by Andrew Tudor
Abruptly Dennis interrupted these pleasing daydreams.
“I trailed her home from work so let’s hope she hasn’t gone out again. Couldn’t see anyone following her.”
“That’s good. When we get there I’ll go in while you stay in the car and keep watch. Call me if you think anything’s wrong.”
“Right. Any idea how long you’ll be?”
“Not really. She might just refuse to talk to me at all. But as long as she lets me in I think I have a reasonable chance of getting her to tell me what I need to know.”
Dennis glanced across at her. “Same business as before, is it?”
“Connected certainly.” Julie was never quite sure how much Dennis knew. Probably a lot, she admitted to herself in those occasional moments when she recognised that he was her minder in more senses than one. “I’ll find out soon enough,” she added, and lapsed into silence.
Twenty minutes later they were pulling up outside Irene’s front gate.
“Here goes then,” Julie murmured as she got out of the car, as much to herself as to Dennis. “Wish me luck.”
The door was opened almost before she had finished ringing the doorbell.
“Hello Professor Johnson,” she said. “Remember me?”
Irene replied with just a hint of a smile. “Yes. I do believe that I do, Julie. Come in.”
Once seated, and offered a glass of wine from an already opened bottle, Julie began: “You don’t seem surprised that I’ve been able to identify you.”
“Well, I expected it really. I have a bit of a public profile so I assumed that someone with your journalistic curiosity wouldn’t find it too hard.”
“No, it wasn’t difficult,” Julie replied, then added, “I had a feeling when you opened the door just now that maybe you were expecting me.”
“Expecting you? I don’t think so. I gave you the information that I had and you made good use of it. Why would you need to see me again?”
Julie opened her shoulder bag and laid a folder of printed documents on the coffee table in front of Irene. “Have a look,” she said. “I’ve received this material that relates to what you told me and goes a whole lot further.”
Irene opened the file and gave the first few documents a cursory examination. “There’s a bit much here for me to read now. Why don’t you save me the trouble and tell me what you think you’ve learned from all this.”
“So you didn’t send them to me?”
“No.” Irene shook her head firmly. “I’ve sent you nothing.”
Julie looked unconvinced. “OK,” she said at last, pulling the folder towards her. “I’ll try to give you a summary.”
For the next twenty minutes she worked her way through the pile of papers, piecing together a plausible story until, returning the last document to the folder with something of a flourish, she looked Irene straight in the eye and asked again: “So this hasn’t come from you?”
“No. I already told you. But I am familiar with the information.”
Julie straightened in her chair. “So you can confirm it?”
Irene sat looking thoughtfully at the folder for a moment as Julie waited expectantly. At last she raised her eyes to meet Julie’s.
“Yes, I can confirm most of it. There are some decisions recorded there that I’ve not been privy to, but they sound convincing enough to me.”
“Oh my god!” Julie’s excitement was tangible. “I thought I might be being set up with a false story.”
Irene smiled, if a little mirthlessly. “Perhaps you are. I could easily be party to it.”
“No, no. I trust you. You were right before. And it was you who came to me. I can trust you.” She paused and then added tentatively, “Can’t I?”
“Yes, you can,” Irene replied with a sigh. “In some ways I wish you couldn’t. I wish that none of this was happening. But it is, and it needs to be faced.”
“Oh it will be.” Julie was animated again. “It’s an amazing story. Such a comprehensive cover-up and one that leads right to the top. And I’ve got evidence for every stage of the conspiracy.”
“Wait, Julie,” Irene interrupted. “Stop and think. There’s much more to it than the cover-up. You haven’t really understood the Zeno effect, have you?”
“Yes, I think so. They manipulated the genetics of the flu virus to make it much worse than we thought.”
“No, unfortunately it’s rather more than that. Let me explain.”
After Irene had finished describing the Zeno mechanism and its implications, Julie took a large gulp of her wine and replaced the glass on the table. “Could I have a little more?” she asked, her voice not much above a whisper.
“Of course,” Irene replied, pouring wine for both of them.
“So, what that means…” Julie paused. “What that means is that instead of this one epidemic caused by one strain of the flu, we’ll get different ones on into the foreseeable future?”
“Yes, that’s right. Pandemics, to be more precise. The present strain has already spread worldwide and it will mutate worldwide as well.”
“And…” Julie paused again. “Because of the speed of the mutations we’ll not be able to develop vaccines to keep up?”
“Also right. For the past seventy years or so we’ve been able to isolate flu strains and make vaccines so that the next time that particular strain or a minor mutation came round we’d be much better protected. The Zeno effect changes all that. Even if, say, we develop a vaccine for the present strain – and as far as I know we haven’t yet – the rapid rate of mutation will still leave us chasing shadows.”
Julie was aghast. “How could they do that? How could they even think to make something so uncontrollable?”
