19

Towers’ word with the Oxford police brought a young female detective to Karen’s door shortly before seven the next morning. Karen emerged groggy and disorientated from her bedroom to meet her, still dressed in the clothes she had slept in. While Black made coffee for them both in the kitchenette he overheard the detective explaining that her superintendent had decided to offer her the option of a twenty-four-hour personal protection officer while they attempted to trace her attacker. It was a purely precautionary measure, she assured her, but in light of the fact that two scientists employed by the university had gone missing in recent months it might be a wise one. Karen hesitated then declined, opting instead to take up the offer of a portable panic button.

Black felt both guilty and duplicitous as she was prompted into discussing the intimate details of her break-up with Joel. The detective noted every word on a laptop and promised they would speak to him. The only salve to Black’s conscience was the thought of Karen’s thieving ex-husband having police officers arrive at his door, preferably when his young girlfriend was at home.

Thirty minutes later the interview was over and the detective was on her way. She left Karen with her business card, a leaflet advertising the services of Victim Support and a promise that her case would be treated as a priority.

‘She seems competent,’ Karen said, as if trying to reassure herself.

‘Yes,’ Black said, feeling even more guilty as he watched her tugging anxiously at the cuff of her sweater. ‘Would you like me to stay a while?’

‘No, I’ll be fine. Look, I’m so sorry to have imposed on you. I can’t have been thinking straight last night.’

‘It was no trouble.’

‘Thank you.’ She gave a grateful smile and pushed the hair back from her face.

Black noticed the scattering of delicate freckles on her cheeks and the fullness of her lips. ‘Call me any time. I’ll try to remember to keep my phone on.’ He smiled.

She smiled back and briefly met his gaze before quickly glancing away as if embarrassed.

What was the appropriate gesture – a handshake, a kiss on the cheek? As Black tried to decide the moment for anything that might have felt natural or spontaneous passed, leaving him no option but to make do with an awkward wave as he stepped towards the door. ‘Goodbye, then.’

‘Bye, Leo.’

Making his way down the stairs he couldn’t help but feel that something had changed between them. Until the previous evening they had been professional colleagues on friendly, polite terms, but they had woken up as more than that. As what, though? Were they close friends now? Confidants? The way Karen had looked straight into his eyes had felt like an invitation to cross a boundary but tempted as Black was his instinct was to remain at arm’s length. His relationships with women had been few, unhappy and a long time in the past. He had learned to live without love or sex and it had brought a kind of peace. Romantic feelings, he had long ago decided, were a complication he could live without.

But try as he might to put her out of his mind, Karen’s presence lingered and refused to leave.

Black showered, changed, grabbed breakfast and taught an early tutorial before catching one of the many buses that shuttled between Oxford and London day and night. Ninety minutes later he disembarked at Marble Arch and set off across Hyde Park hoping that a walk would give him an appetite for the doubtless heavy lunch that awaited him.

The warm weather had brought out the crowds and with them all the fantastic contradictions that only London seemed able to contain. Large clusters of black-clad Middle Eastern mothers were enjoying picnics on the grass with their children while nearby several young white women were sunbathing in bikinis. Skateboarders, a party of orthodox Jews, rich Saudis in flowing robes and Roma beggars mingled amidst the drifts of Chinese and American tourists. Differences insurmountable elsewhere seemed to have been overcome in this corner of the capital that had somehow managed to become neutral territory.

At Hyde Park Corner he crossed beneath the Wellington Arch and headed along Constitution Hill, caught up in the excitement of the sightseers heading towards Buckingham Palace. The pink tarmac, the great Union Jacks draped from pristine white flagpoles and the sentries dressed in their red tunics and bearskin hats combined to create a spectacle of glorious and benevolent permanence at the heart of a turbulent world. He supposed the crowds gathered here in the belief that behind the palace walls lay some magical secret, Her Majesty a benign semi-deity who stood in stunning contrast to all that was base and venal in human nature.

