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

by Nathan Burrows

  “Hello, can you hear me?” It was the woman’s voice. Eleanor forced her eyes back open and tried her best to focus. She could see a blonde-haired woman, very pretty, looking at her with a concerned smile. “You’re at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital, Eleanor,” the nurse said. Eleanor raised her head a few inches from the pillow and tried to look around. It looked to her as if she was in a single room. She tried to speak, but the effort was too much, and she closed her eyes and relaxed back into the pillow, exhausted from the effort.

  The nurse fussed around her for a few moments.

  “Sharp scratch,” she said at one point, but Eleanor felt nothing. She heard the woman apologise as she lifted Eleanor’s T-shirt, exposing her abdomen. A few seconds later, she felt something cool and hard being pressed against her skin.

  “That hurts,” Eleanor mumbled.

  “I’m sorry, Eleanor,” the nurse replied. “I’m just going to give the doctor a quick ring. Get him to come and have a quick look at you.”

  Eleanor kept her eyes closed and tried to concentrate on what the nurse was saying on the phone. She caught a few of the words.

  “Pyrexic.”

  “Severe headache.”

  “Photophobia.”

  “Petechial rash.”

  What the nurse said next filled Eleanor with fear.

  “Could be meningitis.” One of Eleanor’s friends at university had contracted meningitis and been really unwell. At one point, they thought she was going to die. And Eleanor had seen people who had lost arms and legs from the disease on the television. But they were the outliers, weren’t they? That was why they were on the television.

  Eleanor’s stomach started gurgling, and she knew she was going to be sick.

  “Nurse?” Eleanor gasped, managing to sit up with her hand over her mouth as if she could keep it in. The woman put the phone down, picked up a pulped cardboard vomit bowl, and hurried across to Eleanor’s trolley. She didn’t get there in time, though. Eleanor felt the vomit rising in her throat and squirting from between her tightly clasped fingers. When the nurse got to her side, Eleanor removed her hand and vomited the rest of her stomach contents into the bowl, her eyes tightly shut. When she reopened them a few moments later after she had stopped retching, she realised that some of the vomit had got onto the nurse’s uniform. There was a drip of it that obscured part of the name badge, but not enough to obscure her name completely. There was a globule covering the second H of her name. Hannah.

  “I’m sorry,” Eleanor said as she looked at the contents of the vomit bowl. But it wasn’t vomit in the cardboard bowl or on Hannah’s uniform and name badge.

  It was blood. Bright red blood.

  84

  “For God’s sake, George,” Charlotte said, a look of irritation on her face. “Katayama was my friend. What did you have her killed for?” She was sitting in a chalet, one of a sprawling complex of single storey buildings called the Airport Lodge Lungi close to the airport. It was cheap and functional, less than forty pounds a night, but Charlotte had paid twice the nightly rate for the next few days, as had the crew from the Gulfstream who were in separate chalets elsewhere on the complex.

  “You don’t have friends, Charlotte,” George replied with a half-smile playing on his face on the laptop screen in front of her. “You have people you tolerate, and people you don’t.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a bit of a risk, though? So soon after the administration assistant?”

  “One was a random mugging, one was a suicide,” George said.

  “What about the security guard?”

  “Oh, we don’t need to worry about him anymore. He’s vanished.” As if he sensed Charlotte’s irritation, George continued without giving her a chance to respond. “It doesn’t matter, Charlotte. Even if someone puts it all together, it doesn’t matter. We’re clean.”

  Charlotte sighed, knowing he was right. They both had a carefully planned extraction plan and had made sure that there was nothing physical linking either of them to the Ascalon Institute. Which was now just burning embers, anyway. Charlotte had read a piece on the Eastern Daily News website that morning, detailing the fire and how ferocious it had been.

  “Did you begin the third study?” George asked her. Charlotte nodded in response, thinking back to the previous evening.

  Once she was sure that all the cohort had gone to bed, she had carried her rucksack to the roof, taking care to make as little noise as possible.

  When Charlotte had reached the roof, there’d been a stiff breeze blowing from the direction of the sea. The leading edge of the storm she had been watching earlier was slowly rolling onto land. Charlotte had stood upwind of the air-conditioning unit and donned a paper suit, overshoes and gloves before slipping a full-face respirator with twin HEPA filters over her face. It was overkill, particularly given the stiff breeze, but she wasn’t going to take any chances.

  Charlotte had reached into the rucksack and selected a small container about the size of a can of beer from the fifteen or so cans inside, making sure that it was the right one. She crossed to the air conditioning unit on the roof and removed the lid from the water tank that humidified the air to the house. Holding her breath despite the respirator, she twisted the top of the small container in her hands. There was a slow hiss as the lid came away from the main body of the container, and Charlotte had slowly poured the clear liquid inside into the water tank before replacing both lids.

  Then she had stood in place for almost ten minutes until she was sure that the breeze would have dispersed any of the contents of the small container harmlessly into the wind before stripping off her protective equipment and stowing it in her rucksack. A few moments later, she was in the SUV, being driven to Lungi by Jojo.

  “Yes, all done,” Charlotte replied. On the screen, she saw a slow smile spread across George’s face.

