“Just as bloody well,” commented King.
“So, the Russians have an apocalyptic weapon, and we have no chance of replicating it?” Ramsay asked.
“Yes,” replied Amherst. “But what we want most is the antidote to such a weapon. And for that, we need the complete biological formula.”
“I’m sensing a return trip on the cards,” King commented flatly.
Amherst shook his head. “No, nothing like that. In fact, there is going to be a terrible accident at that facility soon. Imminently, I’d say. It’s in the planning stage, but do you know what happens if a super-heated water source flows directly into geothermal shafts?”
“I’m guessing it boils?” King said. “Or super-boils?” He wasn’t a scientist, but it wasn’t difficult to work out.
“That’s right,” said Amherst. “There are people planning how to make it look like that. A sizable enough reaction to devastate the facility and everyone, or everything in it.”
“How to spin it after the bomb drops?” King asked.
“Something like that,” Amherst replied. “If we can’t have it, then neither can the Russians. The experts think that what the Russians have is ninety-five percent complete. As they were still clearly in the infancy of human testing, they most likely don’t have the delivery system in place. This way, we nip it in the bud.”
King watched the guard ahead of them signal the car to stop. Amherst’s driver lowered his window, showed the pass and was waved through to the underground parking. “Well, if the disappearance of the submarine means what I think it means, then you have your infected subject already. Or at least, a hundred of them. You just need to find the sub and get some fool to get onboard…”
Amherst shuddered. He had seen the photographs, the footage caught by Natalia. It did not bare thinking about. “We’re here now. And remember, play the tough guy, okay?”
King smiled. “Trust me. It won’t be a problem.”
75
Director Villiers looked up as the door opened. He smiled warmly as Amherst and Ramsay walked in, then frowned when he saw King. Naturally, Ramsay and the MI5 director both wore suites and polished shoes. King wore his cargoes, a polo shirt and a scuffed leather jacket. His size eleven desert boots had seen action in Syria and Iraq. Villiers stood up, walked around the desk and shook Amherst’s hand.
“I didn’t expect so many of you from across the river,” he smiled. He looked at King and said, “Dangerous times, I suppose a bodyguard is desirable. My chap tends to wear a suit, though.”
King smiled. “But he’s not here, is he?”
“Meaning?”
King walked past him and stood at the window. The Thames was murky wherever you viewed it from. He turned back and said, “Take a seat, Director Villiers.”
“Now, look here…” Villiers started, but was cut short by Amherst.
“Sit down, for Christ’s sake. It’s over!”
“What is over?”
King walked back and shoved Villiers in the chest. The man dropped into his chair and it slid backwards a few feet on its casters. King dropped a photograph on the man’s lap. He followed up with two more.
“What’s this?” He looked up at Amherst. “Enough of the theatrics. Explain yourselves. And what the bloody hell are you doing with pictures of my family?”
Ramsay and Amherst had each taken a seat opposite Villiers’ desk. There were no other chairs but that didn’t bother King. He perched on the director’s desk and looked down at him.
“Peter Stewart told me about you before he died,” he said. “He didn’t trust you, could see right through you. He convinced you that he would be the ideal person to send up there to aid Fitzpatrick. He suspected you were working for the Russians. He also suspected Fitzpatrick at first, but when he was murdered, he knew that it had to be you. It was the phone call he made to you, you see. And when he was ordered back, he slipped off the radar,” he paused. “Because by then he found out that I was going up there to look into it, and he wanted to watch my back.”
“Very touching,” Villiers said. “The word of a dead man. And a desperate alcoholic wash-out, at that…”
King lunged forwards and kicked Villiers’ in the chest. Ramsay stood up, but realised he wasn’t going to do anything, and sat back down again. He looked at Amherst, who had remained impassive. Villiers was winded, and his head was lolling from side to side as he struggled to suck in breath. King grabbed the man’s lapels and pulled him close. Villiers tried to resist, but he knew he was outmatched physically. He tried to pull away, but King’s arms remained locked solid, his biceps forming under the leather jacket that seemed to threaten the integrity of the stitching.
“You were thwarting Russian defection, in collusion with the FSB or GRU. What was it, money?”
Villiers glared. “No!”
“Ideals, then?”
“You don’t understand!” He looked at Amherst expectantly and said, “Call off your goon!”
King pulled him closer, spoke through gritted teeth. “You’re a traitor!”
“No! I was working with the GRU, in a joint intelligence operation!”
“Bullshit!”
“I was preventing sell-outs from jeopardising vital research!”
“Their research.”
“I had an inside line, a way in to something we’ve wanted for so long! When it was complete, my contact was going to get it to us. We had to put off the defectors until it was ready!” Villiers said
