‘H5N1, the avian virus that emerged in early 1997, is too lethal to be grown in chicken eggs, even to hope to create a vaccine,’ Parnell pointed out.
‘That’s why Benn’s been tasked with producing something a different way,’ said Lapidus.
‘And why he wants us on board,’ finished Sato. ‘Everything Tokyo’s tried should be arriving later today or tomorrow.’
‘We’d better prepare the sterile laboratory,’ said Parnell.
‘Already done,’ said Lapidus.
‘I know none of you need to be told, but have you warned Kathy it’ll be out of bounds?’ asked Parnell, indicating her office, to which the secretary had already returned.
‘Very clearly,’ said the balding, pebble-bespectacled Peter Battey.
‘I like the way you’ve worked, while I wasn’t here,’ thanked Parnell, sincerely.
‘I…’ started Lapidus but at once corrected himself again. ‘We talked about it and decided hepatitis could wait. This is our first chance to get involved in a current priority programme.’
And he hadn’t been here when it was formulated, thought Parnell. But he was now. ‘Do we know if the competition are trying to do the same as us?’
‘Not at this level,’ said Mark Easton, the former Johns Hopkins geneticist. ‘But it’s an easy guess that they are. We’re talking megabucks on a global scale. Thailand – just one of seven or eight Asian countries farming chicken – exports one and a half billion dollars worth of poultry every year. Europe imports a third of the chicken Thailand produces.’
‘It’s good to be involved, even if it’s because our traditional colleagues across the corridor recognize that they need all the help they can get,’ said Parnell. ‘But from the rundown you’ve just given me, Sean’s working on it alone. If it’s a priority, with red lights flashing, shouldn’t we make up our own definition of a task force?’
‘Thought about that, too,’ assured Lapidus. ‘As I said, we don’t yet have the specimens to begin work, which we should be able to do tomorrow. Sean’s doing the groundwork. Now you’re back, it’s obviously your decision, but I was intending to join him, along with Beverley.’
The Greek had very definitely adopted the role of deputy leader, Parnell recognized. Which was good, providing it didn’t arouse any jealousy or resentment among the others. And that didn’t seem to have happened so far. ‘Sounds a good plan to me,’ agreed Parnell. ‘I’ll go across the corridor sometime to see how Benn and his people are working…’
‘I really don’t know how you’ve got the resilience to consider working yourself,’ said Beverley.
‘I’m not sure I have,’ admitted Parnell.
Harry Johnson was Grant’s second visitor of the day to the discreet Plaza Hotel suite, the bell summons repeated impatiently before Grant opened the door. The Dubette security chief was dressed for what he imagined the occasion to be, in a suit and tie but with the permanently shined, plasticized Dubette uniform shoes. The suit was baggy and stained, the shirt crumpled from previous wear.
‘Nobody saw me arrive,’ assured Johnson. ‘What’s going down here?’ His visit had been arranged in the same cellphone-to-cellphone way.
‘That’s what I want to talk about,’ said Grant. The hotel security needed overhauling, not to have questioned Johnson’s dishevelled presence. Grant hoped the man wouldn’t be remembered if any hotel staff were called upon to do so.
Johnson collapsed, uninvited, into an encompassing armchair, looked around the suite and said: ‘Nice place. Class. That’s what I like, class.’
When, wondered Grant, had the man sitting opposite ever experienced it? But then he sometimes frequented places that would have surprised anyone who knew him. ‘How the fuck did AF209 get into the frame?’
‘You wanted to discredit Parnell. Create a situation where you could dispense with him in such a way as to make him unemployable,’ reminded Johnson. ‘I didn’t know Rebecca Lang was dead – how she’d died. I didn’t stir this shit, like you did once before. Don’t forget that.’
‘Will I ever be allowed to?’
‘We’re a long way from the cliff edge,’ said Johnson, helping himself to the now virtually cold coffee.
‘You’ve involved the FBI, for fuck’s sake!’
