Drugs to Forget

by Martin Granger

  ‘Who will have editorial control?’

  ‘We will, no interference from them whatsoever. The sting of course is that we are legally responsible for everything we say. Hence our lawyer.’

  ‘And we can use all our footage; the WEXA interview in the hut, Temba’s covert video?’

  ‘Every single yard of it.’

  Nathalie was tapping at her laptop. ‘What about the Joseph Karasa story?’

  Geoff removed his hands from behind his head and placed them on the coffee table. ‘Ah, that’s one thing that we may have to leave out. The police interviewed the warehouse staff. Rum lot by all accounts, no health and safety, crap security. I think they are going to shut the place down, especially after all the bad publicity. Anyway, spoke to the manager there. Apparently he saw a black guy by the lens solution stock. Thought he was a temporary, even gave him a job to count the packaging.’

  ‘Then if it’s in our time-frame, we’ve got him,’ said Nathalie. ‘It must have been Joseph Karasa’.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Geoff. ‘I can see that going down well. They all look the same syndrome. Don’t be stupid Nathalie. The guy was wearing a mask, he had dark skin, like thousands of people in this country. He might be from WEXA, or he might not. No one saw the guy tampering with the bottles and there is not one shred of proof that Joseph Karasa went near the place. Anyway he’s safely tucked up in Harare and we don’t need him. The African story is fine without him. And we’ve got the great stuff from Indonesia to intercut with it. The message is that bioterror threats from any source are worth taking seriously.’

  Nathalie stopped typing. Geoff was right, even if Joseph was part of the Ebola plan, there was no way they would get him into an English court. But Geoff’s last statements reminded her of something that she had put to the back of her mind.

  ‘Indonesia. I’ve been so wrapped up in the Ebola attack that I forgot to ask you what we’re doing with this Townes, Biomedivac thing.’

  ‘Ah, you may have forgotten Miss Thompson but I have not,’ said Geoff tapping his nose, ‘I have a cunning plan, leave it to me.’

  The cutting room was what Nathalie’s mum would have called ‘like Piccadilly Circus’. Tom had just proudly brought in the final sequences of the Ebola animation, Bob was subtitling the Temba covert footage and Nathalie continued to hammer away at the voice-over script on her laptop. It had only been three days since what they were now calling their ‘summit meeting’ in Geoff’s office and Nathalie was trying to get the most up-to-date information into her film. Shots of the Home Counties’ hospitals were now accompanied by a more optimistic note. No more cases, the ones infected being handled by expert teams. Geoff had sent a stringer to the warehouse. The shots were a sorry sight. Boarded-up gates, police tape around the perimeter. The message here was that the threat was still alive, the public needed to be calm but vigilant. They had filmed an interview with a government spokesperson. The authorities were doing everything that they could. The anti-terrorist unit was still making overtures to the Zimbabwean police force but, as the attack was not on their soil, they were currently disinterested and uncooperative.

  Geoff burst into the edit suite. A rare visit.

  ‘How is it shaping up?’

  Bob finished typing his last caption and turned around from the editing consul. ‘Think you’ve got a winner Geoff, BAFTA material. Moves along like an express train. Once I’ve got Tom’s animation and some scratch music tracks in, could show you a rough-cut.’

  Nathalie looked up from her script. ‘Hang on, director’s prerogative to see the first viewing. Don’t want you washing my dirty linen in public.’

  Geoff raised his hand. ‘All right, all right, I’ll wait for the call. Just popped in to show you today’s papers.’ He handed Nathalie a copy of the Evening Standard.

  She took it from him and Geoff laughed as he saw her jaw drop. The headline said it all.

  Oxford professor caught in cover-up scandal.

  Nathalie read the first paragraph aloud. ‘Professor James Townes has resigned from his brainchild Biomedivac after the disclosure of documents showed that condemning safety and efficacy data had been suppressed. The company is now in liquidation and it is rumoured that the US giant Zormax is planning a takeover of the assets. Professor Townes is currently under investigation by the police.’

