The Cassandra Complex Part 5

"Perhaps."

"Or the Cabal?"

Smith frowned. "We don't use journalistic terms like that, Dr. Friemann. We're rather old-fas.h.i.+oned in the Ministry. We still use phrases like 'private enterprise' without the slightest hint of sarcasm. But, yes-I suppose it's possible that whatever Dr. Miller told the people at the Foundation and at the Inst.i.tute was clandestinely pa.s.sed on, perhaps in garbled form, to someone who scented a quick profit rather than to someone more interested in biowarfare. If either is the case, we need to know exactly what he did tell them."

And you need to be able to understand the answers, Lisa thought. Which is where I come in Which is where I come in-and why you're willing to overlook Judith Kenna's reservations about me. Chan's the only other person with my advantages, and he's not turned up yet. He's also not British.

"Have you heard the tape of my conversation with the burglar?" Lisa asked the MOD man.

Smith shook his head. "DI Grundy let me in on the summary he'd received from an officer at the scene, but that's all," he said.

"I thought it was just bulls.h.i.+t at first," Lisa said slowly, "but it's becoming clearer. The intruder said that Morgan Miller didn't give a d.a.m.n about me-that whatever he'd promised me, I'd end up with nothing. Either they were a.s.suming that Morgan had already confided in me as to what he was taking to Ahasuerus and the Inst.i.tute of Algeny, or they were fis.h.i.+ng-trying to figure out by provocation whether I knew. h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation! I never thought to check whether they'd taken the wafer out of the answerphone. Of course course they did. That may even have been what they were after, although they had to take the rest in case I'd changed it or backed it up ... they must have figured they had to cover the possibility even though they weren't sure that Morgan had called me." they did. That may even have been what they were after, although they had to take the rest in case I'd changed it or backed it up ... they must have figured they had to cover the possibility even though they weren't sure that Morgan had called me."

"Which he hadn't, had he?" Smith prompted, presumably to secure his own peace of mind. "He hadn't actually told you anything at all."

"Nothing at all," Lisa confirmed grimly, wondering why not. Surely, if Morgan had had made any kind of groundbreaking discovery, he'd have been avid to share his triumph, desperate to bounce the idea off someone who understood not merely the nature of his work, but the philosophy behind it. made any kind of groundbreaking discovery, he'd have been avid to share his triumph, desperate to bounce the idea off someone who understood not merely the nature of his work, but the philosophy behind it.

Or would he?

Suddenly the whole hypothesis reverted to the semblance of a house of cards, too frail to survive the least disturbance. As she'd tried to impress on Mike Grundy, n.o.body stumbled across longevity technologies, or anything of comparable value, by accident. by accident. Morgan Miller's Holy Grail had always been another kind of vessel entirely. He'd always been far more interested in Morgan Miller's Holy Grail had always been another kind of vessel entirely. He'd always been far more interested in methods methods of transformation than in the manipulation of particular genes. There were likely thousands of geneticists worldwide who had been looking into the genetic bases of aging for half a century-how could one man working on something entirely different stumble across something they couldn't find with a directed search? of transformation than in the manipulation of particular genes. There were likely thousands of geneticists worldwide who had been looking into the genetic bases of aging for half a century-how could one man working on something entirely different stumble across something they couldn't find with a directed search?

"There must be other areas of concern that the two inst.i.tutions have in common," Lisa said speculatively. "We shouldn't get hung up on the seemingly obvious until we've actually talked to them."

"You need some sleep," Smith said. "My people still have work to do here, not just in Miller's office and lab, but in Burdillon's too-we're not about to jump to any conclusions without covering all the ground. We also have to complete our background checks on the inst.i.tutions before we move in on them. Chief Inspector Kenna says that you can't go home yet, and there's no point in challenging her ruling, so I want you to check into one of the hotels close to the campus and get your head down. I'll be in one called the Renaissance, I think. Take a pill if you have to. I'll pick you up when I'm ready."

