Enemy Within: A heart-wrenching medical mystery (British Military Thriller Series Book 3)

by Nathan Burrows

  “Yes, Sue, oh, I mean Mrs Bentworth, has told me all about you.” Wondering what the irritating head of Human Resources had said, Charlotte managed to crack a smile.

  “All good, I hope?” Eleanor nodded enthusiastically in reply.

  When Jimmy had finally managed to get both Charlotte and Eleanor through the security doors, Charlotte left the younger woman to head straight to the laboratory. She was tired, having spent most of the previous day in the air, but the samples they needed had been delivered back to the institute and Charlotte’s head researcher had been working on them since.

  The hermetically sealed door to the main laboratory hissed as Charlotte pushed it open and the sole occupant of the laboratory looked up. When she saw it was Charlotte, a broad smile appeared, and the woman almost ran over to speak to her.

  “Charlotte,” the woman said, speaking rapidly, “I think we’ve done it! I actually think we’ve done it.”

  “Slow down, Katayama,” Charlotte said with a laugh. The researcher, Katayama Toshiko, was a genetic virologist that Charlotte had recruited in Tokyo the previous year. She was petite, standing at just over five feet tall, had fine black hair that Charlotte envied and, as well as being absolutely brilliant, was also utterly mercenary. It was a trait that Charlotte appreciated, and she and George had agreed to one major change to the programme in order to recruit the woman. Katayama’s usual expression, which was one of permanent worry, had been replaced by delight. “Tell me about it over a coffee.”

  A few moments later, the two women were sitting in the staff room with cups in their hands.

  “So, we took the extended incubation influenza virus and isolated the single-strand RNA virus,” Katayama said. “But there was an issue with enveloping the other virus.”

  “Yes, I read that in your report,” Charlotte replied, taking a sip of her coffee. “You were able to splice the viruses together at the genomic level, but not re-encapsulate them?”

  “Not quite. It would encapsulate but not separate so the new virus wouldn’t reproduce. But I think I’ve found a way round it.” The delight in Katayama’s voice was almost palpable.

  “How?” Charlotte asked, wanting to give Katayama her chance to shine. If she had achieved what she thought she had, then they were going to be ready for the next phase immediately. George would be delighted.

  “I added the genetic code for the phosphoprotein P to the genomes of the new spliced virus.”

  Charlotte thought for a moment, processing what Katayama had just said. It took her a while, but she got there eventually.

  “So, that enables the liquid-liquid phase separation in the nucleocapsid protein?”

  “Exactly!” Katayama replied. Her voice was almost a squeal.

  “That’s brilliant, Katayama. Absolutely brilliant!” Charlotte meant what she said. If it weren’t for the sensitive nature of their work, that scientific discovery would vie for a Nobel prize.

  “Thank you, Charlotte,” Katayama said, her eyes shining. Charlotte didn’t dole out such platitudes often, but it was warranted in this case.

  “So, what’s next?” she asked the researcher.

  “I’ve mixed up a batch of the new virus with a zero incubation period so we don’t have to wait for the results.”

  “Excellent,” Charlotte replied. “Which vector?”

  “Humice.”

  “Good, good,” Charlotte said, nodding in approval. Humice were mice whose immune systems had been artificially replaced with something approaching a human’s. Charlotte’s PhD thesis had been on the transplantation of haematopoietic stem cells into immunodeficient mice, so she knew the subject better than Katayama did. “And they’re separated out into the batches we discussed?”

  “Yes.” Katayama glanced at her watch. “It’s probably a bit too soon for any effect yet, though. I only subjected them to the viral load a few hours ago.”

  “Did you work through the night on this, Katayama?” Charlotte asked, leaning forward and putting a hand on the researcher’s arm.

  “Most of it, yes,” Katayama replied.

  “Why don’t you get some rest? We can check on them in a few hours’ time when everyone else has gone home.”

  “Are you sure?” Katayama asked.

