by Andrew Grant
“Maybe,” I said. “Someone had to do something about them. And it fell to one of us.”
“Why?”
“Think about it. They pick on the disabled. Damage public property. Spoil this garden for others. They’re like a cancer.”
“That’s a little harsh.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then why didn’t you call security?”
“A security guard was here before you arrived. He tried, but he couldn’t do anything about it.”
“So call the police.”
“He did. The police aren’t interested.”
“That doesn’t make dealing with it your job. Or mine.”
“Not our jobs, no. But it’s still an obligation. We were here. We could have done something. Turning a blind eye was wrong. And... forget it.”
“What?”
“Well, you know who I work for.”
“Obviously.”
“Then you know I’ve been lucky. I’m still here. But a lot of my friends aren’t.”
“The Security Service loses agents too. What’s your point?”
“I’m asking a question. These people – yours, and mine. The ones who’ve given their lives, defending this country. What did they die for? To build a safe haven for thieves and drug addicts? Or for vandals, like the idiots we just let walk away? Degenerates who rot the place away from the inside, little piece by little piece. It makes me wonder, why do we even bother?”
She didn’t answer.
“Don’t you ever feel that way?” I said. “It must be worse for you, having to live here with them all the time.”
“It doesn’t strike me that way at all,” she said. “Where there’s freedom, there’ll always be crime. That’s how societies work. The big problems, we deal with. Other than that, it’s about finding a balance, and most of the time we do that pretty well. You’ve got to keep things in perspective. And guys like them? They’re not threatening anything fundamental. They’re not smart enough. They’re morons. Who cares?”
“So, freedom and crime, two sides of the same coin. Don’t you find that depressing?”
“No. I don’t. It’s a glass half full, as I see things. It gives me hope.”
I caught some movement to our left. The door had opened again. A doctor and a nurse were looking through, but when they saw the garden wasn’t vacant they turned and disappeared back down the corridor.
“You know, my stomach’s telling me it’s nearly lunchtime,” I said. “Are you hungry?”
“Maybe, a little,” Melissa said, after a moment.
“Fancy helping me hunt down a sandwich?”
“That might be nice,” she said, hesitantly. “But I need to make a couple of calls first. Check up on a couple of things. I’d do it later, only it can’t wait. You can come with me, if you like.”
I thought her offer over for second, but decided to decline. There was no point looking over her shoulder. Not when she was expecting me to, anyway.
“No thanks,” I said. “Why don’t we meet somewhere when you’re done?”
“Deal,” she said. “How about the hospital canteen? Half an hour?”
Chapter Eight
I found the hospital canteen on the top floor of the wing that contained the offices. Outside, a plaque said it had been opened eighteen months earlier by some junior minister from the Department of Health. Inside, it looked like it had been transplanted from a mid-scale department store. Circular tables, each large enough for four people, were scattered seemingly at random throughout half of the space. A sweeping, curved counter provided shelter for the people serving the food, and behind them were three parallel rows of shiny stainless steel kitchen units. It all looked good - very sleek and industrial - though there was no sign of anyone doing any actual cooking.
Around half the tables were occupied. I could see little knots of nurses. Physiotherapists. Doctors. Clerical workers. Each group was set apart by their clothes and separated by where they sat, as if they were divided into hostile clans. The only exception was the occasional huddle of patients or visitors who had managed to find their way into the place. Several of them scrutinised me as I bought a mug of coffee, presumably categorising me by my hospital pyjamas. But I belonged to none of the groups, so I just collected my drink, retreated to an empty seat in the corner furthest from the door, and settled down to wait.
A quick inspection the other customers’ footwear revealed no sign of my boots, so I turned my attention to the garden. It was deserted. I wondered if that was because no one wanted to be there, or whether people were put off by the kind of yobs we had encountered earlier. I was still feeling surprised by Melissa’s attitude to the situation. I hadn’t expected her to accept the hooligans so readily. I thought back to the other MI5 people I’d crossed paths with over the years, and couldn’t imagine any of them seeing things that way, either. Especially not the field agents. Either she was the exception that proves the rule, or the Security Service had changed dramatically in recent times. And I certainly couldn’t see her point of view finding much favour in Naval Intelligence. In my world things were much more black and white. There was a threat, or there wasn’t. Someone needed to be eliminated, or they didn’t. I was beginning to think that spending time with Melissa could be interesting, if only for the shades of grey she brought with her.
I was half way across the room with my third cup of coffee when two shrill, angry voices caught my attention. They were coming from a table to my left. Two women had started to argue. I sat down and watched them out of the corner of my eye. They were both smartly dressed. In office clothes, not medical uniforms. I guessed that one was in her mid thirties, and the other no more than early twenties. Their postures suggested that the older woman had started the ball rolling. The younger one looked like she was reaching the end of her tether. She fell silent for a moment, then sprang to her feet, sending her chair skidding away behind her. She lent across the table, palms flat on its surface, her nose almost touching the other woman’s. Her voice dropped to a whisper, and for the life of me I couldn’t make out what she said. Then she turned and flounced away, almost falling into Melissa’s lap as she chose that moment to wheel into the room.
