Miasma

Nine

Tally worked hard over the next few weeks to establish herself in the newly created tier of area management, corelating the response of the various volunteer groups within her assigned area. She understood the need for cooperation and knew what could happen when the desire of volunteers to help in a crisis situation became a competition between well-meaning people — they would end up getting in each other’s way. Television pictures from disaster areas around the world all too often showed pictures of eight or more people attempting to carry a single stretcher as they sought to attract albeit deserved credit for their efforts. This was human nature, something that Tally knew had to be accepted and accommodated. Attempts to change human nature were always doomed to failure, but good management could prevent conflicts arising in the first place.

Rather than just tell various individuals and groups simply what she wanted them to do, she would tell them why she was making her request and explain how their efforts would fit in with what she was asking others to do. People liked being kept in the picture and responded well.

Unfortunately, creating harmony among the volunteers was not the only challenge she had to deal with. It was clear that a certain number of the indigenous population were seeking to minimise the seriousness of the situation in order to protect their continued trade and employment situations, which was not only being put under strain by fellow workers going down with the disease but also by the fact that frightened immigrant workers were seeking to flee the country.

Although difficult to quantify, the problem was thankfully not as marked as it had been in previous outbreaks because of the financing of radio and television information channels and the handing out of leaflets, but it was still there and new drawbacks were being discovered — not least that the leaflets were being printed in languages which many of the population didn’t speak. A large number of minority languages were spoken in DRC and translators were thin on the ground.

The problem of the vaccine having to be held at extremely low temperature had been addressed by organising the few freezers capable of maintaining temperatures lower than -60 degrees centigrade in a chain system across the region so that time outside the freezer was kept to a minimum as the vaccine travelled to targeted groups who had already been identified as contacts and assured by other volunteers that help was on the way to keep them safe. They would be prepared and ready when the vaccine arrived.

Tally was updating the big map of her area with information that had come in from the volunteer groups, which it did on a nightly basis, when a man drew up in a Land Rover and, after dusting himself down, announced himself as, Marcus Altman. Tally could see that he was tall, European and heard that he had a German — maybe Swiss accent. He seemed vaguely familiar.

‘WHO,’ prompted Altman. ‘I’m the regional controller, I gave the inauguration talk when you arrived.’

‘Oh, of course,’ said Tally, feeling embarrassed. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve been meeting so many new people, I think I’m on overload. Please come in.’

‘I’m doing the rounds of the area managers to see how things are progressing,’ Altman explained. ‘But I think I can see that for myself,’ he added, ‘alluding to the map Tally had been updating and bending over to look more closely at it.’

‘Rather well,’ said Tally, joining Altman, ‘If the numbers we have are a true reflection of the situation, things are rapidly coming under control. The vaccination team completed their latest circle yesterday.’ She pointed to the red circle she had been completing, ‘and no new cases have been reported for over two weeks. How are the other areas doing?’

‘Much the same,’ said Altman, ‘Things are looking good all round, providing, as you say, we can trust the numbers and cases aren’t being hidden.’

‘Do you think they are?’ Tally asked.

‘We have to be a little cautious,’ said Altman, ‘because that’s always happened in the past, but, this time, I’m hopeful the measures taken to educate the public combined with the rapid influx of finance and skilled volunteers like yourself has paid dividends and, of course, a decent supply of vaccine has made all the difference. Providing there are no new cases, I think the Health authorities will be prepared to make an optimistic statement very soon.’

‘Sounds like a big success story for the investors who funded the new initiative,’ said Tally, ‘who had to cover her mouth a little and shake her head slightly.’

Altman noticed. He said, ‘Investing in disease and human suffering does seem a little strange, I agree, but we have to be single minded and concentrate on the bottom line, no?’

Tally conceded with a nod. ‘And to the future,’ she said. ‘When the people see how successful western medicine has been this time, there should be even less suspicion and opposition next time.’

‘A good way to look at it,’ said Altman, ‘but let’s hope there won’t be a next time.’

‘I never thought in my wildest dreams that the outbreak would be brought under control this quickly,’ said Tally, ‘I suppose, like everyone else, I was thinking in terms of the last one and the nightmare it turned out to be.’

‘Don’t underestimate the contribution you and your fellow volunteers have made,’ said Altman. ‘It took tremendous courage to come here in the first place, knowing what happened across West Africa last time when thousands died... Why did you come here?’

Tally didn’t expect the question and couldn’t find an answer. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I suppose I thought it was the right thing to do.’

