Whiteout (24 page)

“Anything else?”

“They turned north when they left here—I saw their van. But there's a blizzard, and the roads are becoming impassable. So they probably aren't far from where I'm standing.”

“That means we have a chance of catching them before they deliver the goods.”

“Yes—but I haven't been able to persuade the local police of the urgency.”

“Leave that to me. Terrorism comes under the Cabinet Office. Your hometown boys are about to get a phone call from Number Ten Downing Street. What do you need—helicopters? HMS
Gannet
is an hour away from you.”

“Put them on standby. I don't think helicopters can fly in this blizzard and, if they could, the crew wouldn't be able to see what's on the ground. What I need is a snowplow. They should clear the road from Inverburn to here, and the police should make this their base. Then they can start looking for the fugitives.”

“I'll make sure it happens. Keep calling me, okay?”

“Thanks, Odette.” Toni hung up.

She turned around. Carl Osborne stood immediately behind her, making notes.

ELTON drove the Vauxhall Astra station wagon slowly, plowing through more than a foot of soft, fresh snow. Nigel sat beside him, clutching the burgundy leather briefcase with its deadly contents. Kit was in the back with Daisy. He kept glancing over Nigel's shoulder at the briefcase, imagining a car crash in which the briefcase was crushed and the bottle smashed, and the liquid was sprayed into the air like poisoned champagne to kill them all.

He was maddened with impatience as their speed dropped to bicycle pace. He wanted to get to the airfield as fast as possible and put the briefcase in a safe place. Every minute they spent on the open road was dangerous.

But he was not sure they would get there. After leaving the car park of the Dew Drop Inn, they had not seen another moving vehicle. Every mile or so, they passed an abandoned car or truck, some at the side of the road and some right in the middle. One was a police Range Rover on its side.

Suddenly a man stepped into the headlights, waving frantically. He wore a business suit and tie, and had no coat or hat. Elton glanced at Nigel, who murmured, “Don't even dream of stopping.” Elton drove straight at the man, who dived out of the way at the last moment. As they swept by, Kit glimpsed a woman in a cocktail dress, hugging a thin shawl around her shoulders, standing beside a big Bentley, looking desperate.

They passed the turning for Steepfall, and Kit wished he were a boy again, lying in bed at his father's house, knowing nothing about viruses or computers or the odds at blackjack.

The snow became so heavy that little was visible through the windshield but whiteness. Elton was almost blind, steering by guesswork, optimism, and glances out of the side windows. Their speed dropped to the pace of a run, then a brisk walk. Kit longed for a more suitable car. In his father's Toyota Land Cruiser Amazon, parked only a tantalizing couple of miles from where they were right now, they would have had a better chance.

On a hill, the tires began to slip in the snow. The car gradually lost forward momentum. It came to a stop and then, to Kit's horror, began to slide back. Elton tried braking, but that only made the skid faster. He turned the steering wheel. The back swerved left. Elton spun the wheel in the opposite direction, and the car came to rest slewed at an angle across the road.

Nigel cursed.

Daisy leaned forward and said to Elton, “What did you do that for, you pillock?”

Elton said, “Get out and push, Daisy.”

“Screw you.”

“I mean it,” he said. “The brow of the hill is only a few yards away. I could make it, if someone would give the car a push.”

Nigel said, “We'll all push.”

Nigel, Daisy, and Kit got out. The cold was bitter, and the snowflakes stung Kit's eyes. They got behind the car and leaned on it. Only Daisy had gloves. The metal was bitingly cold on Kit's bare hands. Elton let the clutch out slowly, and they took the strain. Kit's feet were soaking wet in seconds. But the tires bit. Elton pulled away from them and drove to the top of the hill.

They trudged up the slope, slipping in the snow, panting with the effort, shivering. Were they going to do this on every hill for the next ten miles?

The same thought had occurred to Nigel. When they got back into the car, he said to Elton, “Is this car going to get us there?”

“We might be all right on this road,” Elton said. “But there's three or four miles of country lane before you get to the airfield.”

Kit made up his mind. He said, “I know where there's a sport-utility vehicle with four-wheel drive—a Toyota Land Cruiser.”

Daisy said, “We could get stuck in that—remember the police Range Rover we passed?”

Nigel said, “It has to be better than an Astra. Where is this car?”

