Outbreak, p.27
Outbreak, page 27
When the phone rang beside the bed twenty minutes later the voice on the other end was brisk and stern. ‘Come down to Reception,’ the man said. He didn’t sound like somebody who worked for the hotel.
Three of them were waiting for him at the far end of the reception desk, all stockily built men in dark suits; one wore an earpiece. They introduced themselves as working for Colonel Petrov and the oldest flashed his ID badge.
‘Come, please,’ they told him. ‘We go to GRU headquarters.’
Despite this being his first, and most probably last, visit to Russia, this was exactly how Luke had imagined it would be in his dealings with Russia’s shadowy security apparatus. His uncle had spent long hours telling him tales of Soviet life in the seventies and early eighties, when he’d been posted undercover to the British Embassy during the dark days of Leonid Brezhnev. It occurred to Luke now that when it came to state security nothing much had changed since those times.
Sitting once more in the back of the car, being driven across Moscow at night and past the floodlit red walls of the Kremlin, Luke pressed again for an answer. ‘I would like to speak to my colleague, Miss Li,’ he said, leaning forward to address the man in the front passenger seat. ‘Her phone is switched off and she is with your people at the Ivanovsky Institute.’
He waited while a hurried conversation in Russian flowed back and forth between his three GRU escorts. Finally, the man in front replied: ‘I have some news. Miss Li has met with an accident. We are sorry.’
‘What?’ The news hit Luke like a blow to the head. They had stopped at a busy intersection and the lights of the vehicles were flashing past like a kaleidoscope, the roads glistening with a light dusting of snow. There was silence in the car, just the drone of the traffic outside the windows in the freezing night.
‘What do you mean, “Miss Li has met with an accident”?’ Luke demanded.
For the first time he could see the man in front looking uncomfortable as he stared hard at him. The officer held up his hand as he took out his phone, pressed a key, then spoke to someone on the other end. Luke could see his brow furrowing. When he put the phone away the officer said simply, ‘The colonel will see you in his office.’
They pulled up in the forecourt of the GRU building on Grizodubovoy Street with a squeal of tyres. Car doors opened and slammed shut. Men were running into the building and shouting. For a brief moment Luke found himself completely alone in the back of the vehicle, frantically rubbing the joint of his missing finger with anxiety as he thought of Jenny Li. Something had definitely happened and he needed to find out what.
The three GRU men escorted him into the vast, cavernous lobby, past the portrait of the President on the wall, down a corridor, cramming themselves into a lift, then riding up in silence to Petrov’s office on the second floor. The door was open and they stopped just short of it, gesturing for Luke to go in.
The colonel was standing in the middle of the room, his posture braced and upright, hands clasped behind his back. But it wasn’t the sight of Colonel Petrov that caught Luke’s attention. It was the fact that he was flanked by two medical orderlies in white coats.
Of Jenny Li there was no sign.
87
Vauxhall Cross, London
Thursday, 17 March, 1738hrs GMT, 2038hrs Moscow
FOR ANGELA SCOTT, the news brought a dreadful sense of déjà vu. It seemed like only yesterday that the night duty officer had taken that early-morning call from Bogotá informing them that their Colombia station chief had been found murdered in the jungle. Angela had been part of the team that had deployed Luke Carlton to go out there to investigate, with painful consequences for him. Now, less than five years on, Carlton was once more ‘at reach and at risk’, as their partners in the SAS were fond of saying. He was in Moscow and the apparent success of his mission had come at a terrible cost. Angela took a deep breath before knocking on the Chief’s door.
‘Something has happened to Jenny Li,’ she told him, with no preamble, as she stood on the carpet facing him. ‘She’s been infected with a virus. In Moscow. It’s possibly deliberate, we don’t know yet. The Russians are keeping her in isolation.’
Sir Adam Keeling looked up sharply. He was wearing a dark blue pinstripe suit and a pale blue Cambridge tie tucked into the top of his waistcoat. Impeccably smart at all times, his demeanour seemed frayed, the strain of the last few days definitely showing.