“Everything OK?” I said, as Melissa reached my table a few moments later.
“It is with me,” she said. “But what was that all about? I nearly ran that woman over.”
“I don’t know. Some kind of argument, I think. I couldn’t hear the details.”
“Damnation. I always miss the excitement. Was it a good one?”
“No. Quite tame, really.”
“Any punching?”
“No.”
“Scratching?”
“No.”
“Eye gouging?”
“None. Nothing like that. You really didn’t miss much.”
“Who was she arguing with?”
“Another woman. She’s still here. Grey cardigan, white blouse. Three tables behind you. Seven o’clock.”
Melissa looked up slightly towards the window, trying to catch a reflection in the glass.
“It must have been quite a good one,” she said. “That woman’s hand is still shaking. Ten quid says she’ll spill her tea.”
I didn’t reply.
“I wonder what they were rowing about?” she said. “Work? What do you think? Football? Or maybe a man?”
“No idea,” I said.
“I bet some guy’s at the heart of it. An office romance. Never a good idea.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, have you ever heard of one working out well?”
“Actually, no,” I said. “Although, it’s not a field I have much experience in.”
“Me neither,” she said.
“So, tell me, how did your phone calls go?”
“Oh, OK. Frustrating, more than anything. I had to follow up on a few things. I made some enquiries before I arrived here, and a few of the responses aren’t coming through quickly enough
. I had to light fires under a couple of people.”
I looked out of the window for a moment, trying not to take her bait.
“You want to know what we’re doing here, don’t you?” she said.
“No,’ I said. “I honestly don’t have the slightest interest.”
Melissa tipped her head to one side, like she’d done in the garden, and waited a few seconds before saying anything else.
“Do they have good sandwiches here?” she said.
“A couple looked quite reasonable,” I said. “There was a prosciutto and goats’ cheese panini. That was probably the best of the bunch.”
“OK, then,” she said. “You grab us each one of those. We’ll eat. Then we have an important meeting to go to. But before that, there’s something I want to show you, downstairs. It’ll help you make sense of everything.”
Melissa told me to hit the button for the basement, and when the door opened I saw that instead of a single corridor as there’d been at ground level, we now had a choice of four.
“It’s like Hades, only with colour-coding,” she said as she emerged into the stale air, nodding towards the broad stripes that were painted on the pale green walls. “I mean, as in the underworld, not the god of the dead.”
“I don’t care about the dead,” I said. “Just as long as there are no three-headed dogs down here.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, starting off down the corridor to our left. “There are no dogs of any kind. Except maybe some Guide Dogs, and you hardly need worry about them. So, are you coming? It’s this way. We want the purple route.”
I caught up with her and took hold of the chair’s handles, but didn’t need to actually push. She was happy to keep the speed up on her own, running her hands rhythmically around the rim of the wheels. The corridor she’d chosen was long and straight. The light grey on the floor was peeling in places, allowing the concrete to show through, and the walls were plain except for the slightly wavy navigational line that ran all the way down the right hand side. A mess of cables and ventilation ducts dangled from angled brackets above our heads, along with a row of caged-in fluorescent lights. They were evenly spaced, one every ten feet, so there was no relief from their harsh glare.
As I trudged forward I noticed that one of Melissa’s wheels was developing a squeak every time it turned. She was going to need some oil pretty soon if she didn’t want to announce her arrival everywhere she went, and I was still wondering where she could get some when I realised the smell of the air was changing, too. The stagnant odour near the lift was gradually being replaced by something with a sharper, harder edge.
“What is that?” I said. “It smells like chlorine.”
“I think it is chlorine,” Melissa said.
“Where’s it coming from?”
“The swimming pool, I expect.”
“Which swimming pool?”
“The hospital’s.”
“I didn’t know it had one. Where is it?”
“Round the next corner.”
“But wait,” I said, taking a moment to make sure I had my bearings straight. “Wouldn’t that bring us up into the street?”
“If we went up,” she said. “Yes, it would.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“The pool’s down here. Underground. Between the hospital and the nurses’ home.”
“I didn’t even know there was a nurses’ home.”
“Oh, yes. That big, ugly, modern building on the opposite side of the road. The pool’s actually bang in the middle, twenty feet below street level.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. And just think. All those stressed out office workers heading home every evening. What would they do if knew they were a few yards above a horde of student nurses in tiny little bikinis?”
“Do people use it much?” I said, trying to imagine how it would feel to be in a pool of water beneath one of the busiest commuter streets in London.
“Actually, I have no clue,” she said. “I’ve only seen it on the plans. And don’t get any ideas, cause we’re not going that far. There’s something else you need to look at.”
