The Gulf Conspiracy (9 page)

‘
Have a root around, will you? The police have more or less admitted that they have nothing to go on although they are trying to find the mysterious Scotsman, Maclean. If Sebring’s death really had anything to do with his time at Porton and what he was working on there, the police are going to hit the wall. We might be able to help out and take it a stage further. See what you can come up with. Miss Roberts will give you what little information we have on Sebring.’

Rose Roberts looked up when Steven emerged from Macmillan’s office and held out a brown foolscap envelope. ‘Not much, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘Dr Sebring’s work at Porton was secret so we have to go through the usual channels to get information and that, as you know, might take time. If you think you really need to know what he was working on let me know and I’ll see what I can do to speed things along.

Steven accepted the envelope and said, ‘Thanks Rose; I think maybe we should start pushing about Sebring’s time at Porton right away. I’ve a feeling it might well be relevant.’

‘
I’ll get the application in to the MOD this afternoon and mark it top priority,’ said Rose Roberts. ‘I’ll let you know when we get something back but don’t hold your breath. They do like holding on to their secrets.’

Steven decided to spend what was left of the afternoon in the library. He needed to do some background reading on the Gulf War so that he had more of a feel for it. His knowledge at the moment was painfully thin. First though, he read through the file that Rose Roberts had put together on the dead man.

Sebring, the son of a Church of England vicar, had studied medical sciences at Edinburgh University, graduating with a first class degree in the summer of 1985 before moving to the University of Oxford where he had spent the next three years working for a D.Phil. on the cloning of viral pathogenesis genes. He started work as a post-doctoral research associate in the labs at Porton Down in January 1989 but left in June 1991 after suffering a nervous breakdown. He made a tentative return to work but decided to resign. He went on to make a complete recovery however, and was appointed to the teaching staff of Leicester University in October 1991 as a lecturer in molecular biology; had been there ever since. He was married to Jane Manson, a teacher, whom he met in 1993 and married in May 1994. They had no children although they had recently applied to be considered as adoptive parents. Steven copied both home and school addresses into his notebook.

He put away the file and started to work his way through a succession of articles on the Gulf War and issues arising from it. It wasn’t something that he had thought about in a long time, although he had been aware of an ongoing battle between government and war veterans over the existence or non-existence of Gulf War Syndrome. After a couple of hours he had to admit to having some sympathy with the establishment view that there could be no such thing. No one single condition could possibly have so many differing symptoms. On the other hand, he was taken aback at the sheer number of soldiers who had come down with illness after service in the Gulf – and the number of deaths among them was nothing short of alarming. He felt sure that there had to be some middle ground.

It seemed to him that the troops had been subjected to a number of different but nonetheless harmful factors, all of which had caused illness and which had combined in the minds of sufferers to give the impression of a syndrome linked to war service in the Gulf.

If nothing else, Steven felt that his appetite for knowledge had been whetted by his afternoon in the library. He resolved to continue his search for information at home on the internet. By nine in the evening he had amassed a pile of print-outs that would keep him going for the rest of the evening and probably through all of the following day.

Steven had downloaded documents from a wide variety of sources including official Ministry of Defence sites as well as those run by Gulf War veterans’ associations and from individuals who felt they had something to say on the subject, usually posting some personal experience of their time in the Gulf on the web. He noted that many of these personal depositions related to bad treatment or even a complete lack of treatment since returning home and falling ill.

Steven made notes as he went along, hoping that when he’d finished he would be able to put them together and gain a better understanding of claims and counter-claims and what lay behind them. It had gone four on the following afternoon before he felt ready to draw conclusions:-

Saddam
had
used both chemical and biological weapons against allied forces in the Gulf.

These weapons
had
been supplied to Iraq by the United States – probably the reason for the continued denial of the above by official sources as several websites had pointed out.

Many of the troops had reported adverse reaction to the vaccines they had been given. The Ministry of Defence had been less than candid about what the vaccines had contained, having declared some components to be ‘classified’ although there seemed to be disagreement about just how many ‘classified’ components there had been. The Surgeon General, Admiral Revel’s account to the Parliament’s Defence Committee seemed at variance with what the Ministry of Defence had replied in response to outside questioning.

