The Lazarus Strain (22 page)

‘I fear it would,’ agreed Lamont. ‘Frankly, we are of a mind to use the three strains currently recommended by WHO.’

‘And ignore the threat of an avian strain outbreak?’

‘We are a commercial organisation, Doctor. We are not in the business of taking risks we do not have to take, however laudable the cause. We lost a great deal of money last year through failing to meet inspection and regulation conditions set down by government bodies, we are not about to do the same thing again through failing to implement such standards ourselves.’

Ah, thought Steven, this is what it’s all about, money, and the company was clearly in the driving seat. ‘Frankly, I find that quite understandable,’ he said pleasantly. ‘You really can’t afford to compromise . . . But supposing government were to perceive the risk of an epidemic as being great enough for them to offer you certain assurances should you agree to the inclusion of the new seed strain . . .’

‘Then that might be a different matter,’ said Lamont.

‘We would of course, have to know exactly what these assurances were,’ added the woman who had been introduced earlier as Lilian Morrison, the company’s financial controller.

‘Of course,’ said Steven.

‘And I think that these assurances might well have to extend to . . . guarantees,’ added Lamont.

Well, here we are, thought Steven. That wasn’t too difficult. Auroragen wanted government to shoulder all responsibility for including an untested seed strain in their vaccine and to guarantee that they wouldn’t lose money over it. ‘And if you were to receive such assurances and guarantees . . .?’

‘We would be happy to comply with government wishes.’

‘Then I feel optimistic,’ said Steven.

The meeting broke up with Steven being asked if he would like to see round the production facilities, an invitation which he readily accepted. The man detailed to do the honours was one of those who had been at the meeting, David Nettles, head of quality control. They had coffee first in his office.

‘Last year must have been a bit of a nightmare for you,’ said Steven.

‘I’ll say,’ said Nettles.

‘What exactly happened?’

‘We’re still not sure to be honest. It seemed to start off as a simple case of bacterial contamination – which happens from time to time in all virus labs – and we responded accordingly and expected that to be an end to the matter and then it broke out again. We carried out a second massive clean-up operation, which we felt sure would see an end to the problem, although we didn’t manage to identify the source of the contamination and blow me, if it didn’t break out again. The regulations of course prevent us treating vaccine to get rid of any contaminating bacteria – even harmless ones - so our license was withdrawn and we had to destroy the lot. Forty-eight million doses down the tubes and no flu vaccine for half the USA.’

‘Did you ever identify the source of the contamination?’

Nettles shook his head.

‘Was it caused by the same organism throughout?’

‘It was. A harmless everyday strain of
Serratia,
which you find all over the place but which kept getting into our virus cultures whatever we did to stop it. It ended up costing us millions.’

‘Strange,’ said Steven. ‘No sign of it since?’

‘No, touch wood,’ replied Nettles. ‘We stripped out and refitted the entire culture suite. Everything that could be changed was changed - including the staff. We replaced all the lab equipment and implemented strict new aseptic measures whereby staff wear coverall suits and visors all the time - and there’s been no sign of a problem since.’

Steven was shown round the facilities and was greatly impressed by what he saw. He was left with no doubt in his mind that Auroragen was a thoroughly professional organisation being run by an excellent management team. He drove back to Norfolk and phoned in his report to Macmillan.

‘HMG won’t like this,’ said Macmillan, ‘but I don’t see that they have any option. They’ll just have to agree to the conditions.’

‘I don’t think they can expect the company to carry the risk,’ said Steven.

‘It was the bad publicity surrounding the Crick that started the FDA and MHPRA getting cold feet too,’ confided Macmillan. Nigel Lees tells me that government is going to have to give them some assurances too if they want them to continue playing ball. No one wants to carry the can.’

‘Everyone needs someone to blame,’ murmured Steven, thinking of falling rocks.

‘Be that as it may,’ said Macmillan, ‘I think you can tell Dr Martin - or is it, Leila? - that she will not be experiencing any more obstruction from either government or commercial sources.’

