He wasn’t prepared to abandon his line of thought just yet but he needed time — time without anyone rocking the boat was his next panic-driven thought He suddenly saw Macmillan’s plan to rattle cages in Whitehall by dropping Hausman’s name and background into a conversation with the director of MI5 as counter-productive in the extreme and hurriedly called the Home Office.

‘I’m sorry, he’s gone to lunch, Steven,’ said Jean Roberts.

Steven closed his eyes. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. ‘How long ago did he leave?’

‘About ten minutes. He’s lunching at his club. He was walking over.’

Steven knew the walk across Green Park well enough: it took about ten minutes. ‘Jean, can you use his emergency pager. Tell him not to mention Hausman to the director.’

‘Not to mention Hausman... Consider it done.’

Steven smiled. Jean Roberts was never anything other than the epitome of efficiency. She confirmed a few minutes later that the message had been received and understood.

The relief Steven felt at having stopped Macmillan in time soon gave way to thoughts about what an alternative strategy might be. A more precise, clinical approach was called for but there seemed to be too many imponderables for that. He still felt that some sort of biological agent, developed in UK or US research labs, was key to the whole affair, but there was no obvious way of getting information about it. The important players were all scientists in top secret labs or members of the intelligence community — tough nuts to crack, but tough didn’t necessarily mean impossible.

There was no question of getting anything out of anyone at Porton, one of the most secretive labs on earth, but Dan Hausman didn’t work at Porton, he worked in a university lab, many of which were as secure as garden huts. He was CIA so it wouldn’t be possible to scare him into talking, especially as there was nothing to threaten him with. On the other hand, if he had been working on the agent during his time in the North lab there should be some record of it — notes, lab books, records, computer files — maybe not lying around but somewhere in the building.

Now that Steven had managed to stop Macmillan Hausman would have no reason to believe that he was the subject of any kind of investigation. That was the way it should stay for the moment, at least until Steven was sure that the risks involved in making an unauthorised entry into the North lab could be justified.

It still worried him that the proposed agent did not appear to be lethal and that he might be barking up the wrong tree, but considering the matter further brought to mind a conversation he’d had some years before with an expert on germ warfare. This particular professor had maintained that the time for the continual development of more and more lethal weapons had passed; there was a surfeit of them and the problem of infecting your own troops and population was still insurmountable. What was needed, the professor had asserted, were weapons that debilitated the enemy but could be reversed at a later stage. That way, military success could be achieved without lasting damage to property or personnel. Was this what he was dealing with here, the Holy Grail of bio-weaponry? It was something to bear in mind.

Steven turned his attention to Ranjit Khan but didn’t get far. Khan was Pakistani intelligence and a killer and that was about it, apart from the highly relevant fact that he was currently here in London and was responsible for Steven’s carrying the weapon sitting in the shoulder holster he’d hung over the corner of the chair opposite.

Bill Andrews, Khan’s accomplice in the killing of Simone, was a different matter. He was American, CIA, and, with Khan, had probably been responsible for the introduction of fake teams in the first place. He was now about to use vastly increased funding to send in even more ‘aid teams’ to the region, ostensibly to step up the drive to eradicate polio but in reality — if Steven was right — to continue experiments with a new bio-weapon.

Steven remembered his earlier intention to ask Andrews about the dropped contact lens in the gallery of the Strahov library but that was before Jean had discovered his CIA connection and exposed his lies about not knowing Khan and his whereabouts after the Prague meeting. It occurred to Steven that it might be an idea to take a step backwards and do just that — call up Andrews and ask about the contact lens. He had nothing to lose. It would reveal that he was still investigating Simone’s death but nothing more than that and it might be interesting to hear what Andrews had to say. It might even tell him which one of the two had actually carried out the killing, not that they weren’t both equally guilty in his eyes.

Nineteen