Wildcard Read Online Free PDF Page A

remind you that this trip is important to us and to Ndanga, gentlemen. They need the respectability it will afford them and we in turn need access to their airstrip in the south and what goes with it. If we call off the visit, they just might renege on the whole agreement.’
    ‘But surely they’ll understand that such a visit doesn’t make sense during an outbreak?’
    ‘And there’s the rub,’ said Collins. ‘According to them, there is no outbreak. The authorities in Ndanga maintain that there has been no case of Ebola or any other haemorrhagic fever in the country in the past two years.’
    ‘But there must have been, otherwise how could poor old Barclay have picked it up? You have to get it from an already infected person, don’t you?’
    ‘Or an infected monkey, I understand.’
    ‘I can’t see Barclay consorting with chimps during his visit, can you?’
    ‘So that leaves us with a bit of an impasse,’ said Collins.
    ‘The Ndangan authorities must be lying.’
    ‘I have to admit that that thought did occur,’ said Collins. ‘So I made some discreet enquiries of the World Health Organisation. They have no record of any case of haemorrhagic fever in Ndanga in the past year.’
    ‘Did Barclay perhaps travel around a bit while he was in Africa?’ suggested someone.
    ‘I considered that, too,’ said Collins, ‘but I’ve seen his diary. He didn’t have any time to play the tourist. Apart from that, there has been no Ebola in any of the countries bordering Ndanga during the last six months.’
    ‘How about contact with a carrier?’
    ‘As I understand it, the medical profession is a bit vague about carrier status where these diseases are concerned. Some don’t think a true carrier state exists,’ said Collins, ‘but there is agreement about transfer of the virus through body fluids from a person who is recovering from the disease.’
    ‘So if old Humphrey had slept with a lady of the night who’d recently had the disease, that could have been it?’
    ‘Barclay was more a National Geographic and mug-of-Horlicks man, in my estimation,’ said Collins. ‘But even if what you suggest were true, what happened to her other customers? They should all be dead by now.’
    ‘Well, even if that was how Barclay picked it up, I don’t see anything there to prevent the Foreign Secretary’s visit going ahead.’
    ‘No,’ agreed Collins. ‘Just as long as we’re satisfied that there really is no outbreak in Ndanga.’
    ‘If I might make a suggestion, sir?’
    ‘Go ahead,’ said Collins.
    ‘You could have a word with the Sci-Med people in the Home Office. They’re sort of medical detectives, aren’t they?’
    ‘They are indeed,’ said Collins, ‘and that is a very good idea. I’ll have Jane make me an appointment to see the head of that outfit … What’s his name?’
    ‘Macmillan, sir. John Macmillan.’
     
     
    The Sci-Med Inspectorate was a small independent body operating from within the Home Office under the directorship of John Macmillan. It comprised a number of investigators, well qualified in either science or medicine, whose job it was to take a look at problems, with or without possible criminal involvement, occurring in the hi-tech areas of modern life, areas where the police had little or no expertise.
    This was no reflection on the police. They could not be expected to notice when, for instance, the surgical success record of one hospital fell well below others carrying out almost identical procedures, nor were they in a position to investigate the possible causes even if they did. Likewise, they were unlikely to notice that certain chemicals being ordered by the staff of a university chemistry department were in fact being used to manufacture hallucinogenic drugs. Both of these scenarios had been encountered in the past by Sci-Med and resolved, through enforced resignation of an ageing surgeon in the first case and criminal prosecution of a number of lab technicians in the