Leaving the throng behind he continued along the Mall before cutting through Marlborough Road to Pall Mall, the home of London’s most exclusive clubs. Black had never understood the appeal of retreating into a recreation of an Edwardian country house to spend hours in the company of others exactly like oneself, but he was the exception among his former colleagues. Part of military life was being ‘the right sort’, or, in other words, behaving with impeccable manners, while at the same time being prepared – if senior ranks were in sufficiently boisterous mood – to drink to oblivion and humiliate oneself in a bout of broomstick jousting. Black had played his part but often through gritted teeth. He had little time for the childish rituals of British establishment men. The club, the officers’ mess, the draughty boarding school seemed to him all to be extensions of each other.

The doorman in top hat and tailcoat greeted him warmly. It had been half a decade since Black had crossed the threshold of the Army & Navy (known to its members as ‘The Rag’), but he was received as if it were yesterday. To his astonishment the old retainer at the desk remembered his name and had ticked it off the list of expected visitors even before he had reached the mahogany counter, where he was politely informed that Colonel Towers was waiting for him in the Coffee Room. Black ascended the sweeping staircase hung with oil paintings of imperial generals and recalled the particular brand of deference with which officers of the Special Forces were greeted within these walls. The club’s staff had always prided themselves on knowing who they were and liked to display their knowledge through subtle displays of exaggerated discretion.

The Coffee Room was, in fact, the club’s restaurant. Tradition dictated that while a room’s function may change, its name must not, hence the club’s bar was still the ‘Smoking Room’ and always would be. Panelled in light oak and decorated with more life-size portraits of long-dead men of valour, the Coffee Room was alive with the sounds of clinking cutlery and middle-aged male chatter. He found Freddy Towers already seated at his favourite corner table, a white napkin tucked unselfconsciously into his shirt collar.

‘Leo, there you are. I was beginning to wonder.’ He gestured to a tumbler sitting at the centre of Black’s place setting. ‘Got you a straightener.’

Black checked his watch as he drew up a seat. It was barely three minutes past one. Towers had lost none of his old obsession for punctuality.

‘I was enjoying the stroll through the park.’ He took a sip from a gin strong enough to fell a carthorse.

‘How’s your friend? Did the police contact her?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘Good. Think I’ll have the beef. They’ve an exquisite little Pinot that’ll wash it down nicely. Join me?’

Leaving him no choice, Towers nodded to a waiter and an evidently prearranged order was placed. Moments later a sommelier appeared and filled their glasses with a clear, delicate red that slid across the palate with dangerous ease.

‘Tell me about Ms Peters,’ Towers said. ‘Just a friend, or something more?’

‘Just a friend.’ Black nudged the gin aside in favour of the wine. ‘And a colleague. One of the few who thinks I deserve a fellowship.’

Towers gave a thoughtful nod. ‘Do you think she was targeted deliberately – a payback of some sort for your adventure in Paris?’

‘Do you know something, Freddy?’

‘After your call yesterday I had another – from Kathleen Finn. Her eldest girl was assaulted on the way to school. A man passed her on the street and stubbed out a cigarette on her scalp. By itself it could be considered a coincidence …’

‘What did the police say?’

‘Not a lot. Pretty young blonde girl. Just the sort that unhinged predators target.’

Black felt his sinews tighten. He thought of Megan’s carefree laughter the day he had visited the family home. The innocence of the three children who had yet to learn their father wouldn’t be coming home.

‘I suppose the point would be to make a show of strength. They now have four of our scientists and, I suspect, a number of our Security Service personnel on their payroll. It’s the act of an entity that wants us to know that it has a long reach – inspired by the Russians and their adventures in Wiltshire no doubt.’

‘What kind of entity? A state?’

‘Possibly, but it’s not my first instinct.’

‘What then? A terrorist organization?’

‘More likely to be a commercial enterprise.’

‘What makes you say that?’

Towers took a thoughtful sip from his glass. ‘Have you researched the names of the missing I gave you?’

‘I’ve already told you, it’s not my battle.’

‘You wanted to know if there was anything I hadn’t told you. Are you interested or not?’

Black gave a reluctant nod.

‘Dr Bellman and Professor Kennedy work in the same department. He has created some fairly exceptional nanoparticles for medical applications and she has developed the delivery mechanism. You do know what nanoparticles are?’

‘Vaguely.’

