White death sd-7

by Ken McClure

  ‘Really?’ asked Steven, suddenly feeling that he might not be so alone after all.

  ‘You asked about the funding behind Redmond Medical and St Clair Genomics. It turns out they have a common source; a company called European Venture Capital is the principal backer in both cases. It’s a concern that has been attracting the attention of our security services for some time, especially their front man. He’s an Englishman named Marcus Rose. They think he’s the old Etonian front for Russian Mafia money coming into the country.’

  ‘So the Russian Mafia bankrolled the Nichol vaccine?’ said Steven as if almost unwilling to believe what he was saying.

  ‘And stand to make millions out of it. Funny old world.’

  ‘The vaccine’s lethal,’ said Steven.

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Macmillan.

  Steven told him what he’d deduced.

  ‘But if you’re saying this thing is infectious, why couldn’t the lab people grow anything?’ protested Macmillan. ‘They all drew blanks.’

  ‘I’m trying to find that out,’ said Steven.

  ‘You’re going to need proof,’ said Macmillan. ‘The government is hailing the Nichol vaccine as a major step forward in protecting our people. On the other hand it would explain why those who’ll benefit from the vaccine hitting the shelves want you dead.’

  ‘It’s my connection with Scott Haldane, the GP in Edinburgh who was treating Trish Lyons, that’s making them think I’m a threat,’ said Steven. ‘I think Haldane figured out what was going on and that’s why they killed him, but his wife has come up with something that might help find out what it was.’ Steven told Macmillan about the hidden envelope and its contents. ‘I’ll be back in touch when I’ve made progress.’

  ‘Right, I’ll get to work on preparing a feast of gangland outrage for the newspapers to breakfast on.’

  Steven took her gin through to Tally who was luxuriating in a bath filled with Molton Brown bubbles, courtesy of the hotel. She opened her eyes when Steven put the glass down within reach.

  ‘Life has just taken a turn for the better,’ she purred. ‘Albeit a very temporary one… What did your boss have to say?’

  ‘The Russian Mafia are behind the Nichol vaccine.’

  Tally’s eyes opened like saucers. ‘How on earth did that happen?’

  ‘The West is awash with dodgy Russian cash looking for respectable outlets to launder it through — property, real estate, football clubs. It turns out that one of them is the venture capital company which backed St Clair Genomics and their development of the Nichol vaccine. Nichol’s “success” means a big return on their investment.’

  ‘And withdrawal of the vaccine would mean a big loss?’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘At least, it begins to make sense now,’ said Tally. ‘Mind you, I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.’

  ‘I think our aim should be to make it a thing of the past,’ said Steven. ‘And to do that, we have to figure out the meaning of the codes on Haldane’s cards.’

  Tally looked up at him from the bubbles. ‘Bring them through… and your drink… and get in.’

  Steven joined Tally in the bath, letting out a sigh of appreciation as the warm water lapped up over him. Tally smiled and said, ‘Funny where life can take you when you’re least expecting it… Where are we exactly?’

  ‘Not sure.’

  Tally gave a little giggle that told Steven the gin was going straight to her head. ‘Cheers,’ she said.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Steven, raising his glass in response.

  ‘Right, I’m ready,’ said Tally, leaning back and closing her eyes again. ‘Let’s have my starter for ten… no conferring.’

  Steven smiled and read out the series of letters and numbers from the first card.

  Tally tried to interpret. ‘Cole… Nat… colenat… colenate… No, let’s have the second.’

  Steven read out the second.

  ‘N-R-G… Energy?… No.’

  ‘They both end in the same four numbers,’ said Steven. ‘Two, zero, zero, one.’

  ‘A date, two thousand and one?’ suggested Tally.

  ‘Could be… Maybe a reference to something that happened several years ago?’

  Tally’s eyes shot open in response to Steven’s use of the word ‘reference’. ‘Read them out again,’ she said.

  ‘C-O-L-E space N-A-T…’

  ‘Cole… Nature,’ she said. ‘They’re not codes at all: they’re references. They’re shorthand references to papers in scientific journals! Cole is the author’s name, Nature is the journal. What were the numbers?’

  Seeing immediately that she was right, Steven completed the decoding. ‘Volume 409, pages 1007 to 1011. Two thousand and one. Brilliant.’

  ‘And the other?’ asked Tally.

  ‘N-R-G. Can’t say it rings a bell…’

  Tally gave it a few moments’ thought. ‘ Nature Reviews Genetics,’ she announced. ‘We’re there!’

  ‘Volume 2, page 37, two thousand and one,’ completed Steven.

