Scorpion [Scorpions 01] (2 page)

    It only took a few more minutes to reach his flat. Chris eased the Spitfire into the narrow parking space at the side of the converted three-storey house, climbed out and walked round to the passenger side. She had to physically help Mason out of the seat. He hung on to her arm as they went inside the house and up the stairs to the first floor. Chris took his key and unlocked the door. As they stepped inside the airy, sunlit flat, Mason seemed to snap out of his daze. Unaided he walked across the lounge and into the bedroom.

    ‘How about something to drink?’ Chris asked from the door.

    Mason kicked off his shoes and let himself flop across the bed. ‘Great idea,’ he said. ‘Coffee. Black and sweet.’

    He lay staring up at the ceiling. The room began to roll and he closed his eyes. The sick feeling grew, filling his body, and his senses reeled under the onslaught. Then, just as swiftly, the nausea ebbed away, leaving him drenched in sweat, shivering from the chill that suddenly gripped him. He remembered one thing very distinctly - the resurgence of the pain in his hand. Burning, pulsing, fiery, as if it had life of its own separate from the rest of his body.

    He didn’t hear Chris return. She placed the cup of hot coffee on the low bedside table and gently nudged his shoulder.

    ‘Coffee,’ she said.

    Mason’s eyes snapped open and he stared up at her, wondering who the hell she was for a moment. Awareness returned and he blinked, sitting up slowly. ‘Thanks,’ he mumbled.

    Chris watched him drink, thinking still that he didn’t look well.

    ‘Shouldn’t you be getting back to the demo?’ Mason asked.

    ‘Never mind about the demo. They can manage without me.’ Chris sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I think we should give Doctor Adams a ring. He could probably give you a shot of something.’

    ‘Oh, sure,’ Mason said. ‘I can just see his face when you tell him it’s for a bee sting!’

    ‘Les, don’t be stubborn, please. Even a bee sting can turn out pretty nasty sometimes.’

    ‘I’ll ring him on one condition.’

    ‘What?’

    ‘That you get out of here. Take my car and go back to that demo. Hell, Chris, I feel guilty enough about dragging you away from it at all. I know how bloody hard you’ve worked to organize this one.’

    Chris smiled. ‘Sure you’ll be all right?’

    ‘Yes. I’ll lie here and give Adams a call. Ask him to drop round.’ Mason drained the coffee. ‘Satisfied?’

    Chris leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘As soon as the demo breaks up I’ll be back.’ She stood up. ‘You’re sure now?’

    ‘Yeah! Go on, get out of here. I want to hear on the news tonight that you’ve closed down Long Point’s nuclear plant for good.’

    Her laugh lingered in the flat long after she had gone.

    Les Mason lifted his left hand from the bed and held it in front of his face. Fear knotted his stomach muscles as he saw the blackened fingers emerging from the handkerchief covering his hand. They were swollen, too, thickened to almost double their normal size. He reached with his other hand and jerked the handkerchief free. The whole hand had turned black, joints puffed up and stiff. He tried to move his fingers but the pain that resulted made him cry out. He could see the spot where the sting had penetrated his flesh. The area around the wound was darker than the rest of his hand, a deep purple shade, the flesh bulging tautly over a soft sac of pulpiness. Mason’s lips went dry. For the first time in his life he felt real, uncontrollable fear. On an impulse he pulled the sleeve of his jacket up his arm, then loosened the cuff of his shirt and pulled it away from his wrist. The black flesh already extended up his arm; where his watch encircled his wrist the strap was already part-hidden by the swollen flesh.

    Mason lurched up off the bed and ran out of the bedroom. He was halfway across the living room when another attack of nausea rolled over him. He felt his knees give way and he pitched face down on the carpet. He screamed out loud as his left hand smashed against the edge of the coffee table that stood in the centre of the room. The pain was like a silent explosion. It reached out and swallowed him, dragging him into a whirling vortex of searing agony, blinding light that could not be avoided even by closing his eyes. He didn’t try to fight it, he was helpless. His mind finally rejected the pain, and he lapsed into unconsciousness…

    

    

    Chris arrived back at the demonstration to find chaos. A number of the plant’s uniformed security men were involved in violent struggles with members of the protest group. As Chris climbed out of the Spitfire she spotted a couple of police cars coming along the coast road from the other direction. She felt a surge of disappointment. This was just the kind of thing she’d always tried to avoid. The Long Point group had a reputation for non-violent, controlled behavior - now it seemed that image had been shattered. She pushed her way through the jostling crowd, trying in vain to make herself heard above the din. By the time she broke free of the crowd she was aching in half a dozen places. Chris leaned against the fencing, desperately searching for a glimpse of Jack Webster. When she finally did spot him she was unable to hold back the gasp of horror.

