Cold Steel (30 page)

41

6.51 pm

'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, thank you again for coming along.'

John Regan addressed the gathered media from a podium. The large hall in government buildings was full to overflowing and Regan glanced around, assessing the turnout. He was well satisfied. There were six TV crews including two major US networks. The national station, RTE, was carrying the press conference live. He knew they had already agreed deals for edited highlights with Sky, CNN, the BBC and a number of European networks. A TV crew from Boston had forced itself close to the podium and the cameramen were checking angles. Print and radio reporters lounged in various chairs near the rear. The front rows were filled with Mercy Hospital staff, mainly from the top-floor Heart Foundation. All were wearing their best suits and dresses for the occasion. The hospital administrator, a tall rake of a man with tight-curled grey hair, sat in an aisle seat at the middle of the front row. He had a satisfied smile on his face.

The government propaganda was back in place.
A New Government For A New People.
Images of John Regan shaking hands, looking concerned, head thrown back and laughing, wiping away tears, kicking a football. Strong, positive images. Behind Regan sat the Dream Team. Linda Speer was looking stunning in a linen trouser suit.
Stone Colman was in a simple navy jacket over grey corduroys. He wore an open-neck shirt. Dan Marks was in trousers and short-sleeved shirt, his jacket hanging behind his chair. Marks was chatting to Dr Hans Otto Mayer, the German minister responsible for distribution of EEC medical grants. Dr Mayer was a small, tubby man in an ill-fitting suit. His hair was thin and slicked across his head, he wore thick-rimmed glasses. He was smiling contentedly. Every now and then he reached inside his jacket pocket, fingering the EEC cheque for twenty million pounds.

For the previous half-hour he and the rest of the audience had been bored to distraction with bar charts, graphs and discussions on mortality rates from ischaemic heart disease. John Regan had blinded with a dazzling display of the first six months' results from the Mercy Hospital's Heart Foundation. Even to those remotely unconcerned with medicine, the findings were remarkable. Deaths from heart attacks had been halved, the number of early bypass operations more than doubled. The waiting time for heart operations in children under one year of age had been reduced from ten to two months. More astonishingly came the announcement of a new compound for use in heart disease.

'While I cannot say very much at this stage,' Regan teased, 'it is no exaggeration to state we are looking at a major pharmacological breakthrough.'

The audience had politely clapped, the first applause coming from Regan's PR advisor, Louis Flanagan. He had positioned himself in the middle of the auditorium, leaning against a wall, monitoring every response from the assembled media.

'I'd like now to introduce a very important guest,' Regan announced, 'who has something for us all to celebrate, I believe?' Regan turned to the German minister who beamed in response.

Flash lights lit up the room. Dr Mayer stood up. As he did the doors at the back of the hall opened noisily.

'Minister Regan,' began Mayer, 'may I first of all congratulate you on the wonderful first results from the Heart Foundation you fought so hard to establish.' Mayer's English was perfect, if a little clipped. 'Speaking as a doctor myself…'

Along the side aisles marched grim-faced uniformed policemen. They pushed past anyone in the way.

Mayer stopped. A look of consternation flickered crossed his face. Then he continued. '…I can confirm the data you presented so succinctly this evening…'

The policemen forced their way to the podium and stopped. John Regan looked down angrily, furiously waving at them to go away.

'…confirms the highest international medical standards…'

Along the central aisle marched Police Commissioner Donal Murphy. He was dressed in full uniform, his peaked cap pulled firmly down. Behind followed Tony Molloy. He had his personal revolver drawn. Taking up the rear was Frank Clancy. His head bobbed over the two in front, trying to catch a glimpse of those on the podium. He noticed the door at the side swinging. He jumped to see clearly. The chair Linda Speer had been sitting in was empty.

Dr Mayer watched as the policemen came right beneath where he stood. He looked nervously towards Regan and tugged the EEC cheque from his inside pocket. 'Well,' he said hesitantly, 'without further ado may I now present this…'

'Stop please.' Commissioner Murphy was on the podium squaring up to Regan. Four other officers stood behind Stone Colman and Dan Marks. The heart specialists looked around in astonishment, they struggled to stand but were forced back into their seats.

