'You're right, Mr. Jaggard,' he said. 'It's another damned Gruinard.'
'Get out!' I yelled. 'For your life, get out!' He looked at me with startled eyes, and I pointed to the glass wall at the end of the room.
'Go next door-I'll talk to you there. Move, man!' The door slammed shut.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN When I picked up the microphone my hand was shaking almost uncontrollably. I pushed the transmit button and heard a click. 'Can you hear me, Archie?' Ferguson, on the other side of the glass, nodded and spoke but I heard nothing. 'There's a microphone in front of you.' He looked about him, then picked it up. 'What happened here, Malcolm?' 'This place is bloody dangerous. Tell your men not to enter any of the laboratories-especially this one and the one across the corridor. Do that now.' 'I'll have guards on the doors.' He dropped the microphone and left on the run. I went across to Cregar who was breathing stentorously. His head was twisted in an awkward position so I straightened him out and he breathed easier but showed no signs of coming awake. 'Mr. Jaggard are you there?' I went back to the window to find Archie and Robbie Ferguson and a third man, one of the biggest I've seen, who was introduced as Wattle Stevenson. Archie said, 'It would seem you have problems. Is the lassie across the corridor the one you looked for?' 'Yes. You haven't been in there, have you?' 'No. I saw her by this arrangement we have here.' 'Good.
Keep out of there. What size of an army did you bring? I heard of twenty boats.' 'Who told you that? There's only the six.' 'Have any trouble?' 'Not much. A man has a broken jaw.' I said, 'How many people are there in this place?' 'Not as many as I would have thought. Maybe a dozen.' Ogilvie had been right. It didn't take much to run a microbiological laboratory; perhaps half a dozen technical staff and the same number of domestics and bottlewashers. 'Put the lot under arrest. You have my authority for it.' Archie looked at me speculatively. 'And what authority would that be?' I took out my departmental card and held it against the glass. He said, 'It doesn't mean much to me, but it looks official.' 'It takes you off the hook for invading government property. You did it on my instructions and you're covered. Oh, if you find a character called Max I don't care how roughly he's handled.' Robbie Ferguson laughed. 'He's the one with the broken jaw. Wattle, here, hit him.' 'Och, it wasna' more than a wee tap,' said Wattle. 'The man has a glass jaw.' 'Wattle won the hammer throwing at the last Highland Games,' said Archie, with a grim smile. 'Beside s, it was the man, Max, who sent Wattle away with a flea in his ear when he offered to help. What's to do now?' 'Did you ring Ogilvie as I asked?' 'Aye. He said he already knew about it.' I nodded. He would have talked with Cregar. 'I want you to ring him again and the call put through to this telephone in here. You'll find a switchboard somewhere.' 'You can't come out?' 'No. You have my permission to listen in when I talk.' There was a groan behind me and I turned to see Cregar stirring. I said, 'Tell your men guarding the laboratories it's just as important that no one comes out. In fact, it's more important. This place being what it is there's probably some guns somewhere. In emergency use them.' Archie looked grave. 'Is it so fearsome a thing?' 'I don't know,' I said wearily. 'I'm just taking prophylactic measures. Get busy, will you?' I went back to Cregar, helped him to get up, and sat him in a chair where he slumped flaccidly. He was dazed and in shock; too old to cope with the rough stuff any more. I said, 'Cregar, can you hear me?' He muttered something indistinguishable, and I slapped his cheek. 'Can you hear me?' 'Yes,' he whispered. 'Don't try to leave. There's a man outside with orders to shoot. Do you understand?' He looked at me with glazed eyes, and nodded. 'Doesn't matter,' he muttered. 'I'm dead anyway. So are you.' 'We'll all be dead in a hundred years,' I said, and went to look again at the cultures in the broken petri dishes. The stuff looked harmless enough but I was careful not to touch it. Penny had described the elaborate precautions which were taken to prevent the escape of dangerous organisms from laboratories and, according to her, the lab I was now in wasn't up to snuff for what Carter had been doing. The cultures could have been ordinary E. coli and, as such, perfectly harmless. But if they were cultures of E. coli which Carter had diddled around with then they could be dangerous in totally unpredictable ways. Cregar wasn't a scientist but he knew what Carter was up to, and the broken dishes had been enough to scare him half to death. From now on no chances would be taken and I hoped there had not been an escape already when Archie had opened the door. I didn't think so-the laboratory had low air pressure and I'd got him out fast.