Lisa was about to protest, but she knew that the feeling of wakefulness prompted by the new information wouldn't last. If she'd been sleeping properly for the last few weeks, it wouldn't have done her much harm to miss out on a single night's sleep, but she hadn't actually had a good good night's sleep for as long as she could remember. She really did need to crash out, even if she had to take a pill to put her away and another to bring her around again. "Okay," she said finally. "I'll book into the Renaissance. It has delusions of grandeur, but a bed's a bed." night's sleep for as long as she could remember. She really did need to crash out, even if she had to take a pill to put her away and another to bring her around again. "Okay," she said finally. "I'll book into the Renaissance. It has delusions of grandeur, but a bed's a bed."

"Good," said Smith. "With luck, this whole thing will be unraveled by this time tomorrow." He didn't sound as if he meant it, and Lisa could understand well enough why he wasn't expecting overmuch luck. He worked for a government with its back against the wall. If the opposition were the EU, or the USA, or even representative of the kind of private enterprise in which the megacorps indulged, Smith would be working from a position of severe disadvantage.

On the other hand, Lisa thought as she moved toward the door, if it really is someone at Ahasuerus or the Inst.i.tute of Algeny who has set this farce in motion, there might be hope. Common sense suggests that fringe organizations of their kind ought to be even less competent than the police or the Ministry of Defence. if it really is someone at Ahasuerus or the Inst.i.tute of Algeny who has set this farce in motion, there might be hope. Common sense suggests that fringe organizations of their kind ought to be even less competent than the police or the Ministry of Defence.

She had left the room before she realized that she didn't have her car, and would either have to walk to the campus gate or beg a lift from a friendly policeman. In the circ.u.mstances, the friendly policeman seemed to be the better choice, even if his friendliness might wane slightly when she explained that she couldn't tell him anything of what had pa.s.sed between herself and the man from the Ministry.

In the event, Mike Grundy had sufficient tact not to ask her what Smith had told her. He knew well enough that everything he couldn't get directly from the man from the Ministry was being deliberately withheld, and that it wouldn't be diplomatic to go after it, even in the privacy of his own car.

The journey to the Renaissance Hotel was only a few hundred yards, but it was long enough for Mike to voice concerns for Lisa's safety.

"I could post a uniformed officer outside," he suggested.

"When he could be doing something useful? Don't be ridiculous, Mike. It's broad daylight. If they're crazy enough to come after me again-and I can't believe for a moment they are-they're going to wait until they have at least minimal cover."

"They're crazy enough to incinerate half a million mice," Grundy pointed out. "They could be crazy enough to do anything anything if things aren't going their way. Amateur terrorism always looks good to the amateurs in question while it's a plan on paper, but once the dreamers start acting it out, it always spins out of control." if things aren't going their way. Amateur terrorism always looks good to the amateurs in question while it's a plan on paper, but once the dreamers start acting it out, it always spins out of control."

"It's too complicated to be amateur terrorism," Lisa told him, figuring that it was safe to say that much. "They want something, and they're not going to do anything that will blow their chances of getting it. They won't turn rat until they're cornered, and we haven't even got near them yet."

"I could take you to my place," he suggested. "I owe you, remember."

"And your place is a fortress, is it? They walked straight into mine. I'm safer in the hotel, Mike. It's a public place, full of human eyes and ears as well as the electronic kind."

He conceded defeat readily enough as the Rover drew up on the hotel's forecourt. "We'll get them, Lis," he said as she fumbled at the car door with her left hand. "We'll find Morgan, and we'll get him out." It was pure bravado.

"Thanks, Mike," was all Lisa could say when she finally got the door open. "We'll talk later."

As it turned out, she didn't have to take a pill. The nights she had spent lying fretfully awake, unable to relax into sleep, had been spent in a very different context. Relaxation was no longer necessary; exhaustion had taken control. She didn't even undress; the moment she was in her room, she had only to throw herself on the bed to pa.s.s swiftly into unconsciousness.

EIGHT.

Lisa was unaware of having dreamed, or even of time having elapsed, when she was awakened by the ringing of the phone beside the bed. At first she had not the slightest idea of where she was; it took five seconds of bewildered confusion to get her mind back into gear and reconnect her with her memories of the long night and painful dawn. Even then, her reflexes made her reach for the phone with her right hand, and the torn skin between her thumb and forefinger sent a stab of pain into her brain as she flexed her fingers in preparation for the grab.

