Alchemist

  She felt strangely removed from the shock of what had happened earlier, as if her exploding MG was just part of some freaky game in a virtual reality arcade.

  Entering her father’s hall, she saw the post neatly stacked by his housekeeper, still unopened. It did not look as though he had been home since yesterday morning and the tidy state of his study and empty wastepaper bin only confirmed this. She had seen enough.

  As she got back into the Vauxhall, she had to pull the door hard against a sudden gust of wind. Without more ado, she turned round and headed off towards the university.

  She kept a watch on vehicles coming in the opposite direction as she drove, on the off chance that she might spot the Toyota heading home, but the roads were almost free of traffic and she saw nothing familiar. She should stop and phone Conor, she knew, but she did not want to do so until she had found her father and made sure he was safe.

  To her dismay, there was no immediate sign of life as she drove into the car park at the old lab. The building itself was in darkness. She walked up to the front entrance and unlocked the door, perturbed to find that the burglar alarm had not been set; it was one of the few things her father always remembered to do.

  Everything felt creepily silent and when she looked up the dark stairwell, she felt suddenly scared of what she might find up there.

  Please be all right, she prayed, oh God, please be all right.

  She pressed the light switch, touched the wooden banister rail for courage, climbed upstairs rapidly, and stopped at the entrance to the pitch-dark laboratory. She pulled down all four light switches in rapid succession. Nothing there. No one. Her heart shorting out, she walked slowly towards the office, reached for the handle, afraid to turn it, then twisted it and pushed hard.

  An unfamiliar red glow shone out of the darkness on the floor just beneath Dick Bannerman’s desk. It was some piece of apparatus he had left on, she presumed.

  A creak somewhere behind startled her, and she turned, staring back at the landing. The buzz of the fluorescent above her seemed to be growing more insistent and she tried to tune it out, listening for a footstep, a door hinge, the rustle of clothes. There was another creak; another. Then the windowpane behind her rattled. She breathed out; just the wind, she thought; but it was still some moments before she felt secure enough to turn her attention back to the office.

  Identifying which machine the red glow was coming from, Monty was surprised to see that it was her father’s pocket dictating machine. He normally carried it everywhere with him and even slept with it beside his bed, recording thoughts and ideas as they came to him.

  She picked it up, wondering why the tiny red record light was on, then saw it had been left running and the tape had reached the end of the reel.

  There was another creak out in the landing. She turned and then snatched a few quick glances around the office for some suitable heavy object she could use as a weapon if need be. If she was going to go down, she was going to go down fighting. A solitary nerve twitched at the base of her throat. Still keeping a wary ear tuned to the landing, she pressed the sliding rewind button with her thumb, let the tape spool back for a few seconds, then released it.

  There was a steady hiss of static. She rewound it further. Again static. She rewound it further still, keeping the pressure on the button, watching the progress of the tape. When it was half rewound she listened again, but there was still nothing recorded.

  Disappointed, she continued, and as it reached the three-quarters mark, the silence was abruptly broken by the squeaking sound of speech playing in fast reverse. She maintained the pressure on the button for several more seconds, then released it and heard her father’s voice, tired and a little faint:

  ‘Poliovirus possibly indicates intent to use an oral delivery system. Most viruses can’t be used to deliver genetic material orally, because they can’t survive in the human gut. Poliovirus can. It is simple to produce a defective poliovirus that cannot replicate.’

  The words were followed by a silence broken by the occasional background noises which triggered the voice-activated mechanism: footsteps; a tap running, the coffee machine percolating; the clack of computer keys. Then she heard her father exclaim, softly: ‘You bastards. My God, you bastards!

  She was about to stop the tape to replay the section just before when she heard the unmistakable sound of Dr Crowe’s voice:

  ‘Good evening, Dr Bannerman. I just happened to be passing – thought I’d drop by and have a chat. Haven’t seen much of you in the past week or so. I’m not sure if you’ve met Major Gunn, our Director of Security?’

