The Fall: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller Book 2)

by Annelie Wendeberg

  ‘You will remain where you are.’ He didn’t even look at me.

  ‘Well, thank you for your trust,’ I said, folding my arms across my chest. ‘Am I allowed to recommend you protect yourself against infection?’

  He pulled India rubber gloves over his hands and began examining the floors in the laboratory, the corridor, and the stalls. Goff’s exasperated cry, ‘Let me through!’ announced his arrival. Apparently, the guards held him where he was. What perfect timing! Holmes had chosen the one night Goff was working at the warehouse all by himself while I had been discussing germ warfare with James and his men.

  James walked back to the laboratory, picking at the remnants of our petri dishes. ‘Would you take a look at this?’

  I walked up to him and bent down, gazing at a mess of broken glass and chunks of gelatin. ‘This is terrible. Not only are the cultures contaminated, the grain alcohol must have killed them all.’ I groaned and pressed my face into the bend of my elbow.

  A loud clink. James had just flung a petri dish across the room. He stalked outside and examined the lock on both sides of the door, then the hinges, and finally the ground.

  ‘Mr Goff!’ he barked.

  Goff walked up to us, chin set, shoulders drawn up in full defence. He was about to speak when James cut across him, ‘The lock has not been tampered with, and the windows are all intact. There are no footprints apart from yours, Dr Kronberg’s, and the guards’ walking up to this door and not a single indication of a burglary.’

  Goff looked as though he was about to be hanged innocently. ‘I would assume your footprints should—’ the slap across his face stopped him. What a silly boy.

  ‘The stalls have not been locked, Mr Goff. Dr Kronberg wasn’t at the warehouse yesterday. It was you alone who could have let the mules out.’

  ‘I swear, I didn’t—’ Another slap shut him up.

  ‘You will speak only when asked,’ said James.

  Goff dropped his gaze to the mud.

  ‘You will move the mules to their stalls, clean up the laboratory, and repair the damage you have caused.’

  Goff nodded, head still lowered.

  ‘And you will retrieve the germs I asked you to safe-keep.’

  My heart stopped. I looked at Goff, then up at James.

  ‘Not all is lost,’ James said. He placed his hand on my arm and bade me to follow him to the brougham. ‘Home,’ he called to Garrow.

  ‘You did not tell me that Goff kept a batch of pure cultures.’ I said.

  ‘No I did not.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It wasn’t necessary,’ he spoke to the window.

  I swallowed and tried to slow my desperate heart. Mud-covered pavement and ramshackle houses flew by. Pothole after pothole shook us violently. After Garrow had steered us out of the slums and the ride grew smoother, I turned to James.

  ‘You should have told me. It would have spared me the shock.’

  He acknowledged my presence with a flick of his gaze. I leaned back and closed my eyes, unwilling to play this game.

  Upon our arrival at his home, we retreated to the study, where Hingston served tea and toast.

  ‘Your recommendation,’ he demanded with a cold stare.

  ‘The laboratory will be clean and fully functional by tomorrow morning, I should think. Goff should have procured new material from the glassblower by the day after tomorrow. Then, I will have Goff prepare fresh media, and I’ll re-inoculate the germs. I assume the mules are infected, but I would like to wait two or three days. Perhaps not all of them will show symptoms, and we could even use one or two for vaccine development.’

  James covered his brow with his hand. ‘That was close,’ he huffed.

  ‘I am glad he did not leave the warehouse door open. Those mules would have been sold or eaten, and the diseases spread. With a glanders and anthrax epidemic in the neighbourhood—’

  ‘—we would have had to relocate,’ he finished my sentence.

  ‘When did you ask Goff to keep pure cultures in his apartment?’

  ‘I did not mention his apartment, my dear.’

  ‘Well, then I’m even gladder, because keeping two diseases in a jar on the kitchen counter is not the most intelligent thing to do.’ I mirrored his cold voice.

  ‘I will not discuss this with you. Besides, I have other business demanding my attention.’ With that he left the study.

  All that was left for me to do now was to wonder how the hell I could prevent myself from developing bacterial weapons.

