The Conspiracy II Read online

  “We gotta go back to the Mall,” said the black man.

  Vladimir walked up to them. He leaned toward the black man, one hand out in front of him, palm up, appealing to him. “I got an idea, way better than this Union Admiral your friend wants to take down.”

  He made a fist. His accent was foreign, but he spoke clear English. “I’m talking about doing something to the people who deliberately killed many, many brothers.”

  The young man was listening intently now. “What do you mean?” he said.

  “There’s something worth defacing just two blocks from here, and I’ll give you a nice fat contribution to thank you for standing up for minorities. I know you need help.” He raised his fist again in solidarity.

  The white boy looked him up and down. “You some pig instigator, trying to get us all arrested or something?”

  Vladimir pulled up his sweatshirt at the side. A wide scar ran around his lower stomach area.

  “No way, man,” he said. “I was poisoned by big pharma and my woman died. I just want to see their fancy offices get some graffiti.” He put his hands up. “No serious stuff. Nothing really bad. Put BLM and curses all over their fancy glass, that’s all.”

  “It’ll be the easiest money you make all year.” He waved them to come closer. “Get your friends to throw a few firecrackers outside the place too.”

  The two young men looked at each other.

  “What do we get?” said the white boy, his eyes narrowing.

  Vladimir pulled a small roll of notes out of his pocket. He showed it for a second, then wrapped his hand around it. “Don’t try to take it from me, guys. I was in special forces and I can poke your eyeballs out before you can scream for your mommies.”

  He put the roll of notes away. In the distance, three police officers on bicycles were heading their way.

  “Are you in?” he asked. “Just turn left onto K Street and look for the building set back from the street with a blue water fountain outside.”

  16

  Washington DC, May 31st, 2020

  Rob had a conference call with Peter Fitzgerald and Sean Ryan, his partners at the institute, coming up at three that afternoon, eight p.m. London time. It was a Sunday. Rob had requested an emergency meeting to discuss the offer from TOTALVACS.

  He also wanted an opportunity to confront Peter, who had sent him the invitation to go to Paris.

  The invitation had been genuine, but it was likely, given what Wang had said, that someone on the French side had asked to make sure it was him that ended up getting it. He needed to understand what Peter knew about it.

  As he waited for the online video meeting to start, his mind wandered to the first time he’d met Peter Fitzgerald, just before he’d been recruited to join the institute. It was supposed to be a friendly lunch, as Sean Ryan had already interviewed Rob twice. Rob remembered it all clearly for various reasons, including where the meeting had taken place, in a high-class Chinese restaurant near Harrods in London.

  Peter had known the manager. He’d also argued with Rob.

  He even remembered the argument. It was to do with the ethics of gain-of-function research, the process of making a mild virus into something much worse, to study it.

  The United States National Institutes of Health had, a little while before that, allowed gain-of-function research to be restarted.

  Rob was against the whole idea of adding extra, potentially highly lethal functions artificially to viruses.

  Peter had been all for it. It had become a recurring theme between them. But at the back of his mind, Rob had often wondered if Peter disagreed with him, because he wanted to make the decisions.

  Rob’s smartphone buzzed on the table in his room. It was an alert for the start of the Zoom meeting with Peter and Sean. He spent the first ten minutes bringing them up to speed on what had been happening.

  “The offer from TOTALVACS is predatory,” said Peter, in a dismissive tone. “I am one hundred percent sure we can get United Kingdom funding for phase three research.”

  There was silence from Sean.

  “I definitely say no to the offer,” said Peter. “Let’s stay independent. Conversation over.”

  “No, it’s not. And anyway, if we do get funding in the UK,” said Rob, a clear hint of anger in his voice, “we’ll have to give away similar control. The contracts with the big pharma companies are all the same. What do you think, Sean? Do you want to get into bed with one of Uncle Sam’s friends or Boris’?”

  “Perhaps we should keep it in the UK,” said Sean.

  Peter snorted, happily.

  Rob breathed in deeply, controlling his frustration. Turning this into a shouting match would not help. But what could he say to turn things around?

  “I developed this. I think I should get some say into what happens to it,” he said. “And yes, I think we do it. It gets us a fast manufacturing deal, which is what we need, and we get to see it in the field faster. On balance, it’s the right deal.”

  There was silence.

  Then Sean spoke. “It’s your call, Rob. You did develop it. I’ll back whatever you decide.”

  “Are you sure about that?” said Peter. “This is a big decision.”

  “I have to support Rob,” said Sean. “That’s the end of it.”

  Rob clenched his fist. He’d won.

  Peter’s mouth was opening and closing like a fish.

  “Before you go, Peter,” said Rob. “Did you know these people in Paris who invited me to speak there just before Jackie died?”

  “What, what?” said Peter. “You mean last month, yes?”

  “Yes, Peter.”

  “Well, well, if I remember right, it was a Chinese vaccine scientist working in Paris who recommended you for that. It was a prestigious engagement. Should I not have passed it on?” He sounded bitter.

  “Do you remember the name of the person who asked for me?” said Rob.

  “No, why should I? I don’t remember all the details of emails from a month ago.” He sounded flustered now.