‘I’ll relay the message,’ said Steven, noting again that there wasn’t much that Macmillan missed.

‘Leila, it’s Steven. How are things?’

‘I’ve just seen the result of the latest titration. By my calculations we’re going to make the deadline with a day to spare.’

‘Great. Have you told the Department of Health?’

‘I spoke with Mr Lees this morning. He told me that he’s sorted out the problems with the regulatory bodies. He’s now going to make transport arrangements to move the virus from the institute to the companies for production. He’ll make sure they’re ready to receive it and get it growing up as quickly as possible. He wants them to have teams of technicians standing by to do the egg inoculations. Round the clock if necessary. Dubois in Paris have already been in touch to say they’re all ready to go but I haven’t heard anything from Auroragen.’

‘That problem has been resolved too,’ said Steven. ‘They’re going to drop the conditions you were worried about. There will be no more demands for tests and inspections and form filling. I spoke to them yesterday: the government will reach agreement with them today.’

‘Thank you so much, Steven, you’ve been such a help.’

‘Things are finally starting to look good.’

‘I am so looking forward to this being all over,’ sighed Leila. ‘I feel absolutely exhausted.’

‘You must be,’ sympathised Steven. ‘You’ve done so well.’

‘Have the police made any progress?’

‘They found the place the three men were using as a lab,’ said Steven. ‘It was an old mill house.’

‘So they were growing the virus?’ exclaimed Leila.

‘Yes, but the place had been cleared out by the time we got there.’

‘So it might still be too late for the vaccine to be of any use?’ said Leila, sounding alarmed.

‘Maybe not. It looked like a pretty small scale operation at the mill and presumably the three men dying must have set their plans back. I’m hoping it will take time for al-Qaeda to set up a new lab.’

‘Maybe they already had,’ said Leila.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘If it was only a small scale operation at the mill, they must have already been planning a bigger one somewhere else?’

Steven found that he couldn’t argue with Leila’s logic . . . but he seriously wished he could.

FIFTEEN

‘I thought we might have a beer?’ said Frank Giles when Steven picked up the phone. He had been going through his notes with a view to having to write up a full report on what had gone on at the Crick Institute and the events of the aftermath. ‘Anything that gets me out of doing this for a while,’ he replied, telling Giles what he was up to.

‘Paperwork,’ intoned Giles, ‘the scourge of our times and never to be done on a Saturday night. The Green Man in half an hour?’

Giles expanded on the theme when Steven met him and they sat down with their drinks. ‘You know what really gets me,’ he said. ‘Written reports of events rarely describe what actually happened. They list what should have happened if everything had followed a logical course.’

Steven smiled indulgently.

‘It’s true,’ Giles asserted, ‘There’s no place in a report written after the event for the role of instinct, intuition or even actions based on common sense – the things that really shape an investigation. You have to pretend. You have to alter things to make it appear as if you followed a logical series of actions, so what good is that, eh? What does anyone learn from that? What’s the point of it?’

‘I hope you’re not looking to me to defend the filling of forms,’ said Steven.

‘No, I just like having a rant from time to time - I like a good rant.’

‘So, how are things with Norfolk’s finest when they’re not ranting?’ asked Steven.

‘They’ve quietened down a lot,’ said Giles. ‘Finding Ali has been taken out of our hands by Her Majesty’s public schoolboys and what happened at the Crick is now yesterday’s news. The attention of the great British public has moved on: the Chief Super can sleep easy and I can get a night off. Dare I ask if the spooks have had any success?’

Steven shook his head.

‘So we’re still in trouble?’

‘Could be,’ agreed Steven. ‘But Dr Martin at the Crick has succeeded in coming up with a vaccine strain that should protect against Cambodia 5. Her strain is due to be delivered to the pharmaceutical company tomorrow. They’ll put it into production right away.’

‘What does that involve?’ asked Giles.

‘Full scale growth of the vaccine virus in fertile hens’ eggs in Auroragen’s virus culture suite.’

‘Sounds like what they were attempting at the mill house,’ said Giles.

