Читать книгу All Fall Down - Mark Edwards, Mark Edwards - Страница 10

Kate would never forget the sound of Shelley screaming, the sight of her sobbing in the kitchen, clinging to the worktop, her face scrunched up with shock and grief, a policewoman hovering awkwardly beside her. As Kate ran into the kitchen Shelley launched herself at her, pressing her wet face against Kate’s neck.

‘What is it? Tell me!’

‘It’s Isaac. There’s been a huge terrorist attack, on the hotel he was in! Oh, Kate! My sweet, clever Isaac – he’s dead. Oh, how am I going to tell Callum?’

Over the next five minutes, Kate learned that Isaac, her friend and colleague, the man she spent more time with than anyone else, had been blown to bits by an unknown assassin who’d planted Semtex in the hotel ballroom where the post-conference drinks party had been taking place. Thirty-two other eminent virologists and immunologists had also been killed, but further details were sketchy, and the death toll was still rising.

She joined Shelley in an outpouring of grief that made the policewoman and her colleagues step back as if they’d never seen such a raw display of emotion before. And when the boys came in from the field at the back of the house, still brandishing their toy swords, Kate had held Jack whilst Shelley sobbed out the news to Callum that his daddy had died. Shelley had tried so hard to regain her composure, but to no avail. Tears welled in Kate’s eyes every time she thought of it.

A growing horror combined with her grief over Isaac: someone had targeted the immunology conference. They were trying to kill people like her. Had it not been for Jack’s chickenpox, she would have been in that room with Isaac.

Kate offered to stay the night with Shelley and Callum, but Shelley refused. ‘I just want to be alone with Callum,’ she’d said, brokenly, hugging Kate as they both wept again. Kate tried to insist, but Shelley was adamant.

‘I’ll be back tomorrow morning,’ promised Kate, lifting her glasses to wipe her eyes.

As she and Jack hurried home down the lane, her BlackBerry kept bleeping. She disengaged her hand from Jack’s, and glanced at the phone’s display. Three missed calls from Harley; but the only person she wanted to speak to – apart from Isaac of course – was Paul. When she got back to the cottage, she told Jack he could watch TV for a while instead of having a bath, then went straight into the kitchen where Paul was making dinner.

‘Hi, sweetheart, I thought we would have pasta to—’

He turned and saw her face. ‘Kate, what is it?’

She fell into his arms and sobbed against his chest. He stroked her hair and held her, waiting patiently for her to start breathing normally again so she could tell him what had happened.

He spent the next ten minutes fussing over her, telling her to sit down, asking her over and over if he could do anything, get her anything. She sat at the breakfast bar and stared at her hands. They were trembling. But mostly, she felt numb. Then she remembered.

‘I need to call Harley. He’s been trying to ring me. Can you see if Jack needs anything while I call him?’

‘Sure.’ He looked at her with wide eyes. Paul wasn’t usually very good with big emotional scenes. He never knew what to say. Anything that didn’t require fixing or have a solution flummoxed him. But he had been good friends with Isaac too. He shared her pain – and her fear.

She called the MI6 officer.

‘Dr Maddox,’ he said, as soon as he answered, ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you. Have you heard …?’

‘About the bomb? Yes. It’s … Do you have any idea who did it?’

He paused, as if he was wondering how much he could tell her. ‘No, no, we don’t. No one has claimed responsibility. None of the survivors saw anything, and the room in which the CCTV was recording was on the ground floor and was destroyed in the blast. I’m very sorry about your research partner.’

‘I should have been there with him.’

‘I know. But luckily for us—’

She interrupted him. ‘What do you mean, “for us”?’

‘Listen, a lot of top people in your field died in that attack. If you’d been killed too, when you’re the leading expert in Watoto … It doesn’t bear thinking about. Kate, Dr Maddox, we really need you to join this team to find a cure for the virus. Please reconsider.’

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Do you think they are connected? The outbreak and the bomb?’ In all the grief and confusion, it hadn’t struck her before.

Harley took a breath. ‘We had a phone call. A message. An hour after the bomb went off.’

‘What did it say?’

Harley recited the message. ‘And She sent a plague upon the Earth, a plague born in the cradle of mankind, and those who would stand in Her way were consumed by the fire of Her wrath. None should dare stand in Her way.’

‘Is that it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you think it’s genuine?’

‘We’re taking it seriously, yes.’

