Man Down

by Nathan Burrows

  Foster looked up towards the door to his office as he heard a gentle knock.

  ‘Yes?’ he said. The door opened, and the Duty Officer from earlier poked his head through the gap.

  ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the visitor you’ve been expecting with me if you’re free?’

  ‘Of course, I’m free,’ the Brigadier replied. ‘Please, come in.’ He got to his feet to greet his guest, although he wasn’t looking forward to the conversation ahead. The Duty Officer stepped back from the door, and his visitor walked into his office. Foster appraised him, as he always did when he met someone for the first time. Especially when that person was potentially dangerous.

  ‘Brigadier Foster?’ the visitor said. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Griffiths. I’m hoping that you’re expecting me?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Foster replied. He walked towards the policeman with his hand extended. As they shook hands, Foster continued, ‘Pleased to meet you, but I would have preferred slightly different circumstances.’

  ‘A lot of people say that,’ Griffiths replied with a cautious smile. ‘Or at least, words to that effect.’ Foster turned to the Duty Officer, who was hanging around the door like a bad smell.

  ‘Could you rustle up some more of that coffee for us both please?’ The young officer nodded and hurried away. ‘Please, have a seat.’

  Foster watched as the policeman walked towards a green canvas chair. He looked to be late-thirties with acne-scarred cheeks, dressed casually in cargo pants and a check shirt almost as if he was off for a walk in the country somewhere. Other than looking tired, which was understandable given the journey that he’d just had, Foster thought that the policeman was fairly nondescript, even down to the man bag that he was carrying like a satchel. Until, that was, the policeman looked at Foster. It was obvious to him that Griffiths was a very serious man, and the glint in his striking blue eyes was quite unnerving.

  They both exchanged small talk as they waited for the coffee to arrive. How tiring the flight was, how nice it would be to spend a bit more time in Cyprus, and wasn’t it hot. No, Griffiths had not been to Afghanistan before, and no, he’d not considered joining the military. Foster was polite but cautious as he waited for the real discussion to begin. Another knock at the door signalled the arrival of the coffee, and the two men paused as the Duty Officer brought in two mugs and some sachets of sugar.

  Foster watched Griffiths take a tentative sip of his coffee, which he took black with no sugar. Whoopie Goldberg, Foster thought, before shaking his head slightly.

  ‘Wow, that’s good coffee,’ Griffiths said, ‘I was expecting something like the mud we get in our canteen back home.’ Foster smiled.

  ‘Good, glad it’s okay.’ He looked at the door to make sure that it was closed. ‘Shall we get down to business, then?’ Foster looked at Griffiths as he put his coffee onto a small table next to him. There it is again, Foster thought. That piercing look. Opening his satchel, Griffiths took out a small notebook and a pencil. As he opened the notebook with a practised flourish, Foster almost expected him to lick the end of the pencil.

  ‘So, Brigadier…’ Griffiths checked his notebook, ‘…James Foster. You’re the Commanding Officer of the hospital here, is that correct?’ Foster nodded, knowing full well that Griffiths knew this already. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Malcolm Griffiths from the Serious Crimes Unit. For the record, this is an informal discussion, but I am going to take notes if that’s okay with you, sir?’

  ‘Detective, please. Call me Foster, not Brigadier. My first name’s James, but I’m known as Foster. It’s a military thing, using surnames or nicknames all the time.’ Foster laughed, briefly. ‘You’re a civilian after all. And of course, notes are fine. I’m not interested in any sort of dick waving competition here, that’s not my style. Regardless of the instructions from my seniors back home, you’ve got my full cooperation in this unfortunate matter.’ Foster didn’t want to go into the details of what those instructions actually were with the policeman. At least not while he had his notebook out. He watched as Griffiths sat back in his chair and seemed to relax. The glint in his eyes had definitely softened.

  ‘That’s good to hear, Brigadier.’ Griffiths corrected himself, ‘Sorry, Foster. And I’m Malcolm.’

  ‘So,’ Foster said. ‘Malcolm. Where do you want to begin?’ Griffiths reached into his bag and brought out a handful of notes.