‘What virus?’ he replied hoarsely. ‘You mean Agent X? And how the hell did this happen? Has Carlton got it too?’ He got up from his chair and came round to her side of the desk, offering her a chair, but Angela remained standing. Somehow it didn’t seem right to her to be delivering this news sitting down.
‘They split up to save time,’ she told him, folding her arms across her chest. ‘Jenny went to interview the virologists at the Ivanovsky Institute while Luke went to—’
‘Wait a moment,’ the Chief interrupted. ‘Who authorized that?’
She couldn’t help herself – she knew it was a cliché, but Angela swallowed before replying. This had happened on her watch. ‘No one authorized it, C. They took an on-the-spot decision. Luke says there was no chance to refer it back to us.’
Sir Adam waved a hand dismissively. ‘All right. So what’s her condition now? And how did this happen?’
Angela bit her lower lip. She had been in the Service long enough to know the one thing chiefs and directors disliked more than anything was being given an incomplete set of information. ‘From what Luke has told us,’ she said, ‘it seems there was some kind of accidental release in their BioLevel3 lab – at least, that’s what they’re telling him. And, no, it’s not Agent X, thank God. But Jenny is in an induced coma while they keep her in isolation.’
The Chief began pacing the room as he often did. He stopped, removed his suit jacket and threw it over the back of a chair. ‘This stinks,’ he said. ‘I smell a rat here, don’t you?’ Angela nodded. ‘Jenny Li is our foremost expert on CBRN. I know that, you know that, they know that. We always knew it would be a calculated risk sending her over there, but I didn’t think they’d try something like this. Oh, this is rich.’ He shook his head. ‘Moscow will be trying to pump her for information the moment she comes round. I wouldn’t put it past them to use their experimental truth serums on her. Right …’ He thought for a moment, wiping the palms of his hands over his face and momentarily closing his eyes. ‘Get someone from our embassy over to wherever she’s being treated, have them stick as close as they safely can, and get Luke Carlton back here as fast as.’
‘It’s already done, C. He’s on his way to Domodedovo now. He’s got the flash drive with the WaffenKrieg90 contacts. I’ve got a bike meeting his flight into Gatwick the moment he touches down. We’ll get it screened the second it comes into the building.’
The Chief nodded, still thinking. ‘Good. We need him operational on this as soon as he gets back here. And someone needs to call Jenny’s next of kin. And, Angela?’
‘They’d better prepare them for the worst.’
88
Gatwick Airport, England
Friday, 18 March, 0840hrs GMT
SVALBARD … vilnius … moscow … Vauxhall Cross. For Luke, the last few days had passed in a blizzard of flights, briefings and missions. So much so that now, groggy with sleep, as the overnight Air Baltic flight 651 from Moscow via Riga touched down at Gatwick Airport, he briefly struggled to remember where he was. But the moment he opened his eyes, blinking at the rain-spattered plane window beside him, the awful truth returned: he had left behind a virus-stricken Jenny Li in Moscow. God knew he hadn’t wanted to. Right up to the last minute, almost missing his flight, he had argued with Vauxhall Cross that he should stay and see her safely home. But the order had come direct from Sid Khan, the director of International Counter-Terrorism, and it had left no room for manoeuvre. Return home ASAP, it read. Embassy will look after JL.
Now the Airbus A220-300 had taxied to a halt next to an air bridge at North Terminal, but the captain was asking everyone to remain in their seats. A tall blonde Latvian flight attendant in a dark blue tunic and yellow scarf approached Luke’s seat and bent over him to whisper, ‘The captain asks if you could come up to the flight deck, please.’
Luke was expecting this. As he got up from his seat, feeling the other passengers all watching him, he discreetly reached his hand inside his jacket pocket to check that the package was still there, feeling with his fingertips for the familiar outline of Petrov’s USB stick. The engines were still running as they unlocked the door to reveal the Service courier sent from Vauxhall, standing alone on the air-bridge ramp, helmet under his arm. He removed his gloves, produced his ID for Luke to check, then took the package and was gone.
