THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author. (27 page)

Running snouts was a very messy business, even when both you and your informant played by the rules.

That’s why Zarshad was now just a friend called ‘Alex’; an old friend that Jake had bumped into at the pub over the weekend.

Jake glanced over at Lenny in the passenger seat. ‘I was talking to Alex about the timing of the attacks, about Wasim’s video that’s been showing on the news. The time of the attacks is a big thing. It has a meaning. Something we’ve all missed. Other people knew the significance. I don’t think it’s just the four of them.’

‘We’ve been saying that for weeks, Jake. The MIR is all over the place. What does your lady friend at the Security Service say?’ asked Lenny.

‘The official line is that, on the ground, it’s just the four lads up in Yorkshire involved in 7/7. I think Claire might have some more information, but she or the Security Service is trying to throw us off the scent.’

‘Maybe the Security Service are just a shit organisation, Jake? I think we give them far too much credit. Some play with computers, some go out and play at being James Bond. But, actually, they’re just a bunch of kids who know nothing about the world. Left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.’

‘Why the lies about what they do or don’t know then?’

‘Because they can?’ Lenny shrugged.

‘What do you mean?’

‘They can say what they like. They know we can’t look at the intelligence they hold – no one can. Not even the politicians. They’re their own keepers, answerable to no one. That’s the way us police used to be in the seventies. No one could touch us. We did what we liked. If we made a mistake, we covered it up. We didn’t have to put up with the shit from the courts that we do now.

‘They lie because they can, Jake. Because they can get away with it. Of course they know more. Of course they’ve fucked up, but they’re never going to admit it and we’re never going to be able to prove that, are we?’

They were headed into the Blackwall tunnel. The sunshine was suddenly gone, replaced with neon light that flooded from the ceiling. An acrid smell of traffic fumes filled the car. They both wound up their windows.

The tunnel came to an abrupt end and they were dazzled by the daylight. They’d be at Fort Halstead soon.

The drive from the Blackwall tunnel to Sevenoaks took about an hour. They spoke little about work again until they started to climb the hill toward the Fort Halstead facility.

‘What do you reckon they’re going to tell us about the dirty bomb, Jake? D’you think it’s caused an epidemic?’

‘I don’t know. I dread to think. To be honest, Len – I really hope they’ve found nothing at all.’

75

Monday

22 August 2005

1045 hours

Fort Halstead, Sevenoaks, Kent

They drove slowly toward the barriers blocking the entrance to the facility. A security guard in a black jumper and black trousers stepped out of the small building next to the barriers, with a clipboard.

‘If your name’s not on the list, you ain’t coming in,’ quipped Lenny as they slowed down.

Jake stopped the car next to the guard.

‘Who are you here to see, gents?’

‘Professor Bowman. We should be on the list. DI Flannagan and DS Sandringham,’ said Jake through the car’s open window.

The guard scrolled down the clipboard, ‘Yes. You know where you’re going?’

‘Yep, no problem,’ said Jake.

The guard turned and waved back toward the building to give the OK. The metal barrier in front of them slid slowly skyward, leaving an open road. Jake drove carefully into the vast facility.

Situated on a hill overlooking the commuter haven of Sevenoaks, Fort Halstead had all the appearances of an army base without the army. Low-rise, red-brick buildings, neat streets and cut grass.

The place prided itself on being one of the world’s oldest laboratories and the team in white coats continued to regularly test new types of explosives. However a large proportion of their work was the examination of debris or exhibits in criminal investigations, such as the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and the mainland IRA campaign during the nineties.

Jake drove along a deserted road to a building at the back of the facility. They were met in the car park by Professor Bowman, a wiry man with grey hair and small round glasses.

Jake and Lenny got out of the car. Bowman shook Jake’s hand. It was a firm handshake. Bowman worked away from the public gaze. He met few people outside his team, but was a man of strong character. Jake often wondered what his background was. He reminded Jake of Q from the James Bond films, even in the way he dressed.

‘Good to see you again, Detective Inspector,’ said Bowman.

He led them into one of the buildings. The corridor had offices either side. Busy people in white lab coats were wandering up and down.

