Pandemic pr-2

by James Barrington

  His most pressing need was for the laptop. Stein crossed into the en-suite bathroom and picked up a couple of small towels, then returned to the bed. He thoroughly wiped the external surfaces of the computer, always moving the towel away from him, then opened up the laptop and did the same to its screen and keyboard. He put the machine to one side, and in turn cleaned the power adaptor, all the leads and cables, the mobile phone, and the steel flask, just as carefully.

  The file proved more difficult, but Stein did what he could, wiping the cover carefully before he opened it. Inside he could see no sign of anything that looked even slightly like the dust Krywald had described. Finally he picked up all the items and returned to his own room. He put everything down carefully on the desk, then closed and locked the connecting door: he wouldn’t be entering that room again.

  Stein plugged in the laptop computer and switched it on. He attached the mobile phone via the data cable and waited while the operating system loaded, then opened up Outlook Express and dialled the unlisted service provider they were using back in the States.

  There were no emails waiting for Krywald, so Stein closed the connection and began composing his own message. It wasn’t a long email. He briefly advised McCready that the Learjet had been destroyed and that David Elias’s body had been consigned to the deep. He assumed that Krywald had already told McCready that they’d retrieved the steel case from Kandíra, but he confirmed this information anyway. Then he explained how Krywald had opened the case, despite most explicit operational instructions, and was now lying in a critical condition in the Chaniá hospital.

  When he’d finished he used the PGP encryption program to scramble the text, re-dialled the server and sent off the message. And all he could do then was wait for McCready to respond.

  Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  John Westwood spent some time jotting down notes on a piece of paper, trying to work out the criteria that had to apply to Mr X, which wasn’t easy because he still didn’t have a hell of a lot to go on.

  What he knew for sure was that the unknown killer had to have been working for the Agency by 1971, and probably for at least a couple of years before that to have acquired sufficient experience to become involved in Operation CAIP. But he wasn’t listed as one of the senior agents, all now dead, so it had probably been one of his first assignments. The other thing Westwood deduced was that he was either still employed by the CIA or had a very close associate who was. And because Mr X seemed determined to eliminate anyone who knew anything at all about CAIP, the ‘associate’ idea didn’t really fly. Finally, he knew the man must be based at Langley or somewhere very close, because that area was where he was doing his killing.

  The numbers bothered him. The Central Intelligence Agency employs just over twenty thousand full-time non-clerical staff, plus a virtually unlimited number of part-time specialists and consultants, as well as contract agents – normally just hired for one specific assignment because of their specialist knowledge or abilities – and regular support staff. With that large an organization, finding just one man was going to prove extremely difficult, but as far as Westwood could see it was the only avenue still open to him.

  He nodded to himself at the realization, then rang the Personnel Department. ‘I need the names and departments of all CIA agents who joined the Agency in or before 1969, and who are still employed by us, but who are not currently on overseas assignments.’

  There was a slightly stunned silence. ‘Do you have any idea how much work that’s going to take? I’m not even sure we can manage it.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find a way,’ Westwood replied firmly. ‘Just imagine I’m the head of a department, and that it’s real urgent.’

  ‘You are the head of a department.’

  ‘So I am,’ Westwood said. ‘That should make it easier for you. And it is real urgent.’

  Réthymno, Crete

  About an hour after Stein had sent off his email message to McCready, Mike Murphy was back in his hotel room, sitting at the desk and logging on to the same classified server, requesting a SITREP on the activities of the First Team.

  He didn’t have long to wait. Thirty minutes later he logged on again, downloaded, decrypted and then read the brief reply from America: ‘Phase two complete. Elias dead. Krywald critically ill in Chaniá hospital. Stein has steel case. Recovery of case now Priority One task. Elimination of Krywald and Stein is Priority Two. Immediate executive action approved at your discretion.’

  ‘OK,’ Murphy muttered, and smiled as he shut down the laptop. ‘Time to get this show on the road.’

  Chaniá, Crete

  Richter’s mobile rang as he was leaving the hospital. ‘Hullo.’

  ‘This is Mickey Mouse,’ the quietly cultured voice said into his ear, and Richter immediately identified the first part of the recognition signal he himself had specified to Simpson.

  ‘Summer Lightning,’ Richter replied, giving the correct but completely unpredictable response.

  ‘Charles Ross. I’m your friendly local representative. How can we help you?’

  ‘Paul Richter. What phone are you using?’ Richter moved off the pavement and well out of the way of any passers-by.

  ‘Regular Nokia, I’m afraid,’ Ross replied. ‘We don’t have all the facilities here we’d like, if you see what I mean.’

  That was an irritation, nothing more. Encrypted phones only work if both parties are using them: as Ross only had a regular GSM mobile, Richter knew he would have to be circumspect in what he said and how he said it.

  ‘First, I need to trace two Americans who have been staying here on the island. Their names are Roger Curtis and Richard Watson, and they’ve probably been here for a week or so.’

  ‘Hotel or apartment?’

