Ken McClure - The Gulf Conspiracy

The brakes were off again. Crowe and Mowbray could be considering some kind of trial run of their agent on a target in Scotland. But why?... To impress a prospective buyer, that was why! He was there. It was a terrifying prospect but it all made sense... at three in the morning.

Steven wondered if he should sleep on it but then decided that he couldn’t take the chance. He called the duty man at Sci-Med and called a code, double red.

‘You got it,’ said the man. ‘First time I’ve ever had one of these.’

Steven knew that emergency calls would now be made to a team of expert advisors whose expertise was available to Sci-Med in times of emergency. They would be brought in to the Home Office from their homes all over the city and beyond just as fast as they could dress and a police car could get them there.

Steven himself was there within fifteen minutes. John Macmillan joined him five minutes later. Steven had never seen him unshaven before. He briefed him while they waited for the others.

‘It’s either brilliant or ridiculous,’ said Macmillan when he’d finished.

‘And no way of picking the favourite,’ said Steven. ‘I just felt I couldn’t take the chance.’

‘You were right,’ said Macmillan. ‘Where does Rose keep the coffee round here?’

Steven looked in a couple of cupboards and found a plastic bag of ground coffee sealed with a metal clip. He handed it to Macmillan and between them they set up the coffee machine so that people arriving over the next forty minutes could at least have coffee to help keep them awake.

John Hamilton, a computer expert, was the last to arrive at twenty past four, having come furthest. He took his seat at the table and Steven was invited by Macmillan to tell the five experts — four men and one woman — why they had been called in. When he’d finished he was met with a shocked silence for a few moments before Hamilton said, ‘Can I just summarise to make sure I’ve got this right — you think that a biological attack is about to be made on a target in Scotland?’

Steven nodded and sipped his coffee.

‘But you don’t know where and you don’t know when?’

‘Correct,’ said Steven.

‘But you do know what the agent being used is?’

‘We think we do,’ said Steven.

‘But you don’t know how the attack will be launched?’

‘’Fraid not,’ agreed Steven.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Hamilton. ‘I think it’s a clairvoyant we need here.’

‘If the attack is to be carried out by a small group of people, strange to the area — as seems likely here,’ said Dorothy Jordan, a specialist in medical microbiology, ‘they’re probably restricted to using aerosols for a small target or contaminating water supplies for a bigger one.’

‘Good,’ said Macmillan. ‘That’s what we need,’ he said with a sideways at glance at Hamilton. ‘Good positive input.’

‘If it’s to be an aerosol attack we would be probably looking at a confined space like an air conditioned building or a subway station.’

‘Why air conditioned?’ asked Macmillan.

‘The windows would be kept closed,’ replied Jordan.

‘What’s your gut feeling?’ asked Macmillan.

‘Personally I’d go for water supplies,’ said Jordan. ‘It would be easier. Reservoirs are generally much more accessible than targets in towns.’

‘Drawbacks?’

‘Large dilution effects if you’re thinking about hitting a reservoir with bacteria or viruses,’ said Jordan. ‘Strong poisons would be a better bet. You are sure they’re going to use bugs?’

‘Yes,’ said Steven.

‘Then they’d need a hell of a lot,’ said Jordan, putting down her pen on top of her notepad to indicate that she thought her contribution might be over.

‘No clues about people involved?’ asked Charles Bristow, a clinical psychologist and profiler.

Steven held up the disk Gardiner had given him. ‘Four thousand names,’ he said. ‘Among them might be a few people called upon to help but probably without knowing the big picture.’

‘Let’s have a look,’ said Hamilton. ‘Why don’t you and I go through this?’ he said to the psychologist.

‘Do we know why they are they doing this?’ asked Alan Deans, a Home Office expert on counter-terrorism.

‘It’s not political,’ said Steven. ‘I think they are out to demonstrate the agent’s potential to a prospective buyer.’

‘Commercial not political,’ smiled Deans. ‘Now there’s a new one.’

There was a knock on the door and the duty officer came in carrying several sheets of paper. ‘The financial details on the two you asked for,’ he said to Steven. ‘Incidentally,’ continued the duty man. ‘The people who came up with them said that asking for bank statements in the middle of the night was, in their opinion, bureaucracy gone mad.’

‘Thank you for that,’ said Steven equably.

In reply to Macmillan’s questioning look, Steven said, ‘Crowe and Mowbray’s bank statements. I hoped we might get some idea about who they might be doing business with if they really are selling the agent.’

‘A good thought,’ murmured Macmillan. ‘Maybe I should make some more coffee...’

Steven ran through Mowbray’s details first. There had been a number of payments in to his accounts over the past two years that did not have a source that meant anything to Steven but they did not seem to have anything in common so he turned to Crowe’s statements. As with Mowbray’s he started with the most recent and worked his way back. Almost immediately he noticed a quarterly payment coming in to his account that had undergone a currency conversion. The sterling equivalent was just over five thousand pounds. The only source details were given as W. Corp 5771.

‘A retainer,’ exclaimed Steven, picking up the internal phone and calling the duty officer. ‘Get these bank people back on the phone, will you? Quick as you can.’

‘They’re going to love this...’ muttered the man.

‘Got something?’ asked Macmillan.

‘Looks like Crowe was on some sort of retainer,’ said Steven. ‘Twenty grand a year. Not bad.’

‘Could be a consultancy,’ said Macmillan.

‘Or a lucky break,’ said Steven. ‘C’mon, c’mon,’ he murmured, looking at the silent telephone. It was another ten minutes before the bank rang. Macmillan smiled as he heard Steven say, ‘Yes I am sure that this is absolutely necessary, now will you please get me the details of a quarterly payment into the account of Dr Donald Crowe, account number 00449547288. It’s listed as coming from W. Corp 5771 and required a currency conversion.’

Macmillan and Dorothy Jordan watched Steven scribble down details before hanging up the phone with a smile on his face.

‘The payments came from an American company called the Wallenberg Corporation. The currency conversion was necessary because the payment was made in US dollars.’

‘What do we know about the Wallenberg Corporation?’ asked Macmillan.

‘I’ve heard of them said Dorothy. I think they’re a biotech company.’

‘Dr Hamilton, I think we need you,’ said Macmillan to Hamilton who was still engaged on analysing Gardiner’s disk. ‘See if you can come up with something on the Wallenberg Corporation in the USA will you?’

‘You got it,’ said Hamilton. ‘Charles will fill you in on what we have come up with.’

Charles Bristow joined the others at the table with his notes. ‘Not a lot, I’m afraid,’ as he sat down. ‘We tried separating out those with Scottish addresses but there are over four hundred and they’re scattered all over. We’ve done various break-down analyses of the four hundred in Scotland, looking for those with potentially useful skills or information to people mounting an attack but no clear favourites have emerged as yet.’