The Pandemic Plot

by Scott Mariani

  ‘Did you report your suspicions to anyone?’

  ‘I never got the chance,’ Brewster said. ‘It appeared that my computer checks hadn’t gone unnoticed. Soon afterwards, I was invited up to the top floor of the company building and brought in to meet a pair of chief executives I’d never seen before. I was informed that for economic reasons Galliard were thinning out their senior personnel who’d been there for twenty-five years or more, and that my name was on the list. They were offering an extremely generous golden handshake. So generous, that you’d have to be an idiot not to see it for what it was, kiss-off money.’

  ‘How many other Galliard staffers were offered the same deal?’

  ‘As far as I was ever able to ascertain, I was the only one. Their layoffs story was a lie. It was a transparent attempt to silence me, because they knew about my suspicions.’

  ‘How much of a payoff are we talking about?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Just a shade over a million pounds. Part of the deal was that I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement that prohibits me from discussing any aspect of my work for the Galliard Group, to anyone, for as long as I live. So you understand my reticence in telling you all this. Not that anyone would ever be able to prove that the company was illegally peddling lethal biotoxins to dodgy clients. They’re far too clever, and extremely rich and powerful.’

  ‘And you took the money.’

  ‘You’d have to be a bloody fool to turn down an offer like that. I retired here to the coast, bought this house, opened the shop as a hobby business – I’ve always had a passion for old books – and I’ve been very comfortable for the last five years. Financially speaking, anyway. My health’s falling apart and I’m plagued by my conscience. That’s why I stayed in touch with Miles. Especially after what happened to Suzie.’

  Ben blinked. He was missing something. ‘Hold on. Miles and Suzie? Who are they?’

  Brewster looked annoyed with himself for having let the names slip, but it was too late to take it back now. He shrugged and said, ‘You see, I wasn’t the only one who suspected that Galliard were up to no good. Other people had doubts, too. But not everyone got off as lightly as I did.’

  ‘Did Miles and Suzie work for the company too?’

  ‘That’s where the two of them met. He was a lab technician and she worked in the accounts department. Poor girl,’ Brewster added, shaking his head sadly. ‘Those filthy bastards.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She was killed in a terrible car smash, about a year after I retired from the company. In fact “killed” doesn’t quite do it justice. She was decapitated. It was horrible.’

  ‘By “filthy bastards” I’m assuming you don’t believe it was an accident,’ Ben said.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Brewster replied. ‘These people are as ruthless as they’re rich and powerful. Makes me think about what might have happened to me, if I hadn’t taken the deal.’

  ‘And Miles?’

  ‘He quit his job after that. He was destroyed by what happened, and for a long time I was certain he was going to do something crazy to get his revenge on them, but he didn’t. Now he keeps a low profile, uses a different name. I’m not quite sure what he does for money.’

  Ben was thinking hard. ‘Is this Miles your associate? The person Carter Duggan first contacted, before you were asked to meet with him?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Brewster admitted.

  ‘If he keeps such a low profile, then how was Duggan able to find him?’

  ‘Miles is much more involved in these things than I am. He posts articles on the dark web about the illegal activities of pharmaceutical companies. I can only assume that Duggan was a skilled enough investigator to come across his name and decide to get in touch.’

  Ben was slowly piecing the fragments together. ‘Let me get this clear. Are you saying that Duggan approached your associate to learn more about Galliard’s shipments of botulinum to suspect countries? Is that what this is all about?’

  Brewster fell silent for a long moment. Sweat was rolling down his brow. He puffed out his cheeks and sighed. Then he said, ‘No, that’s not the reason. I told you there was a lot of background. Everything I’ve told you is leading up to the real story. Because Galliard have been involved in terrible things for many, many years. Long before my time. I can only tell you so much. Miles is the real expert on the matter.’

  Ben looked at him and could see he was telling the truth. Brewster was scared to death, and wouldn’t have been willing to reveal a fraction of what he had, if he hadn’t been intimidated into it by Ben’s fake police persona. Or unless he’d had a gun pointed at his head. The SIG pistol was in Ben’s pocket for that reason, just in case it proved necessary.

