Miasma

Twenty

‘Have you been given a date yet?’ Steven asked as soon as he snatched up the phone.

‘No,’ Tally replied, ‘Marcus Altman has a problem.’

‘What kind of a problem?’

‘Terminal, he’d dead... he was found five hundred miles from where he should have been... his femoral artery had been cut after his killers made a slow approach to it... involving many cuts... ring a bell?’

‘Oh my God.’

‘What the hell’s going on, Steven?’

Steven took a deep breath. ‘Altman’s name appeared on an intelligence services list, which I saw for the first time yesterday. MI6 think that he was as much involved as Phillipe Lagarde in the infiltration of organised crime into world aid organisations.’

‘And you didn’t tell me?’ exclaimed Tally.

‘I... made the decision not to tell you because... I wanted you to live. You and Altman got on and I wanted it to stay that way because if I had told you everything I knew, you wouldn’t have been able to disguise your true feelings.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘Go on.’

Steven told Tally about the deliberate use of small implants to provide the means of spreading epidemic disease under the guise of vaccinating people. She was left speechless until she managed to splutter out, ‘But who in their right mind would do something like that?’

‘In this instance, a small group of Russians, mainly expats living in London but with homeland links. They are not insane, they have their reasons for doing it and it’s connected with money, but I haven’t figured out the details yet.’

Tally gave a deep sigh and, after a short pause, said, ‘That’s what happened to Monique’s family, isn’t it,’ she asked, ‘they were deliberately killed.’

‘I think so. Lagarde and co must have been testing out their latest way of spreading disease. They put small implants comprising Ebola virus in a tiny plastic shell under the skin of your friend’s loved ones. Three weeks later they turned up under the guise of care and concern and ruptured the implants using wireless technology.’

‘This is just all... I just can’t believe... I don’t know what to say.’

‘Exactly,’ said Steven, ‘do you honestly think you could have kept all that to yourself if I had told you? If Altman had suspected you were on to him, you would have been in great danger. As it is, he’s become a victim himself. It’s obvious the Chinese contingent are still pretty angry about what’s been going on.’

‘Do you think they’re some kind of vigilantes?’

‘No way,’ said Steven. ‘I’m still convinced it’s all about money. You said Altman was found several hundred miles away from where he should have been, where exactly?’

‘In an apartment, in the town of Beni up in Kivu Province.’

‘Kivu? And in a town that’s at the very heart of the latest outbreak of Ebola,’ said Steven, ‘pretty strong circumstantial evidence against him, wouldn’t you say?’

‘In the light of what you’ve just told me, yes, I suppose.’

‘How are the authorities dealing with this?’ asked Tally.

‘They don’t know yet.’

‘What!... Steven!’

‘I know, I know, I’m still trying to figure out what’s behind it all.’

‘But you can’t keep something like this to yourself.’

‘Tally, Tally, Tally,’ Steven pleaded, ‘it’s not as if nothing is being done. The intelligence communities of several countries are well aware of the infiltration of world-wide aid agencies — they know much more about it than I do; the information about Lagarde and now Altman came from them. They are dealing with it as a matter of global urgency: they know a clean-up is essential if public confidence is to be retained. It’s too late to stop the latest outbreak in DRC; it’s been caused by criminals hiding under the WHO banner, but if I can highlight what it’s all been about, it would be much more useful to those charged with bringing the crooks to justice and putting a stop to it all. I’m very close and that’s what the PM asked me to do, remember?’

‘Vaguely... something about intellectual input if I remember rightly...’

‘Some things have a habit of escalating,’ admitted Steven. ‘But the big test for you right now is to keep everything you’ve heard to yourself. You don’t know who’s a friend and who’s a foe; you must be all sweetness and light to everyone until you get on that plane home and please God, that will be soon.’

Just before Steven turned out his bedside light, a message came in on encrypted mail from the Home Office. The remaining patients in the Royal Free, suffering from Marburg disease, had died.

‘God bless,’ he murmured. ‘The perfect end to a bloody awful day...’

Recognising that falling asleep was now well-nigh impossible, he got up to make coffee on auto-pilot. He was about to switch on the TV to seek distraction, but then decided against. Distraction was always temporary and he was experiencing, in himself, signs of overload. There were just too many awful things going around in his head: he felt he was approaching some kind of tipping point and wherever that might lead.