Seventeen minutes later Luke was through Immigration and waiting on the platform for the Gatwick Express to Victoria. Glancing at the other passengers, he almost envied them. None of them know, he thought, of the horror that could be unleashed on the population if we don’t succeed in stopping this in time. Then, as the train pulled up and the doors hissed open, another thought struck him. He was going home as a father-to-be. So much had happened in the short time since he had left for Moscow and he had been so focused on the mission that he had pushed this to the back of his mind. But now he was back and it was real and he was going to have to sit down with Elise and discuss their future. The prospect left him feeling both excited and exhausted.
It was 10.30 a.m. when he entered the flat, walked into the living room and was surprised to see Elise still there. Instead of having left for work she was sitting upright at the breakfast table, wearing a fawn cashmere cardigan, and reading a book, the grey morning light coming through the window, a cushion resting on her lap.
‘Hey, you’re still here!’ he said, dumping his bag and going over to kiss her.
Elise flashed him the briefest of smiles, as if he had just popped down to the shops for some milk instead of spending the last two days in Moscow. He immediately sensed something was wrong. She barely returned his kiss – there was no warm embrace, no ‘Welcome home, Luke.’ He sat down next to her and reached out to squeeze her hand, but to his dismay she recoiled. Elise moved her chair back from the table, as if trying to put some distance between them. She looked at him with a deadly serious expression.
‘What’s wrong, Lise?’ he asked tenderly. ‘Is someone in trouble?’
‘Luke …’ she began, then stopped.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked again.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied, rather too quickly, glancing out of the window at nothing. ‘Look … there’s something you need to know.’ She was intertwining the fingers of her hands now, writhing them together, like mating snakes.
He had never seen her so nervous. Even her voice sounded different, somehow brittle and alien. ‘Go on,’ he said gently.
She was looking down at her hands now, unwilling to meet his eyes. ‘Luke, it’s time you knew. I’ve been looking back at the calendar. I’ve looked at the dates, at when you were here and when you were away and, well, I’ve got some bad news. It’s not … I’m afraid it’s not yours.’ She blurted out the last words in a rush, her face flushed.
‘What isn’t?’ and he could hear the lameness in his words even as he spoke them. Because he already knew the answer.
‘Oh, come on, Luke, for God’s sake!’ she snapped. ‘Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. The baby, Luke! It’s not yours. Do I have to spell it out for you?’ Then, softening her tone, she added, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but that’s all there is to it.’ Elise pursed her lips and looked at him for a reaction.
The sadness was so overwhelming he thought he might drown. Two days ago she had told him he was going to be a father. That meant they would be a family. Together. Yet now, with those simple, damning words, all that had suddenly been snatched away from him and smashed at his feet. For a second he said nothing. Then a voice he hardly recognized as his own said, ‘Whose is it?’
Quietly, almost under her breath, she answered him: ‘It’s Hugo’s.’
89
Vauxhall Cross
Friday, 18 March, 1133hrs GMT
NUMB. THAT WAS how Luke felt. And quietly angry. Turning it over again and again in his mind as he revved the engine of his Land Rover and ran an amber light on the drive in to the MI6 building in Vauxhall. How could he have been so blind? Why hadn’t he seen this coming? Of course. Every single time he had had to be away on a trip it was always Hugo bloody Squires who managed to be there for Elise when he wasn’t. Always ready to escort her to one of her art-gallery openings or some other diary event. Yet somehow he couldn’t bring himself to blame her. Not after what he had done with Tannaz in Iran. Maybe this was some kind of divine punishment.
He was passing the US Embassy building now at Nine Elms, and a pedestrian had suddenly decided to cross the road in front of him, seemingly oblivious to the traffic. Luke slammed on the brakes, wound down the window and swore at him. The man flicked him the finger and walked on.
