Gita pressed the button on her phone. Tom reached out suddenly and grabbed her wrist. ‘Don’t make a phone call now, someone might hear you.’
‘I’m not making a call, I’m opening my compass App,’ she snapped in a low but angry voice. ‘I’m familiar with the grounds but if you hadn’t noticed it’s pitch black. I need to get a sense of direction.’
Tom snatched his hand back in surprise. This was quite uncharacteristic of the Gita he had known for the last twenty-four hours. Perhaps now she had committed herself and was on home ground she had become more confident.
‘Sorry, stupid of me, lead the way.’
Gita studied the compass on her phone and pointed into the darkness. ‘The admin block should be over there. I don’t think we need to crawl now; if we tread quietly I think we should be all right. The security guards are on the opposite side next to the laboratory.’
Tom opened his hands in compliance. He followed this new bolder Gita into the night.
Nick took a note of their direction and continued digging. It took him longer than he had expected as, after a few tens of centimetres, he hit a rock. He crawled back into the bushes to find a piece of hard bamboo, sharpened it with his leatherman knife, and returned to the hole under the fence. He dug around the rock and it slowly gave up its grip when he prised the bamboo under it, using it as a lever. He glanced at the glowing figures on the dial of his watch. It had taken a lot longer than he had hoped. As long as those dogs were parading the perimeter and not smelling out his two companions in the middle. The hole wasn’t as big as he would have liked but he was running out of time so he pushed his arms through and shoved as hard as he could. He got his head through easily but the fence clamped down on his broad shoulders.
‘Fuck this,’ he barked. ‘Worse than a bloody army exercise.’
He pulled back again and attacked the bottom of the fence with the leatherman pliers. The wire was thick and they weren’t really up to the job but with Nick’s strength and tenacity some of the links finally gave way.
‘Okay Coburn, you can’t let those kids down, it better work this time,’ he muttered slipping down onto the ground again. It was a tight fit, yet easier. The wire cut into his back and no doubt was spilling blood but at least half of his torso was through. If he wriggled his hips and pulled forward on his hands he should be okay. Just then a snarl came from the dark. Nick froze. He had left the meat on the other side of the fence. His body was filling the hole and his arms and hands were on the wrong side. He lay as still as he could but the dogs could smell him, or at least the bag of meat nearby. He heard them growling and snuffling closer.
Two hundred metres away Tom and Gita had found the administration hut. Gita used her phone light to find the card slot and slipped her key card into it. The door opened with a reassuring click. They crept inside. The only lights coming from the room were from softly humming computers and printers. Pinpricks of green and red throwing eerie shadows across the desks. Tom and Gita used the soft blue light from their phones to find their way to the filing cabinets at the back of the office. Their eyes were slowly becoming adjusted and it became easier to navigate their way around the room. Gita tried the drawer of the first cabinet she came to. It was locked. Tom groaned in exasperation but Gita signalled towards a desk drawer. He opened it and found a bunch of keys. She opened her hand and indicated that he should throw them to her. Not wanting to risk the noise, in case she dropped them, he walked around the desk and placed them carefully into her palm. He shone the phone light while she picked through them and inserted one of them into the lock. It didn’t work. Patiently she tried another. On the third attempt the filing cabinet drawer slid open. Gita flicked through the files and triumphantly pulled one out. A large bang came from behind them and she immediately dropped it. Tom’s heart nearly stopped. Gita swung around and took in a huge gulp of warm air.
‘It’s only the door,’ she explained in a hushed voice. ‘We forgot to close it behind us.’
Tom steadied himself against the wall and closed his eyes for a second. ‘Shit, that’s my fault I should have done that. I’ll do it now while you pick up those papers.’
He walked back to the doorway and looked around outside before he shut it noiselessly. ‘No one around anyway. Are those the documents?’
‘Think so, here take a look.’
