by Louise Voss
It was warm and dark in the lecture theatre with forty or so students in attendance, many of them pecking away on mobile phones or laptops. As Harley climbed the stairs to slide into the back row of raked seating, he noticed that most of the screens displayed social networking sites and games. He couldn’t prevent a quiet but judgmental sort of tut slipping out at their seemingly total lack of interest. Why bother to show up if you were going to sit and play Angry Birds instead of listening?
‘Of course, what is of primary concern to us virologists is the way in which West Nile disease is transmitted. It’s not airborne, as I’m sure you know, and therefore not strictly relevant to my lecture today, but I’ll talk about it for a few minutes, because it’s really fascinating …’
The speaker was a slim woman with long, shiny brown hair and a mid-Atlantic accent. She stood on the stage with her back to the audience, and Harley admired her high heels and tight pencil skirt as she pointed to a PowerPoint slide of the map of the world, dotted in various locations with outsize illustrations of mosquitoes, their long thin legs dangling like a toddler’s faint scribbles. Kate Maddox, he thought, you are damn lucky to be alive.
‘Mosquitoes become infected after feeding on virus-carrying birds, such as crows, and the mosquitoes can then infect humans …’
He wondered if she remembered him. He was pretty sure that his appearance would not be a welcome one, especially when he explained why he’d been sent to talk to her.
‘… and this map shows the increase of West Nile encephalitis in the Western world in the last decade …’
Kate turned back round to face her audience, and it struck Harley how beautiful she was. She was unrecognisable as the wild-eyed woman she’d been two years previously, when he’d first seen her during the raid on a lab, the secret HQ of a criminal virologist named Gaunt. Kate and her boyfriend Paul had been held prisoner there, a fate doubly painful to her, in the knowledge that her little boy had just been sent out into the world with a deadly virus. It had been a frantic race against time to get them out, find the antivirus – and then find her son, Jack.
‘One biotech company has found that blocking angiotensin II can treat the “cytokine storm” of West Nile virus encephalitis – and, even more exciting, of other viruses too. The potential of this is enormous, and I feel we scientists are getting close to developing a vaccine that will work on a variety of strains of similar mosquito-borne viruses.’
A fleeting look of anxiety passed across Dr Maddox’s features as she talked, clearly noticing the students shifting in their seats, playing games on their phones, or whispering, but it was so brief that Harley was probably the only one to notice it.
She’s losing them, he thought, half sympathetically, half curious to see how she would react. He watched her closely as she pushed back her shoulders and inhaled deeply. A subtle movement, but one that denoted a gathering of control. Harley recalled the last time they’d met: at the funeral of the poor bastard killed in the same lab raid. Stephen Wilson, Paul’s twin brother. A weird one, as they all thought Stephen had died years earlier anyway, in a fire. Must have been like burying a ghost. Harley remembered a blistering hot day, with the floral tributes already withering on the grave. Not much body left to bury – the virus had turned it to purée within minutes of being unleashed. He shivered.
‘But it’s the lab-manufactured ones we need to be more concerned about. “Designer” viruses, created to cause havoc, that could quite conceivably wipe out whole continents if they got into the wrong hands – or rather, remained in the wrong hands.’
The students stopped fidgeting and visibly sat up straighter, as did Harley, even though he was well aware of the facts already. A heavily tattooed boy near the front whistled softly.
‘Seriously? So that shit really does go on?’
