The Gulf Conspiracy

SEVENTEEN

‘The word is we’re not going to be able to hold them much longer,’ said the Special Branch officer to Steven when he arrived next morning to which he replied that he already come to that conclusion himself but he wanted the chance to have a last word with Crowe and then maybe Mowbray?

‘No problem.’

Crowe was escorted into the room and as expected Steven found it impossible to discern anything about the man from his demeanour. The yellow, parchment-like skin, the tight thin lips and the eyes hidden by tinted lenses shielded any emotion that might be there. Crowe carefully angled his chair, sat down and crossed his legs languidly.

‘I understand that you will be released later today,’ said Steven.

‘About time too,’ said Crowe. ‘This has all been hugely embarrassing and totally unnecessary. It should never have got this far.’

‘You were only doing your job,’ said Steven. He said it in such a way that Crowe detected sarcasm and reacted accordingly. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’ he asked.

‘Not at all,’ said Steven. ‘The government of the day asked you to design a biological agent and you went to work. That was your job. You can’t be held responsible for any accident that happened or any of the repercussions.’

‘Quite,’ said Crowe.

‘What was the agent based on?’

‘What does it matter? It was all a very long time ago,’ said Crowe.

‘I’d just like to know,’ said Steven.

‘I’m not sure I can even remember after all this time,’ said Crowe. ‘There were a number of possibilities under consideration at the time…’

‘The early form of the agent, the one that got into the vaccine, what was that based on?’ asked Steven, leaning closer and enunciating each word clearly.

‘I really can’t say,’ said Crowe.

‘Can’t or won’t?’

Crowe made an unsuccessful attempt at a smile. ‘Can’t,’ he said. ‘Call it the effects of advancing years but I really can’t remember…’

‘And I really can’t believe you,’ said Steven.

Crowe held Steven in his dark gaze for a few moments before saying, ‘So, where do we go from here?’

Steven sat back in his chair and said, ‘You set out to create an agent in which three criteria were to be satisfied. It was to be disabling rather than lethal, undetectable through conventional means and lastly it was to be curable. Tell me about that; how were you going to make a biological agent curable without making it useless as a weapon?’

‘You know, that escapes me too, I’m afraid,’ said Crowe.

Steven noted the suggestion of challenge in Crowe’s voice. He could see that he was going to get nowhere although the fact that the man’s determination to say nothing at least seemed to confirm his fears that the agent must actually exist. ‘Very well, Doctor,’ he said. ‘I am now going to request that Porton take your lab apart.’

‘How very inconvenient,’ said Crowe. ‘Might one ask why?’

‘I think you know why,’ said Steven.

‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me,’ said Crowe.

I wish, thought Steven. The bottom of a swamp would have been his place of choice. ‘I’m not convinced that work on the agent was discontinued after the accident,’ he said. ‘I think perhaps development was continued and the agent now exists.’

Crowe regarded Steven through his tinted lenses for nearly thirty seconds before saying, ‘An interesting but altogether fanciful notion, I’m afraid. That would have been quite illegal. All work stopped after Sebring’s blunder. End of story.’

Steven nodded to the officer by the door and Crowe was led away while he sat considering whether or not it would even be worthwhile talking to Mowbray. He concluded that it would. If Mowbray proved to be as evasive as Crowe it would at least confirm that he was in cahoots with Crowe and he would have identified two of the breakaway faction.

It was immediately evident from Mowbray’s attitude when he was brought in that he was less than amused at being called for interview again. Steven presented his ID but Mowbray waved it away saying, ‘I know perfectly well who and what you are.’

‘I’m just clearing up some loose ends, Mr Mowbray,’ said Steven.

‘Still enjoying your moment in the sun, eh Dunbar? You and that Mickey Mouse operation you work for.’

‘We do our best,’ replied Steven pleasantly. ‘Even though we’re heterosexual and none of us went to Cambridge — a big disadvantage in the intelligence services I believe.’

‘Highly amusing.’

