Bioweapon

by James Barrington

  Richter subscribed wholeheartedly to the old Royal Navy adage: never run if you can walk; never walk if you can stand; never stand if you can sit; never sit if you can lie and never be awake if you can be asleep. He had nothing to do and nowhere to go and all the rest of the day to do it, so he set his alarm for seven, in time for dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, stripped off to his underwear, sent a quick email to Hammersmith telling Simpson where he was and why he was staying there, then slid between the sheets of one of the two single beds in the room, snapped off the lights and quickly fell asleep.

  Chapter 26

  Porton Down, Wiltshire

  Monday

  George Slade had spent a completely unproductive afternoon scanning the contents of Charles Vernon’s desktop computer. He was hampered by two things. The first was the sheer size of the hard drive, which was two terabytes, a huge amount of storage that was further extended by Vernon’s dedicated personal section on the main server, located in the IT section and that added a further three terabytes of data storage that he needed to look at. The second problem was that he really had no idea what he was looking for.

  He had started with Vernon’s emails, and in an attempt to speed up the process he had run a couple of dozen searches through the inbox and all the subfolders, looking for any references to words that might provide a shortcut. He tried inputting the proper names ‘Toulouse’, ‘Heathrow’ and ‘France’, and when they generated nothing relevant he picked more general words and expressions like ‘airline’, ‘airport’, ‘abduction’, ‘defection’, ‘chemical’, ‘biological’ and ‘bioweapon’. Because of the nature of Vernon’s profession, quite a lot of emails were displayed in which the words ‘chemical’ and/or ‘biological’ occurred, but every one that Slade looked at had been entirely innocuous, simply emails Vernon had received from professional colleagues elsewhere about some apparently unclassified aspect of the work in which he was involved.

  He then repeated the process on the sent folder, with an almost identical lack of results. Again, the only emails that the searches identified were those of a purely professional nature dealing with subjects about which George Slade had almost no knowledge at all, and which he found difficult to understand except in the broadest possible terms, due to the highly technical nature of their contents.

  He had then turned his attention to the word processing program and the documents that had been created. There were hundreds of them, and he had realised virtually immediately that there were not enough hours in the day – possibly not enough hours in a year – to read every one. And, of course, there would inevitably be the problem of actually understanding what a particular document dealt with. So again, Slade resorted to running global searches through the documents folder, concentrating on those files either created or accessed within the last six months.

  And again, the search produced the same kind of results as his scan of the email data file: there were a lot of documents where certain keywords occurred, but none of those he looked at appeared to be anything other than draft papers, analyses of the results of certain tests, descriptions of chemical processes, discussions of biological substances and the like. Probably all fascinating to a scientist like Vernon but both dull and incomprehensible to a civilian security officer looking for some kind of smoking gun, for something that could relate to or explain why Vernon had walked out of Dstl.

  By five that afternoon his eyes were tired from constantly scanning emails and documents on the nineteen-inch flat screen in front of him and he was frustrated by the total lack of any tangible result. He closed the computer down and then immediately reopened it just to check that he would have access to it the following day using the new password he had chosen. Then he shut it down again, closed and locked the office door before walking over to the admin section to bring William Poulson up to date.

  ‘So, you’ve found nothing at all?’ Poulson said.

  ‘There’s a huge amount of data on his machine, sir, but everything I looked at appeared to be entirely legitimate, and that seems to me to be a bit unexpected.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We already know that Vernon changed his user password a couple weeks ago. If there’s nothing on his computer that’s incriminating, why did he do that? There has to be something there that I haven’t found yet.’

  Then a thought struck him and he paused.

  ‘What is it?’ Poulson asked.

  ‘I was talking to Lewis when we were trying to hack our way into the system, and I remember him telling me that much of the data was very highly classified.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Poulson said, ‘most of it is Secret and there are further security levels above that to prevent unauthorised access.’

  ‘Lewis told me about the SCI protocols. But what I don’t quite understand is that, once we’d gained access to Vernon’s machine, I could look at anything I wanted to, without going through any kind of security check or putting in a different password or anything like that.’

  Poulsen nodded slowly.

  ‘This isn’t really my area of competence,’ he said, ‘but I suspect that there are either hidden or encrypted directories or partitions on his hard disk that relate to certain aspects of his work here, and that you do need additional security information before you can access them. And if I were Vernon,’ he added, warming to the theme, ‘if I had placed information on the computer that I didn’t want other people to see, then I would make sure it was inside one of those directories.’

  ‘So, what you want me to do, sir?’

  ‘Nothing else today, George, because Lewis has probably already gone home. I’ll speak to him first thing tomorrow morning, and then you and he need to spend all day going through that computer together, him providing you with access to any directory that he discovers, and you inspecting the contents. As the IT system administrator, Lewis has copies of all the SCI codewords in sealed envelopes in this safe. I’ll tell him to take the whole lot over to Vernon’s office. As I said before, Lewis will just be your way in. I don’t want him – or anybody else – seeing anything you find. Do you have any appointments or duties in your diary for tomorrow?’