  ‘Now we just have to find out what they say and why they’re relevant,’ said Tally, pulling the plug and stepping out of the bath.

  ‘We need to find a medical library,’ said Steven.

  ‘I would suggest going straight to my hospital but that’s probably a bad idea in the circumstances?’

  ‘It is,’ agreed Steven. ‘Special Branch will be looking for you and they’re possibly not the only ones.’

  They dressed hurriedly, snatching mouthfuls of sandwich as they did so. ‘Mmm, they’re good,’ mumbled Tally. ‘Wish we had more time. You know, you could always hand over the references to Sci-Med and let them check it out?’

  ‘No,’ said Steven. ‘We’ve come this far. Let’s see it through.’

  ‘If you say so,’ conceded Tally reluctantly. ‘Thinking about where we left the motorway, I reckon the med school at Warwick University in Coventry is probably the nearest.’

  ‘D’you know it?’ asked Steven.

  ‘I do,’ said Tally. ‘Leicester and Warwick universities have strong links and my hospital’s a teaching hospital. I know Warwick well. I can take you right to the library.’

  ‘Just what I wanted to hear,’ said Steven.

  Steven paid for one night with his credit card and ignored the looks that passed between staff on the desk.

  ‘What would my mother say…’ murmured Tally as they left.

  ‘I reckon we’ll just drive until we pick up a road sign,’ said Steven as they hurried across to the Honda.

  ‘Keeping well away from the motorway,’ added Tally.

  They followed country lanes in a vaguely north-west direction until, with a joint sigh of relief, they came to a junction with the A35, signposted Coventry. This was quickly followed by frustration when they found themselves stuck behind a tractor for what seemed an eternity until it turned off and they picked up speed again.

  ‘Any guesses what we’re going to find?’ asked Tally.

  Steven shook his head. ‘None at all. You?’

  ‘I can’t imagine,’ said Tally. She gave Steven directions as they entered the Warwick campus with both of them feeling nervous.

  The plan was to walk straight into the medical library and head for the reference section but a severe-looking librarian looked up from her desk when they entered and the fact that she didn’t smile or divert her gaze made Tally feel guilty. She walked over to the woman and showed her hospital staff card. Steven followed up with his ID which was examined in detail.

  ‘How can I help?’ the woman asked.

  ‘It’s all right,’ replied Tally. ‘I know my way around.’

  Steven winked at the woman and got a stony stare for his trouble.

  ‘I bet New Year at her house is a barrel of laughs,’ he murmured as they walked towards the reference section.

  ‘Ssh.’

  Tally ran her finger lightly over the alphabetic labelling at the end of each row of shelves as the
y passed, getting ever nearer to the back wall where the atmosphere was heavy with the smell of old books and dust. ‘Here we are, N for Nature.’

  ‘You get the genetics journal; I’ll get the other one,’ whispered Steven.

  A quick search of the shelves to his left and Steven found the bound copies of Nature journals from the year 2001. He removed the one containing volume 409 and took it over to an unoccupied table where he sat and waited for Tally to join him. His mouth was beginning to dry with excitement as he whispered, ‘You read that one and I’ll read this. Then we’ll talk.’

  Tally complied with a nod and they both opened their volumes to begin reading.

  Although he didn’t expect to feel encouraged by what he found, Steven had not anticipated the wave of horror that swept over him as he read the abstract of the relevant paper and slowly started to realise what must have happened at the St Clair Genomics lab. Even the reason for Scott Haldane working out what the problem might be became clear when Steven remembered that Haldane had worked for a long time in Africa. Haldane hadn’t known anything about the Nichol vaccine at all: he had recognised the symptoms of a disease in Trish Lyons that he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe or mention to anyone at the time.

  Steven slowly raised his eyes and saw that Tally had been filled with the same sense of horror. She mouthed the one word, ‘Leprosy?’ and he nodded as if subconsciously unwilling to confirm it. ‘This paper reports the work of a group at Cambridge who sequenced the leprosy genome,’ he said. ‘They found it to be a cut down version of the TB genome, as if at some time back on the evolutionary path, leprosy had discarded all the genes it could do without. TB has four thousand genes, leprosy only sixteen hundred.’

  ‘And that’s the reason they can’t grow it in the lab,’ said Tally. ‘The leprosy bacillus has to grow inside cells in the body, stealing nutrients from them and evading the immune system until it can infect the Schwann nerve cells. This in turn leads to sensory loss — the reason leprosy sufferers have such horrible disfigurement. They don’t feel it when they burn or cut themselves which leads to mutilation and continual infections.’