  Ben asked Brewster, ‘What’s Achilles Fourteen?’

  Brewster looked confused for a second, then the look of fear in his eyes became even more acute. ‘I … I … how did you …’

  Ben said, ‘You made Duggan hand over his phone before you started talking, so that he couldn’t record the conversation. Who carries a tape recorder any more? I’m guessing that was part of Miles’s rules of engagement. But the moment you turned your back and went to the bar for another drink, Duggan grabbed a beer mat from the table and used it to scribble down a couple of notes. Now I know what one of them means. But I think the other is even more important, and now you’re going to tell me. I repeat, what is Achilles Fourteen?’

  Brewster stared at him, his pallid face suddenly flushing purple. He jerked unsteadily to his feet, as though the sudden movement made him dizzy. ‘Wait a minute. There’s no way the police know any of this. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have come to me, you’d have gone after Galliard. You’re no police officer. Let me see that warrant card again.’

  Ben said patiently, ‘Sit down, Mr Brewster.’

  ‘You’re working for Galliard, aren’t you? You’re fishing to find out how much I know and then you’re going to murder me like you murdered Duggan. Admit it! Think I didn’t know you people have been following me, watching every move I’ve made ever since our meeting?’ Brewster let out a wild laugh. ‘Go on and kill me, then. Put a bullet in my brain. You’ll be doing me a favour. My doctor says I’ll be dead in six months anyway. You want to know what it feels like, swallowing fifty pills a day?’

  Ben stood up, pulled the SIG from his pocket and pointed it at him. ‘I don’t work for Galliard, but you can rest assured that I’ll do whatever it takes to make you talk to me. Make this easy on yourself, Brewster. Tell me what Achilles Fourteen is, and I’m gone.’

  There was a moment’s silence as they stood facing off.

  And that was when the attack came.

  Chapter 30

  At the top of a high-rise corporate headquarters building, alone in a palatial office suite with a panoramic view of the city, were two men. One of them, seated in a plush leather chair behind his enormous desk and gazing deep in thought out of the window, was the CEO and president of the multi-billion-pound company that had been founded by his illustrious grandfather all the way back in 1908. The senior executive with him, pacing up and down the length of the huge Qashgai rug in front of the desk with a phone clamped to his ear, was his immediate subordinate and VP of the corporation, a man named Jasper Hogan.

  The Chief found Hogan’s pacing profoundly irritating, but he sat quietly gritting his teeth and waiting for the feedback from the phone conversation he was having with one of their associates in another part of the country. Their man on the ground was doing most of the talking, while Hogan prompted him with terse questions like ‘Are you sure?’ and ‘What are they doing in there?’ and ‘Are your people in position?’

  Hogan’s boss closed his eyes and reflected on the situation. A lesser man might have been deeply unsettled, even panicked, by the events of the last few days. But like his father and his grandfather before him, he was a robust and determined individual who refused to accept that any crisis, however threatening, couldn’t be handled. He’
d faced serious challenges before, and not only survived them but seen his company thrive and grow from strength to strength regardless.

  Still, he was perplexed, even worried.

  Young Arundel’s chance appearance at the crime scene and subsequent arrest for the murder of Carter Duggan had seemed like a stroke of luck at first. But then Ben Hope had come along and changed everything.

  It had been one of their trusted agents, present at Oxford Magistrates’ Court the morning of the bail hearing, who had reported back to them the surprise development that Arundel’s biological father had entered the equation. Until that moment, they’d all been under the impression that Arundel’s parents were both deceased. Which wouldn’t in its own right have presented a problem, except for the fact that a swift and extensive background check of this Major Hope’s military record (or the parts of it that they’d been able to access) had revealed the slightly shocking truth that the only living relative of the man who was conveniently taking the fall for the elimination of Carter Duggan was an experienced and battle-hardened professional warrior, leader and strategist with a list of credentials they’d have longed to be able to make use of for themselves, under different circumstances. Few of the men they now and then had had occasion to employ to take care of certain unpleasant matters were half as qualified. Some were military veterans themselves, specialised in the uglier kind of contract work that men with their particular skillsets were able to carry out: it was one of those that the Chief’s second-in-command was talking to on the phone at this moment. Needless to say, the troops on the ground had no idea who their real employers were, or what purpose they were serving by following their orders.

