Just over thirty minutes later an 814 Squadron Merlin was sitting on two spot, rotors turning and waiting for the ship to steady on a flying course. Richter, back in civilian clothes, was the only passenger. Beside him was his leather overnight bag, in the inside pocket of his jacket was an Enigma T301 mobile phone, and tucked in the rear waistband of his trousers was a Browning 9mm semi-automatic pistol.
Chapter 20
Friday
Westwood had just arrived back in his office when his outside line rang.
‘Mr Westwood? It’s George Grant, from Baltimore.’
‘Dr Grant. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. Has something happened?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid Mr Butcher died about an hour ago,’ the doctor replied.
Westwood realized immediately that his last possible straw had just vanished. ‘Isn’t that rather sooner than you were expecting?’
‘Frankly, yes,’ Grant said, ‘but, as I told you, in these cases our expectations are only very rarely accurate. Some patients last a lot longer than we anticipate, others die much sooner than expected. I said as much to his brother too.’
‘His brother?’ Westwood asked.
‘Yes, John Butcher came to visit just a couple of hours after you left, and his brother Henry slipped away soon after he had gone. And before you ask me, Mr Westwood, I did confirm his identification. I checked his driver’s licence, and I had the ward nurse keep an eye on him all the time he was in the room with our patient.’
Despite Grant’s reassurances, Westwood immediately recognized the lethal hand of Mr X, tying up yet another loose end. ‘Can you describe this John Butcher, please?’ he asked.
‘Certainly. He’s a big man, around two hundred pounds, red-brown hair and a full beard.’
‘Thank you.’ Westwood jotted down the brief description, which was probably that of a man wearing a simple disguise. ‘One other thing, Dr Grant. Can you please arrange for an autopsy on Henry Butcher? And as soon as possible?’
‘I
‘Yes, you may. I have good reason to believe that Henry Butcher may have been murdered, most likely poisoned.’
There was a brief stunned silence across the line as Grant absorbed the implications. ‘That’s absolutely unbelievable,’ he replied finally. ‘This patient was comatose and terminally ill. What would be the point in murdering a dying man? And who did it? His own
‘All that’s classified information, Dr Grant, but I’d be very surprised if the man who identified himself as John Butcher was any relation to your patient.’
‘Very well. I’ll contact you when I get the results.’
As soon as he put the phone down, Westwood pressed buttons on his computer keyboard and brought up Henry Butcher’s personnel file, accessing details of his family. Butcher’s wife had died some years earlier, and his next of kin was listed as his brother – John James Butcher – with an address in Idaho. Westwood noted down the telephone number and then dialled it. His call was answered almost immediately.
‘Mr Butcher?’
‘That’s me. Who’s calling?’
‘My name’s Westwood, Mr Butcher, from your brother’s old company.’
Westwood heard a wheezing chuckle. ‘Spare me the covert crap, Mr Westwood. I know Henry was a spook. Now, what can I do for you?’
‘I’ve some bad news, I’m afraid, Mr Butcher. Your brother Henry died today in his Baltimore hospital.’
There was a short pause before John Butcher replied. ‘Well, that’s a relief, I guess. He had no quality of life left. Not for a while, really.’
‘When did you last see your brother, Mr Butcher?’ Westwood asked.
‘Oh, ’bout six months ago, I reckon. Didn’t seem too much point to go on visiting him. He never even knew I was there.’
Two minutes later Westwood replaced the receiver. He’d been fairly sure before he’d made that call, but now there was no possible doubt. Somebody still working at Langley was making sure that all the details of CAIP, and any possible witnesses, would be dead and buried for ever.
The crew of the Merlin had been pre-briefed earlier in the day for the sortie. They hadn’t known exactly when they were due to fly to Kandira but, as the duty HDS crew, they had expected to make that journey at least once. The aircraft had been kept fully fuelled and waiting on two spot, so the crew were being strapped in and ready for engine start less than ten minutes after the message had been received from Fob Watch.
The short delay had been caused by Richter himself. As soon as he’d read the message from Tyler Hardin, he’d guessed that the ‘sick journalist’ mentioned was almost certainly one of the men who had entered the two properties in Kandira. As far as could be deduced, the sole source of the infection that killed the two Greeks had been carried in a container that had been removed from Nico Aristides’s property by the two intruders. The only way anyone else could become infected was by immediate access to that container. Therefore this supposed ‘journalist’ had to be one of the intruders.
Richter had quickly done three things before walking across the Flight Deck and climbing into the back of the Merlin. First, he’d drawn the Enigma phone from the CommCen – the T301 uses high-level encryption to provide secure communications with other users of the equipment on normal GSM networks, and Richter knew his section had several handsets available.
Next he’d signalled Simpson, giving him the mobile number and requesting encrypted facilities be enabled at Hammersmith. He also asked for the assistance of a Secret Intelligence Service asset on Crete, and specified a recognition procedure. He’d classified the signal ‘Secret’ and gave it the precedence ‘Military Flash’, thus guaranteeing that Simpson would receive it within the hour.
SIS maintains a fairly large team at Irakleio, mainly employed in monitoring radio transmissions from the Middle East and nations of the former USSR. Richter knew there had been at least two men posing as CDC officers in Kandira, but there could easily be a whole opposition team involved, so he wanted back-up.
The last thing he’d done, therefore, was to draw the pistol and thirty rounds of ammunition from the
Richard Stein was a desperately worried man. He’d seen the state of the bodies of Spiros and Nico Aristides, and he’d just spent a couple of hours sitting in a closed car next to Roger Krywald while his partner coughed up blood as his condition steadily worsened. The unknown biological agent that had killed the two Greeks was probably now going to kill Krywald, and Stein knew for certain that it was sitting – silent, lethal and invisible – in that case in the back of the hire car.
But its location wasn’t his problem. His anxiety was that maybe it was all around him right now, in the air, in Krywald’s blood smears on his jacket lapels – maybe even on the adjacent seat his partner had been sitting in. To say that he was terrified it might attack him too was considerably understating the case.
As soon as he’d propelled Krywald through the doors of the Chania hospital, Stein had pulled off his blood- stained jacket and tossed it into the back of the Ford. He climbed back into the car and gunned the engine, ignoring the speed limits as he headed east for Rethymno and the illusory sanctuary of the hotel. He stopped twice