Tom took the assortment of official-looking documents from her and placed them on a desk. Some were written in Javanese and didn’t make any sense to him but others emblazoned with formal looking stamps were written in English. He picked out a letter with a London address. It was a request for samples of incubating microbes. He had never heard of the species before. Pseudomonas synthetica, klebsiella titanicus, eschericia fortida. The forenames resembled gram-negative bacteria, bacteria that cause pneumonia and blood infections, and bacteria that were hard to kill.
‘Is the export licence there?’ whispered Gita from beside him. ‘It’s on a yellowy kind of paper.’
‘It’s difficult to see the colour of paper in this light, are you sure it wasn’t written in Javanese?’
‘No it’s definitely in English. Most of the international documents are.’
Tom rifled through the file. Gita jabbed her finger at one of the pieces of paper. ‘There, that’s it. Export licence to northern Africa but the numbers that relate to the material, don’t match.’
Tom peered more closely at the columns. Harmless-looking chemicals, routinely used in microbiology labs, were printed alongside four-digit reference numbers. ‘What do you mean they don’t match?’
‘See this number here, alongside some sort of agar preparation. That’s not what it refers to. I’m working on that specimen number in the lab. It’s yet to be tested but we have to handle it through sealed cabinets. It could be highly contagious and lethal.’
‘So you think they are shipping out this dangerous stuff under false names.’
‘It looks like it. Look at the price per milligram; you could buy a tank full of chemicals for that.’
Tom carefully laid out the papers and started to take photographs with his camera phone.
‘The flash is a bit bright,’ said Gita. ‘Why don’t we just take them with us?’
Tom continued methodically. ‘Can’t be helped, if we steal them they’ll notice and probably do some sort of cover-up. We need…’ He stopped abruptly as he noticed something on one of the files.
‘What’s wrong,’ asked Gita.
‘Nothing, just a bizarre coincidence. This address here on one of the export forms. I’ve seen it before. It’s in Nathalie’s production notes.’
‘Who’s Nathalie?’
‘My director. She’s been in contact with these people here. It’s the company in North Africa. They’re asking for samples to be sent to their plant in Morocco.’
‘She thinks they’re helping terrorists too?’
‘No, that’s why it’s really weird. I think she’s just using them to get some background on drugs.’
‘What would she say about this?’
‘I’ve no idea. And that’s another thing, I’ve never made a programme before. I’m supposed to be checking out stuff to film. Here we are creeping around in the dark worried about the phone flash drawing attention. How in the hell is she going to get a film crew in here?’
Gita pointed to his phone. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’
Tom stared at her. She had been so nervous in the company of her brother he had forgot how bright she was. ‘Yes, stupid of me, she’s seven hours behind, it will be late afternoon there.’ He pressed the speed dial.
Nathalie’s voice was as clear as if she was in the next room. ‘Tom?’
‘Hi Nathalie, hope I’m not disturbing you, just want a bit of advice.’
‘No problem Tom, but haven’t got long, I’m just about to board a plane for the States. Fire away.’
Tom thought it best to play down his situation. ‘I’ve located the lab and I’m pretty sure they are up
to no good. Found a lab researcher who agrees with me, and have some documents in front of me but can’t remove them from the building.’
‘Okay, just had my last call. Take stills and e-mail them to me.’
Tom flashed his thumbs across the face of the phone. ‘Done.’
‘Now use the video camera on your phone to take a bit of action. Put the papers on the desk and use someone’s hand to turn them over and to point to anything you think is important. Take various sizes of shot. Make sure you’ve got a lot of light on it and that you keep the camera still. The lab assistant sounds good, we could interview her and get her to do some clandestine filming.’
Tom heard an airport announcement in the background. He was just about to tell Nathalie that it might be difficult to get Gita to do any filming when the door of the hut burst open. The porch light had been activated and outlined the silhouette of a man in a beret holding what looked like a small machine gun. Tom acted quickly and pointed the only weapon he had in his hand. The flash of his camera lit up the room.