She overrode the warning and picked the handset up anyway, but transferred it to her left hand as soon as she had rolled over.

"Yes?" she said.

"Peter Grimmett Smith, Dr. Friemann. I've got a car to take us to Ahasuerus. I've brought you some breakfast. Five minutes, okay?"

"Okay," she said.

She didn't have a toothbrush or a comb, and her unsmart outer garments were not only bloodstained, but showing clear signs of long wear. There wasn't much she could do about any of that; it was the inevitable penalty of clinging too hard to twentieth-century habits. She washed and tidied herself as well as she could, then went down to the lobby to meet Peter Grimmett Smith.

"Better not check out," he told her. "You might need the room again."

"Maybe," she admitted. "But I'll also need to go home at some stage, unless Mike Grundy or Steve Forrester can delegate someone to bring me some stuff from my wardrobe and bathroom. I'll need my car too."

"You can phone one of them later," Smith said as he led her out to the car. "You really ought to invest in some smarter clothing-that tunic's ruined."

His own outer clothes, Lisa noted, were only shaped in an old-fas.h.i.+oned way; the fibers were brand new, as avidly active as anything on the market. Only something as paradoxical as gray power, she thought, could create a market for living fibers that maintained an appearance so staid as to seem more fossilized than dead.

The car was a sleek gray Jaguar with tinted windows. The driver's window was wound down to reveal a young blond woman with eyes so pale as to seem almost colorless. Smith introduced her as Ginny. As soon as she and Lisa had exchanged nods, Ginny closed the window again, to seal herself away from the eyes of the world.

Smith opened the rear door for Lisa before going around to the other side of the car. The tray built into the back of the front-pa.s.senger seat was down; there was a cup of black coffee slotted into it beside a bag containing a flaccid croissant and an over-iced Danish pastry. The cup and the bag were both made of active fibers, though, so the coffee was still hot and the food was warm.

Lisa checked her wrist.w.a.tch. She had slept through the remainder of the morning and well into the afternoon; it was far too late to be eating breakfast, but she was glad that Smith hadn't attempted to provide lunch. She had lived alone all her life, and had long since given up hope that food technology would ever deliver a satisfactory prepackaged meal. She went to work on the food, glad of the simultaneous. .h.i.t she obtained from the caffeine in the coffee and the sugar in the Danish pastry's embellishments.

As the Jaguar pulled out into traffic, the computer sounded a discreetly mellow-sounding bell, but the screen didn't flash up any warning messages; it was obviously programmed in a more sensitive way than Mike Grundy's.

"Get lost," the driver muttered, presumably addressing the driver in the car behind, who must have reckoned that she should have let him pa.s.s first. In several American states, so rumor had it, whole families had been shot to death for less, but British drivers were famed for their restraint. Few of them carried anything more lethal than a pepper spray for self-defense in road-rage incidents.

"Chief Inspector Kenna seems to favor the hypothesis that this is all due to some lunatic fringe group," Smith told Lisa. "I've tried to ease her away from that point of view, but I can't share my own suspicions while there's a possibility that Miller's in possession of a secret with security implications. She's no fool, though, so she's keeping in mind the chance that the seemingly amateurish aspects of the a.s.sault on your flat are a calculated smoke screen of disinformation. In any case, we should be careful not to lose sight of the possibility that she might be right. If the target is is the university's Department of Applied Genetics and what it stands for, rather than Morgan Miller, our involvement in the investigation might be one of the things the perpetrators would like to highlight in a list of imagined crimes against nature and humanity." the university's Department of Applied Genetics and what it stands for, rather than Morgan Miller, our involvement in the investigation might be one of the things the perpetrators would like to highlight in a list of imagined crimes against nature and humanity."

Lisa was still busy eating and didn't particularly want to reply, but there were questions she had to ask. "Has Chan turned up?" she said.

"He's alive and well," Smith a.s.sured her. "He was in Birmingham last night, but he called in as soon as he picked up his messages. He said he'd be here as soon as possible."

Lisa was surprised by the shock of relief that coursed through her. She hadn't been consciously aware of the level of her anxiety. She wasn't in the least reconciled to the possibility of losing Morgan Miller, but even if worse came to worst, there was some small solace in the fact that Chan was alive and well.

