Larry, was in his room at the Quincy when we called.
“I’m running out of steam,” he said despondently. “Senator Mary Collis is definitely interested, and I think I’ve convinced her I’m not a crackpot. But she’s a busy woman, and needs evidence to get others to sit up and listen.”
I totally understood. I had Jimmy’s photographs and the ones I’d taken in Cairo and Beni Suef but, so far, little else. I now regretted not recording my conversation with Jan De Jonge, Philippe Fournier, and Guy Williams at the River View Hotel.
Larry sighed. “Try describing a plot like this without it sounding utterly implausible. I think she’s scared of being seen as a sucker to some crazy conspiracy theorist – me. If she says anything, she gets asked too many questions that she can’t answer, and the scientists she’s spoken to say that modifying viruses for research purposes is perfectly legal.
“I suggested she talk to the WHO and they admitted knowing something. But numbers didn’t add up, and the evidence was thin.
She spoke to all the other bodies I’d already spoken to - Homeland Security, USAMRID and so on. More brick walls. Her PA, Collette, called me today to say Mary Collis had spoken to the US Department of Defence to ask if something like this could be classified as bioterrorism. They wouldn’t comment. They needed something from the WHO or more information about the suspected terrorists, such as whether they were Iranian or North Korean or Russian. She got mad
and asked for a definition of bioterrorism. Apparently, it’s the calculated use or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear intended to coerce or intimidate a government or society in the pursuit of political, religious or ideological goals. Collette that that is exactly what we’d got - a threat of unlawful violence using a virus as a weapon. Collette laughed. I’m past laughing.”
I was also past laughing. Instead, I was hearing voices. There was Jimmy’s voice: “I’ll go right now, Mr Franklin … I wonder where Lunneau dumped the bodies.” And there was Anna’s voice: “OK. You go. I’ll go back to my apartment.” And why had Anna answered a call from Ching but not one from me?
Colin sounded more positive. “We need to take some key people out of circulation. We have names, and we know roughly where to find them. Unless we find them ourselves, we’d need law enforcement agencies and international arrest warrants. Interpol is the only organisation capable of doing that.”
“I already checked Interpol,” Larry said. “They thought I was crazy, of course, and was told that their Washington liaison office could instigate something, but as a private citizen, I’d have to start from scratch with the local police department. There are forms to fill in, in duplicate and triplicate. There are case numbers, statements of the precise crime, a description of the exact help needed, and full background details. In urgent circumstances, they’ll accept telephone requests but will do nothing internationally without paperwork.”
Colin and I had good links with Interpol but understood the process only too well.
“Senator Collis might be useful in due course,” I said. “I’ll head back to Bangkok and Singapore tomorrow and try to get you the evidence.
Meanwhile, stick around Washington.”
Larry agreed. “OK,” he said. “The embassy in Nigeria knows I’ve gone AWOL. Tough shit, I say.”
***
Kevin had arrived home and was asleep when I called him.
“Fuck off, Tunji,” I heard. Then: “Sorry, Mark. I was sound. Thought it was Tunji. I’ve had a busy day. Must have dropped off.”
“No problem,” I said. “I’m in London. Can you talk? Better still, could you get up to London first thin tomorrow for a face to face?”
We fixed it. Kevin would get an early train to London with Tom Weston, and we’d meet at the Asher& Asher office. Colin would clear a space and find another chair.
“Could Tunji join us?” I asked.
“He’s flying to Nigeria,” Kevin said. “He thinks he’s Will Smith in Men in Black. I told him this was no movie with extraterrestrials. This was for real. He said he’ll check things out and call me.”