Payback (11 page)

‘
I really am, in fact, in a hurry. This executive-search front does keep me pretty busy. Let’s perch here. All I need to know is the latest on the botulinum toxin.’

‘
Well, our lab people studied fluids from all the bodies we had dug up. They confirm the presence of varying amounts of the stuff in each. And it matches up with that found in the African suicide from the bridge. All died from paralysis of the respiratory muscles. Some quicker than others. It looks as though they’ve been trying different dosages, to test the most efficient way to kill with it. These were human experiments, of a kind not seen since the War.’ Gaylord’s mouth turned down in distaste.

That
’s all
you
know, laddie, Mitchell thought, but did not say. The bodies to which he referred had been found near the one discovered by young Ferez, in the foundation trenches alongside Barton’s labs near Lisbon. Once again he had got an EU grant for the labs and even the building development, but that had only been one of his reasons for choosing Portugal’s capital. The city was also Europe’s capital for false EU passports, sold for big money to illegal immigrants. Initially they came mainly from Portugal’s old African colonies, like Angola. But now the Justiciaro area had become a worldwide magnet for and a ready supply of nameless illegals, whose disappearance would never be noticed or reported. ‘How many were in the pit?’

‘
Nine. All there for less than a couple of months. Apparently Barton owns the land, and work is expected to start soon building some industrial unit. He obviously expected to bury them any day now under the foundations.’

‘
And his contacts with possible customers for the stuff—any more to report?’ That Barton would sell and do anything for serious money they now had little doubt. Who the key customer was remained a mystery. That was why they needed someone on the inside, close to him.

‘
As you know, we have our agent embedded, working as a lab assistant. She’s agreed to hang on in there. But there’s nothing new from her on this point. And you? Have you found us anyone on the inside with Barton we can brief?’

Mitchell
got up to go. ‘You have to see me out, don’t forget. They made me hand over my swipe card when I “retired”.’

‘
I’ll come down with you. But have you found anyone yet? It’s getting urgent. We think he’ll be ready to ship the stuff within two to three weeks. We’ve got the SBS working on an incursion for when—if—we brief the Portuguese government. And if we have to resort to that kind of raid, then the trail to whoever he intends supplying will vaporise right along with his plant. Leaving whoever it was free to source something just as deadly from someplace else.’

‘
I’ve got someone nibbling at the bait. I should be able to reel him in over the next couple of days.’ They walked around the atrium and paused to look briefly at the breaking news on the TV screen by the elevators.

‘
What’s he like? Excited about playing spies?’

‘
Not this one. Too much sense. But I’ll get him.’

‘
I don’t doubt that, sir.’

Mitchell
did not remark on the ‘sir’, taking it as it was intended—a sign of the respect in which he, as one of the best of the old guard, was universally regarded. Eccentric, stuck in his ways—but formidable, and with more experience of the field than most of the new management hierarchy put together. And Gaylord knew that Mitchell saying he would reel in his target was enough for him to put the Lisbon Station on stand-by. It was their best hope yet to stop some cataclysmic terrorist or criminal disaster. For the first time on this odd case, he felt optimistic. Whatever it was, the thing would start to impact very soon, and the Service simply had to take the initiative, rather than react to events. This was absolutely vital, particularly with the main target a high-profile British national. And especially with a new, cost-cutting Foreign Secretary to impress. At the very least, they needed something to look good in the Red Book.

*

Banto sat extremely still, even when locked up alone, like a small jungle animal trying to avoid attracting predators. The windowless room in which they kept him at the lab was some three metres square, with a low ceiling. Off it was an open, broom-cupboard-sized toilet and shower tray. There was a bed and stool, which completed the jail cell quarters.

His
arm ached from the daily drawing of his blood, and his head hurt as it never had before. For an athletic, physical man, the lack of exercise was debilitating. He needed to run as others needed to drink and sleep. His world had turned into a nightmare, but his survival instincts were helping him find ways, somehow, to compensate. There were no reference points any more. No rhythm. He understood nothing of what was happening to him, and everyone with whom he came into contact was brutal and frightening. Especially Bolitho, the chief warrior from the tribe who had captured him. As for the blood they kept taking, he reasoned that they were drinking it to show him he was defeated, like his own tribe when they beheaded and ate captured enemies. It was now his turn to find himself defeated, and he believed that any day now they would take enough of his blood to kill him, before devouring his flesh.

Death,
even the prospect of a terrible death like this, held no fear for Banto. Barton had been right when he had said to Lydia that a tribesman’s life mostly comprised hunting and killing and being hunted and killed. The death of mothers, brothers and sisters in childbirth was commonplace, and as a young warrior-hunter, his entire focus had been on death and survival. The slaughter of virtually his entire family in the raid had not hurt him emotionally, at least not in any way a Westerner could understand. The code of the tribe, and that of any warrior, decreed a short period of highly ritualised communion with the spirit world—through ceremonial dance, body decoration, a head-dress made from bird-of-paradise plumes, and the slaughter of pigs. But there were two overriding emotions which kept Banto focused and looking for some way out. The first was his solemn promise to his village chief, the
kepala
, to return with warnings and information to help his people prepare for all the changes they soon had to face. The second was—Payback. He had been wronged. And without question, they would have to pay him back. On his terms.

Anger
swept over him, and he now stood and started pacing the length of the cell, moaning the two-note chant, over and over again. The hypnotic mantra soon consumed him, putting him back in touch with the rhythm he needed to survive, and he began to feel invincible, a spirit army of ancestral tribal warriors at his side ...