‘Tell me about the biological agent you thought worth killing for,’ said Steven.

Mowbray seemed unfazed. ‘We can’t all wear the white hats and play the Lone Ranger, Dunbar,’ he said. ‘Unlike Johnny Macmillan and his science police some of us — the professionals — have to operate in the real world and do the dirty jobs. Even you must appreciate that there are some things that must remain secret — whatever the cost.’

‘And the Beta Team’s agent was one of them?’

‘The accident with it was one of them,’ corrected Mowbray.

‘Not the agent itself?’ said Steven, watching for Mowbray’s reaction but not learning much.

‘It was an early prototype,’ said Mowbray. ‘Work on it was abandoned.’

Steven looked at Mowbray long and hard before saying, ‘Was it?’

‘Of course.’

‘What bug was the agent based on?’

‘I’m not a scientist.’

‘Are you telling me that this never came up at any of the meetings you had in the aftermath of what happened?’ said Steven. ‘It was never mentioned in assessing the potential risk to the troops?’

‘It may have been,’ said Mowbray. ‘But it wouldn’t have meant anything to me.’

‘How did they plan to make it undetectable?’

‘I’ve no idea. Probably take up to the turret room of a castle and pass a current through it at the height of an electrical storm I should think. I’m not a scientist.’

‘How were they planning to make it curable and still have it remain viable as a weapon?’

‘Sorry, can’t help you there either,’ said Mowbray. ‘It was very clever, I’m sure but it was all just scientific gobbledegook to me.’

Steven nodded and smiled. ‘Thank you, Mr Mowbray,’ he said. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

‘Is that it?’

‘Yup.’

Steven went directly to the Home Office to voice his new fears to John Macmillan.

‘But you’ve no proof of this,’ said Macmillan.

‘Everything points to it,’ said Steven. ‘I’m convinced that was why Sebring, D’Arcy and Hendry were killed. It was to keep the origins of the agent a secret — not the accident. That’s why they’ve all been so reticent when it came to questions about its construction. Work continued on it after the accident. They actually made it.’

‘But why?’ said Macmillan. ‘What are they going to do with it?’

‘God knows,’ sighed Steven.

‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Macmillan.

‘Have the director at Porton Down close Crowe’s lab and conduct an audit of all materials. Analyse the contents of every test tube. Go through his lab records with a fine-tooth comb looking for anything to prove that work continued on the Beta Team agent after the accident.’

‘And if they find it?’ asked Macmillan.

‘If we can show that work did continue there’s no way they can claim to have had Government sanction for that after telling us that all work on it was ordered to cease after the accident. They could be charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.’

‘There would be a certain poetic justice in that,’ said Macmillan.

‘I don’t suppose we could continue to hold them a bit longer?’ said Steven. ‘Just until the search of Crowe’s lab and records is complete?’

‘I could put it to the Home Secretary,’ said Macmillan. ‘But I have my doubts. I don’t know what the collective noun is for a bunch of high-powered lawyers is but whatever it is, these two have got one. How confident are you that a search of Crowe’s lab will produce anything?’

‘Actually he didn’t flinch when I brought up the subject,’ confessed Steven. ‘On the other hand it would be difficult to conceal absolutely every last detail about any project that has been carried out in a lab.’

Macmillan looked uncertain. ‘Unless it never happened,’ he said.

Steven shrugged, unable to offer anything else in support of his case.

‘I’ll press hard for the official search but I might have to pass on trying for an extended hold on Crowe and Mowbray,’ he said.

‘Your call,’ said Steven, appreciating the difficulty Macmillan was in. If he was wrong about all this, Sci-Med could be wiping egg off its face for some time to come.

‘I’ll call you when I know something,’ said Macmillan.

Steven went back to his apartment and took a long hot shower before wrapping himself in his white towelling bath robe and plumping himself down in his favourite chair by the window to phone Jane and ask about her day.

