‘He was sent to find the fault. He did and repaired it, but next day, he reported feeling unwell when he was working on something else. Luckily, he wasn’t sent home. Porton has a set procedure for any member of staff falling ilclass="underline" they automatically assume possible contact with something nasty and keep the patient isolated on the premises until a proper diagnosis is made. Usually it’s just colds and flu and stomach upsets like everywhere else, but occasionally it can be the real deal and, considering what they work on at Porton, this always triggers a full-scale alert and establishing exactly what happened becomes an immediate top priority, as in this case.’
‘Have they done that yet?’ Steven asked.
‘No, not yet.’
‘Not good,’ said Steven. ‘Surely they must know every job the man has been working on in the past week or so and where he might have been exposed to the virus?’
‘He’s been on holiday,’ said Macmillan. ‘Carrying out the repair to the intercom was the first job he’d been assigned to since coming back.’
‘Crazy, crazy, crazy,’ murmured Steven. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that he was on holiday in central Africa?’
‘Costa del Sol in Spain, like thousands of other Brits.’
‘His wife and family?’
‘Thankfully all well, he was at work when he started to feel ill.’
‘A blessing.’
Steven tried a recap of events. ‘We gather in a high security lab, with the scientists taking every conceivable precaution against possible exposure to any deadly microorganism in Petrov’s flask or any vapour arising from a concentrated hallucinogen and they find it contains nothing more dangerous than salt water. The next day an electrician goes into the lab to fix the intercom and comes down with one of the most hellish diseases on earth, Marburg disease. How?’
‘Is the question everyone is asking.’
‘Are they asking if the scientists who opened the flask could have missed something?’ Steven asked.
‘I think we both know that Porton scientists don’t make that kind of mistake,’ said Macmillan, ‘although it was the elephant in the room for a very short time until they themselves insisted that the contents of the flask be examined again by fellow scientists who agreed, of course, that it was salt water and nothing else.’
‘Good,’ said Steven. ‘I suppose they have stocks of Marburg virus at Porton?’
‘That would be a question they wouldn’t answer if past experience is anything to go by. It’s a very secretive place — as our first line of defence against biological attack, it has to be. What’s on your mind?’
‘If they carry out nucleic acid sequencing of the virus the electrician has gone down with and find out what strain it is, there’s a good chance they should be able to tell us where it came from,’ said Steven, ‘whether it’s one of Porton’s own strains... or a Russian one... or one from CDC Atlanta... or a new one altogether.’
‘I suspect they may already be doing that,’ said Macmillan acidly.
‘Of course, they are,’ said Steven, feeling embarrassed. ‘Sorry, this has put me a bit on edge. Do you know anything about the condition of the electrician — Damn, I hate calling him that, do you know his name?’
‘Tom, Tom Harland, age 37, married to Chloe, two daughters, nine and seven. He’s very ill, but probably in the best hospital in the UK to treat him.’
‘Good luck, Tom,’ murmured Steven.
‘I’ll let you know when I hear more.’
Steven let his head fall back on the pillow although going back to sleep was out of the question. Instead, he looked up at shadows on the ceiling while running through every expletive he could think of to describe the situation.
The situation was to get worse.
At ten o’clock next morning, Chloe Harland watched her husband die in the Royal Free Hospital. He was in a transparent isolation tent with two nurses wearing full bio-safety gear doing their best to keep him as comfortable as possible on a journey they were praying would end soon. Chloe had never felt so helpless or lonely. She had been obliged to put on full safety gear too, but her plea that she be allowed to hold her husband’s hand and at least say good bye to him had been declined. She was standing about three metres away from him but it could have been a million miles.
Chloe had lost track of time. She had rushed to the hospital as soon as she’d got the phone call suggesting she should come in, leaving her mother, who had come to stay for the duration of the crisis to look after the children. Everything had been done in such a hurry: there had been no time for the multitude of questions going around in her head. She had been helped into safety gear and a visor by nurses whose total attention was given over to making sure that everything fitted properly and all gaps were sealed before ushering her into the isolation suite where she could watch proceedings, separated from an inner tent by plastic. It was transparent but such a tangible barrier.
The change that had come over her family circumstances in the past few days had been so dramatic that she had difficulty in accepting any of it as being remotely possible. The awful writhing figure she could see through the transparent screen could not really be her Tom, the man who a few short days ago had been laughing and splashing about in the Mediterranean in the Spanish sunshine with their daughters while she took pictures on her phone to send to Granny and Grandad. Her Tom was fit and well, joking, smiling, his body showing the tan that two weeks in Spain had given him as he swept Janey, their youngest up into his arms and then took Ella, her sister, by the hand to walk up the beach towards her. She could see them, she could see them, she could see them... The... thing in the bed wasn’t Tom, it was something from a horror movie... Oh God, how could she think that? Oh God, make it stop, make it all stop...’
Chloe realised that something had changed when the nurses in the treatment tent suddenly stopped being busy. A sense of calm had come over the room and she became acutely aware of the sound of fans and filters. The restive figure in the bed had stopped moving and one of the nurses turned to look at her. Chloe couldn’t see her face behind the reflections on her visor any more than the nurse could see hers, but the gesture of dropping her head slowly and making the palms of her gloved hands face outwards as she let her arms go limp said everything.
A male figure, judging by his size, in biohazard gear, came into the room and Chloe guessed rightly at it being a doctor required to confirm the death of her husband. Rules were rules, times had to be recorded, forms had to be filled in and then it would be over... but not for Chloe, definitely not for Chloe.
Steven and John Macmillan were struggling to come up with an explanation for Tom Harland contracting Marburg disease when news of his death came in.
‘God damn,’ said Steven.
‘Poor man,’ said Macmillan, shaking his head in exasperation. ‘They have to find the cause, it’s imperative they identify the source.’
‘No question,’ said Steven.
The two men were talking in Macmillan’s office where Macmillan had put a stop on phone calls so that they could think and talk undisturbed. They were in the middle of considering the possibility that secret establishments like Porton might be tempted to use generally accepted secrecy to cover-up events that were not necessarily connected to national security... like accidents... or mistakes... when Jean knocked and came in.
‘Sorry, Sir John, the Home Secretary would like to speak to you, I think it’s important.’
Steven left the room with Jean who closed the door and put the call through before saying, ‘The Home Secretary sounded like a man under some stress.’
Steven made a face and said, ‘I could say it’s shaping up to be one of these days, but for the past week or so they’ve all been that.’