Fire Hawk (20 page)

At each new sign that the place had been thoroughly
sanitised for their visit, Burgess's heart sank a little lower. There was nothing out of place. No sign of the extra machinery that had been smuggled in here one dark night three weeks ago. As they completed the tour and returned to the car park, Hardcastle looked depressed but determined. He gathered his team around him well away from the minders who were watching them from the shaded entrance to the administration building. They looked like sheep waiting to see if the dogs were fed up enough to leave their flock alone.

‘This is a bust, so far,' Hardcastle sighed. ‘Nothing out of place and all the staff I've spoken to deny all knowledge of additional equipment being set up here three weeks ago.' He looked to Burgess for help. ‘What d'you think, Dean? You've been scrutinising faces through your zoom lens – d'you think they're lying?'

‘Hard to say,' Burgess hedged. ‘If they are deceiving us, they're darn good at it. How many people have we talked to? Thirty? Forty?'

‘Something like that.'

‘In a witness group that large, there's usually
some
character who gives the game away.'

‘Except perhaps when they realise that to let anything slip will result in an excruciating death for themselves and their entire extended family,' Hardcastle growled, gritting his teeth. ‘Look. The one thing about which there is no doubt whatsoever is that in the early hours of the morning of Thursday the twelfth of September some heavy piece of equipment was delivered here. And the fact that the head man Doctor Shenassi is absent today is to my mind distinctly suspicious.'

‘I agree with that,' Burgess said.

Suddenly his eye was caught by movement in a wide window on the upper floor of the administration block. Two women were watching them studiedly, as if they'd
been told to do so. When they saw that he'd noticed them they moved back from the glass.

‘So we go for the documents next, yes?' Burgess ventured.

‘Exactly. We'll split into two search groups, one linguist to each group. One takes the ground floor, the other upstairs. Dean and I will provide oversight. Every filing cabinet, every cupboard and desk drawer needs to be opened and searched. Every single document you can find – receipts, invoices, correspondence with suppliers, the lot – I want it all bundled up and brought down to the admin vehicle here.' He pointed to the large armoured personnel carrier that had accompanied them from the BMVC. ‘We'll photocopy most of it and examine it in detail later.'

The administration building was small and on two storeys. The ground floor housed a large general accounting office, a smaller one for health and safety monitoring and a couple of rooms for managers. On the level above was Dr Shenassi's office and several others including a department of general administration with four staff.

General Manager Haydar, who'd so efficiently conducted them round the plant's technical areas, seemed more reluctant about letting them into the offices.

‘There is nothing there which is relevant to your enquiries,' he insisted, the flap of hair now stuck firmly back across his shiny scalp.

‘We'll decide that,' stated Hardcastle.

Realising further protest was pointless Haydar delegated two of his staff to escort the search teams; one upstairs, one into the main accounts office. Hardcastle and Burgess hovered in the small entrance lobby under the suspicious gaze of Mustafa.

‘Why you come here, when you already have cameras here?' the security man asked, frowning with puzzled curiosity.

‘To look at things the cameras cannot see,' Hardcastle retorted dismissively.

At the foot of the stairs an elderly doorman with a wizened face and milky grey eyes sat behind a small table. He eyed them as if wanting to speak, but held back because of the presence of the security official.

‘Good morning,' Burgess said to him encouragingly.

‘Good morning sahr!'

The old man got smartly to his feet and saluted. Then in gentle English and in one breath he announced that he was the security man and company dogsbody and that he'd served as a boy soldier when the Iraqi army was officered by the British.

‘Oh really? You must've seen a lot of changes over the years,' Burgess chatted.

‘Yes sahr.'

‘Security man, you say?' Burgess checked. ‘Does that mean you have to know about everything that comes in and out of this place?'

‘Oh, yes sahr.' The man gave a little twist of his leathery neck as he answered, his eyes darting towards Mustafa to see if it was safe to speak. ‘Everything that they deliver and send away.'

‘And you keep a record? A log book?' Hardcastle chipped in.