Donal Murphy grabbed Regan's left shoulder. The other man's face crumpled. 'John Regan,' Murphy announced loudly. The cameramen below fought to
capture the moment. 'I am arresting you on suspicion of involvement in the murder of Jennifer Marks on 11 May. I must inform you, you are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but anything you do say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.'

Behind Tony Molloy couldn't stop grinning. The hall erupted in chaos. Cameramen and reporters fought their way to the front, screaming at one another. Chairs were knocked over, bystanders pushed aside. Mobile phones were forced into action as journalists tried furiously to contact their editors.

The Mercy Hospital staff sat like stunned mullets, shocked and disbelieving. Only Frank Clancy kept his wits about him. He was still looking for Linda Speer. He scouted the building, inside and out. She had disappeared. Clancy ran from room to room, bursting open doors. He sprinted along the car parks, squinting into each vehicle. Nothing. Speer had slipped the net.

Clancy ran back into the auditorium. It was in uproar. John Regan was being lead shouting and red-faced down the central aisle. He was in handcuffs. Dan Marks and Stone Colman were being pushed along a side aisle, policemen ahead and behind. Dr Hans Otto Mayer still stood on the podium, the twenty-million-pound EEC cheque hanging in his hand. His mouth was open and closing but nothing was coming out.

Clancy spotted the hospital administrator. He was slumped in his seat, head in hands, rocking backwards and forwards as if in pain. Clancy grabbed him by the lapels. 'Where's the hospital database?' he shouted.

The administrator looked at him as if he had fallen from another planet. 'You're… you're… you're supposed to come to the boardro ...' The words were stammered and Clancy shook him violently.

'Where's the fucking hospital database?' he snarled. 'Do I have to rip your fucking tongue out at the roots?'

The administrator shook his head. He was terrified.
'N … n … n … no … no. It's in the annexe, beside the old records department.'

Clancy dropped him like a hot potato.

7.43 pm

The hospital back-up database was located in a large brick and perspex room adjacent to the records annexe at the back of the Mercy Hospital. It had its own entrance, steel slide doors opened only when a swipe card was inserted into a panel. The walls on each side of the doors were made of reinforced perspex so that anyone inside could be seen immediately. The room was lit twenty-four hours a day with seven halogen bulbs. The database stored computer information from all activities in the Mercy Hospital, clinical and non-clinical. If material was entered in any PC within the institution, on midnight of that working day the information was backed up separately in the database. In addition a separate disc was prepared automatically. In this way if someone altered the medical or laboratory records, there was still an original information storage facility. The discs were created daily by technology within the massive computer and stored in a separate sealed container. Each was date-stamped.

Linda Speer now was looking for the sealed container. She'd used a stolen swipe card, one she'd managed to sneak from administration months previously. She'd been planning this moment for some time but never had the right opportunity. The security presence had always been too heavy. Tonight with everyone at the press conference, it was light. She'd left just as Dr Hans Otto Mayer stood to deliver his congratulatory address. She hadn't seen the policemen enter the auditorium, hadn't seen John Regan and her Dream Team colleagues lead away. As usual she was pursuing her own agenda. She stood inside the room and looked around. The steel doors had glided shut behind
her. She quickly checked through the perspex windows. Nothing. No activity. Easy. Over in a few minutes, all evidence destroyed.

She walked around the huge machinery. It was floor to roof, outer doors red. There was colour coding: clinical, laboratory, administration, stores, et cetera. She opened the clinical doors. For a moment she couldn't believe her eyes. It was totally different to what she'd been used to in Boston. There the dials and switches had been simple, easy to become familiar with. Here there was nothing. Just plastic casing behind which whirring and buzzing could be heard. She stood back to think. How do I get at it?

7.52 pm

Frank Clancy had grabbed a police motorcyclist. 'Take me to the Mercy Hospital, as fast as you bloody well can.'

