The Gulf Conspiracy (19 page)

‘
Dr Crowe didn’t tell me that,’ said Sked, sounding annoyed.

‘
It probably slipped his mind,’ said De Fries. ‘It was no big thing.’

‘
At least we have established a connection,’ said Steven.

‘
Hardly that,’ countered De Fries.

‘
I’m no expert,’ said Steven, ‘But wouldn’t using HIV envelopes also suggest an attempt at providing some level of protection against the HIV virus itself?’

‘
At first glance, possibly’ said De Fries, ‘But there was no such intent. As I say, their use in this case was to boost a general immune response.’

‘
There has never been any suggestion of anyone ever having contemplated the use of HIV as a weapon,’ added Sked.

‘
Of course not,’ said Steven dryly.

Macmillan shot him a warning glance and said pleasantly, ‘I must admit I’m a little puzzled too about the use of these gene envelopes. If, as we know, Dr Crowe and his team were trying to develop a vaccine against AIDS then surely they might have been said to have had a vested interest in the outcome of the use of these gene envelopes on the troops?’

Sked bristled visibly and said, ‘There is absolutely no question of anyone at Porton having experimented on the troops. Let’s be absolutely clear about that.’

‘
Of course not,’ said Macmillan. ‘Well, it sounds as if we’ll have to look elsewhere for the reason that George Sebring suffered a nervous breakdown and spent the remainder of his life suffering from chronic guilt and periodic nightmares.’

‘
I’m afraid you will,’ said De Sked. ‘There was nothing at all in his work at Porton to account for anything like that.’

‘
How about the other members of Dr Crowe’s team?’ asked Steven.

‘
What about them?’

‘
Their state of mind.’

‘
Dr Crowe himself has certainly never struck me as a man who had difficulty sleeping,’ said Sked. ‘Nor should he have any reason to.’

‘
Lowry and Rawlings are absolutely fine too,’ said De Fries.

Steven remembered from the information supplied earlier by Porton, that there had actually been five people in the team led by Crowe. Mention had been made of four, Crowe, Lowry and Rawlings and Sebring who was, of course, dead. He was about to ask about the member who hadn’t rated a mention when he thought better of it. It might have been an innocent omission but it just might have been deliberate, in which case he would try to mine the information from another source.

‘
Would you object if we had the vaccines that Crowe’s team contributed to analysed independently?’ asked Steven.

‘
Not possible, I’m afraid,’ replied Sked coldly. ‘We’ve just had to destroy all remaining stocks of it in response to press hysteria and recent objections.’

‘
From the Gulf War veterans’ associations,’ said De Fries.

‘
Her Majesty’s Government were, naturally, sensitive to their concerns,’ said Sked. ‘Although this in no way implies that there was ever anything wrong with the vaccines.’

‘
Of course not,’ said Macmillan.

‘
Surely there must still be a vial or two lying around?’ said Steven.

‘
Everything was destroyed,’ said De Fries. ‘With respect, Doctor, I really must point out that these vaccines underwent several independent analyses over the past ten years. Nothing was ever shown to be wrong with them.’

‘
It was just a thought,’ said Steven.

‘
What do you think?’ Macmillan asked Steven when the others had gone.

‘
We’ve learned one thing,’ said Steven. ‘Crowe’s team must really have been working with the HIV virus; otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to supply HIV gene envelopes when asked.’

‘
So you were wrong to doubt that?’

‘
What I doubted was whether they were trying to design a vaccine against the virus,’ said Steven.

‘
You’re not suggesting that they were trying to design a weapon based on it?’ said Macmillan. ‘You heard what Sked said.’

‘
I heard,’ said Steven looking doubtful. ‘It may not have been official policy to think about HIV as a putative weapon but it wouldn’t be the first time that a scientific team has been given its head to see where a particular road might lead – unofficially, of course.’

‘
And you think Porton might have harboured such a team?’

‘
Don’t you?’

‘
Maybe I should ask a few quiet questions in the corridors of power,’ said Macmillan.

Steven kicked off his shoes when he got in. He poured himself a cold Stella Artois and plumped himself down in his favourite seat by the window. He put his feet up on the sill and looked up at the clouds as he tugged his tie loose. He had made progress but there was still something he was missing. Even if, in what the press would no doubt call a nightmare scenario, Sebring had been engaged in developing the AIDS virus for use as a weapon, his plan to confess all to the papers would have been no reason to kill him. To a cynical public it would just have been a case of yet one more disaffected government employee blowing the whistle about something or other. With an ex MI5 officer currently spilling the beans to the papers about the incompetence of the intelligence service, one more horror story about the development of biological weapons wasn’t going to make much of a ripple. It would just be one more virus to worry about along with smallpox and plague but at least it would be our side developing it this time –
and now for the sports results and the weather . . .
There had to be more to it. If Sebring had been seen as such a threat he must have known something more than what he was seeing but as to what it was . . .

Steven found that he was thinking his way round in circles, a sure sign that he should stop. He looked at his watch and decided his daughter should be home from school. He dialled the number and his sister-in-law answered.

‘
Hello Sue, how are things?’

‘
Wonderful!’

‘
Really?’ asked Steven, slightly taken aback at the enthusiasm of her reply.

‘
First week back at school for the three monsters after six weeks?’ said Sue. ‘School holidays are all very well but gosh it’s so nice to have them off my hands again,’ she laughed. ‘I’ve got my life back. I went shopping, had my hair done, had coffee with the girls. Marvellous. I feel like a new woman.’

‘
Now I feel guilty,’ said Steven.

‘
You know I didn’t mean that,’ said Sue. ‘I take it you’d like to speak to your particular monster, I’ll just get her.’

‘
Hello Daddy,’ said Jenny’s voice after a short wait. ‘I’ve got a new teacher.’