    Webster was clinging to the metal fencing, his fingers clutching the heavy mesh as he held himself upright. His face was covered in blood. It was dripping from his chin and spattering the front of his shirt. One eye was virtually closed, the flesh around it swollen and purple. His lower lip had ballooned grotesquely out of shape.

    ‘Jack!’ Chris yelled. She caught hold of his arm as he began to sag.

    Webster tried to focus his good eye on her. ‘Tryst you to miss all the fun,’ he mumbled.

    ‘What’s been going on?’ Chris asked.

    ‘We’ve been set up!’Webster leaned his weight against Chris. ‘Condon had somebody in the crowd. Whoever it was started throwing things. I was watching Condon. He had the gates open and his men on us too damn quick for it to be anything but a pre-arranged attack. He even had a couple of photographers on hand. There wasn’t a thing we could do, Chris - except try and defend ourselves.’

    ‘The police are here too,’ Chris said.

    ‘Great!’Webster’s head shook in anger.

    Uniformed police began to move through the crowd, parting the struggling figures.

    ‘Well, Miss Lane, whatever happened to your peace movement?’

    Chris glanced up and recognized the stern features of Inspector Peter Duncan, a member of the Long Point force. She and Duncan met often through her involvement with the protest group, Chris maintaining that good relations with the police were essential.

    ‘I think we’ve been sabotaged,’ she stated bitterly.

    Duncan had already summoned one of his men across. ‘See that Mr. Webster is looked after.’ He turned to Chris. ‘There’s an ambulance on its way. Now perhaps you and I had better have a little talk.’

    Momentarily deflated by the unexpected turn of events, Chris meekly followed the tall policeman to his waiting car. Duncan opened a rear door of the gleaming Rover 3500, and Chris climbed in. Duncan followed, closing the door as he settled in the comfortable seat beside her.

    ‘What happened?’ he asked in a not unfriendly tone.

    ‘Jack told me someone started making trouble - throwing things. And then the security men came out.’

    ‘Weren’t you there?’

    ‘I was at the start of the demonstration,’ Chris explained. ‘Everything seemed to be running smoothly. Then Les Mason, the local reporter, got himself stung on the hand - a bee or something. Anyway it made him really ill. So I drove him home. I left him at his flat and came back here…’ Chris stared out of the window at the dispersing crowd… her face betrayed her disappointment.

    ‘You’re certain it wasn’t any of your people who started the trouble?’ Duncan asked.

    ‘Look, I know I wasn’t there, Inspector, but I do know the people in the group. They wouldn’t aggravate a situation. I’m sure it was deliberately staged. Jack said there were photographers taking pictures. We’ll be in the dailies tomorrow - labeled as just another bunch of agitators - and that kind of publicity won’t do our cause one little bit of good!’

    ‘I’m inclined to believe you,’ Duncan said. ‘Your group has a good reputation and today’s fiasco doesn’t fit your image. I’ll see what I can find out. But there isn’t much I can do about adverse publicity. If pictures do appear in the nationals the only thing you can do is make a stand against the criticism that will follow. On the local scene, a word of advice. Let things calm down before you stage any more protests. I realize that this is probably what was intended, but it might be better to allow the ripples to settle.’

    Chris nodded. ‘We won’t make any trouble, Inspector. And thank you for listening to my side of the story’

    Duncan opened the car door and let Chris out. She crossed over to a few people from the group and spoke to them. As she turned to make her way across the road towards the Spitfire she caught sight of Vic Condon. He was standing just inside the open gates of the plant. A satisfied smirk played around the corners of his mouth as his eyes met Chris’s.

    ‘You really must be more careful who you allow into your group,’ Condon said dryly. ‘I’m surprised at you.’

