Whiteout (21 page)

IN the barn, Sophie had produced a bottle of vodka.

Craig's mother had ordered lights out at midnight, but she had not come back to check, so the youngsters were sitting in front of the television set, watching an old horror movie. Craig's dopey sister, Caroline, stroked a white rat and pretended she thought the film was silly. His little cousin Tom was pigging out on chocolates and trying to stay awake. Sexy Sophie smoked cigarettes and said nothing. Craig was alternately worrying about the dented Ferrari and watching for a chance to kiss Sophie. Somehow the setting was not romantic enough. But would it get any better?

The vodka surprised him. He had thought her talk of cocktails was just showing off. But she went up the ladder to the hayloft bedroom, where her bag was, and came back down with a half bottle of Smirnoff in her hand. “Who wants some?” she said.

They all did.

The only glasses they had were plastic tumblers decorated with pictures of Pooh and Tigger and Eeyore. There was a fridge with soft drinks and ice. Tom and Caroline mixed their vodka with Coca-Cola. Craig, not sure what to do, copied Sophie and drank it straight with ice. The taste was bitter, but he liked the warm glow as it went down his throat.

The movie was going through a dull patch. Craig said to Sophie, “Do you know what you're getting for Christmas?”

“Two decks and a mixer, so I can deejay. You?”

“Snowboarding holiday. Some guys I know are going to Val d'Isère at
Easter, but it's expensive. I've asked for the money. So you want to be a deejay?”

“I think I'd be good at it.”

“Is that, like, your career plan?”

“Dunno.” Sophie looked scornful. “What's your ‘career plan'?”

“Can't make up my mind. I'd love to play football professionally. But then you're finished before you're forty. And anyway, I might not be good enough. I'd really like to be a scientist like Grandpa.”

“A bit boring.”

“No! He discovers fantastic new drugs, he's his own boss, he makes piles of money, and he drives a Ferrari F50—what's boring?”

She shrugged. “I wouldn't mind the car.” She giggled. “Except for the dent.”

The thought of the damage he had done to his grandfather's car no longer depressed Craig. He was feeling pleasantly relaxed and carefree. He toyed with the idea of kissing Sophie right now, ignoring the others. What held him back was the thought that she might reject him in front of his sister, which would be humiliating.

He wished he understood girls. No one ever told you anything. His father probably knew all there was to know. Women seemed to take to Hugo instantly, but Craig could not figure out why, and when he asked, his father just laughed. In a rare moment of intimacy with his mother, he had asked her what attracted girls to a man. “Kindness,” she had said. That was obviously rubbish. When waitresses and shop assistants responded to his father, grinning at him, blushing, walking away with a distinct wiggle, it was not because they thought he would be kind to them, for God's sake. But what was it? All Craig's friends had surefire theories about sex appeal, and they were all different. One believed that girls liked a guy to be masterful and tell them what to do; another said that if you ignored them they would flock around you; others claimed girls were interested only in an athletic physique, or good looks, or money. Craig was sure they were all wrong, but he had no hypothesis of his own.

Sophie drained her glass. “Another?”

They all had another.

Craig began to realize that the movie was, in fact, hilarious. “That castle is so obviously made of plywood,” he said with a chuckle.

Sophie said, “And they all have sixties eye makeup and hairstyles, even though it's set in the Middle Ages.”

Caroline suddenly said, “Oh, God, I'm so sleepy.” She got to her feet, climbed the ladder with some difficulty, and disappeared.

Craig thought, One down, one to go. Maybe the scene could turn romantic after all.

The old witch in the story had to bathe in the blood of a virgin to make herself young again. The bathtub scene was a hilarious combination of titillation and gross-out, and both Craig and Sophie giggled helplessly.

“I'm going to be sick,” said Tom.

“Oh, no!” Craig sprang to his feet. He felt dizzy for a second, then recovered. “Bathroom, quick,” he said. He took Tom's arm and led him there.

Tom started to throw up a fatal second before he reached the toilet.

Craig ignored the mess on the floor and guided him to the bowl. Tom puked some more. Craig held the boy's shoulders and tried not to breathe. There goes the romantic atmosphere, he thought.

Sophie came to the door. “Is he all right?”

“Yeah.” Craig put on the air of a snooty schoolteacher. “An injudicious combination of chocolates, vodka, and virgin's blood.”

