Chapters (124)
- Cover
- About the Author
- Acclaim for Frank Gardner’s Luke Carlton thrillers
- Also by Frank Gardner
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgements
- THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
The temperature was minus 13°C when the GRU colonel stepped out of the arrivals building at Novosibirsk’s Tolmachevo airport. His breath frosted in the still air and his eyes stung from the pollution that still belched from the nearby factories, along the River Ob. The car was exactly where they had told him it would be, unmarked, discreet, a vetted driver in front, personal security in the back. This was to be a low-key, fact-finding visit, not an official inspection. The drive across town to the wooded suburb of Koltsovo was short, the conversation minimal. When they pulled up at the identical dormitory-like research buildings on the edge of town, Colonel Petrov knew exactly where to go: this was hardly his first visit to VECTOR.
The meeting was held in the empty conference room, the projector lying silent, the chairs empty, the windows caked with geometrically shaped particles of ice. It was just the two of them, Colonel Petrov and a man called Aleksei, the head of security for the entire facility. They had met before, on a training course back at the Academy, and Petrov had taken an instant dislike to him. Petrov had no interest in niceties today: he had hard questions to ask and he expected immediate answers.
‘How many vials of live pox virus left this facility under escort on January the seventeenth to go to the Ivanovsky Institute of Virology in Moscow?’
The other man looked confused. He stared back at Petrov. ‘I couldn’t tell you right now,’ he replied. ‘I would have to check.’
‘Then I will tell you,’ said Petrov. ‘It was four.’
‘Four?’ Aleksei repeated.
‘And how many arrived in Moscow?’
‘Four?’ The head of security was looking distinctly uncomfortable now.
‘Try again.’
‘Look,’ said the VECTOR security man, ‘I run security here at Koltsovo. What happens here is my business, my problem. And I can tell you, we have everything accounted for – you can check that with the WHO. They carry out regular inspections, you should know this.’ He wagged a finger at Petrov. ‘But what happens in Moscow, my friend …’ He shrugged. ‘Well, that is not my problem, is it?’
‘Normally, no,’ Colonel Petrov replied evenly. ‘Except that only three vials of smallpox arrived in Moscow. And it is your name at the bottom of the transfer order.’
61
King Charles Street, Whitehall
Monday, 14 March, 1114hrs GMT
THE MOMENT THE silver Mercedes turned left off Whitehall and drew up at the entrance to King Charles Street, the retractable steel crash columns slid swiftly into the ground. Its rather obvious registration number – RUS 1 – was already logged with the elderly commissionaires on the gate. Once they had validated IDs they waved it through towards the inner courtyard with a courteous nod. The Russian ambassador had arrived at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.