David Trevellyan 03 -More Harm Than Good (38 page)
“What about the
independent camera your people installed?” I said.
“Let me check,” she
said.
Melissa speed-dialed a
number at Thames House, and concluded her conversation almost as quickly.
“It’s working fine,” she
said. “As far as they can tell. Apart from one small hiccup in the signal.”
“When?” I said.
“Four minutes ago.”
“What about the
container? Is it still there? Can they see it?”
“They don’t know.
The camera’s facing the door
,
remember
.
They wanted face shots of anyone going in.”
“What about the
tracker?”
“No signal’s being
received. They’re pinging it right now, trying to bring it back on line.”
Neither of us spoke for
a moment.
“You know what that
means?” I said.
Melissa nodded.
“We need to look inside
that room,” I said.
Melissa called Jones from the taxi on the way to St Joseph’s. He was
still at her place when he answered, and said he was feeling suddenly under the
weather. I guessed the adrenaline level in his bloodstream had crashed, making
way for the impact of the beating he’d taken to replace it.
“Just the two of us
tonight, then,” she said to me, slipping the phone back into her bag. “I told
him - two things. Medic. Then bed.”
“Wise,” I said. “If this
whole thing kicks off early, we don’t need to be carrying any passengers.”
Leckie
was waiting for
us at the rear entrance to the hospital when the cab pulled over to the side of
the road. He stepped out of the shadows, opened Melissa’s door for her, and led
the way into the hospital grounds.
The three of us stayed
together through the courtyard, into the Admin building, down in the lift, and all
the way along the purple corridor until we reached the pair of security guards
Leckie
had stationed there. Then I continued on my own. I
entered the code into the keypad - getting it right first time, without the
impediment of the heavy gloves - and cautiously entered the room. The silence
from the radiation alarm told me I didn’t need to worry about
caesium
. Booby traps were another matter, however, so I
moved no more quickly than I had done on my last visit.
My view of the room was much clearer without
having to look through the fuzzy visor. At first glance it seemed that nothing
had changed in the last two days, but I scanned each area nonetheless, not
moving on till I was happy that everything was exactly as I’d remembered it.
The broad strokes were certainly the same, but without the time pressure of the
diminishing oxygen supply, or the physical barrier of the thick suit, I was
able to fill in many more of the details. I could see from the every day
clutter what kinds of biscuits the people who’d worked there liked, and how
many of them had milk in their coffee. But the biggest revelation came from the
posters on the walls. They were exactly the same style and format as the ones
in Mark Jackson’s office. They had similar titles, like ACHIEVEMENT, AMBITION,
and INSIGHT. Only now, I could read the smaller text underneath. And I could
see that the scientists held a different view of the philosophy of management.
My
favourite
was CONSULTATION. It showed a handshake
between two faceless men in sharp suits over a caption that read, ‘If you’re
not part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the
problem.’
When I was sure it was
safe, I stepped further into the room and turned my attention to two things.
The camera MI5 had concealed in one of the smoke detectors on the ceiling, and
the cage that secured the
caesium
containers.
It took around forty
seconds to be sure of my conclusion regarding the camera.
And
less than a fortieth of that time to assess the state of play inside the cage.
I didn’t need any words when I rejoined
Melissa and
Leckie
at the end of the corridor. My
expression said enough on its own.
“We’ve got a bite?”
Melissa said.
I nodded.
“What do you mean?”
Leckie
said. “What did you find?”
“Exactly what I was
afraid of,” I said. “Absolutely nothing.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
There wasn’t a projection screen in our customary room at Thames
House, and rather than try to find one that late in the evening,
Chaston
just hooked a little portable projector up to his
laptop and aimed it at the wall.
“The signal GCHQ sent
did the job,” he said, as a map of central London slowly came into focus
opposite us. “They got the tracker reactivated within a few seconds of Melissa
letting them know there was a problem. They’ve confirmed it’s mobile. And any
moment now, we’ll see where it’s got to.”
Ten seconds ticked away,
and then a pulsing red dot appeared in the
centre
of
the image. It was hovering above the junction of
Bressenden
Place and Victoria Street,
then
started to move east.
“Well?” Hardwicke said.
He was leaning back in his chair, his eyes firmly closed. “What’s happening?”
“It’s heading away from
the hospital,” Melissa said, leaning forward. “Towards the river. Still on
Victoria Street.
Right into Artillery Row.
Left into
Greycoat
Place.
Right.
Now left into Medway Street. OK. It’s stopped. It’s still not moving. It’s
still stationary. Maybe it’s reached its destination. Can we get in closer? We
need to see exactly where it is.”
