Enemy Within: A heart-wrenching medical mystery (British Military Thriller Series Book 3)

by Nathan Burrows

  “There you go,” Titch said as he put ten twenty-pound notes on the table between them.

  “Can I see your driving licence?”

  “Not got it with me.”

  “I can’t sell it to you without a driving licence, mate.” The salesperson looked at Titch with a wary smile. “I’ve got to write the number down for the DVLA, or I’ll be breaking the law, won’t I?”

  “How much is it without a driving licence?” Titch pulled a roll of notes out of his pocket, just far enough for them to be seen. The salesperson’s smile turned from wary to knowing.

  “That’ll be another hundred, but you can have the lid for free.”

  A few moments later, now the not very proud owner of a crappy moped, Titch was on the road. He kept to the back streets of Norwich, avoiding anywhere there might be CCTV cameras or police. He wasn’t that bothered about the CCTV cameras, as all they would see was a moped whose driver was invisible because of a crash helmet two sizes too big for him, but he’d rather not give the authorities a direction of travel. A police car was quite another matter, though, and Titch kept a close eye out for them.

  It took Titch a lot longer to get back to Martham than he’d thought, but he’d taken a very circuitous route and stuck to back lanes and tracks. By the time he reached the village, it was pitch dark, which suited him just fine. He pulled the moped into a small car park behind the village church. There was, Titch thought as he disconnected the battery from the moped to take with him to the boat, something ironic about going to ground near a place that was settled by the Saxons in the fifth century. The church, which was surprisingly large for such a small village, dominated the surrounding flint lined cottages.

  Keeping to the side of the road, away from the bungalows, Titch set off down Black Street. The road was poorly lit, even more so on his side, which was heavily shaded by overgrown bushes and trees. He doubted that even if anyone looked out of their brightly lit windows, they wouldn’t see more than a shadow.

  Titch turned left onto Staithe Road, which was narrower than the previous street, but even darker. He hurried past a few thatched houses and barns to the track at the end of the road, the foul smell telling him he was now in farmland. After circumnavigating the farm building complex at the end of the track, only a few of its windows dimly lit, he crossed over Cess Road and headed for the woodland beyond it. There was no doubt what Cess Road was named after, but Titch gave that no mind. He could have brought his moped here and hidden it in the bushes, but by leaving it at the church, if it was ever discovered, the search area was huge. If he’d brought it here, it would be much smaller. Besides, who would steal a moped, especially one without a battery, from a church car park?

  Titch fought his way through the thick brambles that threatened to block the narrow path he was walking along. He didn’t mind them, as they only reinforced the fact that the track was rarely, if ever, used.

  When he reached the end of the track, he stopped for breath and looked around to locate the landmark he was looking for. Around half a mile away, just visible on the horizon, were the ruined remains of an isolated water mill. Titch set off towards them through the marshland, his legs instantly sinking up to his knees in the water. When he reached the thicket of trees that hid his temporary home, he was exhausted but elated. He’d made it.

  The dilapidated boat listed slightly at his weight as he stepped aboard, but it soon settled. Inside the cabin, the windows of which he had carefully sealed with tarpaulin and black and nasty tape to make sure it was lightproof, he looked around in delight in the light of a small lantern.

  It wasn’t much, but it was safe, isolated, and he had enough supplies to last for months if he needed them.

  68

  Eleanor watched with amusement as the schoolchildren all milled about the small foyer on the other side of the security barriers. When she’d heard it was kids coming to visit, she had imagined a crocodile of fresh-faced primary aged schoolchildren, all numbered off in pairs and holding hands in a long crocodile. The group in front of her was definitely not primary school age. They looked to Eleanor to be young teenagers, so probably about to make their GCSE choices. There were twelve of them altogether, with a teacher who didn’t look that much older than them. When Eleanor saw the security barriers open and the group all walk through, she realised that if she’d planned things better, she could have walked through with them with her camera and memory stick in her pocket.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” the teacher, a thin-faced woman who was definitely a Miss, not a Mrs, called out. “Please remember, the Ascalon Institute are doing us a massive favour by allowing us into their research facility, so please do everything they say. Which includes no phones, and yes, that means you, Zara.” A large blonde girl at the back of the group made an exaggerated tutting sound for the benefit of her peers, but slipped her phone away.

