It had been a while since I had spoken to Walt Daniels at Biox, Verbal descriptions of David Solomon and Guy Williams were one thing, but I needed colour photos. Walt obliged, and by morning, I had trimmed full-face shots probably taken at a staff function somewhere. I knew that Solomon was tall, maybe six feet. The photo showed him with fair hair and looking younger than his forty years.
Guy Williams was shorter, stocky, five feet six or so, and the photo showed him with a mop of thick but neat black hair. With a photo of Jan de Jonge from Colin and a clear picture of Mohamed Kader and Greg O’Brian in my mind, it was enough.
At daybreak I headed south to Beni Suef. There was no Maria this time, but by seven thirty, I was in the Majid industrial area, with the sun rising into a cloudless pale blue sky behind palm trees that spread to the eastern horizon.
From the shade of one of the other, smaller factory units, I had a good view of the whole length of the Shah building. With binoculars,
camera, water bottles, potato crisps and chocolate bars I was ready for a long stake out.
When I arrived, the two cars and van from the day before were not there, but I didn’t have to wait long for action. At eight thirty, a minibus arrived. The driver unlocked the wire gate, drove in, and stopped beside the loading bay area. He opened the sliding passenger door and three men emerged, all of them matching Jimmy’s description of what he’d called Pakistanis. He was probably right.
Ten minutes later, two cars arrived together and stopped at the front entrance. I wound down the tinted window of the Toyota and, through the binoculars, watched three men emerge. Two were white, and one was black. Casually dressed in open-necked shirts, they stood for a while, chatted and lit cigarettes. I switched to the camera, took a couple of shots, then watched them walk to the main door, unlock it and go inside.
Then another car arrived - a white Toyota similar to mine. It stopped next to the other cars, and three men emerged. These looked Egyptian. I took more photos, watched them disappear inside, and then settled back. With the engine and air conditioning off, the heat inside the car was now building.
Breakfast was a can of Fanta, crisps and aa bar of melting chocolate and potato crisps, and checked the photos I’d taken. One might have been Guy Williams and the other Jan de Jonge, but I was far from certain. As for the black one, I had no idea who he was. None of them looked like David Solomon, but from what we now knew, Solomon was probably in Thailand.
That made me think about Anna, and with nothing else to do, I called her number. It was switched off.
I waited until almost midday for more action. A truck hauling a twenty-foot container arrived, passed through the open gate, and stopped. Three of the Pakistanis emerged and directed the truck to the loading area at the side. The truck reversed up to the bay, and from what I could see through the binoculars, boxes were unloaded. A forklift truck appeared and carried a large shiny stainless-steel tank
onto the driveway and left it there, glinting in the sun. The truck then departed.
There is a downside to this job, namely the pain and discomfort of stake outs. Right then, at midday, it was the intense heat. If I had been an employee of some European or American company surrounded by health and safety posters, I would have been perfectly entitled to say enough is enough and walk out, but I’m self-employed. I’m a man who earns his crust doing this sort of thing.
If I had been parked in the sun, death would have been a relief. In the shade, every drop of water I had drunk was seeping through my skin.
The temperature gage showed an outside temperature of 41°C. Inside, it was becoming unbearable but I didn’t want to attract attention by sitting with the engine and air conditioning running. Mercifully, at one o’clock, there was some action.
The three mem (two white, one black) who had arrived together re-emerged and piled into one of the cars.
I started the Toyota, felt the first waft of refrigerated air in five hours, and waited for them to drive past my parking spot. I followed them back in the direction of Beni Suef. They turned off the road in the direction of the river and I followed through a dusty village of flat-roofed houses, a coffee shop, some small shops selling vegetables, and found myself in an area of modern villas set behind concrete walls with high iron gates. The river Nile then appeared on my right between rows of palm trees and a boat with pure white sails drifted close to the shore.
