“Actually, I have no clue,” she said. “I’ve only seen it on the plans. And don’t get any ideas, cause we’re not going that far. There’s something else you need to look at.”
After another thirty yards the corridor made a ninety-degree turn to the left, but we didn’t follow it.
“Can you get that for me?” Melissa said, nodding towards a door set into the right hand wall. It was painted the same shade of grey as the floor, and the purple stripe continued straight across it. There was nothing to indicate what it led to. And there was no handle attached to it, either. I glanced down at Melissa, then gave it a push. It opened easily, and beyond it was another featureless corridor. This one was about eighty yards long, and slightly narrower than the first. Its walls were the same pale green, but there was no sign of any coloured lines. The floor wasn’t as worn. There was less junk hanging from the ceiling, and the lights were spaced further apart, making the place noticeably dimmer. But the main difference, as far as I could see, was the CCTV cameras that were here. There were two. Both in protective, wire mesh cages. One was facing me, to monitor anyone entering the corridor. The second was focused on the only other possible exit - a single door about half way down on the right hand side.
I shrugged, stepped into the new corridor, and held the door for Melissa. She wheeled past me and kept going, faster than before, till she was level with the door. Then she spun her chair hard to the right and waited for me to catch up.
“This is it,” she said. “This is why I’m here. And you, too, now.”
The door appeared to be made of wood. Pale, maybe ash, with a delicate grain running from top to bottom. It didn’t look very robust. You’d think that one decent kick would be all you’d need to open it. I’d seen ones like it in offices all over the world, right down to the flimsy metal handle and standard wall-mounted keypad to the left. There was only one unusual aspect. The surface had been damaged. There were three gashes, almost parallel, roughly at shoulder height. Each one was about five inches long, but they were surprisingly shallow. Only about an eighth of an inch deep. And even in the low light you could see a hint of something metallic, glinting, just below the surface.
All was clearly not as it seemed, but without the cosmetic damage, you’d never have known.
“See those dents?” she said. “What do you think happened?”
“I’d like to think that a bad tempered T-Rex had tried to claw its way through,” I said. “But I guess I’ll have to settle for something more mundane. How about a bad tempered human with an axe?”
“Right second time. Although I can’t be certain they were bad tempered.”
“Who was it?”
“We’re not sure.”
“When did it happen?”
“The afternoon before you arrived.”
“And why this door?”
“We have two theories.”
“Which are?”
“The first is that it was an innocent mistake.”
“OK. And option two?”
“That someone wanted what’s on the other side.”
“What is on the other side?”
“As far as I know, there’s the entrance to a World War Two air raid shelter, now bricked up. A standby electricity generator, now disused. And one other thing. The largest repository of Caesium-137 in the south of England.”
Chapter Nine
Melissa put a little more meat on the bones for me as I followed her back towards the lift.
“Caesium-137 is a kind of medical waste,” she said. “It’s extremely radioactive. And it stays that way for a very long time. More than thirty years.”
“Nasty,” I said. “What state is the stuff in?”
“It’s a metal, which is liquid at room temperature. So it has to be stored and transported in special containers.”
“What happens if it gets out of those containers?”
“Nothing good. It’s incredibly soluble, so it gets into everything, all over the place. It starts by seeping into the ground water, and then Mother Nature takes over and distributes it through the rain cycle. After Chernobyl it was found over ten thousand miles from the accident site, to give you an idea. From there it gets into the food chain. Animals. Fish. Fruit. Vegetables. Everything. And if it gets into the body, through eating or drinking something contaminated, you’re in real trouble. It’s much worse than other radioactive agents because for some reason your organs treat it like potassium, and absorb it incredibly easily.”
“And if that happens?”
“You die. A slow, hideous, drawn-out, agonising death. And children are particularly vulnerable. Specially their thyroids.”
“So if I was a terrorist, I’d have a special fondness for this stuff?”
“Definitely. Its effects are deadly. They’re invisible. They spread naturally over huge distances, and once the genie is out of the bottle it’s impossible to put back in. Put it this way - when Bin Laden was caught, caesium was needed for nine of the thirty-four schemes he was working on. And you know what else? The other reason terrorists love it?”
“What? Why?”
“If you can get hold of some, you can use it within seconds. You don’t need complex delivery systems. Advanced technology. Special training. Or lots of people. You just take the lid off the container and pour it on the floor. Or down a drain. Or into a reservoir. And that’s it. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people will die.”
“And there’s a lot if it here?”
“Stacks of it. Because this place isn’t just a regular hospital. It’s the central holding facility for all the hospitals in the region.”
“How many?”
“Seven, altogether. The waste from all of them is brought here. It’s broken down by a couple of factors – type of contaminant, degree of toxicity, that kind of thing – then consolidated. Special technicians take care of that. And when they’re done, it’s sent to the relevant places for reprocessing.”
I paused for a moment, trying to think of a tactful way to say what I was thinking.
“Please don’t take offense at this,” I said. “But you’re painting a picture of moths and flames, here. And you don’t seem to be doing much to keep them apart. What am I missing?”
“Nothing,” she said. “If you’re talking about me, personally. But what do you expect to see? Caesium is a priority one threat. Safeguarding it isn’t just down to Jones and me. We’re only one small part of a huge machine. The visible tip of a tried-and-tested iceberg. We’re sent in after a possible incident to make absolutely certain nothing’s slipped through the cracks. We’re a duplicate resource, but the stakes are so high we can’t afford to take any risks.”
“And in this case, nothing’s slipped through? Are you sure?”
“Here’s another thing about caesium. It doesn’t occur naturally. So, if you want some, you have to make it, buy it, or steal it. And if this was anything, it was an attempt at stealing, yes?”
“It looks that way.”
“Now, we don’t just wait around for someone to snatch a barrowful, and then run around trying to catch them. We stop them before they get the chance. We have the snoops at GCHQ on the case, listening in to everything, 24/7. Plus a whole network of agents and specialised, dedicated informers. If there’s as much as a whisper of anything related to caesium, they’d know. And none of them heard a thing.”