“We thought we’d take it back to Washington with us when we move out. There are some people at HQ who may be able to do something with it. Shall we go?”
She led the way out of the strong room and secured the door behind us.
When we got back to the office she indicated a chair and I sat down facing her across the desk.
“What about the drugs?” I asked. “The ones you take from the villages. Do you just keep them here too?”
“No, we send samples from each pack to the laboratory in Washington for analysis.”
“And do you get lab reports back?”
“Initially we did, just to confirm we were on the right lines. But there are a lot of samples. HQ isn’t under any obligation to tell us what they’ve found and usually they don’t.”
Typical armed forces. Follow the chain of command, do your duty, and don’t ask awkward questions. But this is bloody silly.
She must have read my expression. “This is a field team. Our job is to collect suspected counterfeit drugs and leave effective drugs behind.” Then, with a sigh, “Except even those won’t be effective now. The resistance is so widespread.” She glanced at her watch. “Coffee time. You want one?”
“Thanks.”
She went over to a machine in the corner of her office and punched some buttons on the dispenser. There was a roar as it ground the roast beans.
“How do you know if they’ve done anything with the samples?” I shouted.
She shouted back. “I don’t. These people report higher up the line.”
“I see.”
The air was full of the strong smell of freshly ground coffee. She took out two mugs and placed each under the spout in turn. I heard a burbling noise.
“Milk? Sugar?”
“Black with one teaspoon, please.”
She stirred in the sugar, brought the mug over, and set it on the desk in front of me. Then she went back for hers and took it to her usual chair. For a while we sipped our coffee in silence. I was beginning to regret being so rude earlier. It was certainly down to me to restart the conversation.
“You’re medically qualified, I suppose.”
She caught my eye briefly and took another sip of coffee before answering.
“Yes. But I never wanted to work in a conventional clinical setting. My main interest was public health, especially in poor countries. So I joined the Commissioned Corps.”
“How much longer are you here?”
“Not much longer. In a month or so a transport will come. We’ll ship everything out and this will just be a set of empty rooms again.” She grimaced slightly. “We’ve made some impact. There may be more suppliers but we’re never going to eliminate all of them.” She cradled the mug between her hands. “What we really need to do is cut these fake tablets off at source. But that’s a job for someone else.”
“And will it get done?”
“Hard to say. I suppose it depends on the budget and what other demands present themselves. The PHS never seems to be short of work. They may have to leave it there.”
“Are you happy with that?”
She looked at me in surprise. “What do you think?”
“I’d say you’re not. I’d say that after all this effort you’d like to see the information put to good use.”
She shook her head. “Look, Colonel, this isn’t my first assignment. I know the limitations. I’ve learned to live with them.”
I finished the coffee. “Thanks for this. I’d better get back.”
I turned to her as we reached the door. “Look, I’m sorry if I was a bit sharp earlier.”
She shrugged. “You’re angry about what’s happened – I can understand that. Shall I show you to the entrance? This place is a bit of a warren.”
“No, it’s okay, I’m going back up to the ward. I can find my way.”
“Goodbye, Colonel. I hope… your men… you know.”
Something in her manner – the low voice, the slight droop of resignation in her shoulders – told me I hadn’t yet grasped the full gravity of the situation. I was about to tell her she didn’t know my guys. Then I thought of Tyler and Ferguson.
What was meant to sound like “Thanks” came out as a dry wheeze.
*
The sister I’d seen earlier was talking to one of the doctors. She saw me coming and stopped to introduce us. He was a short, chubby man – from Maryland, by his accent. I told him I’d like to see the men again and he said he’d come with me. We prepped together in the anteroon and entered the intensive care facility. One or two of the men were thrashing around and moaning. The rest were oddly quiet.
“What are their chances, Doc?”
“We’re entering the critical phase right now. If they can survive the next twenty-four hours, why, then I would say they have a fair to good chance of coming out th’other side.”
“And the chances of them making it that far? Fifty-fifty?”
He looked at me and shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry, sir. Nowhere like as good as that.”
We reached David’s bed. His whole body was in motion, the face glossy with sweat, yet drained of colour. The eyelids were flickering but all I could see of his eyes were the whites, which weren’t white at all, but a sickly bloodshot yellow.
“David?”
The eyelids stayed open and after some wild wandering his gaze came to rest on my face.
“Colonel?”
“Yes?”
He licked his lips. “…do something for me?”
“Sure, what is it?”
His jaw quivered and a shudder passed through him. It was a huge effort for him to speak. He strained towards me, and I bent down, placing my ear near his mouth.
“Chrissie,” he murmured.
I drew back and looked at him. “Who’s Chrissie, David? Your sister?”
There was no reaction. “Girlfriend?”
He closed his eyes and nodded.
“Okay, your girlfriend, Chrissie. Yes, what about her?”
“On… side table.”
At first I couldn’t see what he was talking about. Then I noticed that the bottle of water someone had left there was standing on a slip of paper. I lifted the bottle and withdrew the paper. An address was scrawled on it. Somewhere in Queens, New York. I held it up to him.
