Miasma

Sixteen

‘I have a conundrum for you,’ said Tally.

‘Join the queue,’ Steven joked. ‘My world is full of questions with very few answers on the horizon.

‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself,’ said Tally, making him smile. ‘I went to see Monique and told her what we all thought about her friends and family incubating the disease when they were vaccinated and she tossed a grenade into the works. Now, I just don’t know what to think.’

‘Shoot.’

‘They developed Ebola three weeks after receiving the vaccine.’

‘Three weeks?’

‘And there’s more, they fell ill just after the WHO aid team came back to check that no one was suffering any ill effects from the vaccine they’d been given.’

‘Were they given a second dose?’

‘That’s what I asked; she’s absolutely adamant they were not.’

Steven thought for a moment before saying, ‘The only logical explanation is that they were exposed to Ebola a few days before the aid people came back. It was an unfortunate coincidence that the team returned just as Monique’s people were about to fall ill.’

‘An unfortunate coincidence...’ Tally repeated.

‘Unless you can think of something else?’ Steven asked.

‘No, dammit.’

‘Mind you, the coincidence theory doesn’t sound all that convincing when you start to consider how ten people managed to contract the disease at exactly the same time... You’re sure there was no second dose given?’

‘Monique was adamant. They just asked questions about their health, saying they were keeping a close watch on those getting the experimental vaccine for any problems arising. The village people were even grateful and thanked them for their concern.’

‘In which case, coincidence must stay in the reckoning.’

Steven was enjoying a beer in his seat by the window, feet up on the sill, looking up at the sky when John Macmillan called.

‘Steven, the Home Secretary has informed me that Porton have identified the Marburg strain that their people have gone down with.’

‘God, that was quick.’

‘They are good,’ Macmillan reminded him. It was something Macmillan did on a regular basis when the role of bacteria and viruses in weaponry came up in conversation. He knew that Steven had a particular loathing of it.

‘I’m told it’s the strain which caused an outbreak in Uganda in 2017. It only lasted a few months thanks to prompt action by WHO and other aid bodies.’

‘How in God’s name did it end up in Porton?’

‘That has not yet become apparent.’

‘It must mean that a sample of the virus must have been sent to Porton from Uganda and somehow... accidentally, several members of their staff were exposed to it and contaminated.’

‘Porton say definitely not. They do not have live Marburg virus anywhere on the campus.’

Steven closed his eyes and asked in carefully measured tones, ‘In which case, do they have any idea how four people got infected by Marburg in a place that doesn’t have any?’

Macmillan cleared his throat and said, ‘The Home Secretary did tell me that Porton admitted to having freeze-dried stocks of Marburg for their research, but no live virus in use and certainly not that strain.’

‘Right.’

‘Doesn’t get any easier, does it?’

Steven thought he might bite right through his tongue before answering, ‘Quite so, sir.’ He turned off the lights and flopped down in his chair again to resume looking up at what was now the night sky.

Cold beer and an appreciation of the vastness of what was out there bestowed a sense of calmness on him that allowed him to think more rationally. He had been allowing prejudice to interfere with judgement, something that Tally had warned him about many times and he had tried to take on board with limited success. The longest-held one was his loathing of politicians of all hues.

Tally’s assertion that they couldn’t all be bad had still not been accepted by him. He was convinced that any politician being asked what two plus two equalled would find a way of avoiding the word ‘four’, just in case they were in danger of giving too much away. A lesser prejudice involved establishments like Porton Down and the work they did there. It all fell under the mantle of defence, but so did teenage boys in down-at-heel council estates carrying knives. No one ever admitted to developing microbes or carrying knives to attack others.

This prejudice however, was not as cast in stone as his feelings about politicians. He had come to accept that it was necessary to be capable of doing what the enemy was capable of doing and it was well known that before the collapse of the USSR, microbes had been weaponised on a large scale. Smallpox had been genetically altered to be even more lethal than it already was. The World Health Organisation had succeeded in wiping out smallpox as a disease affecting human beings through their vaccination programmes, but in some lab somewhere... the virus waited.

Steven recognised that he had immediately become suspicious when he learned about Porton insisting that they did not have live stocks of the Uganda Marburg strain that had infected four of its staff members. That was unjustified. They were very secretive by nature, but they would not lie to government about something like that: he had to accept that the strain had come to a lab in Porton from an outside source. — four people had been infected from the same source in this lab and it had nothing to do with Petrov or his flask. Really?

Next morning, Steven decided that he wanted to know every single thing that had happened when the four Marburg victims had been present in the lab in question. If CCTV had been on in that lab at any or all times, he wanted to see it, if any kind of written report had been made by any of the four, he wanted to see it — as well as any written instructions given to them about the jobs they were sent to do.

‘No more pussy-footing around,’ he told Jean. ‘The Prime Minister told me personally I would have her full support. Time for her to walk the walk.’