“At my father's house. To be exact, it's in his garage, the door to which is not quite visible from the house.”

“How far?”

“A mile back along this road, then another mile down a side turning.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“We park in the woods near the house, borrow the Land Cruiser, and drive to the airfield. Afterwards, Elton brings the Land Cruiser back and takes the Astra.”

“By then it will be daylight. What if someone sees him putting the car back in your father's garage?”

“I don't know, I'll have to make up a story, but it can't be worse than getting stuck here.”

Nigel said, “Has anyone got a better idea?”

No one did.

Elton turned the car around and went back down the hill in low gear. After a few minutes, Kit said, “Take that side road.”

Elton pulled up. “No way,” he said. “Look at the snow down that lane—it's eighteen inches thick, and there's been no traffic on it for hours. We won't get fifty yards.”

Kit had the panicky feeling he got when losing at blackjack, that a higher power was dealing him all the wrong cards.

Nigel said, “How far are we from your father's house?”

“A bit—” Kit swallowed. “A bit less than a mile.”

Daisy said, “It's a long way in this fucking weather.”

“The alternative,” Nigel said, “is to wait here until a vehicle comes along then hijack it.”

“We'll wait a bloody long time,” Elton said. “We haven't seen a moving car on this road since we left the laboratory.”

Kit said, “You three could wait here while I go and get the Land Cruiser.”

Nigel shook his head. “Something might happen to you. You could get stuck in the snow, and we wouldn't be able to find you. Better to stay together.”

There was another reason, Kit guessed: Nigel did not trust Kit alone. He probably feared that Kit might have second thoughts and call the police. Nothing was further from Kit's mind—but Nigel might not feel sure of that.

There was a long silence. They sat still, reluctant to leave the warmth that blasted from the car's heater. Then Elton turned off the engine and they got out.

Nigel held on tightly to the briefcase. That was the reason they were all going through this. Kit was carrying his laptop. He might still need to intercept calls to and from the Kremlin. Elton found a flashlight in the glove compartment and gave it to Kit. “You're leading the way,” he said.

Without further discussion, Kit headed off, plowing through snow up to his knees. He heard grunts and curses from the others, but he did not look back. They would keep up with him or get left behind.

It was painfully cold. None of them was dressed for this. They had expected to be indoors or in cars. Nigel had a sports jacket, Elton a raincoat, and Daisy a leather jacket. Kit was the most warmly dressed, in his Puffa jacket. Kit wore Timberlands and Daisy had motorcycle boots, but Nigel and Elton wore ordinary shoes.

Soon Kit was shivering. His hands hurt, though he tried to keep them stuffed in his coat pockets. The snow soaked his jeans up to the knees and melted into his boots. His ears and his nose seemed frozen.

The familiar lane, along which he had walked and bicycled a thousand times in his boyhood, was buried out of sight, and he quickly began to feel confused about where he was. This was Scottish moorland, and no hedge or wall marked the edge of the road, as it would have in other parts of Britain. The land on either side was uncultivated, and no one had ever seen any reason to fence it off.

He felt he might have veered from the road. He stopped, and with his bare hands dug down into the snow.

“What now?” Nigel said bad-temperedly.

“Just a minute.” Kit found frozen turf. That meant he had strayed from the paved road. But which way? He blew on his icy hands, trying to warm them. The land to his right seemed to slope up. He guessed the road was that way. He trudged a few yards in that direction, then dug down again. This time he found tarmac. “This way,” he said with more confidence than he felt.

In time, the melted snow that had soaked his jeans and socks began to freeze again, so that he had ice next to his skin. When they had been walking for half an hour, he had a feeling he was going around in a circle. His sense of direction failed. On a normal night, the lights outside the house should have been visible in the distance, but tonight nothing shone through the snowfall to give him a beacon. There was no sound or smell of the sea: it might have been fifty miles away. He realized that if they got lost they would die of exposure. He felt truly frightened.

The others followed him in exhausted silence. Even Daisy stopped bitching. They were breathless and shivering, and had no energy to complain.

At last Kit sensed a deeper darkness around him. The snow seemed to fall less heavily. He almost bumped into the thick trunk of a big tree. He had reached the woods near the house. He felt so relieved that he wanted to kneel down and give thanks. From this point on, he could find the way.

