“But Sir,” Molly tries again.
“You have your orders, Lieutenant.”
Molly’s head drops slightly as she says, “Yes Sir,” rather sheepishly.
“Carry on, Lieutenant, oh and remember, as I said in this morning's briefing, if I am needed in the lab to oversee any part of the operation, don’t hesitate to inform me.” Major Reese says, quickly adding, “My door is always open.”
The joke brings the slightest hint of a smile across Molly's face as her stand to attention hardens again. She salutes her superior officer, colleague and friend. She then turns to re-engage her fight with the bike. This time, however, she fumbles to get the bike back upright and back into its space, balanced against the wall behind the door.
As peace breaks out between Molly and the bike, she hears, “Thank you, Lieutenant,” from the Major whose head is already down, returned to his mountain of paperwork as she leaves the office, closing the door behind her.
The door clicks shut, and Molly moves across the sterile hospital-like corridor to the wall opposite, where she places her forehead against the wall, resting it while she gathers herself.
Budget-cutting and saving money has been an integral part of her experience in her six years in the British Army, but it just seems to be getting worse and worse. Budgets get tighter, corners are cut, manpower diminishes, equipment gets older and no matter who or how loudly they protest, nobody listens. That is until something goes seriously wrong and even then, action is only usually taken if the media picks up on the incident and some politicians career might be in jeopardy.
Sighing to herself, Molly is positive that the Major is just as frustrated as she is; she has known him long enough, and he knows the dangers of this operation at least as well as she does, but no matter how much shouting and screaming she does, his hands are tied, just as hers are.
Molly lifts her head off the wall, straightens her back, then turns and marches down the brightly lit corridor back towards the laboratory and storage facility.
The ten-minute walk goes in a flash, her mind working as she deliberates the operational plan and safety measures that she and the Major have put in place. Almost surprised to find herself at the security entrance, she presses her thumb onto the security pad, the magnetic locks release and Molly pushes through the hissing doors and back into her domain.
Chapter 2
The cold storage facility situated next to the laboratory seems strangely unfamiliar to Molly now, even though she has spent an inordinate amount of time here over the last four and a half years. She is used to it being a quiet area, where only she and a very select few of her colleges have access.
Soft blue lighting and a cold atmosphere always gave her the feeling, she was somehow in the arctic and the usual stillness and silence certainly gave you pause to imagine you were there.
A crunching noise puts pay to any remaining reminiscing, as the three-wheeler electric forklift’s solid black tyre crushes something it shouldn’t into the concrete floor before the driver slammed on its brakes.
“BE CAREFUL!” Molly again shouts at the top of her voice, for what seems like the hundredth time in the last hour. Not that she is sure if the driver or any of the other contractors listen to her now, or on any of the other ninety-nine times she has shouted it into the bubble helmet of her Biohazard suit. They are all probably sick of her shouting it and bawling other orders at them; for all she knows, they have turned the volume down on their radio earpieces to get her voice out of their heads.
Second Lieutenant Brian Simms, Molly’s assistant whom she can see and hear through her earpiece is having the same running battle on the opposite side of the facility to her. Oh God, let this be over, she thinks.
The temperature inside her suit seems to be rising by the minute, the suit’s built-in temperature control is struggling to cope, only adding to her frustration and bad temper. The only slight relief is the small amount of cool air entering the suit from the pipe attached to the back it, which is in turn connected to the air supply on the wall behind her.
The suit is struggling to regulate the temperature probably because of Molly’s raised heartbeat and body temperature but mainly because this normally cool, secure storage facility has had a large hole cut into the wall away to her left. The hole is where the loading of the transport trucks is taking place.
The new loading bay is sealed airtight with two airtight thick plastic sections; the trucks reverse up to the outer opening and the back of the truck is sealed into the opening. And only when it is completely sealed into the opening, the second section’s seal is broken and is opened to allow the forklift access to the back of the truck to load. Even though the opening is airtight, it doesn’t stop the majority of the heat from the hot day outside getting in. This gets worse when the back doors of the truck are opened up, the sun beating down onto the roofs of the trucks and the heat seems to billow out of them and into the storage facility. When the truck is full and all the refrigerated storage assemblies are plugged into the on-board power source, the truck doors are closed, and an air conditioner kicks in to cool the truck for its journey.
Molly still finds it surprising that the hole was cut into the wall of this area for the temporary loading bay, which is the most sensitive and secure area of the whole facility. She wasn’t consulted about this part of the moving plan and was only
