David Trevellyan 03 -More Harm Than Good (25 page)

Melissa was less resistant than I’d anticipated, but looking back I
suspect that had more to do with taking the path of least resistance than
having any expectation of my being right. She couldn’t help right away, though.
Her boss had asked for a follow-up briefing, and she wanted to ferret out some
of the information we’d talked about. Plus it would take her a while to lay her
hands on the things we’d need. A couple of hours in all, she reckoned, so we
agreed to meet at the hospital at seven o’clock.

       
My clothes and hair were
dirty from the workhouse so I used the time to head home, shower and grab some
clean clothes. I found a taxi easily and had the driver drop me half a mile
from St Joseph’s. I strolled the rest of the way, and had just passed through
the arch at the main entrance when I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. It was a
text from Melissa:

       
On my
way, but running late... M.

I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by leaving and coming back
an extra time, so I kept on going and made my way to the hospital cafeteria
instead. The tables had been rearranged since my last visit. There were fewer
of them near the windows, and none of these were free. I didn’t want to sit in
the middle of the room, so I bought my coffee to go and carried it down to the
garden. All the benches were available, out there. Maybe it was too chilly for
people to spend much time outside. Or maybe they thought the place looked less
picturesque in the wash of the faux Victorian street lights that had been
planted at random intervals in the
flower beds
. At
least it had been cleaned, though. There was no more sign of storm damage, and
the plants and bushes looked like they’d recently been trimmed.

       
I was nursing the final
drops of my drink and waiting for Melissa to let me know she’d arrived when the
door at the far end of the garden swung open. Three people came through. They
were male.
In their early twenties.
Scruffily dressed.
And I was half way to my feet before I
realised
they
weren’t the same ones who’d called the police on me after our encounter, last
time.

       
One of the guys lay down
on the nearest bench and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, but the other two
seemed to be in the middle of an argument. They stayed on their feet, glaring,
muttering, and occasionally pushing each other. It was pretty half-hearted
stuff, but I kept an eye on them anyway, just in case. The dispute continued
for another five minutes without coming to the boil, and just when I thought it
was going to peter out altogether I felt my phone buzz:

       
I’m
here! Where are you? M.

       
Coming...
I replied, and stood up to leave.

The guys didn’t seem to notice me, even when I moved. I took one
final look at them as the door closed behind me, amazed that people could be so
unaware of their surroundings, and saw that their attention had been taken by
something else. Movement.
At the far end, near them.
Someone else was entering the garden. It was a man, in the security company’s
uniform. I reached out for the door handle, remembering how the last security
guard had been faced down so easily. But I didn’t go back through. There was
something about the way this guy moved that made him seem less helpless. He was
taller. Broader. More assured. The two lads who’d been arguing stepped back,
away from him, and the other one jumped up from the bench and joined them. The
guard took a radio from his belt and spoke into it, looking over at the wall to
his right. He waited for twenty seconds, still holding the radio to his ear,
then clipped it back in place and turned to face the
yobs
.
I could see the smile on his face, and before his fist had even connected with
the first lad’s jaw I would have bet money this was the part of his job he
enjoyed the most.

       
I didn’t want to keep
Melissa waiting so I thought it was better not to waste time hanging around to
see what he did with the lads’ unconscious bodies. It had taken him less than
thirty seconds to put them all on the ground, and even walking quickly it took
me ten times that long to reach the room in the basement where we’d agreed to
meet.

       
“I washed my hair this
morning,” she said as I opened the door. “Now it smells of smoke. I’m not
happy.”

       
“I hadn’t thought about
that,” I said. “Do you want to move to another room?”

       
“No,” she said, pointing
to a large black
holdall
with her foot. “Not after
I’ve dragged this thing all the way down here.”

       
The bag was about five
feet long, two wide, and two tall. There was a logo in the
centre
of the long side. From one angle it looked like a bird with its wings spread.
From the opposite angle, it looked like a fist. A row of letters was printed
underneath, but a fold in the fabric made them hard to read.

       
“They’re initials,” she
said. “LASSKC. London All Style Sport Karate Club.”

       
“I didn’t know you were
in a karate club,” I said.

       
“I’m not, anymore. When
would I ever find the time?”

       
“Good point. And that
explains the fist. But why’s there a bird on your bag?”

       
“It doesn’t look like a
real bird, so it doesn’t bother me. And it’s a dove. It represents peace.
That’s probably why you didn’t
recognise
it.”

       
“That could explain it.
Is the hazmat suit in there?”

       
“Yes. I didn’t have
anything else big enough to carry it in, and I didn’t want to attract
attention, lugging it around.”

       
“Good thinking. Thanks
for bringing it.”

       
“Are you sure you want
to do this?”

       
“I’m sure I don’t. Let’s
check the video first, and see if I really need to. Did you get hold of a
copy?”

       
Melissa nodded, pulled
out her phone, hit a few keys,
then
handed it to me.
The screen was filled with a black and white image of the hospital garden. It
was deserted. A
timecode
across the bottom showed the
early hours of the morning, two days ago. Five seconds rolled past, then a
figure appeared at the left-hand side of the screen.
He was
followed by three others
. They were pushing a steel trolley. It held
four
caesium
containers, and the men were making no
attempt to rush or disguise what they were doing. There was no need. Their
faces and any possible identifying features were completely covered by the
hazmat
suits they were wearing. I wasn’t surprised by what I
saw. Because even though it had been shot from a different angle, it matched
exactly what I remembered watching through the window on my way back from the
cafe that night.

