Anthrax Island

by D. L. Marshall

‘It’s gone,’ I said ambiguously, feigning indifference.

  He straightened up onto tiptoes, succeeding in looking me square in the nose. ‘I knew you were going to be a problem. The HADU’s fixed, you’re no longer required. You’ll be leaving.’ I turned to scoop up my T-shirt. ‘This evening!’ he added, spit gathering at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Fine by me, I get paid either way.’

  ‘Not if you’re in breach of contract.’

  ‘What contract?’ I laughed. ‘I’m a technician, not a bloody undertaker. Besides, we both know I’m not going anywhere; you still need me.’

  ‘You’re no more useful than Kyle.’ The spit was really flying now. ‘We’ll take our chances.’

  ‘And if the doors fail again? Or something else?’

  ‘We’ll get your company to fly out a better tech.’

  Clay wasn’t getting it. ‘Thought you were shipping out next week, where you gonna find one in time?’

  He flushed. ‘Kyle died because he was lazy, and you’re shaping up no better. Chaudhary will have to manage.’

  ‘You’d compromise the whole operation just to score points?’

  ‘You’ve been boozing since you arrived, Tyler. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d tipped that body straight into the sea. Do I have to tell Captain Greenbow to detain you?’

  The nerve in the corner of my right eye twitched. ‘Let’s get on the radio right now, I can tell ’em all about your quest for a scapegoat to cover your lack of enforcement of safety protocols.’ My palms felt cold, clammy, fingers tightening at my sides until my knuckles burned. ‘Gambetta removing his mask for a fag, people wandering around inside in hazmat suits, God knows if they’re coming or going. You’re at pains to act like you’re in charge, well Andy Kyle died on your watch.’ I tensed my right arm, drew it back slightly, and focused on the bridge of Clay’s nose.

  The door swung open and Hurley entered the chamber, he’d been wearing a hazmat suit when I’d met him but given his physique it wasn’t a difficult assumption to make. He’d a good couple of inches on me, built like a rugby forward, with enough muscles stretching his T-shirt to have lent Clay some and still be left with plenty to bench-press me. He could have lent Clay some hair, too, he looked like an extra from Point Break. I’m stereotyping, but he wasn’t the picture of a typical lab monkey.

  ‘What do you want?’ Clay snapped.

  ‘Captain wants you in the radio room,’ Hurley drawled, flicking a thumb over his shoulder at the corridor beyond.

  ‘Then he should come to find me, I am not at the beck and call of lackeys. And what the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Going up to help Demeter.’ Hurley was seemingly immune to Clay’s demeanour.

  ‘I do wish you people would realise we’re working to a strict deadline.’ He turned to me. ‘Pack your bag.’ He whirled and slammed through the door.

  ‘Fucking prick,’ I muttered.

  ‘Someone’s not in the good books.’ Hurley grinned as he kicked his shoes off.

  ‘You’d think I’d killed someone.’

  Hurley’s grin vanished when he saw how tense I was. ‘You look like you’re about to.’

  I relaxed, flexed my fingers, smiled. ‘Just tired.’

  ‘Well Demeter will be pleased, it’ll take the heat off him for a while.’

  I raised an eyebrow and let him continue.

  ‘Clay was chewing him out earlier. The guy’s an asshole but generally toothless, he’s just stressed about the approaching deadline. On the plus side it sounds like you’ll never have to see him again.’

  ‘I can do without him or Greenbow.’

  Hurley shook a disposable suit out of a polythene bag. ‘El Capitan’s all right, he’s just playing soldiers, you gotta know how to take him. You’ve already made an impression on the French contingent, though.’

  ‘He’s a wanker too.’ Which was possibly an understatement, considering he might have just tried to kill me.

  Hurley laughed. ‘I meant Marie. Finest ass on the island.’

  ‘I don’t know about her arse, but she seems like the only person here with her head screwed on, present company excluded.’

  He nodded, working his way into the suit. ‘I do a bit of work in Paris, she’s helping me with my French.’ My ears pricked up, he mistook my interest for something else and winked. ‘That’s not a euphemism. Don’t be fooled by those big brown eyes, though, you don’t get to be a biological weapons expert without a killer instinct. Ingrid’s more my type, met her yet?’