Fourteen
The phone in Nathalie’s hand went dead. The last boarding call had already been announced so she didn’t try to reconnect; not unusual for a line to Indonesia to be broken off. She would get back to him from Los Angeles.
The plane was full, no seats to lie across. She did the maths. An eleven-hour flight and Los Angeles was seven hours behind. That meant she would get to her hotel just before midnight. Best to keep awake and try to sleep when she got there. The shoot was scheduled in the Infectious Diseases department of UCLA at 9.00 am sharp. She had got the call as she was returning to the office after her lunch with Geoff. Veronica had organised some confidential filming with Zormax concerning adding an Ebola vaccine to their portfolio. At the last minute her director had gone sick. An opportunity for both of them, she had said. She would pay Nathalie’s flight if she stood in. As a bonus Nathalie could find out more about Zormax.
‘It’s a win-win,’ Veronica had pleaded. ‘I’m afraid I can’t give you a fee because that’s already been committed but the flight’s booked and paid for. You did say you wanted to know more about that company.’
Nathalie had referred the idea to Geoff who in turn had referred it to Stefanie. Stefanie worked out that it would be possible for her to get a flight from Los Angeles to Surabaya and then on to Harare. If she accepted to film their legs with local Indonesian and African crew then it should be well within the budget. Nathalie was never keen on using local cameramen but this job was different; she needed to be as invisible as possible. Arriving with a cameraman, equipment and carnet would be like putting an advertisement in the paper. By late afternoon she had been at Heathrow and now here she was, on board, taking off in an Airbus A380.
As soon as the seatbelt signs were turned off Nathalie took a look at her phone. Tom’s e-mail had not yet come through. She put it away and dug out the call-sheet and production notes that Medical Films had biked over. There had been a bit of a fuss about changing names on the ticket but Veronica had a contact in British Airways and it was somehow smoothed over. Nathalie still had a journalist’s visa for the States which was the main thing. Bill Sharpe’s name as director on the manifest was the only thing that would have told anyone that there had been a last-minute change. Although Medical Films didn’t produce broadcast stuff they were still very professional. The call-sheet was better than most of Bagatelle’s. Geoff’s excuse would have been that investigative documentaries are shot on the hoof and it was pointless scheduling a day from minute to minute. Nathalie preferred a plan at least; one could always change it later. The production assistant who had written this had done her homework. The location, crew’s names and phone numbers, as well as a do-able but tight schedule were all clearly laid out. Most production companies tended to think you could move from one location to another in minutes. Only the PAs who had actually been on a shoot realised that it took an hour or so to rig a proper lighting set-up. Anyone expecting more than five to ten minutes’ finished footage in a ten-hour day was not really interested in making a quality film. No, the actual filming schedule looked alright. What was more daunting was the first item written on the list, Meeting with Medicolegal Department to clear the script. Nathalie had been to these sorts of pharmaceutical meetings before. ‘Medical Legal department.’ More like ‘film prevention unit,’ she thought. Every objection possible was made to what anyone could say. You would think the pharmaceutical company’s lawyer was working for the other side. She hoped the trip would be worth it. She didn’t really know what she was looking for. Geoff had said that if she had a sixth sense she should follow it. It was cheaper to get to Java and Zimbabwe via a free flight to Los Angeles more like it.
The plane touched down in LAX on time and Nathalie hailed a cab to the hotel written on her call-sheet, The Royal Palace just off Wilshire Boulevard. It was a simple three-storey hotel, within walking distance of the medical centre. Just perfect. Nathalie took a shower, set her alarm and slid between the crisp sheets. She turned to switch off the bedside light and her phone on the table reminded her of Tom’s e-mail. She logged into the hotel’s WiFi and tapped the envelope icon. A few items were in her inbox, most of them junk but she found Tom’s attachments and opened them. There were about five documents in all, some in a foreign language, but a couple in English drew her attention. The print was difficult to read and phone screen too small to study them in detail so she reluctantly spun out of bed and reached for her laptop. When she expanded the documents, she thought she must be hallucinating from jetlag; there in the bottom right-hand corner of one certificate was a signature. Like many signatures completely indecipherable, but just above it a typed name – Biomedivac. Of course it could be possible that there was more than one company called Biomedivac in the world but surely not on a piece of paper next to an address in Morocco. Nathalie was not a great believer in coincidences and spent much of her sleep-disturbed night trying to work out why Professor Townes’ outfit would be communicating with a suspect laboratory in eastern Java.
