Sherman Beck hurried through the angular maze of the CTC’s operations coordinating area. He had just three minutes to make a meeting with his director on the seventh floor. If he didn’t make it, Beck risked his work being buried beneath piles of new leads. Take a week off for a bad cold and you might come back to a different war.
Computers peeped, phones bleeped, and every wall seemed steeped in TV sets: al-Jazeera, CNN, military command centres. It made the Fox newsroom look parochial.
Beck jumped into the elevator. His director shared the seventh floor with the Director of Central Intelligence. This was politically useful for Lee Kellner, who made the most of it. A former sub-editor for the Washington Post, fifty-five-year-old Kellner regarded his ability to sift relevant from irrelevant stories as second to none. ‘Proven in Commerce’ was his motto, and it was stuck to his door – as were the entrails of those who crossed him, or so he bragged.
‘You got five minutes max.’
‘Just five?’
‘Give or take your balls. D’ya wanna make the President’s Threat Matrix Report?’
‘Dr Sami al-Qasr, sir. Having met with Leanne Gresham, I feel—’
‘Feel, Beck?’
‘Think, sir.’
‘I think the communication regarding Professor al-Qasr at Paradise, California, sir, requires immediate action.’
‘Reason?’
‘D’you recall the Gitana, Daley, Rikanik and Kelly investigations?’
‘David Kelly? The British guy. Worked for the Rockingham Cell and UNSCOM.’
‘Yes, sir. Biological weapons specialist. Committed suicide July 2003.’
‘Alleged suicide. Big scandal in Britain. Remind me about the other guys.’
‘Your investigation explored relations between Kelly and the US bio-defence industry. Looked for a link with the mysterious deaths of Francisco Gitana, Greg Daley and Boris Rikanik.’
‘And there wasn’t one, was there?’
‘File’s still open, sir. Regarding Gitana, Daley and Rikanik. Gitana and Daley were both involved in DNA sequencing.’
‘Refresh.’
‘Weaponised pathogens, sir. In theory, it’s possible to create a weapon that targets only certain races.’
‘You got me. Keep talking.’
‘In November 2001, Gitana was found unconscious in a Miami parking lot, after receiving a late call. Inquest said natural causes, but his family claimed four men attacked him. A few weeks later, Daley washed up 300 miles downstream from a Mississippi bridge on which his car was found with the lights on and the keys in the ignition. He’d just left a Memphis banquet for fellow researchers.’
‘Mississippi. It’s coming back now. And Rikanik?’
‘Found dead, 16 November 2001, in his bed. Only ten days after meeting Daley in Boston to discuss DNA sequencing. Colleagues said he was in good health. Rikanik is the Russian who fled to Britain from the Soviet Union in 1989. He brought us Russian plans to use cruise missiles to spread smallpox and plague.’
‘Said they got the idea from us, sir.’
‘Of course. What didn’t they steal from us? Fucking plague, that’s what!’
‘The Russian plans ended with the fall of the old regime. Rikanik warned MI6 debriefers the weapons could be used by terror groups, with missiles from China or North Korea. I personally believe Kelly was one of the debriefers, sir, and that he also helped Rikanik establish a laboratory for his company, Omicron Biotech, at the UK’s defence research establishment at Porton Down. Among other things, they were working on the diagnostic and therapeutic treatment of anthrax.’
‘Useful. Go on.’
‘Rikanik was a senior advisor in the establishment of RIBOTech at Paradise, California.’
‘Interesting. Suspicious death?’
‘Rikanik’s death was only announced a month after the event by Timothy Randall, an ex-MI6 officer – Randall is also a specialist in DNA sequencing – currently living in Virginia. The autopsy was apparently undertaken by MI6. Details were not given at the inquest.’
‘No surprises, Beck. What’s all this got to do with Sami al-Qasr?’ Kellner looked at his watch. ‘And your time is running out.’
‘He works at RIBOTech, sir. In January 2002, Professor al-Qasr contacted Leanne Gresham at the Directorate of Science and Technology. He demanded special protection.’
‘From whom?’
‘From the Israelis, sir.’