The officer had almost thrown him off there and then except Clancy had forced him to double-check with Tony Molloy. They then sped through Dublin's traffic, blue lights flashing, siren blaring. Clancy was still dressed in his sweat-soaked T-shirt, denims and trainers. He almost froze on the pillion seat. The motorcycle screeched to a halt outside the hospital front doors and Clancy leapt off. He stood for a moment to get his bearings.

The Mercy Hospital was a large complex, he didn't want to get lost going down some blind alley. Then he spotted the sign.
RECORDS ANNEXE
.
He ran towards it.

7.58 pm

Linda Speer had found how to log in. She'd discovered the sealed container with the back-up discs. Her swipe card had opened it. She was feverishly flicking through, trying to get the exact days she knew contained the damaging
information. Her fingers shook and she dropped disc after disc as she checked. She started to sweat.

Inside the room was becoming unbearably warm. The heat from the machinery, the closed, stifling atmosphere caught at her lungs and she coughed. At last she found them. The five discs with the dates she was most concerned about. Five discs that could prove everything. The five discs that would bring her down. She slipped them into her jacket pocket. Done it. Beat the system again. Fuck you, Frank Clancy.

She flicked open a packet of menthol tips, desperate for a cigarette. She looked around, checking she'd left no traces. She began wiping her fingerprints off all surfaces, then swiped the card. The steel doors glided open.

8.02 pm

Frank Clancy was pounding at the wrong door when the security guard rugby-tackled him from behind. Thinking the database was in the records annexe, Clancy had been crashing against the locked door, trying desperately to break down the hinges. He suddenly found himself forced to the ground, two strong arms wrapped tightly around his knees.

'Let go, let go,' he shouted desperately, 'This is an emergency.' The security guard twisted him onto his stomach and struggled to pin his arms. 'I'm a doctor, let me go.'

The guard only saw a stained T-shirt, denim-clad thug with hair sticking in all directions. 'And I'm the fuckin' man in the moon,' he snarled back. He reached for his walkie-talkie.

In that split second Clancy swung round with all his might and hit out with a closed fist. He connected with a nose and the guard swore. He loosened his grip momentarily, long enough to allow Clancy escape. He heard an alarm whistle blown as he rounded the corner to the database storage depot.

8.05 pm

The steel doors were open. The darkness beckoned. Linda Speer had all she needed. She planned to slip out the side exit from the hospital, grab a taxi and flee to the airport. Her false documents and suitcases were already in the left-luggage department there. She reckoned she'd be sipping champagne in first class within two hours. And a millionaire many times over soon.

She glanced around one last time and spotted a disc lying on the floor, one she'd dropped in her hurry. The menthol tip dangled from her lip. She lifted the disc and looked to see where she might hide it. She decided to take it as well rather than waste time opening the sealed container again. Without thinking she flicked her gold cigarette lighter on and puffed hungrily at the flame. Suddenly a red light above the steel doors flashed on and off, a klaxon sounded inside the room. Speer stood rock still. Then she dropped the disc and rushed towards the steel doors. As her hand touched the edge, they snapped shut. A hissing of gas filled the room. Speer pounded at the doors desperately. She felt an acrid taste in her mouth, her lungs stung and she coughed violently. She tried swiping the doors open but they wouldn't budge. She stumbled, the air in her lungs felt like fire.

She staggered to the perspex windows and looked out. She pounded at the glass. 'HELP! HELP!' The hissing of the gas filled her ears and she slid to her knees. Suddenly the glass was being pounded from the other side. She looked up to find Frank Clancy staring in at her. She felt the room darken, she coughed violently again. Her every strength was ebbing. Clancy was down on his knees outside, scratching desperately at the perspex. Speer crumpled onto the floor, her eyes still looking longingly at the darkness outside. The halogen lights inside the database seemed to slowly dim. She closed her eyes. The windows were pounded again. For the last time Linda Speer looked
up. For the last time she came face to face with Dr Frank Clancy. He was crying, great blobs of tears streaming down his face. Linda Speer reached a hand across and let it fall on the perspex. The room went completely black. The hand fell lifeless. Outside Frank Clancy crawled into a ball and wept. The waste of life. The terrible, terrible waste of life. And all for greed.