It was Kevin who phoned Colin and broke the news that we might already be too late.
“There was a new posting from Solomon on the Malthus site today,”
he’d told Colin. Colin told him not to panic, but it was enough for Colin to call me. “We’ve waited long enough,” it said. “We tested the means and we practiced the process and it all works. We warned them, and we gave them time, but time has run out. We are ready -
Solomon”
“There’s more,” Colin said. He’d traced the source of Solomon’s message. It had been sent from an IP address in Bangkok.
Larry then phoned and broke some more news. “I’ve been looking into asthma inhalers, They’d be a brilliant way of spreading a virus.
Did you know that you can buy them from supermarkets and from dispensers along with your soft drink? Druggies use them filled with whatever turns them on at raves and parties.”
So, was this how their distribution network was going to work?
Innocent-looking asthma inhalers with counterfeit labels with a recognised company’s name on and said to be containing salbutamol
for asthmatics but, instead, containing a lethal virus? Distributors wouldn’t even know what they were distributing.
“And there’s something else, Mark,” Larry said. “Relenza is a flu treatment administered via an inhaler, and it’s already in the market.
They’d need some technical skills and the right equipment, but methods for spreading a virus and then selling a treatment for it are endless.”
Larry still hadn’t finished. “Let me try out another on you. How many counterfeit drugs are sold on the internet these days? I just Googled
‘Buy salbutamol inhalers for asthma’ online, and up came pages and pages of offers. You can buy openly or, as they like to say, discreetly.
And who’s to stop anyone stocking up on inhalers labelled as a recognised brand name like Ventolin but containing lethal virus from some cowboy outfit in India, Pakistan, or Egypt and putting them up for sale on the internet?”
With that, I told him what we’d found in El Badry’s filing cabinet.
“An invoice for two hundred thousand pressurised metered-dose inhalers,”
That then stunned Larry. “I can’t waste time here,” he said. “I’m going to Washington.”
***
It was 2am but my phone was red hot.Jimmy was the next to call Colin, so Colin then phoned me.
“Jimmy says it’s not just the Pakistanis who are leaving Nairobi. He arrived for his first cleaning job and two trucks were being loaded with equipment and boxes. Luther Jasman was helping out but Jimmy decided he’d better not show his face even though he was wearing the cleaner’s boots and overalls and a paper hat. He went home.
“This morning, Jimmy phoned Luther Jasman to ask when he needed his new students. Jasman was very apologetic. They no longer needed any. The place was closing down to be used as a warehouse. Jasman was concerned he’d soon be out of a job like Jomo.”
“Did Luther say where everything was going?” I asked Colin.
“Cairo,” Colin said. You’re in the right place.”
I didn’t sleep well again that night and Anna’s phone was still switched off.
***
The next morning, I paid off Mahmoud and Maria and I headed south out of Cairo in a rental car towards Beni Suef.Approaching Beni Suef, the landscape was open, rural, and flat with a scattering of date palms. “Nahda University is on the east side of the river, Mr Dobson,” Maria said, checking the map. “But I cannot find Majid.”
Passing the university on the right, we approached a roundabout with a choice, either turn right over the river to Beni Suef town or carry on.
But, with the map showing nothing going further south, we turned right over the Nile Bridge and into the outskirts of the town itself.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I suggested a stop for tea or coffee and some enquiries. Ten minutes later, we were on the road again, heading south.
The Majid industrial area was a dusty, sand-blown area of small industrial units, untidy shop fronts, men in greasy overalls, and stray dogs. But, driving on through, we found the more modern end, an industrial area of purpose-built units with names mostly in Arabic but some in English: Tobruk Tools, Hassan Engineering, Egyptian Confection, Majid Plastics. Then, as we rounded a bend that ran out towards open countryside, a green building set behind a high wire fence came into view. The wire gateway was closed, and behind it on a gravelled driveway was a small building of concrete blocks - the security man’s shelter from the sun.
I stopped the car, and we sat with the air conditioning running and took stock. The single-storey front end had a smart-looking entrance of tinted glass. Two cars were parked outside on the gravelled driveway that continued around the side to a higher, two-storey rear
with green metal cladding. There were no windows, but a white van was parked next to a wide double-door loading bay.
I moved the car closer until we could see the sign over the front entrance - Shah Pharmaceuticals - in English and Arabic. The building was bigger and more modern than I had imagined, and at the rear was something else I’d not imagined - a garden, a miniature oasis of bushes, palms, and trees with yellow laburnum-like flowers. It resembled a small artificially created garden of the sort found in hotels, and I wondered if there might also be a hidden swimming pool. But no one was around. Even the concrete security shelter behind the wire gate was empty. I took photos on my phone, and then we sat there. “What do we do now, Mr Dobson?”
“We go back to Cairo,” I said. I needed to think.