‘How many Weetabix did you have this morning?’ Jean responded.

‘We’re missing something, Jean,’ Steven said. ‘I know the people at Porton are bright and they have had access to all this from the outset and they must have examined everything in minute detail, but a fresh look won’t do any harm.’

A female intelligence officer from MI6 called Steven around noon. ‘I understand from Jane Sherman that you wanted to know if the flask sent to Porton from Israel had a slight flaw in the lip?’

‘That’s right,’ said Steven, not expecting anyone other than Jane to call him about this. ‘Is Jane okay?’ he asked.

‘She’s a bit under the weather this morning, I’m afraid,’ came the muted reply. ‘There’s some talk of post-surgical infection.’

‘God, I hope not...’

‘Anyway, the answer to your question is yes, the flask has the flaw you asked about.’

‘Thank you,’ said Steven quietly, now preoccupied with thoughts of Jane Sherman.

‘Bad news?’ Jean asked.

‘Good and bad, the flask at Porton has the same flaw so that puts an end to the switch theory. The bad news is that Jane Sherman is now fighting a post-op infection.’

‘Poor woman,’ said Jean, ‘I’m afraid my news is no better, the Royal Free reports that one of the two cleaners who contracted Marburg disease died during the night.’

Steven made a face and shook his head before asking, ‘Did we get any indication of the mortality of Marburg?’

‘Around ninety percent.’

‘My God, any sign of the families falling ill?’

‘Not yet.’

Just after four in the afternoon, Steven’s request to the Prime Minister’s office bore fruit and a car arrived from Porton Down with the material he’d asked for. There had been no CCTV footage of the electrician, Tom Harland, carrying out repairs in the lab, nor of the technician and cleaners working in the lab although the opening of Petrov’s flask had been recorded in full. An envelope containing paperwork accompanied the CCTV recording.

John Macmillan suggested they begin “at the very beginning” and watch the recording together. They looked on in silence as the container was carefully opened and one of the three ghostly figures in safety gear reached in to check the flask was free to move before removing a handful of packing material and putting it to one side while he slowly lifted the flask clear.

‘The container itself has been opened before,’ said Jean, noting that no seals had had to be broken on the lid.

‘Twice,’ said Steven, ‘once by the Israelis and again by Porton people checking the container and packing for any dangers.’

Steven, who was in control of the playback, stopped it momentarily to point something out, ‘You can actually see the flaw on the lip there,’ — he zoomed in for a clear view before letting it run on to the removal of the seal on the flask itself. Knowing that what they were watching was the very careful handling of a small flask of salt water tended to remove suspense from proceedings but Steven, if not the other two, steeled himself to watch every move unflinchingly.

‘See anything?’ asked Macmillan when it was over.

‘No,’ Steven admitted, telling the others he was going off to look through the paperwork, but pausing to arm himself with coffee from the machine in the corner.

Steven began with Tom Harland’s work sheet requesting a repair be made to the intercom system in the high security lab before moving on to the report submitted by him when the job was finished. He had found a “drift in frequency” to be the cause of the problem and had made the necessary adjustments before testing that all was well and signing off the job.

Steven found a third document with Tom Harland’s name on it. It was a minor-accident report as required by all employees to make, however small the incident. The electrician had cut the palm of his left hand when his screwdriver had slipped. It was ‘a nuisance’ but not bad enough to require medical attention; he had stemmed the bleeding and applied a small dressing later when he left the lab.

On the day following Tom Harland’s repair, Steven found a request submitted to cleaners to deal with any mess caused by his hand bleed in the lab. A note was appended stating that a technician should accompany them to ensure that all affected surfaces were clinically clean before signing off the job.

Steven had to remind himself that these perfectly innocuous things were the last things these four people did at Porton before contracting Marburg. Despite the fact that there was nothing remotely scary about any of them, an icicle was climbing up his spine. He found himself thinking of an occasion long ago in the mountains of Scotland. He had been hill-walking with a friend in wet, misty weather when, up on the tops, they had come to a narrow ridge connecting two peaks. He had found himself hesitant, knowing that there must be a degree of danger involved but one he couldn’t see because of the heavy mist. Half way across, the mist cleared and he could see a drop of a thousand metres on either side of him, causing apprehension to become full-blown fear.

At the moment, and without fully knowing why, he was feeling apprehensive... waiting for the mist to clear.

‘Find anything?’ Macmillan asked.

‘Not really, Steven replied on auto-pilot, ‘Tom Harland cut his hand while working in the lab, nothing serious. The cleaners and the technician were detailed to make sure everything was cleaned up.’

‘Not much to go on there.’

‘No,’ Steven agreed, but a hollow had appeared in his stomach. He just didn’t want to talk about it. He took the CCTV recording of the flask opening and went off to view it again on his own, something he did three more times, thinking he might be “looking at the tarpaulin” too much. Everyone’s concentration had been on the slow emergence of the flask from the container, he now took on board that the scientist doing this had removed a handful of the packing material before placing it in a dish on the bench beside him.

