Steven looked at him quizzically.
‘Nice people don’t make it to the top,’ said Maclean. ‘Niceness gets in the way. Assholes make it to the top. They trample over everyone in sight and then, when they’ve made it, they pretend they’re nice people.’
‘I’d call that cynicism if I didn’t know it was true,’ said Steven. He got up to go. ‘Thanks for your help.’
‘Fancy a pint?’ said Maclean.
‘Are you serious?’ said Steven. It was the last thing he expected to hear from a man who appeared so ill.
‘Sure I am. I don’t believe in letting this thing get me down. If you can just hang on till I get some clothes on, we’ll be off. The pub’s just on the corner.’
‘If you’re sure,’ said Steven.
Maclean reappeared wearing a white t-shirt and black Levi jeans, a black leather jacket and tan loafers. He still looked like death but managed to affect a smile at the way Steven was looking at him. ‘You’re buying,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
There were about a dozen people in The Rifleman and Maclean appeared to know all of them. Steven assigned them mentally into two classes, the retired and the unemployed. Several of the older men inquired after Maclean’s health, including the barman who anticipated what he would be drinking and started filling a glass. ‘Same for me,’ said Steven.
They took their drinks to a small table equidistant between a dartboard and a pool table although neither was in use. Steven noted that the pool table had a rip in its green baize.
‘So what makes you think you’ll have any more success with D’Arcy than I did?’ asked Maclean, starting to search in his jacket pockets. Steven thought for one incredible moment that he might be about to bring out cigarettes but instead he brought out an inhaler, tilted his head back and squirted it twice into his mouth.
‘I don’t think that at all,’ said Steven. ‘But I can’t think of anything else to do right now. I’ve managed to establish a connection between the team that Sebring worked for and the vaccines the troops were given but now I’m dependent on one of that team talking, particularly about anything that went wrong.’
‘What sort of connection?’ asked Maclean.
‘Crowe’s team was officially working on a vaccine against AIDS. At some point they were asked to supply something called gene envelopes from the HIV virus to help out with the troop vaccine programme.’
‘What the hell for?’ rasped Maclean.’
‘Apparently the vaccine makers had been using cytokines to elicit an improved immune response in the troops — cutting edge stuff at the time — but they’d run low on supplies. The brains reckoned that HIV gene envelopes would have much the same effect.’
Gus Maclean looked thoughtfully at his beer for a long time. ‘You know,’ he said. ‘There was a time when I thought the bastards had actually used the HIV virus against us.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘The sheer range of illnesses and symptoms affecting the guys,’ said Maclean. ‘Although the government seized on that very fact to scotch any idea of a Gulf War Syndrome and Fatty Soames used it to suggest we were all a bunch of sickly wankers on the make, it seemed to me as if our immune system had been buggered.’
‘Something that would make you highly susceptible to infection.’
‘You got it,’ said Maclean. ‘Once the immune system goes you’re a theme park for the entire microbial world.’
‘Did you ever float that idea in public?’ asked Steven.
‘A couple of times,’ said Maclean with a wry smile. ‘A lot of the guys thought I was going too far. Apart from that they didn’t take too kindly to the suggestion they might have AIDS. Let’s say, no one was exactly comfortable with the idea, and it’s only fair to say that any HIV tests that were done were negative.’
‘I wanted to have the vaccines that Crowe’s team contributed to analysed by an independent lab,’ said Steven. ‘But it turns out they were all destroyed after the stink you guys created over plans to use them again,’ said Steven.
‘It was a funny business,’ said Maclean. ‘We got an anonymous tip-off that they were planning to use up the old stuff on the boys getting ready for the Gulf at the moment and no one denied it at the MOD when we asked — most unlike them. They usually deny that Tuesday follows Monday until the evidence becomes overwhelming. Then, when we got in touch with the papers about it, we found that they’d had the tip-off too. It was almost as if someone in government wanted the story to get out and wanted there to be a backlash. I remember feeling at the time that they were using us like lab rats to do some kind of a job for them.’
‘Like giving them an excuse to destroy the old stocks,’ said Steven, thinking out loud.
‘Because they had something to hide?’ said Maclean. ‘Devious bastards.’
‘Well, it looks like they got away with it,’ said Steven.
‘They always fucking do,’ said Maclean with feeling.
‘Unless…’ said Steven, as an idea came to him.
Maclean looked at him expectantly.
‘You told me you had carried out microbiological tests on yourself. What exactly did you do?’
‘I carried out every standard test any hospital lab would do to determine cause of illness,’ said Maclean. ‘I took swabs and samples from everywhere. No orifice was left unprobed, you might say.’
‘And you drew a blank?’
‘No pathogens,’ said Maclean.
‘What about non-pathogens?’
‘Well, of course,’ replied Maclean. ‘I found all the usual harmless bugs you find in the human body. I identified each and every one, sub-cultured them, cross-referenced them and stored them, cos that’s the kind of sad bugger I am.’
Steven smiled but he had just heard what he wanted to hear. He leant across the table and said, ‘Correct me if I’m wrong but you have just told me that you have sub-cultures of all the bugs you isolated from yourself over the course of your illness?’
‘That’s right,’ replied Maclean, looking puzzled. ‘But in the end it was just an academic exercise; they’re everyday, harmless beasties that we all carry inside us. I didn’t find any problem bugs.’
‘When judged by any standard microbiological or serological tests,’ said Steven.
Maclean looked at him questioningly. ‘I don’t understand. What are you getting at?’ he asked.
‘I suppose I’m suggesting that all may not be as it seems,’ said Steven. ‘One of the lambs could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.’
‘Jesus, you’re talking about genetic engineering, aren’t you,’ said Maclean. ‘The introduction of foreign genes.’
‘It’s an idea,’ said Steven. ‘It’s well known that the Russians altered smallpox genetically to make it even more virulent so it’s a fair bet that they weren’t the only kids playing with matches over the past few years.’
‘But you are talking about something more than souping up a bug that’s already a pathogen,’ said Maclean.
‘I am,’ agreed Steven. ‘We’d have to be looking at an everyday sort of bug that had been given new properties. A new personality, you might say.’
‘A pathogen that looked harmless and wouldn’t actually be spotted as a CB weapon? How very British,’ said Maclean sourly. ‘It has that wee trademark touch of hypocrisy the world has come to know and love so well. Well, you’re right about one thing: routine hospital lab tests wouldn’t pick up on anything like that. So, what do you suggest?’
‘I suppose it would have to be DNA testing,’ said Steven.
‘I’m no expert but I do know we’re talking molecular biology here and sequencing the entire genome of a single bug can take years,’ said Maclean. ‘And I’ve got a collection of around three dozen cultures.’