Whiteout - Ken Follett [99]
“What?”
“He has another phone in the car. He’s a reporter, he has backup equipment. Hell, I never thought of that.”
“Shall I run out there and stop him?”
“Too late now. By the time you get there, he’ll have said enough. Damn.” Nothing was going right. She felt like giving up, walking away and finding a darkened room and lying down and closing her eyes. But instead she pulled herself together. “When he comes back in, just sneak outside and see whether he’s left the keys in the ignition. If he has, take them—then at least he won’t be able to phone again.”
“Okay.”
Her mobile rang and she picked up. “Toni Gallo.”
“This is Odette.” She sounded shaken.
“What’s happened?”
“Fresh intelligence. A terrorist group called Scimitar has been actively shopping for Madoba-2.”
“Scimitar? An Arab group?”
“Sounds like it, though we’re not sure—the name might be intentionally misleading. But we think your thieves are working for them.”
“My God. Do you know anything else?”
“They aim to release it tomorrow, Boxing Day, at a major public location somewhere in Britain.”
Toni gasped. She and Odette had speculated that this might be so, but the confirmation was shocking. People stayed at home on Christmas Day then went out on Boxing Day. All over Britain, families would go to soccer matches, horse races, cinemas and theaters and bowling alleys. Many would catch flights to ski resorts and Caribbean beaches. The opportunities were endless. “But where?” Toni said. “What event?”
“We don’t know. So we have to stop these thieves. The local police are on their way to you with a snowplow.”
“That’s great!” Toni’s spirits lifted. If the thieves could be caught, everything would change. Not only would the virus be recaptured and the danger averted, but Oxenford Medical would not look so bad in the press, and Stanley would be saved.
Odette went on: “I’ve also alerted your neighboring police forces, plus Glasgow; but Inverburn is where the action will be, I think. The guy in charge there is called Frank Hackett. The name rang a bell—he’s not your ex, is he?”
“Yes. That was part of the problem. He likes to say no to me.”
“Well, you’ll find him a chastened man. He’s had a phone call from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Sounds comical, doesn’t it, but he’s in charge of the Cabinet Office briefing room, which we call COBRA. In other words, he’s the antiterrorism supremo. Your ex must have jumped out of his bed as if it was on fire.”
“Don’t waste your sympathy, he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Since then, he’s heard from my boss, another life-enhancing experience. The poor sod is on his way to you with a snowplow.”
“I’d rather have the snowplow without Frank.”
“He’s had a hard time, be nice to him.”
“Yeah, right,” said Toni.
3:45 A.M.
DAISY was shivering so much she could hardly hold the ladder. Elton climbed the rungs, grasping a pair of garden shears in one frozen hand. The exterior lamps shone through the filter of falling snow. Kit watched from the garage door, his teeth chattering. Nigel was in the garage, arms wrapped around the burgundy leather briefcase.
The ladder was propped up against the side of Steepfall. Telephone wires emerged at the corner of the house and ran at roof height to the garage. From there, Kit knew, they connected with an underground pipe that ran to the main road. Severing the cables here would cut off the entire property from telephone contact. It was just a precaution, but Nigel had insisted, and Kit had found ladder and shears in the garage.
Kit felt as if he were in a nightmare. He had known that tonight’s work would be dangerous, but in his worst moments he had never anticipated that he would be standing outside his family home while a gangster cut the phone lines and a master thief clutched a case containing a virus that could kill them all.
Elton took his left hand off the ladder, balancing cautiously, and held the shears in both hands. He leaned forward, caught a cable between the blades, pressed the handles together, and