Sitting with his head in his hands wouldn’t help, nor would howling at the moon, nor kicking the cat — he didn’t even have a cat... this last thought highlighted the ridiculousness of his train of thought and brought the suggestion of a smile to his lips. Self-pity and hopelessness had no place in his life, even when they were coming at him mob-handed, but Tally was right when she said he had to share what he knew. He would give himself another forty-eight hours.

Steven decided not to go in to the Home Office in the morning; lack of sleep and hovering feelings of depression over what people were prepared to do to each other induced a need in him to seek out signs of normality for a while. He wanted to see people going about their daily business, women pushing prams, men delivering parcels, clerks carrying briefcases, people arguing with traffic wardens — anything to reassure him that people planning to cause thousands of deaths by triggering off epidemics of killer viruses was far from the norm.

The warmth of the sun on his face and dappled light coming through leafy trees helped provide a healing balm that allowed him, after a couple of hours, to start thinking about his investigation again. The fact that the awful people behind it were not lunatics should now be viewed as something in his favour, he decided. As any detective knew, killers without reason or purpose were always the hardest to catch. He was dealing with focused, intelligent people and he was convinced the motive was money.

Steven’s logical start to analysis was interrupted by dark clouds rolling in from the west and the threat of rain becoming imminent. He had no desire to get soaked so he hailed the first cab he saw.

‘Just in time,’ said the driver as the clouds started delivering their load, riveting the roof of the cab. ‘Where to, mate?’

Steven told him and hoped for silence, but it was not to be. The driver offered up a stream of opinions. ‘What d’you think of all this Brexit crap, then?’ he asked.

‘Beyond me,’ Steven replied.

‘The world’s going crazy, mate, it’s just one crazy thing after another. We want to leave Europe; the Scots want to leave us. Why can’t we all just get along?’

‘Mm.’

‘And there’s another thing,’ said the driver as the traffic slowed to a halt. ‘Another one, look at him, a bloody electric car run out of charge.’

Steven saw an embarrassed man attempting to push his lifeless little car with its electric credentials emblazoned on its door, into the side of the road.

‘Good luck with that, mate,’ said the driver. ‘Christ knows where he’ll find a charge point round here... and if he does, it’ll be hours before his car will move. Bloody politicians have got no idea, they just don’t think before they announce their big plans and strut around on the world stage leaving us with no choice — we all gotta be green.’

‘Mm.’

‘What kind of car have you got then?’

‘A Porsche.’

‘Good man!’ exclaimed the driver with a guffaw. ‘What we need is someone like Jeremy Clarkson in parliament if you ask me, talk a bit of sense he would. Here we are, mate,’ he announced as they drew up outside Marlborough Court.

‘Nice talking with you,’ said the driver, acknowledging the tip with a smile and not appreciating that he’d done all of the talking.

Steven slumped down into his chair by the window and embraced the silence. He wasn’t absolutely sure, but he thought he might just have had enough normality for one day. After a few minutes, he acknowledged hunger pangs and got up to search through cupboards and the fridge for something to eat, but had to face up to the fact that he hadn’t bothered to do any shopping for quite a while and didn’t feel like going out. Cheese on toast would do.

Steven returned to his analysis and concentrated on DRC. How could a relatively small group of people make a lot of money out of causing an epidemic — no, successive epidemics — in a poor African country, riven by civil war and disease? The fact that they were a small number ruled out any kind of attempted coup. Even the rebels in Kivu Province seem to have given up on taking over government: robbery with violence was easier.

Mineral extraction, particularly diamonds, had been plagued by competition coming from the setting up of illegal mines in difficult areas of the country and copper and cobalt mining revenues had been subject to the attention of dishonest politicians, although Steven remembered reading in the material he had gathered on DRC when Tally first went there that elections had been promised and investment had cautiously started appearing again.

Steven dug out this material again and after a few minutes was glad he had. He latched on to two hugely interesting facts. Investment in cobalt mining was coming in almost exclusively from China and secondly, DRC was the source of sixty percent of the world’s cobalt.

Steven paused when he felt that there was something really important about this that he wasn’t seeing... but should be... The taxi driver! His tirade about electric vehicles and how politicians were determined to force everyone out of petrol and diesel-driven cars into electric ones. This was happening all over the world in response to growing concerns over climate change. Electric vehicles needed big, powerful batteries and battery production needed... cobalt... lots and lots of cobalt.

