The Gulf Conspiracy (28 page)

‘
It’s hard to see why they would want to kill my husband and the others in order to keep a twelve-year-old accident a secret too,’ countered Jane.

Steven looked at her unseeingly as the hairs on the back of his neck started to rise. He had been about to point out that the financial repercussions of having to admit liability to the Gulf War veterans would have been an obvious reason when he saw an alternative explanation. ‘Sweet Jesus,’ he murmured under his breath.

‘
What’s the matter?’ asked Jane, sounding concerned at the change that had come over Steven. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘
They didn’t abandon it,’ he said.

Jane appeared bemused. ‘Didn’t abandon what?’ she asked.

‘
The construction of the agent,’ said Steven as his mind raced ahead of him. ‘I’d been assuming it was the accident itself that they wanted to keep secret because of the financial fall out but that’s not it at all. It’s the agent they want to keep secret. They didn’t abandon it! They went on working on it.’

‘
Tell me this is just an academic exercise you’re going through in your head,’ said Jane.

‘
The more I think about it,’ said Steven, the bit now between his teeth, ‘the more it begins to make sense. Disabling, undetectable and curable. They succeeded! That’s why they want to keep it a secret.’

‘
But you can’t be sure about this,’ said Jane. ‘It could just be your imagination. Please God, it’s just your imagination!’

‘
Somehow I don’t think so,’ said Steven. ‘If Crowe doesn’t come clean about everything tomorrow when I ask him outright that’ll be proof enough.’

‘
More Government intrigue?’ said Jane.

‘
Quite the reverse I think,’ said Steven. ‘I think we could be looking at private enterprise here.’

‘
Gardiner and his gang?’

‘
Gardiner made a big thing about his group always acting within the law,’ said Steven. ‘He said at one point that he was contemplating disbanding the group because he felt they weren’t getting anywhere.’

‘
What exactly were their objectives?’

‘
Oh, a misty-eyed return to England for the English, warm beer, cricket on the village green, bobbies on the beat, kids behaving themselves and everyone leaving their doors unlocked.’

‘
Sounds good to me,’ said Jane. ‘If he can combine that with Santa Claus being real and the tooth fairy dealing with next month’s Visa Card bill I just might join up.’

Steven was still deep in thought.

‘
You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’ said Jane.

The look on Steven’s face answered her question. ‘Maybe some other members of the group have different ideas about how they should go about achieving their aims.’

Jane’s eyes opened wide. ‘You’re suggesting that they might actually use the agent?’ she gasped. ‘But how? How would you use something like that?’

‘
You’d have to come up with a way of infecting a sizeable proportion of your target population before you could begin to exert any control over them,’ said Steven. ‘Designing delivery systems for biological weapons is a hi-tech-science in itself. It’s as difficult as designing the weapons themselves. You can’t just infect one person and depend on them passing on the disease. You have to contaminate a large number of people at the same time. Saddam used missiles with non-explosive heads to create air bursts over his intended targets. Crop duster aircraft can be used in much the same way but each organism throws up different problems when it comes to turning them into aerosol mists or even powder form. Some of the most lethal organisms on earth are actually fragile little creatures in their own right. They don’t like being exposed to hostile environments and they die very quickly. Then there are the limitations imposed by the vagaries of wind and weather. A sudden change in the wind and you can end up infecting your own troops.

‘
It makes me ill to think of this,’ said Jane.

‘
Throwing up our hands in horror is no defence.’

‘
What is?’ asked Jane.

‘
Intelligence is all-important,’ said Steven. ‘Knowing what agent is being used is paramount. If you know that you can vaccinate against viruses or give antibiotic umbrellas against bacteria.’

‘
But if you don’t know what’s coming . . .’ said Jane.

‘
You’re in real trouble,’ said Steven. ‘Vaccination is not much use after the event and antibiotics will be fighting a losing battle – always assuming you can come up with a suitable one or combination in the first place. Bio-weapons are nearly always designed to be resistant to antibiotics.’

‘
If you are right about the existence of this new agent and it being in private hands . . .’ said Jane.

‘
We need to know exactly what it is and how to detect it - not easy if it has been designed to be undetectable - and finally how to treat it,’ said Steven. ‘But it was designed to be treatable . . .’ he added as a puzzling afterthought.

‘
I can understand how something like smallpox or plague can be used as a weapon,’ said Jane. ‘They will obviously create fear and terror and will kill a lot of people but I’m not so sure about this new thing?’

‘
The idea was first mooted at an international conference on biotechnology about fifteen years ago,’ said Steven. ‘If you can create conditions where the majority of the target population are ill most of the time and feel generally run down and under the weather they will start to turn against the social structure that they’re living in. They will blame their government for their miserable state and embrace any promise of radical change on offer. It’s a modern day variation on brain- washing. In that state it’s possible to change people’s whole political philosophy.’

‘
Don’t they just pretend?’ said Jane. ‘In order to get away from their captors, I mean.’

Steven shook his head and said, ‘No, they really believe it. You can still see this happening from time to time at big religious rallies. People get swept up in the contrived emotion of it all. Some – the most vulnerable – become so disorientated that they become hyper-receptive to the ideas on offer and experience “miraculous” conversion.’

‘
They see the light,’ said Jane.

‘
Yes, but they’ve been brainwashed,’ said Steven. ‘They just don’t realise it.’

‘
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.’