Devour

by L. A. Larkin

  You hide away in houses and hotels and think I cannot find you, yet here I am looking straight at your Harley-Davidson. It was like a beacon, beckoning me here. Its GPS was so easy to hack. I bet the braking system can be hacked too. Hacked to fail.

  I’m not thinking straight. Rabid. Must slow down. Stick to the plan.

  The best way to hurt you is to take away everything you hold dear. And I’ve succeeded. My diary tells me you no longer have a home you feel safe in. And your career is about to flame out, your reputation gutted. Granted, you did most of the work for me; I just had to give it a little nudge in the right direction, heighten your insecurity.

  I feel calmer. I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.

  And that Russian scum? You won’t have him long. I didn’t save you from the SVR so you could then go and fuck one of them.

  I creep down a narrow path to Chiswick High Street, then run, crashing into pedestrians. I’m blinded by images of you screwing a man who’s probably raped his way through every war zone he’s been to. My head feels as if it’s imploding. If only the pigs had reached the hotel faster, then you wouldn’t be with him now. I should have made that 999 call earlier.

  You know what? Fuck control. You’re all convinced I’m a nutter anyway. I might as well give into it. Fuck all my months of planning. Let it take me. Let revenge have me.

  At a bus stop I sit, wild-eyed, panting, face slick with sweat, and pull out my iPad, barely able to touch the right keys, my hands shake so much. But I must write it down. My new plan. I’ve barely managed to write a line, the pain in my head is so agonising. I clench my eyes shut, holding the iPad close to my chest, and rock backwards and forwards, groaning.

  ‘You all right?’ asks a pretty teenage girl with long blonde hair.

  Her boyfriend, no more than eighteen, calls her away, wary of me.

  ‘Not feeling well,’ I say, ‘I’ll be okay, thanks.’

  He takes her arm and leads her away from the stranger in a hoodie, making weird noises. He thinks I’m strung out. I shouldn’t draw attention to myself like this. I force myself to stop rocking.

  Rummaging in my coat pockets, I find a brand-new burner phone and call emergency services. I ask for the police.

  ‘I heard a gunshot,’ I say, my voice full of alarm. I give them the address and tell them I’m a neighbour. ‘There’s a man waving a gun about.’ I want an armed unit blasting Yushkov to kingdom come. ‘A woman’s in there, screaming. But the owner’s away and the house is supposed to be empty. Hurry!’ Then I add. ‘He looks like the photo in UK Today. You know, the Russian spy.’

  I drop the mobile, used only once for this call, into a bin.

  It feels so good to let go.

  50

  It is the crunch of a misplaced step on gravel that stops Wolfe in her tracks. Her head snaps round and she catches the briefest glimpse of someone in a hoodie, a tendril of blonde hair whipping over their shoulder, before the figure disappears down the narrow path.

  ‘Someone’s here!’ she says, rushing to the door and opening it.

  Yushkov is instantly by her side. ‘You sure?’

  But the intruder has turned into the street.

  ‘Yes. We’ve got to get out of here.’

  Wolfe races upstairs and dresses. Her boots are still damp, but her leather jacket is almost dry. A used razor lies on the basin vanity with Yushkov’s stubble on it. She grabs it and shoves it in a pocket to be thrown away later. She uses a towel to remove some of their fingerprints from taps and handles but she doesn’t have time to do a proper job. No time to wash the bedding and towels. No time to repair the bullet hole, but she’ll prise the bullet from the wall to stop the police identifying the gun and, perhaps, who sold it to them. She charges downstairs. The bloody tea towel is on fire in the sink as Yushkov uses a clean one to wipe down his fingerprints on the espresso machine.

  ‘Our DNA is everywhere.’

  ‘I have the pistol, and this,’ Yushkov says, holding up what is left of the bullet, as well as the spent casing.

  ‘You must’ve read my mind,’ she says, grabbing her bike keys. Somewhere in the house a phone rings.

  ‘Don’t answer,’ says Yushkov.

  Wolfe follows the sound to a wall-mounted phone near the front door.

  ‘Could be Daisy trying to warn us.’

  ‘No!’

  But Wolfe has already answered on loudspeaker.