Steven felt a surge of excitement. Were Russian crooks creating the conditions for a take-over of cobalt stocks in DRC? He felt sure he was on to something; this was a breakthrough, but not quite the whole story.

He went back to reading about cobalt mining. DRC was the number one producer in the world with sixty percent. Number two was Russia, oh, you beauty, yielding forty percent of the world’s current supplies...

‘And demand for cobalt is about to go through the roof,’ murmured Steven, feeling he was almost there.

Biologist, Samuel Petrov, who had prepared the killer implants, had a father, Dimitry, a hugely wealthy Russian expat living in London whose money came from mining interests all over the Russian Federation. Sergei Malenkov, the Russian mastermind behind the whole affair, who had carried out the specialised recruitment for the enterprise and who had visited Petrov senior in London, was also hugely wealthy — again due to mining interests across the Russian Federation. Steven felt it safe to predict that these two would hold most if not all the rights to Russian cobalt supplies. They had not been mounting an aggressive take-over bid for the DRC rights held mainly by Chinese investors, they had gone a big step further, the Russians had deliberately set out to destroy DRC cobalt mining completely through continually initiating epidemics of killer disease in the country. No wonder the Chinese investors were furious.

Miners from abroad would be deterred from coming to work in DRC and local labour would succumb to disease or the fear of it. The cobalt mines would be rendered inert. Malenkov and Petrov senior along with a few London-based Russian expat investors would step up production and effectively control the world’s supply of cobalt. In the coming era of electric vehicles, America would no longer be the controlling influence of the world’s automotive industry, nor would China... a small cabal of Russians would.

Steven felt the adrenaline surge he’d been running on slip away to be replaced by a feeling of calm, He knew however, that he had little time to savour it: the feeling would soon be replaced by exhaustion, and the need to sleep — but not before he spoke to John Macmillan and asked him to set up the mother of all meetings. It was finally time to unburden himself and tell all.

‘There has been a change of plan,’ said John Macmillan when Steven arrived at the Home Office in the morning, ‘the meeting has been changed from Downing Street to MI6 headquarters.’

Steven, whose hopes for a good night’s sleep had been constantly interrupted by implications of his discovery vying for his attention, could only raise an eyebrow.

‘The PM feels that anything you have to say should be heard in the first instance well away from the notice of the press. COBRA meetings always attract their interest.’

‘How much did you tell her last night?’

‘The bare bones of what you told me.’

Steven was pleased to see that there was a lack of politicians present in the meeting room at Albert Embankment. Apart from the Home and Foreign secretaries the others present he recognised — with a couple of exceptions — as coming from either the intelligence communities or the police — professionals who knew what they were doing.

The Prime minister called the meeting to order and gave a brief preamble.

‘As some of you already know, I asked Dr Steven Dunbar of the Sci-Med Inspectorate to investigate independently a particularly disturbing situation which has attracted the attention of all of us in recent months, albeit in various ways and to varying degrees. Dr Dunbar has a track record of success in investigating complicated crime scenarios in science and medicine and I hoped that he might be able to bring together all our efforts in exposing something which appeared to involve the murder of brilliant scientists, millions of dollars emanating from Russian expats living in London, corruption among global aid agencies and epidemic disease caused by deadly viruses. I am pleased — and indeed terrified — to say that he has succeeded. Steven...’

It took Steven less than ten minutes to paint a brief but coherent picture of what had been going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who had instigated it and why. What he had to say was met with stunned silence. He sipped water while he waited for the first question.

‘The bastards are deliberately starting epidemics for financial gain?’ exclaimed an American voice.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re seriously saying that they are prepared to cause thousands of deaths for profit?’

‘It could end up being worse than that,’ said Steven, ‘they could wipe out humanity by mistake. People run from epidemics in all directions: they spread the disease. There’s no guarantee when it will stop.’

‘Is that what is happening in DRC?’

‘People are running at the moment, others are trying to stop them. It’s still spreading.’

‘From what you say, this technology could be used to cause outbreaks of any deadly disease?’

‘We saw the proof of that at Porton when capsules containing Marburg disease were ruptured by mistake.’

‘This could be worse than any tsunami or Chernobyl-like incident the world’s ever had to deal with.’