‘They’re microscopic machines. In this case they heat up when exposed to certain frequencies. Delivered to the right cells in the brain they can activate neural circuits. The possibilities are endless. Until recently the problem was how to get them to their destination. Dr Bellman solved it. Through some incredibly skilful micro-engineering she has developed a basket-like structure made of woven strands of DNA that carry the payload of particles to any given destination. It’s a really quite astonishing achievement.’

Black changed his mind about abandoning his gin and reached for the glass. He sensed that Freddy was embarking on a lecture.

‘Dr Andy Sphyris is the computer genius I mentioned – the second one they abducted. Anglo-Greek. He works for a biotech start-up in Cambridge that’s come up with the closest computerized simulation of the human brain in existence. A three-dimensional road map of billions of neurons and their functions. It’s early days, but within a few years they hope to be able to model the effect of any given stimuli – they actually aim to predict the physiological and psychological response. Can you imagine it – knowing how the brain would respond to a chemical or an advertisement? Incredible.’ Towers shook his head with an expression of awe. ‘Sphyris’s unique contribution was creating a form of artificial intelligence which maps what they glean from scans and imaging, and the more it learns about how the wiring fits together, the more it’s able to fill in the blanks. I’m told that thus far it’s predicted with almost ninety-nine per cent certainty what each unmapped area of the brain’s function will be. An entirely logical process, I’m sure, but breathtaking, nonetheless.’

‘Nanoparticles and a map of the brain. Where does that take us?’

‘To Dr Lars Holst, our fourth hostage. He’s a Dane but spends at least half his time working out of Imperial College here in London. Keeps his research animals over in Copenhagen where he holds a chair in neuropathology. British universities have got a bit squeamish over experimenting on primates – have to say I quite agree. Anyway, Holst’s specialism is addiction. Broadly speaking, his work shows that it’s the chemicals in our brain we’re addicted to rather than whatever stimulus or substance causes them to release. He hasn’t published much in the last five years, but the word among his colleagues is that he’s about to lift the curtain on something big. The best information I can get is that he’s been working on rewiring the reward centres of the brain to make them fire in response to specific stimuli. It’s another science in its infancy, but five years ago he was implanting electrodes into the skulls of rats and training them to substitute one addiction for another. He could take an animal addicted to heroin and switch its dependence to sugar, nicotine, caffeine or whatever he chose.’

Towers paused for breath and another large mouthful of wine. ‘As I said, these are the four we know about. If the Americans have lost any of theirs, they’re keeping quiet, but that’s their way these days – batten down the hatches and admit nothing.’ Lecture over, he sat back in his chair. ‘What do you think?’

‘About what?’

‘Come on, Leo. You must be as fascinated by all this as I am. An outfit going to all the trouble and expense of corrupting British agents and placing itself at the cutting edge of neuroscience. And here’s the kicker: the one thing these four had in common was that they were all assets that I had spent months cultivating. Over the last two years I must have submitted detailed reports on the work of over a hundred researchers and fed them into the system. The system leaked and out of all of that number these are the four that have vanished.’

He waited for Black’s response.

Black, for his part, was wrestling with the fact that his offer to identify Finn’s body had, he was sure, caused two innocent and vulnerable people to be violently assaulted. He reached for his tumbler and swallowed the remaining dregs of his gin. ‘All I need to know, Freddy, is how much danger whoever you’re dealing with poses to Karen and Finn’s family.’

‘Honestly? You have as much idea as I do.’

‘What if the man who assaulted the child also attacked Karen? You can’t move in this country without being caught on camera.’

‘Resources, Leo. They’re spread thin. We’ve three thousand Islamic extremists and almost as many other assorted lunatics to keep tabs on. And in this instance, the usual channels can’t necessarily be trusted. Which, I suppose, makes me the resource.’ Towers looked him in the eye with a level of sincerity that was as unnerving as it was uncharacteristic. ‘And, of course, whoever might be good and trustworthy enough to help me.’

The waiter arrived with their lunch, affording Black a brief reprieve while Towers turned his attention to his tender steak and a second glass of Pinot. The food was precisely as Black remembered: simple, well cooked and comforting, just the way Towers and his fellow members liked it.