I followed the car northwards for several more kilometres until it slowed to a walking pace, turned right, and disappeared through an avenue of trees towards the river. And there, laid out amongst flowering shrubs and green lawns with sprinklers casting rainbows of light amongst the greenery stood the River View Hotel - a quiet place of unexpected luxury and a nice place to bring Anna, I thought as I watched the three men get out and head for the hotel.
I parked the rental, checked the wetness of my armpits and groin, got out, locked it, and walked up some tiled steps into the luxurious
coolness to a hotel lobby with a white marble floor, a reception desk, sparkling chandeliers and a hundred or more Americans, Japanese, Chinese, and Europeans fanning themselves, talking, and scanning books on Egyptian history and antiquities. The River View Hotel it seemed was a stopping-off point for luxury Nile cruises, a place where they stopped for a night before continuing south to Aswan or north to Cairo.
In my sweaty grey chinos and white shirt, I blended in far better than if I’d been wearing a suit, so I continued to check the place out from the entrance. There was no sign of the three Shah men, but a marble archway, edged by ferns and flowers, marked the entrance to the bar and restaurant.
I found a seat at a corner table, ordered a gin and tonic, a bottle of ice-cold mineral water and looked around. The three men were drinking beers at a table by the window overlooking the lawn. The black man talked and the others nodded. The white smoker talked and they laughed. The shorter white man had his back to me, so I could only see a short black ponytail fixed with some sort of band and a fashionable-looking bright blue silk shirt with a flowery pattern. The black man looked around as if admiring the surroundings and the smoker took a drink from a glass of beer and sat back. I knew immediately it was Jan de Jonge.
And the black one? Was this Larry’s friend from Nairobi, the Frenchman Philippe Fournier? And the ponytail? I was sure it was Guy Williams.
The waiter returned and asked if I wanted lunch but I declined and ordered another bottle of mineral water. When it arrived, I picked it up and walked over to the three men – crunch time.
Without asking, I sat on the empty fourth chair and put my bottle of water on the white tablecloth. They looked at me and then at one another.
“Mr De Jonge?” I said, looking at the smoker. From this distance, less than a metre, I knew I was right. He stared at me, but before he had
time to react, spoke to the black one. “Philippe Fournier?” Then I turned to the one in blue silk shirt and ponytail. “Guy Williams?”
The Dutchman had had a ten-second advantage over his colleagues.
“Who are you?”
“I take it you are Jan De Jonge?”
There was no reply, but the one in blue shirt now had time to think.
“What’s going on?”
“What do you want?” De Jonge asked.
I raised my hand. “Steady. Take it easy. Just a few questions.”
They looked at me and then at each other, as if there was some unresolved mistrust between them. De Jonge stared at Williams. “You know this guy?”
“I’ve never seen him before,” said Williams in an English accent.
I leaned forward. “I mean no harm, assuming none of you have done nothing wrong,” I said, knowing full well that the Dutchman may well have been the one responsible for the theft of a million dollars’ worth of research material from his employer. “I need some help.”
“Help? What sort of help?” Williams asked.
“How did you find me?” De Jonge asked in a Dutch accent, as if he was the only one, I’d just found.
“I followed you,” I said.
Fournier spoke in a French accent. “The car. It followed us from the highway?”
“I followed you all the way from Shah Pharmaceuticals.”
Williams looked agitated. His hands were pressed on the arms of his chair as if he was about to join De Jonge and run. “Who are you?
Who sent you?”
“Take it easy,” I repeated. “I need to talk to all of you. I do not represent the law, if that’s what’s bothering you.”
The waiter returned to tell them their table was ready in the restaurant.
They seemed unsure what to do, so I helped them out. “Go ahead. I’ll
join you at your table. I’ve already eaten,” I said, referring to the two melted Snicker bars I’d eaten.
They looked at one another but then Williams stood, followed by De Jonge then Fournier and then myself. All four of us then followed the waiter in a line like ducklings heading to the pond.
The waiter flipped white napkins onto our laps and asked if I might now wish to order. I declined. Then I started again.
I looked at Jan de Jonge. “Message from mum and dad,” I said. “Zoe liked her necklace.”
