Ken McClure: The Secret

Mark nodded, thinking it was a stupid question but limiting his reply to, ‘I was told to bring them.’

‘Encrypted?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good. Our friends in Pakistani intelligence know all about the virus and the initial field tests — they were instrumental in setting them up — but your side of things must remain confidential. Understood?’

Mark nodded uncertainly. ‘The field tests?’ he asked.

‘We’ve been trying out the virus.’

‘On people?’ Mark asked, betraying disbelief.

‘Yeah. It’s OK; nobody died.’

‘But that’s...’

‘Life, doctor,’ Brady interrupted. ‘Some of us have the privilege in life of doing what’s decent, moral and honourable and some of us have to do what’s necessary. Uncle Sam expects you to just do your job, OK?’

Mark agreed, feeling he was doing so on autopilot as he struggled to come to terms with what he was hearing but knowing that any protest he might make would probably result in his being asked what the hell he thought he was doing at Fort Detrick anyway: making toys for Christmas?’

‘Have you heard of the Khyber Pass, doctor?’ Brady asked.

‘Of course, in boyhood stories.’

‘Tomorrow you’ll be driving through it.’

Mark was the last to be picked up in the morning. He had been told it would be a low-key affair. This translated into two vehicles which looked military in origin with the ability to handle rugged terrain but lacking any markings. Brady introduced Mark to two others who would be travelling in their vehicle, a Pakistani intelligence officer named Faisal and a US marine driver named Mick. The other vehicle looked to contain four more marines, judging by their haircuts.

‘Faisal hails from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,’ said Brady.

Mark looked blank.

‘It’s the modern name for what used to be called the North West Frontier in your story books, doctor.

‘Now, a little less romantic, perhaps,’ said Faisal, speaking perfect English with an accent that even sounded English to Mark’s ear: he guessed at English schooling.

‘A troubled place,’ said Mark.

‘Still is,’ said Faisal. ‘One of the English poets described it as having blood on every stone.’

‘Let’s hope for a quiet day,’ said Brady. ‘The others will be coming up from the Afghanistan side. We’re meeting at a small village away from prying eyes.’

They fell to silence as the day wore on, Mark mesmerised by the mountains that towered above them on the ascent through the pass and thinking about the carnage they’d witnessed through the years.

‘Not much longer now,’ said Faisal to Mark before giving instructions to the driver. ‘The vehicles can’t manage the final stretch; it’s too steep,’ he explained. ‘We’ll be met.’

He made a call on what Mark noted was a satellite phone and ten minutes later they pulled off the road at the foot of a rough track that wound up into the mountains. A number of heavily bearded men in traditional dress were waiting there, sitting astride mopeds, automatic rifles slung across their backs.

‘Not exactly Harley D’s, are they,’ murmured Brady, eyeing the bikes as they got out.

‘I’m just relieved they’re not donkeys,’ Mark confessed.

Faisal and Brady agreed the order of travel for the pillion passengers. Faisal would be a passenger on the first bike with Mark riding pillion on the second then Brady and finally two of the marines. Their driver Mick and the remaining marines would stay with the vehicles.

Mark, clutching his briefcase, mounted the second moped, looked for something to hold on to rather than the rider, and sent a nervous glance towards Brady, who smiled back. He took comfort from knowing that by travelling upwards they would remain in sunlight a little longer, avoiding the darkness which was already stalking the valleys below. The angry insect-like rasp of two-stroke engines rose to fever pitch and the party moved off through a blue fug of exhaust, the bike wheels scrabbling for grip on the loose stony path and sending a hail of pebbles over the edge of an increasingly precipitous drop. Mark closed his eyes and turned his face sideways to seek the shelter offered by his rider’s back. He maintained this pose until the noise began to fade and the column drew to a stuttering halt at a spot where the track split into two.

Mark didn’t know why they’d stopped but didn’t care: he immediately took the chance to dismount and stretch his calf muscles, which had been threatening to cramp through being confined in the same position for such a long time. Surely they couldn’t be lost? He was dusting himself down when Faisal walked over to him and said, ‘This is your first time here, doctor. Come, you should see the view; it’s something special.’

Brady nodded his agreement.

Mark could already see that the view was indeed spectacular, the dying rays of the sun turning the mountain tops red as far as the eye could see. He followed Faisal up on to a rocky promontory and gasped in admiration as all was revealed.

‘Some say it’s a reflection of the blood in the sky,’ said Faisal of the crimson landscape.

Mark’s imagination knew no bounds as he struggled to take in the rugged beauty of all that lay before him: he was on a distant planet in the outer reaches of the universe, he was a time traveller, he was a speck of dust in something that was infinite. Eventually, when reality made its pitch, he turned to thank his companion for the experience but was chilled to the bone by what he was confronted by. The demeanour of the pleasant, smiling man with the language and accent of an English public schoolboy had changed dramatically. The look in Faisal’s eyes was one of pure hatred.

‘What the...’

Faisal let out a yell and all hell was let loose as more than a dozen Kalashnikovs opened fire from the rocks above and around them. Brady and the others didn’t stand a chance: they were mown down in a matter of seconds, leaving Faisal and Mark the only two of the party left alive. Two of the men from the rocks materialised beside Mark and pinned his arms behind his back as Faisal inspected the corpses on the ground, using his foot casually and apparently without emotion.

Mark felt trapped in a bad dream from which there was no escape: it was the running-in-mud scenario. He couldn’t take his eyes off his erstwhile travel companions, their riddled bodies lying in pools of blood which were already drying into the dirt, and he seemed to have lost the power of speech. His throat had contracted to the point where he could only make gasping noises.

One of the bodies moved. Amazingly, Brady was still alive, though clearly mortally wounded. Mark saw he was looking up at him. ‘Don’t tell them, doctor... Don’t fucking tell them...’

They were Brady’s last words. A full stop was applied by Faisal putting a pistol shot through his head, causing his brains to splatter out over the stones and Mark to throw up.

Mark deduced that they were in some kind of cave complex when the blindfold was removed and he’d stopped blinking against the light. As a scientist, he immediately took on board that it was electric light, quickly correlating this with the distant but distinctive sound of a generator. Several computer monitors sat on a bench to his left. Two were manned by turbaned men; three others had screen-savers lazily doing their thing, tumbling cubes and fish going nowhere. Faisal stood there with an armed man on either side. ‘You have something we want, doctor. I’d appreciate your cooperation. In fact... I must insist.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Mark, glad he’d got the words out but afraid his insides were turning to water.

‘Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?’ said Faisal, holding up a disk salvaged from the contents of Mark’s briefcase, which were at his feet. ‘This is encrypted; I need the key.’