  Jimmy had told Eleanor at coffee that morning that the groups came round every six months or so, and that the institute was pretty much empty on those days. They combined them with staff bonding events to keep them apart, and Eleanor imagined the pasty researchers out hiking somewhere, probably looking just as enthusiastic about it as the children she was watching now. It was Jimmy’s job to follow the group round using the CCTV, making sure that none of the thieving pikeys, as he called them, actually stole anything. Eleanor couldn’t have cared if they had stripped the place bare like a flock of locusts as long as they stayed away from Laboratory B.

  “Good morning, ladies and gents.” It was Sue, head of HR. It looked like she had drawn the short straw. “If you’d like to follow me into the main presentation suite, I’ve got a short presentation on the work of the institute, and then Thomas, who only a couple of years ago was where you are now, is going to tell you about the exciting work he’s been involved in with potatoes.”

  “Can’t fucking wait,” one of the students said as he walked past Eleanor’s desk, giving her a confident wink as he did so. It was followed by an elbow into one of his friend’s flanks as they both laughed.

  Eleanor waited until the door to the presentation suite had closed. In the drawer next to her desk were Jimmy’s key card, the camera, and the USB stick that she’d retrieved from the bathroom earlier. Her heart was thumping in her chest as she approached Jimmy’s cubicle and peered over his shoulder without him realising. On the screens in front of him were feeds showing the interior of the presentation room from various angles, and one trained on the door to the room. Eleanor tip-toed away. It was time.

  Not wanting her heels to be heard on the marble floor, Eleanor slipped them off at her desk and padded to the door in the corner of the main foyer. With a dry mouth, she held Jimmy’s key card up to the electronic sensor, half expecting alarms to sound throughout the building. To her relief, a few seconds later, there was a muffled click, and the door opened.

  Eleanor pushed it open, glancing over her shoulder as she did so, and stepped through into the corridor beyond. It was like the rest of the interior of the building and painted white with white flooring. She turned the camera on and slowly panned around, recognising the window at the end of the corridor as the one that Fiona had managed to get a picture of. So she had got this far at least, but could Eleanor get any further?

  Making sure she got clear shots of the doors that she walked past, Eleanor walked down the corridor until she reached a door that said Donning / Doffing outside it. After another muffled click, she walked into a small room with the space suits the two doctors had been wearing hanging up on hooks on the wall. A row of lockers ran down one of the other walls, and there were several foot-operated bins with bright red bags next to them.

  Taking her time, and trying to stop her heart from beating so quickly, Eleanor panned the camera around before walking to another door. Laboratory B, according to the sign. Above the door was a red domed light, currently inactive. She thought back to what she had seen on Jimmy’s screen. There was a similar warning light on the inside of the lab t
hat had only come on when they opened the cabinet, so as long as she didn’t open it, there wouldn’t be any danger. She had already got so much further than Fiona had managed to, but she couldn’t back down now when she was so close.

  Knowing that she had to work quickly, Eleanor lifted the key card to the electronic lock by the door to the laboratory and stepped inside when it hissed open. The interior of the laboratory was brightly lit with fluorescent strip lights on the ceiling. Despite being quite a large room, Eleanor felt claustrophobic as she looked around, checking to make sure the camera was catching everything. There was a laptop on a counter, the screen showing the spinning logo of the Ascalon Institute. Eleanor crossed to it and ran her finger over the track pad. It wasn’t password protected and, she realised as she inserted the USB stick into one of the ports on the side, neither were the USB ports disabled. Despite the situation she was in, Eleanor laughed at their complacency. They obviously thought that no-one would penetrate so far into their secret laboratory.

