The Gulf Conspiracy

EIGHTEEN

The sun had moved round so that it was now shining directly into the room. Rees half closed the Venetian blinds causing horizontal bands of light to stripe the left side of his face.

‘Well, chess master,’ said Steven. ‘What would you do?’

Rees smiled. ‘I’m hardly the one to ask,’ he said. ‘There’s no one I would want to control apart from my grandchildren when they run amok in my garden on a Sunday. Using biological weapons might be going a little far.’

‘As I see it, they’re either going to sell it or use it,’ said Steven. ‘These are the two possibilities.’

‘Do you really think that someone might consider using such a weapon in this country?’

‘You know as well as I how much this country is hated in some quarters,’ said Steven. ‘Our current love affair with the Americans isn’t exactly improving things.’

Rees conceded the point with a nod. ‘You’re referring to Islamic terrorist organisations, but frankly this agent would not be an attractive proposition for them. They have neither the time nor the infrastructure to benefit from it. Terrorism is by definition a case of kill and run, bomb and disrupt. Its perpetrators create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in order to promote the demand for change. Making people ill would not fit the bill unless the people affected knew that they’d been attacked and why they were ill. The very nature of this agent militates against that. It was designed to be a secret.’

‘So we can eliminate sale to a third party?’ said Steven.

‘We can eliminate sale to terrorist groups,’ said Rees. ‘That’s different.’

‘At least it narrows down the field,’ said Steven.

‘But to what, I must leave up to you,’ said Rees. ‘The time has come for me to retire to the confines of my comfortable little ivory tower and get back to the rigours of academe.’

Steven drove back to London feeling less than optimistic. He knew he was pre-empting Rees’s findings but the suggestion of genetic alteration to one of the apparently harmless bugs Maclean had found in his body made this seem reasonable and he had to think ahead. Crowe had been responsible for its construction and Mowbray had made sure it had remained a secret, but who was going to use it? Both of them had been members of Gardiner’s group — something he had been inclined to dismiss as a small collection of right-wing dreamers although on the other hand it had been in existence for twelve years; plenty of time to build up a significant infrastructure. There was no easy way of knowing how widespread or how deeply it had penetrated into British life in that time — who was a member and who was not. The natural home of the political right was out there in suburbia among the roses and forsythia of bungalow-land where the silent majority never voiced their opinions openly but got on with their shopping and gardening and went about their business while secretly harbouring resentment against the more vociferous left.

He reckoned that he believed Gardiner’s stated regard for the rule of law but Crowe and Mowbray were a different kettle of fish. Maybe these two and God knows who else had simply moved in and taken over. He had reconciled himself to getting nothing out of either so that only left the other two group members he knew of to approach, Colonel Peter Warner — the ex soldier now retired — and the would-be politician, Rupert Everley. Sci-Med would have set up an investigation into the background of both of them as soon as their involvement had become known so he would take a look at what they had come up with before deciding whom to approach first. He needed to find an Achilles heel to make progress.

Steven waited until he had got home before calling Macmillan and telling him about Rees’s discovery. ‘It’s going to take a few more days to be absolutely sure but it looks as if he’s on the right track.’

‘Well done, Professor Rees,’ said Macmillan. ‘So the last part of the secret is about to be no longer a secret. I’ll pass the news on to the Home Secretary.’

‘What’s happening to Crowe and Mowbray?’ asked Steven.

‘I’m sorry but they’re being released,’ said Macmillan. ‘The Home Secretary did however, agree to your request for a search of Crowe’s lab. It’s already begun.’

‘Good,’ said Steven.

‘I need hardly add that if nothing is found it will probably be an end to the matter,’ said Macmillan. ‘There’s absolutely no other evidence that work continued on the agent after the accident in 1990.’

‘But I know that it did,’ insisted Steven. ‘And if they were prepared to kill to keep it secret after twelve years it must mean that they have plans for it, plans that mean a lot to them.’

‘I hope you’re wrong,’ said Macmillan.

‘I do too,’ said Steven. ‘But I fear I’m not.’

