The Dark Chronicles

by Jeremy Duns

  ‘Let her go,’ I said. ‘This isn’t about her.’

  He paused and looked at me… sorrowfully? Can sorrow look reasonable?

  ‘I’m afraid this is not about either of you, Paul,’ he said. ‘It’s about what you know. If we allowed her to go, she would reveal everything – or be forced to reveal it – and the game would be up.’ He smiled, pleased at his mastery of idiomatic English. ‘The same applies to you. I’m afraid the only option is to put a brave face on it. After all, we have just saved both of your lives. Some would be grateful for that.’

  I wasn’t sure I was.

  ‘Why did you save us?’ I asked, making sure to sound resigned to my fate. If I could somehow get down onto the tarmac, perhaps we could reach a border – Switzerland, or Yugoslavia. It depended which airfield they were using. Think of that later. Find a way out of here first.

  ‘Do you remember the tunnel?’ Sasha was saying, and I had a flash of the Underground, the sniper’s breath against my face as he tried to strangle me.

  ‘In Berlin, I mean.’

  I nodded dully, shaking the memory away. Back in 1955, in collaboration with the Americans, the Service had built a secret underground tunnel between West and East Berlin that intercepted the landlines running from the Soviets’ military and intelligence headquarters in Karlshorst. As a result, they could listen in to a large portion of the East Germans’ communications with the Russians. It was a highly protected operation and I had been far too junior at the time to be indoctrinated into it. But Blake had been given clearance for it and, being the good double he was, had immediately informed Moscow.

  ‘It was a great reverse, of course,’ Sasha went on, ‘but also an extremely delicate one. It gave us the opportunity to feed disinformation to our adversaries, which would be very useful for furthering other operations. However, if we passed too much disinformation, the British and Americans would soon realize that we knew we were being listened to, and would begin looking for the leak. On the other hand…’

  ‘. . . If you carried on as normal, you’d be giving away all your secrets.’ I knew the story, and the conclusion to it: they had staged an ‘accidental’ discovery of the tunnel in ’56 and closed it down. The Service had eventually cottoned on to Blake and arrested him, but he’d escaped from prison and defected to Moscow. ‘What does the Berlin Tunnel have to do with this?’ I asked.

  Sasha smiled indulgently. ‘I am trying to illustrate how the spirit of compromise can drive an operation, and how other priorities can become factors. With the tunnel, we compromised, continuing to pass important information through it even though we knew we were being listened to. We did this to protect our agent – but we made sure to keep our greatest secrets out of the traffic. Eventually it became too difficult to continue, so we broke it up. There is a similarity with this situation. But I think perhaps this will explain it more easily than I can.’

  He leaned over and placed something in my hands. I looked down at it uncomprehendingly. It was a book, titled The Tide of Victory. With a start I realized it was the volume of Churchill’s memoirs that Barnes had been reading. I remembered Severn’s final words: ‘You didn’t read it. You don’t know…’ I opened the book. There didn’t seem anything unusual about it. I flicked through it, until I reached the end. Taped to the inside of the back cover was a small pouch, and inside it I could see a tightly folded bundle of papers. I shook them onto my lap and picked up the first page. I recognized the handwriting at once: it was Osborne’s.

  C. – see attached proposal. I initially vetoed but suggest we reconsider in light of this morning’s catastrophe. U. taking next flight to S. with medication. See D. gets it.

  W.O.

  P.S. – Sort out your wife, for all our sakes.

  ‘C.’ was Charles Severn. Osborne had inserted this message in Barnes’ book and told him to deliver it to Severn on his arrival in Rome. If I understood the postscript, he hadn’t wanted to risk sending a message in code to the Station due to Severn’s suspicions about Sarah’s loyalty, a matter he wanted Severn to sort out – although precisely how wasn’t clear. ‘D.’ was obviously me, and so I turned to the attached document to see exactly how they had planned for me to get it.