Sophie laughed. Then, to Craig's surprise, she grabbed a length of toilet roll, got down on her knees, and began to clean the tiled floor.

Tom straightened up.

“All done?” Craig asked him.

Tom nodded.

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

Craig flushed the toilet. “Now clean your teeth.”

“Why?”

“So you won't smell so bad.”

Tom brushed his teeth.

Sophie threw a wad of paper into the toilet and took some more.

Craig led Tom out of the bathroom to his camp bed on the floor. “Get undressed,” he said. He opened Tom's small suitcase and found a pair of Spider-Man pajamas. Tom put them on and climbed into bed. Craig folded his clothes.

“I'm sorry I heaved,” Tom said.

“It happens to the best of us,” Craig said. “Forget it.” He pulled the blanket up to Tom's chin. “Sweet dreams.”

He returned to the bathroom. Sophie had cleaned up with surprising efficiency, and she was pouring disinfectant into the bowl. Craig washed his hands, and she stood beside him at the sink and did the same. It felt comradely.

In a low, amused voice, Sophie said, “When you told him to brush his teeth, he asked why.”

Craig grinned at her in the mirror. “Like, he wasn't planning to kiss anyone tonight, so why bother?”

“Right.”

She looked the most beautiful she had all day, Craig thought as she smiled at him in the mirror, her dark eyes sparkling with amusement. He took a towel and handed her one end. They both dried their hands. Craig pulled the towel, drawing her to him, and kissed her lips.

She kissed him back. He parted his lips a little, and let her feel the tip of his tongue. She seemed tentative, unsure how to respond. Could it be that, for all her talk, she had not done much kissing?

He murmured, “Shall we go back to the couch? I never like snogging in the bog.”

She giggled and led the way out.

Craig thought, I'm not this witty when I'm sober.

He sat close to Sophie on the couch and put his arm around her. They watched the film for a minute, then he kissed her again.

AN airtight submarine door led from the changing room into the biohazard zone. Kit turned the four-spoked wheel and opened the door. He had been inside the laboratory before it was commissioned, when there were no dangerous viruses present, but he had never entered a live BSL4 facility—he was not trained. Feeling that he was taking his life in his hands, he stepped through the doorway into the shower room. Nigel followed him, carrying Elton's burgundy briefcase. Elton and Daisy were waiting outside in the van.

Kit closed the door behind them. The doors were electronically linked so that the next would not open until the last was shut. His ears popped. Air pressure was reduced in stages as you entered BSL4, so that any air leaks were inward, preventing the escape of dangerous agents.

They passed through another doorway, into a room where blue plastic space suits hung from hooks. Kit took off his shoes. “Find one your size and get into it,” he said to Nigel. “We've got to shortcut the safety precautions.”

“I don't like the sound of that.”

Kit did not either, but they had no choice. “The normal procedure is too long,” he said. “You have to take off all your clothes, including underwear, even your jewelry, then put on surgical scrubs, before you suit up.” He took a suit off a hook and began to climb into it. “Coming out takes even longer. You have to shower in your suit, first with a
decontamination solution, then with water, on a predetermined cycle that takes five minutes. Then you take off the suit and your scrubs and shower naked for five minutes. You clean your nails, blow your nose, clear your throat and spit. Then you get dressed. If we do all that, half the Inverburn police could be here by the time we get out. We'll skip the showers, take off our suits, and run.”

Nigel was appalled. “How dangerous is it?”

“Like driving your car at a hundred and thirty miles an hour—it might kill you, but it probably won't, so long as you don't make a habit of it. Hurry up, get a damn suit on.” Kit closed his helmet. The plastic faceplate gave slightly distorted vision. He closed the diagonal zip across the front of the suit, then helped Nigel.

He decided they could do without the usual surgical gloves. He used a roll of duct tape to attach the suit gauntlets to the rigid circular wrists of Nigel's suit, then got Nigel to do the same for him.

From the suit room they stepped into the decontamination shower, a cubicle with spray faucets on all sides as well as above. They felt a further drop in air pressure—twenty-five or fifty pascals from one room to the next, Kit recalled. From the shower they entered the lab proper.