  I shook my head.

  He cupped his hands to his chest and jiggled them up and down in a gesture I hadn’t seen since school. ‘Gotta love a Viking.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard she has four PhDs?’ I’d just survived an attempt on my life and my fuse was shortening, I needed more important information than his preferences in women. I’m not a prude but I’ve never understood the need for some people to immediately engage in quote-unquote bants with total strangers, especially the macho pricks I come across in my line of work.

  He looked crestfallen, I realised he was just trying to connect with the new guy. I inhaled deeply, reminded myself I could do with allies. I smiled and changed the subject. ‘You guys get your survey finished?’ I wanted to steer him towards who could have been watching me earlier, who else had been wandering the island.

  He shoved his feet into his boots and began taping them up. ‘Rain stopped play, isn’t that what you guys say? Pissing it down, that’s another one. Cats and dogs. You guys have so many phrases for your shitty weather.’

  I pulled on my shirt. ‘Only for the rain; don’t they reckon Eskimos have three hundred words for snow?’

  ‘Good point. Anyway, no. It’s a mudbath out there, and Clay says tomorrow’s not looking much better. We should have been doing this in summer.’

  He was nearly ready, taping up his gloves, so I tried again. ‘I think I saw Demeter earlier?’

  ‘Down the south end of the island? Probably. He’s crazy, out there in all weathers.’

  The south end of the island – where I’d left Kyle’s body. ‘I think Gambetta’s the only other person I saw braving the rain?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter to him if he’s digging dry dirt or wet dirt,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll catch you later, John.’ He pulled his gas mask down and pushed open the exit.

  I gave him a nod, echoing Demeter’s words to me. ‘Careful out there.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  When I’d finished dressing I locked myself in the toilet cubicle. Hurley had confirmed both Demeter and Gambetta had been outside earlier, so they’d moved to the top of my list of suspects, with Greenbow just behind and Clay trailing a fair way after. Things had got serious, quickly; time to move up a gear.

  I opened the cistern and extracted the parcel I’d placed in there a few hours ago. Removing the tape carefully to avoid any noise, I ripped apart the bin bags. I said the torch was the second most useful item I’d brought to the island; wrapped inside, in a sheet of greaseproof paper, was the most useful. I ran a finger across the letters stamped along the side:

  HECKLER & KOCH GMBH 9MM X 19 VP70Z

  The pistol’s futuristic looks contrasted with its battered and scratched frame; I’ve tried countless handguns but this one goes everywhere with me. If you’re an enthusiast you might ask why – I’m sentimental, but there are practical reasons too; the polymer frame keeps the weight down, it’s hugely reliable, and the eighteen-round capacity is more than most. It’s also simple to maintain – the takedown lever makes it very easy to strip in the field.

  The drawback is that it only has a double action, which makes for a very heavy twenty-pound trigger. Crunchy, like a staple gun, but you get used to these things. I felt its comforting weight, familiar in my hand, muscle memory sliding out the magazine to double check even though I’d loaded it myself a few hours previously. Nickel glinted in the toilet’s fluorescent lights, Speer Gold Dot G2 hollow points, like the FBI use. I slid it back in.


  Wrapped in the paper was another magazine – this one loaded with full metal jackets on the off-chance I needed penetration rather than obliteration – and a lightweight inner-waistband holster, which I clipped inside the top of my trousers. The rubbish was balled up and dropped back in the cistern.

  I pushed the safety behind the trigger to make it safe, tucked the pistol into the holster, reassurance pressing my hip, and tugged my T-shirt down over it. I felt better already, as if treading familiar ground. I’d already been searched, so from now on wherever I went, it would go too. Let them try again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Someone was sat at a table in the dining room as I walked past the open doorway, a woman in a hazmat suit, hunched over an iPad, stirring a bowl absent-mindedly. Not Alice or Marie. I backtracked and walked over, arm outstretched. ‘You must be Ingrid? Heard a lot about you.’

  She looked up from the tablet and shook my hand but her smile wasn’t reflected in her eyes. ‘You’re Andy’s replacement?’