  ‘Well, as you know, we’re out here to investigate a series of suspicious deaths. In your hospital.’ Griffiths looked at Foster, the glint starting to return. ‘Now at this stage, this isn’t a murder inquiry and we don’t technically have a suspect.’ Foster raised his eyebrows at this statement.

  ‘That’s not what I’ve been led to believe,’ he said. ‘The e-mail suggested that there was a “murder squad” coming out to arrest one of my medical staff.’

  ‘Something’s got lost along the way in that case. We’ve not been called a murder squad for years, regardless of what the newspapers call us. At the moment, we have suspicious deaths, not murders, and a “person of interest” who we’d like to talk to,’ Griffiths explained. ‘But to an extent, we’re talking semantics based on what terms we’re allowed and not allowed to use.’ Foster nodded. It wasn’t that different in the military.

  Griffiths shuffled through his notes. ‘Do you want me to talk you through it? I’ve checked your clearance, and I can discuss all of it with you.’ Foster fought a smile as he considered that his clearance was a lot higher than the policeman’s would be.

  ‘If you would, Malcolm,’ he said. ‘That would be appreciated.’

  In the back of the Chinook, Adams was going through his well-rehearsed drills for landing on, as around him the other occupants did the same thing. Everyone except Major Clarke and Squadron Leader Webb. Adams made a mental note to buddy-buddy check them extra carefully before they landed.

  Adams picked up his medical bag from the floor to make sure that one of the others didn’t pick it up by mistake. It shouldn’t make any difference when all of the bags were packed the same, but Adams had got a bit superstitious about having his own bag. Lizzie was exactly the same about hers, and he watched her pick up her bag and check the black tape covering the bullet holes on the sides.

  He opened the right-hand pouch on his combat vest to get some chewing gum out. It was the same every time they came in to land — his mouth dried up and no amount of water made any difference. At least having some chewing gum took his mind off it. He rummaged around, feeling in the pouch for the packet amongst the syringes and ampoules that were in there.

  ‘Ouch, for fuck’s sake,’ he said as something sharp in the pouch ripped through his finger. Pulling his hand out, he could see a deep cut across his middle finger. ‘What the fuck was that?’ he said, putting his finger in his mouth to suck the blood off it. When he pulled his finger out of his mouth, he examined the cut which wasn’t much deeper than a bad paper cut. It still hurt like hell, though. He pulled back the top of the pouch and looked inside it. Among the plastic ampoules in the pouch were a couple of glass ampoules, one of which had shattered. Adams looked across at Ronald, who was responsible for restocking the vests, but he was busy helping Squadron Leader Webb get his rucksack on his back.

  Adams reached into the pouch and carefully pulled one of the ampoules out to see what it was. He held it between his finger and thumb, rotating it carefully to read the tiny writing on the side. It was adrenaline, one in a thousand. The last thing that should be mixed in with the saline flushes that should be in that pouch. He’d have to pull Ronald to one side when they got back. Adams reached back into the pouch and grabbed one of the plastic saline ampoules. He twisted the top of the ampoule, but he couldn’t get the plastic lid off so he reached with his left hand for the scissors that were tucked behind one of the straps on the front of his combat vest. He frowned as he realised that his scissors weren’t where they were supposed to be.

  Adams looked at the front of his vest and saw that the sc
issors were on the wrong side. He must have picked up the wrong vest when they kitted up back at Bastion. Grabbing the scissors anyway, he managed to get the top of the ampoule off even though they definitely weren’t his scissors. He squeezed a few drops of the saline onto his cut finger.

  Within seconds of the liquid touching the cut, the pain in Adams's finger was excruciating. He instantly knew that whatever the liquid was, it wasn’t saline. He stuck his finger back in his mouth and looked at the ampoule. There was a small drop of liquid on the bottom of it, and as he squeezed the ampoule some more leaked out of the base. Adams squinted as he looked at the base of the ampoule and wiped the fluid away. There was a small hole just visible in the base of the ampoule. A saline ampoule with not saline, but something else in it. Adrenaline. It must be adrenaline, Adams thought. But why would anyone put adrenaline into a saline ampoule? That could be fatal.