"He'll help," she said. "If anyone knows what Morgan's been up to lately, it's Chan."

"I have someone waiting to talk to him as soon as he arrives," Smith confirmed.

Lisa realized that she hadn't the faintest idea of where the local office of the Ahasuerus Foundation was, but the fact that the Jaguar was powering up the access road to the westbound artery suggested that it was in the Bristolian sector of the cityplex. There didn't seem to be any urgent need to inquire further.

Smith hesitated slightly before introducing the next topic of conversation, but only for show. "You and Miller," he said abruptly. "More than colleagues? More than friends?"

Lisa nodded, unable to do more until she had washed down the last of the pastry. Handling the cup was awkward because the holder was at the right-hand side of the tray and she didn't want to test the wounded skin on that hand again.

"What about Burdillon and Chan?"

Lisa blinked slightly at that one. "Ed and I have been friends for a long time," she said. "Nothing more. My department occasionally puts some work his way, but not recently, so I guess our friends.h.i.+p has become a trifle dormant. I still see Chan once in a while-just as friends. It's difficult to describe in conventional terms the relations.h.i.+p Morgan and I have nowadays. I haven't seen him more than half a dozen times in the last three years-maybe less frequently than I've seen Chan."

"But you were very close at one time?"

"We still are, even if it doesn't look like it-as close as we ever were. Neither of us ever wanted to get married, and neither of us ever thought of the other as the great love of our life, but that doesn't mean that I don't care deeply about getting him out of this in one piece, or that I wouldn't take this business personally even if they hadn't paid a call on me too."

"I've listened to the tape now," Smith said. "That part you drew my attention to-what do you make of the insistence that Miller never cared about you, and that any promises he made were false?"

"Exactly what I wondered then," she said. "That the idiot with the gun doesn't know the first thing about Morgan Miller. Morgan doesn't make promises he can't keep-and he always cared about me as deeply as I always cared about him."

"But he didn't tell you what he was taking to Ahasuerus?"

"No, he didn't," Lisa said, becoming tired of having to repeat it. She had been waiting for an opportunity to turn the conversation around, and she didn't give him time to slip another fquestion in. "So what, exactly, is Ahasuerus? Why are we going there first?"

"It's nearer," he said, answering the second question. "That may be why Miller went there first. Ready accessibility might have been the primary motive for him selecting both inst.i.tutions from a longer list of candidates, given that he obviously didn't want to discuss what he had over the phone. Unfortunately, our background check hasn't turned up much more than the information that's freely available on the Ahasuerus website. The Foundation was set up by a man named Adam Zimmerman, who made billions out of the financial crisis of 2025. What the website doesn't say, of course, is that he helped to engineer and direct the crisis-he was just a mercenary, hired by the megacorps to do their dirty work, but he seems to have had an agenda of his own. He's dropped completely out of sight, and there's a rumor that he's been frozen down, but it's easy enough for a man with that sort of wealth to hide, even in today's world, and to manufacture disinformation by the yard. It's possible that Ahasuerus is a front, but everything we and Interpol can gather suggests that it's a bona-fide research sponsor, financing and collating information on longevity biotech and SusAn techniques. At any rate, it seems distinctly less shady and somewhat saner than its apparent rival for Miller's affections. Dr. Goldfarb wouldn't discuss Morgan Miller over the phone, understandably, but when I told him what had happened, he seemed anxious to help us. I'll be keeping an open mind, of course."

"Of course," Lisa echoed. She knew as she said it that it wasn't enough to maintain the change of subject if he wanted to go back to it, and he clearly did.

"What about Miller and Burdillon?" he asked. "How close were they?"

For a moment, she wondered if Smith were asking whether Morgan and Ed had ever been lovers, but that idea was too bizarre. "Certainly not enemies," she said. "Perhaps not even rivals, although there's bound to be an element of that within a department. Not close friends, though. If Morgan had a hot secret, I think he'd confide in Chan before he would in Ed Burdillon-and in me before he would in Chan."

"What about vice versa?"

"You think it might have been something of Ed's that Morgan was taking to Ahasuerus? No-he'd never do that, even if he didn't like what Ed was proposing to do with it. He's a man of principle."

