Blood Run East

by Philip McCutchan

  “I’ll do that. And Porton Down? Is it empty now?”

  Carver shook his head. “Not entirely. It’s still the experimental base and factory, where the diseases and gases are actually produced in co-operation with the MRE — the Microbiological Research Establishment, which is also at Porton. Don’t forget Nancekuke in Cornwall, either. That’s where the VX gas was produced, you’ll remember. Nasty stuff! It’s a nerve gas — a drop the size of a pinhead is lethal when it’s. 1 liquid form, it just has to contact the skin. I —”

  “Has there been any dispersal from Nancekuke?”

  “No — it’s so remote it’s considered safe, and the security people have a fairly easy time of it.” Carver paused. “Now of course we shall have urgently to consider the question of extra security around Porton and the South Downs, probably Nancekuke too, and we have an availability both of your people and our own. We don’t want divided command and responsibility, do we? Have you any suggestions?”

  Shard said diplomatically, “It’s a Defence Ministry commitment, of course. On the other hand, I’m in charge, under my Head of Department, of dealing with Katie Farrell, and her recovery now — and that’s strictly our commitment. With respect, I’d suggest you continue to physically guard the stowage points and Porton Down itself, whilst leaving my department to cope with the overall security including any involvement of Katie Farrell and either the people who’re currently holding her, or the oil interests who want to take possession of her.”

  Carver was smiling. “Nicely put! You should have been a diplomat, not a policeman, Mr Shard. What you’re saying really, is that you wish to have the command, isn’t it? We provide the dogsbodies, you provide the brains — h’m?”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Oh, don’t be, you have a vital job to do.” Carver waved a hand. “This is going to be no time for inter-departmental squabbles. You do realise what could happen?”

  “Only too well, sir.”

  “So serious it’s impossible to overplay.” Carver, his face grim, thumped his desk in emphasis, the veneer of the civil servant cracking just a little. “If there’s the smallest breach — if even a fraction of the contents of just one of the stowages is distributed … then millions in this country face an appalling death. The over-populated south-east sector will take the immediate brunt.” He got to his feet and paced the room. “The decision as to the allocation of command and responsibility isn’t, in fact, ours to make, Shard.”

  “A Cabinet decision?”

  Carver nodded. “Just so. I’ll be seeing my Minister shortly, you may rely upon it. You’ll hear more very soon — meanwhile I suggest you start travelling around the south. I’ll give you some ideas as to where to start.”

  *

  Back to the Foreign Office: Shard contacted his detective sergeant. “I’m getting car-borne again, Harry. Hold the fort, all right?”

  “Yes, sir —”

  “If anything comes in about the Farrell woman, or the Guildford villains, pass the word to me via Steyning 812026.”

  Kenwood scribbled. “And that is?”

  “Wiston House.”

  “Oh yes. FO staff courses?”

  Shard nodded. “They’ve been using one of these grassy hummocks for the storage of Top Secret files —”

  “Grassy hummocks?”

  Shard explained. “Not any more — no more files. Wiston House will be my HQ for the West Sussex area. If I’m not there, I’ll be at Porton Down.” Leaving the security section, he went for his car and headed out of London via the South Circular and the A-3, turning onto the A-243 for Worthing at the Hook roundabout. As he drove, he thought about villains and the nastiness of terrorism, the no holds barred aspect that was the characteristic of the latter. All the millions of people sardine-packed, virtually, into the south-east corner … how much time was there left now? At the Washington roundabout a left turn took Shard onto the Steyning road for Wiston House. Passing Chanctonbury Ring to his right, he came to the Wiston House entry and turned up a long drive in the depths of lush green country, well wooded. He stopped in front of an elegant house, one that had been a magnificent private house in the spacious days. He looked around briefly: one car was parked, a Rover 3½-litre, brand new.