  — day 91 —

  I placed the petri dish back onto the workbench. Despite the distance, the Bunsen burner’s flame pressed heat into my forehead, chest, and arms. The sweat itched on my skin, and my eyes burned. Nausea clenched at my throat.

  ‘Mr Goff, I fear I am getting ill.’ Goff’s eyes shot to the bacterial cultures and back to me. Then he huffed decisively and rushed off to fetch our coats while I turned the Bunsen burner off and cleaned my work space. His fear I could be infected with anthrax made him atypically swift and forthcoming.

  James wasn’t at home when I arrived. Uttering a few pleasantries, Goff bade his farewell. I didn’t wait for him to finish, shut the front door in his face and barely made it to the stairwell to sit down. The floor moved, then tilted, and I felt a dull pain on my temple before losing consciousness.

  I awoke in my bed with Cecile holding my hand. I could barely breathe. ‘Cecile, the corset.’ She helped me undo the dress, then unstrung the corset. In nothing but my undergarments, I soon felt better.

  ‘How long have I been unconscious?’

  ‘Half an hour, I believe.’

  She looked very worried, her hands squeezing mine as though she needed to be rescued. I tried to sit up, but it was a mistake. What was wrong with me? These were surely not anthrax or glanders symptoms. The influenza season hadn’t started yet. Perhaps it planned to begin with me this year?

  A knock, then the door opened and James stepped in. A stranger followed, holding a doctor’s bag in his hand.

  ‘Anna, this is Dr Mark Blincoe.’

  ‘Madam, I am pleased to make your acquaintance,’ said the doctor and took my wrist to feel my pulse. Irritated, I pulled my arm away.

  ‘My apologies, Dr Blincoe, but I can feel my own pulse and hear myself talk. My guess is that I’m still alive. James, I have a medical education, I don’t need a physician.’

  James looked down at me, then at Cecile and the quack. ‘I will leave you two. Come with me, Gooding.’ With that he turned away and left, Cecile following suit.

  Blincoe nodded with a frown.

  ‘I think I have the flu,’ I waived him off.

  ‘Could well be. But you lost consciousness. Your husband sent for me and I will examine you.’

  ‘If he is indeed my husband, we must have got married while I slept,’ I replied acidly.

  Blincoe paled, but recovered soon enough. ‘I can wait here for hours until you allow me to examine you. I’m not to leave without knowing what the problem is.’

  ‘Outrageous!’ I hissed. He placed his hands behind his back, gazing down at me, oozing patience.

  ‘For Christ’s sake! Get on with it then.’

  He smirked and took a step forward, feeling my pulse again. He listened to my breathing and heartbeat, prodded my chest, back and abdomen, gazed into my eyes, mouth and ears. After a lengthy examination he straightened up and asked, ‘Do you feel soreness in your breasts?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I usually experience this when running a fever.’

  ‘You do not have a fever now.’

  ‘No, but I felt feverish about an hour ago.’

  ‘Hum. And yet, I don’t believe you are sick. I think you are with child.’

  I snorted. ‘I am sorry, but that’s an hilariously wrong guess. I cannot bear children.’

  ‘You cannot? Why?’

  ‘I do not wish to elaborate on it. You have asked enough outrageously personal questions!’ Despite the
utter impossibility of a pregnancy, my mind started calculating. My menstruation came only once or twice a year. At the most. The last one was a week before Christmas. One month.

  ‘Are you experiencing morning sickness?’

  ‘No.’ The slight queasiness at the sight of cabbage had never bothered me enough to remember it twenty-four hours after it had occurred. Now the fact struck me.

  ‘Well,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘You know my diagnosis. Rest and eat well. Take daily walks in fresh air and do not string that corset up too tight. This is not the time for vanity, Madam.’ With that and a raised index finger, he left.

  James entered my room a few minutes later. His expression was unreadable.

  ‘The man is a quack,’ I said.

  He sat down next to me. ‘And what is your diagnosis, Anna?’

  ‘Probably a cold. You know I’m not able to bear children. The man has a history of wrong diagnoses, as you well know.’ I pointed to his neck.