Steven fast-forwarded to the end of the piece to see the flask put back in its container and the lid replaced before it was removed from the lab. The packing material in the dish was left where it was. He rewound and replayed the scene, this time looking for anything resembling paper towels or tissues anywhere in the lab, but without success. His conclusion was that Tom Harland might have used the packing material left in the dish to stem the blood flow from the cut in his hand. Steven’s breathing pattern changed to short shallow breaths before he saw a big “but” coming up. The packing material was harmless, both the lab in Beer Sheva and the people at Porton had tested it... He could not let go. It was time to possibly make an absolute fool of himself.

‘John, I need you to get the PM to sanction a request,’ said Steven. ‘I need Porton to put Petrov’s flask, its container and all the packing material in a sealed container to be kept in biological isolation under the highest possible security.’

Macmillan looked at Steven as if he might be in need of an obvious kindly reminder. ‘But Steven, it’s harmless, you know it is.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘Do you have any evidence for this?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘And you seriously want me to have the PM issue this edict?’

‘Yes.’

Macmillan thought for a long moment before saying, ‘All right... I suppose we can buy an ice cream van between us to make a living.’

‘Thanks, John.’

Steven didn’t want to say any more and neither John nor Jean pressed him: they had seen him like this before and, with a bit of luck, some kind of breakthrough could be expected soon.

Steven went back into isolation to go through the material from Porton again and again until finally his eyes fixed on something else... the words “drift in frequency” — the cause given by Tom Harland for the breakdown in the intercom system. It didn’t sound all that strange when he thought about it. There would be a wireless link-up between the lab and the viewing gallery instead of a cable link. Wireless communication had become very common in recent times, but if either the transmitter or the receiver was to be altered from its allotted frequency, communication would cease.

Although there were lots of reasons for wireless connections to give trouble — he had experienced plenty of them himself — he had never heard of ‘frequency drift’ being one of them. The frequency of a wireless set-up was usually fixed and didn’t vary. Remote controls worked on one set frequency or another, they didn’t drift. He would have to ask Porton about this. He rushed back to the main office to see if John had made the call to the PM’s office.

‘He’s on the phone just now,’ said Jean, nodding to Macmillan’s office.

Steven entered with a perfunctory knock and snatched at the notepad on Macmillan’s desk to jot down the question he wanted Porton to be asked. He slid it under Macmillan’s gaze and was relieved to hear Macmillan say a moment later, ‘Just one more thing, Prime Minister, Steven would like some information about the wireless frequency used for communications in the lab, which their dead electrician, Tom Harland, was called upon to repair... Thank you, thank you so much, Prime Minister... yes, I’m sure he has excellent reasons for making these requests.’ Macmillan put the phone down, letting his hand rest on it while he shook his head slowly.

‘Thanks again, John,’ said Steven, letting his breath out in a long sigh.

‘Have you thought about possible tunes for the ice cream van?’ asked Macmillan.

Macmillan felt the spectre of the ice cream van coming a step closer when the Home Secretary called him; he was in a foul mood, wanting to know ‘just what the hell’ was going on. Somewhat on the back foot through not knowing himself, Macmillan had to listen to how much Porton had been annoyed by Steven’s requests. Who did he think he was, answering their own question by suggesting Steven was ‘some ex-forces medic who wasn’t even a microbiologist.’ Did he imagine that he knew better than the highly qualified staff at Porton Down? ‘What do you have to say?’ the Home Secretary demanded.

Macmillan, who had listened in silence throughout, said, ‘I shall have Steven apologise...’

‘I should think so too...’

‘... the moment Porton tell us all how and why two of their people have died of Marburg disease and another two lie dangerously ill,’ continued Macmillan. ‘As to who Steven thinks he is, he knows full well that he is the chief investigator of the Sci-Med Inspectorate and has my full backing. Perhaps Porton would do well to recognise that there is a difference between being knowledgeable and being bright. I don’t question the knowledge of Porton’s people but knowledge tends to result from book learning while brightness demands imagination, creativity, lateral thinking, ability to improvise and many other skills. Steven is “some ex-army medic” who has all of these qualities in abundance, something the Prime Minister has come to appreciate as illustrated by her giving him her full support or were you unaware that the request to Porton was sanctioned by her?’

The Home Secretary paused and swallowed audibly before saying, ‘Porton led me to believe the request had come directly from Sci-Med.’

‘... it happens., Home Secretary’

‘I’ll clear up any misunderstanding.’

Macmillan looked at the phone and then at Steven as the Home Secretary cut short the call, he looked thoughtful.’

‘I quite like Greensleeves,’ said Steven, which prompted a smile and the opening of Macmillan’s prized sherry cabinet. ‘Jean! Come and join us.’