  ‘Most likely a hotel,’ Richter replied. ‘They’ve probably also hired a car somewhere, and maybe a boat as well. They were planning to do some diving.’

  ‘Deep diving with a somewhat explosive aviation connection, you mean?’ Obviously Ross had been well briefed by SIS London, or perhaps had even heard direct from Simpson.

  ‘Exactly. I’ve just heard that Curtis is hospitalized at Chaniá, and he’s not going to be coming out for a while, maybe not ever, so I really do need to trace Watson.’

  ‘OK,’ Ross drawled, ‘I’ll get my people to look into it. Anything else you need?’

  ‘Yes, as soon as you have a location for Watson, we need to meet so that we can pay him a visit. There are some things I need to discuss with him urgently.’

  Réthymno, Crete

  Richard Stein had read more classified operation files than he could remember, but this CAIP business was a first for him.

  It wasn’t actually the file’s contents that had alarmed him, because he frankly understood almost none of it. The whole file was full of detailed notes about medical procedures and inoculations, and the reactions from patients to those procedures. That part looked reassuringly harmless.

  But at the very back of the file was an ‘Executive Summary’ of CAIP which pre-dated by about nine months all the other material contained in the file. This six-page summary explained in some detail exactly what CAIP involved and what it was intended to achieve. That bit was obviously what Krywald had read, and when Stein finished reading the last page, he knew exactly what his partner had meant – and he hadn’t been exaggerating. If anybody outside the Central Intelligence Agency found out what CAIP was meant to achieve, Stein really could see a backlash of public opinion forcing the closure of the Agency. The fact that CAIP had been wound up over thirty years earlier meant nothing at all. Even if CAIP were to be made public in a hundred years from now, the result could well be the same.

  Almost without conscious thought Stein took a pocket knife and sliced through the corner of the summary, removing it from the tag that had secured it to the file. Those six pages were dynamite, and he wondered if he could use them somehow to buy his safety and his freedom. After
a moment, he folded them twice and shoved them to the bottom of the very back document pocket of his briefcase.

  The actual mechanics of CAIP had been technically simple, barely even meriting the description of ‘operation’. There had been no enemy, no resistance and no danger, in the conventional sense of the words. But the casualty figures made very impressive – or very distressing – reading, depending entirely upon the point of view of the reader.

  At last Stein understood exactly why McCready had been so insistent that the aircraft must be completely destroyed, and why recovery of the case containing the file and remaining flasks was so vital.

  He also realized there were two reasons why McCready had expressly instructed that the case be passed to him unopened. First, anyone who opened the case was clearly exposing himself to the deadly agent that lurked inside it. Roger Krywald knew that now, but it was far too late for him. The second reason was the file. Anyone reading the file and finding out what CAIP stood for, what the operation had comprised, became an immediate threat to the CIA itself.

  Stein could guess exactly what kind of action McCready might take to eliminate that threat. And as Stein’s last message had already confirmed that Krywald had opened the steel case, there could be little doubt that either Krywald or Stein, or maybe both of them, had read at least some of the incriminating file. Stein wished, briefly, that he’d taken a look at the file before he’d sent that message to McCready. But it was too late for that now.

  No doubt there was already an assassination squad located somewhere on Crete, ready and waiting for an executive instruction to eliminate him. Since they had arrived on the island, neither he nor Krywald had bothered taking the usual precautions, simply because their task had seemed to be nothing more than a simple clean-up operation.

  His knowledge of CAIP changed all that. He was going to have to start watching his back, remain aware of everything and everyone, otherwise he was likely to become just another statistic. Stein reached for the pistol in the waistband of his trousers, extracted the magazine and checked that it was fully loaded, slid it back into the butt of the SIG and worked the slide to chamber a round.

  It would be a novel experience, he thought as he tucked the pistol back under his jacket, to be the prey rather than the hunter. He just had to ensure that it wouldn’t be a terminal experience.

  Chaniá, Crete

  The hospital staff at Chaniá had been very confused when Roger Krywald stumbled in through their doors. None of them had ever seen a case like this before. The American was bleeding from almost everywhere, but had no apparent external injuries. He was fast becoming delirious, and weakening steadily from loss of blood.

  In the absence of any better ideas, they put him in a side-ward, placed a large sign on the door forbidding entry to anyone not directly connected with the patient’s treatment, stationed an orderly outside to ensure this prohibition was enforced, and immediately started barrier nursing procedures. Nobody would go near him who wasn’t wearing theatre scrubs, a waterproof apron, rubber boots, mask, protective goggles and two pairs of surgical gloves, one over the other. And as soon as they emerged from the side-ward they changed out of these garments, which were immediately bagged for disposal by burning. It wasn’t quite as effective as an isolation ward, but the best they could manage in the circumstances.

  The first thing the nursing staff did with the patient was cut the clothes off him and double-bag them for destruction by fire. With Krywald lying naked on the bed on a waterproof mattress covered by a thin cotton sheet, one doctor again checked his body for any lesions or other signs of violence, while a second ran his vital signs. What he found was pretty much what he could have predicted: weak pulse, low blood pressure, yet a surprisingly strong heartbeat.

