Tally shook her head. ‘I did try, but there’s no chance until the weekend. My boss is away till Friday so I’ll have to be there.’
Steven looked disappointed. ‘Pity. But let’s do something at the weekend?’
‘That would be nice. Do you want to visit Jenny?’
‘No, not this weekend. Let’s have some us time.’
Tally left for the hospital and Steven drove back to London through pouring rain. The Porsche was not much fun to drive in wet conditions on the motorway, being low on the ground and ultra susceptible to the spray clouds thrown up by lorries. Steven decided to take an unscheduled break at a service station to get some coffee and a bit of a rest from the high level of concentration demanded by the drive. He had just come to a halt in the car park when his Sci-Med mobile rang.
‘Steven? Where are you?’ asked Jean Roberts.
‘On my day off.’
‘Not any longer. The Prime Minister has called a meeting of COBRA. He wants a Sci-Med presence.’
‘Where? When?’
‘Conference room A in the main Cabinet Office building in Whitehall. Three p.m.’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘Good. I wasn’t looking forward to telling the new government that neither you nor Sir John could make it.’
‘What’s all the fuss?’
‘I don’t know. There was no warning.’
‘Exciting. I’ll call in at the Home Office afterwards.’
‘Maybe we’ll have something for you on the medical records by then. The team supplied by the health department has been working through the night.’
Steven called in at his flat to shower and change. Jeans and sweatshirt were exchanged for dark blue suit, china-blue shirt and Parachute Regiment tie. He had been to a couple of COBRA meetings before but always with John Macmillan. Such meetings were called by government to discuss imminent problems of national significance, the composition of the committee varying with the nature of the emergency. Not only would he be on his own this time but the politicians present would be strangers to him — appointees of the new Prime Minister, including the new Home Secretary who was technically his boss.
Steven could feel the burden of expectation start to weigh him down. John Macmillan knew his way around Whitehall; he didn’t. The fact that the new administration was a coalition was going to make it even more difficult to tell the organ grinders from the monkeys. But then that was going to be true for a lot of people, not just Sci- Med.
As he walked along Whitehall, trying to guess what the convening of COBRA might be about, he couldn’t help but feel that this would be the perfect time for any faction wishing harm to the UK to strike. The ruling coalition comprised a party that had been out of power for over thirteen years and another who hadn’t known it at all in living memory. Ministers would be not only strangers in their own departments but also alien to their new colleagues.
The civil service would, of course, keep everything running, and might even relish the chance of being even more in charge than usual with dependent strangers in their midst, but when it came to making big policy decisions under extreme or emergency pressure the test was yet to come.
‘Hello, Steven. I heard you were back. Good to see you,’ said a voice behind him as Steven climbed the stairs. He turned to see the head of MI5 with one of his colleagues.
‘You too,’ he replied automatically. Relations between 5 and Sci-Med weren’t always cordial when 5 did the government’s dirty work and Sci-Med shone a spotlight on it, with John Macmillan asserting that no one should be above the law — an attitude that had delayed his knighthood for many years.
Steven nodded to one or two familiar faces from the Metropolitan Police and the civil service. There was also a military presence, but the ministerial contingent from the Department of Health — the government department he usually had most dealings with — seemed to be entirely made up of unknown faces.
The deputy Prime Minister made apologies for the Prime Minister’s absence without giving a reason, and got down to business straight away.
‘Intelligence suggests that the UK will be subjected to a chemical or biological attack in the very near future.’
He had to pause to let the hubbub die down.
‘How reliable is this intelligence?’ asked the health secretary.
The head of MI5 said, ‘We’ve had a tip-off from an anonymous source.’
‘So it could be a hoax?’
‘It could be. On the other hand, it might not be. We’ve been told that Islamic fundamentalists are behind it. We don’t know much more than that.’
‘Do we have any indication at all about the nature of the attack?’ asked the Met commissioner. ‘Gas? Chemicals? Anthrax?’
‘I’m sorry. We don’t know.’
‘Which means we can’t prepare,’ said Steven.
‘We can certainly tighten security at all airports and rail and ferry terminals,’ suggested the commissioner.
‘Our intelligence suggests they are already here,’ said the head of MI5, a comment that provoked another hubbub. ‘We think the terrorists are home-grown,’ he clarified. ‘Our colleagues in MI6 have heard nothing of an attack coming from outside the UK.’
‘But you have no inkling at all of the nature of the attack?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Which means we’ll have to initiate standard emergency procedure in all our cities without telling the services what they’re up against,’ said the Home Secretary.
‘Containment must be the immediate aim,’ said the deputy PM.
‘Let’s hope it’s a gas attack,’ said Steven. ‘At least that will be localised. If it’s microbiological, the chances are we haven’t got any hope at all of containing it.’ He was immediately aware of the discomfort his comment had provoked.
‘I don’t think we need such negative thinking,’ said the cabinet secretary.
Steven bit his tongue. He knew he was prone to saying more than was wise at such meetings, and had no trouble at all in imagining the kick on the ankle John Macmillan might have given him at that moment. Truth had to be approached in a more circumspect fashion in the corridors of power, which usually meant tiptoeing through a minefield of other people’s egos and sensibilities.
‘Our emergency services are the finest in the world and have been trained over many years for just such eventualities,’ said the Home Secretary.
One of the Department of Health people, a confident-looking man named Norman Travis, Steven learned from his desk name plate, said, ‘With all due respect, sir, I think the problem arises in not knowing exactly what “eventuality” we might be dealing with. As Dr Dunbar says, a gas attack will, by its very nature, be limited in area, and our services have been trained to deal with that sort of incident, but if it should turn out to be anthrax or even, God forbid, smallpox… we will have a much more challenging situation to deal with.’
That’s how to go about it, Steven thought to himself. Travis even finished his comment with a disarming smile. Steven remembered that this was the man who had led the negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies over vaccine production to a successful conclusion.
‘I think our experience with the swine flu pandemic will stand us in good stead,’ said the deputy PM.
Steven shook his head slightly and looked down at the table as he kept hold of his tongue.
‘But you don’t agree, doctor?’ challenged the cabinet secretary, who had noticed his reaction.
Steven lost the struggle. In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘The handling of swine flu was a complete and utter disaster and one that we should learn from, not crow about.’
