The Lucifer Network (56 page)

‘
Verdammt
. . .'

Schenk cornered her by the door. He aimed a kick at her head, which she tried to absorb by curling into a ball. Then he put a foot on her neck to hold her down, ripped open her blouse and felt for her sternum.

Suddenly there was a shattering crash. Schenk whipped his head round to see a metal dustbin come hurtling through the curtains into the room, followed half a second later by a man.

‘
Scheisse!
'

Sam had cut his head on the broken window pane. Blood trickled into his eyes, but he could see Julie on the floor and Schenk crouched over her.

‘Get away from her!' he yelled.

Only when he hurled himself forward to grapple with Schenk did Sam see the syringe. As he lunged at the Austrian's arm, the doctor stabbed forward with the lethal needle. Sam swerved, feeling its spray wet his wrist. Then he kicked, his foot sinking into Schenk's groin. The doctor buckled and Sam cuffed him on
the back of the neck with locked hands. As the man stumbled, Sam knocked the syringe from his grip and kicked it away.

He grabbed Schenk by the hair, pulling it sharply backwards so he lost his balance and fell. He jumped hard on his stomach to knock the wind from him, then threw himself across the room to Julie, ripping the tape from her mouth.

She screamed in pain.

‘Sorry. There's no easy way to do that,' he apologised.

Schenk was struggling to get up. Sam kicked his face with the side of his foot, then while the man was disorientated, rolled him onto his stomach.

‘Where'd that tape come from?' he yelled to Julie above the din.

‘On the table!' she screamed. ‘God, your head,' she added, panicking. ‘You're bleeding.'

‘I'll live.' He grabbed hold of the roll and blew the blood trickle from his eye. Quickly he bound Schenk's hands behind his back, then put another strip round his ankles. Once certain that he wasn't going anywhere, he looked around for something with which to cut Julie free. There was a kitchen knife on the small table.

‘For God's sake turn that racket off,' he ordered when she had her arms and legs in use again.

The curtain flapped in the wind. When Julie cut the music they heard voices outside, the neighbours taking an interest.

‘You okay?' he asked, touching her on the arm. He noticed a spot of blood on her neck.

‘No,' she whimpered, slumping against him. He squeezed her gently and stroked her head, withdrawing his hand when she winced from the pain where Schenk had kicked her.

‘I need to know what happened here,' Sam told her, keeping an eye on Schenk.

Slowly Julie pulled herself together, found a clean cloth to press against the cut on Sam's forehead and, between gulps of shock and anger, told him about the poisoned barbs in her bed. Then she showed him Schenk's briefcase with its lethal collection of glass fragments.

‘Jesus!' He was looking at the tool kit of a serial killer. ‘How the hell did he get in here, Julie?'

‘He must have had my keys. When I got back from Vienna I found I'd lost them. Assumed they'd fallen out of my bag when he hit me with it in Stammersdorf. I had a spare set at the lab. Had to go there first before I could get in here.'

Sam kneeled beside Schenk. ‘Talk to me, Max. Talk to me fast.'

Schenk remained tight-lipped.

‘Were you working for Hoffmann or was Hoffmann working for you?'

When there was no response Sam jerked the doctor's arms up behind his back until the joints cracked. Schenk yelled in pain, his face twisting, but he still wouldn't talk.

There was a hammering at the door and an Asian voice demanding to know what was going on.

‘I'm all right, Mr Patel,' Julie called back.

‘Open the door.'

Sam shook his head.

‘I said I'm all right. There was some trouble but it's over now.'

‘They break the window,' the voice protested.

‘Yes. I'll get it fixed.'

‘The police coming. Someone called 999.'

‘Okay, Mr Patel. You needn't worry.'

Sam grimaced. When the men in blue arrived, all this
would be out of his hands. And Schenk would never spill the beans if handled by the rule book. He had a few minutes at the most. He reached into the briefcase and removed the plastic box of glass splinters, making sure Schenk could see him holding it. The doctor's eyes widened.

Inside the briefcase Sam found tweezers and sealed packets of surgical gloves. He put on a pair, opened the box of splinters and selected one. The glass chip glistened with the gel it had been coated with.

‘Now, my friend . . .' He sat astride the doctor to pin him to the floor. ‘They tell me just a little nick is enough . . .' He touched the splinter against Schenk's neck.

The man began to cough and splutter.

‘Feel it, can you? Wet, is it?'

‘Don't do this . . .' Schenk whined. ‘I beg you, don't do this.'

‘He doesn't have a vaccine,' Julie whispered. ‘Look at him. He's scared out of his wits.'

‘You'd better talk, Max. It's a nasty way to die,' Sam snapped. ‘Tell me about you and Harry Jackman and Hoffmann. Who was running things?'

‘Hoffmann,' Schenk whimpered.

‘And what was your role?'

‘To advise him how the material should be used.'

‘Advise? Is that all?'

‘Yes. I was not important . . .'

‘I don't believe you.' Sam picked the glass splinter up with the tweezers. A tiny blob of gel remained on Schenk's skin.

‘Do it, Sam.' Julie was close by his shoulder, her voice a rasp. ‘Give him a dose of his own.'

Schenk's eyes swung in their sockets, trying to irradiate Julie with his hate.

‘Last chance, Max,' Sam snarled. ‘I want the truth this time.' He touched the razor-sharp glass fragment against Schenk's neck again. ‘Quick. I haven't got all day.' The man flinched. His eyelids flickered and his lips began to tremble.

