‘How did they die?’

‘Ebola.’

‘I think that is your answer. They must have been in the early stages of the disease when they were given it, too late for the vaccine to be of any use.’

‘Mm, that’s what I thought, but she doesn’t think so. All things considered, I think you have to be right,’ Tally agreed.

‘I don’t think Monique likes us very much,’ said Weber, ‘it’s something we all have to get used to. We come to places of great danger to help, do the best we can and the people end up hating us.’

‘As if life wasn’t hard enough,’ sighed Tally. She drove back to her ‘area’ home, thinking about her day and feeling distinctly uneasy about what was happening to her life in general. She re-visited her feelings of guilt over having had such a comfortable, trouble-free life and remembered persuading herself that she needed exposure to some of the raw realities of life experienced by medical colleagues she would normally never meet. She had volunteered to join them to do what she could and she had, but now she felt the ground move beneath her feet. The anchors of stability she had taken so much for granted were disappearing and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling. At home, Steven was engaged in an investigation that had clearly put him into great danger — bad enough for him not to want to talk about it, although he had admitted violence had been involved — and she herself was in a country where no one knew exactly what was going to happen tomorrow.

According to some, Ebola was running riot across a large province in the north, a place infested by warlords and bandits. People were reportedly fleeing while the government, on the other hand were suggesting that things were coming under control and all would be well in a matter of months. Realists or cynics, according to your point of view, construed this as an attempt to stabilise economic interests by keeping mineral mining operational — possibly an unsuccessful gambit as there were stories of miners getting out fast, fearing an invasion of disease-carrying people from the north.

On a smaller scale, she was faced with keeping her promise to Monique Barbet about going back to her village to tell her anything she found out about the vaccine used for her family, if only to tell her that she must have been mistaken about her family’s state of health at the time. She suspected that Monique would dismiss her as ‘one of them’ and that would be an end to it.

The really troubling thing for Tally was that Monique was a very intelligent woman who had seen Ebola before and would be familiar with its stages of development... and, of course, she herself had recently learned that the man in charge of carrying out vaccination at the time in Monique’s village was one of the murdered people in Steven’s investigation. She couldn’t quite see why this could possibly have any connection to adverse effects of the vaccine on Monique’s family, but the information was there and it wasn’t going to go away. Rather than have this niggle away at her any more, Tally decided to drive straight on to Monique’s village and get it over with.

On the previous two occasions, Tally had found Monique teaching the village children outside the hut that served as the school. This time both the playground and school were empty when Tally parked the Land Rover and got out, but she had to concede that it was much later in the day than last time. She started walking around the village, hoping to meet someone to ask where Monique lived, but people tended to turn away when they caught sight of her, apparently remembering that there was something else that needed their immediate attention. It was an unpleasant feeling; Tally could see what Weber had meant about being hated. She was wondering what to do when she noticed two children playing outside one of the huts and walked towards them. To her relief they recognised her and smiled.

‘Monique?’ she asked.

They shook their heads slowly, but Tally tried again and this time one of them pointed to a large hut, standing on its own about fifty metres away. Tally smiled and thanked the children just as their mother appeared and shushed them inside without acknowledging Tally.

Tally tried telling herself that being totally rejected by society should be seen as a new experience and added to her list of new experiences, but it didn’t work. She felt awful. It took all her resolve to steel herself and approach the hut entrance, calling out, ‘Monique... Monique... it’s me, Tally.’

She was about to give up and turn away when Monique appeared in the entrance; her expression was neutral.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Tally, ‘I had hoped we could be friends, but it seems not. I promised I would come back and tell you what I could find out about the vaccination of your family and that’s why I’m here. ‘The official position is that no one suffered any serious side effect from the vaccine, which was experimental, but it’s the same one being used right now and it seems very safe and effective. Everyone is sorry about the deaths of your family and friends, but they say they must have been incubating the disease when they were vaccinated.’

‘That’s what you said last time,’ said Monique.

‘Yes, but I checked everything out thoroughly. It’s the only logical explanation. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s a lie.’

‘That’s what you said last time,’ said Tally, having difficulty keeping the anger she felt out of her voice. ‘Why do you keep saying that?’

‘They contracted Ebola three weeks after being vaccinated.’

Tally was shocked. Her face muscles struggled to find an appropriate expression. ‘There was something very wrong here. If the people had been incubating the disease at the time of vaccination, the vaccine wouldn’t have saved them and they would have gone on to develop the disease within a few days... not three weeks... definitely not three weeks.’

‘Yes,’ said Monique, ‘The aid team came back after three weeks to check that there had been no problem with the vaccine — they said they wanted to keep an eye on things. My friends and family all assured him that they felt fine and thanked the volunteers for protecting them.’ Monique snorted at the memory. ‘They all developed Ebola by the end of the week.’

‘This sounds crazy,’ said Tally, searching for an explanation. ‘Did the aid people give your family a second dose of vaccine when they came back?’

‘No,’ said Monique.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Absolutely, they just asked everyone if they were feeling all right, no side-effects, no pain, no sickness.’

‘And Voila they all got Ebola,’ Tally murmured.

‘I think you should go now,’ said Monique, beginning to look nervous. ‘My people won’t trust me if they see me talking to you all the time.’

‘Understood,’ said Tally. ‘but this isn’t over.’