It was the test that Colin had suggested. Only De Jonge’s mother and father would have known anything about a necklace and Zoe. I didn’t have a clue about the significance but De Jonge clearly did. There was a stunned silence as he looked at me with his mouth ajar. “Have you seen them?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “It’s just a message.”
“Do they know I’m here? How are they?”
“They don’t know where you are. It’s my secret. As far as I know, I’m the only person in the world who knows you are here.”
I was trying to settle nerves, but noticed that Philippe Fournier looked embarrassed. He licked his lips, and the pink in his eyes glistened.
“Am I right about your names?”
Fournier nodded. “Oui, Je suis Philippe Fournier. I have only been here one week.”
Williams repeated, “What do you want?”
“I want to know what you do at Shah Pharmaceuticals,” I said.
“Invasion of privacy. Industrial secret. Patents pending,” Williams said, as if I was an old-fashioned industrial secrets spy. I almost laughed. He clearly knew nothing about how sophisticated the theft of intellectual property now was. Colin can do it from the computer in his office.
“But why come out to this deserted spot?”
“None of your bloody business. Anyway, how about coming clean yourself? Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Mark Dobson,” I said. “I’m a commercial crime investigator. Private. Freelance, if you prefer and I’m English. Is there anything more you’d like to know?”
Williams looked sceptical. Fournier scratched his head, as if it was all too complicated. No more questions were forthcoming so I went on.
“Why did you come out here?” I said but was interrupted by the arrival of three prawn cocktails.
Williams stood. “I don’t have to sit here with some rude, bloody stranger who’s just walked in.”
“Where are you conducting the clinical trials?” I asked.
His face changed but he sat down again albeit on the edge of his chair.
“What clinical trials?”
“The trials on the treatment for the virus known in some circles as TRS-CoV.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I took a chance. “Let’s start with the Nigerian trials.”
“We’re not doing trials. It’s far too early.”
His certainty seemed genuine, and it surprised me. “What about the trials in Thailand?”
“What are you taking about? There aren’t any trials.”
“OK, then let’s start at the beginning,” I said. “Where did the new virus come from?”
“What the bloody hell do you know about viruses?” Williams asked sneeringly.
“Enough to know that it’s possible to engineer them for research purposes - so called gain-of-function research.
“There are strict controls,” he replied.
“Could someone steal a virus created in a strictly controlled laboratory, perhaps modify it further, build huge stocks of it and then release it?
“It’s laughable.”
“Do you have any genetically modified respiratory viruses here?”
“No.”
He seemed so adamant that it surprised me, and for a moment, I began to question my thinking. “Any other viruses kept here?”
“Yes, but we know what we are doing.”
“OK. The new antiviral treatments you are working on, how are they progressing?”
“Slow but we are making progress.”
I was surprised I’d got an answer without a question about how I knew what they were doing.
Jan De Jonge was visibly sweating. Nerves. I was unsettling him.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I need the bathroom.” I watched him go.
Philippe Fournier, meanwhile, was eating his prawn cocktail like a man who still had a good appetite so I turned my attention back to Guy Williams. “I’ve become an amateur expert on viruses in the last few weeks. I even understand how drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza work on influenza viruses and how drugs for HIV work. It’s all very clever. The thing that truly amazes me is why you change viruses just for the fun of it.”
“It’s not for fun if it helps to improve treatments,” he replied.
That comment was not what I expected and I briefly wondered if he knew what he was involved with. Then I moved on. “Why did you leave Biox?”
He swished his pony tail. “Opportunity knocked. Money was good.
Nice location and improving every day. Look around you.”
“Where is David Solomon?”
That changed him. He sniffed. He paused. Then: “I don’t know,” he said. “He came here to set things up, but he was closer to the management than me. He moved on.”
Things were changing as we spoke. My opinions, rooted in what I thought made sense, needed to be dug up, inspected, and possibly thrown away. It happens like that sometimes. Citizens’ arrests can turn out to be embarrassing. “Where did he go?” I asked.