  ‘Olivia, is Yushkov with you?’ asks Casburn.

  Yushkov’s face darkens as he recognises the detective’s voice. He raises a finger to his lips.

  ‘How did you . . .?’ Wolfe begins. Police sirens wail in the distance.

  ‘We know he’s armed. Can you get away from him?’

  She blanches. How does he know?

  ‘You’re hunting the wrong man.’

  Yushkov makes cutting gestures. He wants her to end the call.

  ‘Listen!’ says Casburn. ‘He was seen yesterday with an associate of Kabir Khan.’

  ‘What?’

  Yushkov snatches the phone and slams it into its cradle.

  ‘He’s stalling us,’ says Yushkov. ‘We leave, right now.’

  The sirens are piercingly loud, the armed units almost upon them. But Wolfe doesn’t move. The house walls feel as if they are closing in on her.

  ‘Is this true?’

  ‘I bought a gun from a man who once saved my life. Not this Kabir Khan.’

  ‘Why does Casburn think you did?’

  He takes her arm. ‘It is a trick. We must go.’

  She studies the face of a man she has just made love to. A man she thought she knew. A man she felt safe with. And now? She’s blind-sided by an improbable yet terrifying connection she never imagined Yushkov had.

  ‘Will you come, or will you stay?’ he asks.

  All Wolfe can think of is saving Renata and stopping a desperate Yushkov from giving the Russians what they want. She daren’t imagine she may be nothing more than a pawn in Yushkov’s dangerous game.

  ‘I’m coming.’

  Running from the house, Wolfe turns the ignition and the Harley roars to life as Yushkov puts the backpack over his shoulders and gets on the back.

  The bike shoots off down the narrow passage and on to Chiswick High Street as a police car slams on its breaks. Wolfe easily dodges it and disappears down a narrow lane as another police vehicle screeches to a halt outside the architect’s house. She zigzags her way through Chiswick’s backstreets but she doesn’t take the turn for the M4 motorway. Instead, she heads for a quiet residential road that runs parallel to the River Thames. She parks the Harley between two cars and kills the engine.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asks Yushkov.

  ‘They’re looking for two people on a motorbike. So we take a car.’

  Within a few minutes she has broken into an old Fiesta and they head west on the M4 in the direction of the UK’s most infamous military research site - Porton Down.

  As Wolfe drives, she considers their target.

  Nestled in the idyllic Wiltshire countryside near the village of Porton, on seven thousand acres, and run by the Ministry of Defence, Porton Down employs three thousand people. The entire area is surrounded by a no-go zone. Between the fencing and the actual buildings is a gamut of motion detectors, security cameras and dog patrols. Wolfe suspects Heatherton and his team will be at the Biomedical Sciences Department, or BSD, in a high containment lab. A few years back, a group of animal liberationists cut through the wire-mesh fence and managed to reach the BSD building. They were shot dead. Wolfe investigated the story but wasn’t allowed to publish it.

  She wants to save Renata but not if it means handing over LE31S. They must persuade one of the scientists to give them a vial of substitute bacteria. She prays there won’t come a time when she must betray Yushkov to Casburn. She isn’t sure if she can do it.

  As they race past cars and lorries, she goes over Casburn’s words in her head. Is he right about Yushkov and Khan? Who is ly
ing? She hopes to God it’s Casburn. Because, as her grandmother used to say, she’s made her bed and, however uncomfortable that bed may be, she must lie in it.

  Snow, like a dusting of icing sugar, softens the flat, barren fields that surround much of Porton Down. There is a section of the perimeter where high evergreen hedges run parallel to electric fencing, shielding the site from prying eyes. Signs, at regular intervals, warn of ‘Danger of Death, Do Not Enter’. Wolfe and Yushkov have chosen a spot behind tangled hawthorn bushes that gives them a rare view across a field into Porton Down. They are hoping to spot Heatherton, Price, Sinclair or Matthews.