  Shard entered the building, to be stopped by a uniformed guard. He submitted to a strict and efficient security check. When he’d passed it the man said, “Major Bentley will be down in a few moments, sir.” A message was passed on an internal line and Shard was not kept waiting any time: almost on the heels of the okay, Bentley appeared, a spare man not unlike Colonel Smith back in the Hans Crescent flat: very military, and currently very anxious, with a nervy twitch that kept his right eye on the blink as he spoke, and a somewhat disconcerting habit of sniffing. He had, it seemed, been briefed on the security telephone by Carver.

  “You’re a fast mover,” he said. “I like that.”

  “I felt it couldn’t wait!”

  “You’re damn right.” Bentley lifted an eyebrow. “Your car or mine?”

  Shard stared. “Car? I understood there was a tunnel?”

  “Was, yes. Not any more. It was handy for the files. Now the sealing door’s been locked. I’m only showing you the outside, the top … and that’s half way up to Chanctonbury —”

  “This door, Major —”

  “Watertight, fireproof, thief proof.” Bentley paused. “And now germ proof!”

  “Sure. But I suppose it does unlock … doesn’t it?”

  Bentley looked at him and sniffed. “It does.”

  “And the key?”

  “Commandant’s private safe.”

  Shard nodded. Clearly, there had been the not-unusual hiatus in inter-Ministry communications. “Major, I want in. It’s what I’ve come down for.”

  Bentley was firm. “Not possible. I’m awfully sorry.”

  “You’ll be sorrier.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Bentley flushed red. “Now look here, I —”

  “I’m likely to be the co-ordinator. You know what’s in the wind. Right now, there may be a meeting of the Cabinet to consider the position, Major.” Shard’s voice was cold. “I’m delighted to see the security’s tight. But I happen to be Security. And I say again, I want in, not on. If you refuse, I’ll ask for a line to the Minister.”

  Bentley’s right eye twitched madly. “You’re a blasted nuisance and I don’t care for your tone. But hold on and I’ll see the Commandant.” He turned away, back into the building. Shard waited, cursing the delay. Bentley, however, was himself a fast mover: within five minutes he was back with the key. It was no ordinary key: just a straight, slim piece of metal with raised, winding lines like a meat skewer. Bentley said, “This way,” and led Shard to the back of the hall and down some stairs into a basement. With another key held ready, an ordinary one, he unlocked a wooden door leading off what had once been a wine cellar, and pushed it open. Shard walked through into darkness: Bentley flicked on a light overhead. Shard saw brick walls, damp-looking, leading to yet another door, again of wood. Bentley did his unlocking again: this time Shard moved into a cement-faced tunnel, low enough for him to have to walk along with head bent. There were lights overhead at intervals, leading on for what seemed to be an immense distance. For a while the tunnel took a downward slant, then levelled off. It was close, airless, smelly, though there was a faint whirr of fans coming from somewhere. Shard, over Bentley’s shoulder, for the Major had pushed past into the lead, asked: “How about your Files?”

  “Stowed in the basement temporarily.”

  “And the staff? No awkward questions?”

  “Yes, but dealt with. Not to worry. The stowage was said to be damp.”

  “And was it?”

  “Yes. Much mildew, not good for files.” Bentley walked on. Way ahead, the overhead lights ceased their being: they were now approaching the watertight Firescreen door, its heavy dull metal reflecting a few gleams from the remaining lights. The place felt spooky, dead and deaden
ing. Reaching the door, Bentley pushed back a metal slide and inserted his strange key in a slot beneath. There was a curious humming sound, and a crackle. Bentley spoke, but not to Shard. He said as if to the empty air, “S 2. With authorised visitor. God be with you, and with thy spirit.” At that the hum was cut off and Bentley sniffed and said, “Oh, bugger. That was yesterday’s, would you believe it? God be in thy peace, and in thy understanding. That’s it, hey presto.”

  The hum resumed; then, silently, the heavy door moved aside, hauled by some remote-control apparatus into a deep groove cut into the earth. Ahead, the tunnel was metal-lined, and brilliantly lit. It began now to take an upward incline. Some twenty yards ahead a blue-uniformed man wearing the Department of the Environment’s gilded crowns on his lapels stood outside a glass-fronted cubby-hole. As Bentley approached the custodian saluted: knowing Bentley, he nevertheless scrutinised the pass that the Major held out.