  Eleanor deftly navigated into the hard drive of the computer and selected the top-level folder to copy across to the USB. According to the progress bar on the screen, it would take two minutes to copy the contents across. Relieved but surprised that there wasn’t more information on the computer, Eleanor held the camera up in front of her and walked towards the cabinet that the doctor had taken the trays of mice from.

  “This is Eleanor Vickers, investigative journalist, deep within the highly secretive Laboratory B of the Ascalon Institute on the outskirts of Norwich,” she said for the benefit of the camera. Perhaps she should have thought of some sort of commentary to go alongside the footage earlier. “Inside this cabinet, where only plant-based research is supposed to be taking place, something far more insidious is going on.”

  She held the camera closer to the windows of the cabinet, checking the small screen to make sure everything was in focus and that the trays of mice were clearly visible.

  “The files I’m currently copying will tell the public what that horror actually is, but here is the visual evidence of animal torture. In whose name, we don’t know yet, but we will.” Eleanor could almost feel the British Journalism Award trophy in her hand. One thing she wasn’t going to do was to tell the tape she worked for the Eastern Daily News. When this story broke, she wouldn’t be working for them anymore. She would be working for whichever of the big five gave her the best deal.

  “This is Eleanor Vincent, from the Ascalon Institute, in Norwich.” Eleanor kept the camera focused tightly on a pile of dead mice on the lowest tray in the cabinet until she heard a soft ping from the laptop.

  She turned the camera off, retrieved the USB stick, and made her way to the exit of the laboratory.

  It was time to go.

  69

  “Hey, you,” Adams said when Lizzie’s face appeared on the screen. “I didn’t know you were going to dress up for me.” He watched as Lizzie pulled at her T-shirt and pulled a face.

  “Have you got any idea how humid it is?” she replied, her voice slightly distorted.

  “At least we’ve got a decent connection for once. Better make the most of it, I guess.”

  “What do you mean?” Lizzie asked, and Adams could see her grinning at him.

  “You know exactly what I mean.” He grinned back at her. “Get your kit off.”

  “Sure, like that’s going to happen,” Lizzie replied, laughing. Adams was pleased to see her so relaxed. He’d been worrying about her, he wasn’t going to deny that, but at the same time she was a big girl and completely able to take care of herself.

  “I will if you will,” he said. “My body’s a temple, after all.”

  “No one wants to see a bloke sitting there like Buddha, Adams, least of all me.”

  “Very funny.”

  “What have you been up to, then?” Lizzie asked.

  “Oh, you know, the usual.”

  “Sitting around in your pants, watching porn then.”

  “You know me too well, Lizzie,” he answered with a grin. “How are your students?”

  “They’re all good,” Lizzie replied. “They’re so bloody keen, it’s exhausting. But they’ve got hardly any kit. It’s all very well teaching them stuff, but without the right equipment, it’s academic.”

  Adams listened as Lizzie spent the next few moments telling him about her classes. She wasn’t just teaching pre-hospital emergency care, but was now doing extra-curricular classes in literacy for some of the students.

  “I never had you down as a teacher, Lizzie,” Adams said when she paused for breath.

  “Let me guess,” Lizzie replied with a giggle. “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Seriously though, I know I used to do a bit of teaching back at Honington, but I might see if I can get an instructor’s position when I get back.”

  “There’re quite a few at Brize,” Adams said. “I’ll be posted there at some point. We could be on the same squadron.”

  “That might be awkward,” Lizzie replied, her face flickering on the screen. “I mean, I’ve seen what your come face looks like, so it would be difficult to take you seriously if you were my boss.” Adams laughed out loud. He was about to say that he’d seen hers too, but stopped short. “Have you seen the news?”

  “About the missing bloke from Honington?”

  “Yeah,” Lizzie said. “He was the one I treated that night before I left. They think he was behind that arson attack.”