  “When will we know the results?”

  “Soon,” Charlotte said. “The sample I used has no incubation period, so pretty much straight away.”

  “Excellent. Have you notified the World Health Organisation?”

  “Not yet, no. I’ll wait for a call from one of the cohort just so we know the study’s working. I’ll make the call then.”

  “So, when are you coming back?” George asked.

  “Depending on what happens in the house, probably tomorrow. Maybe the day after. You’re sure there’s no link between the Ascalon Institute and the plane?” Charlotte noticed George didn’t dignify her question with a reply.

  After she had said goodbye to George and disconnected the call, Charlotte sat back in her chair. She knew full well that the third study would work, and couldn’t wait to get back to the United Kingdom for the last phase.

  George and Charlotte had a network of people, all of them like Titch in one way or another. All young, all disaffected, all white. There was a man who worked as a maintenance technician in the Bluewater Shopping Centre, an enormous mall on the outskirts of London. Another who worked in the facilities team in Canary Wharf, the heart of London’s financial centre. Yet another was a member of housekeeping in the Qbic hotel in Deansgate, Manchester, the largest hotel in the city. There were more, many more, and they all shared one thing in common apart from their desire for a purer England. They all had access to large-scale air-conditioning units.

  Once things began, there would be a period of shock across the entire country as the true scale of what was happening began to be realised. It would be like when the coronavirus pandemic hit. A few days, perhaps a few weeks, of stasis as the people in charge tried to understand what was happening. By the time they had worked it out, Charlotte and George would be long gone to watch from afar the effects of their efforts.

  The country would recover, and probably fairly quickly. The response to the pandemic had proven that it could respond, albeit slowly, to a threat of the magnitude they would be delivering. But it was never about the numbers; it was about the message. It would be a clear signal to the rest
of the world who was welcome in their green and pleasant land, and who wasn’t.

  Only then could purity be achieved.

  85

  Waterfield was getting fed up with the inside of the COBRA meeting room. He was sitting at his allocated seat, yet again, waiting for Arthurton to arrive so the briefings could start. The Prime Minister might even put in an appearance, apparently. At the front of the room, a young man in a suit was wheeling a large screen into place at the head of the table. It partially obscured the wall of screens which were tuned to the major news channels across the world. The BBC—obviously—CNN, Al Jazeera, and a couple of other channels with vaguely accurate subtitles. One was from China or perhaps Korea, the other definitely Russian.

  The door at the front of the room opened, and Arthurton walked in. He was followed by the Prime Minister, who looked tired and dishevelled. So he might, Waterfield thought. He was facing what was potentially going to be the largest challenge of his career, if the whispers Waterfield had heard coming out of Porton Down were to be believed.

  “Ladies, gentlemen,” Arthurton said, as if he was calling the room to order. There was no need. The minute the door had opened, the muted conversation in the room had faded away.

  The Prime Minister took his seat and ran his hand through his messy blonde hair, huffing as he did so. Arthurton nodded at the young man standing by the screen and, in response, the screen was turned on. A bald man with thick glasses and a grey beard appeared. He was wearing a suit, but over the top of it was a white coat.

  “Okay, let’s get cracking,” Arthurton said after making sure that the Prime Minister was content for him to continue. “On the line, we have Doctor Baker from Porton Down. He and his team have been analysing the material sent to Norfolk Police by, um.” Arthurton checked his notes. “By a Miss Elizabeth Castle, a PhD student at the University of East Anglia.” He looked down at his notes again. “She has told the police that she was sent them by a young lady called Miss Eleanor Vickers, a journalist at the Eastern Daily News, but Miss Castle doesn’t know where the journalist got them. The poor woman was terrified about breaking her friend’s confidence, but she couldn’t ignore what she found.” Arthurton took a deep breath. “However, we do know the material relates to the Ascalon Institute, a supposed botanical research establishment on the outskirts of Norwich.” He paused and looked around the room at the gathered audience. “It was burnt down last night. There have been some artefacts recovered from the scene of the fire, but we’ll loop back round to them. Doctor Baker? Are you happy to continue?”

  On the screen, Doctor Baker’s mouth started moving, but nothing could be heard.

  “You’re on mute, Doctor Baker,” the Prime Minister barked. Looking ashamed, the doctor leaned forward and pressed something in front of him.

  “Sorry, Prime Minister,” Baker said. “As I was saying, my name is Doctor Clifford Baker, and I am the Home Office Chief of Virology based at Porton Down in Wiltshire.” Waterfield saw the Prime Minister biting his lip, no doubt just wanting the pompous-sounding scientist to get on with it. “Can you hear me okay?”

  “Yes, Doctor Baker,” Arthurton replied. “Please continue.”

  “Okay, so the material that was sent can be subdivided into three studies and one final experiment, for want of a better term. Slide, please?”

  On the screen, a mass of jumbled letters and numbers replaced Baker’s face. Behind it, he continued.

  “The first study was looking at viral incubation. More specifically, how long this incubation period takes for a given virus.”

  “Hang on.” It was the Prime Minister. “I thought it was a botanical lab?”

