Whiteout (3 page)

Toni had been a police officer herself, all her working life, until two years ago. For most of her career, she had been a golden girl—promoted rapidly, shown off to the media as the new style of modern cop, and tipped to be Scotland's first woman chief constable. Then she had clashed with her boss over a hot-button issue—racism in the force. He maintained that police racism was not institutionalized. She said that officers routinely concealed racist incidents, and that amounted to institutionalization. The row had been leaked to a newspaper, she had refused to deny what she believed, and she had been forced to resign.

At the time she had been living with Frank Hackett, another detective. They had been together eight years, although they had never married. When she fell out of favor, he left her. It still hurt.

Two young officers got out of the patrol car, a man and a woman. Toni knew most local police of her own generation, and some of the older ones remembered her late father, Sergeant Antonio Gallo, inevitably called Spanish Tony. However, she did not recognize these two. Over the headset, she said, “Jonathan, the police have arrived. Would you please decontaminate and talk to them? Just say we have confirmed the escape of a virus from the lab. They'll call Jim Kincaid, and I'll brief him when he gets here.”

Superintendent Kincaid was responsible for what they called CBRN—chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents. He had
worked with Toni on her plan. The two of them would implement a careful, low-key response to this incident.

By the time Kincaid arrived, she would like to have some information to give him about Michael Ross. She went into the house. Michael had turned the second bedroom into his study. On a side table were three framed photographs of his mother: as a slim teenager in a tight sweater; as a happy parent, holding a baby that looked like Michael; and in her sixties, with a fat black-and-white cat in her lap.

Toni sat at his desk and read his e-mails, operating the computer keyboard clumsily with her rubber-gloved hands. He had ordered a book called
Animal Ethics
from Amazon. He had also inquired about university courses in moral philosophy. She checked his Internet browser, and found he had recently visited animal-rights Web sites. Clearly, he had become troubled about the morality of his work. But it seemed no one at Oxenford Medical had realized that he was unhappy.

Toni sympathized with him. Every time she saw a beagle or a hamster lying in a cage, deliberately made ill by a disease the scientists were studying, she felt a tug of pity. But then she remembered her father's death. He had suffered a brain tumor in his fifties, and he had died bewildered, humiliated, and in pain. His condition might one day be curable thanks to research on monkey brains. Animal research was a sad necessity, in her opinion.

Michael kept his papers in a cardboard filing box, neatly labeled: “Bills,” “Guarantees,” “Bank Statements,” “Instruction Manuals.” Under “Memberships,” Toni found an acknowledgment of his subscription to an organization called Animals Are Free. The picture was becoming clear.

The work calmed her distress. She had always been good at detective procedures. Being forced out of the police had been a bitter blow. It felt good to use her old skills, and know that she still had the talent.

She found Michael's address book and his appointments diary in a drawer. The diary showed nothing for the last two weeks. As she was opening the address book, a blue flash caught her eye through the window, and she looked out to see a gray Volvo sedan with a police light on its roof. That would be Jim Kincaid.

She went outside and got one of the team to decontaminate her.
Then she took off her helmet to talk to the Superintendent. However, the man in the Volvo was not Jim. When his face caught the moonlight, Toni saw that it was Superintendent Frank Hackett—her ex. Her heart sank. Although he was the one who had left, he always acted as if he had been the injured party.

She resolved to be calm, friendly, and businesslike.

He got out of the car and came toward her. She said, “Please don't cross the line—I'll come out.” She realized right away she had made an error of tact. He was the police officer and she was the civilian—he would feel that he should be giving orders to her, not the other way around. The frown that crossed his face showed her that he had felt the slight. Trying to be more friendly, she said, “How are you, Frank?”

“What's going on here?”

“A technician from the lab appears to have caught a virus. We've just taken him away in an isolation ambulance. Now we're decontaminating his house. Where's Jim Kincaid?”

“He's on holiday.”

“Where?” Toni hoped Jim might be reached and brought back for this emergency.

“Portugal. He and his wife have a wee time-share.”

A pity, Toni thought. Kincaid knew about biohazards, but Frank did not.

Reading her mind, Frank said, “Don't worry.” He had in his hand a photocopied document an inch thick. “I've got the protocol here.” It was the plan Toni had agreed on with Kincaid. Frank had obviously been reading it while waiting. “My first duty is to secure the area.” He looked around.

Toni had already secured the area, but she said nothing. Frank needed to assert himself.

He called out to the two uniformed officers in the patrol car. “You two! Move that car to the entrance of the driveway, and don't let anyone by without asking me.”

“Good idea,” Toni said, though in truth it made no difference to anything.

Frank was referring to the document. “Then we have to make sure no one leaves the scene.”

Toni nodded. “There's no one here but my team, all in biohazard suits.”

“I don't like this protocol—it puts civilians in charge of a crime scene.”

“What makes you think this is a crime scene?”

“Samples of a drug were stolen.”

“Not from here.”

Frank let that pass. “How did your man catch the virus, anyway? You all wear those suits in the laboratory, don't you?”

“The local health board must figure that out,” Toni said, prevaricating. “There's no point in speculation.”

“Were there any animals here when you arrived?”

Toni hesitated.

That was enough for Frank, who was a good detective because he did not miss much. “So an animal got out of the lab and infected the technician when he wasn't wearing a suit?”