He nodded again. And, with a struggle, he mouthed, “Go see her.”
“Why? You can go yourself when—”
He shook his head from side to side. He moistened his lips and again I bent to hear him.
“Tell her… tell her… how much… “
The effort was too great. His eyes rolled up and he sank back.
“I’ll tell her, David.” I swallowed hard. “David, please, don’t give up.”
I knew he couldn’t hear me.
*
I checked into a hotel not too far from the Hospital. Normally I’d have had a light meal in the buffet restaurant but I was too exhausted to eat. I went straight to my room, threw down my overnight bag and flopped into a chair, my chin on my chest.
How many of those guys will still be with us tomorrow?
After a while I straightened up with a sigh, massaging my neck muscles with one hand. I simply had to get some rest.
I undressed and got into bed, stretched out under the sheet, and switched off the light. My body relaxed, limb by limb, and I sank quickly through veils of fatigue to float for a while in a twilight that was neither sleep nor wakefulness, a Neverland populated by shifting images and fugitive thoughts.
A thin sound insinuated itself into my awareness. I drifted up a couple of layers. Then it came again. Abruptly I jerked upright, wide awake.
What I’d heard was the high-pitched whine of a mosquito.
10
I leapt out of bed, slammed the light on, and scrabbled furiously at my ears, face, and neck. Then I stood there, breathing fast, rubbing my arms, my skin crawling. I began to look around the room, concentrating on light-coloured surfaces.
Nothi
ng.
I continued to look. Perhaps I’d been mistaken. Perhaps it was just a car accelerating in the street outside. Tiredness weighed heavily on my eyelids. Reluctantly I crawled back into bed, pulled the sheet up high, took a last glance around, and turned off the light.
I must have been almost asleep when I heard the whine again, very close to my ear. Once more I threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. I was fully awake now, the light was on, and I was scanning furiously around the walls and the ceiling. I caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror. There was something vaguely absurd about that tall, muscular figure, quaking in the presence of a tiny insect. Then I saw it, in the corner of the mirror.
I picked up one of my shoes, crept up slowly, and brought it down with ten times more force than I needed to. I withdrew the shoe and observed with grim satisfaction the small, frozen explosion of blood and legs. It left me wondering whose blood it was, and what horrors were lurking in that drying mess.
*
In the morning I rushed my breakfast in the hotel and walked quickly to the hospital. On the way I thought about the episode with the mosquito in my room. I felt a little ashamed to have panicked. They hadn’t eliminated insects in Medellín but, so far as I knew, malaria wasn’t a problem in the area. I recalled the times I’d bivvied in tropical places where the bugs were troublesome. It had never bothered me before. You took your malaria pills, plastered your skin with repellent, and carried on. If there wasn’t time to put up a tent at night you’d wrap yourself in a mosquito net and go to sleep.
I wondered if I could ever do it again.
*
I knocked on the door marked “USPHSCC Emergency Response Team” and a voice called “Come in”.
She was sitting at her desk. She half rose when she saw me.
“Colonel! Come in, sit down. How are the men?”
I dropped into a chair and heaved a sigh. “I’ve just come from the ward. Eight more died last night. Five are hanging on by their fingertips. The other three are okay.”
“That’s about par for the course. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.”
We looked at each other in silence. Then she said:
“I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”
“You weren’t?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you why I’m here.” I gathered my thoughts. “You said I’d just happened in on this situation. You were right. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to walk out on it the same way. I sent eighteen men on this mission, good men. I knew every one of them, trained with them. Some I’d count as personal friends. Now ten are dead and another five are fighting for their lives. Someone is responsible for that. I owe it to those guys to find out who. There are people in Washington dragging their feet and they’ll be dealt with. But it’s like you said: the problem will continue as long as we’ve failed to tackle the source of supply.”
“Go on.”
“Well, my experience is, if you really want something done, you do it yourself.”
She recoiled slightly. “You’re taking this on? You’re a bit out on a limb, aren’t you?”
“Not entirely. Special Assignment Force engages in covert operations, particularly cross-border stuff where local law enforcement teams haven’t got the reach. We don’t make much noise about it, that’s all. Usually, that is. Occasionally it hits the headlines.”
Something changed in her expression. “A couple of years ago – that gang in Africa, sex-trafficking, drugs. Was that—?”
“Yes, that was us.”
“I remember now. Well, you’re high profile, Colonel, but you’re not free to initiate something like this on your own, surely?”
She was right – up to a point. But the main reason I joined the SAF in the first place was that I hadn’t left my brains behind at university. Sure, you were supposed to follow orders, but you were also expected to use your initiative, more so than in other branches of the service. If I didn’t like what I saw I did things my way. It had earned me a reputation as a bit of a maverick but it had worked up to now. So she was right – but only up to a point.
“I’ll work it somehow. Right now I’d like to take a look at that computer. The one you captured from the drug trafficker.”
She shrugged. “If you like. Come through. The team’s back from a sortie. I’ll introduce you.”
The room looked very different with five personnel busily unloading and indexing packages.