  “Can you forward me the request?” asked Rob.

  “Yes, absolutely, old boy, but . . .” There was a hesitation.

  “Now that I think about it, the connection came in via WeChat.” Peter’s voice trailed off.

  “I didn’t know you were on WeChat,” said Sean.

  “Yes, my partner encouraged me to get on it.”

  Rob rubbed his chin. Of course, Peter’s new partner was a Chinese doctoral student at the University of London. Peter had met him at the Confucius Institute, where he’d been learning Mandarin.

  “Send me the person’s name who suggested me for the meeting, will you?” said Rob. “I want to thank him.”

  “I’ll get it to you when I can,” said Peter, sounding annoyed again. “Is that all?”

  “Yes,” said Rob.

  “Please send us the contract for electronic signature,” said Sean. “You’ll get it back at the end of the week.”

  “Get the lawyers to go over it quickly,” said Rob.

  “I will. And we’ll make sure they aren’t trying to slip something in the contract they didn’t tell you about.”

  “Great,” said Rob. He closed the call.

  17

  Washington DC, May 31st, 2020

  Vladimir walked with his new friend to K Street and showed him the building.

  “I have to go,” he said. “But promise me you won’t do any more than graffiti the building and let off a few firecrackers.”

  “Sure,” said the young black man. “I’m the artist here. Street art is what I do. What would you like us to write on their perfect glass?”

  “Vaccines kill too,” he said. “Stuff like that.”

  “You crazy man,” said the black guy. “Vaccines save millions of lives.”

  “He’s paying. We play the tune,” said the white guy.

  Vladimir held the roll of hundreds out. “Show me your paints,” he said.

  The black man pulle
d his shoulder bag around and opened it. It was full of spray cans with paint all over them. Vladimir handed over the money.

  “I’ll be watching,” he said.

  “Yeah, cool, man,” the black man said, sharing the notes with his white friend. “We gonna head up there anyhow.”

  Vladimir watched them turn onto K Street.

  A glow of warmth ran through him. They really had no idea what they would be part of. It was easy manipulating people with a grievance.

  The All Services vehicle was waiting in the next side street. He got in the back and the vehicle moved off. At the next lights, it turned right. At the intersection, it turned left and pulled up opposite the TOTALVACS building. The members of the BLM crowd were singing, dancing, and approaching TOTALVACS. The area outside the building was otherwise dead, but as Vladimir watched, some of the movable cameras on the top of the building angled down for a closer look at the approaching crowd.

  The security team inside would have plans ready in case the building was attacked, but they didn’t have a plan for a graffiti attack. And that was what happened. The whole BLM crew swarmed around the fountain and the mural. Black Lives Matter was soon scrawled all over the fountain, the mural, and the glass sheet wall of the building in a rainbow of colors.

  Across the street, a technician in overalls had emerged from the All Services vehicle. He propped a ladder against the traffic lights at the intersection. He climbed up it and cleaned the lights with a cloth, then took a small black box, the same color as the traffic light pole, and fitted it above the traffic light, facing both the front entrance and the underground parking lot entrance to the TOTALVACS building.

  The technician and the vehicle were gone a few minutes later. Even passersby paid them no attention. All eyes were on the protestors defacing the office block opposite.

  Vladimir sat in the back of the vehicle on a stool bolted to the floor and looking at a screen on one wall as it rode slowly down K Street. The screen flickered again and again. Then the image turned crystal clear, showing the protestors outside TOTALVACS. As he watched, a black SUV Town Car exited the car park of the building. The screen automatically focused, and when the vehicle turned, a second smaller screen opened, with a view from one of the side cameras.

  A box popped up on the screen. It was a request for an access password.

  “What’s the password?” Vladimir shouted at the technician who was driving them back to the embassy.

  “Wait,” came the reply.

  A password manager filled the password box automatically. He pressed return.

  The license plate of the vehicle popped into a box on the left of the screen.

  The system was now patched into the DC District Department of Transportation traffic management system. It could track any vehicle across DC’s eleven-hundred miles of roadways. Live traffic reports were a key part of the camera network’s public-facing benefits. Tracking target vehicles was a less commonly known benefit.

  “You don’t have to watch it,” said the man in the front of the vehicle, without turning to Vladimir. “The plate numbers and travel destinations of all vehicles entering and leaving the TOTALVACS building will be available for download from the cloud as you need them.”

  “We paid enough,” said Vladimir. “It better work.”

  18

  Washington DC, June 1st, 2020

  Rob woke early the following morning. He made coffee in his room, then called Faith and asked for a car to pick him up.

  It arrived ten minutes later.

  At the TOTALVACS building, a team of cleaners was working on the outside of the building. Faith was waiting for him inside.

  “Did you see the graffiti?” asked Faith, as she walked him to the onsite restaurant. Part of it was closed—the fresh hot food section—but there were plenty of coffee choices, individually wrapped fruit, pastries, and Subway style sandwiches.

  “How could I miss it? Very colorful,” said Rob. “The anti-vaxers must be happy. Counting the downsides of vaccines has always been more interesting the counting the millions saved.”