  “And the other gentleman, sir?”

  Shard produced his FO identification, glad once again to note good security. Bentley moved on. Shard followed him towards a steep flight of steps that terminated the tunnel proper. They climbed into a small square lobby into which a lift-well descended: the lift was waiting with open doors. Bentley went in, followed by Shard, and pressed a button. Swiftly the lift rose, leaving Shard’s stomach way behind: it had the speed of a New York elevator. As it stopped the doors opened soundlessly. They walked out into another lobby with two doors opening off it, and were met by another man, a man in his early fifties: not, Shard judged from his white coat, another custodian but a scientist, a man of Porton Down.

  “Dr Lavington,” Bentley said by way of introduction. He lifted an eyebrow at Shard, who nodded back. “This is Detective Chief Superintendent Shard of Security.”

  Lavington held out a hand and smiled. He was, Shard thought, a cold fish; the smile was not a warm one. The doctor asked, “May I know the purpose of your visit, Mr Shard?”

  “Interest, Doctor. Just interest.”

  “But more in security than research?”

  “You could say that.”

  Another smile: “Oh, you’ll find we’re very security conscious. We learned that at Porton, I do assure you.”

  “Quite. You’ve settled in here all right?”

  The scientist glanced with a touch of malevolence at Bentley and said, “We’re on sufferance, of course. The Foreign Office is the elite … dispossession’s a dirty word, Mr Shard. If you ask Major Bentley, he’ll tell you that what we’re doing is dirty too — right, Bentley?”

  “Yes,” Bentley snapped.

  “It isn’t really. Defence, not offence, that’s our watchword. Other countries are doing it, so we must too.” Lavington turned back to Shard. “How much do you want to see, now you’re here?”

  “I’d like to see everything, if that’s possible. Doctor.”

  “As you wish,” Lavington said. “I’ll explain as we go. You’re not squeamish, I hope?”

  *

  Until now, Shard had believed he had a fair idea of what was manufactured, tested and stored away at Porton Down. He had also believed, and believed firmly, that his stomach was a strong one. He had been wrong both times. Dr Lavington, a man dedicated to death as it seemed, had opened his eyes wide. Leading the small procession through one of the doors off that upper lobby he had, in a succession of metal-lined compartments large and small and in two long galleries with glass-fronted recesses at intervals, paraded his wares with pride in achievement and a well-developed sense of the dramatic. There had been the nerve gases that brought about instant paralysis upon either inhalation or skin touch; there had been aerosols that, when pumped out under powerful pressure from mobile machines akin to flame throwers, produced in humans results precisely similar to those produced in flies and other insects by aerosol cans to be found in any housewife’s kitchen: Lavington had detailed the effects. Blinding of the eyes, shrivelling of the lungs and air passages to induce strangulation, dehydration of flesh, fat and tissue so that the human body became a dry husk. Whole armies, whole populations, could be quickly killed, converted into burned-out corpses. There were the things that were not so secret, the toxic chemicals intended for use in agriculture: Parathion, TEPP, HETP, Shradan. Death, said Lavington, could occur from a single exposure to any one of these. The symptoms were tightness of the chest; twitching of eyelids and tongue muscles and contraction of the pupils; headache, anorexia, nausea aggravated by smoking, giddiness, general uneasiness, anxiety, restlessness. These progressed towards respiratory disturbance, sweating, salivation, vomiting and abdominal cramps; and the final stage envisaged great distress in breathing, pin-pointing of the pupils, muscular twitching, incontinence, coma, death. Successive small doses could progressively lower the cholinesterase level without the production of symptoms but would render a person more and more susceptible to further dosage. There were gases that unhinged the mind, and anti-military psychedelic gases that rendered the victim totally unable to obey a command. There were the other things, the botulinum and allied poisons for the water supplies, the disease germs that could be dropped from aircraft in the form of impact bombs without warheads, or dispersed from low-flying planes by cloud-sprays. The diseases were frightful ones that few doctors, in private practice or in the hospitals, would have any idea how to combat: they would be right outside their collective experience. They would be swift in action, had been selected and carefully nurtured for their infectious and contagious qualities. There would be, literally, positively, no defence except the one: the brains and know-how of the men of the Chemical Defence Establishment itself. In every case, and this was some comfort to Shard in the present circumstances, Porton Down or its new satellite establishments, the store-houses, had the antidote. It was no wonder that Dr Lavington, not himself a doctor of medicine, paraded his stocks as though he were very God. In certain situations, he could be considered as just that.