‘Can’t you trace these things?’

‘The call was made from a throwaway mobile phone. Impossible to trace.’

‘The cradle of mankind,’ Kate said, echoing the message. ‘That’s meant to be in Tanzania, where Watoto originates.’

‘Yes.’

She took a sip of the sweet tea Paul had handed her. ‘It’s a warning, isn’t it? Anyone who tries to stop the plague will be killed.’ She felt a chill run down her spine.

Harley said, ‘I realise that telling you this will probably make you more reluctant to help, but …’

‘I have a responsibility.’

He made a noise as if he was waiting for her to continue.

‘I do have a responsibility. Isaac’s already been killed. I knew some of the other scientists at the conference, too. And these terrorists, whoever they are … we can’t let them win. The virus is only on the Indian reservation at the moment, isn’t it?’

Harley hesitated for a moment. ‘Yes.’

‘But surely the terrorists are going to try and spread it beyond there, if they’re threatening a plague?’

‘That’s why it’s even more vital that we find a vaccine as quickly as possible. And why we need you.’

Kate took another sip of tea. She could hear the TV in the other room, the high-pitched blare of a cartoon. She had almost made up her mind. She had to go. If the World Health Organization was now putting its resources into finding a cure, she owed it to Isaac to do everything she could to contribute.

But what about Jack? Did she really want him to accompany her to America, a country that was under threat of a killer virus? Paul too. She herself was immune to the original Watoto virus, but not necessarily a mutated one. She knew Paul would insist on taking the risk, but Jack was a different matter. At least Vernon wasn’t anywhere near California. She could give him strict instructions about safety precautions to follow. And at the first hint that the virus was anywhere approaching Texas she would make sure Jack was on the next plane back to the UK, to her sister’s.

‘Are you still there?’ Harley asked.

‘Yes. I’m thinking. Let me go and talk to Jack. I’ll get back to you in the next hour.’

She terminated the call and walked into the living room, where Jack was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his head tilted backwards and mouth slightly open, far too close to the television. Tears had left pale tracks down his cheeks.

‘Jack, I need to ask you something.’

He looked up, slightly annoyed at the interruption of his viewing. She muted the TV and sat down next to him, holding his sticky hand. ‘We might have to change the plans for the summer holidays—’

He jumped up, an expression of panic on his face. ‘You’re not going to tell me I can’t go and stay with Dad, are you?’

‘No – probably not. In fact, the opposite. All I was going to say was, I’ve been offered a job in America and I don’t know exactly how long it’s going to last. It might be a month, which would be ideal because then I can pick you up from Dad’s and we could fly home together – but it might be longer than that. Would you be OK with staying at Daddy’s for longer, if that’s how it works out? I don’t want to take the job unless you would.’

‘Would I have to go to school in Dallas?’

‘I don’t know. Unlikely – but it’s a possibility. You’d be able to come back to your class here afterwards though.’

‘I would miss you,’ he said thoughtfully, still staring at the muted cartoon. ‘But you know Charlie Freestone in Year 3? He lives half a year with his mum and half a year with his dad. So we could be like that. It’s only fair that Daddy gets to see me half the time too. I miss him. And you remember that boy next door I played with last summer – Bradley? I could play with him every day when I’m over there, and go to school with him.’ He hugged Kate round the neck. ‘Yay! I’m gonna go and Skype Daddy!’ His face fell. ‘But what about Callum? I can’t leave him, his dad’s died …’

‘Shelly just told me they’re going to France to stay with his grandma, so he won’t be here. You’re a great friend for thinking of that.’

‘You’re a great mummy,’ he said. ‘Can I turn the volume back up again now?’

Ten minutes later, Kate sent a text to Harley: OK. I’ll do it.

Three days later, Kate welcomed the gin and tonic brought to her by the almost supernaturally attractive Asian flight attendant, pressing the glass against her forehead before taking a large gulp, then another. She felt as though her alcohol consumption had tripled in the past few days.

Dreading the thought of handing Jack over to his father, she reached across and touched her son’s hair. He looked up briefly from the film he was watching on the plane’s entertainment system, earphones blocking out the adults’ conversation, and smiled, showing the gap between his front teeth.

‘I’m going to see Bradley again,’ he informed her.