‘Kill him, Sam,' Julie howled. ‘He doesn't deserve to live.'

‘All right, all right. I tell you,' Schenk panicked. ‘We were partners, Hoffmann and I. We didn't trust the VECTOR scientists. Because they just want money. Like Jackman. They have no principles. I make visits to Palagra to check what they are doing. At my first visit they have already made the rhabdovirus mutation but don't want to give it to me because there is no protection against it yet. But I insist they bring it to Vienna and I make tests with it. On dogs. When I see how fast it works, I make my own experiments. The glass splinters were my idea,' he added with a touch of pride. ‘And I try to make a vaccine.'

‘But you failed to develop one,' Julie goaded.

‘There was no way to do it.'

‘
We'll
find one,' she hissed, fired up by hate. ‘But it'll be too damn late for
you.
'

‘And Palagra island? Your wife . . .?'

Schenk nodded. ‘She did not know what was being done there . . .' His voice tailed away with the realisation of how much he had lost.

Sam stood up. The last piece of the Harry Jackman puzzle was now in place. He replaced the glass splinter in the box and closed the lid.

Julie's anger had become all-consuming. She couldn't believe Sam was going to let Max live. ‘What are you doing?' she gaped.

Sam used a surgical wipe from a pack inside the briefcase to clean off the droplet of lethal gel from the doctor's neck.

‘You
can't
just leave it like that, Sam! He has to die. Max has to die!' She stared at him wide-eyed, as if he'd lost his mind.

From outside came the sound of a siren, rising to a crescendo as the police car screamed to a halt in front of the house. Sam closed up Schenk's briefcase and kept hold of it. Then he grabbed Julie's mobile phone from her bag on the floor and dialled Waddell. He spoke briefly and concisely and was told to hold the fort until Special Branch arrived.

There was a hammering at the door.

‘Police! Open up!'

Sam saw that Julie had gone as white as a sheet. The shock was getting to her.

‘You can open the door now,' he suggested.

Julie's head was spinning. She'd just urged Sam to commit murder, and now the police were here. The authorities. She looked at him in bewilderment. Sam was authority too, she realised, her spastic mind suddenly overtaken by the thought that he might betray her to the police. That she'd be charged with attempted murder. Sam's revenge for her exposing him to the media. The establishment's revenge for her father having revealed what happened in Bodanga.

Sam saw the distress on Julie's face, the panic in her eyes. The look of a woman who'd had one shock too many and was falling apart.

He wrapped his arms round her.

‘You'd better brace yourself, Julie.'

‘What? What d'you mean?'

‘I'm afraid you'll be in the papers again. The lone woman who overpowered Max Schenk and handed him over to the police. They'll make you a hero.'

It was after midnight by the time all the statements had been taken and some minor first aid had been applied to Sam's cut head. Stephanie had arrived twenty minutes after the local force and had worked wonders in twisting arms to ensure Sam's role in the action wouldn't appear in any of the press reports the next day. He and Julie had slipped away without being photographed, the media being kept well clear of the street by a police cordon.

Back at the MoD flat at Prince's Gate, a thorough exploration of the cupboards uncovered a half-f bottle of whisky overlooked by the cleaners. Sam and Julie sat facing each other across the repro table, drinking it.

Julie was still numb with shock. ‘You saved my life,' she murmured. ‘If you'd come through that window a second later, I'd be dead now.'

‘I wouldn't have liked that,' Sam said solemnly.

‘Nor would I.' She gripped his hand. Then her brow knitted. ‘You know, I really did want you to kill Max, Sam. If it had been me holding that chip of glass to his neck I'd have done it myself.' She shook her head. ‘What does that make me?'

‘Human, Julie. Human.'

The understanding she saw in his eyes was that of someone who'd been there himself. Many a time.

‘What happens next, Sam?' She looked down at her glass.

‘He'll be charged in the morning. Attempted murder. The trial will be months away. You'll be a star witness.'

‘That's not what I meant,' she rejoined.

‘I know it isn't.'

Sam took a deep breath. Nothing had changed, in that he still had no sensible answer for her. But the situation
was
different now. The trial of Max Schenk would probably mean him appearing as a witness in
camera. So he would be staying in England for longer than he'd envisaged.

They looked at each other across the table with a softness that neither dared to define.

‘I think we should sleep on it,' he answered.

Since the first edition of this book was published, bio-terrorism has become a frightening reality in the aftermath of September 11th 2001.

While preparing the factual backdrop against which this work of fiction is set, many people were generous with their time in setting me straight. There isn't space to list them all and some of them spoke to me in confidence, but I would like to thank Dr Wolfgang Preiser of the Department of Virology at Middlesex Hospital, who spent many patient hours explaining to me how viruses can be spread – any errors in this book are very much mine and not his.

Glyn Ford MEP,
Searchlight
magazine and the EU Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna gave me valuable insights into the extreme right-wing in Europe. Officers from Scotland Yard's Racial and Violent Crimes Task Force were most helpful too.

The Royal Navy Submarine Service was also extremely generous with its time. I am particularly grateful to Commander Jeff Tall, Curator of the RN Submarine Museum at Gosport and to Lt.-Commander Mike Walliker, First Lieutenant of HMS
Turbulent,
whose captain and crew looked after me so warmly and so informatively when I was their guest on a submerged passage to the Mediterranean.

Finally I should acknowledge the colourful insight into the murky world of arms smuggling in Africa which was given to me by someone who will remain nameless. Subsequent to our conversations, he was tried for the murder of his lover by poisoning and sentenced to life imprisonment.