So what now? Chuck in this whole MI6 gig and ask Elise for a second chance? Well, it was a bit bloody late for that, wasn’t it? Luke stifled the thought the instant it entered his head. No, he’d blown this one. Elise, fatherhood, their shared little life in that flat, all built on sand, as it turned out, all gone now. He had walked out on her in silence almost as soon as she had delivered that news. He simply didn’t trust himself not to say something he would always regret.
Turning off Albert Embankment and watching the green metal gates open, he hit the accelerator too early and nearly ran over one of the security staff. He took a deep breath and gave himself a silent reprimand. This wouldn’t do. He needed to suppress his dark thoughts, control his temper and stay professional.
Angela Scott was waiting for him in the ground-floor lobby of the Vauxhall Cross building, cradling a cup of coffee to her chest. Catching sight of her as he keyed himself in through security, Luke did something of a double take. Instead of her habitual, sometimes dowdy, business wear, Angela was dressed in a dark blue boiler suit with the sleeves rolled up. There would be a reason for this, he guessed, but he decided, on balance, it was probably best not to comment on it.
‘Jesus, Luke, you look terrible!’ she told him, as she walked over to a tall, circular bin next to the big MI6 plaque and dropped her empty cup into it.
‘Thanks.’ He ran his hand through his hair. He couldn’t remember when he’d last washed it.
‘No, really,’ she said seriously. ‘Maybe you’d better go straight home and get some sleep as soon as we’ve set this thing up.’
Home. The word cut him like a blade. Because where was ‘home’ now? Certainly not in the Battersea riverside flat any more. An orphan since the age of ten, Luke had almost no family to fall back on. So if he was not going to return there where was he going to sleep tonight – at the Battersea Travelodge? Bedding down in a lonely bachelor’s room for one while the traffic sped past beneath his window? His spirits sank lower still.
‘I’m fine,’ he lied. ‘Let’s get on with this, shall we? What’s the update on Jenny?’
Angela grimaced. ‘Everyone’s taken it pretty badly,’ she said, as they walked together towards the lifts, ‘but Jenny’s a fighter. She’s out of the induced coma, and they’re saying she’ll pull through. We’re still trying to find out what actually happened at the Ivanovsky. It does look like it might have been an accident, but you can imagine how C feels about this.’ She stood back as the lift doors pinged open and two people got out. ‘Right now we’re just trying to make sure one of our people is keeping an eye on her around the clock. Let’s not forget that the FSB tried to finish off Navalny with Novichok when he was in Omsk Hospital in the summer of 2020.’
She pressed a lift button and turned to face him. ‘Right. Down we go.’
They took the lift, not up to the operations room but to a part of the building Luke had never been to before, a place two floors below the ground. He reckoned they must be about on a level with the surface of the Thames at low tide, right beneath Vauxhall Bridge, not that you could tell in this soundproofed, windowless corridor. For an instant he experienced an unwelcome flashback to a lockup garage in a Moscow suburb, to a place where a man had agreed to cooperate under great duress. Hell, Luke still hadn’t come to terms with that one and there were no excuses for it. If this ever got out he’d find himself in court before he knew it, and he couldn’t expect any top cover from this lot.
‘I don’t believe,’ said Angela, ‘you’ve been into Area D before.’ She indicated the featureless corridor they were walking down. ‘Well, this is it. There are rooms down here that you and I will never, ever visit, right up to the day we hand in our passes.’
‘Why are we here, Angela?’ He tried to keep the tiredness and exasperation out of his voice, but realized he must have sounded quite irritable. ‘Sorry, you were probably just about to tell me.’
‘I was. I’m taking you to the Stage.’ They had stopped in front of a plain steel door with a cardkey access system.
‘The Stage?’ He looked at her questioningly.
‘Yes – at least that’s what we call it. Officially it’s Room 13.2 or something suitably anodyne, but nobody calls it that. Think of it as our own in-house theatre production studio, if you will. It’s where we set up certain … scenarios for critical missions. Like this one.’