       
I watched until the
bulky figures had disappeared from view,
then
returned
the phone to Melissa.

       
“Nothing new there,” she
said.

       
“No,” I said.
“Unfortunately.”

       
“So what’s the verdict?”

       
“I need to go in.”

       
“You’re certain? Because
I don’t think it’s a very good idea.”

       
“I’m not certain, no.
But I think I should.”

       
“OK,” she said, leaning
down to unzip the karate bag. “Let’s get it over with, then. Have you ever used
one of these before?”

       
“Not a civilian one,” I
said, taking off my coat and hanging it on a pipe that snaked out from one of
the old ventilation machines. “But I’ve done the standard drills in NBC suits a
couple of times. They can’t be too different.”

       
“I hope not. And there
are a couple of problems you should know about. There’s only seven minutes of
oxygen left, according to the gauge on the tank. And the radio’s missing.”

       
“That shouldn’t matter.
Seven minutes will be long enough.”

       
“Are you sure?
Because you don’t want to be cutting it fine, in there.
You
can’t just look at your watch. And with no radio I can’t warn you when you’re
getting close.”

       
“Don’t worry. I’m not
going to linger, in there.”

       
“And what if you have a
problem? You won’t be able to call for help.”

       
“It wouldn’t make any
difference. We only have one suit. It’s not like you could come in after me.”

       
“I don’t like it. It’s
dangerous.”

       
“Nonsense,” I said,
slipping off my boots. “It’ll be a walk in the park.”

The
hazmat
suit was surprisingly easy to
move in, because it was much looser than the military versions I’d had
experience with before. It was harder to see out of, though, because the visor
was smaller and further from your face. It looked comical rather than menacing,
because it was bright yellow rather than matte black. But one thing was very
similar. The heat you generated as soon as it was on. I knew that even seven
minutes was going to feel like a very long time.

       
Melissa had given me the
security code for the door to the
caesium
vault, but
I had trouble entering the digits because the clumsy gauntlets turned my
fingers into bratwursts. Eventually, after three tries, the tiny indicator
light switched from red to green and the door swung open. I lumbered through and
waited for it to close automatically behind me. For a moment I stood alone, in
the dark. Then, one after another, four banks of fluorescent ceiling lights
flickered into life and gave me the first glimpse of my new environment.

       
Maybe
my
expectations had been shaped by being in a hospital, where things are supposed
to sterile
. Or maybe all the talk of exotic chemicals had led me to
imagine the kind of pristine laboratories you see on TV. But whatever the
reason, I was surprised by what I saw. The room was square, maybe fifty feet by
fifty. I was standing in front of the entrance, at the
centre
of one wall. Another heavy steel door stood out from the rough whitewashed
brickwork directly opposite me. There obviously weren’t any windows, but the
wall space was busy all the same with safety notices, radiation monitors, fire
extinguishers, two large Swiss Railway style clocks, and a bank of round
nozzles for supplying oxygen via flexible tubes to the sort of
hazmat
suits that can be used for extended periods of time.
There was also a selection of posters.
Two on each wall.
But these weren’t framed like the CEO’s had been.

       
The rest of the space
was divided into four zones, each with an apparently different purpose.
Immediately to my right was a work area - two pairs of desks, cluttered with
papers and computers and all the other standard office paraphernalia.
Diagonally to my right, opposite the desks, was a place to relax - four easy
chairs, evenly arranged around the sides of a threadbare rug. Their tweed covers
were worn and stained, and a chipped coffee table sat between them. It was
complete with unruly piles of newspapers and two dirty mugs. A low cupboard in
the corner was home to a kettle, a biscuit tin, and a giant whisky bottle half
full of pound coins. The redundant generator Melissa had mentioned completely
filled the far left hand corner. Nothing seemed to be attached to it anymore,
and as if it were in disgrace for no longer supplying power,
it
was surrounded by the bars of a metal cage
. The final area was fenced
off in the same way. Its central section was designed to slide to one side, but
it was locked in place. I didn’t have the key, but that wasn’t a problem. I
didn’t need to open it. I could see what was inside. There was a metal table,
which was bolted to the floor.
A clipboard, hanging from a
nail on the wall.
And one other thing.
A metal canister.
It was silver. Shiny.
Eighteen
inches high.

       
And
marked with the unmistakable, universal symbol for radiation.

Chapter Twenty-One

I picked the same chair in the meeting room in Thames House the next
morning, but the leather was noticeably cooler than the last time I’d sat in
it. Melissa was at my side, once again, and her boss - Colin
Chaston
- was opposite us. Arthur Hardwicke – the
Deputy DG – was back in his place at the head of the table, but on this
occasion his attention seemed to be focused entirely on a paper clip. He’d
pried one end open so that it stuck straight out, and was rolling it up and
down between his thumb and index finger, causing the rest of the clip to spin
like a tiny propeller. I watched the thin strand of metal relentlessly twirling
round, and
realised
it mimicked the thoughts that had
been plaguing me since last night. I was back to trying to solve the problem
rather than assign blame. But old habits
die hard
. And
with so much at stake, what else are you supposed to do?