  Through binoculars Wolfe sees a conglomeration of ugly buildings from different eras: red-brick fifties-style two-storey structures with grey tiled roofs; industrial warehouses; row upon row of rectangular buildings with corrugated iron roofs that remind Wolfe of battery hen sheds; Portakabins that have far exceeded their temporary usage; seventies-style low-rise concrete and glass office buildings, and aircraft hangars that look large enough to swallow the Queen Mary. Roads traverse the site linking the various groups of buildings. The ‘face’ of Porton Down is a three-storey brown brick building with hundreds of white framed sash windows, as long as two soccer fields. A sweeping semi-circular driveway leads to the main entrance, where government ministers and weapons manufacturers greet each other before discussing the sale of weapons over tea on manicured lawns.

  They watch a man in army uniform patrolling with a German Shepherd.

  ‘This is hopeless,’ says Yushkov. ‘Let’s take a look at the main entrance.’

  Wolfe drives slowly past the main gates. A sentry box, with electronic boom gates, manned by two armed guards and featuring a big red ‘Police. Stop’ sign, isn’t promising. A car pulls up at the gate. The driver produces ID but isn’t waved through. His car is searched first.

  ‘Police car,’ says Yushkov, nodding at one coming their way.

  Wolfe takes off and heads for Porton village, only a few miles down the road. Pulling into the rear car park of the Porton Arms, she cuts the engine. There’s a chalkboard sign outside announcing the pub is open for breakfast. They remove their helmets and pull on woollen beanies and scarves, so they are harder to recognise.

  It’s not yet midday and the pub is empty of customers. The publican, a florid, balding man in his forties, is wiping glasses with a tea towel. When they order two full English breakfasts and coffees, he shows them to his ‘best table’ near the window, which suits them because it is furthest away from the bar.

  The publican bellows, ‘Martha! Two big brekkies, love.’

  Wolfe sees a flash of Martha in the kitchen as she grabs a frying pan with one hand and waves a ‘Got it’ at her husband with the other. Yushkov sits opposite Wolfe. Their coffees arrive and they wait for the publican to resume his glass polishing.

  ‘How are we going to find Heatherton and the others?’ Wolfe asks.

  Yushkov leans across the table and keeps his voice low, conscious of his accent and the proximity of a stranger.

  ‘Everything is possible. It is just knowing how.’

  ‘Porton Down is like a maximum-security prison. Except it’s guarded by the Military. Your mates won’t be allowed out unescorted, and we can’t get in.’

  ‘Why can’t we get in?’

  ‘People have tried before and failed.’

  Yushkov drinks scalding hot coffee. ‘Who tried and failed?’

  ‘Activists. To rescue the animals. Thousands are blown up, poisoned and gassed there each year.’

  Yushkov whistles through his teeth.

  ‘And Casburn will also have his own people protecting them.’

  Cold air creeps through the gap between the window and the frame and she shivers.

  ‘I think Toby, he will help me.’

  ‘Why him? He’s frightened of his own shadow.’

  Martha delivers two plates of fried eggs, bacon, pork sausages, black pudding, baked beans, fried mushrooms and two slices of toast, steam curling up off the hot food. ‘There you go, my loves. That’ll warm you up.’

  They eat in silence for a while.

  ‘Toby will do it. Once he knows about Renata,’ says Yushkov, mid-chew.

  She puts down her knife and fork, holding his gaze. ‘Vitaly, I need to know we are talking about finding substitute bacteria to hand to Grankin, not the Lake Ellsworth one? Even to save Renata.’

  Their eyes are locked.

  ‘Then we must hope Toby helps us.’

  He hungrily finishes his breakfast. She has gone off hers.

  ‘Perhaps the publican knows where Toby is staying?’ Yushkov says. ‘I think you should chat him up.’

  ‘I’ll have a go,’ Wolfe says, pushing her plate away. She wanders up to the bar.

  ‘Great breakfast, thanks.’

  ‘On holiday, are we?’ he asks, grabbing a box of salted peanuts.

  Christmas is only a week away. She’d forgotten.

  ‘That’s right, got family in Salisbury. So tell me,’ Wolfe leans closer to him, ‘what’s with the big hoo-hah? There are police cars everywhere.’

  ‘Something to do with some lethal bug from Antarctica. Not good for trade, I can tell you. Like the time we had that anthrax scare.’ He gazes wanly around the near-empty pub.

  ‘But your B and B business must be doing well, what with those scientists staying here.’