Newsnight finished on BBC2 and Steven drained the last of a gin and tonic before clicking the remote. He found the silence welcome but with it came thoughts of the day and his conversation with Rees. Although he and Rees had agreed that it wouldn’t make any sense to design such a weapon with an inherent weakness — treatability — and indeed, Rees had found that it had no such weakness; D’Arcy had insisted that one of the main design criteria had been that the organism be treatable. This worried him because he couldn’t see the logic behind it and a lack of understanding meant vulnerability in any situation. Logic said clearly that you would not deliberately introduce a weakness… therefore… it had to be a strength… What they were seeing as a weakness must actually be some kind of advantage but if an enemy could cure the condition how could that possibly be?… Steven suddenly thought he saw the answer. They couldn’t! Only the designers of the agent could cure it! That was why the bug had been made resistant to all the other antibiotics. It was so the other side couldn’t cure the condition. Like the bug itself, the cure was a secret too.

Feeling so pleased with himself he couldn’t stop a smile on his lips, he looked at the time. It was just after midnight but this couldn’t wait until morning. He called Rees at home and woke him up.

‘Give me a moment,’ said Rees when he heard Steven’s voice, ‘No need to disturb my wife as well.’

Steven waited until Rees had left the bedroom and gone downstairs to his study.

‘Right,’ said Rees. ‘You are now free to tell me while you’ve got me out of bed at this ungodly hour.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Steven, immediately imagining something disparaging in the silence that followed. ‘About the agent, I mean. I think they did make it treatable but not by any conventional means. I think the treatment is a secret too.’

‘A secret,’ repeated Rees, but not unkindly.

‘It makes perfect sense,’ said Steven, enthusiasm welling up in his voice. ‘It’s actually a very clever addition to the bug’s properties. It would give you the power to selectively cure who you wanted to of the condition. You can even take the logic one stage further. You could use the agent to debilitate the population and exert control and then you cure the ones among them who come round to your way of thinking. They regain their health and there’s an implicit suggestion that their new political philosophy is the way back to health and happiness so more people come round to your way of thinking and they in turn are cured and so on.’

‘Isn’t science wonderful,’ murmured Rees, but he sounded intrigued.

‘You’re now going to tell me that all this is fantasy?’ said Steven.

‘No,’ said Rees thoughtfully. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘Then you think it possible?’

‘To come up with a new antibiotic that no one else knows about? Absolutely, it’s a search carried out every day by drug companies. Mind you, the vast majority of new antibiotics are no good at all and there’s a school of thought that says we’ve already come up with all the useful ones but…’

‘But what?’

‘They are looking for antibiotics that work against bugs that cause disease. No one looks for drugs that act against harmless beasties.’

‘How would you go about it?’ asked Steven.

‘Antibiotics occur widely in nature,’ said Rees. ‘Many bacteria and fungi produce them for their own defence. Genus Streptomyces and Bacillus are the most prolific.’

‘So it wouldn’t be that difficult?’

‘No.’

‘Would they do that before or after they had made all the other changes to the bug?’ asked Steven.

‘Definitely before,’ said Rees. ‘Otherwise there would be no guarantee they would be able to come up with a cure after they had carried out all the other work. It could be wasted.’

‘That is a very important point,’ said Steven. ‘Let me see if I’ve got it right. The sequence of events would be that they take a harmless strain of Mycoplasma and search for a new antibiotic that kills it, then they make it resistant to all known antibiotics, and finally they introduce genes from the HIV virus in order to make it harmful?’

‘Correct,’ said Rees.

‘Bastards,’ said Steven. ‘They could have cured it all along but they said nothing.’

‘Sorry, I’m not with you,’ said Rees.

‘If coming up with the new antibiotic was the first thing they did, they could have cured Gulf War Syndrome all along,’ said Steven.

‘Still not with you,’ said Rees.

‘The treatable property would have been present even in the very earliest forms of the agent so it would have been there in the prototype that found its way into the vaccine. They could have cured all these people by making their new antibiotic available but they kept quiet and said nothing.’

‘Because if that should become public knowledge their agent becomes useless as a weapon,’ completed Rees.

