Soft Target 05 - Blister

by Conrad Jones

  “What about the company that bought them?” Grace asked. She frowned and her forehead wrinkled.

  “We have found nothing at all, no offices, no business address, just a virtual company and a website. The directors don’t exist and there are no bank records or any trace of any transactions in their name, apart from the purchase of the submersibles,” Chen explained.

  “I assume that we don’t know where they are then?” Grace mused.

  “Correct, we don’t even know who bought them. MI5 haven’t got a clue,” the Major said.

  “So potentially they could be operating below the surface without us knowing.”

  “They need a support vessel. A surface ship to provide power and air, and to land the salvage and that’s what we have to look for, the support vessel,” Chen explained.

  Helen Walsh entered the office and headed toward the Major and his agents. She was being closely followed by the robust figure of David Bell, who was affectionately nicknamed the fat controller. David Bell was the communication link between the taskforce and the other law enforcement agencies and intelligence units. He was an expert in most things and made sure that everyone was aware of that.

  “We are having something of a disagreement,” Helen snapped as she approached the throng. Her face was crimson and she looked flustered and annoyed. Her pretty, blond features had darkened considerably with her mood.

  “What is the problem?” the Major smirked. The fat controller looked red faced as if he had been in an altercation and he’d met his match.

  “We cannot quarantine an entire city Major, it’s absolute nonsense!” the fat controller removed his glasses and began to clean them with his tie. It was a routine action that had become a bad habit. He placed the spectacles back onto his nose and took a deep breath. He seemed to calm down a little before he spoke again. “There are nearly one and a half million people in this city centre at any one time. You simply cannot pen them in like rabid dogs, there would be absolute mayhem.”

  “On the contrary, if you allowed infected people to leave unhindered then the entire region could be contaminated within hours. He does not understand the nature of this chemical. He is comparing it with measles or a nasty cold, the man is a buffoon!” Helen countered bringing a wry smile to Grace’s lips. Chen sniggered behind his hand

  “I think that you should both calm down and explain what the contentious issue is. Please, let’s all sit down and discuss this rationally,” the Major gestured to the long meeting table and ushered them toward it. He looked at Grace and shook his head as if he were dealing with naughty children. Grace smiled back at him. It suddenly occurred to her that Tank had been gone all day and no one had heard from him. A shiver ran down her spine as if someone had walked over her grave. Her fear was probably unfounded because Tank could obviously look after himself, but still the thought lingered. “He would have called in if there was trouble, wouldn’t he?” she thought.

  “Now then, what is the sticking point?” the Major prompted them as everyone sat down. He noticed the look of concern on Grace’s face, and she glanced at her watch and then at the clock on the wall. Instinct told him that she was worried about Tank and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He too had a strange feeling that he was in trouble.

  “I’m concerned that my explanation of the effects of blister agents on infected people are not being taken seriously. Mr Bell used the analogy of rabid dogs, and he isn’t far from the truth. According to several papers that I have studied infected victims, suffer a period of total delirium when the thirst strikes them. You will in effect have a city full of rabid dogs if you do not evacuate. He has no idea how easy it is to infect anyone and anything that comes into contact with this chemical. Simply touching their clothes will pass the infection on for months,” Helen Walsh kept her mouth hanging open even when she had made her point. It added to the impact of the words she had said.

  “I am completely aware of the impact of a blister agent incident Miss Walsh,” the fat controller removed his glasses again for effect.

  “Helen.”

  “What.”

  “My name is Helen,” she blustered.

  “I’m aware of that, Helen, I’m sorry, but your proposals are completely impractical,” David Bell tried to calm himself. He had to make his point clear to the Major without appearing to be unreasonable.

  The Major stood up and walked to the coffee machine. Everyone remained silent as he pressed a button and the machine whirred into life. It delivered a hot brown liquid which was described as hot chocolate but rarely tasted anything like it.

  “Perhaps it would be best if you explain what your counter measures would involve Helen, and then we can discuss the pros and cons as a team,” the Major said as he sat back down at the table.

  “The first thing to realise is that none of the people who have been exposed to the blister agent will know that they have been infected until the symptoms become apparent, by which time they could have infected dozens of others,” Helen spoke clearly and precisely. She looked directly at the Major to reinforce her position. “You would have to treat everyone as if they have been infected until it is proven otherwise or until they have been thoroughly decontaminated.”

  “How would you propose that we quarantine an entire city for heaven’s sake,” the fat controller butted in.

  “Please let Helen make her point,” the Major said quietly without even looking at David Bell. He smiled and nodded at Helen. “Carry on.”

