Ken McClure - The Lazarus Strain

‘What kind of empty boxes?’ asked Steven.

‘The sort you get eggs in. You know, papier mache trays.’

‘Their incubator room,’ said Steven.

The soldier gave Steven a blank look.

‘Where they were growing the virus. It’s grown in fertile hens’ eggs kept at body temperature.’

The biohazard team didn’t take long to declare the building free from any overt biological or chemical danger and Steven and Giles took a look at the ‘lab’ for themselves when the forensic team had finished their work.

‘The whole place was probably cleared out when the three of them fell sick,’ said Giles, running his fingers along a smooth, plastic-topped table. ‘So it’s back to square one.’

Steven took a look inside the incubator room where the egg boxes had been found. He counted the number of tray spaces and did a rough calculation in his head. ‘Not a big operation,’ he said. ‘They’ll need to culture a lot more virus if they’re going for a big hit.’

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said one of the forensic team who’d been going through the upstairs rooms and had just appeared in the doorway. ‘We found this in one of the drawers.’

Giles took what looked like a folded map from the man and opened it out on the table. Steven thought it was going to be a road map of the surrounding area but it turned out to be something quite different. It was a map of the UK. On it, six major cities including London and Edinburgh had been circled in red.

‘Even my cat, Tiddles, could work this one out,’ murmured Giles.

‘They are going for the big one,’ said Steven, feeling a sense of desolation come over him. Although the spectre of nuclear and biological weapons had been around for long enough, many people including himself had been clinging to the hope that they wouldn’t be used in their lifetime and hopefully never — in the way that tomorrow always seems very near but never actually comes. Now the red circles on the map were painting pictures of people falling down in the streets of major cities, struggling for breath as bloody mucous choked their airways and fever sent them into delirium. Schools and offices would close, transport would grind to a halt, electricity and water supplies would fail, food would run out and the law of the jungle would rule the streets.

‘You okay?’ asked Giles as they climbed the stairs.

‘Fine,’ said Steven.

As they reached the front door, Steven stopped and said, ‘I wonder if they took their rubbish with them…’

‘We can check,’ said Giles. ‘If they were any good, they would have…’

They walked round the sides and back of the building looking for rubbish bins and found three plastic wheelie bins lined up beside the old mill wheel enclosure. One contained mouldy grass clippings, probably left over from the summer and probably by a previous tenant thought Steven as the sour smell of partially fermented grass assaulted his nostrils: the other two bins were empty.

‘Guess they were smart enough to take it with them,’ said Giles.

‘Guess God stopped being kind,’ said Steven.

‘What were you looking for anyway?’

‘I don’t know…’ said Steven, giving an uneasy shrug. ‘Eggshells… syringes… dead chick embryos… general lab detritus…’ He spread his hands and looked about him. ‘A dead monkey even…’

‘You know, getting rid of a large monkey would be almost as difficult as getting rid of a human body,’ said Giles after a moment’s thought. ‘Not easy at the best of times but I can’t honestly see them carting it round the country with them. Maybe I should put some of the guys on to searching the grounds for shallow graves?’

‘Or the site of a recent bonfire,’ said Steven. ‘They may have burned it but the bones should still be around.’

When Giles returned from setting up the search he found Steven taking another look at the wheelie bins.

‘Dry,’ he said. ‘They didn’t use these bins at all.’

‘Maybe they put the waste in plastic bags?’ said Giles.

‘Maybe,’ agreed Steven. ‘But they didn’t store the bags in the bins either. The dirt on the bottom hasn’t been disturbed for many months. You could write your name in it.’

‘Strikes me this Ali is a real pro,’ said Giles. ‘He leaves nothing to chance.’

Steven nodded thoughtfully. Any reply was cut short by a shout from one of the policemen searching the grounds. Steven and Giles headed off in that direction.

‘Ground’s been disturbed here,’ said the Constable, pointing to an area of bare earth that seemed loosely packed compared to the surrounding area.

‘Well done,’ said Giles. He turned to Steven and asked, ‘What do you think: forensics or biohazard?’

‘Definitely biohazard,’ said Steven. ‘We can’t take chances. The virus will die quickly when it doesn’t have living cells to grow inside but we don’t know how long the monkey’s been dead — if it’s the monkey. The virus will certainly survive for a few days after death. Maybe longer if the temperature and the conditions are right.’

Steven joined the biohazard team for the disinterment. A plastic tent was erected over the site and a body bag was laid out nearby. Disinfectant spray operators stood by upwind of the site. Inside the tent, Steven watched as two men, using trowels, started to remove the loose earth gingerly and pile it up on one side. They had excavated the site to a depth of some eighteen inches when one of them held up his hand and pointed to something in the trench. Steven took a closer look and saw that it was a hairy hand. Chloe, the missing monkey.

The body of the animal had been buried face down in the grave. It seemed complete and fairly well preserved, thought Steven. The cold temperatures had delayed decomposition but this also meant that there was a danger that the virus might still be alive in its tissues. Steven asked the team to turn the animal over slowly, causing a general recoiling among the team when it became apparent that the animal’s torso had been sliced open from neck to crotch.

Steven knelt down by the grave to take a closer look. He could see that the trachea and lungs had been removed from the animal and not by someone boasting any great medical skills. The surgery looked as if it had been carried out using a Swiss Army knife. He got to his feet and signalled that the body could be bagged.

Outside the tent, Steven was first in line to be decontaminated by the men operating the disinfectant sprays. Finally he removed his visor and went over to join Giles.

‘The right monkey this time?’ asked Giles.

‘The right monkey,’ confirmed Steven. ‘They cut the lungs and trachea from it. That’s where they would get the initial virus to start off the egg cultures with.’

‘At least the bloody thing’s not running round the country,’ said Giles.

Steven reported back to Macmillan and was told in turn that a meeting had been arranged for him with Auroragen next day at 2 p.m. ‘Do your best to smooth things over with them. From what you’ve said, it’s beginning to look more and more that vaccine is going to be our only chance,’ said Macmillan.

‘The trouble is,’ said Steven, ‘I can’t tell Auroragen just why the new vaccine has become so important. I have to stick to the WHO story that a mutated avian strain of flu is likely to appear in the near future.’

‘You’re right,’ said Macmillan. ‘It lacks impact but any suggestion of an imminent al-Qaeda strike using Cambodia 5 leaking out into the public domain and we’ll have mass panic on our hands. Do your best.’

Steven drove up to Liverpool through rain and wind. The weather matched his dark mood as did the Gregorian chant he had playing on the car’s CD player. He sought escapism in a sound that had come down through the centuries in celebration of a belief which, although he did not share, represented some kind of calming continuum in an ever changing landscape of doubt. He found it hard to analyse what he was feeling. There was fear and tension and frustration but there was something else as well and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it and that was adding annoyance to the mix.