  They set up two saline drips, one in each arm, and because Krywald was beginning to thrash about they secured his wrists and ankles to the bed frame with soft fabric straps. He was in this condition, one of the doctors still in attendance, when Hardin and Gravas arrived.

  When the orderly barred their access to the sideward, Gravas quickly explained that his companion was an infectious diseases specialist, and needed to talk to the attending doctor immediately. As the orderly turned to rap on the glass window in the door, Hardin unzipped his bag and began pulling out his biological space suit.

  As soon as the door opened, Gravas motioned to the orderly to move well clear as the doctor stepped out into the corridor. ‘My name is Gravas,’ he said, ‘and with me here is an American specialist from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. We believe this patient is suffering from the same viral infection that has already killed two men in the village of Kandíra.

  ‘It’s vital that you treat him as if he is highly contagious. I can see that you’ve already started barrier nursing, but you should also ensure there’s no physical contact between the nurses and doctors involved.’

  Hardin gestured that he was ready to have his biological suit sealed. ‘Now,’ Gravas said, ‘Mr Hardin will enter the ward and examine the patient. Have you been recording his pulse and respiration?’

  The Cretan doctor nodded. ‘Since he arrived, his pulse has grown weaker and his blood pressure has been falling steadily. When I first saw him, he was delirious, and now he’s unconscious.’

  Gravas translated for Hardin’s benefit. The American checked that his battery-driven blower was firmly attached to his belt, with the HEPA filter in place, then pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  Réthymno, Crete

  Stein again checked the server for messages, though in view of what he now knew about CAIP he thought it unlikely that McCready would provide him with any way off this island outside a pine box. So he wasn’t particularly surprised when he found nothing waiting for him.

  He had to decide what to do now. Krywald was dying, might already be dead, and there was no way Stein was going to go back to the hospital to check on him. He also was going to have to be careful about leaving his hotel. McCready would almost certainly have sent a cleaner, perhaps even a team of them, to Crete, so it was possible that one was already sitting on the opposite side of the street watching the hotel entrance through the telescopic sight of a silenced sniper rifle.

  Stein was going to have to use the rear entrance, maybe even wait until after dark before he could leave safely. The only other possibility was to exit in the middle of a large party of tourists, but the hotel currently didn’t seem to have enough guests to make that a viable option.

  Even when he got out, he wasn’t sure where he could go: he couldn’t return home without undergoing extensive facial surgery. But, no matter. Stein had always liked Europe, and he had funds salted away in various banks around the world so, while he wasn’t exactly a rich man, he could certainly live fairly comfortably on his assets. And, if things got tight, he could always try peddling his knowledge of the inner workings of the CIA to some of the more anti-American European intelligence services – like the French, for example.

  Chaniá, Crete

  ‘They’re based in a hotel in Réthymno,’ Ross explained as soon as Richter answered his mobile. ‘I’m still in Irakleío, but I’m leaving in five minutes. I suggest we meet there in the town. Where are you now?’

  ‘Right, I’m in Chaniá at the moment,’ Richter replied, ‘but I’ve got a room booked in Réthymno. How about we meet at my hotel?’

  ‘Fine,’ Ross said, ‘give me the address.’ Richter’s hire car, he belatedly remembered, was still over at Kandíra, so he hailed a taxi. After a short argument over the fare – the driver hadn’t liked the idea of charging it on the meter, but Richter could be very persuasive when he wanted – he was en route to Réthymno along the main north-coast road.

  Chapter 21

  Friday

  Chaniá, Crete

  Mike Murphy actually passed Richter’s taxi on its way east towards Réthymno, as he himself approached the outskirts of Chaniá in his Peugeot. He had decided to take care of Krywald first, just in case
the American staged some kind of miraculous recovery from whatever bug had attacked him. What he couldn’t do was just wait around until Krywald died: Nicholson had been emphatic that there were to be no loose ends when Murphy left the island.

  He left his car in a public parking area outside the hospital, headed in through the double doors and across to the receptionist. After some slight language difficulties, he was given directions to the ward where ‘Mr Curtis’ was confined.

  But when he glanced in through the window while walking down the corridor under the suspicious gaze of the orderly standing outside, Murphy realized that his presence was probably both superfluous and pointless. Superfluous, because Krywald was quite obviously, even to untrained eyes, on the point of death, and pointless because there was no easy way he could get anywhere near the patient. At least, not from inside the building.

  Ignoring the orderly, Murphy carried on along the corridor without breaking stride. A side-ward two doors down from Krywald’s was empty and, after a swift glance around to check that nobody was watching, he pushed open the door and stepped inside. The room had a small bathroom attached, with just a toilet and a sink, and hanging from a rail was a light blue hand towel. Murphy grabbed it, stepped back into the main room and walked across to the window. He pushed it open, dangled the towel partly outside, then pulled the window closed to hold the towel in place. Now he had a useful marker.