As he followed the winding track through the trees, he could hear someone's teeth chattering like a drumroll. He hoped it was Daisy.

He had lost all feeling in his fingers and toes, but he could still move his legs. The snow was not quite so thick on the ground, here in the shelter of the trees, and he was able to walk faster. A faint glow ahead told him he was approaching the lights of the house. At last he emerged from the woods. He headed for the light and came to the garage.

The big doors were closed, but there was a side door that was never
locked. Kit found it and went inside. The other three followed. “Thank God,” Elton said grimly. “I thought I was going to die in sodding Scotland.”

Kit shone his flashlight. Here was his father's blue Ferrari, voluptuously curved, parked very close to the wall. Next to it was Luke's dirty white Ford Mondeo. That was surprising: Luke normally drove himself and Lori home in it at the end of the evening. Had they stayed the night, or . . . ?

He shone his flashlight at the far end of the garage, where the Toyota Land Cruiser Amazon was usually parked.

The bay was empty.

Kit felt like crying.

He realized immediately what had happened. Luke and Lori lived in a cottage at the end of a rough road more than a mile away. Because of the weather, Stanley had let them take the four-wheel drive car. They had left behind the Ford, which was no better in the snow than the Astra.

“Oh, shit,” said Kit.

Nigel said, “Where's the Toyota?”

“It's not here,” Kit said. “Jesus Christ, now we're in trouble.”

CARL OSBORNE was speaking into his mobile phone. “Is anyone on the news desk yet? Good—put me through.”

Toni crossed the Great Hall to where Carl sat. “Wait, please.”

He put his hand over the phone. “What?”

“Please hang up and listen to me. Just for a moment.”

He said into the phone: “Get ready to do a voice record—I'll get back to you in a couple of minutes.” He pressed the hang-up button and looked expectantly at Toni.

She felt desperate. Carl could do untold damage with a scaremongering report. She hated to plead, but she had to try to stop him. “This could finish me,” she said. “I let Michael Ross steal a rabbit, and now I've allowed a gang to get away with samples of the virus itself.”

“Sorry, Toni, but it's a tough old world.”

“This could ruin the company, too,” she persisted. She was being more candid than she liked, but she had to do it. “Bad publicity might frighten our . . . investors.”

Carl did not miss a trick. “You mean the Americans.”

“It doesn't matter who. The point is that the company could be destroyed.” And so could Stanley, she thought, but she did not say it. She was trying to sound reasonable and unemotional, but her voice was close to cracking. “They don't deserve it!”

“You mean your beloved Professor Oxenford doesn't deserve it.”

“All he's doing is trying to find cures for human illnesses, for Christ's sake!”

“And make money at the same time.”

“As you do, when you bring the truth to the Scottish television audience.”

He stared at her, not sure if she was being sarcastic. Then he shook his head. “A story is a story. Besides, it's sure to come out. If I don't do it, someone else will.”

“I know.” She looked out of the windows of the Great Hall. The weather showed no sign of easing. At best, there might be some improvement with daylight. “Just give me three hours,” she said. “File at seven.”

“What difference will that make?”

Possibly none at all, she thought, but it was her only chance. “Maybe by then we'll be able to say that the police have caught the gang, or at least that they're on the trail and expect to arrest them at any moment.” Perhaps the company, and Stanley, could survive the crisis if it were resolved quickly.

“No deal. Someone else could get the story in the meantime. As soon as the police know, it's out there. I can't take that risk.” He dialed.

Toni stared at him. The truth was bad enough. Seen through the distorting lens of tabloid television, the story would be catastrophic.

“Record this,” Carl said into his mobile. “You can run it with a still photo of me holding a phone. Ready?”

Toni wanted to kill him.

“I'm speaking from the premises of Oxenford Medical, where the second biosecurity incident in two days has hit this Scottish pharmaceutical company.”

Could she stop him? She had to try. She looked around. Steve was behind the desk. Susan was lying down, looking pale, but Don was upright. Her mother was asleep. So was the puppy. She had two men to help her.

“Excuse me,” she said to Carl.

He tried to ignore her. “Samples of a deadly virus, Madoba-2—”

Toni put her hand over his phone. “I'm sorry, you can't use that here.”

He turned away and tried to continue. “Samples of a deadly—”

She crowded him and again put her hand between his phone and his mouth. “Steve! Don! Over here, now!”