  “Working on the assumption that a chemical release was to happen either off shore or in the city limits, then you would have to make plans to seal off all the exit roads,” Helen stood up and walked to the screen. The satellite picture of the bay and the surrounding coastal areas was still displayed. “The city has obvious boundaries. Some of them are geographic and others manmade.”

  Helen pointed to the coastline and the river estuary, and then followed the grey outline of the city’s motorway system which could be seen clearly encircling the metropolis on the satellite image.

  “The river is the natural boundary to the West, and the M53, and M56 motorways are the manmade perimeters to the south and east. The M57 motorway is the boundary to the north. They form a complete border encircling the entire city,” she looked back to the group and tried to gauge their response. Chen, Grace and the Major were nodding in agreement but David Bell was staring at the ceiling as if he had no interest in her theory.

  “If we used all the emergency services, police, firemen and ambulance services in the first instance, assuming that they all have access to protective clothing and respirators, then they could set up a cordon around the city. In phase two we would need assistance from the regular military and the Territorial Army to maintain crowd control at each checkpoint. We would set up decontamination showers and medical assistance centres at each intersection. Then we would have to filter the people through as quickly as the decontamination process will allow,” she looked at each member of the team for a response.

  “The whole idea is preposterous, absolutely impossible to administer and still leaves us with huge issues within the city centre,” the fat controller could remain silent no longer.

  “It seems perfectly plausible to me,” Grace said. She looked to the Major and he nodded in agreement.

  “Oh for god’s sake don’t tell me that you agree with this nonsense,” David Bell stood and joined Helen next to the satellite image. “What about all the hospitals? What about the three high security prisons within the perimeter? What about the thousands of people at John Lennon airport or using the tube network? How would we get them to your decontamination showers Miss Walsh?” He was animated as he tried to express his opinion, and globules of spittle sprayed as he spoke. It wasn’t one of his finer qualities.

  “Helen,” Grace said.

  “What?” the fat controller glared at her and wiped spit from the corner of his mouth as he realised that he was becoming irate.

  “Her name
is Helen,” Grace was winding him up.

  “I’m well aware of that, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude,” he took his glasses off again as he tried to regain his composure. “Look here, in the unlikely event that this scenario was to take place how the bloody hell would you keep all these people calm at a checkpoint? How would you get the emergency services to coordinate this and keep the facts from the wider public? The country would be in panic,” he tried to slow down his delivery so that he could speak without spitting.

  “There has to be a contingency plan in place. We cannot just sit back and hope nothing happens,” Chen shrugged.

  “I take your point about the airport and institutions being isolated but that would be the case anyway,” the Major added.

  “If we leave the city inhabited then the situation would be compounded later on as the blister agent’s symptoms started to manifest themselves and people sought medical help. We would have to evacuate the city. Helen’s perimeter plan is a sound one,” Grace backed her up.

  “What about the emergency services? The whole plan revolves around having a coordinated response from every service, how on earth can you ensure that and maintain a complete news blackout?” David Bell asked exasperated.

  The Major was silent and he thought deeply about the scenario. He stood and walked back to the vending machine. He pressed the hot chocolate button again, completely forgetting that he hadn’t touched the first one that he had poured just five minutes ago. The machine whirred into life once more and dispensed a murky brown liquid.

  “We need to get the Ministry of Defence behind the evacuation scenario and implement a fake dress rehearsal,” the Major turned to face the group. “We will tell the Minister of Defence that this is our worst case scenario, and to have the emergency services on standby for a dry run preparation exercise for a serious terrorist incident. That way we can keep a lid on things and still have complete control over what happens in the city.”

  “Brilliant,” Chen said. “That way there will be no panic because no one would be aware that they may have been infected until they have already been decontaminated.”

  “Correct, and we can have all the services on standby without arousing too much interest from the public or the press,” the Major walked back to the table. “Helen I need you to work with David on the action plan details please.” Helen took a deep breath and smiled. She was relieved that the team had taken her advice. The fat controller had a face like thunder.

  “David I need you to coordinate this joint response please. Communicate with the police commissioners and fire chiefs. Explain that we are going to implement a unique plan that will be a coordinated response for every major city in the British Isles, starting with Liverpool,” the Major didn’t expect any aggravation from the fat controller once his decision had been made, and he didn’t receive any. “Get moving straight away.”

  The telephone rang and Chen picked up the handset and walked away from the table to take the call. Grace looked at his face to see if his expression gave anything away. It could have been her female curiosity but she didn’t think so. There was something eating away at her, a gnawing niggling sensation in her mind that all wasn’t well. She was hoping that the call was from Tank. Grace hoped that he was calling to tell them that he had gleaned some important information from the informer, who he had gone to interrogate off the record. Chen’s face darkened and he covered the mouth piece with his hand and signalled to the others that he had important news.