  ‘I’d like an explanation from you, Crowe, as to what the hell you think you’re doing with your Maternox,’ her father said.

  ‘Well, we’d like an explanation from you, Dr Bannerman, as to what you’re doing with a Maternox formulaic template owned by the company.’

  Monty presumed this latter voice was Major Gunn’s and when she listened on, she heard her father’s response.

  ‘Would you prefer that explanation to take place in a court of law, or in front of the Committee for Safety of Medicines? Now, I’d like you to stop trespassing on my property and leave. If you feel the need to drop in for a chat with anyone else at one o’clock in the morning, I suggest you drop by your lawyers and start briefing them, because by God you’re going to need ’em.’

  Monty heard a loud clank after this; her father shouted something inaudible, followed by the sound of a scuffle and a muffled thud. Then came an eerie quiet in which she could make out footsteps and furniture being moved. Eventually calm tones that she recognized, but could not place, took over.

  ‘Right, just roll up his sleeve and I’ll get this into him. Won’t give us any more trouble; he’ll be docile as a lamb.’

  She listened in horror to a confusion of more footsteps, heavy breathing and shuffling, punctuated by a click that might have been the door, then silence. Just the hiss of static on the tape.

  Christ! she thought. Oh, Christ! She stopped the recorder, gutted with worry. That Crowe monster had abducted her father. She wandered blindly around the office, stopped, leaned on her desk and stared through the frosted glass window into the darkness. What now? Were they going to kill him the way they had killed everyone else?

  Her immediate instincts were to phone the police, but she thought about Levine; imagined suave, dry Levine taking charge and shuddered.

  Levine, a senior policeman in Crowe’s pocket? Or Bendix Schere’s? Within hours of seeing him and telling all, someone had blown up her car and Crowe had evidently found out that her father was doing tests on the Maternox. Coincidence? No way. Conor had said some days back that things had gone way beyond coincidence and he was right. How powerful was Levine within the police force? And was he the only cop Crowe had in his pocket, or did he have the whole force stitched up in there?

  She stared fearfully at the tape recorder. Evidence, vital evidence; someone might think of it and come looking. Need to get away from here, she thought. Yesterday.

  She jammed the recorder into her coat pocket and ran, leaving the lights on, setting the alarm to aggravate any return visit by Crowe.

  Oh Christ, Daddy, where are you?

  She locked herself in the Vauxhall and drove for several miles anxiously watching for any sign of a tail, only pulling up at a phone booth when she was satisfied she was clear.

  Firstly she called Hubert Wentworth’s home number, but it rang unanswered, ignoring her prayers. Letting it ring on, she fumbled in her handbag for her diary, searched for the page where she had written Conor’s Washington number; then disconnected from Wentworth, punched in her credit card code, followed by the dialling code for the United States.

  Remembering his instructions not to ask for him by name, she simply asked for Room 807. Moments later she almost wept with relief as she heard his voice.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m fine, I’m good. I –’

  ‘Conor, we’re i
n danger,’ she said, interrupting. ‘They’ve blown up my car.’ She was almost breathless. ‘They were trying to kill me and now they’ve taken Daddy and I can’t get any answer from Hubert Wentworth. God, I’ve been such a bloody fool. I went to the police, I didn’t listen to you.’ Her eyes scoured the landscape in all directions as she talked. ‘I went to that smoothie Levine and I think he’s in league with –’

  ‘Hey, whoa! Slow down. Calm down, Monty honey, tell me exactly what’s happened.’

  ‘… OK,’ he said finally, when he’d heard it all. ‘This Levine’s going to be out looking for you with a posse and it’s possible he’s got every cop in England alerted. Do you have your passport with you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, glad she’d had the presence of mind to pack her suitcase before fleeing from Conor’s apartment.

  ‘Right, you have to quit England. Just get the first flight to Washington that you can. If you can’t get a direct flight go via New York.’

  ‘I can’t just abandon my father like this, Conor.’

