Next morning, Steven decided that he wanted to know every single thing that had happened when the four Marburg victims had been present in the lab in question. If CCTV had been on in that lab at any or all times, he wanted to see it, if any kind of written report had been made by any of the four, he wanted to see it — as well as any written instructions given to them about the jobs they were sent to do.
‘No more pussy-footing around,’ he told Jean. ‘The Prime Minister told me personally I would have her full support. Time for her to walk the walk.’
‘How many Weetabix did you have this morning?’ Jean responded.
‘We’re missing something, Jean,’ Steven said. ‘I know the people at Porton are bright and they have had access to all this from the outset and they must have examined everything in minute detail, but a fresh look won’t do any harm.’
A female intelligence officer from MI6 called Steven around noon. ‘I understand from Jane Sherman that you wanted to know if the flask sent to Porton from Israel had a slight flaw in the lip?’
‘That’s right,’ said Steven, not expecting anyone other than Jane to call him about this. ‘Is Jane okay?’ he asked.
‘She’s a bit under the weather this morning, I’m afraid,’ came the muted reply. ‘There’s some talk of post-surgical infection.’
‘God, I hope not...’
‘Anyway, the answer to your question is yes, the flask has the flaw you asked about.’
‘Thank you,’ said Steven quietly, now preoccupied with thoughts of Jane Sherman.
‘Bad news?’ Jean asked.
‘Good and bad, the flask at Porton has the same flaw so that puts an end to the switch theory. The bad news is that Jane Sherman is now fighting a post-op infection.’
‘Poor woman,’ said Jean, ‘I’m afraid my news is no better, the Royal Free reports that one of the two cleaners who contracted Marburg disease died during the night.’
Steven made a face and shook his head before asking, ‘Did we get any indication of the mortality of Marburg?’
‘Around ninety percent.’
‘My God, any sign of the families falling ill?’
‘Not yet.’
Just after four in the afternoon, Steven’s request to the Prime Minister’s office bore fruit and a car arrived from Porton Down with the material he’d asked for. There had been no CCTV footage of the electrician, Tom Harland, carrying out repairs in the lab, nor of the technician and cleaners working in the lab although the opening of Petrov’s flask had been recorded in full. An envelope containing paperwork accompanied the CCTV recording.
John Macmillan suggested they begin “at the very beginning” and watch the recording together. They looked on in silence as the container was carefully opened and one of the three ghostly figures in safety gear reached in to check the flask was free to move before removing a handful of packing material and putting it to one side while he slowly lifted the flask clear.
‘The container itself has been opened before,’ said Jean, noting that no seals had had to be broken on the lid.
‘Twice,’ said Steven, ‘once by the Israelis and again by Porton people checking the container and packing for any dangers.’
Steven, who was in control of the playback, stopped it momentarily to point something out, ‘You can actually see the flaw on the lip there,’ — he zoomed in for a clear view before letting it run on to the removal of the seal on the flask itself. Knowing that what they were watching was the very careful handling of a small flask of salt water tended to remove suspense from proceedings but Steven, if not the other two, steeled himself to watch every move unflinchingly.
‘See anything?’ asked Macmillan when it was over.
‘No,’ Steven admitted, telling the others he was going off to look through the paperwork, but pausing to arm himself with coffee from the machine in the corner.
Steven began with Tom Harland’s work sheet requesting a repair be made to the intercom system in the high security lab before moving on to the report submitted by him when the job was finished. He had found a “drift in frequency” to be the cause of the problem and had made the necessary adjustments before testing that all was well and signing off the job.
Steven found a third document with Tom Harland’s name on it. It was a minor-accident report as required by all employees to make, however small the incident. The electrician had cut the palm of his left hand when his screwdriver had slipped. It was ‘a nuisance’ but not bad enough to require medical attention; he had stemmed the bleeding and applied a small dressing later when he left the lab.
On the day following Tom Harland’s repair, Steven found a request submitted to cleaners to deal with any mess caused by his hand bleed in the lab. A note was appended stating that a technician should accompany them to ensure that all affected surfaces were clinically clean before signing off the job.
Steven had to remind himself that these perfectly innocuous things were the last things these four people did at Porton before contracting Marburg. Despite the fact that there was nothing remotely scary about any of them, an icicle was climbing up his spine. He found himself thinking of an occasion long ago in the mountains of Scotland. He had been hill-walking with a friend in wet, misty weather when, up on the tops, they had come to a narrow ridge connecting two peaks. He had found himself hesitant, knowing that there must be a degree of danger involved but one he couldn’t see because of the heavy mist. Half way across, the mist cleared and he could see a drop of a thousand metres on either side of him, causing apprehension to become full-blown fear.
At the moment, and without fully knowing why, he was feeling apprehensive... waiting for the mist to clear.
‘Find anything?’ Macmillan asked.
‘Not really, Steven replied on auto-pilot, ‘Tom Harland cut his hand while working in the lab, nothing serious. The cleaners and the technician were detailed to make sure everything was cleaned up.’
‘Not much to go on there.’
‘No,’ Steven agreed, but a hollow had appeared in his stomach. He just didn’t want to talk about it. He took the CCTV recording of the flask opening and went off to view it again on his own, something he did three more times, thinking he might be “looking at the tarpaulin” too much. Everyone’s concentration had been on the slow emergence of the flask from the container, he now took on board that the scientist doing this had removed a handful of the packing material before placing it in a dish on the bench beside him.
Steven fast-forwarded to the end of the piece to see the flask put back in its container and the lid replaced before it was removed from the lab. The packing material in the dish was left where it was. He rewound and replayed the scene, this time looking for anything resembling paper towels or tissues anywhere in the lab, but without success. His conclusion was that Tom Harland might have used the packing material left in the dish to stem the blood flow from the cut in his hand. Steven’s breathing pattern changed to short shallow breaths before he saw a big “but” coming up. The packing material was harmless, both the lab in Beer Sheva and the people at Porton had tested it... He could not let go. It was time to possibly make an absolute fool of himself.
‘John, I need you to get the PM to sanction a request,’ said Steven. ‘I need Porton to put Petrov’s flask, its container and all the packing material in a sealed container to be kept in biological isolation under the highest possible security.’
Macmillan looked at Steven as if he might be in need of an obvious kindly reminder. ‘But Steven, it’s harmless, you know it is.’