The Lucifer Network (49 page)

‘Amen to that.'

Vienna

08.30 hrs

Igor Chursin stared out of the window of the hotel. It was in a mixed residential and business area close to one of the main railway stations in Vienna, a city he'd been to only once before. On the street below, the day's activities had begun. A van was delivering confectionery to a corner shop. An elderly man was exercising a small dog which yapped at a postman. He relished the intricacy of the scene after twelve months of isolation on Palagra.

Chursin had breakfasted in his room. He was a jowly man of forty-five, who'd had a tendency to put on weight before his appetite was blunted by the diet served up by the Croatian they'd hired to cook and housekeep for the past twelve months. His fair hair, once straggly, had been cropped short by the same, multi-skilled young man.

The flight from Split had delivered him to the Austrian capital the previous evening but he'd not yet had his
instructions from ‘Peter'. Last night, after a short tram ride from his hotel, he'd found an Internet café that stayed open late and had sent him an e-mail to break the news about the enforced closure of the laboratory in the Adriatic. He'd remained on-line for an hour, hoping for instructions on where to deliver the vials of lethal serum that he'd brought to Vienna, but the café had closed before an answer came. The bottles which he'd transported so perilously in his hand luggage had spent the night in the refrigerator in his hotel room, but if they weren't used or chilled properly within a few days, the virus was going to die.

To some extent, that was what he wished to happen. A year ago when he'd accepted the invitation to work for a handsome salary instead of a poverty-line wage which was seldom paid, he'd turned a blind eye to the motives of his new employers. Since then, he'd stifled his conscience and partaken in acts of unimaginable inhumanity in the interests of attaining the new life he dreamed of. But now that he was delivering the products of his labours, he was experiencing a guilt he was finding hard to suppress.

It was the development of the vaccine that had taken them so much time. Without it, the administration of the modified smallpox virus would be potentially lethal to anyone bent on using it. Although the project had been prematurely terminated, Chursin was convinced he had a triumph on his hands. The youth who'd been injected with the vaccine had been infected fourteen days before he absconded. Normally by that time the fevers and pains would have developed, but the youth had been clear. All Chursin lacked was proof.

He looked at his watch. The Internet café would open again in fifteen minutes. He took the plastic bucket from on top of the fridge and filled it with ice from the machine at the end of the corridor, then dumped it
into the insulated coolbag he'd used for transporting the vials from Split. Finally, he extricated the bottles from amongst the whisky miniatures in the minibar and put them in the bag. The last thing he wanted was for the maid to discover them while he was out.

A tram came after a five-minute wait at the stop. He arrived at the café just as the doors were being unlocked. He logged on, but to his dismay found no response to his e-mail to Peter. He ordered another coffee and sat down to wait. There was nothing else he could do.

The Adriatic Sea

09.15 hrs Zulu

First to be winched into the Sea King was Arthur Harris, strapped to a stretcher. He'd regained consciousness and been able to make enough sense to ask for morphine.

Two hours earlier the submarine had put up a mast to burst-transmit Lieutenant Phipps's written report to London and for Sam to be patched through to his controller. Waddell had spent the night at Vauxhall Cross, waiting for news.

In the interests of speed Sam had trimmed the detail of what had happened on Palagra.

‘The bottom line is that we have a clear link to Harry Jackman and to Vienna,' he'd concluded. ‘The circle's been closed, Duncan. It
has
to be Schenk.'

‘You'd have thought so. Unfortunately the Austrians are having no luck in making anything stick. Schenk agreed to be interviewed by the security police last night, but he changed his story. Claims never to have
met Harry Jackman. Says he made up what he said to Julie, to hurt her.'

‘He's lying.'

‘We've no proof of that. And finding a Vienna flight timetable on Chursin's computer doesn't provide us with any.'

‘What about Schenk's Croatian wife?' Sam had asked, exasperated at the failure to nail the doctor. ‘Any connection between her family and the island of Palagra?'

‘Nothing recorded. We're hamstrung here. Can't make too many obvious enquiries without attracting suspicion that we had something do with the bloodbath on Palagra. So we're having to rely on the Austrian security police for now. There are several key links still missing, Sam. We need something with Schenk's name on it. We also need something that links Palagra to the rabies variant used against the EU officials.'

‘I'm still hoping to find that on the computer,' Sam had told him. ‘Where's Schenk now?'

‘Back in Vienna.'

‘Under surveillance?'

‘The Austrians are tapping his phone and Collins has somebody watching him. Of course, after what you've come up with, we'll urge the Austrians to interview him again. By the way, the Met's caught the London bomber.'

‘Brilliant! And?'

‘A loner, by the look of it. Being run through e-mail by some racist mastermind calling himself Peter. And before you ask, there's nothing we've uncovered that suggests that Peter is Schenk.'

‘Damn. Any new racist attacks?'

‘Yes. A firebomb in Stockholm last night. A Turkish family burned to death. An eyewitness saw one man throwing petrol into a takeaway. The family lived above it.'

‘God, what a bunch of bastards. So what've we got?'

‘Looks like an international network of lone wolves, being directed by a central puppetmaster. If we can take him out, then the whole structure'll probably collapse. And for my money, the place for you to be is still Vienna, even if the evidence is circumstantial. The RAF are helicoptering you and the marines to Gioia del Colle – that's the Italian air base the RAF use for Bosnia operations. There's an HS125 waiting. It can drop you off in Austria before taking the rest of the party back to Lyneham.'

‘Excellent.'

Sam was last to be winched up to the Sea King. As he was dragged backwards over the sill, he looked down and saw Commander Talbot wave briefly from the top of the fin. Sam gave a thumbs up. His old service had done them proud.