  ‘Nothing that can’t be changed. I’ll brief my deputy when I get back to my office and tell him what he needs to do.’

  Chapter 27

  Toulouse, France

  Monday

  Richter’s alarm woke him promptly at seven. He climbed out of bed, took a quick shower and then dressed. Before he went over to the restaurant he checked both his phone and his laptop for any new messages, but found nothing. No new information whatsoever, in fact.

  He pulled on his jacket over the shoulder holster containing the Glock – unless something changed dramatically he didn’t expect to have to shoot anyone that evening, but there was absolutely no point in having the weapon with him unless it was loaded and readily available – checked that he had his car keys and his phone in his pocket, and then walked over to the main building of the Campanile to the restaurant.

  He’d just finished the main course and was contemplating the advisability of having a sweet as well when his mobile rang.

  ‘Richter,’ he said.

  ‘This is the ComCen with an advisory message,’ the distant voice said.

  ‘Do I need to scramble?’

  ‘Negative. This is unclassified and can be passed on an open line. Message starts. “Company backup en route. Gulfstream routeing Andrews Carcassonne ETA 21:15 Zulu. Request pickup and accommodation for two pax.” Message ends.’

  ‘All copied.’

  ‘Any reply?’

  Richter glanced out of the window and across to the building housing the hotel’s bedrooms where he had parked the Peugeot. The registration plate was invisible to him at that distance, but he had the keys in his pocket and attached to the key ring was a plastic tag with the car’s registration number written on it.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Send “Pickup confirmed, accommodation confirmed. Vehicl
e grey Peugeot 3008.” Hang on a minute.’ He looked at the plastic tag and added the registration number to the message and then ended the call.

  Richter glanced at his watch, converted the Zulu time he’d just been given into local time, checked the mapping application on his phone to work out how far away he was from Carcassonne and decided he had time for both a sweet and a coffee.

  On his way out of the restaurant he stopped at the reception desk and booked two rooms in his own name for two ‘business associates’ who would be arriving later that evening. He collected the room keys – typical plastic devices that would activate the electric door locks – and put them in his jacket pocket.

  About twenty minutes later Richter started the Peugeot, stored the car’s location at that moment in the satnav, just marking it as ‘Hotel’ so that he’d be able to find his way back there without any trouble, and added the airport at Carcassonne as his next destination. Then he set off.

  The Péripherique around Toulouse was still quite busy in both directions, the traffic frequently bunching together because of what seemed to Richter to be an entirely pointless ninety kilometre-an-hour speed limit monitored by frequent cameras. Obviously the local drivers knew the position of every speed camera along the dual carriageway and only obeyed the limit when they were actually approaching one of them. The result was as predictable as it was pointless, the traffic accelerating as soon as each vehicle had passed a camera and then braking again as they approached the next one. It was an obvious recipe for a whole clutch of fender benders, and he saw several near misses as he headed south. Probably some mid-level French bureaucrat had earned a promotion on the strength of the scheme.

  He picked up a ticket at the Toulouse Sud Gare de péage and then drove straight on, joining the Autoroute des Deux Mers which would take him almost directly to Carcassonne and the Aéroport de Carcassonne-Salvaza. When he got there, it was clear that the airport was nothing like the size of Blagnac at Toulouse, and it looked to Richter as if it handled more general aviation – light aircraft and so on – than commercial or international flights. But it was probably a good choice as the Gulfstream’s destination because the American-registered aircraft would attract less attention there than it would have done at Toulouse.

  He’d arrived about ten minutes earlier than the estimate for the flight he’d been given by the Hammersmith Communications Centre, but the aircraft itself was also early, by about seven minutes, so he was able to watch it land and knew he had only a fairly short time to wait. It was pointless going inside the small terminal building because he had no idea what the two CIA agents would look like. Although he guessed he could still pick out most Americans in a crowd of Frenchmen, it was far easier to simply wait beside the car. There were car parks dotted around the southern border of the airport, but Richter elected to park on the access road itself with the parking lights and hazard flashers switched on. He stood beside the Peugeot while he waited for his two passengers. After all, he hoped that Langley would have relayed the message he’d sent via the ComCen, and that the CIA men would be looking out for that specific vehicle.

  Only about ten minutes after the Gulfstream had touched down, two men with short-cropped hair, one blond and the other dark brown, and wearing almost identical suits stepped out of the terminal building pulling wheeled cabin bags behind them. They stopped to look around. The blond one glanced in Richter’s direction, nudged his companion and then they both began walking briskly towards him.

