Catch Your Death (34 page)

She wanted to lie down on the bunk, to sleep and wake to find it was all a nightmare. But at the same time she was abuzz with energy – she banged on the door with the flats of her hands and cried out. Her voice echoed around the tiny room.

There were still so many questions that she didn’t know the answers to. Why was Gaunt doing this? What did he hope to gain from unleashing a fatal virus? He didn’t seem to be doing it for political or ideological reasons – he didn’t come across as a religious fanatic. Was he doing it for money, and if so, how did he plan to cash in? Did he have some grudge against the world, nursed since he was a child? Or was he merely mad? Could it really be that simple?

Other questions swirled: Why had Sampson brought her and Paul here rather than kill them in the car park? And she still didn’t know what had happened sixteen years before at the CRU. What exactly had she discovered before they wiped her memory, and how was it connected to the deaths of Stephen and Sarah? What had Stephen been trying to say in that letter?

So many questions - but she would gladly go without answering any of them if she could save Jack.

That was the only thing that mattered now. She would do anything.

Before she had a chance to contemplate what ‘anything’ might be, the door opened and Gaunt came into the room, followed closely by Sampson.

She stood up, but Gaunt gestured for her to sit back down on the bunk and, hesitantly, she acquiesced. He sat down beside her, just a few inches separating them, his proximity making her itch.

‘
So,’ he said. ‘Are you ready to apologise?’

She couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You want me to say I’m sorry? You’re…’

‘
What? Are you going to accuse me of being mad again?’ His voice was soft, like a comforting doctor by the bedside of a cancer patient. ‘I’m sane, Kate. I’m a rational man. Like you, my life has been dedicated to science, to the pursuit of truth.’

‘
You’re nothing like me. Nothing at all. You want to kill people; I want to save them.’

She nodded towards Sampson, lurking by the door, staring at her with his blank eyes. ‘You don’t just want to kill people – you send this robot out to do it. I watched him kill Leonard Bainbridge’s wife. Your former colleague’s widow! How can you condone that?’

‘
That was unfortunate. She got in the way.’

She leant forward, even though he repelled her. ‘Please, I’m begging you. Don’t let my son, my Jack, die. You could save him, show mercy. Surely that would be the rational thing to do.’

He raised a thin eyebrow, scratched it, and contemplated what she had said. ‘Mercy, rational? Hmm, do you really think so? Surely mercy is an emotional action, far removed from rationality.’

Sensing that he might waste more precious moments pondering this question, Kate repeated, ‘Just save him. Please. wid

Gaunt looked up at Sampson. ‘She’s begging, Sampson. So unoriginal. I’m beginning to lose my respect.’ He turned back to Kate. ‘Things could have been different. We could have worked together. Me, you…’ He smiled to himself before continuing.

‘
I’ve watched you over the years Kate – seen the papers you’ve published and spoken to old friends and contacts at Harvard. I’ve been highly impressed. You understand viruses, you know how they work, how they think. Yes, yes, I know viruses don’t actually think, but you know how they operate. You respect them, don’t you?’

He was right. She nodded. But she wanted him to hurry. Time had accelerated, like one of those speeded-up films in which flowers bloom and clouds race across the sky.

‘
You remind me of Leonard in many ways. A great scientist, but limited in ambition. Held back by morality; irrationality; emotion. You remind me of your father, too.’

‘
You knew my dad?’ As soon as she’d said it, she wished she hadn’t spoken. It was just more time, wasted. This was like a nightmare version of not being able to get someone off the phone, when you were in the middle of something else. But about a million times worse. Jack! she screamed inside her head, barely listening to Gaunt’s response.

‘
Briefly, in the seventies. Leonard introduced us. We had a very interesting chat about ethics and science. He felt that science should never be divorced from morality, that scientists have a duty to think about what’s right in everything they do. We had a big argument about nuclear arms. Were the scientists who first discovered how to harness the power of nuclear fission wrong to take their discoveries further? He thought so. I argued he was being ridiculous.’