He didn’t know. Apparently, he phoned sometimes or used email. It was my turn to pause because I sensed Guy Williams was telling the truth. “Forgive me,” I said, “but I think there are things going on that you are unaware of. You are being used. Exploited.”
“Rubbish,” he said defiantly.
“So, what are the aerosol inhalers for?”
He looked shocked. “Tests,” he replied. “We want to improve the process for filling the pressurised canisters aseptically. It’s not simple technology.”
“And once you’ve solved that, what will the inhalers be filled with?”
“Our new antiviral drug - the one we’re developing.”
“Who is working on the engineering?”
“A team of engineers from Pakistan.”
Things were clicking into place. It made sense. Guy Williams wasn’t as bad as I thought. I swallowed the final drops of my bottle of mineral water, as the waiter cleared two dishes of untouched prawn cocktails and one dish that had been empty for several minutes.
“Where has Jan gone?” I asked. Fournier pointed towards the lobby.
The waiter returned and asked if he should serve their main course now but Guy Williams said, no. Something had cropped up. “We need to go. Please put the bill on our account.”
“Can we talk some more, Guy?” I said in my softer, comforting tone.
I led the way back to the bar and Jan De Jonge reappeared from the lobby. He still looked unsettled and nervous. I ordered coffee,
apologised for interrupting their lunch and asked Philippe how long he’d worked there?”
“Two weeks,” he said.
“Who recruited you?”
“I don’t know.”
Guy Williams looked incredulous. “You don’t know?”
“I never asked. The man phoned me, asked if I was interested in a better-paid job. I said yes. Anything is better than working for charity.
I met him for an interview. I was offered a job. He said to pack a case and bring my passport. I thought it was for security, or I was going to Paris for training. Next minute, I was on a plane with him bound for Cairo. I sat in economy. He sat in first class. We were met in Cairo by a woman.”
I wondered if that might have been Mrs. El Badry
“I was given five thousand dollars in advance of my salary and
brought here by car. Nice research laboratory, nice garden, nice villa we stay in. Better than the job in Nairobi. I like it.”
“What did the man who interviewed you look like?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Christ Almighty,” Williams muttered.
I opened my phone and scrolled. “Did he look like this?”
“Yes, that’s him.”
“His name is Dominique Lunneau,” I said and looked at Guy Williams. “He works at the Shah Medicals site in Nairobi but once worked in Lebanon. My information is that he has close links with the company’s owner.”
“What Shah Medicals site in Nairobi?” Guy Williams asked.
“Shah Medicals also have operations in Hong Kong and Singapore,” I said in reply.
Williams didn’t know.
I turned to face Jan de Jonge but had no wish to go around in circles just to arrive at the one question I wanted to ask. “Did you take some research material from Virex without permission?”
He looked at Guy Williams then back at me. “Yes,” he said.
“Christ Almighty,” Williams said again, but the relief on De Jonge’s face was visible.
“Am I likely to be prosecuted if I return to the US?”
I avoided the question for now. “Who did you give the material to?”
There was only the slightest hesitation. “David Solomon.”
“Christ Almighty,” Williams said again.
“Did he pay you for it?” I asked.
“No. He said he was working for a company in Egypt and could guarantee me a job with double salary and better conditions.”
“Anything else?”
“He said he’d pay a lump sum so I could settle my debts after I’d moved to Egypt and if—”
“If what?”
“If I took a virus sample from the Virex bio-safety lab.”
“What?” cried Guy Williams. “Bloody hell, Jan.”
“What was the virus?” I asked.
“A modified respiratory virus we’d been working on.”
“And you gave it to him?”
“I trusted him. He was only a kilometre away at Biox, and Virex and Biox were working together. And David is an international expert.
He’s written papers and lectured on it.”
Guy Williams stood up. “What the hell is going on here, Jan?”
Philippe Fournier stayed sitting down, staring at each of us in turn and a silence descended. I broke it. “Do any of you know who owns Shah Pharmaceuticals?”
