“Hilarious. Looks like General Luke Waterfield to me. Isn’t he the Chief of the Defence Staff?” Lizzie said.
“You’re just reading that from the titles on the screen,” Adams replied, moving his hand back to Lizzie’s flank. On the screen, General Waterfield continued.
“Any form of initiation ceremony, no matter how innocuous it may appear to be, is unacceptable. I have made that abundantly clear to all the personnel under my command.” The general paused, staring into the camera for maximum effect. “If I hear of this behaviour occurring, I will personally ensure that it is dealt with to the full extent of military law and, if required, the law of the civilian authorities. It will simply not be tolerated.”
“What a knob jockey,” Lizzie replied with a laugh. “As if someone like that’s got any idea what’s actually happening at unit level.”
“Does it say on the ticker tape what’s actually happened?” Adams asked.
“Something involving an army regiment, some new recruits, and a horsewhip. Sounds like under different circumstances, it might be fun.”
On the screen, General Waterfield disappeared and was replaced by a sombre-faced presenter telling his Sunday morning audience about the World Health Organisation getting excited about something happening in Africa. Lizzie snuggled into Adams and used the remote to turn the news off, selecting a music channel instead.
“Hey, I was watching that,” Adams replied in mock protest. Lizzie didn’t reply, but moved her hand to cover Adams’s. They lay in silence for a while, Lizzie enjoying the way he was still brushing her skin with his thumb.
“This is pleasant, isn’t it?” Lizzie said a moment later. “It’s Sunday morning and we have nothing to do until after lunch.”
“I know,” Adams replied, his voice low. “That’s why I’m going back to sleep.”
“Paul Adams,” Lizzie said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you have a naked woman lying next to you who would quite like to use some of that time for mutual benefit.”
“Hell’s teeth, woman. You’re naked?” Adams brought his other arm—the one that had been lying on top of the covers—underneath the duvet and placed it on Lizzie’s stomach. She squealed in response and tried to wriggle away from it. “My God, you actually are naked! What would your mother say?”
“For fuck’s sake, Adams,” she said, laughing. “Your hand’s sodding freezing.” She continued wriggling, but Adams kept his hand where it was. Realising that he wasn’t going to relent, Lizzie lay back and grimaced. “Did you ever think we would end up like this?” she asked him after a few seconds.
“Like what?” he mumbled as he nuzzled his face into her hair.
“Like this.”
“I remember the first time I saw you, Lizzie. Back at Cranwell when I was Officer Cadet Adams, and you were Corporal Jarman.”
“What do you remember?” Lizzie replied, trying not to be distracted by the movement of Adams’s thumb across a particularly sensitive part of her anatomy.
“I remember what I thought at the time.”
“And what did you think at the time?” Lizzie shifted her body so that she was closer to him.
“I remember thinking, I bet she goes like a steam train on steroids.” Adams was whispering now.
“You’re such a romantic,” Lizzie replied with a giggle. “Do you know what I thought when I saw you for the first time?”
“That you would love to offer me your honour?” Lizzie could hear the smile in his voice.
“No, I thought you were a right twat.”
“Thanks for confirming that for me.”
“You’re more than welcome.” Outside Adams’s bedroom window, Lizzie could hear a bird singing. “Your hand’s still cold, though.” As she spoke, she felt it slide down her stomach by a couple of centimetres.
“Can you think of anywhere warmer I could put it?” Adams murmured in her ear.
Lizzie grinned and closed her eyes, trying to tune the bird and the music on the television out. She turned her head toward Adams and kissed him. When they broke apart, her eyes were only inches from his.
“You’re incorrigible, Adams. You know that?” She closed her eyes as she felt his hand on her stomach move again.
“I don’t actually know what that means, Lizzie,” he replied, his fingertips still inching down her abdomen.
“Adams?”
“What?”
Lizzie arched her hips to meet his hand and sighed.
“Shut up.”
