by Andrew Grant
“Nothing,” she said. “If you’re talking about me, personally. But what do you expect to see? Caesium is a priority one threat. Safeguarding it isn’t just down to Jones and me. We’re only one small part of a huge machine. The visible tip of a tried-and-tested iceberg. We’re sent in after a possible incident to make absolutely certain nothing’s slipped through the cracks. We’re a duplicate resource, but the stakes are so high we can’t afford to take any risks.”
“And in this case, nothing’s slipped through? Are you sure?”
“Here’s another thing about caesium. It doesn’t occur naturally. So, if you want some, you have to make it, buy it, or steal it. And if this was anything, it was an attempt at stealing, yes?”
“It looks that way.”
“Now, we don’t just wait around for someone to snatch a barrowful, and then run around trying to catch them. We stop them before they get the chance. We have the snoops at GCHQ on the case, listening in to everything, 24/7. Plus a whole network of agents and specialised, dedicated informers. If there’s as much as a whisper of anything related to caesium, they’d know. And none of them heard a thing.”
“What if it’s someone new, who’s not on the radar yet? Or someone good enough to disguise what they’re doing?”
“It could be someone new, I guess. But they’re certainly not good. Attacking that door was stupid. You couldn’t get through it with a hundred axes, let alone one.”
“Maybe the axe thing was a diversion, to make you take the attack less seriously. Maybe they got in another way.”
“There are no other ways. And the door’s security log shows no one opened it.”
“Couldn’t the log have been hacked? Or fiddled?”
“There’s an outside chance of that, yes. Which is why a hazardous materials team is coming tomorrow to do a full inventory. But based on the sum total of all the data from all our avenues of enquiry, I believe they’ll prove the correct amount of caesium is here, and put the whole question to bed.”
“Why wait till tomorrow?”
“We need a team with special equipment. You can’t just pick this stuff up and count it, obviously. And tomorrow’s the soonest they can be here.”
“Aren’t there emergency crews?”
“For containing leaks, and urgent relocation from compromised facilities, yes. But not for inventory work. And don’t forget, the scene of crime report showed no evidence of any tampering and no manic axe men were picked up anywhere on the CCTV, so it was more likely to be a badly trained fireman who damaged the door.”
“Why would a fireman have been here?”
Melissa stopped her chair in the centre of the corridor and looked up at me.
“Oh,” she said. “David, I owe you an apology. I forgot you weren’t in this from the start. The marks on the door were discovered by the hospital technicians when they tried to go back in after a fire alarm. Standard procedure calls for them to report any damage, then lock down the site so it can be investigated.”
“Was there actually a fire?” I said.
“No. And I know what you’re thinking. But remember your Freud, David. Sometimes a false alarm is just a false alarm.”
I thought about what Melissa had told me, and I had to agree - you couldn’t rule out the possibility that nothing nefarious was going on. Not yet, anyway. There was plenty to be skeptical about - someone attacking the one door in the hospital which led to the radioactive waste - but that was circumstantial. I could think of several occasions over the years when I’d scratched the surface of something suspicious and found only chaos, not conspiracy. But those judgments had been based on evidence, and evidence was one thing that seemed to be lacking here.
“You mentioned CCTV,” I said. “There’s a camera pointing at the door. Doesn’t it show who did the damage?”
“It should,” Melissa said. “And that would make my life a million times easier. But on the night of the fire alarm, it wasn’t working.”
“Just that one?”
“No. That would be too coincidental, for sure. Four separate zones were down, spread randomly across the site. And that’s what our next meeting is about. It’s with the hospital security chief. I’m going to rattle his cage about his maintenance record, and see how he reacts.”
“Should be fun. But what about the firemen, themselves? Could we talk to the ones who were on duty that night, and see if any of them own up to it?”
“I’m sure we could. And then we could check the geriatric wards for grandmothers, in case any want to learn to suck eggs.”
I didn’t reply.
“Obviously, we spoke to the firemen,” she said. “But here’s the problem with them. All the crews from all four stations that cover this place are supposed to know that they never, ever, under any circumstances, try to open that door. So you’re asking them to land themselves, and probably their commanders too, in seriously hot water.”
“So you think we’re either dealing with an over-ambitious terrorist, or an under-attentive fireman.”
“I know that’s what I’m here to deal with,” she said, turning her head again to look me straight in the face. “With thousands of lives potentially in the balance. But I’m not so sure about you.”
“Then why do you think I’m here?” I said.
“We all know what it means when someone from another agency is brought in to ‘help’ on some flimsy pretext. The rat squad are behind it. They don’t want to show their nasty little rodent faces, so they’re staying in their sewer and using you to do their dirty work.”
I didn’t reply.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” she said. “There’s no point denying it. That’s not going to change what I think.”
“You can think whatever you like,” I said, after another moment. “I’m not going to comment.”
“Thank you. Only, it goes further, doesn’t it, what you’re here to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re after me, specifically.”
“Not as far as I know.”