‘They’ve been keeping it a secret now for twelve years.’

‘Ye gods,’ said Rees. ‘People.’

‘What are the chances of finding another antibiotic that would kill this thing?’ asked Steven.

‘We could certainly start looking,’ said Rees. ‘But the people who came up with this thing are no fools. It’s odds on that they would have selected a starting strain that was naturally resistant to many antibacterial agents, perhaps through some aberration in its outer membrane or the like. There are thousands and thousands of antibacterial compounds out there so it would be a question of going through them all until we found the one that worked. That could take time. It would also have to be tested for toxicity before it could be used. Many antibiotics are so toxic that they can’t be used for fear of killing the patient. How much time have we got?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Steven. ‘

In the morning Steven got to the Home Office shortly before Rose Roberts arrived. ‘You’re an early bird,’ she said.

‘Looking for information on a couple of worms,’ said Steven. ‘Peter Warner and Rupert Everley.’

‘You’re in luck,’ replied Rose. ‘I just finished collating the files on these two last night. Mr Macmillan hasn’t seen them yet.’

‘I don’t think he’d mind,’ said Steven, responding to her questioning look.

‘Anything interesting?’

‘Nothing we didn’t know already,’ said Rose, handing them over. ‘What’s your interest all of a sudden?’

‘I want to talk to them,’ said Steven.

‘Everley is away in Scotland where he’s been for the last month,’ said Rose. ‘But Warner should be at his home in Kent.’

‘Then Warner first,’ said Steven, flicking open the first folder. He had just finished working his way through the second when John Macmillan arrived in the office.

‘I’ve just had a word with the Home Secretary,’ he said. ‘A team of searchers have been going through Crowe’s lab at Porton all night. So far they haven’t found anything at all suspicious.’

‘Pity,’ said Steven, following Macmillan through into his office where he told him about his late night conversation with Rees. ‘Not only have these bastards known all along about the cause of Gulf War Syndrome,’ he said. ‘But they could have cured it if they’d chosen to.’ Steven told him about the first step in construction being the isolation of the new antibiotic. ‘Even the very early versions of the agent would have been treatable,’ he said. ‘The fact that they didn’t say anything about that…’

‘Must mean that they have a pretty serious reason for keeping it secret.’ completed Macmillan. His gaze moved to the files that Steven was still holding.

‘I thought I’d see if I could get something useful out of Warner or Everley,’ said Steven.

‘Did you ask Rees about the possibility of coming up with another drug to tackle the agent?’ asked Macmillan.

Steven nodded. ‘Could take a month, could take a year,’ he said. ‘There’s no way of knowing.’

‘The Home Secretary is meeting with the PM this morning to keep him apprised of developments. How would you rate the threat?’

‘Unknown,’ said Steven.

‘He’ll love that,’ said Macmillan with a sigh. ‘Who are you going to see first?’

‘Warner,’ said Steven. ‘Everley’s in Scotland.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Kissing Tory arse according to this,’ said Steven, holding up the file. ‘He’s been unable to get himself adopted as a candidate in any English constituency where he had even the remotest chance of being returned so it looks as if he’s turned his attention north of the border. He’s been doing the rounds.’

‘I didn’t think there were any Tories left up there after the debacle with the poll tax,’ said Macmillan. ‘You’d think he had even less chance.’

‘No doubt he’ll find that out for himself, him being a bright sort of a chap…’ said Steven.

‘Or there’s something we don’t know about,’ said Macmillan.

Steven was walking up the steps at Channing House in Kent when he heard singing coming from the garden at the side of the house and stopped to listen.

‘Early one morning, just as the sun was rising…’

Although singing tends to disguise accent, Steven didn’t think that the voice belonged to a gardener. He retraced his steps and walked along to the wicker gate at the right hand side of the house where he could see a man of military bearing, dressed in tweeds, pruning a large berberis shrub with secateurs.

‘Colonel Warner?’ he asked.

‘Who the devil wants to know?’ spluttered Warner, having to use bluster to disguise the fact he’d been taken by surprise.

Steven walked in through the gate and showed Warner his ID.