  For the first couple of days after Arundel was carted off to jail, all had been quiet. During that brief lull, the Chief and Hogan had dared to hope that their concerns were unfounded. Maybe Arundel’s father would simply return to his home in France and hold back from getting involved. Maybe everything would be okay. But yesterday that optimism had been blown to pieces when their clean-up operation against Emily Bowman had turned into their worst nightmare. The meticulously planned disappearance of the bodies, the burning of the house to erase all evidence, couldn’t have been more disastrously aborted. Fine, Bowman was dead, but the operation had failed in its main objective. The lid was off the box now. The police were involved. Questions would be asked. And you didn’t need to possess the gift of clairvoyance to work out who was responsible for wiping out their operatives.

  Ben Hope was back in the picture. And he was an even more serious liability than they’d feared. Because now the Chief and his co-conspirator Hogan suspected that Hope might have made off with the important piece of evidence their operatives had been sent there to obtain, the memoir of Emily Bowman’s grandmother Violet that had sparked Carter Duggan’s potentially damaging investigation into their company’s activities in the first place. If the memoir had now fallen into Hope’s hands, it meant he was on their trail, too. A man like him could hurt them far, far more than some greedy washed-up ex-cop from Ottawa. What did Hope know? How close was he to working out the whole truth?

  And now, as though yesterday’s developments weren’t troubling enough, had come this morning’s news from the leader of the operatives who’d been deployed to the east coast to eliminate Joe Brewster.

  This time, the Chief and his second-in-command weren’t taking any chances. In the wake of the messed-up Bowman operation the clean-up team was bigger and better equipped than the first. No more unmitigated bloodbaths. Their orders were to move in hard, fast, silently and unseen, snatch Brewster from his home and discreetly remove him to a prearranged location where he would be injected with a carefully selected and blended cocktail of chemicals that would be swiftly lethal and untraceable. Brewster’s medical reports, which they had no problem hacking into, showed that his health prognosis was poor, at best, giving them a nice opportunity to take advantage of. Once he was dead, the body would be returned to his home, changed into pyjamas and tucked up in bed; and as far as the rest of the world was concerned, poor old Joe Brewster had tragically succumbed to the illness that had been slowly eating him away. They’d send flowers to his funeral.

  But that plan, too, was now sunk. When the snatch team had turned up at Brewster’s house that morning with the intention of either taking him right away or waiting until he got home from the shop, they’d discovered not only that their target was at home but that he had a visitor. The blue BMW Alpina D3 with French plates and left-hand-drive was parked near the gate, and it was registered to their new nemesis, Ben Hope.

  When the team leader got straight on the phone to alert his bosses, it sparked a red alert. There was no longer any question that Hope knew far more than he should – enough to have led him to Brewster, which meant he was tagging Duggan’s footsteps quite closely. Which also meant he knew what they themselves had only recently discovered, ironically thanks to Duggan: that Brewster had key information concerning their organisation and its illegal activities. Information that must not be allowed to spread any further.

  The Chief had had enough of listening to Hogan prattling on the phone. He swivelled around from the window and silenced the conversation with an impatient gesture. ‘For God’s sake, we need to put an end to this right now.’

  Hogan pulled the phone from his ear and cupped the handset. ‘What do I tell him?’

  The Chief didn’t need long to consider the remaining options.

  He replied, ‘Change of plan. Tell him to move in and shoot them both.’

  Chapter 31

  If Ben’s full attention hadn’t been fixed on Joe Brewster at that moment, he might have sooner noticed the stirring in the overgrown bushes outside the window. It was his sixth sense that saved him, that almost preternatural instinct honed through half a lifetime of danger and warfare to alert him when an enemy was close.

