one replied. Instead Mowen raised a hand and whispered, ‘You wait here one moment.’
‘Why? What are you going to do?’ asked Purna suspiciously.
‘I talk to them,’ Mowen said and tapped his chest with the flat of his hand. ‘They know me.’
Before anyone could respond he stood up and walked out of the bushes. Immediately half a dozen AK 47s swung up and around to cover him, but Mowen seemed unconcerned. He simply raised his hands and strolled forward, and after a few seconds all but two of the guns were lowered. Purna, Sam and Logan looked on as the guards silently watched Mowen approach. The trader walked right up to the fence and started talking to one of the two guards who still had his gun raised.
‘What’s he saying?’ hissed Sam.
‘I don’t know,’ said Purna, clearly not liking the fact. ‘I can’t hear.’
The muttered conversation continued for maybe another thirty seconds, then the guard turned away and they saw him speaking earnestly into his microphone. Eventually he returned to Mowen to relay what instructions he had been given — whereupon Mowen turned and made a beckoning gesture.
‘Come out,’ he shouted. ‘Is OK.’
It was clear from Purna’s face that she was not happy with the situation, but she stood up and walked out into the clearing.
‘Well, here goes nothin’,’ Logan muttered to Sam, as the two of them rose and followed her.
Immediately the guns, which had been lowered when the guards had recognized Mowen, now snapped up again. ‘Hands up!’ one of the guards shouted, a swarthy-looking man with a thick black moustache. The three of them complied, though as they walked forward Purna muttered out of the corner of her mouth, ‘They better not ask us to give up our weapons.’
Sam wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by that statement. Did she mean she would rather go down fighting than be rendered defenceless? He hoped not.
Registering the mistrust on Purna’s face, Mowen made a placatory gesture with his hands and said, ‘Is OK. Is cool.’ He turned to exchange a staccato burst of conversation with the moustached guard and then turned back and said, ‘You can put hands down.’
They lowered their hands, but Purna still looked mistrustful, her movements considered and cautious, the muscles in her arms and legs tight with tension. Her eyes darted left and right, taking in every tiny movement of the armed men on the other side of the fence. She reminded Sam of a big cat, a puma or a panther, wary of its human captors, or perhaps even of those trying to give it back its liberty.
The moustached guard gestured with his gun that they should move to the right. Sam wondered why, and then saw there was a gate about ten metres in that direction. Beyond the gate a caged tunnel led to another gate. They were ushered through one at a time, Purna first, then Sam, then Logan. The moustached guard pointed at Purna’s gun and said something she didn’t understand. She shook her head and turned to Mowen, who was still standing on the other side of the fence.
‘Tell him we’re not giving up our weapons,’ she said. ‘They’re all we’ve got out here.’
Obediently Mowen complied, and again a burst of conversation rattled between the two men. Then the moustached guard shrugged, and Mowen turned to Purna.
‘He say OK. But you keep them on back. You not touch them.’
‘We won’t touch them unless we have to,’ muttered Purna.
Logan was the last to be ushered through the caged tunnel. When he realized the guard was locking the gate behind him, he turned to Mowen. ‘You not coming with us?’
‘I wait here. You honoured guests. I …?’ He shrugged and laughed.
‘I don’t like this,’ Purna murmured as the moustached guard indicated they should follow him and another four flanked them, two on each side. ‘Something’s happening that we don’t know about.’
‘Just take it easy,’ said Sam. ‘If they were gonna do anythin’ bad they’d have done it by now.’
‘Not necessarily,’ she replied. ‘We’re immune, remember. That makes us valuable.’
‘Yeah, but
‘Don’t they?’ she muttered darkly.
They were led to a door in the wall of one of the grey buildings, where the moustached guard pressed a button and spoke into a metal grille beside it. After a moment there was a buzz and the door clicked open. The moustached guard led them down a bare, narrow corridor, and from there through an interconnected series of functional low-ceilinged rooms. They reminded Logan of the claustrophobic Antarctic base in one of his favourite movies,
Eventually they passed through another door and found themselves in a well-appointed laboratory, almost the entirety of one wall of which was dominated by stacks of cramped cages containing a variety of animals — monkeys, wallabies, rats. Running round the other three walls was a waist-high counter cluttered with items of gleaming hi-tech equipment and several computer consoles, on each of whose screens were displayed graphs or diagrams or simply tables of fluctuating data.
Examining the readings on a piece of equipment that looked to Sam like some kind of over-elaborate cappuccino machine was a wiry man in his thirties with close-cropped sandy hair. Although he was wearing a white lab coat, he didn’t match Sam’s idea of a mad scientist at all. He’d been expecting someone older, with wild hair and maybe a pair of spectacles perched on his forehead. This guy, however, looked more like a mountaineer or a marathon runner. When they entered the room, he turned sharply to look at them, his eyes so startlingly pale and blue that for a moment he looked almost other-worldly. Then he smiled and bustled across, hand outstretched.
‘Welcome! Welcome! I’m Dr West. How nice to have visitors. Way out here it happens so rarely.’
Of the three of them, Sam was the one who automatically put out his hand. The scientist’s grip was surprisingly strong as he shook it.
‘What’s with all the animals?’ Logan asked.
For a moment West’s smile faltered and he glanced at the moustached security guard.
‘Something wrong?’ asked Purna.
‘I was informed that you came here with Mowen? And that you had important information about a recent virus outbreak in the city?’
‘That’s pretty much it,’ said Sam. ‘So?’
West looked at Logan, his eyes piercing. ‘So why ask me about the animals?’
Perplexed, Logan shrugged. ‘Just askin’, that’s all. Hey, it’s no biggie. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.’
West’s face and body remained tense for a couple more seconds and then he relaxed, his shoulders slumping.
‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I thought for a moment you had got in here under false pretences.’
‘What false pretences would those be?’ asked Purna.
West glanced at the caged animals almost guiltily. ‘Well … the nature of my research doesn’t always meet with … shall we say “universal approval”?’
‘You’re a vivisectionist?’ said Purna coldly.
West winced. ‘Please. That’s such an emotive word.’
‘What would you call it?’
‘I’m a research scientist. I’m currently engaged on a programme of cosmetic testing.’
‘On animals?’ said Sam.
‘Would you rather I used human beings?’ snapped West.
Sam shrugged. Animal experimentation wasn’t something he approved of exactly, but neither did he feel strongly enough about the subject to engage the doctor in a moral debate. ‘Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do,’ he mumbled. ‘Stuff’s gotta be tested somehow, I guess.’
‘Exactly,’ said West. ‘Though try telling that to the animal activists.’ Perhaps realizing he was getting a little too emotional, he made an obvious effort to relax, and eventually managed a tight, somewhat twisted smile. ‘That’s why we’re right out here in the … ah … boondocks, as it were.’
‘Is that the only reason?’ asked Purna.
West’s expression was now one of polite puzzlement. ‘What do you mean?’
‘This virus we came to talk to you about,’ said Purna. ‘There are people out there who claim you’re responsible for it.’
