Besides all else, it gave Stratton the excuse he needed to go after him. This was a bigger fish than the boat assault.
Aggy felt dazed. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. She had figured her way through all the implications, what it meant to her career, her life and to her relationships in the military. It was all too horrible to contemplate. Her world had turned upside down. She suddenly felt a long, long way from Stratton.
Lawton sat on his bed staring across his apartment at the glass vial on the coffee table, the opened hatbox on the floor. It was a clear liquid with a strawberry tint and was surprisingly refreshing looking. One microscopic spec could turn a human body into an incubator that within days would produce a virus so virulent it could be transmitted on a breath or by contact with the smallest imaginable droplet of perspiration. From the moment of infection a fit, healthy adult could expect to live five to seven days. Only during the last few hours, before an agonising death by internal drowning, would that person be unable to walk; just twenty-four hours prior to that they would have felt as if they had nothing worse than a bad cold. That meant for three to five days that person was a walking virus dispenser, moving amongst the living like some kind of grim, deadly crop duster on permanent spray.
Using a conservative estimate, if an infected person took a twenty-minute journey across London during rush hour, by Underground for instance, and infected a hundred people, and then another hundred on their way home, by day three those two hundred people would have infected forty thousand others. By day five, when that first person started showing signs of illness, four million would have been infected. Day seven it could have claimed twenty million people around the world . . . Lawton dropped his head into his hands, his brain aching from the effort of calculating the horror he would be responsible for.
It was no longer a case of self-preservation. He couldn’t let innocent people die just to save himself, and he would be just as guilty if he allowed someone else to do it. What he needed was a plan that would allow him to safely neutralise the virus as well as survive the wrath of the RIRA and the authorities. Achieving all three was probably going to be impossible.
To survive RIRA, he had considered the feasibility of Father Kinsella’s suggestion, putting the virus somewhere in the MI5 headquarters where no one could get near it before the authorities were warned of its location. But it didn’t take long to decide that was going to be unworkable. In his capacity he only had access to about fifty per cent of the building, along with a few hundred other people. There wasn’t a room he could just lock it inside. He couldn’t guarantee any office or closet would not be opened within five minutes of him leaving it. The building didn’t exactly empty out for the evening. MI5 was busy 24/7. It would be totally irresponsible even to take a chance like that. Only one person needed to come in contact with the virus for a split second to start the deadly chain reaction. Even leaving it without crushing it was a risk that was not worth taking, and that would work against him with RIRA anyway. Whatever was to happen, he decided he was not going to go down in history as the man who wiped out London.
He played with the thought of just running off with it, but then what would he do with it? He had no idea how to get rid of a deadly virus. Burying it somewhere was out of the question. He even thought about flushing it down the toilet or throwing it in the River Thames but he could not be certain that would kill it rather than spread it everywhere.
Then it came to him. It was really his only option and the simplest of all. He would leave it in his apartment and get as far out of town as he could. When he was well on his way he’d call the authorities and tell them where it was. The virus would be made safe and he might get away. All he had to figure out was where to go and how to get there.
He got up off the bed, pulled an empty holdall out from under it, and set about packing a few things while he tried to think of a place on this planet he could hide, not just from MI5 but from RIRA too.
Hank had stopped exercising after a drop in his energy level was made worse by an irritating thirst. It had been half a day at least since he’d been given a drink and a day or more since he’d eaten anything. He wasn’t feeling well at all. It was bad enough that he was not allowed to use a toilet, but now it seemed they were trying to starve him to death. Keeping him weak was no doubt an added measure of securing him, but it was also increasing his desperation and determination to make a break for it.
The door opened and someone came in. This was what he had been waiting for the past few hours. He immediately started to moan and slouch as if delirious. Whoever had walked in crouched beside him and untied his hood but did not remove it. Hank pulled away, moaning.
‘I’m trying to give you some food and water.’ It was the young man from earlier.
Hank accepted the water and choked on it a little. ‘I . . . I need help. I’m in pain. My stomach. I can’t empty my bowels . . . can’t shit. Please, help me.’ Hank acted as if he had hardly strength enough to hold his head up. ‘Please,’ he moaned. ‘Don’t let me die like this.’
The young man stayed beside Hank for a moment, no doubt considering the situation. He then stood and walked out of the room. Hank could hear him call out to someone in the corridor.A moment later he was joined by another man.
‘I think he’s in a bad way,’ the young man said.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ the other one said, sounding none too sympathetic.
‘I don’t know. He says he’s in pain and can’t shit. Maybe he’s bunged op.’
‘What do you mean, bunged op?’
‘Bunged op, for fock’s sake. He can’t take a shite. Let’s put ’im on the pot at least.’
‘Brennan said to leave him be.’
‘Brennan didn’t say he was to focken die. What if somethin’ happens to ’im? We’ll get in focken trouble . . . And you know what that bastard’s like . . . Come on, man. It’s only a visit to the pan, for fock’s sake.’
Hank decided to give the other man some encouragement and let out a moan. ‘Please. Help me . . . Please.’
‘Come on,’ said the young man. ‘I’m not into this torture lark. Brennan’s not here . . . He’s not even a focken Brit. He’s a Yank, for Christ’s sake.’
It seemed to be enough to convince the older man.‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s get him to the pan.’
Hank could feel his hands and feet being untied. This was it. He cautioned himself to choose the moment carefully. He would only get one chance. The main deck was his immediate goal. From there his best bet was the water. It was doubtful any of these people could swim half as well as Hank, even on his worst day. He could probably do the first thirty yards underwater in case they started shooting at him. He could manage fifty with ease in swimming trunks and healthy, but thirty yards in clothes, unwell and desperate was feasible. A duck-dive for a gasp of air and he might tack on another twenty yards. Then it would be a fierce breaststroke to wherever. If it was dark he had more than a reasonable chance of escaping. His biggest problem was going to be his initial break and then finding his way out on to the deck. That attack was going to have to be swift and positive to give himself a few yards’ head start. If he ended up in a wrestle with the two men he was lost. Or a wrong turn once he was off and running could leave him trapped. What he was going to need was a lot of luck.
‘Who the fock tied this op?’ the older man asked, struggling with Hank’s hands. ‘You got a knife?’
‘No.’
‘I’d better get a knife.That knot wasn’t tied by any focken sailor.’
Hank heard him leave the room. The young man untied Hank’s feet and then had a go at his hands. He pulled at one of the lines and it gave. Hank felt the rope go loose. ‘Eedjit,’ the young man said. ‘Couldn’t untie his laces that one.’
Hank let his arms fall limply from the pole as the rope was removed and he leaned heavily against it. He was completely untied, the hood was loose around his neck, and there was only the one man in the room. He debated whether to go for it right there and then, or wait until they took him to the toilet, which might produce a better opportunity. But what if this was his best opportunity? What if that Brennan character suddenly returned and ordered them to tie him back up and leave him alone? Before Hank could consider it further he had pulled off the
