Free The Storm Protocol by Iain Cosgrove

idea or scheme was too far to the left. It became his creed, his mantra, his dogma; in short, it became a religion for him.’
    ‘Nothing unusual about that in the early thirties,’ said the director.
    ‘No, you’re right; on the surface , another spoilt rich kid from a wealthy background, assuming someone else’s doctrine to assuage the accumulated guilt of a privileged upbringing. But for Nigel, it was more than a doctrine. He was easily led by all accounts. Given his ruthless scientific brain, the type that refuses to believe anything without irrefutable proof, it seems bizarre in the extreme that he would adopt a half baked creed like socialism, without a shred of corroboration. But he cloaked himself in his new religion like a new set of clothes; a tight fitting skin. Given his upper class childhood, or maybe because of it, he became more convinced than ever that all men could and should be equal. And the more he got into the notion of men as equals, the more he became convinced that it was possible to biologically create equality.’
    ‘How did he hope to accomplish that?’ asked the deputy director with interest.
    ‘In 1912 , Henry Dale isolated a substance called Acetylcholine, and identified it as an agent for the chemical transmission of nerve impulses. This discovery was further expanded by Otto Loewi in 1921, when he showed the importance of the substance in the central nervous system. Incidentally, the two men were collectively awarded the Nobel prize in physiology / medicine in 1936.’
    ‘How is this relevant?’ asked a female voice , from the shadows at the far end of the room. ‘All you’re doing at the moment is quoting techno-babble at us. When are you going to cut to the chase?’
    The voice moved forward out of the shadows and into the harsh direct lighting.
    Christine Browne had joined the agency straight out of college. She was now well into her fifties , but was still a striking woman. She had ignored the beauty treatments and cosmetic enhancements espoused by her peers, and at fifty three, she looked her age. But she had a grace and charm about her that men instantly found attractive. Her hair was long and contained no colour, but didn’t have the harsh steel wool look that a lot of grey hair did. Her skin was pale and unblemished and her eyes burned a cruel icy blue; an unfortunate physical trait that belied the cheery side of her personality. She was the director of communications; possibly more important even than the deputy director and arguably the most powerful woman in the world.
    ‘Bear with me, please,’ said the agent. ‘It will start to make sense soon, I promise.’
    The communications director smiled; the a gent noticed a distinct coolness in the response. He marshalled his thoughts again.
    ‘Scientists had long been trying to identify the areas of the brain that controlled freewill; or more specifically , how to artificially or chemically mimic or inhibit personal choice. Nigel, given his background in both biology and chemistry, was a voracious reader of medical periodicals. I have been to his house; it is pretty much unchanged from the way it was when he died in the mid forties. You can barely move between the piles of magazines. Anyway, whatever it was about the specific research that Dale and Loewi conducted, Nigel seized on their joint discovery as the basis of his direction forward. Given what we know now about Acetylcholine, the way he managed to join the dots was truly remarkable. Whatever it was that prompted his interest in that set of discoveries, he zeroed in on Acetylcholine specifically.’
    He glanced around the room, and noticed with vague amusement that he had their co mplete attention now. Even the communications director was starting to look interested.
    ‘At this stage, in the late thirties, Nigel had inherited the family home and a modest income from a number of large rented small-holdings in the vicinity. He also had a minority stake in the old