  ‘Whoa,’ exclaimed Tom. ‘So Rob Barnes got his revenge after all.’

  Geoff took back the paper. ‘Not without a price though Tom. I got Nathalie’s friend from Medical Films to do some digging. Apparently Doctor Barnes was lined up for a senior management position at Zormax. But as soon as it became public that he was part of the Alzheimer’s trial with batch #124, and had tried to discredit Biomedivac by requisitioning some suspect microbes, they dropped him like the proverbial plague.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ asked Nathalie.

  ‘On the run in the States I think. I expect he rues the day he looked into your bag to find Tom’s Java lab research.’

  ‘If that’s what he did,’ said Nathalie. ‘I was only in the loo for a few minutes.’

  ‘Well, however he got the information, it’s backfired,’ said Geoff, about to leave the cutting room.

  Nathalie snapped her laptop shut and grabbed the paper from under his arm. ‘Talking about getting information, how did this lot get hold of those documents without us being named as the source?’

  Geoff smiled and waved his mobile phone at her. ‘Twitter, Nathalie Thompson. You are obviously not on it, otherwise you would have seen that the anonymous photos of those documents have gone viral.’

  Thirty-four

  Temba Murauzi strolled down the foot-worn earthen path hemmed by the long grasses that were touched with evening dew. He took in the peat laden African air and listened as he heard the growl of Lloyd’s jeep disappearing into the distance. It had been his last meeting with Lloyd; last because Lloyd had taken a prestigious position with a South African television news network. He was starting tomorrow and had asked Temba not to disclose his whereabouts.

  ‘No problem,’ Temba had said. ‘As long as it’s reciprocal. Good of you to set up this final rendezvous.’

  The location of the rendezvous was ironic. A small group of abandoned circular thatched huts where Lloyd had first been threatened. Now it was Temba’s turn but this time the roles would be reversed and the action far more subtle than the crashing down of a machete. The dilapidated mud buildings were several hundred metres away and Temba had time to think about the events over the last six months. He had seen the documents from Geoff’s anonymous Twitter account. They were broadcast everywhere. Each time, a reminder of that terrible day when he first arrived as an up-and-coming pharmacologist in Morocco. He hadn’t been looking for the Ebola vaccine data, it had been misfiled and given to him by mistake. The anger surged through him as he saw the deception. At that time his sister was still struggling with the disease, a disease being treated with an ineffective drug. It was easy to take his revenge. He had been asked to help with their new Alzheimer’s drug. He was an expert in chiral molecules. The same compound could have a left-handed and right-handed version, almost indistinguishable but mirror images. But the properties of these chemicals could be quite different. He used to tell his students about the difference between oranges and lemons. Same molecules, different tastes. All that he had to do was to switch molecules in a single batch. Batch #124. In earlier trials the left-handed molecule had been abandoned, a side-effect of terrible migraines. Batch #124 was allocated to a small trial for side-effects. A simple switch from the approved right-handed molecule would screw the results. He hadn’t known about the memory loss. He would never forgive himself for the consequences to patients such as Esther Phillips.

  The hut could be picked out by the thin wisp of brown smoke threading its way through the blood red sky. It was a beautiful evening, cigar-shaped clouds lit up by the falling sun. Temba thought of his sister, brainwashed by the men he was about to meet. Now she was de
ad. The rage started to flow through his body, but this would be no good to him. He stood for a moment waiting for his heartbeat to still. He crouched under the low opening of the shelter and made his entrance.

  ‘Welcome brother,’ Joseph Karasa stood to shake his hand. The other two men were wrapped in blankets huddled around the fire. They remained seated but nodded their heads and smiled.

  The large man with the Rolex put out his hand, not to shake but to receive. ‘You have the new antidote?’

  Temba reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out several packets of pills. ‘Of course, capsule form, easier to administer.’

  The smaller man spoke. ‘It seems that the West have ignored our demands. They were fortunate enough to restrict our little hors d’oeuvre, but they were frightened for a while. Next time it will be real terror. Unfortunately the attack is so bold that it is also at risk to us. Your antiviral, it’s effective?’