  ‘I know,’ he said and rose. ‘I will send your maid.’

  As the door snapped shut behind him, I could do nothing but stare at it while my mind marvelled at the peculiar distortion of perception once fear is involved.

  — day 93 —

  I entered the study. Moran and James rose from the armchairs, the former offering me his seat.

  ‘Thank you, but I prefer to stand.’ With Moran close by, I’d rather be ready to jump. Hingston brought tea and biscuits, then left us alone.

  ‘I believe it is time to discuss options for the transport and spreading of bacterial cultures. As we will be using soldiers for this particular task, I invited my friend Colonel Moran.’

  Arms crossed over my chest, I leaned against the mantelpiece, close enough to the fire to warm my frozen limbs. ‘Both, glanders and anthrax can be transported in liquid media sealed in small glass vials,’ I answered. ‘These can be opened by pulling a stopper or breaking a seal. The contents are then poured into fodder. Simple enough for any untrained man.’

  ‘How high is the risk of contaminating the messenger?’ asked James. It sounded odd. He had never cared much about collateral damage.

  ‘Well, if those transporting the germs are clumsy or very much in a hurry, they may cut themselves on the broken glass and get infected.’

  ‘What about the… what did you call them?’ interjected Moran.

  ‘Spores?’

  ‘Yes, the spores. You said they can be stored as a dry powder. How were these to be transported?’

  I could not recall ever having mentioned to Moran that spores were a dry powder. That they were stored in a dry place, yes. The information on spore-powder must have come from James. He was the only one I had shared this fact with.

  ‘The spores can be transported in a small vial, too. I am not certain on how to spread them, though. Whoever opens the vial is at a high risk of inhaling them and dying of anthrax.’

  ‘Hum,’ said Moran, as he shovelled sugar into his tea, suddenly not very interested.

  We fell silent. The clinking of Moran’s spoon in his cup and the crackling of the fire were the only things to be heard. After a while, I noticed James staring at his friend. Moran poured even more sugar into his already-sticky tea. As if in trance, he stirred it, then dropped his spoon on the coffee table.

  ‘Mules love sugar,’ he stated.

  ‘Excuse me?’ asked James.

  ‘Sugar cubes,’ Moran answered and looked up at us as though we had lost our senses.

  ‘Sugar cubes, for crying out loud! Hide a tiny vial inside, the mules and horses will chew it to pieces, swallow it and contract whatever disease it contains!’

  Heavy silence fell before James cried, ‘Excellent!’ and threw his hands up.

  I was stunned; that much brain power from Moran was unexpected.

  ‘Is it doable?’ James turned to me.

  ‘Certainly. Each glass ampule needs but a few drops of liquid media and germs.’

  No need to tell them that the use of solid media would considerably increase the storage potential of the deadly vessels.

  ‘Very well. Sebastian my friend, I must say you are brilliant! Now, all we need to come up with is a way to infect men with anthrax spores. They wouldn’t bite down on sugar cubes. Well, children would—’

  My cold stare stopped his narrative.

  ‘Spreading via spores comes with a high risk of killing your own men,’ I said.

  ‘Refresh our minds about the different types of anthrax infection, please.’

  ‘Ingesting germs or spores will result in gastrointestinal anthrax. The natural causes are, for example, eating undercooked food. Symptoms are primarily nausea, abdominal pain, bloody diarrhoea, and ulcerative lesions. The second form is cutaneous anthrax and of no relevance for us, because the germs or spores have to be transmitted through a scratch or stab wound. When you get that close to your enemy, you can simply stick the bayonet all the way through.’ I cast a glance at Moran, whose face hardened.

  ‘Could one spread anthrax germs attached to bullets? To kill even those men that were only grazed by a shot?’ Moran’s mind seemed to be in hunter mode and highly active.

  ‘Possibly. But again, the risk of infection when handling the bullets is very high,’ I answered.

  Both men looked at each other, something silent passing between them and I knew they would most likely make an attempt with my cultures and Goff at their disposal.