‘It could,’ Steven agreed.

The Prime Minister thanked Steven and took over, saying, ‘Now that Dr Dunbar has told us what all this is about, perhaps I can ask the police and the intelligence people to report on progress they have been making in their areas of interest in this dreadful situation.’

Steven and John Macmillan found themselves feeling encouraged by what they heard. Special Branch were ready to act on the Russian expats responsible for providing funding: they were waiting for Malenkov to make his next visit to London before raiding Dimitri Petrov’s house and simultaneously picking up all others concerned. The combined intelligence services of several countries were making good progress with rooting out the bad apples in aid organisations. It would take a while for all the small-time opportunist crooks to be exposed, but, more importantly, they were pretty sure that the big fish recruited by Malenkov had all been based in Geneva and most had already come to a sticky end thanks to Chinese investor involvement.’

‘Have any of the Chinese killers been brought to justice?’ asked the Prime Minister.

‘No, Prime Minister.’

‘Probably for the best, we really don’t want the sort of publicity that would generate.’

‘Ideally we don’t want any publicity at all,’ said Steven. ‘The merest suggestion that vaccination is being used for mass murder could cause enormous damage in the fight against world disease.’

‘There’s already growing opposition to vaccination in many countries,’ said the foreign minister.

‘It wasn’t helped in our own country by a charlatan scaremongering about MMR,’ added Steven.

‘Mass vaccination against viral disease is the best hope we have for the future,’ said John Macmillan, who emphasised the point by staring directly at the Prime Minister until she acknowledged with a nod and a slight raise of her hand. ‘Thank you, Sir John, I think your views on the subject are well known.’

The meeting broke up with the PM making a point of touching Steven’s arm and taking him to one side to thank him personally for what he’d managed to come up with.

‘We are not out of the woods yet, Prime Minister,’ said Steven.

‘No, but thanks to you we know what’s been going on in the woods,’ replied the PM with a smile. ‘I’m told your lady is still in DRC?’

‘I’m hoping she’ll be home soon.’

‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do.’

‘Thank you, Prime Minister.’

Tally was beginning to think Helga wasn’t coming when her Land Rover drew up outside in a late afternoon dust haze. ‘Sorry, there was a problem with some villagers, I had to sort it out.’

‘I thought you’d got lost,’ said Tally.

‘Not much chance with these trackers,’ Helga replied, tapping her wrist where all the new area managers had been fitted with sat nav trackers when they arrived in DRC to ensure that they wouldn’t get lost. She immediately wondered why Tally appeared to have turned to stone and the blood was draining from her face. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Tally stammered, trying to regain her composure, she couldn’t remember being so suddenly afraid before. She’d forgotten about the little bubble under her skin? Surely it couldn’t be what Steven had described, a tiny reservoir of Ebola virus waiting to be released, something that could end her life in the most horrible way possible?

She fought to convince herself it wasn’t, while Helga continued to wonder what the matter was. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Maybe you should sit down...’

Tally knew it was quite common for people to have tracking implants fitted if conditions warranted it. People working for large organisations and in security environments often had implants fitted with tiny chips to enable them to do such mundane things as open doors without keying in security numbers. It was part of everyday life, but remembering that it had been Marcus Altman who had presided over the fitting of trackers to the volunteers was pushing her over the edge. She immediately sprang into life and started hunting around for something. When she finally turned around, she had a scalpel in her hand, causing Helga to take a step back in alarm.

‘We must get rid of these trackers,’ said Tally, ‘I’ll do yours, you do mine, I’ll explain after we’ve done it.’ She resumed her search for some more bits and pieces and a small bottle of surgical spirit, which she used to clean and sterilise the area around the implant on Helga’s arm before opening the skin with the scalpel and removing the implant with forceps. ‘There, all done,’ she said, placing the implant carefully in a small dish. ‘Your turn.’

Helga removed Tally’s implant and Tally allowed herself a sigh of relief before saying, ‘We have to destroy these... by burning, I’m not going to trust disinfectant, it won’t get through the plastic.’

Although Helga had gone along with everything, she was clearly wondering if Tally had gone mad. ‘Right,’ she said, sounding unconvinced and looking wide-eyed.