Philippe shrugged, and De Jonge shook his head. But Guy Williams said, “Yes. It’s owned by an Arab company called Al Zafar. They have a chain of pharmaceutical businesses in the Middle East.”
“Do you know who owns Al Zafar?”
“A man called Mohamed Kader. He came here a year ago after we set up.”
“Have you heard of Livingstone Pharmaceuticals?”
“The name rings a bell,” he said.
“How loudly does it ring?”
“People in the States buy Livingstone indigestion tablets.”
“Not a high-tech biotechnology company then,” I said. “Did you know that Livingstone and Al Zafar, alias Shah Medicals, work together, cooperate, maybe hold shares in each other’s businesses?
That they have a network of distributors right across the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa. That there is a site in Nairobi and an office in Cairo. And do you know who owns Livingstone?”
“No bloody idea,” said Williams. “Tell me.”
I decided not to mention a name but told them he was known to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies as a crook, a fraudster, an embezzler, and worse. “He’s one of your bosses,” I said. “The other is Mohamed Kader and the third is probably David Solomon.”
“I don’t believe it,” Guy Williams said immediately. “I’ve known Dave for years. There’s nothing wrong with him. We worked together for a long time in UK and the USA.”
“Did he have any particularly strong opinions on anything?”
“Environmental issues,” he replied. “I shared them. As a biologist, you get hung up about the destruction of the environment.”
“Did he feel strongly enough about anything to want to actually do something?”
Guy Williams didn’t need much time to think about that. “Over population,” he said. “He was an admirer of the biologist Paul Ehrlich
but thought Ehrlich had weakened and wasn’t determined enough. We both belonged to a debating society at Boston Uni.”
“The Malthus Club?” I asked.
“Bloody hell, yes.”
“So, what would you say if I told you that David Solomon is suspected of having created a virus that could kill millions and that he plans to release it to kill numbers of people not seen since the black death?”
All three men, professional virologists in their own right, fell silent. It was Jan De Jonge who broke it this time. “The virus I gave him could do it with one or two small alterations. We created it at Virex. Biox was also involved.”
That comment was hugely significant. It answered the one big question that Charles Brady wouldn’t answer. It explained the business relationship between Charles Brady of Virex and Josh Ornstein of Biox, and it would explain Josh Ornstein’s nervous questions to Larry about the Nigerian deaths.
“No one could do all that alone,” said Guy Williams. “Certainly not on that scale.”
“That’s the point, Guy,” I replied. “He has funds. He has access to an international network of distributors in just the right places to start such a campaign - in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia. Just the places he believes are overpopulated, overcrowded trouble spots. And there is someone else who shares David Solomon’s views and is in a perfect position to deliver it. That person is your other boss, Mohamed Kader.”
“Are you serious?” Guy Williams asked.
“I’m deadly serious,” I said. And then there’s the boss of Livingstone Pharmaceuticals. Here is a man whose sole interest is making money.
He’s made millions out of fraud and embezzlement. Funding David Solomon’s project and your little place here in Beni Suef is small change. He’ll probably stash profits from your little venture in the
Cayman Islands or somewhere else that’s untouchable. But don’t ever stand in his way. He’s a nasty piece of work.”
For the first time, Philippe Fournier asked a question, and at first glance, it made a lot of sense. “But he can’t make money by spreading a virus.”
I shook my head. “Oh yes, he can, Philippe. He’s got something he can sell at a huge profit margin - a treatment. First, you spread the virus, then you sell the treatment. And if you can’t cope with the demand or, more likely, it’s unprofitable what do you then do? You start selling counterfeits of it.”
Jan de Jonge’s complexion had turned from stressed-out red to anaemic- looking white.
“And how can they administer the treatment or spread the virus?” I asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “How about using controlled dose inhalers? And who’s working on the technology for these inhalers?” I spread my arms wide, inviting the obvious answer.
“You’re all implicated.”