“So they didn’t spell that part out. So what. Think about it. Only two people from Box were assigned to the hospital. And since Jones is (a) too new to have had time to get his nose dirty, and (b) not here cause you conveniently took him out of the equation, who else does that leave under the microscope?”
Put like that, Jones’s injury did look a little coincidental. I was pretty sure I’d have reached the same conclusion, in her shoes. You don’t last long in our world, taking coincidences on blind faith.
“You can rule someone out, as well as in, you know. If they’re even a suspect in the first place.”
“In theory. But here’s my problem. I’ve been doing this job for twelve years. It’s my life. It’s the reason I’m not rich. Not married. Not a mother. And don’t have many friends. But it’s what I love doing. I’m good at it. I’ve never once turned a blind eye or slipped a hand into the till. And if anyone says I have, I want to look them in the eye. I want the chance to prove them wrong. I don’t want to wake up one morning with a blade in my back, and no way to pull it out.”
“I understand.”
“Look, I realise you have a job to do. It’s not easy, and I’m sure you didn’t volunteer for it. I wouldn’t have said anything, only back in the garden it sounded like you care about doing the right thing, and I just wanted you to know - well, I do, too.”
We swung by my room so I could change into something more business-like than my hospital pyjamas, then headed to the next building to meet the Head of Security. He wasn’t there when we arrived, two minutes early for our appointment.
“Mr Leckie will be here very soon,” his secretary said, as she showed us into his office. “Please, take a seat. Can I get you some coffee? Tea?”
“No, thank you,” Melissa said.
“I hope there’s not been another urgent family situation,” I said. “What’s the temperature like outside?”
The secretary flushed slightly
and scampered from the room, but she couldn’t keep her eyes from flicking up to the array of pictures on the wall above Leckie’s desk as she went. They were all of golf courses. I recognised St Andrew’s in Scotland, plus one in Karlovac, Croatia, where I once had to arrange the disappearance of a corrupt Serbian diplomat. I had no idea about the other dozen. They could have been anywhere.
Melissa pushed one of the visitors’ chairs aside and wheeled around so that her back was to the side wall, which was covered with more pictures. Paintings, this time, of birds of prey. I wondered if Leckie was into shooting.
“It must be nice to have time for a hobby,” I said. “It’s so annoying when work gets in the way.”
“Did anyone brief you about Leckie?” Melissa said, with an eye on the door.
“No. But I did pick up some office gossip. Apparently he’s not the world’s most conscientious employee.”
“That must be a recent development.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s ex...” she said, then mouthed the word, “Box,” as the door swung open.
“Afternoon,” he said, as he strode into the centre of the room. “Sorry to keep you. Melissa, still using the prop chair, I see. And you must be our cousin, Commander Trevellyan.”
We shook hands, then Leckie dumped a pile of paperwork on his desk and flopped down into his chair.
“Did Ms. Wainwright tell you much about me?” Leckie said.
“No,” I said. “Should she have?”
“Well, you see, the thing is, I’m a bit of a mind reader. And I’m going to go out on a limb and say she’s here to tear a strip off me cause these wretched faulty cameras of mine have turned what should have been a simple job into a bit of a ball-ache. Am I right?”
I looked at Melissa, and wondered if this was the kind of cage-rattling she had in mind.
“Yes,” she said. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
“It’s my fault entirely,” he said, holding up both his hands. “The buck stops with me. All I can do is apologise. And let you know that in fact five zones were down on the night of the non-fire, not four as originally reported.”
“Five?” Melissa said. “What kind of outfit are you running, here, Stan?”
Leckie let his hands flop into his lap.
“What can I tell you?” he said. “Civilians.”
“That’s not good enough. What are you doing about it?”
“I’ve fired the people who dropped the ball, obviously,” he said. “And brought contractors in - the best in the country - to get everything straightened out, double quick. Two zones are already back up and running. They’re busting their guts on the others. And I was thinking, given what’s at stake here, once the dust has settled your people and mine should get together and come up with a way to avoid this kind of cock-up in the future.”
A classic exercise in blame sharing, I thought. How long till the whole fiasco turned out to be MI5’s fault?
“When will the other three zones be fixed?” Melissa said.
“Close of play tomorrow at the latest, I’m told.”
“Is the camera outside the caesium vault one they’re still working on?”
“Yes. I believe so.”
“Well, your people can’t be anywhere near that corridor between noon and 4.00pm. The hazmat team will need free access to do their inventory.”
“They’re doing that tomorrow? So soon? I’d stretch it out another couple of days, if I were you.”
“Good golfing weather, is it?” I said.
“I like the way our new friend thinks,” he said. “But sadly, no. You know what I mean, don’t you Melissa?”
“Stan always found the rules a little restrictive,” Melissa said. “And he had a theory - the greater the level of threat, the more you could get away with bending them.”
“Exactly,” Leckie said. “As long as you know nothing’s really wrong, drag the panic out as long as you can. Use it to your own ends. Walk a little less softly, and carry a bigger stick for a while.”
“I don’t think so,” Melissa said.