  It had the same heading as the other dossier – ‘STAY BEHIND: STRATEGY AND EXECUTION’ – and looked to be in the same typeface. But it had a different date: 29 April 1969, less than a week ago. And it was stamped ‘W16’, which was the Registry number for Porton Down.

  Update on Nigerian virus, as requested.

  The virus was isolated from acute-phase sera extracted from the blood of patient HANDSOME in a Red Cross clinic in Awo Omamma, Nigeria on Friday, March the 28th. Tests subsequently conducted at that clinic and laboratories here have confirmed that it is an arenavirus, and nearly identical to that found in two missionary nurses in Lassa, near Jos, also in Nigeria, which we isolated and examined in early March. There were also marked similarities to samples taken by the field team in Cameroon in November 1968 (see Annex 1).

  This virus, which we have named Lassa Fever, is both potentially fatal and extremely infectious. It appears to be transmitted to humans via exposure to rodents, rodent faeces (transmitted via dust in the air), and possibly human-to-human contact, such as the exchange of bodily fluids. We believe HANDSOME may have contracted the virus either via exposure to rodents or sexual intercourse with ISABELLE DUMONT, who may have contracted it on her travels through the country as a war reporter. However, this cannot be confirmed, as DUMONT was dead before we arrived at the clinic, and we were instructed by you not to search for her body.

  Jesus. I thought back to my time in Nigeria. I had slept with Isabelle only once… No wonder Severn had been so worried Sarah might have slept with me – he’d thought I was going to contaminate her with the virus. And I had.

  I read on:

  Tests on monkeys over a period of several weeks revealed the virus to be very easily transmittable via the exchange of saliva or blood: only a few droplets were needed. It is too early to give accurate figures for morbidity or mortality, but we would estimate it to be very high – possibly higher than other arenaviruses. As outlined in my report of March the 3rd, colleagues at the U.S. Biological Warfare Laboratories have already successfully adapted both Yellow Fever and Rift Valley Fever for warfare use. We felt that, on account of its lethality, virulence and lack of known antidote, Lassa Fever was a promising candidate and we adapted it in a similar manner on April the 23rd.

  The adapted strain was so virulent that in some of the cases infection was achieved via the inhalation of respiratory droplets when subjects were over five feet from an infected specimen. Of the nine monkeys we tested, two began exhibiting significant symptoms twenty-four hours after exposure, and died within forty-eight hours. A further two specimens died within the following forty-eight hours. One further specimen began exhibiting symptoms consistent with early stages of the disease on April the 27th, and we administered a strong dose of vaccine. The specimen appeared to recover fully within a matter of hours, although it remains to be seen whether or not there will be any long-term effects.

  With such a small, non-human sample size, it is impossible to conclude whether this represents an accurate picture of the transmissibility or mortality rate of the adapted strain in the event of humans being exposed to it. However, we cautiously calculate that the incubation period of this strain is twenty-four hours, and that after that time human cases will reach an optimum level of transmissibility.

  We believe that this strain could be packaged within a capsule that, on breakage, would distribute particles across a wide area. Although the estimated mortality rate of this virus is lower than in some of the others we have analysed, even with the adapted strain, the shock value of using it would be significant. Some of the symptoms of the virus, such as fever, headaches and chest pain, are similar to those of pneumonic plague, and we would expect that diagnosis to be widespread initially. This would, of course, result in a certain level
of hysteria among the population.

  That was putting it mildly. I turned away from the text for a moment and looked up at Sasha, who was picking lint off his jacket. I took a breath and forced myself to read the rest of the report.

  However, such a weapon could take years to develop, and would involve on-the-ground help from the Americans, which is undesirable for many reasons known to you. There is, however, an alternative method of carrying the virus that would lead to fewer fatalities than an aerosol-distributing capsule, but that would perhaps create a greater impact. This option could also, we feel, be put into effect within the next few months and with little cost to ourselves. HANDSOME has already been exposed to the original virus, has just woken from unconsciousness in our custody in London, and has been deemed persona non grata. It therefore strikes us that, by chance, we may have the perfect ‘live agent’ with which to test the transmissibility of the new strain…

  Next to the phrase ‘within the next few months’, Osborne had scrawled ‘Not fast enough. Stick to S.P.’, which I took to be his vetoing of the operation in favour of shooting me in St Paul’s. I read the rest of the document in a haze: it consisted of a detailed technical description outlining precisely how they would engineer it so that my body would become the carrier of the strain, complete with dosage recommendations and tables comparing mortality rates.

