Tim Stevens - Delivering Caliban

He’s deeply preoccupied with the science of it. ‘It’s the serotonin that’s doing it,’ he says. ‘The deaths. We’re overloading them with it. Probably the norepinephrine, too. The corticosteroids were contributing, but the content has been reduced and although we’ve had a reduction in mortality since then, it’s still unacceptably high.’

We’re in the mess, seated at one of the tables. There’s coffee in a pot on the hotplate. No booze. Z doesn’t drink. The others do, but not him. His face is waxy pale in the fluorescent light from above. Even if the storm leaves the Box intact, it’s going to take out the generators and that’ll be it. No power, no more project.

‘Autopsies,’ he says. ‘God damn it, we need them. And we don’t have them.’

None of the doctors involved were pathologists. W hadn’t recruited any beforehand. Any deaths that were to occur would probably be the result of excessively forceful restraint, suicide, or escape attempts. So the thinking went. Nobody had anticipated a significant mortality rate from the drug itself.

While I watch Z’s eyes — he has a habit of looking away while he’s talking, like many people — I’m thinking. I need to make a move, imminently. If I wait until the storm hits, I might not survive, or at the very least it may be too late to provide any proof of what’s happened here. I know now that I’m unlikely to catch the big one, discover who the connection high up in Washington or the corporate world is. But that doesn’t matter now.

I’m going to dictate this diary over the next twenty-four hours, every word of it that I’ve kept in my head. A backup copy, in case I disappear.

*

It was an idea. Not the most brilliant one, but better than anything else he could come up with.

Pope found a payphone and dialled enquiries. To his surprise, the girl’s number was listed. The phone rang twice before it was answered.

The voice was cautious, a man’s. ‘Yes?’

‘Oh.’ Pope put surprise and mild dismay in his tone. ‘Is, ah, is Nina there?’

‘Who’s speaking?’

‘I’m a friend.’ He let a touch of belligerence creep in. ‘Who’re you?’

Silence for a beat. Then: ‘Sir, this is the police. Could you please identify yourself?’

‘The police? What’s — is Nina okay?’

‘Kindly identify yourself.’

‘My name is Thomas Beaumont. Like I say, I’m a friend. What’s going on?’

‘Were you expecting Ms Ramirez at home?’

‘Yes, that’s why I rang.’ Pope cursed himself silently. An American would say called , not rang . ‘Officer, please can you tell me what — ’

‘When did you last see Ms Ramirez?’

‘Two days ago? No, three. Friday night. A bunch of us went out for drinks.’

‘And your connection with Ms Ramirez is what, again, exactly?’

Pope thought about the musical paraphernalia in the flat. ‘We’re in the same music group. She plays violin.’ He raised his voice a fraction. ‘Has something happened to her?’

‘Mr Beaumont, she’s believed to have fled a murder scene.’

‘What? Nina? ’

‘We don’t think she’s responsible. But we need to speak to her.’

‘Who’s been murdered?’ Pope didn’t expect an answer; he’d said it to buy time while he tried to process what the cop had said.

‘I’m not at liberty to disclose that, Mr Beaumont.’ The cop muttered something to someone in the background, then came back. ‘Sir, two things. One, do you have Ms Ramirez’s cell phone number?’

‘She doesn’t give it out to many people. Only those she’s closest to.’ A trace of bitterness. It explained at least why he was ringing her home number.

‘Okay. Second, we need to ask you some questions. Where are you right now?’

Pope twisted round to peer at the signs. Making up a fictional location wouldn’t work. ‘Corner of West Main and, uh, Fifth.’

‘Stay there. A squad car will pick you up.’

Pope hung up, stepped out of the booth and began walking rapidly, putting space between himself and the corner.

It didn’t make sense. Conceivably, it was a coincidence. He had little idea what Ramirez was like as a person. She might hang out with a druggy or gangbanger crowd, and they might have been partying tonight and lost control. Except he did have an idea what Ramirez was like. She was a graduate of the University of Virginia with a degree in music, and a violinist. Her flat hadn’t looked like a drug den in the slightest.

No. The murder scene she’d fled had something to do with his presence here. He had no idea what. And there was little point speculating at the moment, because he needed to focus on the consequences.

She was on the run from the police. That meant she’d either gone to ground with friends somewhere, or left the city. He knew Charlottesville had a population of under 45,000 souls. And people like her, of Hispanic ethnicity, were in a tiny minority compared with African-Americans and whites.

If it were him, he’d have left the city behind.

There was the airport, but it was eight miles away and the police would have sent a description of her there already. She might have taken a car, either her own or a rental, in which case he had no chance of finding her in time, even if he somehow managed to discover her licence plate number or the rental agency she’d used.

That left public transport. A train, or that icon of American intercity travel: the Greyhound.

He remembered that the station he’d arrived at by train doubled as a bus station, and was a little further up Main.

Langley, Virginia

Monday 20 May, 3.25 pm

Naomi came in without knocking and stood across the desk from Giordano, hand poised and holding a sheet of paper. He took the hint and dug a gap between the piles of articles and memoranda. Never a tidy man, Giordano had let his desk come to resemble one of those recycling bins Adrienne was always encouraging him to use for their waste.

He peered through his glasses at the printout Naomi dropped in front of him. It showed a copy of a passport’s photo page with name, date of birth and the usual other data.

John Purkiss . The face gazed back affably, the hair dark, the cheeks a little shadowed.

Giordano raised his eyebrows. ‘Doesn’t ring any bells.’

‘British SIS. Arrived JFK from London at two this afternoon, alone as far as we can tell. The Feds took him in for a little light questioning. Let him go after ten minutes.’

‘Today…’

‘Yes sir.’ She meant that she understood the potential significance of the timing. Known foreign agents came and went all the time. This one had arrived sixteen hours after a Company operative had been murdered, in the same city.

‘Any idea where he is now?’

‘No sir. This info came through just a minute ago.’ It was now three-thirty p.m. Naomi looked genuinely sorry. ‘Our ears in the British Embassy are on alert, of course, in case he goes there.’

‘All right.’ He gave the little wave that so many people found annoying: run along now .

In a moment he looked up. ‘What?’

‘Boss, why would the FBI question him?’

Giordano considered, tonguing lunch chicken out of a tooth. ‘Like you said, it was over in ten minutes. They probably just wanted to put the frighteners on him, let him know they were on to his presence in the city. Who understands the arcane workings of the Feeb mind? I didn’t say that, by the way.’

When she’d gone, Giordano took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Naomi was right. The Feds, even the paranoid New York ones, didn’t normally routinely haul in foreign spooks for a pep talk, least of all British ones. The Brits were our buddies again, after all, as the President kept saying now that he’d got the reelection business over and could concentrate on establishing his international legacy.