Kit suffered a moment of pure fear. There was something in the air here that could kill him. All his glib talk about shortcutting safety precautions and driving at a hundred and thirty now seemed foolhardy. I could die, he thought. I could catch a disease and suffer a hemorrhage so bad the blood would come out of my ears and eyes and my penis. What am I doing here? How could I be so stupid?

He breathed slowly and made himself calm. You're not exposed to the atmosphere here in the lab; you'll be breathing pure air from outside, he told himself. No virus can penetrate this suit. You're a lot safer from infection than you would be in economy class on a packed 747 to Orlando. Get a grip.

Curly yellow air hoses dangled from the ceiling. Kit grabbed one and connected it to the inlet on Nigel's belt and saw Nigel's suit begin to inflate. He did the same for himself and heard the inward rush of air. His terror abated.

A row of rubber boots stood by the door, but Kit ignored them. Their main purpose was to protect the feet of the suits and prevent them wearing out.

He surveyed the lab, getting his bearings, trying to forget the danger and concentrate on what he had to do. The place had a shiny look due to the epoxy paint used to make the walls airtight. Microscopes and computer workstations stood on stainless-steel benches. There was a fax machine for sending your notes out—paper could not be taken into the showers or passed through the autoclaves. Kit noted fridges for storing samples, biosafety cabinets for handling hazardous materials, and a rack of rabbit cages under a clear plastic cover. The red light over the door would flash when the phone rang, as it was difficult to hear inside the suits. The blue light would warn of an emergency. Closed-circuit television cameras covered every corner of the room.

Kit pointed to a door. “I think the vault is through there.” He crossed the room, his air hose extending as he moved. He opened the door on a room no bigger than a closet, containing an upright refrigerator with a keypad combination lock. The LED keys were scrambled, so that the order of numbers in the squares was different every time. This made it impossible to figure out the code by watching someone's fingers. But Kit had installed the lock, so he knew the combination—unless it had been changed.

He keyed the numbers and pulled the handle.

The door opened.

Nigel looked over his shoulder.

Measured doses of the precious antiviral drug were kept in disposable syringes, ready for use. The syringes were packaged in small cardboard boxes. Kit pointed to the shelf. He raised his voice so that Nigel could hear him through the suit. “This is the drug.”

Nigel said, “I don't want the drug.”

Kit wondered if he had misheard. “What?” he shouted.

“I don't want the drug.”

Kit was astounded. “What are you talking about? Why are we here?”

Nigel did not respond.

On the second shelf were samples of various viruses ready to be used to infect laboratory animals. Nigel looked carefully at the labels, then selected a sample of Madoba-2.

Kit said, “What the hell do you want that for?”

Without answering, Nigel took all the remaining samples of the same virus from the shelf, twelve boxes altogether.

One was enough to kill someone. Twelve could start an epidemic. Kit would have been reluctant to touch the boxes, even wearing a biohazard suit. But what was Nigel up to?

Kit said, “I thought you were working for one of the pharmaceutical giants.”

“I know.”

Nigel could afford to pay Kit three hundred thousand pounds for tonight's work. Kit did not know what Elton and Daisy were getting but, even if it were a smaller fee, Nigel had to be spending something like half a million. To make that worth his while, he must be getting a million from the customer, maybe two. The drug was worth that, easily. But who would pay a million pounds for a sample of a deadly virus?

As soon as Kit asked himself the question, he knew the answer.

Nigel carried the sample boxes across the laboratory and placed them in a biosafety cabinet.

A biosafety cabinet was a glass case with a slot at the front through which the scientist could put his arms in order to perform experiments. A pump ensured that the flow of air ran from outside the cabinet to inside. A perfect seal was not considered necessary when the scientist was wearing a suit.

Next, Nigel opened the burgundy leather briefcase. The top was lined with blue plastic cooler packs. Virus samples needed to be kept at low temperatures, Kit knew. The bottom half of the briefcase was filled with white polystyrene chips of the kind used to package delicate objects. Lying on the chips, like a precious jewel, was an ordinary perfume spray bottle, empty. Kit recognized the bottle. It was a brand called Diablerie. His sister Olga used it.

Nigel put the bottle in the cabinet. It misted over with condensation.
“They told me to turn on the air extractor,” he said. “Where's the switch?”

“Wait!” Kit said. “What are you doing? You have to tell me!”

