Ken McClure - The Lazarus Strain

Ali lowered the poker and said, ‘How many people does Earlybird think we have?’

‘They don’t know.’

‘How many do they think we’ll need?’

‘They don’t know, quite a few, I suppose.’

‘What’s the estimate?’

‘There isn’t one.’

Ali came closer. ‘No estimate?… That suggests to me that someone isn’t taking us seriously,’ he said, watching for Steven’s reaction like a cat eyeing a cornered mouse.

‘Of course they’re taking you seriously,’ said Steven, knowing his last answer had been a bad mistake. ‘How could they not?’

‘But no estimates?’ Ali persisted. ‘No projections from Porton Down about how many people would be required for such an operation? How much virus would be needed, wind speed, the effect of rain…’

‘Of course they were done,’ said Steven, trying to rescue the situation.

‘One might almost think that you didn’t really believe it was going to happen?’ said Ali.

‘It was deemed too late to try and stop your attack,’ said Steven. ‘Our security people simply didn’t know enough so they adopted a different strategy and put all their efforts into producing a vaccine against Cambodia 5 and tough shit, it worked: they’ve done it. There was no point in killing Leila. The vaccine is already in production. You’ve lost. You’ve left it too late.’

‘That is a shame,’ said Ali with patronising slowness. ‘So how can I salvage something from the ashes? What am I going to do now that British Intelligence has out-thought me?’

Steven looked at him and saw that the question had not been rhetorical. Ali was expecting an answer. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Put yourself in my position. I need an alternative strategy to hit my enemy with. What am I to do?’

‘How the hell should I know? I’m the last person on earth to ask that question.’

‘You do yourself a disservice, Doctor and I am asking you the question,’ said Ali who had taken a velvet pouch from inside his jacket and was unrolling it to reveal three surgical scalpels, one with a curved blade and two with different sized straight ones. He slid the plastic guards off the ends, ‘Tell me, Doctor… what am I going to do now that my plans for a Cambodia 5 attack are in ruins?’

‘I have no fucking idea,’ exclaimed Steven, unable to take his eyes off the scalpels and feeling his imagination soar into overdrive.

‘Good to hear,’ said Ali. ‘But you will understand that I do have to be very sure of that…’

‘Why don’t you tell me ?’ gasped Steven, mounting a last minute appeal to the man’s vanity. ‘Just what the fuck does al-Qaeda think it’s going to do now that we have the vaccine? Make a new video of Osama in his latest cave? Just how scary is that?’

Steven had been prepared for a sudden backlash of violence but none came. Instead, Ali smiled and said, ‘Very good, Dunbar. At this point I am supposed to lose my temper and tell you everything before I kill you just like the villains always do in movies. No, I prefer my way. You… tell… me… What am I going to do?’

There was a scraping noise from above that both Ali and Steven heard at the same time and looked up. For the first time, Ali looked less than supremely confident but he didn’t lose his nerve. He held a scalpel to Steven’s throat to ensure his silence and then forced the velvet that the scalpels had been wrapped in inside his mouth before taping it in place with the same tape that Steven had seen used on the body bag for Leila. Ali put out the lights and started to climb the stairs. He had put down the scalpels in favour of an automatic pistol.

Steven was beginning to think that there had been nothing to the noise — just another fact of life in the country when he heard a floorboard creak. There really was someone up there. Or something. But who? What? A burglar about to become fatally familiar with Ali’s notion of reasonable force in defending his property? A tramp looking for food and shelter. Maybe even a fox had gained access through the smashed window. Depressingly, he had to admit that that was more likely than the detachment of Royal Marines he would have preferred but at least it had taken Ali’s attention away from the scalpels for a few minutes.

Listening in the darkness, he sensed that Ali had reached the top of the stairs and had a hand on the cellar door handle. It gave out the tiniest of squeaks when he turned it. Almost immediately flood lighting silhouetted Ali at the head of the stairs and the air was filled with shouts of, ‘Armed Police! Lay down your weapon!

Ali only managed to get off one shot and had half turned away from the door when his body was riddled with bullets and he tumbled backwards downstairs like a rag doll to lie in a heap at the foot of the stairs in almost exactly the same spot where Leila’s body had been lying a short while before.

The lights came on and Steven saw Frank Giles coming downstairs. Giles looked up at the cable securing Steven’s wrists and said to his sergeant, ‘Wasn’t I just saying the other day, Morley, that the security services seemed to spend most of their time just hanging around while the police get left to do all the work…’

Morley released Steven and he slumped to the floor to lie there for a moment before looking up at Giles and saying, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt like kissing a man before. How on earth did you know I was here?’

‘Sheer bloody brilliance,’ said Giles.

Steven removed the last of the tape from his face and mouth and rolled up his trouser to examine his injured knee. ‘I’m still waiting,’ he said.

‘Shit, that looks nasty,’ said Giles, grimacing at the sight of Steven’s swollen and bloody knee. ‘It was your old soldier buddy, Stan Silver. He phoned to say that you hadn’t brought his Porsche back. As it was two in the morning I told him to go fuck himself but he insisted that you had both served with the SAS and you had made him a promise. The fact that you hadn’t kept it suggested that you were in real trouble.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Steven. ‘That’s true, but how did you know where I was?’

‘Very nice cars like the Porsche 911s often have a satellite tracking system fitted as an anti-theft device. You got lucky. The silver Porsche told us where it was on the planet with an accuracy of plus or minus twelve feet.’

Steven felt himself go weak as all energy seemed to leave him. ‘I will never,’ he averred, ‘never ever complain about my luck again.’

‘That sounds just about right,’ agreed Giles. ‘I take it sonny Jim here is Ali?’

‘That’s your man,’ said Steven, looking at the crumpled body of his would-be tormentor.

‘Know anything about the woman’s body in the car outside?’

‘It’s Leila,’ said Steven, looking down at the floor to avoid Giles seeing what was in his eyes. ‘Dr Leila Martin. Ali killed her.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Giles. ‘I got the impression maybe you and she…’

Steven nodded and further examined his knee.

‘Does this mean that the al-Qaeda threat is over?’ asked Giles who had walked over to watch his colleagues deal with Ali’s body.

‘I’d like to think so,’ said Steven.

‘But?’

Steven gave an uncertain shrug.

‘Maybe shooting him wasn’t such a good idea,’ said Giles.

‘Personally, I think it was a bloody excellent one,’ said Steven with some feeling.

‘Sounds like the ambulance,’ said Giles as a distant siren sounded. ‘You can’t drive with your leg like that. Is the knee broken?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Steven. ‘But there’s too much swelling right now to be absolutely sure. I’ll need to have it X-rayed.’