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 flight in the helicopter was loud, claustrophobic and mercifully short. Incapable of movement, she stared up accusingly at the faces that peered down at her, blank and unspeaking, from behind their Perspex masks. Someone, she guessed, had given the daft order that she was not to be spoken to. She heard the pitch of the rotors changing, then a gentle double bump as the wheels set down on a hard surface. Now everyone was up and moving and, once again, she was being carted off like a piece of merchandise. There were a few brief seconds of cold sunlight. Then she saw she was being carried into the cavernous interior of a military transport plane. Still immobile, she fought to contain a surge of panic. Why wasn’t anyone telling her what was going on, for God’s sake? The stretcher-bearers pushed open the flaps of what looked to her like an isolation tent and set her down on a collapsible hospital gurney. They departed, and now another man appeared, also in full protective gear, but clutching a handwritten note in his neoprene-gloved hand. He held it up close to her face so she could read it.
My name is Dr Eckhardt and you are under my care. I must apologize for the conditions, but we believe you have been infected with a very serious pathogen. You will be treated. You are now on a Norwegian Air Force plane, which will fly you to Brize Norton airbase in England. From there your case will be assessed by the British Defence Scientific Laboratory at Porton Down. I wish you a speedy recovery.
He held up the note until she had read it to the end, then left. Porton Down? Jesus Christ! That was where the government researched some of the deadliest diseases on Earth. So that was it. They were going to keep her alive like a lab rat, long enough for them to find a cure. Sheila Mackenzie felt sick to the bottom of her stomach. Fighting the panic, she tried to twist her body round, but now another masked figure in a protective suit appeared beside her, holding up a hypodermic. With no warning, she felt a sharp jab in her shoulder as the needle slid in. They were injecting her in her deltoid muscle, she could tell, and for a brief moment she felt a painful, burning sensation before her world dissolved into a blur.