  ‘John.’ I nodded, pulling out a chair. ‘Do you mind?’ She shook her head and I sat down opposite her. ‘Another woman after my own heart.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  I pointed to a stack of biscuits next to the bowl, she slid one towards me.

  ‘Custard Creams are the best thing about this country.’ Her face brightened. ‘I have a stash but I’ve had to hide them, Clay’s already eaten half a pack.’

  ‘What a bastard,’ I said, putting the biscuit in my mouth without a trace of guilt.

  She pushed the iPad away and leaned in, winking conspiratorially. ‘Third cupboard from the left, behind the granola. He won’t check there.’ Her face dropped again, she looked down into her bowl. ‘Andy liked them too.’

  ‘Did you know him, then?’

  ‘Not really, he pretty much kept to himself.’

  ‘I’m hearing that a lot. Wondering if anyone knew the guy?’

  She tucked a few stray blonde strands into her hood and gave her bowl another stir. ‘I guess Demeter? Sharing a room and everything. He seemed okay, but I only spoke to him over breakfast. You know; work, the weather.’ She gave another nervous little semi-smile. ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘I did, his family are devastated.’ I don’t know if he even had a family.

  She nodded. ‘Hanna, my sister, she’s with Médecins Sans Frontières in Sudan. I’d be destroyed if anything happened to her.’ She blew on a spoonful of spicy-looking rice. ‘You have siblings?’

  My brother’s face flashed up, a mental image forever burned into my memory, him behind the wheel, relaxed, smiling, joking. Skipping tracks on the old Discman balanced on the dash, Beastie Boys kicking in just before… I shook my head. ‘Nope.’

  ‘With Hanna in Darfur my parents don’t have any worry left for me. But then Scotland doesn’t sound quite as dangerous, does it?’

  ‘Maybe it’s that complacency that killed Kyle.’

  She swallowed her rice and shook her head. ‘No, he was careful, he’d scrub himself in the showers for ages. I can’t understand how he was infected.’

  Yet again, the same sad little smile. She wasn’t sure either. I didn’t speak, gave her room to continue.

  ‘He was worried,’ she said finally.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Said someone had been following him.’

  ‘It’s a pretty small island.’

  ‘Watching him. While he worked.’

  I shuffled forward. ‘Was this yesterday, when he died?’

  Every time she shook her head her hair tumbled loose from her hood. ‘Since we arrived. I talked to him yesterday morning, he said he had an odd feeling. I saw him later in the morning heading inside, he wasn’t feeling well.’ She looked into her bowl. ‘He never came back.’

  ‘Who found him?’

  ‘Gambetta. He said Andy probably stopped for a rest and never got up. Heart attack, most likely.’

  ‘Did Kyle say who he thought had been following him?’

  ‘I asked but he didn’t know. Just glimpses, shadows. Really freaked him out.’

  ‘I’ve already had the haunted-island shit.’

  She picked at some pieces of fish and scooped up another spoonful. ‘Easy to be a sceptic in the sunshine but here on the island – you gotta admit it has an atmosphere. Echoes of what happened in the war.’ She chewed thoughtfully, tried a little laugh but it came out as a cough. ‘No one really believes it’s haunted, it’s just… Andy had a bad feeling and now he’s dead. Probably the anthrax, if that’s what it was, of course – illness can give you feelings of dread, impending doom. Coupled with the mood here it’s enough to send anyone over the edge.’

  It wasn’t hard to see why this place could send someone doolally. ‘Seen anything weird yourself?’

  ‘Thankfully I stick to my nice warm lab.’

  ‘Doing what, exactly?’

  She paused, spoon halfway to her mouth, considering, then lowered it again. ‘Staring at tubes of mud.’ She chuckled. ‘I specialise in isolating different strains of pathogens—’

  The door burst open and Ingrid jumped, dropping the spoon and banging her knees on the table. Clay was back.

  ‘Tyler, Captain Greenbow’s office, now.’

  I sighed and stood. ‘I’ll catch you later, Ingrid.’