The helicopter banked away. As he looked back, fine jets of spray erupted from the bow and stern. The submarine was losing no time in returning to the invisibility that was her natural element.

London

The morning call from the Computer Crime Unit came at a quarter to ten, shortly after Steph had arrived in the Special Branch offices on the sixteenth floor at the Yard. She'd heard about the Stockholm bomb on the radio at 7 a.m.

‘Your friend Peter's gone verbal again.' The voice belonged to the analyst who'd been working on the hard
disk the previous evening. Didn't computer nerds need sleep, Stephanie wondered.

‘I'll be right over.'

She took the lift and was there in three minutes.

‘What's he saying?' she asked, dropping into a chair. She saw a camp bed in the corner of the room and understood how the technician had survived the night.

‘For a fascist he sounds eerily kind and thoughtful,' the computer specialist commented. ‘Full of concern about our friend's personal problems. Look.' He pointed at the screen. ‘Read for yourself.'

Stephanie wheeled the chair in closer.

Stephanie blinked. The last sentence contained the first full error in what had been almost flawless grammar. A simple typo? Or a clue to the man's nationality? She tried to hear a voice in the words. An accent. Trying to find a match with the Austrian doctor Sam suspected.

‘No way of knowing where this man lives?' she checked.

‘It could be anywhere on the planet. The mailbox is registered under the name of Vino Blanco, with a fictitious address in Liechtenstein.'

Stephanie looked at the screen again. There was one more paragraph.

‘Blimey,' Stephanie exclaimed, reading the last line again. ‘Is he offering to kill her for him, or what?'

‘Like I said,' the technician smiled. ‘He's thoughtful. And the sign-off's a gem.'

Stephanie gaped at it.

‘That's almost Woosterish,' she mouthed.

‘Eh?'

‘Never mind.' The lad was too young to understand. ‘Print it for me, would you? I'm going to think of a reply. Something to entice Peter into the open. That's if I can persuade Southall crime squad to keep mum about Petrie's arrest for a little longer.'

‘You'll have your work cut out,' the analyst told her. ‘You heard the nine o'clock news this morning?'

‘No.' Steph's heart sank. ‘Tell me.'

‘There was a report from Stepney. Neighbours talking. How Rob Petrie seemed a decent enough guy. Kept himself to himself . . . All the usual stuff.'

‘Bloody hell! How did it get out?'

‘No idea.'

Steph snatched up the phone and dialled Southall, demanding to speak to the DCI in charge of the investigation. She had to hold on for a couple of minutes.

‘Who's been blabbing?' she demanded when he came on the line.

‘Not us,' he assured her. ‘But one of the other residents of Windsor Court works for the local BBC.'

Steph groaned. ‘Has Petrie told you anything?'

‘Not a word.'

‘Charges?'

‘This afternoon, probably. Tomorrow morning at the latest.'

Steph grasped her forehead and rubbed it. ‘Have
you
said anything to the media yet?'

‘No, but the Yard press office has had to confirm that we're questioning a man.'

Steph sighed. ‘Thanks.'

She rang off. The hard copy of Peter's e-mail which the computer analyst handed her would be the last communication they got from the man. However little it told her about his identity, she was going to have to make the most of it. And so was Sam. Wherever the hell he was.

Vienna

It was after eleven before Igor Chursin got the e-mail response he'd been waiting for. By then his heart was palpitating from all the caffeine he'd consumed. He took careful note of the instructions, then returned to the hotel
to vacate his room before the midday checkout time. By the end of the day if all went to plan, he would be well away from here, with his final payment filling his briefcase and his dream of a new life coming closer to fruition.

He had no luggage with him. The few personal items he'd possessed on Palagra had been left there. By now they would have been burned by Sasha and the Croats. He'd worn the same shirt for three days now and it smelled of sweat.

The instructions from Peter told him to take a tram to the Währingerstrasse U-Bahn station then telephone a mobile phone number and give the code word
Prinz.
He would be told where to go for the rendezvous. The tone of the e-mail had been cool but understanding, ending with the philosophical words,
on
the
path
to
great
achievements
there
are
always
setbacks.

The trams round the Ring were frequent and Chursin reached his destination quickly. He took the escalator down to the subway station which doubled as a tram terminus for routes heading west towards the Wienerwald. The first phone box he tried was broken, but the second worked. The mobile phone number rang four times before it was answered, in German.

‘This is
Prinz,
' he responded in English.

‘
Ja.
You must to take the Strassenbahn
Nummer
achtunddreissig,
number mmm . . . thirty-eight, you unnerstand?'

‘Strassenbahn?'

‘Streetcar.'

‘Number thirty-eight . . .'

‘
Ja.
To Grinzing. It is end station. You wait and we will come.'

‘How will I recognise you?'

But the line had already died. He was unfazed by all this subterfuge. It had been the same on his previous visit a few months ago and he well understood the need
for it. They would be watching to make sure he wasn't being followed – for his protection as well as for theirs. The people he was working for had treated him fairly up to now and he had faith they would do so until the end. He replaced the receiver, collected some change from the refund recess, then looked round at the tram stops, reading the numbers. A thirty-eight was waiting for the off.

He'd bought himself a twenty-four-hour transport pass when he'd arrived at the airport last night, so took his seat without recourse to the ticket machine behind the driver's cab. Within a couple of minutes the tram was grinding up the slope to street level and humming its way north through residential districts of the city. There was a comfortable orderliness to much of the Austrian capital that reminded him of Russia in better days.