6
Eleanor tucked an errant strand of her shoulder length brown hair behind her ear as she scrolled through the contacts on her mobile. When she found the one she wanted, she checked the time to make sure it wasn’t too early in the morning to call her friend, and stabbed at the screen.
“Hello?” a sleepy female voice said after a couple of rings. “Ellie? Is that you?”
“Beth, I’ve not woken you, have I?” Eleanor said quickly. “I’m so sorry if I did. I thought you’d still be up.” Beth was one of her oldest friends from university and was in fact the only one of her friends from her Uni days that she was still in regular contact with. They had shared a rental house in the centre of Norwich for a few months until they both ran out of money and had to move into the student accommodation on campus at the University of East Anglia. She was also the only person who shortened Eleanor’s name. When Beth had found out Eleanor didn’t like having her name shortened, it made her use the diminutive form permanently.
“No, no, you’re all right,” Beth said. “I was just about to get up, anyway. Hang on.” Eleanor heard Beth’s muffled voice talking to someone else, and then a rustling noise. When she came back on the line, Beth sounded more awake than a few seconds previously. “I’m in the kitchen so I can talk. Michael’s watching some shite on the box about Vikings. Sunday bloody morning and he’s already watching rubbish.”
Eleanor paused before replying. Michael was another university friend of sorts. He and Eleanor had spent quite a lot of time together at one point, but her reluctance to share any of that time in bed with him had put an end to their brief relationship. Michael getting together with Beth before Eleanor’s cheeks were even dry had tested their friendship to its limits, but, to Eleanor’s relief, it had survived.
“How is he?” Eleanor asked, keen to get the obligatory question out of the way. “All good?”
“Yeah, you know Michael. Same old.” There was an awkward pause before Beth continued. “How’s things with you, anyway? We’ve not spoken in months. Are you still at the paper?”
“Everything’s fine. Not been sacked yet, anyway.” Beth’s laughter at Eleanor’s response diffused any tension between them. “How’s the PhD coming on?”
“Slowly,” Beth replied with a sigh. When they had finished their degrees—Eleanor’s in journalism and Beth’s in biology—Beth had decided to stay on at the university and study for a master’s degree, which had then led to her applying for a doctorate. The night Beth had found out she’d been accepted into the PhD programme had resulted in one of the worst hangovers Eleanor had ever known. “Very slowly. But the unit I’m in is fantastic.”
Beth had explained to Eleanor at the time what she was going to be studying but, other than it was something to do with bacteria and plants, most of it had gone straight over Eleanor’s head.
“Can I ask you a question?” Eleanor said. Beth laughed in reply.
“Same old Ellie, never mind the chit-chat, just get straight to the point.” Eleanor grinned at her friend’s comment. “Go on then, what’ve you got?”
“What do you know about the Ascalon Institute?”
“That lot up on the research park?”
“Yeah,” Eleanor replied. “They’re in the same field as you, aren’t they?”
“Not really, no. I think they’re more about computational and biotech stuff than bio-energy. Why?”
“Okay,” Eleanor replied, not really understanding the difference between the two scie
ntific fields, and not wanting to answer Beth’s question too directly. “It’s just I’m working on a piece on them at the moment.”
“Why them?” Beth replied, and Eleanor could hear the smile in her voice. “Why not my department? I’ve always wanted to be in the Eastern Daily whatever it’s called.”
“It’s the Eastern Daily News,” Eleanor replied, also smiling. “But I’m looking for a particularly interesting type of story that might involve them. Could you have a look at some photos for me?”
“Are you saying bio-energy’s not particularly interesting?”
“Please, Beth?” Eleanor’s smile faded. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need your help.”
“Go on then, ping them over. Let me just grab my iPad.”
Eleanor balanced the phone between her ear and shoulder as she opened up her laptop. She already had an e-mail composed with a selection of the photographs that Fiona had emailed to her attached.
“Have you still got the same e-mail address?” she asked Beth.
“Yep.”
