Free The Cassandra Complex by Brian Stableford Page A

between the islands and the mainland carefully enough to keep out viruses, but Britain was far too overcrowded and far too busy. If the First Plague War really were shaping up to be World War Three—and it was difficult to see how the viruses could be offset before the epidemic was worldwide—then the Bristol cityplex would eventually find itself in the front line. So-called pre-containment measures couldn’t keep Morgan Miller in the East Central area any more than they could keep hyperflu out of it if his well-organized captors wanted to remove him.
    “The men from the Ministry are here,” Lisa said, although she knew they must have heard the helicopter. “They’ll be taking over the thinking and planning.”
    “Doesn’t mean they’ll carry the can if Miller slips through the net,” Hapgood pointed out. “Always blame the messenger—isn’t that the thinking?”
    “Better not let the chief inspector hear you talking like that,” Mike Grundy observed as he moved away from the group to stand closer to Lisa. “Okay, Lis?” he asked, nodding toward her sealed cuts.
    “Fine,” she told him. “Numb now. Did you manage to get a team out to my place?”
    “Yes. Nothing yet. The burglars’ vehicle was parked on the school grounds, but there’s nothing there that might help us to identify it. Your neighbors say they didn’t hear anything until the shots were fired, and they didn’t come out of hiding in time to see anything. The paint on the door might have trapped a fiber or two, but it looks as if the bullets they fired into your equipment might be our best bet. Together with the dart in Burdillon’s body, they’re the only solid evidence we have. If we can trace either one of the handguns, we’re away … but how far we’ll get without the telephone records, I wouldn’t like to say. You look tired. You can’t go home, but you should get some sleep—can I return the favor you did me when I was between residences?”
    “Kenna wants us both here, at least until Smith says we can go,” Lisa told him. “Anyway, given her attitude, it might not be a good idea for me to stay at your place. Does she know Helen?”
    “God, I hope not,” Mike said. “Why?”
    “Just something she said. Stella Filisetti has radfem connections.”
    “She might know Helen, then,” Grundy observed. “I doubt that Kenna would get involved with any kind of organization or movement outside the force, however respectable—and with people like your old friend Ms. West still around, radfem isn’t respectable yet. Kenna’s far too principled to associate with the Arachne Wests of this world, and getting palsy-walsy with Helen would be only one step removed. No matter how determined she might be to persuade me to retire quietly, I doubt that she’d go to Helen for ammunition. Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge. Do you think Filisetti’s the insider? Any particular reason, apart from the fact that she’s not at home?” He didn’t add: and probably screwing your old boyfriend. He was too scrupulous.
    “If Morgan discovered something interesting,” Lisa observed, “Stella would be in the best position to know about it. If he took precautions to conceal it from her, that might have made her all the more curious. The only flaw in the theory is that Morgan couldn’t have discovered some state-of-the-art biological weapon by accident. That’s the stuff of cheap technothrillers—and he wasn’t doing that kind of work. If it really is cloak-and-dagger business, we’d do better to focus our attention on Ed Burdillon and Chan. Do the security wafers indicate how Ed became aware of their presence?”
    “No. Do you think he might have been the inside man? They could have arranged to knock him over to give him an alibi of sorts.”
    “No,” said Lisa. “Ed’s straight. So’s Morgan. Neither of them would have tried to hide something useful to national security, or even something valuable in purely commercial