  ‘Very,’ said Temba. ‘May need a few days to work, so I would suggest you take some now. Three a day until the day of the attack.’ He handed out the pink capsules.

  ‘No time like the present,’ said Joseph swallowing some and passing the rest to his colleagues.

  Temba watched as they each took the maximum dose.

  ‘I am sure they will work for you comrades,’ he said. ‘Now I must go, I don’t want people searching for me.’

  ‘We understand,’ said Joseph. ‘We will stay here until nightfall, you should have time to reach the nearest village by then.’

  Temba looked carefully into the eyes of each man, before turning and leaving through the primitive doorway. Instead of returning the way he had come he took the opposite direction, away from the village and into the bush. As he strolled clear of the path and through the grasses he reached into his pocket and pulled out the last pack of capsules. He placed half a dozen into his mouth and swallowed hard, then, still walking, turned over the box to look at the label. Batch #124.

  ‘Drugs to forget.’

  Also by Martin Granger

  When Nathalie Thompson’s cameraman doesn’t show at the airport alarm bells start to ring. But, with a TV commission on the table and a job to do, she sets off across the world to make a documentary on ocean energy and its positive effects on climate change.

  As the camera rolls Nathalie’s worst nightmares slowly unfold; accidents happen, drilling rigs sink and marine structures are mysteriously damaged. At the same time a US senator, involved in a controversial new law concerning ownership of the seas, is caught in a sordid sex scandal.

  With rumours of bribery and corruption at every turn there’s more to her film footage than shale fracking and ocean engineering. In her quest to uncover the truth, Nathalie is in for a nasty surprise as she finds herself embroiled in a dangerous world of conspiracy, mayhem and sabotage.

  OCEANS ON FIRE

  One

  The ice-biting wind hurled itself into the ship’s anemometer. The needle on the bridge flickered, forty-two knots and rising. A man in glistening yellow oilskins leant over the rail and stared at the black waters heaving towards the horizon. The waves must be reaching nearly eight metres. It was a strange sensation, here he was somewhere in the Southern Ocean in a maelstrom and yet he could balance a coffee cup in the palm of his hand without spilling a drop. He stretched out an arm to prove the point. The deck he was standing on was as sound as rock.

  It was a scene that he must have described a hundred times to the various dignitaries or students who had visited the vessel. What was the line he opened with? ‘Even in the roughest seas this ship can drill through six miles of water and three miles of rock.’ It was a great line but, unless he had seen it with his own eyes, he doubted whether he would have believed it. The IOD Revolution was held steady by means of a computer-controlled positioning system. Sam Armstrong’s speciality was ocean floor sediment and the Earth’s climate; and he just had to know how this thing worked. The ship’s engineer was only too pleased to have the opportunity to tell him.

  ‘We put a beacon on the sea floor right next to the drilling point. There are a number of hydrophones attached to the ship’s hull that pick up the signals. Our computers work out the arrival times and send messages to the ship’s twelve bow thrusters to keep us in position.’

  Sounded simple, yet, when you were standing stock still on what you knew was a ship floating on thrashing Antarctic waters, it still felt crazy. He drank the last of his coffee and was tempted to throw the plastic cup into the waves. It was one of those ‘standing on the top of a cliff ’ moments – an imperative for him to jump off. Sam was a dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist, a geologist dedicated to removing the threat of climate change. He opened the flap of his oilskin’s pocket and dropped the cup into it.

  A shout came from the deck above him. He looked up and tried to lip-read the words over the noise of the wind. The first officer was waving at him like a traffic cop on speed.

  ‘Trouble?’ he shouted back. It was useless; his question was just wrapped into the air and taken away with the spray. He pointed to his ear and shook his head violently. Then he pointed upwards and mouthed the word ‘up’. Why he mouthed it and didn’t shout it he couldn’t work out. It was just one of those things you did. Maybe if someone couldn’t hear, it was done to bring some sort of equality into the conversation. He made his way gingerly across the drenched deck to the nearest stairway. The ribs on the iron steps had been painted so many times they were almost smooth and he had to hang onto the handrail to stop himself from slipping.