‘I didn’t know Rebecca Lang was going to die! Didn’t know until I got the call from the Metro DC police guys. At which time I didn’t have the opportunity to talk to you. I had to improvise – use my own judgement.’
‘This isn’t good,’ insisted Grant. ‘It could all unravel.’
‘How’d she die? How – why – did Rebecca die?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Sir, a lot of unusual things – strangely coincidental things – happened that Sunday. Things I didn’t expect to happen. Rebecca Lang’s death the most unexpected of all. Can you help me with that?’
‘I told you, I don’t know.’
‘We gotta smelly bunch of shit to pick our way through,’ judged Johnson. ‘You wanna point out the path we’re going to take together, to make the stories chime?’
Edward C. Grant’s recitation was practically a repeat of his earlier conversation with Dwight Newton. At the end of it, Johnson said: ‘Could hold, if everyone in turn holds their nerve.’
‘What about the two Metro DC shitheads?’ demanded Grant.
‘They’re looking at the drop, if they start to flake. Know they’re looking at steak and cake if they stay cool. But they didn’t know it was murder, when we did the deal. If I’ve got to keep a handle on this, I need to know the facts…’ He sniggered. ‘Remember that, what they used to say in Dragnet. “Just the facts; just give me the facts.” I used to love that show.’
‘It’s too long ago to remember,’ sighed Grant, who considered Harry Johnson to be the one unavoidable, forever inescapable, mistake he had ever allowed to happen. ‘Don’t forget your drop, Harry.’
‘Or yours,’ came back the security chief, at once. ‘Everything’s superglued: nothing’s going to fall apart.’
‘You absolutely sure about that?’
‘I’m absolutely sure about that,’ echoed the fat-bellied man. ‘That’s what I’m employed to be, isn’t it – to be absolutely sure about everything?’
‘That’s what you’re employed for,’ agreed Grant, softly. ‘I won’t forget that. Nor should you, ever.’ But Johnson had forgotten, Grant thought. He’d become complacent, not properly – fully – thinking things through to their logical conclusion. Which made him a liability. Grant didn’t like liabilities, his own most of all.
‘So, we don’t have a problem,’ said Johnson.
‘You ensure that we don’t,’ insisted Grant.
‘You gotta drink anywhere here?’
‘Find a bar downtown,’ ordered Grant. ‘A long way downtown.’
The greeting was even more effusive than it had initially been on the day of Parnell’s threatened resignation. Dwight Newton was already around his desk, leg hitched upon its front. At Parnell’s entry he thrust forward and enclosed the Englishman’s hand in both of his, changing the grip as he was pumping up and down to slap Parnell on the shoulder. The gesture was timed to the second, abruptly ending for Parnell to be ushered into the already prepared chair, the grave look already in place when the head of research regained his own side of the desk.
‘Good to see you back, Dick. Damned good. A tragedy, an absolute tragedy, about Rebecca. You got my sympathy. The sympathy of the entire upper management of Dubette.’
‘Thank you,’ said Parnell. Illogically he felt the sort of embarrassment he guessed everyone had been feeling at encountering him, earlier.
‘I’ve got some things to tell you,’ announced Newton, carefully listing every assistance proposed by Edward C. Grant earlier that day in New York. ‘That’s from the president himself. And I’m to tell you you’re to take off as much time as you want. None of us can imagine what it was like – is like – for you. Just can’t imagine.’
‘What I’d like is to get back to work, as quickly and as uninterrupted as possible,’ said Parnell, repeating what he’d told his own team. ‘I’m not sure how Rebecca’s uncle will take the offer of help. I get the feeling he’s a pretty proud and independent old guy.’
‘Nothing for you to worry about. That’s for Wayne Denny and personnel. I want you to know something, on a personal level. I never believed for a moment that you could be in any way involved.’
‘Why not?’ The question blurted from Parnell, unthinkingly, and his surprise at uttering it was increased at Newton’s obvious and immediate confusion.