    ‘Don’t get too smug, Condon,’ Chris warned. ‘I haven’t finished with this place yet.’

    Condon grinned. ‘You won’t look so lily-white tomorrow.’

    ‘We’ll survive. But you’ve given me something to think about. If you’re prepared to go to all that trouble it makes me ask why? Just what have you got to hide?’

    For a fleeting second Condon’s face paled, then he composed himself and his usual smugness returned. ‘I’m just doing my job. Protecting the plant from you troublemakers!’

    Chris wandered over to the Spitfire. The group had drifted apart, moving in dispirited ones and twos to their own cars further down the road. The ambulance had arrived and the few injured people, Jack Webster among them, had been whisked inside the vehicle. Chris got in the car and started the engine. She turned it around and set off back towards Long Point.

    She was almost at her own home when she remembered Les Mason. Muttering to herself she took the Spitfire along a couple of side-streets, using her lifelong knowledge of the small town to get her back to Mason’s flat without too much wasted time. Leaving the car at the curb she went inside and started up the stairs.

    The door of the flat next to Mason’s opened and a young woman appeared.

    ‘Hello, Jenny,’ Chris said.

    Jenny Mills, usually cheerful and smiling, tried to appear casual. ‘Les isn’t there,’ she said, unable to conceal the tremble in her voice.

    ‘Where is he?’ Chris asked.

    ‘He’s been taken to the hospital. He’s very sick, Chris.’

    ‘Oh Lord!’ Chris felt her stomach tighten. ‘Did you see him?’

    Jenny seemed to shrink back a little, her eyes darting back and forth across the wall. She didn’t seem to want to look at Chris.

    ‘Please, Jenny, if you know something tell me!’

    ‘I heard this… this screaming. I’ve never heard a sound like it before. It was terrible. I came out here and realized it was coming from Les’s flat. I banged on the door but he didn’t answer. There was just this horrible screaming. Over and over. I tried the door and it opened. At first I didn’t dare go in… but I knew I had to… ‘

    Chris waited, holding back her impatience.

    ‘Les was on the floor in the living-room. He was thrashing about…as if he was in terrible pain… and he was screaming all the time. I didn’t know what to do… then I just grabbed the phone, dialed 999, and yelled for them to send an ambulance and a doctor. There wasn’t anything I could do for Les. He was like a wild thing. All I can remember is that screaming and his arm… ‘

    ‘His arm?’

    ‘It was all swollen… the skin all black… his fingers like big sausages… I thought he’d burned himself at first. Chris, it was awful. I just had to stand there and watch him, listen to him scream.’ Jenny hesitated. ‘The ambulance was pretty quick. There was a doctor from the hospital. The two ambulance men had to hold Les still while they gave him a shot of something. It only calmed him a little. They put him on a stretcher and tied him down so he wouldn’t roll off. And then they took him away.’

    ‘Did the doctor say anything?’ Chris asked.

    Jenny shook her head. ‘I asked him what he thought it was but he wouldn’t say. I don’t think he knew. He just told me to contact them if I started to feel ill.’

    ‘I don’t think you have to worry, Jenny.’

    ‘How can you say that?’

    ‘I was with Les this morning up at the nuclear plant. We were holding a demo. Les came to do one of his bits for the paper. He got stung on the hand by a bee or something, and when he started feeling sick I drove him home. I made him a coffee and he was going to give his own doctor a ring.’

    ‘A bee sting?’ Jenny seemed doubtful. ‘I think there was more to it than that… that black skin… ‘

    ‘Maybe Les is allergic to bee stings. Some people can react quite badly.’ ‘But it was the way it was spreading,’ Jenny insisted. ‘Spreading?’ ‘Yes. I caught a glimpse of Les as the ambulance men took him down the stairs.

    The blackness was spreading across his face.’ She shuddered violently. ‘All across his face!’

    

    

    Greenbank Hospital lay four miles from the town of Long Point. Compared to most hospitals Greenbank could be considered fairly modern. It had been opened in 1965, and two years later an additional wing had been built on. This was the Tropical Diseases Research Unit. Though an autonomous department the research facilities could be utilized by the main hospital if circumstances dictated such measures.