  It was when the word fatal entered his head that Adams put everything together. The unexpected deaths of soldiers who should have survived. If they’d been injected with neat adrenaline by someone who thought they were using saline, then that would kill them. But who would switch the contents? Whoever was wearing his vest? It was the vest that he’d put on that had the adrenaline in the pocket, so that was a fair assumption.

  Adams looked around the inside of the Chinook at the front of the vests that the others were wearing to see who had his scissors, but apart from Lizzie, they all had rucksack straps hiding the front of the combat vests. Fuck, Adams thought. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?

  46

  ‘Okay, we’re investigating three deaths.’ Foster leaned forward to listen carefully to what Griffiths had to say. ‘The first one that came to our attention was actually the most recent. At the post-mortem, the pathologist initially thought that the poor chap had died from his wounds. That’s what he’d written in his preliminary report.’ Griffiths paused to take another sip of his coffee. ‘Then the toxicology reports came back from the laboratory, and one of the observers at the original post-mortem noticed something unusual.’

  ‘Observers?’ Foster asked. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of a post-mortem of one of his soldiers being open to observers. ‘Why on earth are there observers?’

  ‘Trainee pathologists,’ Griffiths replied. ‘They don’t see many post-mortems like these, so they’re used as a training opportunity for the students. It’s all tightly controlled, though.’ Annoyed that he’d been read so easily, Foster just nodded while Griffiths continued.

  ‘The toxicology screen showed very high levels of adrenaline. Now I’m not a medic, but I wouldn’t have thought that this was unusual under the circumstances. That’s what the pathologist thought as well.’

  ‘Adrenaline is one of the drugs that’s used in resuscitation as well,’ Foster added. Griffiths pointed at one of the pages in front of him.

  ‘Precisely,’ he said. ‘Again, that’s what the pathologist highlighted. But this student had been reading about a case in the United States where someone in a hospital was using adrenaline and some other drugs to murder her patients. So the pathologist checked the other soldiers’ toxicology screens, and they all showed the same thing. Increased adrenaline levels, much higher than normal.’ He handed over a couple of pages of his notes to the Brigadier. Foster reached for his glasses and began reading the dense text.

  ‘When I say normal, I mean in comparison to other violent deaths,’ Griffiths continued as Foster frowned at the notes he was reading. ‘At first, the pathologist thought he was just seeing something unique to military trauma, but based on what the student had said, he decided to do some digging to see if it was possible to identify what type of adrenaline had been used. Whether it was natural adrenaline from the trauma or pharmaceutical adrenaline.’ Griffiths paused before continuing. ‘And that’s where the Chinese come into it.’

  Brigadier Foster took his glasses off and polished them with his bright red handkerchief. He looked at the Detective Superintendent sitting opposite him.

  ‘What on earth have the Chinese got to do with any of this?’ He saw Griffiths smile at his question.

  ‘Well, they’re not directly involved,’ Griffiths replied. ‘But they’ve been forging pharmaceuticals for years. The big drug companies got fed up with it quite quickly, not surprisingly. So they started putting markers into their drugs. Then they can quickly identify forgeries. If the markers aren’t in the drugs, then they’re fake.’

  ‘I knew that the Chinese could forge a lot of things, but hospital-grade drugs? Really?’ Foster asked.

  ‘Indistinguishable from the real thing, apparently,’ Griffiths replied. ‘Almost perfect and a tenth of the price. Hence the markers.’ He looked at his notebook, searching the pages for the one he wanted. ‘The advantage for us is that it’s not just possible to trace the drug, but also the batch. According to the toxicologist report, the adrenaline that was found in all three bodies was from the same shipment.’ Griffiths ran his finger down the lines in his notebook. ‘Which was delivered first to a warehouse in Farnborough after being bought by the Ministry of Defence, and then shipped out to Kandahar. That’s as far as we’ve got.’

  ‘Have you got a shipment number?’ Foster pointed to the policeman’s notebook. ‘Can I see?’ Griffiths handed over the notebook and Foster stood, moving to the desk. He picked up the phone, dialled a number, and looked at the notebook while he waited for a reply.