"That's not quite what I meant," Smith was quick to say. "Given that Miller is a man of principle, and trustworthy, might Burdillon have asked for his help on work that he'd been commissioned to do, if time were pressing?"

Lisa looked at Smith long and hard before replying. "What work might that be?" she asked finally.

"Urgent work," Smith parried. "Might Burdillon have co-opted Miller, if the need were there and his expertise fit the bill?"

"Yes," Lisa said, having considered the hypothetical question with all due seriousness. "If Ed were up against a deadline and needed help, he'd have asked Morgan first, Chan second-and I suppose he might have instructed both of them not to tell me about it. So what was Ed doing for the war effort that might have required urgent a.s.sistance?"

"I'm not a biologist," Smith said defensively. "I don't even know what the words mean, but have you ever heard of antibody packaging?"

"Yes," Lisa admitted. "I have."

"Did Miller ever mention it to you?"

"Only in a general way-long before the war that we aren't supposed to call a war actually broke out. We always discussed ongoing developments, breaking news. I take it that we're not just talking about the salvation of the banana republics?"

"What?" Smith was obviously telling the truth about not being a biologist. He probably didn't even bother to read the science pages in the newspapers. The war effort really must be soaking up a lot of time and expertise The war effort really must be soaking up a lot of time and expertise, Lisa thought, if the Ministry has to put someone like Peter Grimmett Smith in charge of an investigation like this. if the Ministry has to put someone like Peter Grimmett Smith in charge of an investigation like this.

"One of the earliest applications of genetic modification was the production of so-called plantibodies and plantigens," Lisa told the Ministry man. "Way back at the turn of the century, engineers began transplanting genes that produced antibodies and antigens into plants. A lot of the early experiments used tobacco and potatoes, because they were the best hosts for the mosaic viruses that were then the vectors of choice for ferrying DNA into plant cells. Attention soon switched to bananas because bananas are naturally packaged and eaten raw, so the fruit could be used as a carrier of antibody-c.o.c.ktail oral vaccines. Genetically modified bananas helped wipe out most of the major tropical diseases between 2010 and 2025. That was when the phrase 'packaged antibodies' was first bandied about. It has slightly different connotations in a biowar context, but the basic principle's the same."

"I don't follow," Smith confessed.

"You're presumably familiar with the theoretical protocols of biological warfare," Lisa said, although she was testing the limits of Smith's ignorance, not making any such presumption. "Anyone planning an a.s.sault using pathogens as weapons needs to make sure not only that they can be efficiently delivered to the target and that they will then have the desired effect, but also that they won't rebound. The aggressors need to immunize their own personnel against the spread of infection-but if they do that too openly, or too far in advance of the attack, they risk blowing their cover and attracting retaliation. Ma.s.s immunization programs are difficult to hide, and once the immunization has been implanted in everyone who needs to be defended, it's out there in the world just waiting to be a.n.a.lyzed and synthesized by the intended objects of the aggression. I'm no expert in strategy, but I a.s.sume that tactical difficulties of this kind have been primarily responsible for the fact that the only confirmed uses of biological weaponry during the last twenty years have been intranational, either by terrorists like those lunatics who carried out the Eurostar attack or by political elites aiming bioweapons at their own troublesome undercla.s.ses.

"Like most biological-warfare research, antibody packaging has a certain amount of general medical significance, but the main reason people have remained interested in it is that it might provide a way to disguise defensive measures taken in advance of biological warfare. At its most elementary, the idea is that a domestic population can be clandestinely immunized against a bioweapon by secreting antibodies in a locally distributed product that wouldn't normally be suspected as a carrier."

"And beyond the elementary?" Smith prompted.

"In theory, at least, there are more subtle ways to tackle the problem. You could, for instance, use surrept.i.tious vectors to import dormant genes capable of producing antibodies into tissue cells that normally have nothing to do with the immune system, but that could-if and when necessary-be activated by a switching mechanism broadly similar to those that already exist to determine which genes are expressed in which kinds of tissues. Effectively, it's a calculatedly c.u.mbersome system, which splits the process of infection resistance in two. No antibodies show up in advance of the bioweapon's launch, but as soon as it's launched, the launchers can distribute the trigger to their own personnel without it being obvious to any onlooker that it's a defense mechanism."