Irene shrugged and bowed her head. “Quite,” she said. “So now you know. What will you do?”
“I’ll tell the story of course. People deserve to know, and maybe it will push governments into providing more resources for care and for research.”
“Maybe. But I think it might also make people even more desperate than they already are. And who knows what they’ll do then?”
The two women lapsed into silence contemplating that prospect. Then, at last, Julie finished her wine, stood up, and carefully replaced the folder of documents in her bag.
“We shall see then,” she said. “I won’t use your name. You can stay as Deep Throat. It’s a much better name anyway.”
Irene smiled. “Come on. I’ll see you out. You be careful. There’ll be a lot of powerful people looking for someone to blame.”
“Yes, I know,” Julie said as she stood up. “But I do have some protection.” When they reached the door she turned and impulsively flung her arms around Irene, drawing her into a close embrace.
“I’ll keep in touch,” she whispered, then, opening the front door, walked down the path to Dennis and her car.
Irene returned to her kitchen table where the dregs of the wine awaited her. She sat for a long time staring into her now empty glass, then reached into a drawer and retrieved the odd-looking device that Hart had given to her. She pressed the call button and, after a short wait, all but whispered into it.
“She’s been. I didn’t mention you. God help us now.”
“As you can see behind me…” The TV reporter glanced back over his shoulder, “… this huge crowd in Trafalgar Square is flowing, yes flowing is the only word for it, is flowing inexorably into the mouth of Whitehall where a phalanx of riot police await.”
Ali and Douglas, seated next to each other in Douglas’s New Town flat, stared in astonishment at the extraordinary images on the TV screen. The Square was indeed full to overflowing with demonstrators, and as the coverage cut to various other camera positions it was clear that many more were pouring in from the streets to the north.
“They won’t be able to keep them out of White
hall,” Douglas said, “the pressure of numbers is just too much. There’ll be trouble.”
The front line of demonstrators were now face to face with the police at the entrance to Whitehall, squeezed up against the row of riot shields by the pressure of the crowd behind them. As the defensive line was slowly pushed back a female voiceover from the studio introduced a cut to an aerial shot.
“This is the view from our drone. You can see that there are police and military backup forces further down Whitehall. They’re blocking Horse Guards Avenue as well as the entrance to the Ministry of Defence Main Building, and there are armoured military vehicles across the mouth of Downing Street. According to the well-known journalist and vlogger, Julie Fenwick, the organisers of the demonstration have said that it is their intention to besiege the Ministry of Defence until those responsible for the Zeno Project are brought to justice, and it’s clear from the numbers of troops that have been mustered that the government has no intention of allowing any such protest.” She paused, evidently listening to a voice in her earpiece. “Ah, thank you. I’m told that we can hear again from our reporter, John Wilkins, who is just behind the police line in Whitehall. What can you see, John?”
“The line is three deep, Miriam, and it’s definitely being pushed back. Hang on, I can hear hooves. There must be mounted police moving up Whitehall to lend their support.”
The studio voice interrupted him. “Yes, John, we have a drone shot of them.”
The TV image showed, from above, a dozen or so mounted police milling around immediately behind the riot squad’s human barricade.
“They can’t be serious,” Douglas said, turning towards Ali and waving at the screen. “If they really intend to stop that crowd they’ll need to deploy armour, perhaps a couple of water cannon if they’ve got any. They’ve obviously been taken by surprise at the scale of the demonstration. Maybe they thought people would be too scared of infection to come out.”
“They certainly should be scared,” Ali replied. “When Sarah was telling me about the 1918 pandemic she mentioned this Spanish town where a much higher death rate was recorded. She said it was because the local Bishop kept summoning the people to public prayers, providing a perfect environment for transmitting the disease.”
As she spoke the TV coverage was continuing with the aerial shot when, abruptly, Wilkins’ voice cut over that from the studio. “They’ve opened a gap in the line to let the horses through. They’re going to try to use the mounted police to disperse the front of the demonstration.”
“Oh god no,” Ali groaned. “This is madness.”
As the first horses burst through people scattered to avoid the flying hooves. But there simply wasn’t enough space for those at the front to retreat into, and several demonstrators fell and were trampled. Then, quite suddenly, one of the horses tumbled heavily to the ground, frantically kicking out and rolling over on its rider. And then another, and another.
Wilkins’ voice returned, this time sounding panicked. “Someone’s throwing ball bearings or marbles under the horses’ hooves. It’s an old trick. People and horses will get badly hurt. Now, in all this chaos, the line is bound to give.”
And give it did, as the graphic TV images showed in the minutes that followed. The now overflowing crowd in Trafalgar Square poured into Whitehall, trampling over police, horses, and demonstrators alike. In the studio Miriam’s voice took on a note of near hysteria.
“These are extraordinary scenes the like of which we haven’t experienced since the last century, perhaps since the Vietnam demonstrations of the 1960s. John, are you there? What can you see?”