Tally looked at her and understood, she said, ‘You asked me yesterday what was going on... there’s a lot to take in... but here goes, Marcus Altman and some of his friends have been deliberately causing outbreaks of Ebola by giving people sophisticated implants under the guise of vaccinating them... not everyone, just selected groups of people who would some time later be targeted to go down with the disease and then it would spread naturally as contacts became infected. The implants are harmless until they are caused to rupture by ultrasound... they then release live virus. I don’t know if ours are genuine trackers or two of the other kind, but we can’t afford to take chances... especially judging by the way Hans was looking at us.’

Helga nodded, still struggling with what she was hearing. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘Interpol and the intelligence services of several countries have been working on the infiltration of organised crime into global aid agencies; my partner, Steven, has been investigating what some of them have been up to. He told me about this last night. Tonight, I’m going to ask him to get us out of here as fast as he can, the authorities are taking far too long and I’m not sure why. Officially, Marcus was arranging it, but it looks like he had other things on his mind and if it now falls to Hans to make arrangements... well, that makes me uneasy. I take it you would like me to include you?’

Helga nodded. ‘Thank you, I think that would be for the best.’

‘Can you burn these things while I go over and see Monique, the girl I told you about? I’m going to give her the chance to come with us. When I come back, I’ll phone Steven.’

‘Of course.’

Tally looked at the dish. ‘Make sure they don’t splutter.’

Tally returned an hour later; Monique was with her. Tally had told her what was going on and she hadn’t taken too much convincing to agree to what was being proposed. Tally left Helga and Monique to introduce themselves while she phoned Steven. He didn’t answer, something Tally made light of, saying she’d try again in a short while. ‘Food,’ she exclaimed, ‘don’t know what I’ve got for a girls’ night in. Help me look.’

The three of them started searching through cupboards, collecting bits and pieces for a meal — Tally was deliberately using this in an attempt to relax the atmosphere. Hearing Helga and Monique laughing and apparently getting on suggested her plan might be working. She slipped away to try phoning Steven again. There was still no reply. Feeling slightly more uneasy this time, she decided to leave trying again until after they had eaten.

Tally finished her cupboard rummage and stood up triumphantly with a bottle of white wine in her hand — it had been left over from her get-together to celebrate the end of the outbreak in Equateur. ‘Specially warmed for the occasion,’ she joked.

They ate and drank, complementing each other on what they’d managed to do with what they’d come up with, but, as the conversation began to falter and minds returned to other things, Helga asked, ‘Why are they doing this?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tally confessed. ‘Steven had worked out what they were doing but not why when I spoke to him last night.’

‘It’s crazy,’ said Monique.

‘I’ll try him again,’ said Tally, draining her glass. ‘Is there anything you have to back to your village for?’ she asked Monique.

‘Nothing,’ replied Monique sadly.

‘Good.’

Tally went through to the one other room to try calling Steven again. This time he answered and she felt a flood of relief wash through her. ‘Thank God,’ she exclaimed, ‘Where have you been?’

‘Receiving the thanks of the PM and several intelligence agencies as it happens...’ said Steven.

‘You cracked it?’

Steven explained briefly what the Russian cabal had been up to, but sensed that something was wrong.

‘Well done,’ said Tally.

‘Why did you sound so relieved to hear from me?’ Steven asked.

‘I think we may be in danger,’ said Tally.

‘What!’ exclaimed Steven. ‘Who’s we? What’s wrong?’

‘Helga, one of the other area managers and Monique, the girl you already know about, they’re here with me right now. I don’t think we’re in immediate danger, but I suspect, Hans Weber, Altman’s assistant might be on to our suspicions and there’s no move being made to get us out of here. Can you help?’

‘After today, I think I could ask the PM for the moon and get it. I’m going to get John to get on to the Home Secretary and the PM right now. Can you give me your exact co-ordinates?’

Tally read them out from her phone.

‘Ring me back in an hour.’

Steven rang off and Tally returned to her guests. ‘Steven’s arranging something, I’ve to call back in an hour.’

‘You don’t think Hans might suspect?’ asked Helga.

‘Let’s hope not,’ said Tally. ‘I mean we’re not absolutely sure he’s a baddie... we just don’t like him and he doesn’t like us.’

‘True,’ Helga agreed, ‘but if he is, he’ll know I’m here with you if he’s been following us on the trackers — if they were trackers. This would be our last location before the signals were lost.’