“Guys,” she said. “This is Colonel Slater. He’s interested in our operation.”
They gathered round and I shook hands as she introduced them one by one.
“Eduardo… Beatriz… Ken… Filippo… Tony. Now, Eduardo, the Colonel would like to see the computer we picked up last week. Can you see to it?”
“Sure. Over here, Colonel.”
“Jim,” I said. “Let’s not stand on ceremony.”
He grinned, the teeth very white in that dark complexion. I’m taller than the norm, and Eduardo was a good deal shorter. The straight black hair, dark, wide-apart eyes, small nose, and high cheekbones all spoke of South American first nation ancestry. He led me to a cupboard, struggled out with a computer, and placed it on a desktop.
“Jesus,” I said. “It’s like something out of an antique fair.”
“Maybe, but it evidently did the job for him.”
“Abby said the memory was encrypted.”
“Looks that way. All I can get is gibberish.”
“Solid state memory?”
“Oh no, too old for that. Hard drive.”
I nodded. “Eduardo, I know someone who might be able to decrypt it.”
“We have some guys at HQ. We were planning on taking it back.”
“Yeah, but that’s weeks away. We want quicker answers than that, don’t we?”
“I guess. Let me ask Abby. Abby?”
She was discussing something with the others. She turned and came over.
“Colonel Jim here wants to take this for analysis. Makes sense to do it now before the trail goes cold. What do you think?”
She looked from Eduardo to me, then nodded. “Good. Do it.”
She went back to her discussion.
I’ve learned to recognise leadership skills and she had them. Her attitude was quite informal, yet she was decisive and she clearly commanded the respect of this team.
“You want to take the whole machine?” Eduardo asked.
“No, all I need is the hard drive. Do you have a tool kit handy?”
He went to a drawer on the other side of the room while I looked over the housing.
“Just a screwdriver set, if you’ve got one, Eduardo,” I called.
Minutes later I’d removed a few screws and unplugged some cable harnesses and the hard drive was in my hand.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll let you know how I get on.”
*
The sister was still saying how sorry she was as she took me to the day room. Tony, Gonsalves, and Liu were inside, talking quietly. They got up when I came in.
We nodded at each other, mouths tight.
“I’ve spoken to the doc,” I said. “We can ship you back any time now. You’re out of danger. You were the lucky ones.”
They nodded grimly. Tony said, “We heard it was a bad night. Did any make it?”
“Justin, Eddie, Gordy, and Prakash are hanging in there. So is Captain van der Loos. They, at least, have a chance. The rest…” I shook my head.
Tony dropped into a chair, his face in his hands. “Oh Christ. Can you believe it?”
Liu stared at me and blinked. Gonsalves turned and walked over to the window. I gave them a few moments. I knew what they were doing: scrolling through a mental roll call, registering the faces of buddies they’d never see again. I knew, because that’s what I’d been doing myself.
“Look,” I said, “I have to arrange for a US Army transport to repatriate the… the casualties. Tony, Liu, get your gear together. I’ll book
you on a flight with a civilian airline. When you get to Raleigh-Durham take a taxi back to base. I’ll reimburse you.”
Gonsalves came away from the window. “What about me?”
“I’ve got a job for you. I want you to go to Fort Meade, in Maryland.” I produced the hard drive. “You’re to deliver this by hand to Peter Richardson at ‘The Building’. That’s the National Security Agency. Keep it safe. Okay?”
He gave me a lop-sided smile. “The NSA, eh? Hot shit. Pardon me asking, but does this have something to do with the mission?”
“It could have. I’ll phone Peter and make arrangements for you to be met, otherwise you’ll never get in there. When you’ve handed it over you can return to Fort Piper. Okay, that’s it.”
“Are you returning to base now, sir?”
“No, I’m staying a short while. There’s something I have to do.” As I opened the door I turned back to them. “I’m really sorry about all this, guys. More sorry than you can imagine.”
“Don’t blame yourself, sir. It was just bum luck, that’s all.”
No, Liu, it was more than that. Much more.
*
I’d worked with Peter Richardson before. I knew he had people there who could deal with it. I took his phone call in my hotel at Medellín two days later.
“How did you get on, Pete?”
“Not bad. We fed it to our big number crunchers. It was a pretty straightforward encryption; took a while but we recovered the data. That was the easy part. The hard part was going through his browser history, seeing where the guy did his shopping. I hope this is worth it, Jim; I had three people working flat out on it, and of course they all had to understand Spanish.”
“Thanks, Pete, I owe you for this. Did you find anything?”
“Well, the most likely site is one called Salvarsan International Shipments. They list a lot of pharmaceuticals and we can see from the blanks that he’s ordered from them but we don’t know what because they’ve erased the pages. We had a shot at locating the company but it’s pretty much impossible. You know, people like that use professional cyber criminals to cover their tracks. The transactions are randomly directed to a variety of sites and they get redirected again and again. You spend an age trying to find the parent site and before you can get there they’ve closed it down and reopened under a different name.”
Counterfeit (The Jim Slater series Book 2) Page 7