After another thirty yards the corridor made a ninety-degree turn to the left, but we didn’t follow it.
“Can you get that for me?” Melissa said, nodding towards a door set into the right hand wall. It was painted the same shade of grey as the floor, and the purple stripe continued straight across it. There was nothing to indicate what it led to. And there was no handle attached to it, either. I glanced down at Melissa, then gave it a push. It opened easily, and beyond it was another featureless corridor. This one was about eighty yards long, and slightly narrower than the first. Its walls were the same pale green, but there was no sign of any coloured lines. The floor wasn’t as worn. There was less junk hanging from the ceiling, and the lights were spaced further apart, making the place noticeably dimmer. But the main difference, as far as I could see, was the CCTV cameras that were here. There were two. Both in protective, wire mesh cages. One was facing me, to monitor anyone entering the corridor. The second was focused on the only other possible exit - a single door about half way down on the right hand side.
I shrugged, stepped into the new corridor, and held the door for Melissa. She wheeled past me and kept going, faster than before, till she was level with the door. Then she spun her chair hard to the right and waited for me to catch up.
“This is it,” she said. “This is why I’m here. And you, too, now.”
The door appeared to be made of wood. Pale, maybe ash, with a delicate grain running from top to bottom. It didn’t look very robust. You’d think that one decent kick would be all you’d need to open it. I’d seen ones like it in offices all over the world, right down to the flimsy metal handle and standard wall-mounted keypad to the left. There was only one unusual aspect. The surface had been damaged. There were three gashes, almost parallel, roughly at shoulder height. Each one was about five inches long, but they were surprisingly shallow. Only about an eighth of an inch deep. And even in the low light you could see a hint of something metallic, glinting, just below the surface.
All was clearly not as it seemed, but without the cosmetic damage, you’d never have known.
“See those dents?” she said. “What do you think happened?”
“I’d like to think that a bad tempered T-Rex had tried to claw its way through,” I said. “But I guess I’ll have to settle for something more mundane. How about a bad tempered human with an axe?”
“Right second time. Although I can’t be certain they were bad tempered.”
“Who was it?”
“We’re not sure.”
“When did it happen?”
“The afternoon before you arrived.”
“And why this door?”
“We have two theories.”
“Which are?”
“The first is that it was an innocent mistake.”
“OK. And option two?”
“That someone wanted what’s on the other side.”
“What is on the other side?”
“As far as I know, there’s the entrance to a World War Two air raid shelter, now bricked up. A standby electricity generator, now disused. And one other thing. The largest repository of Caesium-137 in the south of England.”
Chapter Nine
Melissa put a little more meat on the bones for me as I followed her back towards the lift.
“Caesium-137 is a kind of medical waste,” she said. “It’s extremely radioactive. And it stays that way for a very long time. More than thirty years.”
“Nasty,” I said. “What state is the stuff in?”
“It’s a metal, which is liquid at room temperature. So it has to be stored and transported in special containers.”
“What happens if it gets out of those containers?”
“Nothing good. It’s incredibly soluble, so it gets into everything, all over the place. It starts by seeping into the ground water, and then Moth
er Nature takes over and distributes it through the rain cycle. After Chernobyl it was found over ten thousand miles from the accident site, to give you an idea. From there it gets into the food chain. Animals. Fish. Fruit. Vegetables. Everything. And if it gets into the body, through eating or drinking something contaminated, you’re in real trouble. It’s much worse than other radioactive agents because for some reason your organs treat it like potassium, and absorb it incredibly easily.”
“And if that happens?”
“You die. A slow, hideous, drawn-out, agonising death. And children are particularly vulnerable. Specially their thyroids.”
“So if I was a terrorist, I’d have a special fondness for this stuff?”
“Definitely. Its effects are deadly. They’re invisible. They spread naturally over huge distances, and once the genie is out of the bottle it’s impossible to put back in. Put it this way - when Bin Laden was caught, caesium was needed for nine of the thirty-four schemes he was working on. And you know what else? The other reason terrorists love it?”
“What? Why?”
“If you can get hold of some, you can use it within seconds. You don’t need complex delivery systems. Advanced technology. Special training. Or lots of people. You just take the lid off the container and pour it on the floor. Or down a drain. Or into a reservoir. And that’s it. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people will die.”
“And there’s a lot if it here?”
“Stacks of it. Because this place isn’t just a regular hospital. It’s the central holding facility for all the hospitals in the region.”
“How many?”
“Seven, altogether. The waste from all of them is brought here. It’s broken down by a couple of factors – type of contaminant, degree of toxicity, that kind of thing – then consolidated. Special technicians take care of that. And when they’re done, it’s sent to the relevant places for reprocessing.”
I paused for a moment, trying to think of a tactful way to say what I was thinking.
“Please don’t take offense at this,” I said. “But you’re painting a picture of moths and flames, here. And you don’t seem to be doing much to keep them apart. What am I missing?”