  ‘Monty, you can’t stay in England, you won’t make it through the next twenty-four hours.’ He sounded far firmer than he ever had before. ‘You’re not going to be any use to your father dead – and they still need him too much to harm him. But they don’t need you. OK?’

  The tone of his voice got through to her. ‘Conor, what about you? I’m sure you’re in danger, too.’

  ‘I can look after myself. I’m safe until I’ve finished my business here, I know that much – they badly want me to get this application through.’ He spoke more convincingly than he felt. ‘You have to come over; I can’t protect you otherwise.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You will. Now listen carefully. When you get to Dulles Airport go to the main bar in the departure lounge and I’ll meet you there – I have an appointment at the Patent Office which should be over by around one, so I’ll be there by two, half two at the latest. If you have any problems, leave a message here for me. OK?’

  ‘Please be careful,’ she said.

  ‘You’re going to do what I’ve said?’

  ‘Yes.’ Have to ring Anna and cancel the theatre tonight, she noted.

  ‘You’re not going to go chasing round the countryside trying any heroics?’

  ‘I’m beyond heroics, Conor. I’m just really frightened.’

  ‘It’s gonna be roses. Just do what I say and it’s gonna be roses. See you soon, right?’

  ‘Right,’ she said, hesitantly.

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  It was only Conor’s immense relief that she was unharmed that had stopped him from blasting Monty for her stupidity. This is one serious mess, he thought. As in definitely a worst-case scenario.

  Had he given Monty the right advice? Was there any other choice? They needed the protection of a fortress right now and the fortress was here. But somehow he had to get them both inside it and that was not going to be easy.

  He helped himself to another miniature of whisky from the mini bar, lit a cigarette, then plugged his modem into the phone socket and dialled into the Bendix Schere computer in London.

  On the prompt Enter user name he typed the user name of Cliff Norris, the systems manager, and then the password a1c/hem>ist, holding his breath to see if it would be accepted.

  On the screen appeared a list of options and commands. So far so good, he thought, he was into the system. Then he called up a search box, typed in the words Medici File and hit carriage return.

  On the screen appeared: Restricted access file. Enter password.

  Copying faithfully from the back of his diary, he typed: polyphe^mus. Then he hit the carriage return again. Almost instantly appeared the words:

  Invalid password. Access denied.

  He tried again, in case he had made a typing error, but the same words came back up. The password had been changed.

  Monty was right to be so concerned, he thought. The scumballs had not hung around. He glanced at his watch. It would be 5.25 a.m. in England. Monty had told him the bomb went off around a quarter to two, and that she met Levine beforehand at five in the afternoon.

  He did some mental calculations. At five p.m. he had already been on the aeroplane for four and a half hours with three and a half hours to go. From the speed at which it seemed they had acted, it might have been possible for Levine to have had him intercepted at Dulles Airport. But that would have needed some fast footwork this side of the Atlantic, too.

  He thought hard about Bendix Schere. They were ruthless, yes, but everything they did was driven by an utterly professional commercial logic. He was not indispensable; they could replace him in days, although they would not find it easy to get someone else prepared to be dishonest with the Patent Office. Provided he carried on his business over here seemingly normally, he had a feeling they would leave him alone, at least until after his meeting with Schwab tomorrow. And that was a meeting he very much wanted to have.

  Once the Patent Office had the full set of Psoriatak documents with the concealed prior art leaflet, he would have something else to hold against those bastards at Bendix. If push came to shove, it was going to give him one more powerful bargaining point with Crowe. Provided he could remain alive long enough to use it.

  At 9.30 in the morning his bags were packed and he was ready. Leaving everything in his room, he walked down the corridor and through the fire door into the emergency stairwell.

  He climbed up to the sixteenth floor, opened the door cautiously and looked up and down. Nothing, apart from a chambermaid’s trolley stacked with towels. He walked stealthily down towards Room 1609, and saw that the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign was still in place outside the door.

  He checked again that there was no one watching him, then crouched to inspect the hair he had glued between the bottom of the door and the jamb.

  It was broken.