In the corner, Sampson stood impassively, though Kate sensed tension beneath his rock-like blankness.

‘
My argument is that scientists have a duty to follow their discoveries wherever they can. The pursuit of knowledge, of discovering something new, that’s the key. So you get all these fools bleating on about stem cell research and genetics and fertility treatment, artificial intelligence, cloning and so on. Should these things be banned? Are they morally wrong? Where is science leading us? Yawn yawn. I say, if humans can do it, they should. It’s what we’re for. To shape the world as we can.’

Kate listened, still willing him to get to the point but not daring to interrupt. Shut up, shut up, shut up, she chanted silently.

Gaunt went on: ‘Which leads us to my research. When the Cold Research Unit was set up, they had one aim: to find a cure for the common cold. If they’d ever succeeded, it would have upset a lot of people – think of the companies who make billions peddling cold remedies. But when I went to work there, twenty five years ago, nearly thirty years after they’d started, they were still no closer to finding the answer. I quickly became frustrated. The cold is such a dull disease. Clever but dull. It seemed obvious to me that we were never going to get anywhere. It was such a cosy place, though, with its government funding and volunteers. The scientists who worked there acted like they had colds themselves, half the time; bunged up, stuffy people.’

He licked his lips. ‘But it was the perfect place to work on what I was really interested in. After the Soviet and Western governments signed a convention in 1972, all research into biological weapons was banned. And, astonishingly, the American and British governments actually kept to the agreement. It was so frustrating. There were so many exciting diseases out there that we could be working with and developing. Smallpox, anthrax, bubonic plague, Asian flu, Marburg. We knew the Soviets were still doing it, breaking the convention, so it was intensely irritating.’

Gaunt paused, as if Kate had asked a question, and then continued as though answering. ‘We knew. During the Second World War, the Nazis and the Japanese did a great deal of exciting work with viruses and bacteria. The Americans did a few deals after the war to get their hands on this knowledge. A number of eminent Nazi and Japanese scientists bought their freedom, and lives, by working with the Americans. The British government too. I should explain that in the fifties I worked for the MoD. I spent time in Germany, Russia, China. I met these great scientists. I documented their findings. And I met a lot of people who thought like me: who appreciated the beauty of a great disease, of fine research that discovered how these viruses and bacteria could be harnessed and used to…’

‘
Kill people.’

‘
Not just that. But yes, warfare was part of it. A lot of it, though, was the intellectual challenge of it. When a new strain of flu appears, it’s exciting. Working out exactly what the effects of these viruses are and how they work – well, I don’t have to tell you how thrilling it is. I became part of a network of men around the world whose passion was viruses. Some men collect butterflies, others study the stars. We loved viruses.

‘
We would meet, or write to one another, discussing our work. I had a more hands-on, laboratory role by then. Suddenly, though, because of the Treaty, it became impossible to work with the most interesting viruses. It was immensely frustrating, to be constrained by this ridiculous convention.’

He raised his head. The look in his eyes chilled her. If the eyes were the windows onto the soul, then she was looking at a place in which the warm emotions had died: kindness, compassion, empathy, replaced by cold logic and cruelty. He was worse than Sampson. Gaunt was like a virus himself – doing what he did because he could; infecting others; destroying without thought or pause. Being this close to him made her feel physically sick.

‘
So I decided to carry on. The CRU provided the perfect environment. The perfect cover, if you like. While Leonard ran the administrative side,’ he spat out the words with distaste, ‘I ran the labs. I recruited like-minded people: young men who were tired of the restraints put on them by ethics, rules and regulations. In my lab, the world was their oyster. We wanted to be the best in the world.’

‘
You talk about science like it’s a competition,’ Kate said.