Twenty minutes later I had Ogilvie on the phone. I wasted no time on politeness and answered none of the questions he shot at me. I said, 'This is a matter for urgency, so get it right the first time. Have you something to write with?' 'I'll record.' I heard a click.
'Cregar's laboratory on Cladach Duillich has run wild. There's one serious case of infection and two suspected. The organism causing it is new to medicine and probably man-made; it's also highly infectious.
I don't know if it's a killer but it's highly likely. You'll have to set the alarm ringing and probably Lumsden, Penny's boss, is the best man to do it. Tell him hospitalisation for three is needed in P4-repeat-P4 conditions. He'll know what that means. Tell him I suggest Porton Down, but he might have a better idea.' 'I'll get on to it immediately,' said Ogilvie. 'Who are the three?' 'The serious case is Penny Ashton.' There was a sharp withdrawal of breath. 'Oh, Christ!
I'm sorry, Malcolm.' I went on, 'The suspected cases are Cregar and myself.' 'For the love of God!' said Ogilvie. 'What's been going on up there?' I ignored him. 'There's a helicopter pad on Cladach Duillich so Lumsden had better use a chopper. Tell him the man to see here is a Dr. Carter. He's the chap who cooked up whatever hellbrew has got loose.' 'I've got that.' 'Then make it quick. I think Penny is dying,'
I said bleakly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT Cregar and I were in an odd position.
Loathing each other beyond all belief, we were condemned to each other's company for an unspecified period. The next few hours were to be extremely uncomfortable, but I tried to make them as comfortable as possible. Archie Ferguson came back as soon as I had spoken to Ogilvie and the expression on his face was terrifying. He looked like one of the Old Testament prophets might look after inciting one of the more dire chapters of the Bible. 'May their souls rot forever in hell!' he burst out. 'Take it easy,' I said. 'There are practical things to do.'
I thought of Ogilvie recording my telephone conversation and it gave me an idea. 'See if you can find a tape recorder. I'll need it.'
Archie simmered down. 'Aye, I'll see what I can do.' 'And we'll need food in here, but you can give us food once and once only. What you do is this. You open the outer door of the laboratory and put the food on the floor just inside. Tell me when you've closed the door and I'll come out and get it. It can be done once only because I can't risk contamination through the airlock, so you'd better give us enough for three meals. If you can find vacuum flasks for coffee that would be a help.' Ferguson looked past me. 'Is yon man the Cregar you spoke of?'
'Yes.' 'Then he gets nothing from me.' 'You'll do as I say,' I said sharply. 'We both eat or neither of us eats.' He took a deep breath, nodded curtly, then laid down the microphone and went away. Half an hour later he came back. 'Your food's there. I did better than flasks; there's a coffee percolator to make your own.' 'Thanks.' I had another idea. 'Archie, this laboratory is maintained at a lower air pressure than the outside. That means pumps, and pumps mean electricity. Put someone to watch the generator; I don't want it stopping, either by breakdown or lack of fuel. Will you see to that?' 'Aye. It won't stop.' I went into the air lock and got the food-a pile of sandwiches-and also found a small battery-powered cassette tape recorder. I put everything on the table next to the telephone. Cregar was apathetic and looked at the sandwiches without interest. I filled the percolator from a tap on one of the benches and got the coffee going. Cregar accepted coffee but he wouldn't eat. Unobtrusively I switched on the recorder; I wanted Cregar condemned out of his own mouth. I said, 'We've a lot to talk about.' 'Have we?' he said without interest. 'Nothing matters anymore.' 'You're not dead yet, and you may not be if Ogilvie does his stuff. When did Benson learn of Ashton's interest in genetics?' He was silent for a moment, then said, 'Must have been 1971. He saw that Ashton was keeping up with the girl's studies, and then starting to do a lot of work on his own, usually at the weekends-a lot of calculating. He tried to get a look at it, but Ashton kept it locked away.' Cregar brooded. 'Ashton never did like me. I've often wondered if he knew what I was doing.' He waved his hand at the laboratory. 'This, I mean. It's supposed to be secret, but a man with money can usually find out what he wants to know.' He shrugged. 'Anyway, he made damned certain that Benson didn't lay an eye on his work.' 'That empty vault must have come as a shock.' He nodded. 'Benson knew about the vault but never managed to get inside.