  Both men looked as if they’d come from the same mould. They were both about thirty, both just over six feet tall – a couple of inches taller than Richter – and both looked fit and moved with the fluid grace exhibited by many athletes. They probably each ran five miles before breakfast and spent an hour or so in the gym most evenings. None of which was a bad thing, obviously, as far as Richter was concerned. If there was any running around to be done, they were the obvious choices to do it. Facially they were also similar in that they looked quite ordinary with regular features: eyes, ears, noses and mouths, the parts of the face which are most memorable especially if there is something unusual about any one of them, were all of average size and average appearance. Apart from their hair colour, the only other distinguishing characteristic was that the dark-haired man sported the kind of solid-looking weapons-grade moustache that had been the trade-mark of the actor Tom Selleck when he played Thomas Magnum in Magnum PI. Otherwise, there was nothing remarkable about the face of either man, which in their profession was certainly a good thing.

  ‘You’re Richter, right?’ the dark-haired man asked, stopping three or four feet away from him. He pronounced the name phonetically, as ‘rich ter’ rather than ‘rik ter,’ and his voice had a pronounced southern drawl that was unmistakable.

  Richter nodded.

  ‘Got it in one,’ he replied, ‘though for this op I’m carrying a passport in the name of Beatty. Then he pointed at their two carry-ons. ‘Is that it, or have you got cases as well?’

  ‘That’s it,’ the blond agent replied. His voice was somewhat nasal and Richter guessed he hailed from the New York area, or certainly somewhere a long way from the deep south. ‘We aim to travel light, get this fixed and then get back home, tout fucking suite.’

  Oh good, Richter thought. The US cavalry’s obviously arrived.

  He opened the boot of the Peugeot and watched as the two Americans effortlessly lifted their bags and put them inside the car.

  ‘Introduction time,’ Richter said. ‘You know who I am, obviously, so let’s find out who you are.’

  ‘You wanna see our identification?’

  ‘Of course not. If you aren’t a couple of spooks from Langley you’d never have made it onto that Gulfstream. All I need to know are your names, just to make conversation and stuff like that a wee bit easier.’

  ‘Okay,’ the dark-haired agent replied. ‘My name’s Richard Morris and I go by Rich or Dick, up to you. My buddy here is Tom Masters, but most people call him TJ because his middle name is Jonathan. And you’re Paul, right?’

  ‘Right. Okay, let’s get moving.’

  Morris climbed into the front seat of the car while Masters sat down in the back.

  Richter checked that both men had latched their seat belts before he put the car into gear, switched off the hazard flashers and pulled away from the kerb.

  ‘Gather you got a friend in the Company,’ Masters said, looking at Richter’s face in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘I’ve got a couple, actually.’

  ‘We met John Westwood just before we left, and he said to say hi. And he also said that if there’s anything you want that he can get all you gotta do is give him a bell.’

  ‘Decent of him,’ Richter replied. ‘I’ll remember that.’

  He pulled back onto the autoroute and turned north-west for Toulouse, holding the Peugeot at a steady 120 kilometres an hour, ten below the speed limit.

  ‘Okay, domestic stuff first. I’m staying at a chain hotel on the west side of Toulouse near the airport because we still have no idea where Vernon has gone, and the airport was the last location for him that we’ve been able to confirm. So that’s kind of ground zero right now. I’ve booked each of you a room at the same hotel. Did you eat on the aircraft, or would you like to get something now?’

  ‘That Gulfstream is fast and comfortable, but the catering sucks. We were given a flask of coffee each and a pack of sandwiches and that was it,’ Morris said, ‘so if there’s somewhere we can get a bite to eat and a hot coffee for sure I’d like to stop. On the other hand,’ he went on, peering doubtfully through the windows at the moonlit countryside flashing past, ‘I know we’re in France and I’ve been here before.’

  ‘And?’ Richter prompted.

  ‘And in France you can only eat when the French say you can, not when you’re actually hungry.’

  ‘True enough.’ Richter had also had experience of the rigid eating hours imposed by many French restaurants and hotels, where lunch was typic
ally served between twelve and two, and dinner between seven and nine, and finding a sit-down meal outside those times could be quite difficult, sometimes impossible. ‘But the difference is that we’re on an autoroute,’ he said. ‘French service station food isn’t bad and you can eat whenever you want. There’s an aire coming up in a few miles. We’ll stop there.’

  In fact, there were a couple of service stations between Carcassonne and Toulouse on that road, but the first was the Aire de Braziège, so that was where they went.

  Morris and Masters both ordered virtually identical meals – double burgers, fries and coffee – while Richter just had a coffee. He paid the bill for the three of them and led the way to a table tucked away at the side of the restaurant.

  ‘One other question I meant to ask,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘Are you carrying?’

  The two Americans shared a glance and then Morris nodded.

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes,’ he said. ‘We’ve each got a Glock in the carry-ons but stripped down so it doesn’t look like a pistol. The cases are supplied by Langley and the barrel and magazines and the other bits that make it go bang are fitted in recesses in the shell of the case. They’ll pass a standard X-ray scan at an airport, and a rummage as long as the guy doing it doesn’t dig too deep. The frame of the weapon is polymer, so that’s not a real problem and we’ve got those in our pockets right now.’

  ‘Because customs officers don’t need a reason to look in your case, but they do need a reason to do a physical search,’ Richter said.