Dr Maddox smiled at him. ‘I shouldn’t say that kind of thing – walls have ears, ha ha! But take haemorrhagic viruses, for example, my primary area of expertise. My partner, Dr Isaac Larter – some of you may have heard of him, he’s extremely well-known in his field – and I have been studying one particularly virulent strain for years, the Watoto virus, which is similar to Ebola but airborne, making it easier to transmit. Its origins are natural – the word Watoto means “child” in Swahili, as its first victims tend to be children – and there have been several breakouts in West Africa. Fortunately these have been restricted to remote and contained areas, but we always have to be on the lookout for shifts in its genetic make-up. And you may have heard of the recent case in which two sets of researchers found a way to make bird flu infectious through airborne transmission – which could ultimately wipe out half the human race. Because of the fear of bioterrorists stealing the virus, or the new strain escaping from a lab, the researchers agreed to stop research …’
Kate Maddox looked out at the now rapt, if slightly blurry faces in front of her. She intentionally never wore her glasses to give lectures, as a means of not allowing herself to get intimidated by her audience – public speaking had never been her strong suit, although she knew it came with the territory. She hadn’t needed her specs, though, to discern that they’d been rapidly losing interest up until this point.
Phew, she thought. Got ’em back again. A mention of the threat of global annihilation usually did the trick. This lecture was proving hard work, though. She wished she could be back in the lab in Oxford, bantering with Isaac – her ‘work husband’ as Paul referred to him, without rancour, for Isaac was a good friend to Paul as well as to Kate. We must have him and Shelley round soon, Kate thought, as she talked through the grisly symptoms of Influenza A virus, subtype H1N1. It’s our turn to cook them dinner. Isaac was in the US at the moment, at the big immunology conference, rubbing shoulders with many of the top researchers in the field. Kate was supposed to be there too – had even booked her ticket – but last week Jack, ironically, had come down with chickenpox. He was fine now, just a bit spotty. He’d been lucky and hadn’t suffered too much, but Kate hadn’t wanted to leave him.
She spoke for another half an hour, until her voice became croaky and her legs ached with the tension. Isaac can bloody well do the next one, she thought, and next time I’ll be the one who gets to swan off to a conference in California.
The university was a four-hour journey from her home in Oxfordshire, and she was glad she’d had the foresight to ask them to book her into the local Travelodge. She was looking forward to a large drink and to kicking off the high heels that were making her feet cramp up.
‘Well,’ she said briskly, ‘we’re out of time, so I will leave you all to start building your bunkers and never venturing outside again without face masks and biohazard suits on.’
Polite laughter ensued, and the same short, hirsute professor who’d introduced her shambled back on to the stage to thank her and lead a half-hearted round of applause.
As the students filed out, Kate started putting away her laptop. The professor sidled up to her, scratching his beard. He was a full head shorter than her, and seemed to address his comments to her briefcase. Kate thought he looked as though he lived in Middle Earth.
‘Wondered if you would like to, er, come for a coffee, Dr Maddox? I would love to discuss your research into the Watoto virus in more detail. It’s absolutely fascinating. I could give you a lift?’
Kate had a brief image of them getting on the back of a donkey tethered to the railings outside, the professor with all his possessions tied in a handkerchief to a knotted ash stave that he carried over his shoulder.
‘Thank you so much for having me, but I’m actually really tired – and anyway my car is – oh!’
Her hand flew to her mouth as she suddenly recognised the remaining person in the lecture theatre, a stocky man in a baseball cap and tatty suede jacket. For a moment she thought her legs were going to give way, and a multitude of emotions and memories flooded through her: this man had been there as she’d looked through the porthole door of the lab and seen the bodies of Ste
phen and Dr Gaunt locked in there, writhing and dissolving into a pool of black blood on the floor before her eyes, instant victims of Pandora, one of the most deadly viruses on the planet. Then the despair of knowing that the one vial of antivirus that could save her son was also in the same room …
What on earth was he doing here now?
2
‘You remember me, don’t you, Kate?’ asked Harley, holding out his hand. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shock you. But I wondered if we could have a word, if you’re not busy.’
Although outwardly she retained her composure, Kate had turned pale. She shook his hand, and he felt the smooth contact of her skin. ‘Yes, of course I remember you. I’m terrible with names, though …?’
‘Jason Harley,’ he said, holding her hand a second too long. The professor looked distinctly annoyed.
‘Is everything all right, Dr Maddox?’