  “That’s exactly the reason we have a duty bunk,” Charlotte replied, referring to a small room in the building that was equipped as if it was a hotel room. “Get some rest. I’ll come and wake you at five.”

  “If that’s okay, I am exhausted.” Charlotte looked at the woman, hiding her irritation at the fact she didn’t look exhausted in the slightest.

  Katayama got to her feet and made her way to the door of the staff room, turning to give Charlotte a brief wave as she left. Charlotte returned the gesture and sat for a moment, thinking. This was excellent news indeed. Combining the two viruses together meant that they could take the elements of each that worked best and multiply their effect. George would be delighted. He would be more than delighted; he would be ecstatic.

  On their own, each of the two viruses was bad enough. But united? United, Charlotte thought with a smile, they would be something else altogether.

  60

  Lizzie balanced the AK-47 on her knee and looked through the windscreen at the streets of Freetown. In the driver’s seat, Jojo was giving her a running commentary, while in the rear seat, Obi and Jack were staring out of the windows. Lizzie had found Jack some travel sickness pills that, so far at least, seemed to do the job.

  Jojo had told her about the history of the White House. It had been inhabited by a wealthy family of diamond miners until the civil war, when the family had been driven both from the house and the country. The lines of pockmarks on the wall were, as Lizzie had thought, bullet holes from an automatic weapon.

  “Were you in Freetown during the war?” Lizzie asked him. A dark look appeared on Jojo’s face.

  “I was, eventually, yes,” he replied. “I used to live in a village in the south but had to leave when the soldiers came. There were many of us who wished to leave the country but had nowhere to go. It was not a good time for us.” They were driving along Jomo Kenyatta road, a wide carriageway that led to the centre of Freetown. It was lined by palm trees with lines of washing strung between them, and Lizzie could see carts full of produce with people milling around them on the sides of the road.

  “I can’t imagine what that must have been like,” Lizzie replied, shaking her head. She wanted to ask him about his family, but wasn’t sure how he would respond to the question.

  “But you have been to war, Miss Lizzie, have you not?” Jojo said. They’d had a conversation about her experiences after Lizzie had asked Jojo if he could show her the AK-47. She’d told him she’d been on the other end of them, but never fired one, and it had prompted an interesting conversation. Lizzie hadn’t told Jojo everything about what had happened to her in Afghanistan, but enough to let him know she’d been in combat.

  “Do you have family, Jojo?” Lizzie asked, deciding to ask him anyway. His look grew darker.

  “Before the Revolutionary United Front arrived in my village, I had a fine house. A fine family. A beautiful wife. Two sons, little men with such futures.” He swallowed before continuing. “When I returned from the fields where I had been gathering food a short walk away, I had nothing but ashes and memories.”

  “I’m sorry, Jojo,” Lizzie replied, placing her hand on his arm. He turned to her and smiled, but not with his eyes.

  “It was not your fault, Miss Lizzie. It wasn’t until the British came that things were brought to a halt. The United Nations?” He wound down the window and emphatically spat out of it. “They did nothing. There are many elders who wish that the British hadn’t left in the first place. Momoh was a weak man. Not a soldier. See how quickly he abandoned us and fled when the coup started?”

  Lizzie, whose knowledge of the civil war was scanty, just nodded in agreement, saying nothing. Jojo turned left at a dilapidated filling station with a queue o
f cars lined up outside it. There were two men arguing furiously by the pumps. Lizzie watched them, expecting to see blows being landed any second, but as she watched, they both started laughing and hugged each other.

  The road in front of them, Pademba Road, could best be described as chaotic. As well as the occasional new vehicle like theirs, most of them belonging to non-governmental organisations, there were ancient trucks, motorcycles, and carts drawn by donkeys with produce piled so high on the back Lizzie couldn’t see how they remained upright. On either side of the road was a storm drain which, in some areas, doubled up as an open sewer, and beyond the drain, as far as Lizzie could see, were shacks. Everything, even the tin roofs of the shantytown, was reddish brown from the dirt on the ground.