  Steven thought of Trish Lyons and the accident with boiling water. Trish had suffered horrible injuries but she was also shocked by the fact she didn’t feel pain. That’s what she had been trying to tell her mother and now Virginia Lyons was beginning to experience the same loss of sensation in the patches that were breaking out on her skin. Steven closed his eyes for a moment against the full implications of the nightmare.

  ‘But how could it happen?’ asked Tally, looking bemused.

  ‘Alan Nichol,’ said Steven but Tally’s eyes still asked the question.

  ‘He made his vaccine the “modern” way. He used the techniques of molecular biology to cut down the size of the TB genome in the lab until it was — he thought — no longer infectious only he had created a new version of the leprosy bacillus by accident. It stimulated antibody production against the genus that TB and leprosy belong to — Mycobacteria — but the strain didn’t grow in the lab so he thought he had made an effective non-live vaccine… to the applause and go-ahead from a grateful government.’

  ‘Oh God,’ sighed Tally, shaking her head. ‘What an absolute disaster.’

  ‘Judging by the way the infection raced through Keith Taylor, this strain may actually be worse than real leprosy itself,’ said Steven.

  Tally nodded. ‘It sounds like it can grow faster,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe it has a few more genes.’

  ‘On the other hand, it’s not progressing particularly quickly in the others,’ said Tally. ‘So maybe the human immune system is working better against this strain than it does against real leprosy?’

  ‘God, I hope so,’ said Steven. ‘Any idea what the treatment is for leprosy these days?’

  ‘I seem to remember reading in a journal recently that the World Health Organisation was recommending multi-drug therapy in their bid to stamp out the disease. Dapsone, rifampicin and clofazimine if I’m not mistaken. It’s not a disease I’ve ever come across.’

  ‘I guess that goes for all the other physicians and skin clinic people who missed the signs too,’ said Steven.

  Tally made an apologetic face. ‘I suppose so…’

  ‘If there is a god, he’s making it bloody hard for us agnostics to recognise the fact,’ said Steven.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘I’ll tell John Macmillan everything, get him to pull the plug on the vaccine, get treatment organised for the green sticker kids and their families and start the crucifixion scene in Whitehall.’

  ‘You don’t really think anyone there knew the whole truth, do you?’ asked Tally.

  ‘Not that it was leprosy in the vials,’ said Steven. ‘But, ultimately, these people were responsible for being taken in by a bunch of Russian gangsters and damned nearly licensing a vaccine that would have given kids all over the country leprosy. Given the opportunity, I personally will bang in the nails.’

  Steven brought out his phone and was about to call Sci-Med when one of the library staff appeared at his side. ‘I’m sorry, that’s against the rules,’ she said.

  Steven gave a half smile. ‘Of course,’ he said with a sideways glance at Tally. ‘We must stick to the rules… otherwise we’ll get in a right mess…’ He took the phone outside and called Macmillan.

  Tally waited for a few minutes inside and then went out to join Steven just as he was finishing the conversation. ‘All right?’ she asked.

  ‘All done,’ said Steven. ‘The dogs have been let loose.’

  ‘Do you think the government will fall?’

  ‘Right now, I neither know nor care. John Macmillan said that Downing Street will be calling in the leaders of the other parties to “keep everyone in the loop and chart the way ahead”.’

  ‘And us? What do we do?’

  ‘We lie low for a couple of days until Marcus Rose and Phillip St Clair are banged up and their Russian pals know the game’s over.’

  ‘My God,’ said Tally as if suddenly realising something. ‘The hospital must be wondering where I am and my car is still in the car park at Watford Gap and I haven’t phoned…’

  Steven put a finger on her lips. ‘It’s all being taken care of,’ he said. ‘Macmillan has been in touch with the hospital. You are currently providing invaluable assistance to HMG and will be officially on leave until such time as your services are no longer required. Your car will be returned to your home.’

  ‘But I have the keys…’ said Tally.

  Steven smiled.

  ‘I suppose that was silly,’ she said, getting a nod in response. ‘Just how long are my services going to be required?’

  ‘Let’s see now,’ said Steven. ‘We’ll lie low for a couple of days and then we’re going up to Scotland for a short break: there’s someone there I’d like you to meet.’

  ‘I love it when you’re masterful,’ said Tally.

  Steven smiled.

  ‘Just don’t get too masterful… or I’ll cut them off…’

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: fbd-61a4bc-fc25-2440-5596-1b05-8dba-5b4ce5

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 07.02.2012

  Created using: Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software

  Document authors :

  About

  This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.

  (This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)

  Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.

  (Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)

  http://www.fb2epub.net
/>
  https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/