  The first officer grabbed his hand to help him up the final rung.

  ‘You’re needed on the bridge. The chief engineer wants to start drilling and the captain needs your advice.’

  This wasn’t the first time Sam had been called in to act as a referee. The ‘International Ocean Drilling Project’ was over time and over budget. They had set out six weeks ago to drill ten kilometres of core samples from the southern ocean floor. This would tell them about the state of the Earth’s climate in the Antarctic region over the last ten million years. Their various government sponsors were impatient for the results but the seas had been high and, even with computerised positioning, it had been difficult to drill. To date, they had only brought up half of the target cores. This had led to tension on the bridge. The captain and the chief engineer were standing like chess players on either side of the chart table.

  ‘Come in, Sam,’ invited the captain without taking his eyes off the chief engineer. ‘Otto here thinks we’re in an ideal position to drill.’

  Otto began to protest. ‘I didn’t say ideal, I said…’

  The captain raised his hand. ‘Otto has informed me that the sea conditions are well within the tolerance of the drilling rig, and that we should start drilling the next core. I’ve pointed out to Otto that I’m responsible for the safety of the crew on this ship and, no matter what the international committee says, I’m not going to risk the lives of these men for a few feet of clay.’ The captain arrested Otto’s next interruption with a military stare. Otto closed his mouth without saying a word.

  ‘Even…,’ The captain turned to face Sam, ‘… even if that clay gives them an argument to keep their jobs at the next election.’

  Sam was aware of the undertones of this statement. For days now, discussions around the captain’s table had centred on the ethics of their task. Some governments were leaning heavily on the scientists to come up with data to show that their economic policy of burning fossil fuels would have little effect on the climate; others wanted figures to prove a case of impending doom.

  ‘Captain, I’m a scientist and, as a scientist, I want to know the truth. Otto, on the other hand, is an engineer and if he says that it’s safe to drill, I believe him.’

  Otto looked at the captain and shrugged as if to say, ‘I told you so’.

  The captain turned to the bridge’s instrument panel and studied the mass of flickering needles and blinking lights. Cold hard rain started to hammer agai
nst the windscreen. The pause was just becoming uncomfortable when the captain turned to speak.

  ‘Okay, you two, let’s get this straight. I will position the ship for drilling and your team will play it by the book. All procedures to be followed with no shortcuts. I want to be informed about any sign of trouble immediately. Then the decision will be down to me. If I say abandon the bore and cut the drill string, you cut it. Is that understood?’

  Otto was about to say that there wasn’t going to be any trouble when Sam took him by the arm and started to guide him out of the bridge.

  ‘Absolutely, Captain,’ he said. ‘We will give you the drilling coordinates and procedures in writing within the hour.’

  Sam half ushered, half pushed Otto down the stairs to B-deck. From the colour of Otto’s neck he could see that he was fuming. This was confirmed when they reached the operation’s cabin.

  ‘What the fuck do you mean?’ exploded Otto. ‘Give you the procedures in writing. He knows what the bloody procedures are, and if he doesn’t, he should do by now. What a waste of fucking time. As if we haven’t got enough to do in this bloody storm.’

  ‘Calm down, Otto, we’ve got our way. He says you can drill, just get on with it. I’ll ask one of the university trainees to fill in the forms. I’m supposed to be teaching them something, anyway.’

  ‘I hope they learn fast because I’m not waiting any longer. This sea’s getting rougher by the minute. We’ve already dropped the guide cone onto the sea floor. If we don’t get that drill string in soon we really will be in the shit.’

  The pieces of drill were made up of rigid steel pipes nearly half a metre in diameter. When they were all screwed together to make a six-mile-long drill string, it behaved just like that, a piece of string. It wasn’t easy to get such a long drill to bite into hard rock so Otto and his team had come up with a way of making it stick. Ten minutes later Sam was explaining this to his university trainee in his cabin.