  Lizzie waved at children as they ran toward the vehicle, broad smiles on their faces. Jojo leaned on the horn to warn them not to come too close, and after they had passed, she watched in the wing mirror as they chased after the vehicle, laughing and waving at them.

  “Many of the visitors bring them sweets and treats,” Jojo explained. “That’s why they’re running at us. They see your white face and think you’ll have something for them. But every so often, one of them slips and falls under the wheels.” He glanced at her. “So, no sweets please, Miss Lizzie.”

  Lizzie, who had been thinking about making sure she picked up some sweets for the children for the return journey, stared out of the window. As they got closer to the centre of Freetown, the shacks gradually gave way to buildings. Some of them were modern, but the majority looked to have been built in the sixties. Churches sat next to mosques, and there were people everywhere.

  Jojo brought the SUV to a halt outside a small roadside restaurant. Ahead of them, a cart was listing and blocking the road. Despite the fact it had lost a wheel, the cart’s cargo of what looked like large empty plastic containers was still balanced precariously on top of it.

  Lizzie looked through the window at the roadside restaurant. Two men, in their early to late twenties and dressed in jeans and brightly coloured shirts, were sitting on white plastic chairs with blue plastic footstools in front of them. Behind them was an advertising sign with the words Think Black Drink Black next to a yellow harp and a bottle of Guinness. On the footstools were bottles of water, cigarettes, and smart phones. Lizzie looked at the men and one of them raised his arm to wave, a broad smile on his face. Lizzie waved back and, as she did so, she realised that the man’s other hand was missing.

  The SUV lurched forward, and Lizzie took a deep breath. Although she didn’t know a massive amount about the conflict here, she had read about the atrocities that were committed during it. A few moments later, they approached a large roundabout with a huge tree standing in the middle of it.

  “This, Miss Lizzie, this is what I wanted you to see,” Jojo said, nodding at the tree, which looked incongruous between all the surrounding buildings. It was perhaps thirty metres high, surrounded by concrete barriers, and dwarfed the four-storey building it stood next to. “This is the Freetown Cotton Tree.”

  Lizzie looked up at the enormous tree.

  “This is where the first settlers landed?” she asked, grateful that she at least knew that.

  “Yes, Miss Lizzie. In the year seventeen hundred and ninety-two, freed slaves who had fought for the British in the American Revolution stopped here to pray and thank God for their freedom.” Jojo waved his hand round to encompass the buildings. “Everything else you see here came after. This was where Freetown was born.”

  Lizzie thought back to the shanty towns they’d driven past. To the children playing in the streets. To the one-handed man in the coffee shop.

  It was, she reflected, a peculiar kind of freedom.

  61

  The first thing that irritated Titch was the sound of his phone ringing. Secondly, and he only realised this when he picked up his phone and looked at the screen, was that it was just after one o’clock in the morning. The words Withheld Number stared back at him.

  “Hello?” Titch said, injecting as much anger into a single word as he could.

  “Charles Sixte?” George’s voice came down the line. Titch frowned, shaking his head to dispel the remnants of sleep.

  “This is my personal phone number,” he said, trying to work out how George had got it. “Should you be-”

  “Charles, be silent and listen,” George replied, cutting him off. “We have been compromised. You have been compromised.”

  “How?”

  “We don’t know, but they have got into the network.” Titch knew exactly who they were. Whether it was the police or the security services, it didn’t matter. “They have your identity.”

  Titch sat bolt upright in his bed.

  “What? How?”

  “A Dauphin II helicopter has just been seen leaving Stirling Lines. We believe it’s on its way to your location.” Titch swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. Stirling Lines was a British Army garrison in Credenhill, Herefordshire.

  “The SAS?” he asked, even though he knew the answer. The Dauphin II helicopters, known as Blue Thunder, were unmarked civilian helicopters used only by the Special Air Service, the United Kingdom’s most elite forces.

  “Yes.”

  “Why not the police?”

