Scorpion's Advance (9 page)

Strauss sat back in his chair and fanned his face with a sheaf of papers from the desk. 'Gentlemen, we must be realistic. We may never know what Martin Klein did, or why, or even how, but I have two suggestions to make.'

The
air conditioning moaned into life again as power was restored, bringing smiles from Strauss and Anderson but only a casual glance from Cohen. 'Firstly, I think that you should try producing toxin from the plasmid in test tubes. We might be able to identify the poison by its potency if it's a well-documented one.'

'Brilliant,' said Anderson.

'And secondly,' continued Strauss, 'we must investigate the action of other drugs on the plasmid.'

‘I’ll
get started,' said Cohen, getting up.

‘I’ll
join you,' said Anderson, but Strauss interrupted him.

'No, you have worked continuously since your arrival. You will take two days off.'

'But Dr Cohen has been doing the same,' protested Anderson.

Cohen turned back from the door. 'Go, Doctor,' he said. 'It only needs one of us to set up these tests and your hands are still bandaged - besides, if I need help I can get Myra
to assist.'

Anderson looked down at his hands and reluctantly agreed. 'But I take over on Wednesday and you take two days off.'

'Agreed,' said Cohen, closing the door. When he had left Strauss's office, Anderson took Kerr's letter from his desk and said, 'Myra, how do I get to Caesarea?'

'You can't go directly from Tel Aviv. First go to
Hadera, and then get a bus from there. Why?'

A
nderson showed her the letter. ‘I’ve got two days off. I thought I'd go and see Klein's parents tomorrow.'

Myra had an idea. The
Kalman Institute is in Hadera,' she said. 'Why not travel up with Sam tomorrow? You could look round the place in the morning and then go on to Caesarea afterwards. It's not far.'

Anderson agreed that it was a good idea. He arranged a time for Sam Freedman to pick him up in the morning and left the lab as Cohen came in to request Myra's assistance.

Anderson felt lost with so much free time on his hands. His first inclination was to use the university swimming pool but his bandages said that that was not such a good notion so he settled instead for a bus ride down to tourist Tel Aviv and a walk round the market stalls. In the event, the lure of the nearby Mediterranean proved too much and he ended up taking off his sandals and walking along the sand at the water's edge to the old port of Jaffa where he and Langman had eaten a few nights before. The skyline of strange towers and turrets pleased him as the warm water rushed up the sand to swirl round his ankles.

'So you've just been bumming around all day,' said Miles
Langman as he and Anderson met on the roof in what was becoming a regular evening meeting.

'More or less,' agreed Anderson. 'Enjoyed it too.'

'Same again tomorrow?' asked Langman.

Anderson told him about the planned visit to Klein's parents.

'Not so good,' said Langman, 'but the trip to the Kalman sounds interesting.'

Anderson could see why Freedman had said that 'it wouldn't take long', as the white Mercedes ate up the miles on the coast road north from Tel Aviv, its fat, black tyres frequently forcing the
speedo into three figures.

The Institute is just outside
Hadera,' said Freedman as the car slowed to enter what Anderson assumed to be the concrete fringe of the town.

'On the other side,' added Freedman as they moved deeper into the streets of what appeared to be a dull, dusty, rather ordinary town.

The Kalman Institute turned out to be a long, low, white building of two storeys. Freedman stopped the car at the gate while two men in green uniforms opened it and saluted as they drove past. Another green uniform held the door open for them as they entered a large, impressively modern reception hall with an ornamental pool in the middle and an abstract sculpture towering up from the centre of the pool to a green glass cupola some thirty feet above their heads.

Freedman led the way as they climbed one of the two semi-circular staircases that coiled round the back of the sculpture and led to a second-floor balcony which had been designed to bridge the gap that allowed the sculpture to rise from floor to ceiling.

'Here we are,' said Freedman, opening a door off the centre of the balcony.

The office came as a surprise to Anderson and it showed on his face.

Freedman laughed and said, 'I brought it with me from the States. You can keep that modern stuff outside.' He gestured to the door.

Anderson admired the Ivy League study with its green leather armchair and period furniture. 'I think I agree,' he said. 'That sculpture out there is a bit ... a bit ...'

'Looks like a giant prick,' said Freedman. 'Still, it impresses the clients.'

'You know, I still don't understand the economics of this place,' Anderson confessed. 'If your clients can't afford to do their own research, how come they can afford you?'

'I may have given the wrong impression when I used the term "can't afford",' said Freedman, sitting down in his swivel chair. 'All of our clients are very successful companies, many in the international big league, but from time to time one of them may come up with a discovery which is not directly related to their own sphere of business. For example, an oil company may come up with something which looks as if it may have applications in, say, pharmacy It just wouldn't make economic sense for them to build and staff pharmacy labs for a one-off product so they might contract us to do the research for them. Make sense?'

Anderson agreed that it did.

'Come, let me show you around.'

Freedman ushered Anderson out on to the landing. 'We have four main labs and one high-risk facility in the basement, a large animal house and all the usual services. This is one of the main labs.' Freedman opened a door marked 'LI'. The lab was obviously equipped to the highest standards and designed to accommodate ten workers. All were present and dressed in identical light-blue surgical slacks and tunics with a gold 'K' motif on the epaulettes. Anderson opened his mouth to ask what they were doing, when Freedman stopped him. 'Don't ask,' he said. 'A lot of our work is boring, but it's confidential boring. Our clients demand it and our reputation depends on it.'

Anderson nodded. 'I understand.'

Superbly equipped instrument
rooms appeared at regular intervals along the corridors. Centrifuges hummed as their motors multiplied the forces of gravity; scintillation counters chattered as their trains changed samples automatically; red, green and blue lights winked at Anderson from all directions. They came to another main lab where all the workers were dressed in green. 'Biochemistry,' said Freedman.