They settled in an office that had framed certificates on the wall. There were lots of them in an assortment of frame styles and sizes, both landscape and portrait. The room held a desk, but Bowman plumped for a green sofa instead.

‘Sit,’ Bowman instructed and indicated to two high-backed chairs opposite him.

Jake and Lenny sat down. Lenny took out a notebook.

‘Thanks for taking the time to see us today. It’s really appreciated,’ said Jake.

‘No problem at all. It’s an interesting piece of work. More than happy to have got involved. Malcolm Denswood at the MIR in London sent me the hospital reports and photos of the amputee last week. I’ve been through all the information in some depth.’

‘And? Anything?’ asked Jake, leaning forward in his chair.

Bowman opened a large brown file and peered into it. ‘Hmm, it’s odd. Did the bombers spend any time in Iraq do you know?’ he asked, looking between Jake and Lenny.

‘I don’t know. It’s possible. We know Wasim Khan, the ringleader, made a video which specifically mentions the war in Iraq as being one of the reasons for blowing himself up in London, and we know that he travelled a fair bit in the last five years. He spent some time in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Palestine, according to the Security Service reports. They’ve made no specific mention of Iraq. Not that that means anything to be honest. They don’t mention a lot of stuff they know to us. What do you think this has to do with Iraq?’

‘Clostridium perfringens,’ Bowman announced with a smile, as if it should mean something to Jake.

‘What? What the hell is that?’

‘I’ve been in touch with my colleagues at Porton Down, the biological-weapons facility. Clostridium perfringens is a biological agent that can be used with explosive munitions. It’s a very common bacterium. It can be found in decaying vegetation, the intestinal tract of humans, other vertebrates, insects and soil. It’s also the third most common cause of food poisoning in the UK and the US, thanks to the fact that it has the shortest reported generation time of any organism at just 6.3 minutes. You find it has an absolute ball reproducing at all-day buffets. It loves reheated gravies, lukewarm soups and cooled-down casseroles. If ingested, you may well get diarrhoea, vomiting and fever within the next ten to twelve hours. It doesn’t hang around.

‘However, having said all that, when used with explosive munitions it doesn’t just cause food poisoning. It causes something far more serious, something known as “gas gangrene”.’

Jake’s palms started to sweat. He felt slightly sick.

76

Monday

22 August 2005

1115 hours

Fort Halstead, Sevenoaks, Kent

‘What does that mean? What does it do?’ Jake struggled to get his words out.

Bowman glanced down at his notes. ‘Gas gangrene. British naval surgeons described it back in the 1700s. You’ve not heard of it? Well, the first recorded death rate was as high as 46% when tracked back in 1871. It became a common problem with bomb injuries during the American Civil War and World War I. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, died from it in the trenches. A soldier would get a blast injury, they’d amputate, but the soldier would have become infected from the Clostridium perfringens bacterium that was present in the trenches. If there was faecal matter from the soldiers relieving themselves in the trenches, so much the worse. The symptoms are a build-up of gas and fluid leaking from joints and limbs. It’s dangerous. The typical incubation period is frequently short, but incubation periods of up to six weeks have been reported. Antibiotics tackle it effectively – but there was little of that back in 1915.’

‘OK. So I get all that. But what’s the connection with Iraq?’ asked Jake.

‘Well, we do know that in 1986 and 1988 the US Government shipped a quantity of Clostridium perfringens to Iraq, along with anthrax, and some other nasty biological things for weapons. Some reports cited they had up to 5,000 litres of Clostridium perfringens for use with explosive munitions during the nineties. That’s why I wanted to know if the bomber had been to Iraq. But you say he hasn’t?’

‘As far as I know,’ shrugged Jake.

‘Well, I still think this person is showing all the signs of gas gangrene. It’s the sort of thing that we would have expected to see two hundred years ago. I mean, even by the time of the Falklands War in 1982, we’d stopped hearing about it. There wasn’t a single case reported throughout that whole conflict. That’s how far things had come,’ Bowman said with a frown. ‘But if he’s not been to Iraq, and they’ve not shipped any over, then I can only assume that this case must have been caused by some sort of accidental contamination, rather than a designated biological weapon. Clostridium perfringens can be prevalent in black pepper, and we know that was a key ingredient in these bombs.’