“Cool. Listen, Beth. Can I ask you not to say anything about the photos, just in case?”
“Just in case of what?”
“I just don’t want anyone knowing I’m doing some digging, that’s all.”
“Ooh, very Woodward and Bernstein,” Beth replied. Eleanor laughed, not expecting that from her friend. “Michael made me watch some film about them. Have you got a Deep Throat, then?”
“I can’t say, Beth.”
“You have?”
“Beth. Please?”
“Okay, okay. I promise not to say a word.”
Eleanor clicked on the send button on her laptop and, a few seconds later, heard a chime on the phone.
“Yeah, they’ve come through. What do you want me to do?” Beth asked.
“Can you just tell me what you think of the photographs?”
“Sure. Give me a moment.”
While she waited for Beth’s opinion on the photographs, she sipped a mug of tea and looked at them again. There were only a few of them, and they were all slightly out of focus and tilted.
“What do you want to know?” Beth replied, finally. Her voice was sombre, and any hint of her earlier good nature was gone.
“Just tell me what you can see.”
“Well, they’re of a laboratory, obviously.” Eleanor fought to suppress a sigh. She might be a journalist, but she could still recognise a laboratory when she saw one.
“What type of laboratory?” she asked her friend.
“I can’t say what they’re doing in there. Is this at the Ascalon Institute?”
“Yes. Or at least, I’m as sure as I can be.”
“Have you heard of containment levels?” Beth asked. If she had asked that question an hour ago, Eleanor would have said no, but a quick search on the internet had brought her up to speed.
“I know a bit. Humour me.”
“They go from one to four, with one being the most basic. Our laboratory is containment level two. It’s all about biosafety. The higher the level, the higher the risk. So, we can have moderate risk stuff like Salmonella or Staphylococcus.”
Eleanor nodded. What Beth was telling her matched what she’d been able to find out on the internet. She also knew that the Ascalon Institute had a containment level two laboratory as they had to register it on the Public Health England website.
“But this laboratory, well, I can see an airlock, positive air pressure systems, HEPA filters. The woman in the last photograph is wearing a full-on pressurised suit with its own air supply.”
“What does that mean?” Eleanor asked. There was a pause on the other end of the line.
“It means that this is a containment level four laboratory,” Beth replied. “The highest there is. What are they doing in there?” Eleanor sipped her tea before replying.
“That’s what I want to find out.”
7
Adams sat at his dining table, a cheap IKEA knockoff that had come with the flat, and leafed through the paper. He made a mental note to cancel the subscription for Sundays when he was posted to the other end of the country in a few months’ time. The tenant he had lined up for the flat was barely paying enough to cover the mortgage on the place as it was without getting a complimentary copy of the Sunday Times into the bargain. A few feet away, Lizzie was jabbing at some bacon that was sizzling in the frying pan, a bemused expression on her face. For all her qualities, Adams thought with a smile, culinary talent wasn’t one of them.
He watched her for a few moments, enjoying the fact that she was completely engrossed in whatever the problem was with the bacon. She was shorter than him by a few inches—five feet six to his five feet nine, even though the Royal Air Force insisted he was actually a couple of centimetres shorter—and had her hair cut into a short brown bob. He much preferred it to the way she had it styled previously, but he’d never told her that. As he watched, she lifted herself up onto her tiptoes to look into the frying pan, and he couldn’t help but be drawn to her calves.
What Adams had said earlier that morning about her losing weight was true. Lizzie had never been fat, but she’d definitely lost a fair few pounds since their last tour of Afghanistan. Adams leafed through the pages of the newspaper, not really reading it, but glancing over it. General Waterfield had got himself a fair few column inches about the initiation incident, and there was a box with a potted history of his career. Adams scanned it quickly, not finding anything particularly interesting in there. A few operational tours, none particularly demanding, and no sign of being anywhere near the dangerous stuff. Most of his medals were probably for PowerPoint presentations that had gone down well while his troops were out in the field getting cut to ribbons. Adams would know, as would Lizzie, because between them they’d tried to sew up as many of those shreds as they could.