Warner grunted and said, ‘James Gardiner warned me you might come calling. I can’t tell you any more than he did. What happened all these years ago was an accident; nothing more nothing less. There wasn’t anything that any of us could have done about it and that’s an end to it.’

‘Not quite,’ said Steven as Warner resumed his pruning. ‘A great many men were left incapacitated because of that so-called accident.’

‘I think that’s a moot point, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ said Warner.

‘Oh, I know there were a whole lot of other contributing factors which served to muddy the water and gave you all something to hide behind,’ said Steven. ‘But the Porton agent still played a leading role. I think you know that.’

‘As I say, that’s a moot point and to be regretted if it should be true,’ said Warner.

‘Of course, these men needn’t have suffered at all if the whole truth had come out at the time,’ said Steven.

‘I don’t think I know what you mean,’ said Warner, pretending that the piece of berberis he was cutting at the time had suddenly become extremely interesting. He examined it closely.

‘From the very outset there was a known cure for the agent,’ said Steven. ‘If it had been made available as soon as it became clear there was a health problem, Gulf War Syndrome would never have become an issue.’

Warner stopped pruning and looked slightly stunned. ‘What the devil are you talking about?’ he said. ‘How could there be a cure? It was just a prototype of something they had just started work on.’

‘The first thing Crowe and his team did once they had decided on the bug they were going to base their agent on was to come up with an antibiotic to cure it,’ said Steven. ‘Even the earliest prototypes would have been treatable with it.’

‘Look here, science is all a bloody mystery to me,’ said Warner. ‘If what you say is true and they had a way of undoing the effects of the accident why wouldn’t they have done so? You’re not making any sense.’

‘Because they intended continuing development of the agent,’ said Steven, watching Warner closely. ‘The cure had to remain a secret otherwise it would have rendered the agent useless as a weapon.’

‘But all development work stopped after the accident,’ said Warner.

‘I think not,’ said Steven.

‘You mean, Crowe?’

‘I’ve good reason to believe that he continued development work on it and succeeded in constructing a biological weapon that satisfied the original design criteria.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Warner, clearly taken aback. ‘Looking back, I never did like the fella, always something about him. So what’s he going to do with it now that he’s got it?’

‘I was rather hoping you were going to tell me that,’ said Steven.

Warner looked astonished. ‘You thought that I…’

‘And James Gardiner and the other members of your group…’

‘Now hold on! James warned me about this nonsense. Just because we love our country and hate seeing it fall into the hands of the kind of below-stairs trash that seem to be into everything these days doesn’t make us a bunch of terrorists. Everything we did, we did within the law.’

‘How about developing the agent in the first place?’ said Steven.

‘That had Government sanction,’ said Warner.

‘Did it?’ said Steven.

‘James assures me that it did,’ said Warner.

‘Crowe was a member of your group.’

Warner gave a deep sigh. After a pause he said, ‘James insisted that our group should include like minded people from all walks of life. He thought that Crowe fitted the bill at the time.’

‘And Mowbray?’

‘And Mowbray,’ said Warner, looking down at the ground.

‘You needed someone like him?’

Warner nodded. ‘An insider in Intelligence? Of course we did. Cold fish but… horses for courses, as they say.’

‘What about Everley?’

Warner gave a snort of derision. ‘Man’s a buffoon,’ he said. ‘A self-opinionated clown.’

‘But a rich one,’ said Steven.

‘We needed his cash,’ agreed Warner.

‘How big is the organisation?’ asked Steven, hoping that this key question would just slip into the run of things but Warner saw it immediately. ‘Just the four of us,’ he said, returning to his pruning.

‘It’s not the group I’m asking about,’ said Steven. ‘I need to know about the organisation it was fronting. I think that Crowe and Mowbray may have been using it for their own ends.’

‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Warner.

‘You said you loved your country?’ said Steven. ‘Do you really want to see it influenced by the likes of Crowe and Mowbray?’

Warner stopped pruning again and turned to face Steven. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ he said.

‘Never more so,’ said Steven.

‘I’ll have to talk to James.’