  A fraction of a second before the shotgun blasts destroyed the centre panes of the bay window, Ben was already wheeling away and swivelling his drawn weapon. At the same instant the figures of two men were rearing up out of the bushes, both dressed in black, both clutching short-barrelled auto twelve-gauges that they levelled to their shoulders and fired. Glass and buckshot sprayed into the room to the sound of twin bombshells. Brewster screamed, staggered and fell, pulling the wing chair down with him.

  Ben didn’t know if Brewster was hit. There was no time to find out. Just like there was no time to take careful aim at the enemy before they emptied their weapons into the room and killed everything living inside. Ben was a fast pistol shot. Sweeping multiple targets right to left he was superfast; sweeping left to right he was exceptional. He set his front sight on the guy on the left, centre of mass, pure instinct, gun and hand and eyes and brain all melding into one, and double-tapped his target before the muzzle blurred ten degrees right to engage the other even as the first one crumpled at the knees and began to fall.

  Then, silence. Smoke oozed from the muzzle of Ben’s gun. Four rounds gone. Fourteen remaining. No reloads. Once they were gone, they were gone. And there was no telling how many assailants he was up against. One thing he knew for sure, they would attack harder and in greater numbers than they had at Emily Bowman’s house – and he knew the reason why. It was because this time, they knew he was here.

  One body was twitching in the bushes outside the shattered window; the other was inert. The air in the room was sweet with the tang of burnt powder. Ben raced over to Brewster. He had blood on his face where he’d been hit by flying glass, but after a quick pat-down Ben decided he hadn’t taken any buckshot. Ben grabbed an arm and gathered him up. ‘On your feet, Mr Brewster. We don’t have a lot of time.’

  He’d got to Emily Bowman’s house too late to save her. This time, he was ahead of the curve, if only by a hair. And he was damned if he was going to let them have Brewster so easily.

  Ben could hear more men swarming inside the house. While the first two had stalked up to the front window, others had invaded
from the rear. He contemplated the risks of trying to escape through the shattered window and decided they were too high. No telling how many more could be lurking in the garden, ready to appear from nowhere and blast them at the vulnerable moment when Ben was helping Brewster out. No, their best chance was to run the gauntlet through the house.

  ‘Wh-what’s going on?’ Brewster muttered. His eyes were darting and he was pale. The effects of shock kicking in.

  ‘Come on. Move.’ Ben wrapped an arm around him and held him close, holding the pistol one-handed as they made their way towards the door. They were three steps from it when a percussive blast sounded from the other side. Wood splinters and plaster exploded from the frame. They were trying to pin him in here, which meant more were racing towards the front window, ready to pour in overwhelming firepower. Ben wasn’t content to wait for them. He punched three rounds through the door as fast as he could pull the trigger, and heard a short, sharp cry from the other side. Eleven rounds left. The door hinged outwards. He crashed it open with a savage kick and saw the man down in the passage nearby, lying spread out in a red pool, still clutching his weapon in one dead hand. Another man was making a hurried retreat down the passage, firing behind him as he went: a wild shot that gouged a trench out of the wall a foot from Ben’s shoulder. Ben chased him with two more rounds, but the running man managed to reach cover around the corner and the pistol bullets slammed harmlessly into the plaster.

  Nine rounds left. Ben jumped over the body, dragging Brewster along with him by the wrist. Brewster made no attempt to resist him, dazed and muttering ‘Oh my God, oh my God’. Ben had no time to stoop down and gather up the dead man’s fallen weapon, and with Brewster in tow he couldn’t handle a heavy shotgun one-handed as well as a pistol. No point in checking the body for ID because there wouldn’t be any. Ben pressed on, every nerve in his body jangling as he sensed the presence of the enemy all around. Brewster was like a dead weight trailing along behind him, severely compromising his ability to fight. But there was no way he was letting Brewster go.