  “We’re lucky that’s all the damage they did.” She leaned toward him. “We reckon an instigator told them to come here.”

  “Isn’t that what every building owner thinks?” said Rob.

  “Did anything happen at your apartment?”

  “I just met with Wang.”

  “Go on.”

  He told her about his conversation with Wang and that Wang had wanted him to plant a clock in the TOTALVACS building. He took the clock from his jacket pocket and gave it to her.

  “I also found out I was deliberately recruited to go to Paris, most likely so someone could infect my wife with the virus.” His voice trembled with anger as he said the words.

  “You don’t know that for sure. Why would someone want to infect your wife?” Faith sat on a low leather sofa, one of a set of two, facing a coffee table. A row of similar seating options ran along the wall of the restaurant.

  “Maybe they didn’t think she’d die so quickly. Maybe they thought I’d catch it from her when I got home.”

  “They wanted you infected?” Faith looked unconvinced.

  “Someone else wanted my vaccine research project to fail. That’s my best guess. So they push me off the road. It fits.”

  “You think it’s the Chinese?”

  Rob shrugged. His phone buzzed. He thought it might be Sean in London with some news on the contract. It wasn’t.

  Some strange number had sent him a text message: STOP THE PROJECT OR YOU WILL SUFFER AS YOUR WIFE DID. FRIENDLY WARNING.

  “Christ,” said Rob. “This is too much.” Anger boiled inside him.

  “Look at this.” He turned his phone to Faith.

  She leaned forward and examined the message.

  “Have you had others like this?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Forward it to me, and any others like it you get.”

  Rob forwarded the message. Faith tapped at her screen when it arrived. “I’ve sent it for tracing. We’ll find out where it came from, if not who sent it,” she said.

  “I reckon that’s the bastards who killed my wife,” said Rob, spitting out each word. “Tell me anything you find out about them.”

  “Let’s go and see Bishop. He’s waiting for an update,” said Faith.

  They dropped their paper coffee mugs in the recycling chute and headed up a slow-moving walkway to the next floor, which had open-plan offices.

  “You’ll be able to use any of the desks along the wall,” said Faith. “The first time you turn on a screen, your iris will be scanned and access rights to the TOTALVACS cloud provided.” She pointed at a set of glass doors to one side of the shared desks. “Bishop and the other managers have their offices there.”

  Rob heard a noise and turned.

  “Getting the tour?” said Bishop approaching, bouncing on his white trainers. He stopped near them. None of them had masks on, but everyone was keeping a safe distance. The difference with his time in China, even in Moscow and London, was striking. Yes, some people wore face masks here, but it wasn’t mandatory, and use seemed based on your likely politics.

  “You should know, Rob, that when we meet with anyone outside our company, masks are mandatory.” Bishop seemed to know what Rob had been thinking.

  “OK,” said Rob.

  “Did you get the office protocol email?” said Bishop.

  “Not yet,” said Rob.

  “You’ll get one. We have a mandatory Coronavirus test every week when you come into the office. You’ll have to do it before you can log in to any system. Faith should have told you about that.”

  Faith opened her mouth to say something, then closed it as Bishop continued.

  “I expect Faith was distracted by the terrible graffiti on our building. It’ll cost tens of thousands of dollars to have the front of the building returned to its pristine condition.” He lowered his voice. “You do know these BLM people are being
manipulated, don’t you?” A look of disgust crossed his face.

  “How’s that?” said Rob. It sounded like a conspiracy theory to him.

  “Their Facebook feeds and their Instagram and whatever else they are using are deliberately loaded with BLM posts, petitions, and images of police hitting protestors. Pictures of young girls being attacked by the police are shown to young men, and boys being beaten to young women. Some of the images are staged, some are years old, but put a BLM label on it and young people will believe anything.”

  Rob shook his head slowly. “There is a real protest movement too,” he said. “It’s not all fake. The police can be trigger happy over here.”

  “They’re protecting us, that’s all,” replied Bishop, swiftly. “We need the police to be firm or there’ll be anarchy.”

  Rob’s reply was just as quick. “You know people have a right to protest if that firmness becomes deadly and unjustified violence against black people.”

  “I’ve no problem with peaceful protest, but it’s being fanned by people who want to manipulate us. This is real too, Dr. McNeil. These are the first large-scale, real-life manipulation tests in the United States. These programs have been going on for years, mostly just online. It’s all one big psy-ops project. Just because manipulated posts never turn up in your feed doesn’t mean it’s not real. You know they can assemble demonstrators in any town or city in America in two hours! It’s a real problem.”

  “Are we that easy to manipulate?” said Rob.

  “Yes, we are. Most people don’t believe the first such post they see, but after four or five we do. And it’s not our government doing this.”

  “Who’s doing it?”

  “That’s the sixty-four billion dollar question.”

  “This could impact the election,” said Rob.

  “That looks like the plan.”

  “Did you see that someone’s leaving piles of bricks in the path of protesters?” Rob asked.

  “There’re people who want to tear this country apart and all they need are protests to start it all,” said Faith.

  There was silence for half a minute.