Suddenly
the door flew open and Bolitho came in followed by the two strong Caribs they used to hold him down. ‘Stop that noise! It drives me crazy!’ Bolitho barked, stooping, his face inches from Banto’s. It was true. Banto had droned the chant for great lengths of their long journey together, and it had seriously got under his skin.

‘
No more take! No more!’ Banto screamed, making to hit him. The Caribs quickly grabbed his arms, and Bolitho buried a vicious punch into his stomach. Banto folded, fighting for breath on the floor.

‘
Bring him!’ Bolitho barked, and led the way.

Barton
was waiting in the lab with Penny. A purple light created an eerie atmosphere in the small operating theatre. Banto had been strapped on to a hospital trolley by the Caribs, and was now being wheeled in. All eyes turned to Barton for some signal that they should continue. Banto noticed this. This man was obviously their big
kepala
. For a few seconds, the terrified eyes of the native met with Barton and locked on him. Barton looked away first, disconcerted by the experience. Then Banto tried to free himself, for a small man putting up a terrific fight, despite being well secured. Forcing him still again, Penny roughly shoved a needle in his arm.

‘
Does he always fight it?’ Barton asked, worried about Banto damaging himself.

‘
No. He’s normally passive—physically, that is. Mentally, though, he’s fighting us every step of the way,’ Penny replied. ‘Tonight’s the first time he’s resisted like this. He seemed spooked by you for some reason. Look at him. Still staring at you. I don’t like to sedate him, if we can avoid it. That way we get to keep as much twenty first-century junk out of his system as we possibly can.’

Barton
watched impassively as they began drawing off the day’s supply. ‘How long can we go on doing this to him?’

‘
If we can get him to eat better, we can do it indefinitely. The body quickly makes up half a pint of fluid. That’s no problem. It’s the cells that take longer. But progress is fine. So long as we don’t push it and get greedy.’ Penny drew Barton over to one side. ‘But you
know
what I think of all this. It stinks. A lousy, phoney stock market scam. It’s no more than a Jenner!’

‘
A what?’ Barton did not like being patronised with other people’s shorthand and jargon.

‘
Edward Jenner. The first man to use a vaccine. At the end of the eighteenth century,’ Penny replied, sheepishly now, realising he had gone too far. ‘He noticed that milkmaids who’d had cowpox rarely got the smallpox, figuring they’d developed some kind of immunity. So he made up a crude cocktail of bodily fluids containing the cowpox virus, and used a thorn to inoculate a boy. Weeks later he repeated the procedure, this time injecting him with smallpox. Jenner’s experiment worked. The antibodies from the cowpox virus successfully attacked the smallpox. The boy was fine.’

‘
And...?’ Barton snapped. ‘What’s your point?’

‘
Goddamnn it... you’ve got me copying exactly what Jenner did two hundred years ago. Using the native’s bodily fluids as a fake vaccine, to
fake
the clinical trials.’

Barton
looked sharply at him. ‘And what’s your problem with that? We’ve been over it a dozen times. Keep milking him. Farm enough of his natural antibodies for our so-called “vaccines”. Enough to impress in Phase One clinical trials. The world will believe that, miraculously, we’ve cracked the genetic code. And that what we’ve been testing is a lab-produced copy of the antigens of disease-immune native cell lines. A miracle cure.

‘
So, yes, you’re right. It
is
just a Jenner. But on even rumours of the trials going well, the markets will go crazy for the stock. And I’ll be able to capitalise some of my holding to fund my other work, in Portugal. And for research funds to bankroll all the real clinical work
you
really want to do right here.’

‘I guess ...’

‘In fact,’ Barton continued, ‘I’m having a key stock broker analyst flown out over the next few days. We’ve got to impress him. I need a strong “buy” recommendation from him—on the back of what he must see as our huge future earnings potential.’

Barton
was right. Penny had already bought into the scam months earlier, in return for big funding for his own legitimate work on antigens. But he was someone who needed constant reassurance. ‘I know, I know. But just so long as that money does come back here...Give me that, and OK, sure...I’ll have them hailing you as the next Alexander Fleming.’

‘
I hope so,’ Barton said with his shark’s smile, and turned to leave the timid scientist to his worries.

Later,
back at his vast ranch just outside San Ignacio, Barton took a long soak in his bath. Afterwards, having pulled on a cool silk dressing gown, he poured a large cognac and lit a cigar. Glancing at his watch, he called Tom Bates at the WMC offices.

‘
I’m in Belize and need you out here,’ he said to Tom, as though the row between them had never occurred. This was typical of Barton. He exploded ferociously, wounding and bullying indiscriminately one minute, and carried on the next as if nothing had happened.

Tom
tried to empty his own mind of the bad blood between them, and to act for now with cool, detached professionalism. For once this did not come easily. He had been badly shaken by Mitchell’s devastating accusations, and his own snowballing doubts about Barton. But tactics before temper, he counselled himself. ‘What do you want?’

‘
Bring out the top biotech analyst. Someone the rest will follow. Bring Elkins. I want him here, to see for himself what we’re doing. And to meet Penny.’

‘
Why? What’s the objective?’

‘
I need to get the share price jacked up again. To place some shares while we’re out of the financial closed season.’

‘
How much are you trying to raise?’

‘
Not a lot. Just fifteen million or so’

And
this from a man who was bankrupt less than two years earlier.

‘
What do we need it for?’ Tom asked, testing him.

‘
Things,’ Barton replied tartly, obviously wanting to close the subject.

Mitchell
’s accusations rang true yet again. ‘It’d have to be something pretty important to get someone like Elkins all the way down there. At such short notice.’