‘
Have you, Nutkin? That sounds exciting.’

‘
Her name’s Miss Campbell and she’s got big teeth.’

‘
That’s not very kind, Jenny.’

‘
Well, she has. She says that we might be going to war soon.’

‘
Really?’

‘
She says a bad man has been gathering lots and lots of weapons and plans to use them against the West – that’s us. Will you have to fight, Daddy?’

‘
No, Jenny.’

‘
Good,’ said Jenny. ‘Aunt Sue says Uncle Richard won’t have to either. She says he’s too old and fat.’

‘
So that’s where you get your unkindness from,’ laughed Steven. ‘Let’s hope no one has to go and fight anyone and we can all do something more sensible with our time.’

‘
Are you coming up to see me this weekend, Daddy?’

‘
That may not be possible, Nutkin,’ said Steven, closing his eyes as he said it. ‘Daddy’s very busy. Maybe next weekend?’

‘
All right, Daddy. Bye.’

‘
Shit,’ murmured Steven as he heard the line go dead. What was Jenny thinking now, he wondered. That he didn’t care? That he didn’t love her? That she wasn’t important? ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

Steven looked up his notes for the phone number of the hospital lab in Glasgow where Gus Maclean worked, called it, but only to be told that Maclean was not on duty. He had called in sick that morning. Steven asked for a home number but was told that wasn’t possible. He asked to speak to the lab manager. When George Drummond came on the line, Steven explained who he was and asked for his help in contacting Maclean.

‘
Gulf War business?’ asked Drummond.

‘
You could say,’ agreed Steven.

‘
Best I can do is call Gus and ask him if it’s all right to give you his number,’ said Drummond.

‘
I’d be grateful,’ said Steven.

Drummond called back within five minutes to give Steven the number. He dialled it.

‘
Gus, I’d like to come up there and talk to you again.’

‘
What about?’ asked Maclean sounding hoarse.

‘
Same as last time. I don’t know if you’ve heard but the journalist that George Sebring talked to is dead.’

‘
Jesus, what happened?’

‘
Suicide.’

‘
And the story?’

‘
No trace.’

‘
Shit.’

‘
Agreed. Can I come?’

‘
21, Brandon Street, off Dumbarton Road. Top flat, first.’

‘
Tomorrow morning?’ said Steven.

‘
I’ll be here.’

Before going to bed, Steven called Jane in Leicester to say that he would be going to Glasgow in the morning.

‘
How did you get on with the people from Porton?’ asked Jane.

‘
They’re sticking to the official line that George and his colleagues were working on a vaccine against AIDS,’ said Steven. ‘But it emerged that they did supply a component of a vaccines the troops were given. I guess we can call that progress.’

‘
It’s something,’ said Jane.

‘
Trouble is, they’ve recently destroyed all the old vaccine stocks so we can’t subject them to any new analysis.’

‘
One step forward, two steps back,’ said Jane.

‘
Was it ever different?’

Steven took a taxi from Glasgow Airport to Brandon Street. It was raining and the cab smelt of dampness and stale tobacco. What was worse; the driver believed himself to be the most sensible person in the world.

‘
I see Saddam says he’s no’ gonnae let in they weapons inspectors,’ he said.

‘
I hadn’t heard,’ said Steven.

‘
It’s no’ exactly a surprise,’ said the driver. ‘Would you want the polis in yer hoose wi’ a back room full o’ dodgy videos? Stands tae reason.’

‘
I suppose.’

‘
They shouldae marked his card last time while they had the chance but no, that wid hae been too easy. The bleedin’ herts hud their way and noo we’re gonna hiv to dae it all o’er again. Makes me sick, an’ see a’ they asylum seekers . . .’

Steven grunted at appropriate intervals until the journey was over and he stepped out into the wet at the corner of Brandon Street and Dumbarton Road to walk along the row of red sandstone tenement until he found number 21. He mounted the well-worn stone steps to the top flat where Maclean opened the door in his dressing gown.

‘
They told me at the hospital you weren’t well,’ said Steven as he followed Maclean through to a sitting room where he indicated that Steven should sit and then collapsed into an armchair, holding his chest as if he’d just run a marathon.

‘
A left over from the Gulf War?’ asked Steven.

Maclean nodded and said, ‘It comes; it goes. What can I do for you?’

‘
I remember you told me that you went to see George Sebring to try and get him to tell you what he had been working on at Porton.’

‘
That’s right.’

‘
The police told me you’d tried contacting other people who had worked there. Did you actually talk to any of them?

‘
It was bloody difficult. I only ever managed to get addresses for three of them, Sebring, a bloke named Lowry and another guy, called Michael D’Arcy.’

Steven was pleased to hear an unfamiliar name. ‘Did you speak to either of them?’

‘
Both,’ said Maclean. ‘Lowry told me to sling my hook or he’d call the police. He still worked at our noble defence establishment at that time. I don’t know if he still does. He was none too chuffed that I’d managed to track him down but I managed to have a talk with D’Arcy. He seemed a decent enough bloke in an English middle class sort of a way but shit scared of saying anything out of line. He just kept repeating that he was subject to the Official Secrets Act until he sounded like a worn-out record.’

‘
Who was D’Arcy exactly?’

‘
He was a pal of Sebring’s. They worked together in a section headed by a snooty bastard named Crowe. Never was a bloke more aptly named, cold bastard, would have your right eye out and come back for your left. Didn’t have much to do with us squaddies though. I suppose he thought it was beneath him.’

‘
I think I’d like to go see this D’Arcy. Do you have an address for him?’

‘
It’s been a while,’ said Maclean. ‘A couple of years at least. He lived down in Kent at that time; worked for a pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, I think. Poacher turned gamekeeper you might say.’