‘Thank you, Professor, it’s fine. This gentleman is an, um, old colleague of mine. And thank you again for hosting the lecture. I do hope your students enjoyed it.’ She turned back to Harley, somewhat reluctantly. ‘Let’s go for a drink, then.’
They drove in convoy out of the campus, Harley following Kate in her shabby red Golf. He could see her eyes darting anxious glimpses at him in the rear-view mirror when they stopped at traffic lights, and felt sorry for her. She pulled into the car park of the nearest pub, and he parked next to her.
‘I can’t stay long,’ she said as she got out and locked the door. It was still raining, more persistently now.
‘I won’t keep you.’
Once they were sitting across from one another on slippery leather sofas in a deserted corner, a glass of Scotch in front of each of them, Harley opened his mouth to explain.
Kate interrupted him before he got the words out. ‘Are you here to give me a warning because I mentioned the threat of bioterrorism? I mean, I didn’t think that would contravene the Official Secrets Act, I’m really sorry, but everyone knows that it’s a danger, look at the anthrax attacks, it’s common knowledge—’
He held up a hand. ‘That’s not why I’m here. Although it’s a good thing you didn’t mention Gaunt, or the Pandora virus – as you know, we prefer that those particular topics don’t become common knowledge …’ He didn’t want to let on to her that his colleagues had kept her and Paul under surveillance for the past two years, and they would certainly have known about it had either of them ever let anything slip.
‘Oh. Good. I don’t ever. Trust me. So why are you here?’
‘I’ll tell you, if you’ll let me.’ He smiled as he said it, trying to put her at ease. A strand of slightly damp hair twisted down below her collarbone, and he felt an urge to reach out and tweak it, before upbraiding himself for behaving like a lovelorn schoolboy. It was clearly too long since he’d had a girlfriend.
‘We need your help.’
‘Me?’ She looked away, but her instant reluctance was imprinted all over her features. You’d make a lousy spy, Dr Maddox, thought Harley, amused.
‘A situation has arisen in the US. California, to be precise. A new strain of virus that we haven’t seen before. It’s known as Indian flu, because it has broken out in a Native American reservation.’
Kate nodded and took a big swig of whisky, her interest immediately piqued.
‘It’s nasty. Really nasty. The first victim was thirty years old, fit, no underlying health issues. He got up one morning, complained to his wife that he had a sore throat and a runny nose. Went to his job on the reservation and apparently spent the whole shift sneezing over his co-workers, so they sent him home. Three days later, he was dead.’
‘Go on.’
‘A few days after that, his wife was dead too, along with three other people who worked with him. They’ve contained it, though. The whole reservation has been quarantined, no one in or out. There are no reported cases outside of it, so it seems it’s under control.’
Harley felt uncomfortable, misleading Kate in this way, but he had his orders: to recruit her to the team using any means he could, whether ethical or not. If he told her that the first victim worked in a casino, that several men who had been at that casino had died or were in intensive care and that the virus had spread beyond the reservation, she would be immediately aware of the risk faced by any visitor to California.
‘What kind of virus is it?’
‘I’m not a scientist, Kate. But from what I understand it’s a new strain of Watoto.’
Kate’s glass almost slipped from her grasp. ‘Watoto? In America? Why haven’t I heard about this?’
‘Because the US authorities are keeping it quiet at the moment. They don’t want to panic anyone. Anyway,’ he lied, ‘like I said, it’s not too serious, because it’s contained. Thank God it didn’t break out in Manhattan … My brief is to help the World Health Organization put together a team to create a vaccine in case of future outbreaks.’
‘Easier said than done. I’ve been trying to find a vaccine for Watoto for fifteen years.’
‘But with very limited resources, am I right? Now Watoto is seen as a … potential threat to the West, things are different. We’re assembling this team, to be based out in California at a state-of-the-art lab, the best equipment, money no object. All the top brass in your field. Well – not quite all of them. They want you to join them too.’
‘What?’