  The thing was signed by Urquhart, of course – ‘U.’ in Osborne’s note. His had been the voice in Sardinia I hadn’t recognized as I had emerged from unconsciousness on the operating table: ‘He’s come to.’ Yes, Dr Urquhart, with his tan under his Father Christmas beard, hadn’t been holidaying in Jamaica, soaking up the music – he had been in Nigeria, looking into the disease I had caught and investigating whether or not it could be adapted for use as a biological weapon. The capsules he had foisted on me hadn’t been to suppress my symptoms, but placebos.

  It seemed they had improvised more than I had thought. When their plan to kill me in St Paul’s had gone wrong, they hadn’t just let me fly off to Italy. No, they had immediately put into action another operation to kill me – one that would helpfully make me a guinea pig for their future atrocities. Although Osborne had originally vetoed the idea in favour of shooting me at the memorial service, he’d jumped at the chance to put it back on the table. And to make sure I was under a tight leash, he had sent Barnes along as – what? – my warder? Or my nurse? I had a sudden memory of waking in the embassy with him leaning over me. What had he been doing? Checking my pulse?

  At any rate, Barnes and Severn had been told to keep an eye on me while Urquhart flew out to the base in Sardinia – ‘S.’ in Osborne’s note – to wait for his guinea pig to arrive. Zimotti had helpfully provided me with a lead to Sardinia. My insistence on going to the meet with Barchetti must have interfered with Severn’s plans, but then I had led him to Pyotr and they had flown me off to Sardinia to inject me and begin their little experiment. In the last few days I had suffered muscle pain, hallucinations, headaches, constriction in my chest and many of the other symptoms I had experienced in Nigeria – but I had been so intent on stopping an imagined bomb that I had written them all off as after-effects of a whipping and some loud pop music. Worse, I hadn’t noticed that the woman next to me had been developing precisely the same symptoms.

  I turned to Sasha. ‘How did you get hold of this?’ I asked, pointing to the paperback.

  He smiled softly. ‘The butler did it. Despite some superficial precautions, money still talks, and we have a way into the British embassy. We removed it from Severn’s safe just a few minutes before your arrival.’ He took the papers from my lap and carefully folded them back into the pouch of the book. ‘It will be returned soon enough.’

  ‘After copies have been made, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And how am I alive? The document says there’s no antidote.’

  ‘No known one. Our scientists have been working on adapting this type of virus for several years, just as the Americans and British have been, and we have developed a range of antidotes. As you were already infected with the disease, it seems they only gave you a tiny dose of the new strain. We think they wanted to see what the effect would be in a controlled environment: to observe how transmissible their new strain might be to other humans before they tried it out on a larger scale at a later date…’

  My mind jolted back to Sardinia, and my skin crept. They had put me in the same cell as Sarah because they had wanted to see how quickly she would catch the new strain from me. The plan had never been to attack Rome or Turin, but somewhere else entirely. Severn had scribbled ‘4 May’ on the strategy document, but it must have been just a possibility, rather than anything they had yet planned. Once Urquhart was fully satisfied that the new strain could act as effectively as it needed to, they would have injected me anew, then found a football match in Naples or an opera in Venice or whatever suited them, planted me in it and stood back and waited for the crowd to become infected. No doubt they would also have prepared suitable evidence to leak to the press that the carrier of the deadly new plague had been a Soviet agent.

  Now I saw why Severn had been so anxious about whether Sarah had slept with me: he had still loved her, and if she had only been near me for a few hours she would have been unlikely to have caught the disease already – the idea was that it took several hours to come into effect. But if we had slept together, the chances would have been far greater that she already had it. It was a monstrously warped kind of love, of course – he had still put her in a cell with me to test how fast the disease could spread without us sleeping together.