  “I know, I saw that. Bloody desperate. Do you think he could have done it?”

  “I’ve no idea. Have you spoken to anyone up there?”

  “I spoke to my mate Mitch. He works on the training squadron, but he wouldn’t tell me anything about what’s actually going on.”

  “What did Mitch say? I’ve not heard anything from the base at all,” Lizzie said. “I tried calling the medical centre earlier to get the gossip, but the line just rang out.”

  “It’s completely locked down, apparently,” Adams replied. “They’ve cut the phone lines, the internet, doubled up on the patrols. No-one in or out, and police all over the place. Mitch got called in for guard duty, but he texted me from the patch before he left home. His wife’s like a bitch about it.”

  “Aw, that’s not very nice, Adams,” Lizzie said. “Natalie’s lovely.”

  “His words, not mine,” Adams replied quickly. “It must be something big, though. Anyway, that’s boring. Let’s talk about me instead.”

  “Ha ha,” Lizzie replied. “Did you get those pictures I sent?”

  “I did,” Adams said. “Amazing. What a fantastic view.” He scrolled through the pictures on his phone. “Who took the one of you on the roof?”

  “I asked Claire to take it. She’s the cohort leader.”

  “Is she the one who’s…” Adams let his voice tail away.

  “Yep, that’s her. She was up there last night when I went up to take the pictures for you. She was really upset.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s convinced that Charlotte’s about to break things off with her.”

  “Because of you?” Adams let a grin appear on his face, but Lizzie didn’t reciprocate. When she did reply, she was serious.

  “Yes, but I told Claire it’s just not my thing and never has been.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said that she didn’t think it was her thing either until Charlotte.”

  “Bloody hell,” Adams replied. “Listen, if Charlotte ever says ‘look into my eyes, you are feeling sleepy’ just run.”

  “Adams, shut up,” Lizzie shot back. “You might think it’s funny, but she was really upset.”

  “Okay, sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s her first serious relationship.”

  “First as in first same sex one?”

  “Definitely, but it’s not just that.” Lizzie’s face flickered again,
but Adams could still see her. “The poor girl’s genuinely in love with the woman, and I don’t think that’s how Charlotte sees it at all.”

  “Why d’you say that?”

  “It was when Charlotte was talking to me on the roof the other night,” Lizzie said. “She certainly didn’t give me the impression that she was in a committed relationship. I think for Charlotte, Claire’s just a bit of fun.”

  “Ouch, that’s harsh on Claire.”

  “I know. We were talking for ages. She’s actually really sweet. Charlotte’s coming back tomorrow for a day or so, apparently. Claire’s sure she’s going to break things off with her.”

  “Maybe Claire shouldn’t be allowed up on the roof anymore? She might jump off it.”

  “No, I don’t think she would. Anyway, last night, I gave Claire a hug just to let her know everything would be okay.”

  “Oh, okay,” Adams replied, wondering where Lizzie was going.

  “Next thing I know, I was kissing her. It only started out as a brush of the lips, but then I couldn’t stop myself.”

  “Lizzie? Are you messing with me?” Adams asked. Lizzie’s face was frozen on the screen. “Lizzie?”

  “Line’s breaking up, Adams,” Lizzie replied. “Are you there?”

  “Lizzie?”

  The next thing Adams heard was Lizzie cackling with laughter down the line.

  “My God, you are so easy to wind up,” she said, still laughing. “Of course not, you idiot.” She paused and composed herself. “The only person I want to kiss is you.”

  Adams’s heart lurched in his chest for a few seconds. But what had happened with Hannah wasn’t a kiss. Not a proper one. They’d stopped, and nothing had happened.

  “Thank goodness for that, Lizzie,” he said, trying to recover. Did Lizzie know?

  “Why? I thought you were quite up for the idea of me with another woman?”

  “Not when I’m not there to watch,” Adams said with a chuckle.