Macmillan emerged looking pale. ‘Three more,’ he said, causing Steven and Jean to look at each other.
‘Three more cases of Marburg.’
‘Where?’ Steven asked, almost dreading the answer: he had been assuming that luck had been on their side when Tom Harland had shown no signs of infection before falling ill at work where he could be quickly isolated. Now, he feared he was about to be told that Chloe and the girls had fallen victim.
‘Porton,’ said Macmillan, ‘Three more people on the staff, one technician and two cleaners.’
Steven’s relief was quickly wiped out by the new worry. ‘Where are they?’
‘Royal Free Hospital.’
‘Dare I ask where they showed signs of being ill?’
Macmillan paused before saying, ‘At home, I’m afraid.’
‘Weren’t they vaccinated after Tom Harland fell ill?’
‘Apparently there aren’t any regular vaccines against Marburg, although there may be a secret one.’
‘A secret one,’ said Steven. ‘Have Porton any idea what happened?’
‘Not yet.’
Steven struggled to contain his frustration. He wanted to point out that Porton Down was full of first-rate microbiologists and ask, why in God’s name could they not find a source of infection that must be right under their noses, but he didn’t. There must be a reason and shouting the odds wasn’t going to help. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the wall behind Jean’s desk and concentrated on searching for useful facts in a messy situation.
‘There cannot be two separate sources of the virus lying around, that would be stretching coincidence too far.’
‘Agreed,’ said Macmillan.
‘That means these four people got it from the same source. We know that the three latest cases had no direct contact with Tom Harland, so they didn’t get it from him; they got it from the same source as him.’
‘Agreed.’
‘The only job Tom worked on at Porton since coming back from holiday was in the lab where Petrov’s flask was opened. For whatever reason, that lab has to be the number one suspect.’
‘Porton have ruled that out,’ said Jean. ‘No one has been working with Marburg in recent months and, certainly not in that lab. Even if they had, it would have been thoroughly decontaminated afterwards.’
‘And I think we can assume that no one does that better,’ said Macmillan.
‘Stay with me, hear me out,’ said Steven. ‘The latest three all seem to have fallen ill at the same time; that tells us they all came into contact with the source at approximately the same time. What we have to ask is, did they have any reason to be in that lab together in the days after Tom Harland fixed the intercom and what were they doing there?’
‘That’s certainly worth finding out,’ said Macmillan, ‘but we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that this really ceased to be our investigation the moment they found nothing but salt water in Petrov’s flask. Before you say anything, I’m not suggesting for a moment that we should ignore something as awful as an outbreak of Marburg, but I am saying that we mustn’t lose sight of our own investigation.’
‘I take your point,’ said Steven, ‘but until the source of the Marburg outbreak has been identified we won’t know for sure that it has nothing to do with our thing.’
Macmillan looked doubtful. ‘Really?’ he said.
Steven didn’t back down. ‘Yes, really, none of us think that Petrov was really sending a flask of salt water to Geneva, agreed?’
Jean and Macmillan nodded.
‘The intelligence services think the original flask was removed and substituted, which I agree seems the most likely explanation, but suppose the original flask leaked — perhaps during the theft — and contaminated the container before the flask of saline was substituted.’
‘The whole container would have been destroyed. That was the only safe thing to do.’
‘But we are talking about a thief here,’ countered Steven. ‘He or she had what they wanted: they didn’t care about contamination of the container; they would have been under a great deal of stress, doing things in a rush, or maybe even working in the dark.’
‘True,’ Macmillan conceded.
‘If that were the case, we now know the original flask contained Marburg,’ said Jean.
‘I’m sure the people at Porton would have tested the container for contamination,’ said Macmillan.
‘You’re almost certainly right,’ said Steven, ‘and I know I’m clutching at straws here, but I think I’d like to talk to the Israelis again.’
‘Intelligence?’ asked Macmillan.
‘No, the people at Beer Sheva University. They were under the impression that Petrov was working with highly dangerous viruses. That was illustrated by the precautions they took when entering Petrov’s lab after his death — done with full bio-safety ritual. They opened the container they found there — the one addressed to Lagarde in Geneva, and found the flask, but decided against opening it — again showing extreme caution. I suspect they may have shown the same caution beforehand with the container and packaging itself. They may well have examined everything for nasty surprises.’
‘That’s certainly worth checking out.’
Steven called Eli Zimmerman at Beer Sheva University and exchanged pleasantries.
‘How can I help this time,’ asked Zimmerman, ‘still worried about new drugs sweeping your streets?’
‘Not this time,’ said Steven. ‘I have a question about the opening of the container found in what was Petrov’s lab. At the time, you and your people had every reason to believe that Petrov had been working with dangerous viruses and because of this, you took every precaution.’
‘Of course.’
‘I know you decided not to open the flask, but did you test the container and packaging for contamination before you made that decision?’
‘I’ll say we did,’ Zimmerman replied.
Steven was surprised at Zimmerman’s strong reaction. He waited for him to say more.
‘One of my people noticed that the flask had a tiny chip out of the glass round the lip; there were no signs of leakage, but it was enough to ring alarm bells in a situation like that so we tested everything surrounding it: there were no viruses, no fancy drugs. I mentioned the defect to WHO when I called them to ask what they wanted us to do and they said not to worry.’
‘Good,’ said Steven, feeling as if he had just struck gold by mistake. ‘Did you mention the flaw to the Intelligence people when they took charge of the container?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Zimmerman after a moment’s thought. ‘We knew there had been no leakage and I was so fed up with the whole business I just wanted to see the back of the damned thing and put an end to the whole Petrov business.’
‘Understandable,’ said Steven, ‘thanks once again for your help.’
‘Do you know what was in the flask?’
‘Saline.’
Steven told Macmillan and Jean that the Israelis had tested the container and its packaging and found nothing, almost dismissing this information by adding what he’d been told about the slight flaw in the lip of the flask.
‘Does that help?’ asked Jean.
‘Yes, if the flask they have at Porton has the same flaw, it’s the same flask. Porton showed the contents of the flask to be harmless and the Israelis have told us the container and packaging surrounding the chipped flask was harmless. It means that there was no switch of flask, and secondly that neither the container nor the flask has anything to do with people going down with Marburg.’
‘A bit of a Pyrrhic victory,’ said Macmillan, ‘but well done anyway, closing off blind alleys is always better than going down them.’