Harley repeated it in a level voice. ‘They – we – want you to fly out there and join the team. As soon as possible. They need you. You’re one of the world’s leading experts on Watoto. You had it. You survived. You’ve spent years researching it. The WHO contacted MI6 and asked us to recruit you.’ Another lie. But he knew she would never agree if she knew the whole truth.
Kate felt numb. Twice in her life she had almost been killed by a virus – Watoto itself and, at the Cold Research Unit, a mutated version of it that Gaunt had created. Two years ago she had discovered the truth about that, almost died at the hands of a psychopath and, worse, almost lost Jack.
She was still recovering from the trauma, seeing a therapist, the weekly reassurance of steepled fingers across a coffee table and the soft pull of tissues from the box next to her when her emotions spilled out; trying to live a ‘normal’ village life, growing odd-shaped vegetables, three-legged races at Jack’s school sports day, hay fever, nights out in the local pub with Isaac and Shelley and the local farmers. And now she was being asked to disrupt her life again and fly across the world.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t. What about Jack? He’s finally settled in his new school in the village. He’s made friends. So have we. And what about Paul? I can’t leave them both here, there’s no way—’
‘It sounds to me like you’re making excuses. If that’s the real reason you don’t want to do this then they can both come with you.’
Kate stared at him incredulously. ‘An epidemic of a highly infectious deadly disease has broken out. Even if it’s contained within this reservation, I wouldn’t want Jack anywhere near there.’
‘Like I said, it’s contained. But if you’re worried, Jack could stay in the UK, with your sister, perhaps?’
She shook her head. ‘Out of the question. Miranda’s husband’s recently left her, and Jack managed to give both her kids his chickenpox. She can’t cope as it is.’
‘What about taking him to Boston? That’s where his dad lives, isn’t it? It’s completely safe on the East Coast.’
‘No, he’s moved, he got a new job at the University of Dallas.’
‘Dallas is fine. Besides it’s not going to be for ever, Kate, probably a few weeks at most. I’ll be coming too – I can’t give you all the details until you agree, but a number of agencies are working alongside the WHO to respond to outbreaks like this.’
Kate was puzzled. She knew that serious epidemics and pandemics came under the auspices of GOARN, the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which was part of the World Health Organization. This unit was made up of v
arious UN branches, the Red Cross and other non-government bodies. Why were MI6 involved?
‘We need you, Kate.’
She shook her head. ‘We’ve only just got back into a normal routine. No, I’m sorry, it’s absolutely impossible. I’d love to go, and be part of the team that could finally crack Watoto – but I can’t. Please don’t ask me again. I’ll do what I can to help – I can put my research on hold here and work with the team via Skype, or whatever – but I’m not going out there.’
Kate rubbed her finger and thumb into her eyes, squeezing so hard that she saw stars. Once the black spots had cleared, she saw Harley gazing at her, not in an antagonistic way, but thoughtfully, patiently, as if he was waiting for her to say, ‘Oops, did I say no? I meant yes, of course. Let’s go.’
That chilled her, somehow more than if he’d insisted. She had a horrible feeling that saying no wasn’t really an option.
3
Oxfordshire
This is normality, thought Kate the next day as she stood in the rain at the school gates. Her son was often the first one out, tumbling through the doors with his hair sticking up in a tuft at the front, knees grimy and shirt buttoned up the wrong way.
Since Harley’s visit the night before, she hadn’t been able to think about anything except his offer. Her gut instinct had been to say no. After everything she’d been through, she craved a settled life for her family. She didn’t want to drag Jack halfway across the world, or leave him behind and make him feel as if she was abandoning him. But this was Watoto, which she saw as a personal enemy, and if she said yes, she would suddenly have unlimited research resources, and the chance of making the final breakthrough that she and Isaac had been working towards, on and off, for so many years. Then she tried to imagine how she would feel if the team of scientists managed to come up with an effective vaccine for the virus without her involvement – but equally quickly dismissed the thought as selfish.