"Isn't that overcomplicated?" Smith asked dubiously.

"Of course it is," Lisa agreed. "That's the whole point of biowarfare. Sneaky is best. But if I were planning World War Three, I probably wouldn't approach the problem that way. I'd probably be looking at smart fibers and second skins. If I were on the Containment Commission, I'd be looking to issue the population with some very very smart suits." She was looking hard at him, trying to gauge his reaction, but he was spooky enough to have an efficient poker face. smart suits." She was looking hard at him, trying to gauge his reaction, but he was spooky enough to have an efficient poker face.

"Morgan Miller was once an expert on retroviruses, I believe," he said, abruptly changing tack.

"A long time ago," Lisa agreed. "In the early years of the century, retroviruses were the vectors of choice for transforming animal eggs stripped from the ova of slaughtered livestock. Morgan's search for an all-purpose transformer focused on that kind of carrier mechanism until 2010 or thereabouts, when anti-viral research moved into the next phase. Don't be misled by the AIDS connection, though-not all retroviruses were bad news even back then. The ones Morgan worked with were constructive. I doubt that he bothered to keep library specimens in living mice, in Mouseworld or anywhere else, although he may have had a few frozen down and he'd have kept full sequence data for any novel types he put together. Is there some particular reason that the MOD is interested in retroviruses?"

She didn't expect an answer to the question and she didn't get one.

"We have all his publications from that era, of course," Smith said. "What we don't know is how much work he did that was never written up."

"All university staff wrote up everything they could in those days," Lisa a.s.sured him. "Publication wasn't just the currency of promotion back then-it was the high road to grant funding. The patent wars confused the situation, of course, but once the intellectual-property situation was clarified, he'd have put everything on the record that would go."

"Including failed experiments?"

"There's no such thing as a failed experiment," Lisa told the MOD man wryly. "Those experiments also serve the cause; they merely confirm the null hypothesis. But everyone has runs that get fouled up and are quietly dropped from the record, and everyone has the kind of dull results that they always mean to write up when they've nothing better to do, but never quite get around to because something better always turns up in time. Then again, there are the incomplete sequences-sets of data that need a little something extra to cover all the angles and make them genuinely meaningful. Sometimes it's so difficult to block off the last few holes in a story that doesn't have much of a punch line anyway that it hardly seems worth the effort. So, yes-even though Morgan would have put everything on the record that was fit to be put, he probably had all kinds of results that never got that far, including sequences for all kinds of viral transformers-retros and every other kind of artificial we've cla.s.sified. But the idea that any one of them might be a recipe for a powerful bioweapon, or a defense against one, is the stuff of crude melodrama. It Ed Burdillon was working on some new method of antibody packaging for you, and Morgan was helping him, I'd have to say that that's far more likely to have attracted unwelcome attention than his old work on retroviruses."

"I see," Smith said unconvincingly. "You do understand, Dr. Friemann, that all our biowarfare research is purely defensive."

"Of course I do," Lisa agreed, taking care not to sound too sarcastic.

"Could a defense mechanism of any kind that would fit under the rubric of antibody packaging be short-circuited? If an enemy knew how the antibodies were to be packaged, but didn't know exactly what was to be included in the package, could the whole system be attacked? Could one, for instance, deploy a virus to attack an entire antibody-packaging system?"

"Maybe," Lisa said, "but we're getting into deep hypothetical water here. Unless you care to tell me exactly what it is that Ed Burdillon was asked to do, and why your bosses think that Morgan's particular expertise might have had a special bearing on the problem, I can't make a useful judgment."

Either Smith didn't know the answer himself or he didn't care to tell her yet-which didn't surprise Lisa in the least. "We're here," he said as the Jaguar swung into the entrance of an underground parking lot.

While the vehicle paused at the booth outside the opaque screen that covered the entrance to the lot, Lisa had time to look up at what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary office building. Whatever kind of ID the blond driver was holding up to the security guard at the barrier must have impressed him, because he saluted as he pressed the b.u.t.ton that raised the screen, then waved them through.