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
‘Symptoms?’ interrupted the PM, looking up abruptly.
‘Oh, fever, exhaustion, a rash across the face … swollen lymph nodes. That would probably explain the early misdiagnosis in Svalbard as bubonic plague.’ She took a moment to look around the whole room before sharing her team’s deduction. ‘Taken together,’ she concluded, ‘there’s no knowing just what damage these pathogens could inflict on a human population when combined into a single unit.’
At the head of the table the PM now removed his jacket, undid the cuffs on his shirt sleeves and rolled them halfway up his forearms before turning back to the Porton Down scientist. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Then give us the bottom line here. We can come up with an antidote for this, right? There’ll be a cure for it, yes?’
Dr Gall exchanged a hurried glance with Brendan Holmes, the chief medical officer. ‘In time, yes,’ she replied cautiously. ‘I would hope there’ll be a vaccine of sorts. But this is very early days, Prime Minister, and we’ve only just mapped the sequence. We’re still trying to understand exactly what we’re dealing with here.’
There was silence in the room, then a hand went up. It was Brendan Holmes. ‘If I could just add a codicil to what Dr Gall is saying, Prime Minister? We are working closely with the CDC in Atlanta – that’s the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are the world’s leading authority on pox viruses. They have the absolute latest research. I’ve had an hour-long teleconference with them already this morning. We’ve sent them over a deactivated sample for cross-checking. It left RAF Northolt last night and should be with them shortly. I should add,’ he said, looking up and down the long table, ‘that our own Joint Biosecurity Centre, the JBC, is recommending that everyone who came into contact with the infected patient be tested, as a matter of urgency. Test, track and trace; we have to do this without delay.’
The PM had his eyes shut as he nodded in agreement. ‘So tell me, Brendan,’ he said, his eyes still closed as he spoke, ‘worst-case scenario. If someone chose to release this virus here, in Britain, could the health system cope?’
Brendan Holmes’s cheeks flushed visibly and he had to clear his throat twice, noisily, before answering, rather quietly, ‘Prime Minister, this is a complex and particularly lethal pathogen we’re talking about here, potentially many times more contagious and more deadly than Covid-19.’
‘I hear you,’ the PM replied, ‘but I’ll repeat my question. Could we cope?’
‘No,’ conceded the chief medical officer, ‘probably not.’
‘Probably not,’ the PM repeated. ‘I’d say definitely not, wouldn’t you? So let’s not waste any more time. We have to prepare for the worst.’