Jake was reminded of the spicy, pungent fragrance.

‘We’ve tested the remaining bomb ingredients that were left in the flat,’ said Bowman, ‘and nothing was flagged up. But it is possible that they used an entirely different batch and disposed of the packaging somewhere else.’

Jake looked quizzically at Bowman. ‘Hang on. So you said this gas gangrene could be treated by antibiotics? If it can be treated by antibiotics, why has this amputee got it? I’m pretty sure that when they amputate, the patient is pumped full of broad-spectrum drugs by the hospital. Why did this patient get this condition?’

‘It’s a good question, one that I have struggled with myself. The usual antibiotic treatment for Clostridium perfringens is penicillin. Penicillin normally knocks it on the head. But sometimes antibiotics alone are not effective because they may not penetrate infected tissues sufficiently. If this amputee was potentially allergic to penicillin, they’ll have most certainly been treated with an alternative, probably clindamycin. However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that clindamycin alone is not always successful in treating this bacterium. The experts at Porton Down tell me they’re currently seeing new strains of Clostridium perfringens that have become resistant to certain antibiotics.

‘I’ve looked at the blast pattern and I’ve looked at where this patient was located on the seating plan in relation to the bomber. I’m wondering – if the bus bomber had recently been abroad, could he have picked up this germ and been carrying it in his body?’

Jake thought back to what he knew about the four bombers and nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, I can see that being plausible, Professor. I researched why a couple of the bombers lost so much weight. Turns out that they’d had stomach bugs, which they’d picked up from training camps when travelling abroad. Wasim, for example. We know he became so ill back in 2001 on a visit to Pakistan that he had to return home to the UK. And Asif, he lost a load of weight between November 2004 and February of this year. His normal clothes didn’t fit him. His mum said she didn’t recognise him when he got back from his trip. He somehow picked up something really nasty out there. Friends and relatives said he was constantly complaining of feeling ill.’

The Professor raised his eyebrows. ‘So my thinking is that this bug could possibly have been expelled from the bus bomber’s body, as a result of the explosion, and contaminated the bomb victims’ wounds,’ he reasoned.

Lenny looked nonplussed. ‘Well, we found the bus bomber, Asif Rahman, in a number of pieces, but I know for a fact that his bowels and intestines were intact. His torso was on the roof of the BMA’s building.’

‘How on earth did you know that his body was up there?’ asked Professor Bowman incredulously.

‘The team said they were being plagued by an enormous flock of seagulls in the square. The birds were very interested in something on the roof. When we got some of the guys up on a cherry picker to have a look, they spotted a torso and we DNA’d the remains,’ grimaced Lenny.

‘Then perhaps the device on the bus was in contact with faecal matter infected with Clostridium perfringens? Did the bombers defecate onto the bombs or into their rucksacks, for instance?’

Jake looked at the floor intently. There was something at the back of his mind gnawing away at him. It suddenly came to him. ‘The trousers, Lenny!’

Lenny turned to him with a puzzled look on his face. ‘What d’you mean?’

Jake was getting animated now. ‘The petrol station CCTV at Woodall Services on the M1! You remember, Lenny. When they were travelling down to London early on the morning of 7/7 in the Nissan Micra? The CCTV showed Asif wearing white tracksuit bottoms as he got out to pay the cashier for the fuel. Then when we saw him again on the CCTV at Luton train station, three hours later, he had dark tracksuit bottoms on. We never found those white tracksuit bottoms. Like I said in that meeting, he must have had a little accident on the way!’

‘You’re right!’ said Lenny. ‘The mysterious case of the missing white tracksuit bottoms! He’s obviously shat himself and got changed. Must have been covered in it.’

‘And then he put his filthy trousers in his rucksack with the device,’ said Jake.

‘So you believe that the bus bomber was suffering from a severe stomach upset, defecated in his tracksuit bottoms and after changing into a clean pair, he stowed the soiled garment in the rucksack with the bomb?’ asked the Professor.