Altman smiled and nodded before opening the rucksack he’d been carrying to take out a large envelope, which he handed to Tally. ‘I understand you wanted to see this; it’s the WHO report giving details of the last outbreak when it ended in 2016.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Tally, ‘I asked your colleague, Hans Weber, if I might see a copy although it now sounds like I won’t be needing it after all.’

‘How so?’

‘Call me a geek, but I’ve always had an interest in epidemiology,’ said Tally. ‘You can learn a lot about epidemics from studying how they spread in the past. I thought that looking at what happened last time might help in dealing with the current outbreak. Happily, it seems that sort of analysis won’t be needed, thank God.’

Altman smiled and said, ‘In which case, I’ll take it out of your way.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Tally. ‘I’m sure I’ll still find it an interesting read.’

Altman left and Tally finished adding updates to the map before sitting back to admire her handiwork — the marker-pen circles, crosses and numbers in boxes did look pleasingly like a situation under control. It was a good feeling, but it brought an odd feeling of mental tiredness with it, which she tried to analyse — one emotion at a time.

She was happy for the people of DRC who had suffered so much over the years from the hell of Ebola — they had been spared the nightmare of a repeat of the previous epidemic, and true, she was relieved that her own personal experience had been nowhere near as bad as she had feared before coming here, but there were feelings of regret that she had put Steven and her friends and family through so much worry because of some inner desire, which she still didn’t fully understand although she now remembered that Steven had once maintained that doing the right thing can be so much more difficult than people imagine. She called him.

‘You’re kidding,’ Steven exclaimed when Tally told him there was a chance that the Ebola outbreak was under control and it was possible it would soon be declared over, ‘All over in a couple of months? That is absolutely wonderful.’

‘Well, it was nearer six months if we factor in the time it took the authorities to admit there was a problem, but I have to admit it’s taken me by surprise too. ‘I suppose I’d been assuming I would be here for much longer.’

‘Me too,’ agreed Steven. ‘God, it’s such a relief to know that you’ll be coming home soon; I guess we owe — what do they call it? the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility a big apology. I really didn’t think it would work.’

‘I was a bit doubtful myself,’ Tally agreed, ‘but I thought the new area management scheme was a good idea and let’s not forget the vaccine. Having more vaccine available made an enormous contribution to stopping the spread of the disease in its tracks. I don’t think I understand why it’s still regarded as being experimental, you’d think it would have progressed to full accreditation after its success last time.’

‘Good point,’ said Steven. ‘We should ask about that, but something tells me we may not like the answer.’

‘Money?’

‘What else.’

‘Anyway, experimental or not, maybe more of the local population will have trust in modern medicine from now on.’

‘I’d like to think so, but something tells me witch doctors and weird religious beliefs aren’t going to go away anytime soon.’

‘Have you any idea when you might be coming home?’

‘We’ll have to wait for the official announcement and then, say, another couple of weeks to wind down. Hey, you haven’t told me anything about your investigation, how’s it going?’

‘Slowly,’ Steven replied. ‘I know quite a bit about the players, but very little about the plot.’

‘It’ll come together, you’ll see.’

‘You can always help with your input when you come home.’

‘A happy thought.’

Steven couldn’t stop smiling. He had been expecting to deal with the likelihood that Tally would be away for many months and in constant danger, but now, quite suddenly, it was all going to be over and she was coming home. It seemed too good to be true. He immediately regretted having that thought, remembering the warning that usually followed such a notion. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. He couldn’t ignore this, but he could argue against it. While it was true that Ebola cases had been concealed in the past and numbers manipulated in a futile attempt to protect the country’s economy, he felt confident it could not have happened this time. There were simply too many volunteers and savvy observers from global organisations on the ground that the truth could not successfully be disguised.

Thinking along these lines made him reflect on the fact that Tally had earlier told him that this was the ninth Ebola outbreak that DRC had had to deal with. It was surprising that they had any economy left to worry about. He resolved to find out more about this when he had more time. In the meantime, he had to prepare for a meeting with John Macmillan and the Home Secretary in the morning to discuss his own progress.

The Home Secretary opened proceedings by asking, ‘How are things looking from your perspective?’

‘Rich Russian expats living in London are involved in a scheme to make themselves even richer,’ said Steven. The man I believe to be the brains behind it all is another Russian, who is not an expat, but does tend to come and go despite still being resident in Moscow.’