‘It’s the same technique only they were growing up the Cambodia 5 virus itself to be used as a weapon and thankfully, on a much smaller scale. Auroragen will get through 100,000 eggs a day with production at full swing and produce something over a hundred million doses of vaccine.’

‘Mind you, the opposition have had a head start. They may have caught up a bit by now,’ said Giles.

‘And I thought you were going to cheer me up,’ said Steven.

‘Look on the bright side,’ said Giles. ‘It gives us both an excuse to get pissed.’

‘Same again?’ asked Steven.

‘So what happens once the vaccine has grown up in the eggs?’ asked Giles when Steven returned with two more beers.

‘They harvest the amniotic fluid from the eggs – that’s the stuff which contains the virus - and then it’s put into injection vials which will be used to vaccinate people in Europe and the USA.’

‘So you’re injecting people with one virus to protect them against another?’

‘That’s exactly it,’ said Steven. ‘The body will produce antibodies against the first virus – the harmless one – which will also work against the killer because they are so similar - one is an attenuated form of the other. It’s called live-virus vaccination. They use the same technique for smallpox. They inject a virus similar to smallpox called
Vaccinia
into you and it stimulates antibodies which work against smallpox itself.’

‘How do you know the flu one will work?’

‘In this case we don’t,’ said Steven. ‘Normally it would be tested on animals first but there hasn’t been time. We’ll just have to hope.’

‘And if the worst comes to the worst and it doesn’t work?’

‘The public will be defenceless against a Cambodia 5 attack. If the intelligence services don’t find Ali and his pals in time and destroy the virus stocks they’ve been growing up, they’ll spray it around city centres up and down the country and we’ll have a major epidemic on our hands and by the end of the first month, probably a pandemic across the globe.’

‘But surely there must be drugs they can use?’ said Giles.

Steven shook his head. ‘There’s a common misconception that you can use antibiotics to treat virus infections - but you can’t. Antibiotics work against bacteria not viruses.’

‘They’re all the same to me,’ said Giles.

‘The bugs know the difference,’ said Steven. ‘There are a few anti-viral drugs coming on to the market but they tend to be of limited use. Prevention is still better than a cure when it comes to virus infection.’

Acting on the spur of the moment, Steven drove up to Norfolk’s north coast next morning and went for a walk along the beach. He felt decidedly rough after the night before but the cool breeze coming in off the North Sea soon cleared his head and he took pleasure from being outdoors on a day when gulls were wheeling above the waves and the sun was sparkling on the water. He’d always liked beach walking, particularly on wide expanses of hard packed sand where the horizons seemed infinite and the sky fell into the ocean. Today was a special day: it was the day Leila’s vaccine strain would be handed over to the drug company. He glanced at his watch and saw that it would already be on its way – she had opted to travel up to Liverpool with it and supervise the handover personally. After that, she would get her life back – a life he very much hoped to be part of in the coming weeks. He would call her this evening when he got home.

It had been a long time since he had felt so interested in a woman and despite the fact that he knew so little about her, he had even started considering how Jenny might take to there being a new woman in his life and when might be the right time to tell her. Of course, this might be a two-way problem, he recognised. There had been times in the past when the revelation that he had a daughter had cooled a relationship. Many intelligent career women did not automatically warm to the prospect of playing mother to a ready-made family. He picked up a pebble and threw it out into the sea, berating himself for even thinking about such things when he hardly even knew Leila Martin.

Normally he would have sought out a pub to have lunch after such a walk but the excesses of the previous night steered him instead to a harbour-side coffee shop where he ordered scrambled eggs on toast and a mug of black coffee. He examined water colours of local scenes, painted by local artists while he waited but he’d never been a big fan of water colour; he found it too insipid for landscapes or seascapes. He ate his meal and had a second mug of coffee before heading back to his hotel to continue what he had been about to start last night. Once the report was done he reckoned he might be able to take some time off. With a bit of luck Leila might even be persuaded to do the same.

‘You smell of fresh air,’ said the receptionist at the hotel when he asked for his key.