  “It’s our satellite monitoring people calling,” he said. “There is an extreme weather warning being issued now by the BBC World Service. A cold front from the Russian continent has passed over France dropping the heaviest snowfall for the last eighteen years, and it’s heading straight for us.” The group waited anxiously as he finished his call, but the news didn’t get any better. “They are telling me that the cloud cover over the entire UK will be so thick that we will not get any useful surface pictures for the next seventy two hours at best.”

  The fat controller digested the information quickly and his razor sharp brain was already working on the problems that the heavy snow would create. Apart from the obvious problem of covering up the Irish Sea with thick cloud and blocking their satellite surveillance, the United Kingdom is renowned for grinding to a complete standstill when more than a few inches of snowfall occur. Every mode of public transport ceases to function when bad weather strikes our small island. Buses, trains, and taxis generally cease to operate. While motorways are a priority for the gritting crews and snowploughs, access roads to them are rarely passable when a snowstorm hits, which makes keeping them clear a farce as traffic can’t reach them in the first place. The country simply grinds to a halt until the snow thaws.

  “I’ll include the highways department in the communications Major. If the main roads were to become impassable then Miss Walsh’s, sorry I mean Helen’s perimeter plans will be rendered worthless.” There was no malice in his tone, just a factual observation of the new slant on the situation.

  “Do that please David and let’s get the gritting crews out on the main roads tonight. Use whatever leverage you have to get one step ahead of the game,” the Major hadn’t considered the weather as an important factor in their planning. He walked to the window and looked out across the River Mersey toward the Irish Sea and the Bay of Liverpool. The sky was masked by thick cloud already, and it had the curious luminous glow to it that signals a snowstorm is imminent. The first flakes started to drift down past the window. The lights of the city twinkled in the darkness from the streets below as the snowfall quickened and more flakes hurtled past the window. There were big fluffy flakes of new snow floating innocently down to the city’s roads and pavements. “Dear god I hope we are blowing this whole thing out of proportion, because if we aren’t then we are in deep trouble.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Beneath the Waves

  Christopher Walsh scanned the dark waters of Liverpool Bay with his binoculars. He had purchased them from a military accessory website for less than the price of a pair of designer shoes. They were far more useful than shoes. He could see for hundreds of yards through the darkness and the night vision binoculars cast everything with a green hue. Humans appeared as bright green blobs and the glasses highlighted body heat as well as form. The aft and stern lights of rig support ships that were working in the gas fields appeared as a bright lime green colour through the lenses. They hadn’t encountered any problems on their journey from the estuary out into the bay. They had passed a River Police launch near the mouth of the estuary but the officers didn’t give the lightship a second glance. The big red lightships were part of the port’s maritime history. Two weeks prior, he had anchored the two submersibles to an automated beacon close to the wreck site. They were safe there and had been less than three meters beneath the surface resting on a sandbank. The automated lightship beacon warned passing shipping of the sandbank’s existence, forcing them to steer clear of the area, which made it the ideal place to operate from unnoticed.

  The initial dive had gone well and the wreck had been positively identified as a ship built in the forties. There were rusted shell casings on the sandbank around her, which must have spilled from a huge rent in the hull. The forward holds looked to be secured and the divers had begun to cut through the hull with torches. The first penetration of the wreck had yielded plenty of salvage. A sledge had been loaded with over one hundred blister agent shells and had been successfully transferred to the L2. They were about to set sail and return the salvage to the quayside, which meant that the submersibles would continue to operate on the wreck using their integrated batteries while the support vessel was away. The plan was to unload the first batch under Christopher’s supervision and then the dive master would return for the second bigger sledge load with the lightship, recharge the submersibles with power and air and repeat the process. At least that was the plan. The dive master wasn’t at all happy leaving his team below the surfac
e while the support ship returned to shore. He said it was too risky. Christopher on the other hand said that they were being paid for the risk that they were taking, but the two men were still at loggerheads.

  “The subs can work down there unaided for six hours, and that is just a guideline,” Christopher pointed to the information sheet that he was quoting from.

  “Exactly it is a guideline to be used when everything is fine and the divers don’t encounter any problems,” the dive master countered.

  “They haven’t encountered any problems.”

  “They haven’t encountered any problems yet. They are using the wrong cutting torches. I told you that we couldn’t use any old system where munitions are concerned,” the dive master had specified that acetylene could not be used at all deeper than ten metres because the gas becomes unstable at depth.