The Home Secretary’s eyes widened. ‘Russian government?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ Steven replied. ‘His name is Sergei Malenkov and he has always had an uneasy relationship with the Kremlin. He’s a businessman first and foremost with a huge fortune accumulated through mining interests across the Russian Federation. I came across him by discovering him as the one who recruited Martin Field and Simon Pashley to the operation and arranged payment, firstly through the expats’ laundryman, Jeremy Lang. He in turn passed them on to his contact, Marcel Giroud in Paris. It’s possible he also recruited and arranged payment for the other two, Lagarde and Petrov, but I don’t know that for sure.’

‘Do you know anything at all about what they’ve been doing to annoy the Chinese government so much?’ asked the Home Secretary.

Steven shook his head and said, ‘Contrary to what MI6 thinks, I’m not so sure the Chinese government had anything to do with it. I think we may be looking at private enterprise.’

‘But surely the sheer amount of money involved would suggest...’

‘Access to huge wealth,’ Steven interrupted, ‘the Chinese equivalent of the Mafia perhaps. I think what we’re seeing may be a collision between Russian and Chinese private enterprise with monumental sums of money at stake.’

‘For lovers of communist irony everywhere,’ said Macmillan with a world-weary shake of the head.

‘So, where do we go from here?’ the Home Secretary asked.

‘You know,’ said Macmillan, ‘we don’t even know for sure that what Malenkov has been up to is illegal. We’ve been assuming it is because of the huge amounts of money being invested, but we don’t know that is the case.’

‘The direct route would be to take Sergei Malenkov in for questioning,’ said Steven, ‘but I’m not sure that would get us anywhere. We don’t have anything to charge him with and he’s hardly likely to invite us all into the library to hear him fess up to what he’s been doing.’

‘True,’ agreed the Home Secretary, ‘The only crimes committed on British soil apart from possibly tax evasion have been the murder of his two collaborators, Field and Pashley and we can safely assume he had nothing to do with that: they were on the same side.’

‘But he did come back to London again...’ said Steven thoughtfully.

‘Sorry, I’m not with you.’

‘Well, his operation goes pear-shaped in a big way with multiple murders of the people who made it all possible. He must realise that the opposition must be after him too, and yet, he takes the risk of leaving the relative safety of Moscow to come to London to meet with Petrov senior. That suggests to me that his operation might still be up and running, but maybe he needs support.’

The Home Secretary cleared his throat before saying, ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Steven.’

‘How bad?’

‘The Prime Minister’s plan to have you work alone without the knowledge of the police and security services became impractical when these good folks began to suspect that their work on the case was being leaked. They, of course, did not realise it was being leaked to Sci-Med by the Prime Minister of all people and it became a bit of a mess.’

‘The best laid schemes o’ mice and prime ministers...’ said Macmillan.

‘Quite,’ said the Home Secretary, sounding less than amused. ‘Anyway, her original plan was that you could work on the case without anyone leaking that fact to the opposition and you becoming a target.’

‘Are you going to tell me that I have become a target?’ said Steven, sensing that the slight silence that followed was a politician’s way of avoiding the word ‘yes’.

‘Last night, you requested help from Special Branch.’

‘And very grateful I was to them.’

‘You sent them to an address in Islington in pursuit of a Russian heading for a limousine that was parked there?’

‘Yes, but they were too late.’

‘One of the officers noticed something on the building at that address, something he had come across before, an array of small camera lenses spaced along the front elevation of the house, hardly noticeable to anyone not looking for them. He tells me that they are not just normal security cameras; they are the type that are permanently linked to high-grade face recognition software. It’s of course, highly possible that you in the position you have been in for years would be on it. The house owner would have been able to alert his guest to anyone outside who was recognised.’

‘And I was standing across the road.’

‘Precisely, the Russian you met last night was not some thug going over the top in pursuit of a jogger with a mobile phone, he was a professional going after Dr Steven Dunbar of Sci-Med with the intention of killing him.’

‘Good to know,’ said Steven, putting a brave face on things, but feeling sick inside.

‘The same will probably apply to the two Special Branch officers,’ said Macmillan, ‘the cameras will have recognised them too if they’ve been in the service for any length of time.’

‘Indeed,’ said the Home Secretary.

‘Well, the fact that our Russian friends know that the British security services and Dr Steven Dunbar are on to them, could work in our favour,’ said Macmillan, ‘especially if they’ve got the Chinese mob going after them as well. Can’t be too comfortable.’

Steven smiled at Macmillan’s skill in making everything seem hunky dory. ‘Thank God I’m not one of them,’ he said with merest suggestion of sarcasm and getting a slight smile in return from Macmillan. The Home Secretary missed the joke.