Ken Follett - Whiteout

Toni wanted to kill him.

"I'm speaking from the premises of Oxenford Medical, where the second biosecurity incident in two days has hit this Scottish pharmaceutical company."

Could she stop him? She had to try. She looked around. Steve was behind the desk. Susan was lying down, looking pale, but Don was upright. Her mother was asleep. So was the puppy. She had two men to help her.

"Excuse me," she said to Carl.

He tried to ignore her. "Samples of a deadly virus, Madoba-2-"

Toni put her hand over his phone. "I'm sorry, you can't use that here."

He turned away and tried to continue. "Samples of a deadly-"

She crowded him and again put her hand between his phone and his mouth. "Steve! Don! Over here, now!"

Carl said into the phone, "They're trying to stop me filing a report, are you recording this?"

Toni spoke loud enough for the phone to pick up her words. "Mobile phones may interfere with delicate electronic equipment operating in the laboratories, so they may not be used here." It was untrue, but it would serve as a pretext. "Please turn it off."

He held it away from her and said loudly, "Get off me!"

Toni nodded at Steve, who snatched the phone from Carl's hand and turned it off.

"You can't do this!" Carl said.

"Of course I can. You're a visitor here, and I'm in charge of security."

"Bullshit-security has nothing to do with it."

"Say what you like, I make the rules."

"Then I'll go outside."

"You'll freeze to death."

"You can't stop me leaving."

Toni shrugged. "True. But I'm not giving you back your phone."

"You're stealing it."

"Confiscating it for security reasons. We'll mail it to you."

"I'll find a pay phone."

"Good luck." There was not a public phone within five miles.

Carl pulled on his coat and went out. Toni and Steve watched him through the windows. He got into his car and started the engine. He got out again and scraped several inches of snow off the windshield. The wipers began to operate. Carl got in and pulled away.

Steve said, "He left the dog behind."

The snowfall had eased a little. Toni cursed under her breath. Surely the weather was not going to improve just at the wrong moment?

A mound of snow grew in front of the Jaguar as it climbed the rise. A hundred yards from the gate, it stopped.

Steve smiled. "I didn't think he'd get far."

The car's interior light came on. Toni frowned, worried.

Steve said, "Maybe he's going to sulk out there, engine turning over, heater on full blast, until he runs out of petrol."

Toni peered through the snowstorm, trying to see better.

"What's he doing?" Steve said. "Looks like he's talking to himself."

Toni realized what was happening, and her heart sank. "Shit," she said. "He is talking-but not to himself."

"What?"

"He has another phone in the car. He's a reporter, he has backup equipment. Hell, I never thought of that."

"Shall I run out there and stop him?"

"Too late now. By the time you get there, he'll have said enough. Damn." Nothing was going right. She felt like giving up, walking away and finding a darkened room and lying down and closing her eyes. But instead she pulled herself together. "When he comes back in, just sneak outside and see whether he's left the keys in the ignition. If he has, take them-then at least he won't be able to phone again."

"Okay."

Her mobile rang and she picked up. "Toni Gallo."

"This is Odette." She sounded shaken.

"What's happened?"

"Fresh intelligence. A terrorist group called Scimitar has been actively shopping for Madoba-2."

"Scimitar? An Arab group?"

"Sounds like it, though we're not sure-the name might be intentionally misleading. But we think your thieves are working for them."

"My God. Do you know anything else?"

"They aim to release it tomorrow, Boxing Day, at a major public location somewhere in Britain."

Toni gasped. She and Odette had speculated that this might be so, but the confirmation was shocking. People stayed at home on Christmas Day then went out on Boxing Day. All over Britain, families would go to soccer matches, horse races, cinemas and theaters and bowling alleys. Many would catch flights to ski resorts and Caribbean beaches. The opportunities were endless. "But where?" Toni said. "What event?"

"We don't know. So we have to stop these thieves. The local police are on their way to you with a snowplow."

"That's great!" Toni's spirits lifted. If the thieves could be caught, everything would change. Not only would the virus be recaptured and the danger averted, but Oxenford Medical would not look so bad in the press, and Stanley would be saved.

Odette went on: "I've also alerted your neighboring police forces, plus Glasgow; but Inverburn is where the action will be, I think. The guy in charge there is called Frank Hackett. The name rang a bell-he's not your ex, is he?"

"Yes. That was part of the problem. He likes to say no to me."

"Well, you'll find him a chastened man. He's had a phone call from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Sounds comical, doesn't it, but he's in charge of the Cabinet Office briefing room, which we call COBRA. In other words, he's the antiterrorism supremo. Your ex must have jumped out of his bed as if it was on fire."

"Don't waste your sympathy, he doesn't deserve it."

"Since then, he's heard from my boss, another life-enhancing experience. The poor sod is on his way to you with a snowplow."

"I'd rather have the snowplow without Frank."

"He's had a hard time, be nice to him."

"Yeah, right," said Toni.

DAISY was shivering so much she could hardly hold the ladder. Elton climbed the rungs, grasping a pair of garden shears in one frozen hand. The exterior lamps shone through the filter of falling snow. Kit watched from the garage door, his teeth chattering. Nigel was in the garage, arms wrapped around the burgundy leather briefcase.

The ladder was propped up against the side of Steepfall. Telephone wires emerged at the corner of the house and ran at roof height to the garage. From there, Kit knew, they connected with an underground pipe that ran to the main road. Severing the cables here would cut off the entire property from telephone contact. It was just a precaution, but Nigel had insisted, and Kit had found ladder and shears in the garage.

Kit felt as if he were in a nightmare. He had known that tonight's work would be dangerous, but in his worst moments he had never anticipated that he would be standing outside his family home while a gangster cut the phone lines and a master thief clutched a case containing a virus that could kill them all.

Elton took his left hand off the ladder, balancing cautiously, and held the shears in both hands. He leaned forward, caught a cable between the blades, pressed the handles together, and dropped the shears.

They landed points-down in the snow six inches from Daisy, who let out a yell of shock.

"Hush!" Kit said in a stage whisper.

"He could have killed me!" Daisy protested.

"You'll wake everyone!"

Elton came down the ladder, retrieved the shears, and climbed up again.

They had to go to Luke and Lori's cottage and take the Toyota Land Cruiser, but Kit knew they could not go immediately. They were nearly falling down with exhaustion. Worse, Bat was not sure he could find Luke's place. He had almost lost his way looking for Steepfall. The snow was falling as hard as ever. If they tried to go on now, they would get lost or die of exposure or both. They had to wait until the blizzard eased, or until daylight gave them a better chance of finding their way. And, to make absolutely sure no one could find out that they were here, they were cutting off the phones.