Nigel found the switch and turned it on. “The customer wants the product in deliverable form,” he said with an air of indulgent patience. “I'm transferring the samples to the bottle here, in the cabinet, because it's dangerous to do it anywhere else.” He took the top off the perfume bottle, then opened a sample box. Inside was a clear Pyrex vial with graduation marks printed in white on its side. Working awkwardly with his gauntleted hands, Nigel unscrewed the cap of the vial and poured the liquid into the Diablerie bottle. He recapped the vial and picked up another one.

Kit said, “The people you're selling this to—do you know what they want it for?”

“I can guess.”

“It will kill people—hundreds, maybe thousands!”

“I know.”

The perfume spray was the perfect delivery mechanism. It was a simple means of creating an aerosol. Filled with the colorless liquid that contained the virus, it looked completely innocent, and would pass unnoticed through all security checks. A woman could take it out of her handbag in any public place and look quite innocent as she filled the air with the vapor that would be fatal to everyone who inhaled it. She would kill herself, too—as terrorists often did. She would slaughter more people than any suicide bomber. Horrified, Kit said, “You're talking about mass murder!”

“Yes.” Nigel turned to look at Kit. His blue eyes were intimidating even through two faceplates. “And you're in it, now, and as guilty as anyone, so shut your mouth and let me concentrate.”

Kit groaned. Nigel was right. Kit had never thought to be involved in anything more than theft. He had been horrified when Daisy blackjacked Susan. This was a thousand times worse—and there was nothing Kit could do. If he tried to stop the heist now, Nigel would probably kill him—and if things went wrong, and the virus was not delivered to the customer, Harry McGarry would have him killed for not paying his debt.
He had to follow it through to the end and pick up his payment. Otherwise he was dead.

He also had to make sure Nigel handled the virus properly; otherwise he was dead anyway.

With his arms inside the biosafety cabinet, Nigel emptied the contents of all the sample vials into the perfume bottle, then replaced the spray top. Kit knew that the outside of the bottle was now undoubtedly contaminated—but someone seemed to have told Nigel this, for he put the bottle into the pass-out tank, which was full of decontamination fluid, and removed it from the other side. He wiped the bottle dry then took two Ziploc food bags from the briefcase. He put the perfume bottle into one, sealed the bag, then put the bagged bottle into the second. Finally he put the double-bagged bottle back into the briefcase and closed the lid.

“We're done,” he said.

They left the lab, Nigel carrying the briefcase. They passed through the decontamination shower without using it—there was no time. In the suit room they climbed out of the cumbersome plastic space suits and put their shoes back on. Kit kept well away from Nigel's suit—the gloves were sure to be contaminated with minute traces of the virus.

They moved through the normal shower, again without using it, through the changing room, and into the lobby. The four security guards were tied up and propped against the wall.

Kit checked his watch. It was thirty minutes since he had eavesdropped on Toni Gallo's conversation with Steve. “I hope Toni isn't here.”

“If she is, we'll neutralize her.”

“She's an ex-cop—she won't be as easy to deal with as these guards. And she might recognize me, even in this disguise.”

He pressed the green button that opened the door. He and Nigel ran down the corridor and into the Great Hall. To Kit's monumental relief, it was empty: Toni Gallo had not yet arrived. We made it, he thought. But she could get here at any second.

The van was outside the main door, its engine running. Elton was at
the wheel, Daisy in the back. Nigel jumped in, and Kit followed him, shouting: “Go! Go! Go!”

Elton roared off before Kit got the door shut.

The snow lay thick on the ground. The van immediately skidded and slewed sideways, but Elton got it back under control. They stopped at the gate.

Willie Crawford leaned out. “All fixed?” he said.

Elton wound down the window. “Not quite,” he said. “We need some parts. We'll be back.”

“It's going to take you a while, in this weather,” the guard said conversationally.

Kit muffled a grunt of impatience. From the back, Daisy said in a low voice, “Shall I shoot the bastard?”

Elton said calmly, “We'll be as quick as we can.” Then he closed the window.

After a moment the barrier lifted, and they pulled out.

As they did so, headlights flashed. A car was approaching from the south. Kit made it out to be a light-colored Jaguar sedan.

Elton turned north and roared away from the Kremlin.

Kit looked in the mirror and watched the headlights of the car. It turned into the gates of the Kremlin.

Toni Gallo, Kit thought. A minute too late.