Carl said into the phone, “They're trying to stop me filing a report, are you recording this?”

Toni spoke loud enough for the phone to pick up her words. “Mobile phones may interfere with delicate electronic equipment operating in the laboratories, so they may not be used here.” It was untrue, but it would serve as a pretext. “Please turn it off.”

He held it away from her and said loudly, “Get off me!”

Toni nodded at Steve, who snatched the phone from Carl's hand and turned it off.

“You can't do this!” Carl said.

“Of course I can. You're a visitor here, and I'm in charge of security.”

“Bullshit—security has nothing to do with it.”

“Say what you like, I make the rules.”

“Then I'll go outside.”

“You'll freeze to death.”

“You can't stop me leaving.”

Toni shrugged. “True. But I'm not giving you back your phone.”

“You're stealing it.”

“Confiscating it for security reasons. We'll mail it to you.”

“I'll find a pay phone.”

“Good luck.” There was not a public phone within five miles.

Carl pulled on his coat and went out. Toni and Steve watched him through the windows. He got into his car and started the engine. He got out again and scraped several inches of snow off the windshield. The wipers began to operate. Carl got in and pulled away.

Steve said, “He left the dog behind.”

The snowfall had eased a little. Toni cursed under her breath. Surely the weather was not going to improve just at the wrong moment?

A mound of snow grew in front of the Jaguar as it climbed the rise. A hundred yards from the gate, it stopped.

Steve smiled. “I didn't think he'd get far.”

The car's interior light came on. Toni frowned, worried.

Steve said, “Maybe he's going to sulk out there, engine turning over, heater on full blast, until he runs out of petrol.”

Toni peered through the snowstorm, trying to see better.

“What's he doing?” Steve said. “Looks like he's talking to himself.”

Toni realized what was happening, and her heart sank. “Shit,” she said. “He is talking—but not to himself.”

“What?”

“He has another phone in the car. He's a reporter, he has backup equipment. Hell, I never thought of that.”

“Shall I run out there and stop him?”

“Too late now. By the time you get there, he'll have said enough. Damn.” Nothing was going right. She felt like giving up, walking away and finding a darkened room and lying down and closing her eyes. But instead she pulled herself together. “When he comes back in, just sneak outside and see whether he's left the keys in the ignition. If he has, take them—then at least he won't be able to phone again.”

“Okay.”

Her mobile rang and she picked up. “Toni Gallo.”

“This is Odette.” She sounded shaken.

“What's happened?”

“Fresh intelligence. A terrorist group called Scimitar has been actively shopping for Madoba-2.”

“Scimitar? An Arab group?”

“Sounds like it, though we're not sure—the name might be intentionally misleading. But we think your thieves are working for them.”

“My God. Do you know anything else?”

“They aim to release it tomorrow, Boxing Day, at a major public location somewhere in Britain.”

Toni gasped. She and Odette had speculated that this might be so, but the confirmation was shocking. People stayed at home on Christmas Day then went out on Boxing Day. All over Britain, families would go to
soccer matches, horse races, cinemas and theaters and bowling alleys. Many would catch flights to ski resorts and Caribbean beaches. The opportunities were endless. “But where?” Toni said. “What event?”

“We don't know. So we have to stop these thieves. The local police are on their way to you with a snowplow.”

“That's great!” Toni's spirits lifted. If the thieves could be caught, everything would change. Not only would the virus be recaptured and the danger averted, but Oxenford Medical would not look so bad in the press, and Stanley would be saved.

Odette went on: “I've also alerted your neighboring police forces, plus Glasgow; but Inverburn is where the action will be, I think. The guy in charge there is called Frank Hackett. The name rang a bell—he's not your ex, is he?”

“Yes. That was part of the problem. He likes to say no to me.”

“Well, you'll find him a chastened man. He's had a phone call from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Sounds comical, doesn't it, but he's in charge of the Cabinet Office briefing room, which we call COBRA. In other words, he's the antiterrorism supremo. Your ex must have jumped out of his bed as if it was on fire.”

“Don't waste your sympathy, he doesn't deserve it.”

“Since then, he's heard from my boss, another life-enhancing experience. The poor sod is on his way to you with a snowplow.”

“I'd rather have the snowplow without Frank.”

“He's had a hard time, be nice to him.”

“Yeah, right,” said Toni.