The two men came downstairs and Anderson could tell by the smell in the narrow corridor that they were approaching the animal house. It turned out to be the biggest he had ever seen, a huge, bright hall with a Disney-like quality given it by the different-coloured plastic panels on the fronts of the cages. Green for
guinea pigs, red for mice, blue for rabbits, pink for rats, and yellow for something the empty cages said was large. 'Beagle hounds,' said Freedman. 'We're expecting a delivery.'

They left the animal complex and returned via corridor and stairs to the reception hall. 'Well, that's about it,' said Freedman, 'except for the high-risk suite in the basement. It's not being used at the moment and is all locked up, but you know the sort of thing - inoculation hoods, air filters, negative vents etcetera.'

Anderson nodded. Freedman led the way back to his office where he brought out a bottle of single malt whisky. 'A snort before lunch?'

'Can you imagine a Scotsman saying no?'

Freedman eased his large frame into his chair and poured two generous measures before the phone rang. He swung away to answer it, hoisting one foot up on to the corner of his desk.

As always in this situation, Anderson felt that he was intruding, although in this particular instance there was no need, for Freedman was speaking in Hebrew. Not a pleasant language, he thought, a bit like Afrikaans, definitely not the language of love. As the conversation continued, Anderson's eyes strayed to Freedman's bookshelves. He saw some familiar titles sitting there and got up to investigate further. As he walked towards them there came a sudden crash behind him which made him spin round in alarm. Freedman's foot had knocked the tray off the corner of his desk and
Glenfiddich whisky was soaking into the carpet through a sieve of shattered crystal. Freedman fired a final guttural burst into the receiver and put it down. He was staring at Anderson.

Anderson said, 'I think you'd better turn your back for a moment.'

Freedman looked at him strangely. 'I don't think I understand,' he said.

Anderson smiled. '
If you don't want to see a Scotsman cry …'

After lunch, Freedman arranged for transport to take Anderson back to
Hadera where he was in time to catch an ancient service bus with 'Caesarea' listed on its destination board. The journey in the blistering heat was mercifully short, but the driver, assuming Anderson to be a tourist, deposited him at the ancient ruins outside the town, and in the middle of what seemed to him to be the desert.

As the bus rattled off in a choking cloud of dust, Anderson crossed over to a slight rise and climbed it. He could see the sea and, unlike the muddied waters that skirted Te
l Aviv, here the water was blue green with brilliant white surf that kissed the outer reaches of an old crusader fort.

Anderson approached the gatehouse and showed the attendant his piece of paper with the
Kleins' address on it. The old man nodded and pointed with his finger along the shore. 'How far?' Anderson asked, getting a blank stare in reply. He tried holding up fingers. 'One kilometre? Two kilometres?'

The old man laughed
chestily. ‘Two kilometres.'

Deciding to rest before attempting a two-kilometre walk in the burning sun, Anderson sat down in the cool shadow of a crumbling stone arch. The old man came over from his hut and offered him a flagon of water.
'Toda,'
said Anderson, using up his one word of Hebrew and gratefully accepting the offer. He took a long draught of the lukewarm water, returned the container and brought out his wallet, a move which brought an angry reaction from the old man. 'Sorry,' said Anderson,
'toda, toda.'

Anderson walked through the leaning stonework of the fort till he got to the shore where he took off his sandals and padded over the burning sand to cool his feet in the dying eddies of the waves. He adjusted his bush hat to get maximum protection from the sun and set off in the direction that the old man had indicated, reluctant to stray more than a few metres from the promise of coolness that
the water offered. After one kilometre he came to the remains of a Roman-built aqueduct and sat down in the shade of its arches to rest. He could now see the road that led inland.

When he came to them, Anderson found the houses to be as beautiful as their setting. Low white bungalows nestled in lush green foliage and the brilliant colours of exotic blooms as the sprinklers hissed in the soporific heat of the afternoon. Anderson found the house he was looking for and opened the gate, which squealed quietly on its hinges as if not to disturb the peace of the place. It allowed him to enter an immaculate flower garden where the neatness of the rows reminded him of the meticulous attention to detail he had found in Martin Klein's lab book. The analogy made him pause. Klein
must
have written down what he had done. It was in his nature. If it wasn't in his official lab book perhaps there was another one, and what was more, if the book wasn't in Tel Aviv it could be here, in his home. Anderson checked the dates in his diary. Klein had left the lab in Tel Aviv on the eighth of January, saying that he was going home to see his parents before returning to medical school in Britain. He had arrived back in the UK on the nineteenth. That meant he had been home for ten days. The book must be here!

'Yes, can I help you?' asked an elderly woman with grey hair tied back in a bun.

'Hello, Mrs Klein, I'm Neil Anderson, from St Thomas's Medical School.'

The woman's hands flew to her mouth. 'Martin's school?' she said in disbelief. Anderson nodded, steeling himself for the ordeal. 'Oh, my dear, come in, come in.'

Anderson stepped into the cool interior and followed the woman over tiled floors to an exquisitely furnished living area. 'Maurice!' cried the woman, repeating herself once more before they were joined by a man in his sixties who came in scratching his head as if he had been sleeping. He was surprised to find they had a visitor and looked at his wife who came over and took his arm. 'Maurice, this young gentleman is from Martin's medical school,' she said with pride.

Anderson introduced himself and said how sad everyone at St Thomas's was over Martin's death.

'Did you know our son, Doctor?' asked Klein.

Anderson confessed that he hadn't and saw disappointment appear on the
Kleins' faces. He added hastily that he had spoken to lots of people who had. Their son, he said, had obviously been very popular and was greatly missed by everyone. The couple smiled at each other and Anderson thought there were times in life when it was right to lie your head off.