  Shard couldn’t get away fast enough. Walking back along the tunnel his mind was filled with terrible images: the tanks and retorts, the test-tubes, the glass-screened forcing grounds of filth, the invisible crawling horrors that lurked in the cultures, torturous, revolting death in glass bottles. And the results of uncontrolled dissemination, as described by Lavington: the cities of the dead, men, women and children falling in the streets as the plague came down, or as they drank from the taps in their houses. Shard had asked a basic question, even though he could guess the answer well enough: “Suppose, just suppose, there was ever a breach, Doctor?”

  “Of security?”

  “No. I realise the security’s good. A physical breach … say by a bomb.”

  Lavington shrugged. “We’re well down in the earth here … I wouldn’t say the same of the other stowages — not so deep as us. Of course if it did happen at all it would depend on the penetration, the dispersal, even the weather conditions. It wouldn’t be the same as a direct target attack, you see. The wind direction would be important as regards the effectiveness initially.”

  “Initially?”

  “The speed of spread.”

  “But it would spread?”

  “Of course it would!” Lavington had laughed with a long-suffering tolerance, the expert instructing the layman. “Just a question of time, that’s all. These diseases are deadly, and as I’ve said, only we have the antidotes. And even we couldn’t possibly hope to control it once it was out. It would begin locally — that’s obvious — and spread.”

  “How far?”

  Lavington said, “Even with no wind at all, I dare say ten days or so would see the whole country affected, from Land’s End to John o’ Groats.”

  *

  The fresh air was more than welcome: Shard felt physically unclean, as though he must have brought out some of the horror upon his body: he had a strong urge towards a bath. Bentley seemed to understand.

  “Frightening isn’t it?”

  “An understatement, Major. I don’t suppose I need to say this — but I h
ope to God your people are keeping right on the top line!”

  “They are, and will be. Not that it’s easy, and I’m not making excuses. It’s a question of divided responsibility to some extent.”

  “But I’m told you’re in charge?”

  “Yes, indeed.” Bentley, standing with Shard outside the front door of Wiston House, took a deep breath. “I’m OC Security, but Lavington’s the inside boss if you follow. Two Ministries virtually under one roof — that dump still belongs to us, to the FO. Porton Down’s the bloody tenant and can’t be evicted!” He hesitated. “It’s a damn good strong-point lost to us. I don’t know if you knew, but it was intended as an RSG — Regional Seat of Government. They’re slightly old hat now, though — no-one really expects a nuclear war any more. So it was hooked off us.” He looked up at Shard. “Care to see the topside of it now?”

  Shard nodded. “Thanks, I would.”

  “It’s quite a climb. I can drive so far but no farther. But come on.” He led the way towards the Rover that Shard had seen parked earlier. Driving back to the main road, he turned left and then left again along a narrow lane between high hedges sprouting into spring. Soon Shard could see the heights of Chanctonbury Ring ahead in a climbing mantle of big trees, a high peak in the South Downs with its age-old links from a pagan past: suitable ground, Shard thought, for a pagan present, a suitable birthplace for the works of the new Messiah, Jesus Lavington …

  Bentley pulled the Rover into a car park and picnic spot: there were a handful of other cars around but no picnicking: this was the Costa Geriatrica, and the tourist season was not yet in its swing. The cars contained the elderly, sitting inert behind glass for their country air and looking as dead as Lavington’s products might soon make them. Bentley saw Shard’s expression and laughed.