“Shouldn’t it be more brown than this?” Lizzie said from her position by the cooker. She glanced at him over her shoulder and grinned briefly before staring back at the pan as she jabbed again at the bacon.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Adams replied. “Once you put the eggs in, that’ll sort it, I reckon.”
“Seriously, you want me to do eggs as well?” Lizzie said over her shoulder. “Bloody hell, you’re demanding. If I’d known I had to do eggs as well, I’d have kept my legs together.”
Adams smiled at Lizzie’s response, but it was short-lived. He’d enjoyed the sex earlier as much as he’d ever enjoyed anything else in his life. It had been slow, languid, and just like Sunday morning sex should be. But at the same time, there was a nagging feeling that Lizzie was more interested in his pleasure than in her own. He stared down at the paper, thinking. Adams would never profess to being an expert lover, but he had a pretty good grasp of anatomy and physiology and liked to think he knew what he was doing. But with Lizzie, he wasn’t sure.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Lizzie said as she sat down opposite him. He looked at her, loving the way she had her head tilted to one side as she asked him the question. But it wasn’t as if he could answer the question honestly, was it? Adams decided on a change of tack.
“I don’t want you to go away, Lizzie. On this career break thing.” To his dismay, her face fell.
“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”
“I mean, I’m chuffed to bits that you’re seriously thinking about it, but I’m just being selfish because I won’t see you for a few months.”
“It’s not definite, Adams,” Lizzie replied. “It’s only a presentation I’m going to. I can cancel it if you want me to?” Adams knew Lizzie was going to a presentation by a non-governmental organisation who arranged sabbaticals in developing countries. He also knew that her being a paramedic, and a military paramedic at that, would make her an attractive proposition to the organisation. She would be taken over a gap year snowflake wanting to find themselves any day of the week.
“I don’t want you to cancel it, Lizzie,” Adams countered. “I’m just being selfish. Y
ou need to go. That’s what your shrink said.”
“He’s not my shrink,” Lizzie said, turning her attention back to the bacon. “He’s a counsellor. Besides, if I go, it’ll only be for three months and then the deskie said he’d post me to Lyneham when I get back.”
“Seriously?” Adams hadn’t known about that, but he had called in a favour with the Warrant Officer ‘deskie’ at Air Command who arranged the postings to make sure she didn’t get posted to Scotland or somewhere equally inaccessible. He’d not mentioned it to Lizzie, though, on the Warrant Officer’s advice. “To the wing?”
“No, to the medical centre.” Lizzie said. “He offered me a post on the wing, but I didn’t think it would be a good idea. Us working together, I mean.” Adams watched as she added some sausages to the pan. By the time they were cooked, the bacon was going to be crispy at best, burnt at worst.
“It would be a bit awkward, especially if I had to give you a bollocking about something. Also, you’d have to call me sir all the time.”
“Something like that, yes,” Lizzie replied, her voice sounding distracted. Adams hid a smile as he saw her looking at the eggs. “How long do these take?”
A few moments later, Lizzie put a plate down in front of Adams. He looked at it, careful to keep his face neutral. The bacon was charred, the sausages split down the sides, and the eggs were suspiciously runny in the middle.
“Do you want any ketchup?” Lizzie said as she prodded at a sausage. When she looked up at him, her face was mischievous. “I’ve really buggered up the breakfast, haven’t I?”
Allowing himself a smile, Adams jabbed his fork into the top of one of his eggs.
“Not at all,” he replied as he shattered the bacon with his knife. “It’s not a proper full English if it’s not a heart attack on a plate.” Adams managed to get some of the bacon onto his fork and raised it to his mouth, hoping his teeth would be up to the challenge. “Sunday mornings don’t get much better than this.”
8
Enemy Within: A heart-wrenching medical mystery (British Military Thriller Series Book 3) Page 3