‘Mm,’ said Tally, ‘happily, he doesn’t know Monique is here. If he did, that might really have set him thinking.’

Tally wasn’t sure if Helga was convinced. ‘Let’s see about sleeping arrangements,’ she said, ‘we’ll draw lots for the bed.’

This made the others laugh. Monique won the bed.

Steven checked her watch and phoned Steven.

‘I won’t burden you with details; all you need know is that a helicopter will pick the three of you up in the morning at 6 a.m. local time at the co-ordinates you gave me.’

‘Love you.’

‘Love you too.’

Tally told the others and everyone felt relieved. ‘We should try to get some sleep,’ she suggested.

Sleep came first to Monique and then to Helga while Tally lay awake, listening to sounds of the African night, wondering if she would miss them and deciding not. After a few minutes there came a sound she was not prepared for... it suggested that the hut door was being pushed open slowly and carefully. She and Helga were sleeping on the floor; both were facing the door, which Tally could now see really was opening. The growing view of the night sky however, was gradually blocked out by a seemingly enormous silhouette.

Tally got over the fear that was clutching at her stomach and threatening to paralyse her. ‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded as she rolled over and got to her feet, fumbling for her battery lamp without taking her eyes off the advancing spectre. The meagre beam illuminated a tall, ghostly figure just as Helga woke and screamed out in terror.

It wasn’t a ghost, Tally realised in the dim light; it was a figure wearing the full safety gear for dealing with Ebola patients. It didn’t speak but held out what appeared to be a TV remote in its gloved hand: it pointed and clicked, first at Tally and then at Helga.

Tally edged sideways towards Helga, pushing her along slightly so that the figure was between them and the door of the room where Monique was sleeping... but Monique wasn’t sleeping. She appeared silently behind the figure and Tally saw that she was carrying their empty wine bottle from earlier. She winced as Monique swung it round in a long arc before making contact with the back of the figure’s head with venomous force, causing it to crumple silently to the floor.

Helga did her best to comfort Monique who, filled with anguish at what she’d done, dropped the bottle and burst into tears while Tally knelt down cautiously beside the collapsed figure to pull away its visor and mask: it was Hans Weber. She stared at him for a few moments before feeling for a carotid pulse and finding none.

‘Good night, sweet Hans,’ she said coldly before getting to her feet. ‘May wings of angels speed thee... to the deepest pit of hell.’

None of the three was sure what to say for fully half a minute before Helga asked, ‘What’s this?’ She detached herself from Monique before picking up the ‘remote’ Weber had been carrying.

‘My bet would be the sound wave generator necessary for rupturing our... trackers,’ said Tally. ‘If he hadn’t woken us, he would just have triggered them and gone away. In a couple of days or so, we two volunteers would have gone down with Ebola. I’ll hang on to this, it’s evidence.’

‘But he did wake you,’ said Helga, ‘and he didn’t know Monique was here. God, we were so lucky.’

The three of them engaged in a long group-hug.

At six a.m., the sound of rotor blades brought smiles to their faces. They watched as a military helicopter landed no more than fifty metres from where they stood. A crewman appeared at the open door to beckon them and they ran over without looking back to be helped on board one at a time, Monique was first, then Helga and finally, Tally.

‘Thank you so much,’ Tally said as she grappled for hand holds.

‘Not at all,’ said the crewman, removing his helmet and microphone. ‘Nice to see you.’

‘Steven!’ exclaimed Tally, taking a few moments to get over her disbelief before hugging him tightly. ‘What are you doing here? I mean, how... I mean, how is it possible.’

‘I just love helicopters.’

‘Seriously?’ said Tally.

‘I told you I could ask for anything after briefing the PM and all the others as to what the Russian business was all about yesterday. She ordered the RAF to do what was required and with a bit of help from our allies, they did. I think I may have left my stomach on one of their aircraft on the flight down and, please God, they don’t send me the bill.’

‘I take it you know this man?’ said Helga.

‘Yes,’ Tally replied with a smile, ‘I know him.’

As time passed and the sound of the helicopter engines largely put a stop to conversation, they were all left alone with their thoughts. Steven noticed that Tally looked particularly troubled and drew her close to ask what she was thinking about. She gave a small dismissive shake of the head but he persisted until she turned to face him with a distant look in her eyes.

‘I was thinking... God help us all, Steven, God help us all.’