Towers ate like a man who had been starved for a week. His pent-up nervous energy channelled into an almost obscene concentration on his plate. Several minutes passed during which Black wondered if he had forgotten that he wasn’t alone. It had been a running joke in the mess: Towers ate as intensely as he worked, argued, fought or schemed. Only when he had dispatched his last roast potato did he return to conversation, picking up the threads as if he had dropped them only seconds before.

‘Neuroscience wasn’t high on my list of the most vulnerable technologies, if I’m honest. Bit niche. Some future applications perhaps – planes piloted by pilot’s brainwaves, that sort of thing – but not much of current interest. It was meeting Sphyris that first piqued my interest. I met him at a conference. He was talking about the possibility of decoding and reprogramming the human brain as if it were just around the corner. It conjured the prospect of fearless soldiers or, worse still, terrorists. He mentioned Holst. They’d collaborated a few years back when Holst was still working with needles and catheters to inject drugs through minute holes in the skull, but, well …’ He paused and scratched distractedly at a gravy spot on the starched linen tablecloth. ‘I think we have to fear that things have moved on rather a lot.’

Towers cocked his head thoughtfully to one side. ‘I’ve thought long and hard about it and this is about the best I can come up with: there’s Holst with the knowledge of how to change behaviour through altering brain chemistry, Bellman and Kennedy who have developed the mechanical means of achieving it, and Sphyris who models and predicts the outcomes. You would only put the four of them together if you were interested in changing people’s thoughts, perhaps even without them realizing that it’s happened. I can see why a state would be interested, but a commercial outfit would stand to gain a lot more with the entire world as its market. Whatever way you look at it, it doesn’t take much imagination to realize that the motives can’t be good.’

Black continued to eat, trying hard to maintain his pretence of indifference.

‘I have to admit, it’s all taken me rather by surprise.’ Towers shared the last of the wine between their glasses. ‘All the while I’ve been fretting about jihadis and rogue regimes getting hold of biological weapons the most sinister enemy has had its sights on something else entirely. I don’t suppose you’re shocked. You were always fond of telling me that we were always fighting the last war.’

Black felt a strange and disquieting sensation creep through his body. Mild enough to shrug off, but a portent nonetheless.

‘Who is it, Leo? That’s the question.’

Towers held him in a piercing gaze that demanded an answer.

Black felt himself weaken. His natural curiosity, fuelled by cold rage at the events of the previous day combined to undermine his defences.

Towers sensed the moment the tide turned in his favour and seized it. ‘We need to know. And quickly. A Special Purposes Committee has been formed under the auspices of the Cabinet Office. The Permanent Secretary is chairing it and reporting directly to the PM. The other members are the Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the Director, Special Forces, the PS to the Ministry of Defence and yours truly. We can’t trust the Security Services on this one; we’ve no idea how far the rot’s penetrated. We hope not to the top but we can’t take the risk. I’ve taken the liberty of mentioning your name and it was approved unanimously. There’s a fee, of course.’

Black stared at him across the table.

Towers pressed on. ‘I’ve isolated six MI5 officers who could credibly have had access to my reports and two with pressing motives to take the enemy’s coin. One of them’s a gambler living far beyond his means and the other’s a family man with a sick wife at home who banked several significant sums in the last three months.’ His eyes quickly circled the room before settling again on Black. He lowered his voice. ‘We’d like you to interrogate them.’

Black’s face remained expressionless.

‘I know none of this is ideal, but the stakes are too high to follow normal protocols. This has to be done off the record. Deniably. We need guaranteed answers and you’re the only man I trust thoroughly enough to get them, Leo. Anyone else would be second best. This is a situation that calls for excellence.’

Black remained silent.

‘A day’s work with minimal prep. A one-off. Twenty-five thousand pounds. Look at you, Leo – I recognize that suit from twenty years ago. These waiters are earning more than you are.’

Temptation tugged. Black resisted. ‘I’m not that man any more, Freddy. Even if I wanted to be.’

He stood up from the table and made his way out of the dining room, leaving his wine undrunk.

Towers tugged his napkin from his collar and tossed it angrily on to the tablecloth.