  ‘Shall I continue?’ I asked and James nodded. ‘In comparison to the two previous anthrax forms, pulmonary anthrax is the most lethal. It can only be caused by inhaling germs or spores. The patient will experience a septic shock within two to three days and will be dead after another twenty-four to thirty-six hours. There is no treatment for pulmonary anthrax, and the mortality rate is almost one-hundred percent.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ breathed Moran and stuck his pipe between his teeth. I felt the urge to shove it all the way into his brain.

  ‘Moran,’ I snarled. ‘I thought I made it perfectly clear that lethal germs are not to be confused with toys. I’ve come to think I should demonstrate it on you, so you will be more motivated to believe my statements.’

  Moran jumped up from his seat. James stepped between us. ‘Enough!’ he barked. ‘Anna, it was your suggestion to use anthrax and it is you isolating and testing it. I am certain Mr Goff will gladly take over should you decide this operation is too dangerous.’

  I leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, exhaling the tension. ‘This operation is dangerous in nature and will become lethal if we don’t show respect. Colonel Moran had an excellent idea on how to transmit disease. Forgive me, but you both tend to choose the most dangerous options germs have to offer. When I object and give you reasons as to why this weaponry can turn against us, you rarely listen and you believe it is silly drivel women say. You take me seriously only when it suits you.’

  Moran paled, his temple’s blood vessels bulging. James looked at me with consideration. After a moment he nodded. Moran threw up his hands.

  ‘I see what you mean. Regardless, I want us to discuss all options and then make a decision,’ said James.

  ‘Very well,’ I answered.

  Moran grunted. ‘Whenever a country is about to lose a war, men grow desperate. At the end, when the lives and well-being of our families are threatened and our homes are about to be burned to the ground, nothing seems cruel enough to prevent that from happening. You will not find gentility on the battlefield, Dr Kronberg. Governments will break their own laws to prevent invasion by the enemy. As for your lethal germs — we will use them when circumstances call for them, no matter the risk. It is your task to supply us with germs and instruct us on how to handle them. It is not your responsibility to tell us what and what not do do.’

  ‘Thank you, Sebastian,’ said James. ‘Anna, is there anything you’d like to add?’

  There was quite a lot I wished to add. A knife between Moran’s ribs, for example. Or my own for that matter, becaus
e I had been naive enough to choose anthrax as the less dangerous alternative to the plague. However, anthrax in the hands of these two men who were practically in love with this germ, would be an extremely dangerous toy.

  I reached out to the silver case James held in his offering hand and picked a cigarette while sorting through all I knew about anthrax. Taking a step closer to him, I smiled. He struck a match and held it out for me. His expression appeared gentle, his hand calm.

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ I said. ‘Gentlemen, you have obviously noticed that my preference for a bacterial weapon is glanders. I will illustrate why and give you the essence of all information I possess so that you can make your own judgement. Equines are the main means of transportation in a war. An army without horses and mules is painfully slow and will be overrun. Food, clean water, and medicine will run short. Glanders primarily infects equines, but can spread to humans, too. Both man and horse die within two weeks at a mortality rate of eighty percent. Transporting and spreading glanders is as simple as transporting and spreading anthrax.’

  I looked at both men, waiting for a sign of understanding. They nodded and I continued, ‘Anthrax can reach a mortality rate of almost one-hundred percent in both men and equines. Its most aggressive form is pulmonary anthrax which can only be contracted from inhaling spores. And that is where the problem lies. One can neither see them nor smell them. They poison the air we breathe, and I could infect you with anthrax this very moment without needing to force infected food or drink into either of you. In the course of doing so, I would most likely infect myself and would only realise it once I’m already dying. You tell me that a soldier goes out to die. I always believed soldiers try to survive, kill the enemy, and win a war.’

  Moran huffed indignantly.

  ‘There is only one more thing I’d like to add,’ I continued. ‘Anyone who plans to use anthrax in warfare must keep in mind that the wind can and will turn. Spores are spread by wind and water, will stick to food and soil. They survive the coldest winters and hottest summers. If you spread anthrax on your enemy’s land, you will reap what you sowed even one hundred years later. Your children will get ill and die, your produce will be infected, as will cattle and sheep. The more anthrax germs you use, the worse the aftereffects.’