She sounded a little distant. ‘It’s so good to be home,’ she said. ‘I’ve contacted the school to say I’ll be in tomorrow — God, I hated having to lie when they asked about my sick relative in Yorkshire. Now I’ll have to go through the same thing with all my friends.’

‘It will all soon be in the past,’ said Steven. ‘Apart from me, I hope.’

Steven said it lightly but the pause that followed spoke volumes. He felt as if he’d just read the first line of a Dear John letter and his heart sank.

‘Steven,’ began Jane hesitantly. ‘Coming home like this has made me realise just how much I liked my old life — the school, the outings, colleagues, friends, all the things I’ve been taking for granted. I think I need some space, some time. This has all been a bit much for me. I think it might be better if we didn’t see each other for a bit — just until I get back into my old routine and feel a bit more secure in myself.’

‘If that’s what you really want,’ said Steven.

‘I know what I said at the beginning about wanting to be kept informed about everything but I’ve changed my mind about that too. I don’t think I want to know any more about the things you’re involved in. It’s not for me. Maybe you could call me when it’s all over?’

The line went dead and Steven murmured, ‘And when the valley’s hushed and white with snow.’ He got up and padded over to where he kept his drinks bottles, having just decided how he was going to spend what remained of his evening. Gordon’s gin was going to play a starring role.

Steven woke at 4am feeling cold and uncomfortable. He had fallen asleep in the chair and now had a painful crick in the neck to show for it. He was cold because the heating had gone off at eleven and the temperature had dropped considerably in the flat. It was raining heavily outside and a cold east wind had allowed some of it to permeate indoors through the window he’d opened earlier to air the place. The left side of his shirt was wet. He let out an involuntary grunt of discomfort as he reached up to close the window and pain surged up his neck. He rubbed it with the flat of his hand and moved his head slowly from side to side as he went through to the kitchen to turn on the electric kettle to make coffee. He also turned the heating back on.

Fortified by coffee and more aspirin than was recommended on the label he went through to bed to try to get some proper sleep. Whether he fell asleep or passed out was a moot point but he remained unconscious until the phone woke him at nine-thirty. It sounded louder than it ever had done in the past.

‘Dunbar,’ he croaked.

‘Sounds like you have a cold,’ said William Rees’s voice.

‘A bit of a sore throat,’ lied Steven, clearing it with a cough. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Any chance of you coming up to Cambridge?’ asked Rees. ‘I think I may have something here that will interest you.’

‘Every chance,’ said Steven. ‘Give me half an hour and I’m on my way.’

Steven thought about Jane on the drive up to Cambridge and wrestled with mixed emotions. He wanted to feel bitter because she’d hurt him but couldn’t. Jane had had a perfectly ordered life before he’d appeared on the scene. She had probably never known anything other than the safety and security of middle class life — maybe without even realising that — and in a few short weeks he had swept all that away, exposing her to fear, uncertainty and even an attempt on her life. He really couldn’t blame her for wanting her old life back. She was just behaving like any normal woman. The bottom line to all this was, he concluded, that he might have to find himself an extraordinary woman.

Lisa, his wife, had been one, he remembered with a smile. Before he had even met her, she had gone to war with the might of the hospital establishment in Glasgow where she’d worked in order to expose what she saw as an injustice. She had suffered the consequences in terms of victimization and subsequent unemployment when she could least afford it with an ailing mother to look after. That had taken enormous courage — the courage of an extraordinary woman. ‘I still miss you, love,’ he murmured, raising his eyes momentarily to the sky.

Steven ignored the ‘Permit Holders Only’ sign and parked in the one empty space he found outside the Medical Research Council lab. He presented his ID to the man at the Reception desk and a phone call later he was shown up to Rees’s office on the second floor. It was a bright, airy room with plenty of light coming in from three large windows along one wall. Rees sat behind a light pine desk at right angles to the windows. He was in shirt sleeves with his jacket hanging over the back of his swivel chair. The wall behind him was comprised entirely of book shelves, all of them full of either text books or scientific journals.