Kate took comfort in the fact that he was so excited about the trip, and about seeing his dad and his friend Bradley, but she felt sick at the thought of him being so far away. Vernon had promised to take some time off work but, while he adored Jack, he had never been the most attentive of fathers. And he had a new girlfriend now, Shirl, although Kate suspected she was hardly as new to the scene as Vernon claimed.

Paul sat beside Kate, looking pale. He had been anxious and restless ever since Harley turned up. The MI6 man’s presence had brought back into vivid focus memories of that night two years ago when Paul had looked on helpless as his twin brother sacrificed his own life to stop Gaunt once and for all. As hard it was to believe, there were others, still at liberty, who had shared Gaunt’s warped ambitions and engaged in a sick race – or, as Gaunt had called it, ‘a delicious intellectual game’ – with each other to create the world’s deadliest virus. It was a secret competition, with little cells of scientists across the globe taking part.

Immediately after the events at Gaunt’s lab, Kate and Paul had been interviewed by Harley, and Kate had told him that she remembered Gaunt talking about someone called Mangold. Harley had raised an eyebrow at that and told them that the name Charles Mangold had been found in papers in Gaunt’s office; papers that showed a number of large deposits into Gaunt’s bank account.

After that, Paul had spent hours scouring the internet, trying to find Charles Mangold, but there was only so much he could do online. To track down Mangold’s current location, Paul would have needed to travel to America, but a criminal record, acquired during his days as a hacker, made this impossible. All he could do was pass on the information to the relevant law enforcement agencies and seethe with frustration when they failed to take it any further, and Harley and his employers appeared to have done nothing about Mangold either, much to Paul’s consternation.

It had taken some major string-pulling by Harley to get Paul a visa for this trip, but Kate was glad she’d insisted on him coming too. She kissed Paul’s stubbly cheek, drawing a smile.

Jason Harley slipped into the seat across the aisle from them. According to the map on the jumbo jet’s TV screens, they were halfway across the Atlantic, the tiny cartoon plane on the monitor edging ever closer to Dallas. Harley had surprised them with seats in First Class, the first time Kate or Paul had ever turned left when getting on a plane.

Paul glanced at Jack to make sure he wasn’t able to hear them, then leaned across and demanded: ‘So, what do you know about the people who planted the bomb at the hotel? Has no one taken responsibility for it since you got the anonymous message?’

Harley winced. ‘Please keep your voice down. But no, they haven’t.’

Paul dropped his voice. ‘Don’t you think it’s a coincidence that a good percentage of the world’s top virologists were murdered shortly after a new killer virus breaks out in America?’

Harley didn’t respond.

‘What I don’t understand is why you spooks were involved in this before the bomb went off, when it was “just” a viral outbreak. I thought that kind of thing was dealt with by the World Health Organization?’

Irritation flitted across Harley’s face at the word ‘spooks’, but he kept his tone neutral. ‘That’s a fair question. But I can’t divulge any more information to a civilian at this point.’

‘A civilian? That’s a hell of a nice way to put it. You’re dragging our family across the globe. The least you can do is tell us what’s going on.’

‘Please don’t raise your voice.’

‘Why, because you don’t want people to get scared? If some horrific African virus has broken out and someone is blowing up virologists, maybe they should be scared.’

‘Paul.’ Kate laid her hand on his arm. ‘Come on, stay calm. You’re going to scare Jack. You’re scaring me.’

In truth, Jack was oblivious, still glued to a movie, the volume pumped up to block out the roar of the jets that filled the cabin. But she wished Paul wouldn’t talk about virologists being blown up. Not when Isaac had been one of the victims, and when she was a virologist herself.

Paul hissed across the aisle to Harley, ‘You must have suspected terrorists were involved before the bomb. Otherwise, why were you sent to recruit Kate?’

Harley blinked. ‘Mr Wilson.’

Paul laughed sarcastically. ‘“Mr Wilson”? Please, I feel we’re close enough for you to call me Paul.’

‘Mr Wilson, we are in a public space. We agreed to allow you to come on this trip purely in order to make Ms Maddox happy. Other than the desire to keep Ms Maddox happy, there is nothing to stop me putting you on the first plane home.’

‘It’s Doctor Maddox, actually,’ said Paul, with more than a hint of aggression in his voice.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Call me Kate. But you’re not sending Paul home, OK?’ Kate interjected.

Harley put his hands up in an international peacekeeping gesture. ‘Listen, I’ll tell you more when we get to California. I promise. I will tell you everything you need to know.’