Lips tight with suppressed pride the old fellow produced a ledger from his drawer and opened it for them to see.

‘Even something that arrives in the middle of the night?' Burgess pressed, unable to read the Arabic script. ‘Would that be in here too?'

The security man shot them a scornful look. ‘Six o'clock, sir,' he assured them. ‘Factory close for deliveries after six in the evening. Nothing come here in the night.'

‘Never? Not even in the middle of September?'

The man closed his ledger and put it away. The
specificity of the question had unnerved him. He sealed his lips.

Suddenly the door to the general accounting office banged open and one of the Russian inspectors who'd been gathering documents staggered out with a blue plastic bin-liner filled with papers. Pursued by the dome-headed general manager who was protesting volubly, he pushed past Mustafa and out into the car park where the APC equipped with copiers and scanners was waiting. The manager held his arms wide in exasperation. Mustafa led him back into the accounts office.

Hardcastle beckoned to Burgess and took to the stairs.

‘While there's a diversion,' he whispered. ‘Let's go and see how the other lot are doing.'

On either side of the first-floor corridor they found four small offices, including the one normally occupied by the absent managing director Dr Shenassi. Burgess tried the door, but it was locked. From an office opposite where two inspectors were picking through the contents of a filing cabinet a matronly woman dressed in a white lab coat bustled forth gabbling in Arabic and interposed herself between Hardcastle and the door to Shenassi's office.

‘You speak any English?' Hardcastle enquired.

‘No.' Then she continued to berate him in Arabic, pushing him away from the door.

‘They claim they have no key for that door,' the German demolition specialist announced, pushing past with a sack of papers for checking.

‘A likely story,' Hardcastle mouthed.

The search seemed to be progressing, and the staff up here looked to be more junior than in the accounts office downstairs, so they returned to the ground floor.

‘We've no idea what he looks like, this Shenassi guy?' Burgess checked, his suspicions mounting by the second.

‘No. We don't have a photo.'

‘So if he was here some place, keeping his head down, like in that office of his upstairs, we wouldn't have any way of knowing it was him even if we broke the door down.'

‘Correct.'

‘He could even be in the accounts office posing as a clerk.'

‘Well, yes.'

‘Then maybe we should ask to see everybody's ID,' Burgess suggested. ‘Every
male
member of staff, that is.'

‘Not a bad idea.'

Shouts erupted from inside the accounts office. One of the voices belonged to the UN's interpreter. The old soldier sat as motionless as a sculpture behind his small table, as if taught by experience that in unpredictable situations even a minor facial movement was potentially dangerous.

Suddenly, from the accounts office a bespectacled man with hair that was flecked with grey emerged in a state of agitation and hurried up the stairs. He wore a well-pressed pale blue shirt and dark trousers and carried an air of authority about him. Burgess and Hardcastle exchanged glances, both of a similar mind. Burgess scooted up the stairs after him.

‘What's that man's name?' Hardcastle asked the security officer. The old soldier stared back, mute. ‘His name?' Hardcastle repeated. ‘Who is he?'

The wizened face turned slowly towards the open door of the accounts office. Hardcastle followed his look. Mustafa was standing there stony-faced.

Suddenly the front door to the building banged open. A British Intelligence Corps officer serving as an Arabic speaker at the BMVC, who'd been examining papers taken from the accounts office, burst in holding a single A4 page. Attached to it was a yellow Post-It note on
which he'd written the words,
This memo is to the staff telling them the plant will be closed for four days for maintenance. The dates in question were the 12
^th
to the 16
^th
of September
.

‘Aah,' breathed Hardcastle. ‘Thank you
very
much, my friend.'

No wonder nobody knew about a machine being delivered here in the middle of the night. The entire staff had been given four days off. Enough time to produce all the finely milled anthrax spores they could need for a weapon and for the place to be thoroughly cleaned again.

Burgess thundered down the stairs to report that the man in the blue shirt had gone into Shenassi's office.

