Ken McClure - Resurrection

‘For some politicians, calling for a full public enquiry is a way of life. They do it so often that nobody takes a blind bit of notice any more. Their requests will be denied and armies of spin doctors brought in to make sure everyone concentrates on the fact that the epidemic is over and the disease has been contained. Celebration and services of thanksgiving will be the order of the day.’

‘Doesn’t that make you angry?’

‘Just numb.’

‘Will you get leave?’

‘I’m presenting my report at the Home Office tomorrow morning then I’m all yours. How about you?’

‘My leave started this morning.’

‘Shall we go away for a few days?’

‘Where?’

‘Scottish Highlands? Very few people and lots of fresh air.’

‘Deal,’ smiled Karen.

When Dewar finished delivering his report on the happenings in Edinburgh he was met with a wall of stunned silence. There were about thirty people in the room, the Home Secretary and Minister of Defence were sitting in the front row beside Macmillan.

‘Dr Dewar, I think we owe you a debt of gratitude,’ said the Minister of Defence. ‘Thanks to your efforts, a potentially disastrous scenario in the middle east has been averted. There are already signs that Saddam will now back down and allow the UNSCOM inspectors to resume their work.’

‘Until the next time,’ said Dewar.

‘Almost certainly true, I’m afraid. ‘But I’m sure we can all learn from this experience.’

‘I must say I’m pretty alarmed at how close he came to getting what he wanted. I thought we had all sorts of safeguards with respect to micro organisms,’ said one of the politicians in the second row. ‘It seemed almost … easy in the end?’

‘It was,’ agreed Dewar.

‘Dr Dewar, are you suggesting that all the legislation we’ve brought in, all the regulations we’ve imposed about the storage and handling of dangerous viruses and bacteria, count for nothing?’ asked an official from the Health and Safety Executive.

‘In this instance, sir, they were irrelevant,’ said Dewar. ‘In the final analysis, all it took was one lab technician and a few glass bottles in his garage and we had a biological nightmare on our hands.’

‘Just how many of these old infectious diseases hospitals do we have out there?’ asked The Home Secretary.

‘Several hundreds sir,’ came the reply from the back.

‘And how many are being pulled down?’

‘Most of them sir; they’re no longer required. We don’t have the epidemics we used to …’

There was a very pregnant pause before the Home Secretary turned to Dewar and said, ‘And it’s conceivable that many of them have forgotten stores of bacteria and viruses?’

‘It’s a distinct possibility,’ Dewar agreed.

‘Then all our efforts at containing dangerous micro-organisms in strictly controlled environments …?’

‘Are excellent in their place, sir.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means sir, the animals in the zoo are perfectly safe. It’s the ones in the forest we have to worry about.’