  97

  Crowe sat behind his desk, thin lips even more vividly crimson than usual against the pallor of his face, his grey eyes staring straight down the ridge of his nose at Gunn. ‘Well?’

  Gunn gritted his jaws against a yawn; his body was leaden, his head ached like hell and he was so tired he was close to hallucinating. ‘We were very unlucky.’

  ‘Unlucky?’ Crowe’s voice was acidic.

  Gunn shrugged. ‘Million to one chance.’

  ‘Whatever possessed you to think of a car bomb? We’re doing all we possibly can to keep the lid on, and you initiate something that’s going to hit every newspaper headline in the country.’

  ‘I think this will change your mind, sir.’ Gunn was playing his trump card. He placed in front of the Chief Executive a copy of the midday edition of the Evening Standard. The front-page headline read: ANIMAL RIGHTS BOMBERS TARGET LONDON.

  Crowe’s eyes darted down the article. ‘How did you fix this?’

  ‘It fixed itself, sir. The Bannerman woman and her father have had a number of nasty attacks on their Berkshire premises in the past, as well as personal threats. Dr Bannerman once had the windows of his house broken and his tyres slashed. Animal Rights groups are back on the offensive now, targeting everything from farmers exporting live cattle to the pharmaceutical industry; some of them are pretty anarchic. One group has already claimed responsibility, and I’ll bet others will for the hell of it. I felt it was the perfect opportunity – Animal Rights Terrorists Kill Leading Geneticist’s Daughter.’

  ‘Except you killed two joyriders instead. And you can’t find the daughter.’

  ‘She doesn’t have too many places to go and we know them all.’ He gave Crowe a sly smile. ‘And we have means of finding her.’

  Crowe ignored the comment. ‘You think she went back to the lab last night?’

  ‘I went there at half four to tidy up and the alarm had been switched on.’

  ‘I suppose you set it off?’

  Gunn blushed. ‘That’s a very minor detail.’

  ‘Is it?’ Crowe pressed his fingertips together.
‘Presumably the police rang the keyholders, whom I imagine to be Dr and Miss Bannerman, and found them both absent.’ He looked questioningly at Gunn.

  ‘We don’t have any worries with the police.’

  ‘No? I think sometimes, Major Gunn, you and I draw our confidence from different wells. Yours appears to have an abundant supply of fresh water; mine is running dangerously dry.’

  Gunn said nothing.

  ‘Do you have any more surprises planned? Another pyrotechnic display?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Have you dispensed with the American yet?’

  ‘I’m waiting for confirmation.’

  ‘And how is the good doctor this morning?’

  ‘Pretty much how you’d expect. Not exactly singing our praises.’

  ‘I can do without the praises. But I want him to sing, very loud and very quickly.’ Crowe smiled at the Director of Security.

  ‘Oh yes, we can make him sing, sir.’ Gunn was relieved to see a thaw in his boss’s frostiness. ‘We can make him sing as loud as you like.’

  98

  Washington. Wednesday 7 December, 1994

  Crystal Plaza was a complex of ribbed concrete and glass high-rises from whose bland exteriors it was not immediately apparent where one building ended and the next began. The empire housed at number 2201 advertised its presence to the outside world only by modest-sized gold lettering: UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE: PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE.

  There was no alternative public route into the building and besides, Conor thought, the time and place of his appointment was already known to Bendix Schere, and he was pretty sure they would have the place staked out.

  As he lugged his heavy suitcase laden with documents towards the entrance, no one revealed themselves as an obvious tail. From the broken hair on his hotel room door, he was primed for trouble, but not here in this very public place; it would come later.

  The interior of the building was a labyrinth of pale green corridors housing offices, libraries and the acres of file stacks which contained copies of every patent that had ever been filed anywhere in the world. In the Hall of Fame, seven floors beneath Dave Schwab’s office, rows of copperplate portraits honoured those inventors whose ideas had stood the test of time, and sometimes changed the world. Sikorsky who pioneered the helicopter. Frank B. Colton who invented the oral contraceptive. Elisha G. Otis who invented the modern elevator.