‘
And you think it isn’t? How disingenuous of you. Of course, it’s a competition. A delicious intellectual game. There were people like us around the world, little cells of scientists taking part in a secret competition to create the best viruses and diseases. We had access to the findings of all those wartime scientists, those brilliant men who could do whatever they wanted. All those prisoners to experiment on without anyone to stop them. Beautiful. We worked in government-funded labs, under the noses of the authorities. In America, South Africa, China and Japan. Russia and West Germany. Some of the world’s most impressive viruses were created in these labs. HIV in Africa. We were enormously jealous of that one. Oh, and then there was the Watoto Virus.’

Kate reeled. The disease that had killed her parents.

Gaunt went on, oblivious to her horror. ‘Then the CRU was…shut down, and we moved here. Since then, a number of amazing viruses have come from our rivals in Asia. SARS for example.’ He sighed. ‘For a long time, our cell, the British cell, has been seen by the others as a very poor show. A sickly cousin. We haven’t done anything to impress them for years. They think we’ve been lagging behind, and I suspect they think it all fell apart when we left the CRU. In fact, it’s actually been better since we got out of the CRU – we should have done it years before we did. Less need to sneak around. Less chance of being caught by volunteers snooping.’

He looked at Kate when he said this. ‘Plus we have one or two geniuses working for us here, and the advances in technology over the last decade have made things immeasurably easier. And now our masterpiece is ready – the one that will blow AIDS and SARS and all those others out of the water. We won’t be the sickly British cousins any more. We will have won. We have created the most awe-inspiring virus the world has ever seen, and scientists around the globe will bow down before us. Before me. I’ll be a hero.’

Kate gawped at him, his words sinking through her fog of terror about Jack’s plight. ‘So is that what all this is about? Winning some competition? You’re prepared to kill millions of people to make yourself look good in the eyes of your equally-warped peers? I don’t believe it.’

Gaunt shook his head as if what she had said made him very sad. ‘Oh Kate, I thought you would understand. You’re a scientist. You know how thrilling it is to have your words published, to be known and respected by those you look up to. Don’t try to tell me you don’t.’

‘
But science should be used for good. This is just insane.’

‘
Oh, we’re going round in circles now. I’m bored. I used to fantasise that perhaps you could have worked well here. I had plans to bring you here, but Leonard insisted on sending you to America where you’d be safe. There was little I could do. He didn’t even know this place existed; it was all too complicated so I let you go. We didn’t need you in the end.’

A vision of Jack’s sweet face filled her head. Where would he and Vernon be now? She wanted Gaunt to shut up, to tell her why he had brought her here, but he kept going.

‘
You nearly uncovered us, you know, back at the CRU. I had always told Leonard that I didn’t want scientists or science students coming to the centre but then he stupidly let you come.’

‘
Did Leonard know everything that was happening at the centre?’

‘
Most of it. Of course. He was as bored by the research in the common cold as I was. And he appreciated the extra funding that I brought in through the back door from rich virus collectors and governments in countries that would now be described as being part of some Axis of Evil. Leonard turned a blind eye to much of what was happening, but he certainly liked the gifts and cash that helped keep him in the lifestyle he enjoyed. And once he’d accepted these things, he was in too deep to get out. I expect you’re shocked – but everyone has their price, Kate. It’s a cliché, but it’s true.’

‘
I don’t.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, yes. Anyway, as I was saying, you almost discovered what was going on. Stephen, who wasn’t one of my hires, I hasten to add – he was brought in by Leonard just to look after the volunteers and do the menial common cold testing work, even though his abilities were far beyond that – gave you a tour of the lab. This was after you had overhead me and a visiting German colleague talking in the woods. We found out about that when you were in hospital and we got everything out of you. You were curious, you had suspicions that something was “not quite right”. When you looked around the lab you found papers that described a virus we were working on at the time. You tried to persuade Stephen that something wasn’t right, but he refused to believe you. He loved the CRU. He trusted Leonard and he couldn’t entertain any notion that things were… corrupt.’