Chaston
fiddled with the
trackpad
on his laptop and the image
zoomed in until the individual buildings were visible. The dot, still pulsing
steadily, was inside a kind of courtyard behind a large
complex
which was set
back several yards from the street.
“Would you look at
that?” he said. “We’ve gone full circle. You know what that place is?”
No one spoke.
“Well?” Hardwicke said.
“Judging by the layout,
it can only be one thing,” Melissa said. “A fire station.”
Melissa’s words hung in
the air for a moment as the three of us allowed the implications to fully sink
in.
“Which fire station?”
Hardwicke said. “The one your trigger happy fire fighter was based at? The chap
who first got this ball rolling?”
“No,” Melissa said. “We
never positively identified who that was. But I don’t think St Joseph’s is in
the catchment area for this one.”
“OK,” the DG said.
“Then, what is in its catchment?”
Chaston
rattled the keys on his laptop, and the projection on the wall changed from the
map to a series of search forms and finally a list of streets and addresses.
“Well, if there was any
doubt about what we’re dealing with, I don’t think there is any more,” he said.
“There it is. Top of the list.”
“20 Dean’s Court,
Westminster?” Melissa said.
“Oh,” Hardwicke said.
“I don’t follow,”
Melissa said. “What’s in Dean’s Court?”
“I take it you’ve never
written to your MP, then,”
Chaston
said. “That’s the
official address of the Houses of Parliament. They use it for post, and to
avoid drawing attention to the real identity of the place.”
“Now let’s not get ahead
of ourselves,” Hardwicke said. “What else is on the list?”
“Let’s see,”
Chaston
said. “Westminster Abbey, obviously. The Hall.
A couple of schools.
Channel Four’s offices. Assorted government
offices. We all know what’s there. It’s only just up the road.”
“Is our office on the
list?” Melissa said.
“No,”
Chaston
said. “But really?
A fire station
that covers Parliament?
A container someone thinks is full of
caesium
? Add that to a thousand odd gallons of water,
then
trigger an evacuation? You could contaminate hundreds
of people – MPs, Lords, maybe even her Majesty – before anyone knew
what was going on. Then you’ve got to think about where all the water will go,
afterwards.
Down the drains.
Into
the Thames.
Into the water table.
And what
about the people who’ll have to clean it up?”
“And don’t forget
there’s another batch of
caesium
missing somewhere,”
Melissa said. “They could be coming from both sides. Spiking the sprinklers
inside the building, and the fire engine outside.”
“Not a pleasant
prospect,” Hardwicke said. “If you’re right about their plans.”
“I think I am,”
Chaston
said. “We should get people there right away.”
The DG suddenly opened
his eyes and moved for the first time since Melissa and I had arrived, sitting
forward in his chair and glaring at
Chaston
.
“Why aren’t they there
now?” he said. “I ordered round the clock surveillance.”
“Of the
fire station?”
Chaston
said. “How could we have known
to…
”
“Of Parliament,” Hardwicke
said.
“We have people at
Parliament,”
Chaston
said. “I meant the fire station.
In case they dissolve the dummy liquid in the water in a fire engine. If they
leave the container behind, there’ll be no way to track them.”
“You meant the fire
station?” Hardwicke said. “Then you should have made yourself clear. That’s how
misunderstandings come about.”
“Yes, sir,”
Chaston
said.
“Good,” Hardwicke said,
leaning back in his chair again. “Now, there’s no need to draw this out. It’s
late. Tomorrow will be a big day. Send a team to the fire station, then all of
you – go home. Get some sleep. And make sure that when we meet again
tomorrow night, we have something to celebrate.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
I wasn’t in pain. I wasn’t hungry.
Or thirsty.
Or too hot.
Or too cold.
And
it wasn’t noise that disturbed me. But at three minutes past three in the
morning – after less than two hours in bed – my eyes snapped open
and I was suddenly wide awake.
For a moment I was
tempted to just roll over and wait for sleep to wash over me again. But the
words that were dancing around at the back of my mind didn’t want to settle
back down. They came from snippets of that last conversation at Thames House.
They wanted attention. And they were forming patterns I just couldn’t ignore.
I reached across to my
nightstand, released my phone from its charging dock, and dialed Melissa’s
number.
“David,” she said,
answering on the eighth ring. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then this better be
important. I’d only just dropped off.”
“It is. I need you to
find something out for me.”
“Can’t it wait till
morning?”
“No. I need to know
right away.”
“Know what?”
“Do you remember you
told me
Leckie
had foiled an attempt by al-
Aqsaba’a
to kill the baby of some foreign diplomat?”