“Oh, come on,” Leckie said. “There must be all kinds of doors you’re knocking on, but can’t quite risk kicking down. This is your chance. It’s the upside of the pain my antiquated systems have inadvertently caused you.”
“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” Melissa said. “The inventory’s tomorrow.”
“They’re going to confirm that no caesium is missing,” Leckie said. “We all know they will, cause we all know there’s no way anyone got through that door. Then you’ll be back on a much shorter leash. Are you really going to throw away such a golden opportunity?”
“I just want to get this mess squared away, as quickly and cleanly as possible,” Melissa said, turning to look at me. “And the thing I don’t want to throw away is my job.”
The admin building was crawling with people when we left Leckie’s office, so we made our way back out to the garden to talk.
“Tell me something, Melissa,” I said, lowering myself onto the nearest bench. “Hypothetically speaking. If I hadn’t been there, and you hadn’t felt like you were in the spotlight, would you have been tempted to follow Leckie’s advice? Use the threat of missing caesium to buy you a little leverage elsewhere? I’m sure that’s been done before.”
“No,” she said. “Now, don’t get me wrong. That approach does work, sometimes. Leckie certainly brought down some major villains that way while he was with us. But look at the end result. He was shown the door. And how much good is he doing now, playing golf and presiding over a broken down CCTV system?”
“He was thrown out? Why?”
“The word on the street was brutality.”
“Do you believe it?”
Melissa rotated her chair a quarter turn to the left, on the spot, and then straightened up again before answering.
“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” she said. “Given someone’s shoving me towards the same door, with no good reason. But yes. I believe it. He was always pushing the limits, and I think one time he pushed that little bit too far.”
“Did he get a result, that time?”
“Well, yes. But you still can’t condone it.”
“I’m not condoning it. I’m only asking.”
“Not morally. And not practically. It does more harm than good, nine times out of ten. Look at the situation we’re in now, with the firemen.”
“What’s Leckie got to do with the firemen?”
“It’s his fault they’re being so uncooperative.”
“Did he brutalise one of them?”
“Not physically. But verbally, yes. He was furious when he heard what had happened during the alarm, so he got the chiefs of all the fire stations together on a conference call. Then he bawled each one out, one after the other, in front of their peers.”
“Not the most constructive of approaches.”
“No. What we needed was trust and openness, but because of him, that ship’s not just sailed. It’s been torpedoed and gone down with all hands.”
“Maybe he should spend more time playing golf.”
“Maybe he should. Seriously. Normally I hate the game. But if it means golf balls are the only things Leckie hits in future, that’s something I could get behind.”
Chapter Ten
Under different circumstances I’d have been happy to stay in the garden with Melissa all afternoon, but that day it wasn’t to be. She had several more phone calls to make, she said. Plus some preparations to complete for tomorrow, when the hazmat team would arrive. And of course, the inevitable reports to file, to keep her boss safely out of her hair.
She invited me back to her room while she worked, but again I declined. Admin’s bad enough when it’s your own. She’d already shown herself to be too smart to give anything away in front of me, even if she was tainted. And the stakes were too high to waste time going through the motions, or trailing other people around like a nursemaid. Instead, I needed the chance
to weigh up what I’d learned, see what was missing, and figure out what to do about it.
We agreed to meet at 6.00pm, assuming everything went smoothly, and take stock again then. It was just after 3.00pm, so that gave me almost three hours. I thought about staying in the garden, but the rain had grown heavier and there’s no fun in getting wet on your own. The coffee I’d had in the canteen was surprisingly reasonable so I thought about going there, but in the end I just made my way back to my room. I slipped off my new boots, then picked up the remote control and flopped down on the bed.
The TV came back on to the same channel I’d been watching yesterday, but somehow I couldn’t make myself concentrate on the show. My thoughts kept homing in on Melissa. I pictured her six rooms across from me, one floor below, phone pressed to her ear, taking care of business. Yesterday, I had no idea who she was. Today, it was down to me whether she kept her job or went to jail. I was starting to like her, and she certainly came across as honest. But in our business, I knew those things count for nothing.
Most of what Melissa had told me down in the basement made sense, but I still wondered what the inspection team was going to say in the morning. And if the inventory checked out, whether she’d be happy. I knew I wouldn’t be, if I was in her shoes. The fact that no caesium was missing wouldn’t prove there hadn’t been an attempt to steal some, however inept. So whatever she learned tomorrow - theft or no theft - Melissa would have some work to do. Her only way out was to prove that the armoured door had been damaged by a fireman, and that he’d done it by mistake.
I switched off the TV and made for the door. The basement was calling me back. Because it struck me that Melissa had focused on two factors - the human elements, and the technology. She had those well covered. But there was another angle to consider. Logistics. I didn’t know much about caesium, but clearly it was a volatile substance. You couldn’t just pick some up and walk away with it, even if you could get into the vault. Which meant you’d need special clothing, to handle it. Maybe something to transport the containers she’d mentioned, depending on their size. And you’d need an escape route. Getting inside the hospital under cover of the fire alarm was one thing, but getting out again with such volatile loot was another.