  “That’s what it was licensed for, yes,” Arthurton replied. “But they weren’t doing much in the way of botany. Doctor Baker?”

  “Thank you. So, the virus they were examining was our old friend, COVID-19. It looks as if they worked out how to minimise, or extend, the incubation period of the virus from almost instant to several weeks.”

  “What does that actually mean?” Arthurton asked.

  “Well, I won’t go into the science,” Baker replied.

  “Please don’t,” someone muttered audibly, and a low ripple of tense laughter went round the room.

  “The longer the incubation period, the more dangerous the virus. It has more time to spread before the host becomes sick. Conversely, a virus with almost no incubation period won’t be very effective as it will burn itself out. Slide?”

  Another jumbled mass of calculations appeared. Waterfield sighed. None of them could understand what on earth was on the screen.

  “This is the second stage. What the papers describe is the genetic union of the coronavirus with another disease-causing agent. So, they removed the disease element of coronavirus and replaced it with something else, while retaining the aerosol transmission of the particles.”

  “What did they replace it with?” the Prime Minister asked, his face ashen.

  “Perhaps now would be a good time to talk about the artefacts that were found at the scene of the fire?” Arthurton asked. When the Prime Minister nodded, he continued. “There were several large containers that largely survived the fire. When they were opened by the HAZMAT team, there were some bones inside that we’ve been able to identify.”

  There was a stunned silence around the room as everyone waited for Arthurton to carry on.

  “We had to send them to a chiropterologist to get the correct identification.”

  “A what?” the Prime Minister asked.

  “A bat specialist,” Arthurton replied, glancing again at his notes. “The bones belong to the Rousettus aegyptiacus species.” He looked up and scanned the room. “Egyptian fruit bats.”

  “And the second virus? What was it?” The Prime Minister looked as if he was about to vomit and, as Waterfield looked around the room, the politician wasn’t the only one with a horrible sense of trepidation.

  “Doctor Baker?” Arthurton asked. On the screen, Baker licked his lips nervously before replying.

  “It’s Marburg virus disease. One of the haemorrhagic fevers.” He licked his lips again. “The fatality rate is between fifty and ninety per cent, and there’s no cure.”

  “And they’ve aerosolised it? So it can spread like COVID?” the Prime Minister asked in a hushed voice.

  “I’m afraid so, Prime Minister.”

  “What’s the third study?”

  “Human trials.”

  “And the experiment?”

  Doctor Baker looked down at his hands. When his eyes returned to the camera, Waterfield could see genuine fear in them.

  “Deliberate release.”

  86

  Adams watched as the assistant in the bike shop spun the front wheel of his bike a couple of times to prove that it was true.

  “There you go, mate,” the assistant said as he flipped the bike over so that it was the right way up. “All sorted for you.”

  “Cheers, mate,” Adams said. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Call it sixty quid for cash?”

  “Nice one, thanks.” Adams handed over three twenty-pound notes. The wheel on its own cost a penny under fifty-five quid, so it had been fitted for a fiver. Money well spent in Adams’s opinion, especially as it would have taken him all morning to fit it and adjust the brakes. He wheeled the bike to the shop door and paused outside to put his helmet on.

  Adams climbed on the bike and set off for the hospital. He wasn’t due to start until half-past one in the afternoon, so he was going to be early for his shift, but that meant he could have a half decent lunch in the canteen before starting, as opposed to a Pot Noodle in his flat. Neither was a particularly good Sunday lunch—and certainly not a patch on the roast chicken with all the trimmings he knew his parents would sit down to later—but at least some canteen slop would fill the gap.

  He negotiated his way through the centre of Norwich, using the bike lanes when he could. It was busy in the city, probably because the sun
was shining. It was a pleasant enough day, and by the time he got to the outskirts of the city, Adams was perspiring hard. He peddled his way up a short incline, vowing to go running or out on the bike a bit more often as he always did when he got to this stretch, and wondered if he would have enough time for lunch and a shower when he got to the hospital.

  Adams was just on an open stretch of road when he heard a sound in the sky he knew well. It was a faint thudding noise that only belonged to one type of aircraft. Adams coasted to a stop and looked around in the sky to locate the source of the noise. Behind him, far up in the sky to the south of the city, was the distinctive outline of two Chinook helicopters, their large rotor discs making the familiar noise.

  He watched as they approached, the noise of the rotors growing louder. Chinooks weren’t that common over Norwich. In terms of military aircraft, much more likely would be American F-15 Eagles from Lakenheath or F-35 Lightnings from RAF Marham heading out to the practice area over the North Sea. A few months previously, an F-35 pilot had got into a spot of bother after breaking the sound barrier not far outside Norwich, rattling windowpanes and causing a flurry of irritated letters to the local newspapers.

  A few moments later, the Chinooks were close enough for him to make out the twin rotor discs above the dual engines. They were also descending and, as they approached his location, he estimated they were only flying at a few hundred feet above the ground.

  “Queen of the sky,” Adams muttered under his breath, resisting the childish urge to wave at the helicopters. He’d flown in them enough times in the past, and his thoughts turned to Lizzie and the almost disastrous ending to their first tour of Afghanistan.