  She slid another Custard Cream across the table to me and smiled, warmly this time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It wasn’t apparent why Greenbow needed his own office with space at such a premium. Like all the huts along the back row of the complex, this one was split into two rooms – his office and, next door, his bedroom. Kudos for Greenbow for having two rooms and therefore an entire hut of his own. Suppose that answered the question of who was really in charge.

  A typed piece of paper was sellotaped to the door in front of me.

  ‘Captain Greenbow’.

  Was that really necessary in a base this size? Probably typed it himself; the image of him sitting there in his uniform printing it, cutting it out, made me smile. I waited in the corridor, straining to hear what was being said further along in the radio room. Someone was having a heated discussion with the ship. I considered going to listen when Greenbow’s door opened and I found myself face to face with the one person I wanted to talk to, albeit privately, one-on-one.

  ‘…and if you lie to me again, Gambetta, I’ll bounce you off this island,’ shouted Greenbow.

  Gambetta ignored him, glaring at me from beneath heavy eyelids, tortoise-like mouth clamped around an unlit cigarette. He shoved me out of the way, striding down the corridor.

  ‘De rien’ I muttered, fists clenched at my sides.

  He whirled round, looking me up and down, fishing in the breast pocket of his shirt. Pulling out his Zippo, he lit the cigarette, exhaling clouds of blue smoke in my direction. He took the cigarette between thumb and forefinger and pointed it at me.

  ‘You be careful,’ he said in that Gauloise-marinated voice. He jabbed the cigarette at me with each syllable, sprinkling the shiny floor with ash.

  ‘Vous ne pouvez pas fumer ici!’ I said, You can’t smoke in here! I added my favourite French insult, ‘On t’a bercé trop près du mur?’ Was your cradle rocked too close to the wall?

  ‘Tyler?’ Greenbow shouted from the office.

  Gambetta ground the ash into the floor with his shoe. ‘You be very careful, monsieur.’ He sneered and turned away.

  I’d barely stepped into the office when Greenbow flew into a tirade of abuse not normally seen outside a parade ground. I closed the door behind me, parking myself against it. He managed to talk a lot without really saying anything, ranting about deadlines and timetables, procedures, but mostly about the disappearance of Kyle’s corpse.

  Let him vent, I wasn’t angry any more, I knew the drill. Back to that hierarchy; despite me technically not being subordinate to anyone, he had to assert his authority, show me he was a shark, I was a minnow. All just static noise; my mind was blunted
but working overtime, still trapped in that incinerator, thinking about the figure I’d followed across the island. A bastard of a headache had moved in behind my eyes and another had just begun to grind its way into the base of my skull. I wasn’t sure which was from sleep deprivation and which was the comedown from the adrenaline. Of course, there was always the possibility of the early effects of anthrax poisoning, but I put that straight out of mind.

  Greenbow was asking something so I nodded. I could feel my eyes glazing over, the lids on pulleys, the more effort I put into hauling them up the harder someone else pulled them down. I had to look around the office to occupy them, drag my mind into the present.

  I focused on the details. Same utilitarian room as all the others in the complex, but the captain had brightened it up with a couple of massive prints of military oil paintings. I think he was aiming for ‘gentleman’s club’ but it came off as the portacabin office of a used-car salesman. I stared at a massed charge of red tunics and huge grey horses hanging above Greenbow’s head, desperately trying to dispel the mental image of him tugging himself dry to Kipling and the Band of the Irish Guards. He slammed his palm on the birch-effect-laminate desk and I jumped, much to my disappointment, though thankfully it cleared the image.

  ‘Consider yourself lucky you’re still here.’ I can honestly say I didn’t feel lucky. ‘Sea’s too rough for an extraction, you’ve been given a stay of execution – though if it was up to Clay you’d be swimming back to the mainland.’

  So that’s how it was, apparently I was staying because a storm was coming in. Nothing to do with the fact my employer would have argued against me leaving, and must have won.

  ‘When can I speak to command?’

  ‘You bloody well can’t!’

  ‘I need to report to my manager on the shortcomings here, I’ve never known such a slack operation. You can bet it’ll all be going into my report. I’m looking forward to Kyle’s inquest.’

  Greenbow faltered. ‘You’ve been here a matter of hours and already surpassed your predecessor in stupidity. Be sure it doesn’t happen again.’