“I don't know what happened, and I don't want half-baked theories circulating. Could we concentrate for now on public safety?”

“Aye. But you're not just worried about the public. You want to protect the company and your precious Professor Oxenford.”

Toni wondered why he said “precious”—but before she could react, she heard a chime from her helmet. “I'm getting a phone call,” she said to Frank. “Sorry.” She took the headset out of the helmet and put it on. The chime came again, then there was a hiss as the connection was made, and she heard the voice of a security guard on the switchboard at the Kremlin. “Dr. Solomons is calling Ms. Gallo.”

Toni said, “Hello?”

The doctor came on the line. “Michael died, Toni.”

Toni closed her eyes. “Oh, Ruth, I'm so sorry.”

“He would have died even if we'd got to him twenty-four hours earlier. I'm almost certain he had Madoba-2.”

Toni's voice was choked by grief. “We did all we could.”

“Have you any idea how it happened?”

Toni did not want to say much in front of Frank. “He was troubled about cruelty to animals. And I think he may have been unbalanced by the death of his mother, a year ago.”

“Poor boy.”

“Ruth, I've got the police here. I'll talk to you later.”

“Okay.” The connection was broken. Toni took off the headset.

Frank said, “So he died.”

“His name was Michael Ross, and he appears to have contracted a virus called Madoba-2.”

“What kind of animal was it?”

On the spur of the moment, Toni decided to set a little trap for Frank. “A hamster,” she said. “Named Fluffy.”

“Could others have become infected?”

“That's the number one question. Michael lived here alone; he had no family and few friends. Anyone who visited him before he got sick would be safe, unless they did something highly intimate, like sharing a hypodermic needle. Anyone who came here when he was showing symptoms would surely have called a doctor. So there's a good chance he has not passed the virus on.” Toni was playing it down. If she had been talking to Kincaid, she would have been more candid, for she could have trusted him not to start a scare. But Frank was different. She finished: “But obviously our first priority must be to contact everyone who might have met Michael in the last sixteen days. I've found his address book.”

Frank tried a different tack. “I heard you say he was troubled about cruelty to animals. Did he belong to a group?”

“Yes—Animals Are Free.”

“How do you know?”

“I've been checking his personal stuff.”

“That's a job for the police.”

“I agree. But you can't go into the house.”

“I could put on a suit.”

“It's not just the suit, it's the biohazard training that you have to undergo before you're allowed to wear one.”

Frank was becoming angry again. “Then bring the stuff out here to me.”

“Why don't I get one of my team to fax all his papers to you? We could also upload the entire hard drive of his computer.”

“I want the originals! What are you hiding in there?”

“Nothing, I promise you. But everything in the house has to be decontaminated, either with disinfectant or by high-pressure steam. Both processes destroy papers and might well damage a computer.”

“I'm going to get this protocol changed. I wonder whether the chief constable knows what Kincaid has let you get away with.”

Toni felt weary. It was the middle of the night, she had a major crisis to deal with, and she was being forced to pussyfoot around the feelings of a resentful former lover. “Oh, Frank, for God's sake—you might be right, but this is what we've got, so could we try to forget the past and work as a team?”

“Your idea of teamwork is everyone doing what you say.”

She laughed. “Fair enough. What do you think should be our next move?”

“I'll inform the health board. They're the lead agency, according to the protocol. Once they've tracked down their designated biohazard consultant, he'll want to convene a meeting here first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, we should start contacting everyone who might have seen Michael Ross. I'll get a couple of detectives phoning every number in that address book. I suggest you question every employee at the Kremlin. It would be useful to have that done by the time we meet with the health board.”

“All right.” Toni hesitated. She had something she had to ask Frank. His best friend was Carl Osborne, a local television reporter who valued sensation more than accuracy. If Carl got hold of this story, he would start a riot.

She knew that the way to get something from Frank was to be matter-of-fact, not appearing either assertive or needy. “There's a paragraph in the protocol I've got to mention,” she began. “It says that no statements should be made to the press without first being discussed by
the main interested parties, including the police, the health board, and the company.”

“No problem.”

“The reason I mention it is that this doesn't need to become a major public scare. The chances are that no one is in danger.”

“Good.”

“We don't want to hold anything back, but the publicity should be calm and measured. No one needs to panic.”

Frank grinned. “You're frightened of tabloid stories about killer hamsters roaming the highlands.”

“You owe me, Frank. I hope you remember.”

His face darkened. “I
owe
you?”

She lowered her voice, although there was no one nearby. “You remember Farmer Johnny Kirk.” Kirk had been a big-time cocaine importer. Born in the rough Glasgow neighborhood of Garscube Road, he had never seen a farm in his life, but got the nickname from the oversize green rubber boots he wore to ease the pain of the corns on his feet. Frank had put together a case against Farmer Johnny. During the trial, by accident, Toni had come across evidence that would have helped the defense. She had told Frank, but Frank had not informed the court. Johnny was as guilty as sin, and Frank had got a conviction—but if the truth ever came out, Frank's career would be over.

Now Frank said angrily, “Are you threatening to bring that up again if I don't do what you want?”

“No, just reminding you of a time when you needed me to keep quiet about something, and I did.”

His attitude changed again. He had been frightened, for a moment, but now he was his old arrogant self. “We all bend the rules from time to time. That's life.”