  Only we had escaped before they had had the chance to find out.

  The knife Barnes had pulled on the rooftop in the Vatican hadn’t been a stiletto blade, but a needle. He had been trying to inject me with the vaccine, because my twenty-four hours were nearly up and I had been about to reach my optimum period of transmissibility, or whatever the scientific term for it was. And that explained Severn’s valediction. When he had arrived at the embassy and we were there, he had realized that both the dossier and Barnes’ paperback were missing from his safe, and had presumed that Sarah and I had taken both and so discovered the plan to use me as a weapon. But then I had confused him. Instead of trying to leave the country, either to defect to Moscow or head for London, I had inexplicably raced to the Vatican, and then to Turin. At some stage, he had guessed that I was running too fast to have discovered or read the documents in the back of Barnes’ book, and was still acting on the basis of the strategy dossier and the various Stay Behind documents.

  But those documents were still enough to damn them with – if we had reached Haggard or anyone else who hadn’t been involved, the whole thing would have backfired. So they had run after us with needles, in the hope of stopping us before we reached optimal transmission and caused an attack they weren’t able to manage, and to retrieve the documents and kill us before we told anyone about their conspiracy. Severn had told me that I didn’t know what was happening, not out of any sense of remorse, but because he had realized he had failed to stop me and wanted to taunt me with his knowledge of what lay in store. ‘Enjoy her while she lasts. It won’t be long.’

  I turned back to Sasha. ‘I take it you have known about this for some time,’ I said. ‘Like the tunnel.’

  ‘The revival of Stay Behind? Since last year. A British agent in Stockholm revealed it inadvertently to one of our assets.’

  That drunkard Collins. The Service should have sacked him years ago.

  ‘And you’re willing to stand by and let innocent people be killed – and to be blamed for their deaths – just to protect the fact that you know it’s going on?’ As well as being terrible operational logic, I wondered if it wasn’t worse than committing the atrocities in the first place.

  ‘But it is not we who will be blamed,’ he said. ‘Not exactly. It is British anarchists, the Italian Communist party, and similar groups throughout Western Europe. We supp
ort these people sometimes, but they are not our real friends. They are like the information we let through the tunnel – not the most important. We do not want to expose NATO’s actions at this particular moment. If they kill a great many civilians and blame it on others, then we may do so. In the meantime, the more evidence we have pointing to their involvement, the better.’

  They ‘may do so’ – he didn’t seem too bothered.

  ‘How many people count as “a great many”?’ I asked.

  He gave me another of his patronizing smiles – he seemed to have an endless supply of them. ‘I think you have misunderstood the strategy of their operation,’ he said. ‘In Italy it is called Gladio, and that is an apt codename, I think. It is named after the gladius, one of the weapons used by the gladiators: a stabbing sword.’ He thrust his fist towards me. ‘The wounds it inflicted often looked horrific, but were not that deep – it was an ineffective weapon if you wanted a quick kill, in fact. But, of course, that was not what the organizers of the fights wanted: they wanted slow kills. Do you know why?’

  ‘Yes. Because the longer it took for someone to die, the more entertainment there was for the crowd.’

  ‘Precisely – nobody likes going to a boxing match to see one fighter knocked out in the first ten seconds. And so, too, with Gladio. They are not interested in killing many innocent people – but they want to terrify many people, with a superficial but spectacularly bloody wound.’

  ‘That’s a pretty poor salve for anyone’s conscience,’ I said. ‘Would you say the same to the families of those who are killed? Or is that why you rescued us? A sudden attack of scruples because the virus would mean more deaths than you could justify?’

  ‘I am sorry to disappoint you once more, but no. We were worried that you would reach London with the documents. That would have been… unfortunate. Osborne and the others will, of course, wonder how much you discovered, and what you will tell us. But once we have returned all the documents to the safe, there will be no reason to suppose that you discovered anything at all, and we are confident that the strategy will continue.’