  “The authorities don’t want to arrest you, Charles,” George replied. “They want to neutralise you. You have one hour before they arrive. Take what you can and leave. You have a pen?”

  “Yes,” Titch said, his voice stuttering. He listened as George read out a Gmail address and a password, which he scribbled down on a pad of paper next to his bed.

  “Leave, get somewhere safe, and check the draft folder of that e-mail. There will be further instructions. You now have less than an hour before the helicopter arrives at your location. Now go!”

  George hung up, and Titch sat on the edge of the bed for a few seconds while his heart hammered in his chest. He had prepared for this moment, following all of George’s lectures on rapid extractions, but he never thought he would actually have to undertake one.

  Titch stood and crossed to his cupboard, picking up a gymnasium bag from the back. Inside the bag was almost ten thousand pounds in cash, his entire life savings. There was also clothing, several unnamed visa debit cards pre-loaded with money, rations, and several burner phones, all bought with cash from various marketplaces around the country.

  He looked with regret at the box containing his military and quasi-military paraphernalia. Much as he would like to, he couldn’t take it with him. Titch looked around the rest of the room and took in his meagre belongings. At the last moment, he picked up his dog-eared copy of The Turner Diaries and placed it in his go bag. With a last nod, he left his room and let the door close quietly behind him.

  As he hurried to his car, Titch considered his destination. One of his favourite programmes on television was Hunted, a British reality show where apparently ordinary people were set loose to hide in the most watched country on the planet. The idea was to evade capture for as long as possible, while a team of ex-detectives and coppers tried to track them down. The show often had ex-military types on it, and was obviously rigged for the benefit of the audience, but their first step was always to head for the hills and isolation. Which was fine in the initial stages of a manhunt. It was time to re-group and plan the next stage of hiding. The ones who did well on the show headed for the most populated areas of the country, trying to hide in plain sight.

  Titch had considered what he would do if he had to extract himself quickly, and stage one was definitely heading somewhere remote to lie low. Stage two—complete disappearance—would take some planning. He had already identified the location he was going to hide in initially. There was a long-abandoned houseboat in a remote part of the Norfolk Broads that he’d visited several times. The first time he had gone, he had laid several tells to see if anyone else used it. Bored kids, druggies looking for somewhere quiet, or whores. But none of them had been disturbed, and he had gradually
filled the cupboards with supplies for an extended stay, making sure on each visit that it remained truly abandoned.

  The fact it was literally in the middle of nowhere helped. The boat was almost completely hidden by trees and the wooden topside was rotten, but the fibreglass hull and cabin would last for years yet. It was in a part of the broads that was no longer navigable near Hickling Broad. Titch would have to hike over marshland for over an hour to reach it, but it was a journey he had made many times, and he could do it in the dark if he had to. Which it looked like he was going to have to do, anyway.

  Titch threw his go bag into the passenger seat and glanced up at the skies as he imagined the Dauphin II helicopter with its passenger compartment filled with rough men standing ready to do violence…to him. He shivered involuntarily and got into the car. According to his watch, it had been less than seven minutes since George had called. He still had over forty-five minutes.

  He went back over their conversation in his head as he dismantled his phone and snapped the SIM card in two. George had told him to get what he could and get out. Titch strummed his hands on the steering wheel before he looked again at his watch. He had time. There was some more stuff that he could get before he had to leave.

  A few moments later, Titch knocked on the window to the guardroom, startling the civilian guard inside. He’d not actually been asleep, but hadn’t been far off it. With Titch willing him to get a move on, the guard lumbered over to the window.

  “Hi,” Titch said as he slid his ID card through the hatch. “I’ve bloody well left my phone at work. Could I get the keys to the armoury, please?”

  62

  Eleanor waved at Jimmy as she walked through the doors to the Ascalon Institute.

  “See you tomorrow, Jimmy,” she called over her shoulder, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. She walked down the road to the car park and, when she reached her car, she glanced around to make sure she was on her own. When she knew she was, she knelt down by the front tyre. A moment later, it was as flat as a pancake.