It was only a twenty-minute walk from her hotel to the medical centre so Nathalie had an early breakfast and decided to take a stroll in the Los Angeles sunshine. As she made her way down Westwood Plaza through the university campus she recalled one of Geoff’s old stories. He had been directing a shoot in the old UCLA; yes it was hard to believe but he did actually go out on shoots in those days. The old UCLA was apparently now closed but Geoff said it had some of the longest corridors in the world. According to one of the doctors he filmed there, long enough to use as a shooting gallery. Geoff had told her that the said doctor packed a loaded Magnum revolver in the top of his cowboy boots barely covered by his white lab coat. Nathalie never knew how much Geoff’s filming stories were embellished but he swore this was true. ‘The guy was really wacky, even smeared bacteria on door handles to get back at his colleagues,’ he had told her. ‘Anyone who crossed him would end up in the john for a week.’ She hoped no one was smearing any bugs on the door handles of the new hospital because, as she’d learned in Africa, the Ebola virus was not to be played with.
The new UCLA Medical Centre was a classic modern building made up of a number of pale smooth blocks inscribed with, what Nathalie thought, a chequered tablecloth design. A number of small black page-like windows pierced this facade. She left the heat of the sunshine and walked into the air-conditioned reception.
‘Nathalie Thompson, Medical Films,’ she said offering an identity card to the person behind the desk. ‘I believe a…’ she glanced down at her call-sheet, ‘Vince Page is meeting me here?’
A voice from over her shoulder brought her up sharply. ‘That’s me, Miss Thompson, welcome to Los Angeles.’
Nathalie turned around and had to crane her neck to look up at a very tall, dark-haired American.
He noticed her surprise. ‘Sorry to startle you, I’m from Zormax. We’ll just get you signed in here and I’ll take you to meet the others.’
‘The other
s’ were an entourage of medical and legal personnel from the pharmaceutical company along with a key opinion leader from the Microbiology Department who had agreed to be interviewed. They were heavily engrossed in conversation when Nathalie turned up. She knew from her notes that the company wanted the endorsement from a non-company expert who could talk about Ebola, its devastating consequences and the possible mechanisms of a vaccine. This was all to be shot against the background of a modern laboratory, hence UCLA. This interview was to be followed by a more political and strategic statement from a senior company representative. Boring, but a ‘piece of cake’ in film terms. Two interviews with the interviewer’s questions off-mic, one with a bit of lab background, the other in an office. Nathalie could do this sort of thing standing on her head. What she knew from experience was that the problem wasn’t going to be the actual filming, it was going to be what these guys were allowed what, and what not, to say.
The Los Angeles film crew turned up on cue. Nathalie took them to one side, introduced herself to the cameraman, the sound recordist and the sparks, and told them it might be a little while before they could light the first location. First, no one had decided where that was yet and second, there was going to be a meeting to decide on the content. Why this hadn’t been done before she had no idea but there you go. The crew sloped off to the coffee shop and Nathalie returned to the ‘suits’.
She entered the middle of an argument about where they were going to hold the interview. The marketing manager wanted a high-tech exciting scientific background. The medical expert was explaining that the laboratories belonged to the hospital and he couldn’t just let them in without permission. ‘Besides,’ he was saying, ‘they contain some quite delicate experiments; we wouldn’t want any cross contamination.’
Drugs to Forget Page 13