Nikki clenched her fist and punched the air in victory as she whispered “Yes!” to herself. She quickly typed out her second of three reports to Arroz to confirm that mixing had now started at all ten refineries. Then, despite the adrenaline rush of excitement, as calmly as anything, she returned to finish dinner with Cameron and have a penultimate night in bed with him.
* * *
On receiving Nikki’s report, Arroz picked up his phone, breathed deeply and dialled.
“Yes?” a gruff, sleep-filled voice answered.
“Kamal, sorry to disturb you quite so late – I thought you’d want the news.”
“What this time? Another failure!”
Arroz was not surprised by the cutting remark. He knew that Kamal was exceedingly angry that firstly, the production site had been raided and secondly, and far worse, the preparations to destroy the place had failed.
However, all their plans had come together, almost perfectly.
“Not at all, Kamal. I’m calling to let you know that mixing has started at all ten refineries.”
“Really!” Arroz had captured his paymaster’s attention. There was now no hint of tiredness in Kamal’s voice any longer. “Since when?”
“The final confirmation came in five minutes ago. Others have been running for over three hours.”
“Excellent! That is good news. How long until the deliveries start?”
“The day after tomorrow, maybe, just maybe, late tomorrow. Each refinery has at least four weeks’ worth of mixing potential with three days of mixing per batch before a change-over is required.”
“Good, good.”
“It’s better than good, Kamal! We’ve succeeded!”
“That’s what you say!” Kamal retorted sharply. “But the deaths have not started!”
“Not yet, Kamal, but they will! The process has started and is fully automatic. There is no turning back! No recovery! No antidote! The deliveries will be made with no one any the wiser!”
“That may be so, but the authorities now have information instead of a surprise catastrophe to address if the plant had been destroyed as I had instructed! That gives them over a day to catch-up!”
Arroz was not about to roll over and take a verbal beating after delivering such great news. “Kamal, there is no, I repeat, no useful information for them to find. None of the people arrested know why we are producing these chemicals and I wiped the servers remotely. The authorities had not used a valid password on the systems by the time I finished wiping the data and had downloaded less than ten percent of the data – all of which was encrypted by your experts. You have heard them say it will take at least three weeks for the authorities to hack their encryption. There was a standing instruction that everything had to be managed electronically – there was no paperwork. What’s even better is that the weather forecasts are for a misty outlook for those countries! We have succeeded!”
“Your optimism satisfies me. I am pleased and will wait happily for dead bodies to pile-up, marking the completion of my revenge! Then I will tell these people who invaded my country, damaged my business, and killed my family that they should respect me!” Kamal was nearly shouting as he finished, as though he were addressing a large gathering of loyal followers. “This success will allow me to go home with my head held high!”
38
At seven-fifteen the next morning Laura and Rob met at a coffee shop, where Rob bought a round of coffees and pastries. Grumbling about the weather, the two of them made their way through the chilly, grey, misty drizzle the short distance to Thames House, home of MI5. On entering Gurning’s office they found he and David Spalding waiting.
While Rob handed out four coffees and Laura passed out the pastries, Gurning used a conference phone to call Nat.
“Nat McCall!”
“Nat, good morning. I hope you had a good evening. I have Laura, Rob, and David with me.”
“Morning, all!”
Turning to the researcher, Gurning asked, “Well, David? What news do you have for us?”
“Frustratingly, Steven, nothing positive. If anything, it’s extremely bad news!”
Gurning sighed and bowed his head as he felt the pressure suddenly mount. “Go on,” he said quietly.
“Overnight, my team studied the maps that Rob provided and essentially came up with exactly the same conclusion as Laura – that this could well signify a chemical attack on the identified refineries and, given the quantity of chemicals involved, other locations as yet impossible to guess. Crippling key refineries will simply exacerbate any subsequent economic recovery, assuming the other attacks are on cities.”
“And what about the quantities of chemicals?” queried Gurning, shaking his head ever so slightly in a despairing manner.
“That’s the bad news, I’m afraid. The quantity of chemicals produced is immense and signifies our worst possible nightmare – a series of massive chemical attacks across Britain and Europe by an unknown terrorist organisation.”
“So why the locations on the maps?” Laura asked.
“Why not? The only reasonable suggestion is that the terrorists’ WMD-making factory must be somewhere close to the identified drop-off points. Once the chosen form of weapon has been assembled, it could be transported to wherever the terrorists want to let it off.”
“Any ideas at all?” Nat asked.
All the while, Rob merely watched his friends with a sinking feeling of defeat on a massive scale. A feeling he was unused to – so far, they had always come good, even at the last minute. But this was different. This was multiple attacks across a very dispersed geographical area! And this time, millions of people were at risk!
“We can only surmise,” David continued with a despairing shrug and sigh, his tiredness from being up all night evident. “As I say, the logical places would be major cities, or other places where you’d expect large gatherings of people. Depending on the nature of the weapon, confined spaces would be the most effective, but not essential.”
After a few moments of deathly silence Gurning looked-up. “Okay. Laura, if you need to update your overnight report, please do it. I need to brief the DG and my counterparts in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. David, remind me which refineries we think could be targeted.” Gurning picked up a pen, ready to write in his note pad.
“In Britain; Fawley, which is our largest largest. Stanlow; our second largest and Lindsey and Grangemouth. Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Antwerp in Belgium. In France, Normandy and Port Jerome-Gravenchon, which is near Le Harve. And in Germany, the Wilhelmshaven and Ruhr Oel refineries.”
Gurning shook his head once more. “Nat, do you have anything for us?”