Suddenly the phone rang on the desk in the lobby. The elderly security man answered it, then sat up straighter as if the call was from a boss. He growled an acknowledgement in Arabic then replaced the receiver. He got up quickly and came straight up to Hardcastle, avoiding his eye and grabbing his arm.

‘Please. Please, sir.'

He tried to push Hardcastle towards the ground floor accounts office but the tall Englishman wasn't having it.

‘Get your hands off me, my man,' Hardcastle snapped, shaking him off.

‘Please. Please you must come, sahr. There is problem.' The elderly man turned to Burgess in the hope he'd be more amenable. ‘Please, sahr, we must hurry.' He kept his eyes down as if afraid of revealing his deception.

Burgess caught Hardcastle's eye, pointed up the stairs and mouthed
Shenassi.
Hardcastle understood the game that was being played.

‘All right my friend,' he said to the doorman as if softening, ‘let's see what your problem is.'

‘Thank you sahr. Thank you.'

They allowed the old man to usher them into the main
accounts office and close the door behind them. He stood next to it, holding the handle.

‘So?' Hardcastle said to him gently, watching the Russians sift through papers unmolested by the accountants. ‘Where's this problem of yours? You'd better go and ask someone, hadn't you?'

After a moment's embarrassed hesitation, the security man's face became a picture of discomfort.

‘Right,' Hardcastle said to Burgess.

They pushed past the guard and back through the door into the lobby just as the man with the grey-flecked hair and blue shirt reached the foot of the stairs. He had a jacket on now and carried a thin see-through folder with a few sheets of paper in it.

Hardcastle blocked his path.

‘Ah, Doctor Shenassi! How nice to see you again,' he announced, smiling broadly. From the startled reaction he knew Burgess had guessed right. ‘Last time we met was Leeds wasn't it? You were doing your degree there. When was that now . . . end of the seventies?'

Shenassi's jaw dropped, deceived and winded by the bluff. Burgess stood next to Hardcastle, making it impossible for the Haji MD to squeeze past and escape.

‘Er, I don't quite—'

‘I'm Andrew Hardcastle. You remember . . . I was lecturing in biology. How very nice to see you again. And I'm sorry we're putting you to all this trouble. Good of you all to co-operate so well with the UN.'

‘I . . . my mother . . .' he protested feebly.

‘Oh yes. Poorly, I hear. So sorry. You'll be on your way to see her no doubt. Tell you what, we're having to check all documents, so would you mind?'

He latched a hand onto Shenassi's folder, but the doctor wasn't letting go.

‘Only need a quick glance, just to be sure, then we won't trouble you further.' He gave a sudden sharp pull
which Shenassi had not expected. To Hardcastle's astonishment the folder was in his hands. He whipped round and headed for the car park. ‘Won't be a moment.'

Burgess blocked Shenassi's panicky attempt to follow.

‘It's good you're here, Doctor, because I've a couple of questions I'd like to ask.'

‘Questions, questions. We already answer them.'

‘But not satisfactorily, Doctor Shenassi. That's the problem.'

‘I can tell you nothing more.'

‘Well,
I
think you can. You see something happened three weeks ago, which you know about even if most of your staff don't because they were on vacation.' He saw Shenassi's face grow paler. ‘A milling machine? You remember it now? Delivered here at night. Why was that, Doctor Shenassi?'

‘I don't know what you talk about.'

They were no longer alone in the lobby. Mustafa had appeared with two minders, one of them armed with a camera. Damn, thought Burgess. Should be doing that too.

Shenassi seemed to stagger, as if about to faint.

‘Hey, why don't we sit down?' Burgess pointed to the chair abandoned by the security man. He switched on his own Hi-8, set the lens wide and held it at shoulder height. But Shenassi made a dive for the door, babbling in Arabic while scrabbling in one of the side pockets of his jacket as if searching for a cigarette.

‘I don't advise that you leave, sir,' said Burgess firmly, blocking his path again but realising that if push came to shove there was little he could do to stop him. ‘The UN needs answers about that milling machine, Doctor Shenassi. What was it used for and where is it now?'