Ken McClure - Lost causes

Steven let out a low whistle. ‘So the organ grinders are here in the UK, not just the monkeys.’

‘That’s what it looks like.’

‘But one of them blew the whistle.’

‘How lucky was that?’

Steven digested this comment in silence for a few moments before asking, ‘I take it none of them is saying very much?’

Ricksen smiled wryly. ‘I think the truth is that none of them knows very much. They’re all low-level operatives, told exactly where to go and what to do, and all of them are so full of holy shit that they didn’t question anything.’

‘You don’t think the fact that someone informed on them might change their outlook?’

Ricksen shook his head. ‘Because none of them knows anything about the size of the organisation they were working for, they just assume that someone somewhere up the chain of command betrayed them and will get his just desserts in the life to come. One of them did say something interesting, though. He claimed he was set up.’

Steven saw the difference. ‘Set up, not betrayed; that is interesting. Name?’

‘Anwar Khan, caught in Glasgow, possibly one of those who carried out the attack in Edinburgh.’

As they sat with coffee, Ricksen said, ‘I can understand Sci-Med’s interest in the fact that it was a cholera attack but why the interest in who carried it out?’

‘I wish I could give you a straight answer,’ said Steven. ‘I just have this feeling that something’s not quite right. Ostensibly I’m looking at a terrorist attack on the UK using a biological weapon. But when I consider the overall picture, the bug they used, the people who carried out the attack, the fact that they were betrayed — or set up — there’s something not quite right.’

‘You mean they’re going to hit us with smallpox while we’re all patting each other on the back?’

‘Christ, I hope not…’

Steven went over to see John Macmillan at four o’clock and found him in excellent spirits. ‘A better day, eh, Steven? Not only have I been given the all-clear to return to work on a part-time basis but the security services finally get their act together and nail the terrorists.’

‘It turns out they had little to do with it, John.’ Steven told him what he’d learned at his lunch-time meeting with Ricksen.

‘Damnation,’ said Macmillan. ‘I’d assumed that Special Branch or one of 5’s insiders had come up with the goods.’

Steven said not. ‘One unknown person, apparently in full possession of all the details of four separate operations, gave the lot away to the police.’

‘But why?’

‘Why indeed. It must have been someone at the top of the chain to have access to that much information.’

‘So it won’t take them long to figure out who it was. But the informer must know that, and yet he hasn’t asked for police protection, I take it?’

‘No.’

‘So what had he to gain? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Nothing has made any sense for weeks,’ said Steven glumly.

‘What else is troubling you?’

‘One of the disks we recovered from Charles French’s house outlined plans for a reintroduction of the Northern Health Scheme in the autumn. There wouldn’t have been time.’

‘Is that really relevant?’ asked Macmillan, still thinking about the terrorist informant.

‘I don’t know,’ Steven confessed. ‘But… I’m beginning to think it might be.’

Now he had Macmillan’s full attention. ‘Go on.’

‘Suppose we were meant to discover the plans for a reintroduction of the old Northern Health Scheme and where it was destined to happen.’

‘But the disks French’s wife handed over were genuine. The details agreed in every way with what we worked out happened in the north all these years ago.’

‘But the plans for a relaunch of the scheme were listed on a separate disk,’ said Steven. ‘Someone could have added that for our benefit.’

‘The end result being that we would see it as a failed operation

…’

‘And take no further interest in it… or them… or whatever else they might be planning on doing.’

‘But they all died,’ said Macmillan.

‘Except the bomber,’ Steven reminded him. ‘The one thing that didn’t make sense. An insider who destroyed the old guard in order to do… what?’

‘Hopefully nothing while we’re in the middle of a terrorist attack.’

‘Which doesn’t make sense either,’ said Steven, a comment that made Macmillan raise his eyebrows.

‘In what way?’

‘Just about every way,’ said Steven. ‘Cholera was an odd choice for a bio-attack.’

‘It’s a horrible disease.’

‘But there are worse, much worse, if you rather than nature are in the position of deciding which microbe to use.’

Macmillan conceded the point with a shrug.

‘Where did eight disaffected Asian youths living in the Midlands get cultures of cholera from?’

‘Presumably it must have been grown in laboratories abroad and brought into the country.’

‘MI6 are adamant that they would have heard something about such an operation, and yet they heard nothing.’

Macmillan made a gesture with his hands indicating ambivalence.

‘The cholera strain they used is sensitive to antibiotics, when it’s the easiest thing in the world for a lab to make bugs resistant and therefore treatment harder. They didn’t bother doing that.’

‘Even we get a bit lucky sometimes,’ said Macmillan with a half-hearted smile. When Steven’s expression didn’t change, he added, ‘Fair enough, it is a bit odd. So why didn’t they?’

‘I’m still thinking about that.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The spread of the epidemic has been surprisingly limited.’

‘I’ve been impressed with the way the authorities have responded,’ said Macmillan. ‘They’ve been on the ball from the word go.’

‘I know they’d like to believe that, and people will take credit wherever they can, but, as you said, cholera is a horrible disease… and spreads like wildfire. Do we really put it all down to good management?’

Macmillan sat with one hand under his chin, his index finger tapping his lower lip as he appeared to think back to his own experience of seeing the full horror in his youth. ‘Point taken,’ he said. ‘But what are you getting at?’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Steven. ‘I just need to… share my angst.’

Macmillan smiled.

‘And now, just as the terrorists are about to launch a second strike, someone shops the lot of them. As John Ricksen said, how lucky was that?’

‘So where does that leave us?’

‘All at sea.’

‘And in which direction do you intend rowing?’

‘I need to turn suspicion into fact,’ said Steven. ‘That means asking questions. I need to know if we were set up to believe that we foiled the Schiller Group’s plans. If we were, it would mean they’re still active.’

‘In which case you could be putting yourself in very grave danger,’ said Macmillan. ‘I suggest you call a full code red on this and pay a visit to the armourer.’

Steven nodded reluctantly. He disliked carrying weapons, and only did so when his life could be in real danger, but there was no denying the truth of what Macmillan had said. ‘I’ll go round first thing in the morning… and then have another word with Maxine French.’

The next day, having duly signed for a Glock 23 pistol and a supply of. 40 calibre ammunition and been fitted with a shoulder holster, he went into the Home Office and asked Jean Roberts to call Maxine French. Would it be convenient for him to pop over and see her some time — preferably that morning? He could tell by the expression on Jean’s face that she was getting a positive response, and got up from his chair in anticipation.