‘How’s the throat?’ asked Rees.

‘Oh, fine,’ said Steven, affecting a slight cough and hoping he didn’t look as rough as he felt. ‘But I could do with some good news.’

‘I think I can help you out there,’ said Rees. ‘You remember I was a bit puzzled about there being more than one strain of Mycoplasma present in Maclean’s collection?’

Steven nodded. ‘There were three.’

‘The first thing I did was to grow up the different strains and run routine microbiological tests on them. They all appeared to be the perfectly harmless bacteria one would assume them to be… just as your man, Maclean, concluded.’

‘But?’ said Steven.

‘I tested them for their susceptibility to antibiotics. One of them turned out to have a very unusual sensitivity pattern. It proved resistant to every antibiotic in the book.’

‘How could that happen?’ asked Steven.

Rees leaned across his desk and said, ‘It could be a freak of nature but the simplest explanation is that someone engineered it that way. They altered it so it could not be treated with antibiotics.’

‘They genetically altered a harmless bacterium?’ said Steven. ‘Sounds like you’ve found the needle!’

‘Modesty prevents comment,’ said Rees with a mischievous grin that made Steven warm to the man even further.

‘Would that have been difficult?’ asked Steven.

‘Easiest thing in the world to make bugs resistant to drugs,’ replied Rees. ‘You just select for the natural mutants that are always present in bacterial populations. You simply spread large numbers of them on a growth medium containing the antibiotic and let nature do the rest. Only a mutant resistant to the antibiotic can survive and grow. You then grow the survivor up and go through the same procedure with another antibiotic and so on until you finish up with a strain that is resistant to every drug in the book.’

‘But ostensibly this is still a harmless bug, right?’ asked Steven.

‘Right,’ said Rees. ‘What’s inside it in terms of DNA is another matter but I think we have found our candidate for genetic alteration. I’m going to test it with the HIV virus gene probe.’

Steven tapped his thumbnail against his front teeth.

‘You’re looking thoughtful,’ said Rees.

‘I was just thinking,’ said Steven. ‘If you’re right and this Mycoplasma thing should turn out to be the agent it would mean that it could not be treated by drugs?’

‘That’s the usual way of things with biological weapons,’ said Rees. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘The people who designed this thing were asked to make it treatable. It was a specific requirement.’

‘Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose?’ asked Rees.

‘You’d think so,’ agreed Steven. ‘But, as I say, it was a definite criterion.’

‘Rees took off his glasses and leaned back in his chair. ‘Strange,’ he said. ‘But interesting. Do you play chess, Doctor?’

‘Badly,’ said Steven. ‘My main tactic is to engineer an exchange of every powerful piece on the board I can on the grounds that they are liable to be of much more use to my opponent than me.’

‘That in itself is a clever tactic,’ said Rees. ‘You accept your shortcomings and level the playing field so that things become more equal. You bring a superior opponent down to your level.’

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ said Steven with a smile at Rees’s bluntness.

‘But when that is not an option we have no alternative but to consider what our opponent might do with the powerful pieces that are still on the board.’

‘Like the agent,’ said Steven.

‘Here we have a strain of Mycoplasma has been genetically altered,’ said Rees. ‘If, as we suspect, genes from the HIV virus have been introduced to it then we have a perfectly harmless looking organism that has the capacity to seriously damage the human immune system, rendering its victims vulnerable to a wide range of conditions and diseases — not to the extent of the HIV virus itself but still pretty debilitating. On top of that, it is immune to antibiotics so there is no way of treating it. All in all, a powerful biological agent for population control and manipulation, wouldn’t you say?’

‘You’d think so,’ agreed Steven.

‘So why would they want to introduce a weakness?’ said Rees.

Steven shrugged.

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ said Rees. ‘But there’s a danger we are taking our eye off the game. It’s always a mistake to look back when we should be thinking about what might happen next. The real question is what they intend doing with such a powerful piece on the board, not what they might have done with it in the past.’