‘Oh fuck!’ exclaimed the agent at Dewar’s side.
Dewar looked at him and then at what he was looking at. The old man who had been checking the parking permits was watching them and had a phone to his ear.
‘He’s calling the police!’ said the agent. ‘He thought we were trying to steal the Escort!’
Dewar called the police and tried to have the response cancelled but the sound of police sirens was already in the air and getting louder. ‘Call them off!’ he yelled into the phone but it was too late. Two patrol cars came hurtling into Teviot Place and the people inside the cafe jumped to the wrong conclusion. Siddiqui and Abbas got up to leave.
Barron ordered his men in to stop them leaving the cafe Dewar ran round to the front of the medical school leaving the agent to deal with the arriving police. ‘Get the virus!’ he yelled at Barron. ‘Forget everything else. Just get the virus!’
Dewar was the last to enter the cafe Ferguson had gone as white as a sheet and was sitting in a corner as if paralysed. One of Barron’s men had charge of a box he’d taken from under the table and was guarding it with his body. Barron’s men had pulled their weapons. Siddiqui was back sitting sedately in his seat as if nothing had happened. Abbas was looking distinctly more uneasy but he too had resumed his seat.
‘Is that what you’re after?’ Barron asked Dewar. The agent stood back to let Dewar examine the box.
Dewar opened it and saw that it contained six individual flasks. ‘I think so,’ he replied. He looked at Ferguson and snapped, ‘Well, is it? Do they contain smallpox virus?’
Ferguson nodded his head in hang-dog fashion and then looked down at the floor.
Dewar squatted down in front of Siddiqui and looked him in the eye. ‘Well, Professor. What do you have to say for yourself?’
Siddiqui looked at him disdainfully and said. ‘I am an Iraqi national, here to liaise with students from my country. I have nothing to say.
‘And your relationship with Mr Ferguson here?’ asked Dewar.
Siddiqui looked at Ferguson and said, ‘I have never seen this man before in my life. He came in while my friend and I were having coffee as we always do at this time in the afternoon. I would like to go now please.’
‘Lying bastard,’ said Ferguson.
Dewar picked up the case that sat at the side of Siddiqui’s chair and snapped it open on the table.
‘I protest,’ began Siddiqui but his protests fell on deaf ears.
Dewar lifted up the lid to reveal it was full of English bank notes. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I remember the coffee here being quite reasonably priced. You’ve got some explaining to do.’
Siddiqui’s nerve held but Abbas snapped. He leapt to his feet and vaulted over the counter to snatch up a knife and hold it to the throat of the young lady who owned the cafe and who had been watching events with an air of bemusement.
Siddiqui rasped something in Arabic at him and it didn’t sound complimentary but Abbas seemed determined to make his own bid for freedom. ‘Let Susan go,’ said Siddiqui, this time in English. ‘She has always treated us with courtesy. Perhaps she might even forgive you this misunderstanding … if you let her go!’
‘Drop your guns,’ demanded Abbas, ignoring Siddiqui and now looking wild-eyed, like a trapped animal.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Barron calmly. ‘But no.’
‘I’ll kill her!’ threatened Abbas.
‘I hope not, but we will not be putting down our guns.’
‘They don’t say that on television!’ complained Susan as she struggled to breathe with Abbas’s arm round her throat.
‘I mean it!’ threatened Abbas.
‘I mean it too,’ continued Barron. ‘We have charge of the virus. Laying down our weapons would mean relinquishing that charge. My orders do not permit that. Killing the young lady will accomplish nothing. I’ll just kill you afterwards.’
‘I don’t want the virus! It was Siddiqui’s plan. Everything is Siddiqui’s plan!’
‘Shut up!’ said Siddiqui losing his cool for the first time.
Dewar kept trying to catch the cafe owner’s eye while Barron and Abbas continued their stand-off. He finally succeeded and started trying to direct her attention to the coffee pots standing on the counter in front of her. Steam was curling from their spouts. She had been about to serve them when all hell had broken loose. Dewar saw that she had understood what he was getting at.
‘Put down your guns!’ said Abbas, now sounding desperate.
‘No deal,’ said Barron.
Dewar nodded and the young woman grabbed one of the coffee pots, flinging the contents back into Abbas’s face. He screamed out in pain as the scalding fluid met his eyes and dropped the knife. Dewar vaulted over the counter and brought him to the floor where two of Barron’s men took over.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked the owner who was standing with both hands to her face. She nodded mutely.
‘Time to get these two out of here?’ said Barron, looking to Dewar.
Dewar nodded. ‘But leave Ferguson.’
Barron and his men escorted the Iraqis out to waiting cars. Dewar lifted the box up off the table and put it on the service counter while he took out the flasks one by one.
‘You’ll bring him?’ asked Barron as he was about to close the door.
Dewar nodded. Malloy squeezed in before the door was closed. ‘Looks like I missed it all.’
‘It’s over,’ agreed Dewar wearily.
‘Why?’ Malloy asked Ferguson who was sitting with his head in his hands.
Ferguson looked as if he had aged twenty years in the last half hour. His shoulders sagged and he had the air of a man about to face the gallows. ‘I needed the money,’ he replied.
‘But Christ! Smallpox!’ exclaimed Malloy.
Ferguson shook his head. ‘That wasn’t the plan.’ he said. ‘It all went wrong.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I never intended to give them
‘Oh God,’ said Malloy.
Dewar looked at him for an explanation.
‘Alastrim is a mild form of smallpox.. It’s practically indistinguishable from the real thing in lab tests but when they came to use it it wouldn’t be anything like as effective as the real thing. The whole Iraqi plan would misfire.’
‘I took the
‘The guy on the digger thought the vials contained drugs so he helped himself to a few.’
‘Shit.’
‘So it was just bad luck he picked the smallpox ones,’ said Malloy.
‘I suppose,’ agreed Dewar. ‘It could have been typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera, God knows what else. But you’re still responsible for the outbreak,’ Dewar accused Ferguson. ‘All the people who’ve died, the ones who’ll never see again and the fact we’ve now got smallpox back in the world. And all because … you needed the money.’
‘I did!’ retorted Ferguson with some semblance of spirit. ‘The bastards are putting me out to grass after thirty years with a pension that won’t pay the fucking gas bill. Joyce has cancer and who’s going to look after Malcolm when we’re gone? He needs long term care. That takes money. Money I don’t have!’
Neither Dewar nor Malloy could think of anything to say. After a long pause, Dewar said simply, ‘Let’s go.’
Dewar drove. Malloy sat in the back with Ferguson. They were about to start heading down the Mound on their way over to police headquarters when Ferguson suddenly pleaded, ‘Let me see Joyce and Malcolm one last time. Just a few minutes together then I’ll come with you and cooperate fully?’
Dewar thought for a moment then said, ‘Five minutes, no more.’