  ‘It’s the CO,’ he said when the phone was answered. ‘Get me the Quartermaster.’ Foster paused for a few seconds, listening to the reply. ‘Well get him out of bed, then. I need to speak to him now. In my office,’ he snapped, slamming down the phone. Foster walked back and sat down next to Griffiths. ‘We should be able to track the shipment if it’s come through us. My QM is a lazy bastard at the best of times, but nothing gets past him.’

  Davies eased forward on the cyclic to start a slow descent to the FOB. He knew that the UAV was circling above the village, so he wanted to give the area a wide berth. Although it was only small, it still would hurt the Chinook if they collided. He carefully spiralled down over what he hoped was a deserted area behind the FOB, and then spun the helicopter around into his final approach.

  ‘Widow 49, this is Sandman 34, inbound in three minutes.’ Without waiting for a reply, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Kinkers was manning the machine gun on the window. ‘We all set, Taff?’ Davies asked his co-pilot.

  ‘Roger that,’ Taff replied. ‘We’re green.’

  Neither Davies nor Taff realised that the helicopter had been hit until the alarm systems started warbling loudly in their headphones. Without realising, they’d flown almost straight over the top of a technical vehicle with a fifty-calibre machine gun hidden in a wadi about seven hundred metres behind the FOB.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, we’re hit!’ Taff shouted, pressing the buttons to silence the alarms. Davies pushed the cyclic hard over to the right to abort the landing, before pulling back on the stick to try to gain altitude. He could hear Taff next to him screaming into the radio. ‘CONTACT, CONTACT, Sandman 34, incoming fire two clicks east of FOB Rob, turning north.’

  In the corner of his eye, Davies could see one of the Apache helicopters speeding towards the area, it’s forward-mounted machine gun moving from side to side as the pilot looked for the source of the gunfire.

  ‘Sitrep, Taff,’ Davies said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Wait out,’ Taff replied, concentrating on the control panel in front of him.

  ‘Anyone hurt in the back?’ Davies asked, switching channels.

  ‘Negative,’ Kinkers said, ‘but we’ve got fluid pissing from the ceiling. Not sure if it’s hydraulic, I think it probably is. Lots of vibration though, something’s not right’

  Adams felt the helicopter lurch violently. He looked out of the window to see that they were only a hundred feet or so above the ground. Looking across at Kinkers, he saw him prodding at the control panel near the rear ramp, flicking switches a
nd looking panicked. What the fuck is going on? He looked across at Lizzie, who was staring at the ceiling of the helicopter. Adams looked up to see what she was looking at and could see clear fluid dripping from a seam in the roof.

  As the flow increased, Kinkers jumped across to the same area and stared at the ceiling, talking frantically into his microphone. Lizzie caught Adams's eye and just shrugged her shoulders as if she hadn’t got a clue what was going on. On the other side of the helicopter, Adams could see Ronald sitting on the canvas bench, the lead for the radio dangling down from his helmet. For fuck’s sake, Adams thought. You’re supposed to be plugged into the intercom. They had no other way of finding out what was going on. Adams reached across to try to slap Ronald’s leg and get his attention, but Ronald was a couple of centimetres too far away, and Adams didn’t want to leave his seat.

  Adams felt the helicopter wheel around, aborting the landing. He looked through the side windows behind Ronald’s and Lizzie’s heads and could see nothing but ground through them. The Chinook levelled out, and the nose tipped down slightly. Adams turned his head to look out of the window behind him. He could see the ground zipping past and if Adams’s sense of direction was correct, they were heading away from the FOB. He looked across at Major Clarke, who was staring back at him, while Squadron Leader Webb was just sitting next to Clarke with his arms crossed and eyes closed as if he didn’t have a care in the world. As Adams looked at the pair of them, he realised that they hadn’t got a clue what was going on. The whole experience was almost certainly so alien to them that they wouldn’t be able to work out what was normal, and what wasn’t. And what was going on at the moment was far from normal.

  47