Amid a concatenation of background noises Wilkins’ voice was just audible.
“Yes, I’m here Miriam. I’ve lost my camera operator in the chaos. It’s carnage just in front of me where the defensive line once stood. People are running further into Whitehall since they have nowhere else to go because of the pressure of the crowd behind them. I think I can hear the sound of motors further down the street, but I’m not certain and I’m pinned against a wall at the side of the road and can’t see in that direction at all.”
“We can see from the drone, John. Yes, there are military vehicles and soldiers moving up Whitehall. It looks as if they’re aiming to hold a line north of Horse Guards Avenue to stop the demonstrators reaching the Ministry of Defence.”
“I’ll see if I can move down with the crowd, Miriam.”
To Ali and Douglas, secure in Edinburgh, the aerial images lent a strange sense of distance to what was happening, as if they were witnessing some kind of computer game. The crowd moving down Whitehall, although clearly composed of people, seemed more like a single entity, a kind of giant snake with individuals only distinguishable at its head. Meanwhile, seen from directly above, the vehicles advancing towards them looked like toys or graphic renderings of armoured cars and lorries. The seeming artificiality of these images was accentuated by the fact that there was no synchronised sound, only some general background noise, presumably in a feed from Wilkins’ microphone.
“I’m being carried forward by the mob, Miriam.” Wilkins sounded frightened. “I can’t move in any direction other than along Whitehall and I can’t see any further than the people immediately around me.”
Miriam’s voice-over responded: “The army have parked vehicles as a barricade across the road, John. They’re taking cover behind them. It won’t be long before the head of the demonstration reaches them.” She paused. “It’s hard to see clearly from the drone, but I think someone is standing on one of the armoured cars and speaking into a microphone. Can you hear anything?”
“Yes, maybe the sound of an amplified voice but I can’t make out any of the words. I’ll try to hold my mic up in the air to see if it will pick up anything for you.”
The volume of background noise increased briefly, but none of it individually distinguishable other than the occasional louder cry of pain or fear. Then, through it all came the sound of an explosion and the TV screen, which had been carrying the drone images, suddenly went blank.
“What’s happened?” Ali asked.
“I don’t know,” Douglas replied. “Something’s interrupted the feed from the drone.”
After a few seconds the blank screen resolved itself into a head and shoulders shot of Miriam in the studio.
“John, we’ve lost the drone images. We have no pictures from Whitehall. What can you tell us?”
“Not much, Miriam. The crowd’s movement has slowed and now I can just about hear that there’s an amplified voice up ahead somewhere, but I can’t really tell what’s being said. I presume it’s some kind of warning from the military at the barricade. Maybe you can hear it if I hold the mic up again.”
As the volume of the sound feed rose Miriam cocked her head to one side in what was almost a parody of someone listening.
“Yes, you’re right, there’s definitely a voice and also a lot of shouting, but none of it is very clear. We’re trying to reconnect to the drone but the operator has reported that she’s getting no response from the controls. She thinks it must have gone down, and we’ve had an unconfirmed report from someone on the Victoria Embankment that it was hit by something and exploded in mid-air. Can you get any nearer to the front…”.
Her question remained incomplete and unanswered, interrupted by the unmistakable sound of shots. Nor were they only single shots, loosed perhaps as warnings. This was the terrible rattle of automatic weapons.
Ali and Douglas looked at each other in horror. “Oh shit,” Douglas murmured.
“Did you hear that?” Wilkins was shouting. “Someone’s opened fire. The crowd around me is in panic. They’re trying to turn back but it’s impossible. People are falling and being trampled. And I think there may be tear gas among them, away to my right.”
The gunfire continued only to be joined by the sound of a couple of small explosions.
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br /> “I can smell petrol, Miriam, and there’s dark smoke rising from the direction of the barricade. Something’s definitely on fire. There’s a low wall here. I think I can climb up onto it and see over the heads of the crowd.”
Wilkins fell silent for a moment as the gunfire continued and then his voice returned.
“Yes, I can just about see. One of the military vehicles is on fire and there’s a line of troops advancing ahead of it, shooting into the crowd. Not above them, but actually into the people.”
Just then there was the noise of another small explosion.
“Someone’s just thrown some kind of bomb in front of the advancing troops,” Wilkins continued. “Maybe something like a Molotov cocktail. It’s certainly spreading burning liquid across the surface of the road. I’m going to have to move before the soldiers reach my position. I’ll call in again as soon as I’m safe.”
“Yes, do that, John.” Miriam looked and sounded as if she was in shock. “Be careful.”
The TV images then began to cycle through a series of camera positions in Trafalgar Square, all of them revealing an ocean of people sweeping this way and that as some tried to flee while others pressed on towards Whitehall.
Miriam’s voice returned, sounding calmer now.