  ‘I wish! My pub’s apparently not good enough for them. They’re over at the Fleets Motel. Pisses me off something rotten.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ Wolfe says, delighted. ‘Anyway, thanks again.’

  Wolfe sits back down with Yushkov.

  ‘We’re in luck,’ she whispers, and explains. ‘Motel security won’t be nearly as tight as Porton Down.’

  51

  The CCTV camera on his narrowboat still feeds live images to his smartphone, despite the muddy water lapping at the underside casing. The boat’s kitchen and dining area is three-quarters full of canal water and rising fast. It seeps under the glass of a framed family photo, erasing their image with its dirty embrace. A child’s pink plastic beaker floats listlessly on the surface. There’s a sudden gush of water as the boat finally sinks and the submerged camera ceases to function. The man holds back a sob; surely his loved ones will forgive him?

  The bacteria have performed exactly as he expected. The so-called expert microbiologists at the lab are wasting their time researching its potential for human infection. He alone knows how it could destroy civilisation itself. But not in the way the scientists believe.

  Buried beneath three kilometres of ice, living in a permanently dark environment, with no sunlight or warmth, the ancient subterranean bacteria survived on the iron minerals in the lake’s rocky bed. It lay fallow, cut off from the rest of the world, as enormous changes took place at the Earth’s surface. Dinosaurs came and went, Australopithecus took the first upright steps on a path that led to revolutions which changed the face of the planet irrevocably: agricultural, urban, and finally, industrial. Iron and steel, steam engines, electricity, bridges, roads and cities. Stunning architecture; art and music. But, right from the emergence of the first walled cities almost six thousand years ago, humans have never stopped fighting. War just became more efficient, more brutal and more destructive, culminating in the absurdity of weapons of mass destruction capable of wiping out whole villages, cities, nations, even the planet. And the Lake Ellsworth bacteria remained in virtual suspended animation under the Antarctic ice, waiting for centuries in the dark, until some egotistical fools brought them to the surface.

  Because sunlight is the trigger.

  In sunlight, it becomes highly aggressive, reproducing at a rate never seen before. Like so many scientists before them, the Lake Ellsworth team never questioned what they were doing. Too wrapped up in a quest for glory, too obsessed with proving they could, rather than considering whether they should. Will those brilliant minds work out in time how to stop it wreaking havoc?

 
Maybe. Maybe not.

  52

  Porton Down, Wiltshire

  Fleets Motel on the A345 to Salisbury is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on three sides by fields scraped bare by uninterrupted winds. A sprinkling of snow reinforces the monochrome starkness of whitewashed walls, grey slate roof tiles and an asphalt car park encircling the building like a skirt. Wolfe can see why it’s been chosen for Heatherton and his team: open fields in all directions provide no cover for surveillance or an unannounced approach.

  It’s four in the afternoon and it’s already dark. Wolfe checked in hours ago under a fake name and bribed Martin, a bored teenage receptionist who managed somehow to take her details and conduct a conversation without looking up from his smartphone once, into giving her an adjoining room to Toby Sinclair’s. Yushkov crept past reception when Martin was in the back and joined Wolfe in room 202 on the first floor.

  Now all they have to do is wait.

  Except for the cleaners vacuuming and the occasional door banging, it has been quiet. An ill-fitted window further down the corridor rattles in the wind, grating on Wolfe’s nerves. She sits on a sagging double bed, with dated pink and brown floral bedspread, while Yushkov paces the room, twitching back the drawn curtains every now and again. Unable to smoke, he eats a muesli bar and some crisps from the minibar, checking his watch every few minutes. Wolfe has never seen him so keyed up.

  ‘I need a smoke,’ he says, and heads for the door.

  ‘You’ll be recognised.’

  ‘I hate this waiting.’

  He pulls his Glock 19 from the back of his jeans and sits heavily, then removes the magazine and racks the slide to eject a round from the chamber.

  ‘Who did you buy that from?’ Wolfe says.

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to know.’

  There’s a quiet click as he dry fires the pistol, pointing it at the wall.

  ‘Was he Afghani?’ she persists.

  He studies her face. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Kabir Khan is suspected of funding an Isil terror cell in this country. If you know this man or where he is, tell me.’