The use of an antidote to nerve gas, pyridostigmine bromide, seemed to have been a mistake when Sarin was the gas being used by the Iraqis. An American website pointed out that this compound actually heightened the effects of the Sarin rather than countered them. Not only that, it was toxic in its own right and many troops had suffered accidental overdose through pill-popping instigated by feelings of panic when the sirens had gone off.

Individual tales of blunders and misunderstandings that had led to troops being exposed to unnecessary danger were legion.

It seemed likely to Steven that a number of allied troops had suffered the effects of Sarin nerve gas and/or its antidote. Many had reacted adversely to vaccines given to protect them against viruses and bacteria. Some had been subjected to attack by such biological agents. Some had been the victim of mistakes made by those in command and exposed unnecessarily to toxic compounds.

Satisfied with his work, Steven rubbed his eyes and stretched his arms in the air. He was stiff from sitting in the same position for so long and his eyes felt as if they had sand in them from staring at his computer screen, but it now seemed much clearer to him why Government and representatives of the Gulf War veterans had been at each other’s throats for so long. To him as an outside observer, it seemed probable that both parties were right in their assertions. There was indeed no such thing as Gulf War Syndrome but on the other hand a whole lot of troops had fallen ill because of their service there. The only thing that hadn’t become any clearer was why George Sebring had been murdered.

Steven left early next morning for Leicester. He wanted to find out if Sebring’s wife could elaborate on what she had referred to as her husband’s ‘troubled state of mind’. He also wanted to find out if she could remember any more about the Scotsman who had called on him and upset him. Although Jane Sebring had told the authorities that her husband had never spoken about his work at Porton, Steven reckoned that there was a possibility that she would have said that anyway – almost as an automatic response to the question. Like most partners of people whose work was secret she would almost certainly have picked up more over the years than she was letting on.

Before he questioned anyone about anything however, he would make himself known to the Leicester police who were dealing with the enquiry. He knew from past experience just how sensitive police forces could be when they felt an outsider was intruding on their patch. If he didn’t get off on the right foot he might well find himself tip toeing through a minefield of fragile egos for the foreseeable future should Sci-Med’s interest in the case continue.

If push came to shove, he had every right to expect – even demand – police cooperation but he preferred not to go down that road. Until he was sure that there really was a reason for Sci-Med to be involved in the case, he would present himself as little more than a Home Office observer, willing to give any help and advice he could. He saw from the road signs that he was entering the outskirts of Leicester and the car radio had just told him it was 10am. He made directly for police headquarters.

Detective Chief Inspector Glyn Norris, the officer in charge of the Sebring murder investigation, gave Steven a world-weary nod when he was shown into his office.

‘
Take a pew,’ said Norris, handing back Steven’s ID, which had been brought through to him by way of introduction. ‘A little bird told me at the weekend that you lot were taking an interest in the case. She just omitted to say why.’

‘
It’s no big secret,’ said Steven. ‘Sebring once worked at Porton Down. If his death should turn out to have anything to do with that fact we’d like to know about it and for the same reason you might just find your investigation a little hard going.’

‘
You mean, no bugger would tell us anything,’ said Norris.

‘
More or less,’ agreed Steven.

‘
So you’re here to help,’ said Norris as if he didn’t believe a word of it.

‘
In a way,’ said Steven.

Norris settled an owl-like stare on Steven. ‘What makes you think that Sebring’s work at Porton Down had anything to do with his death?’ he asked.

‘
Nothing apart from the visit from a mysterious Scotsman that you must know about,’ said Steven. ‘His wife got the distinct impression that they had met at Porton Down and as he seemed to be the only suspect on the horizon . . .’

‘
He’s no longer a suspect,’ said Norris.

‘
You’ve traced him?’

‘
Didn’t take long,’ said Norris. ‘He’s known to the police. He’s been a Gulf War activist for a long time. He’s pulled several stunts over the years to draw attention to what he sees as his cause. Ex-army sergeant, lives in Glasgow, works as a lab technician in one of the hospitals.’

‘
But not a suspect?’

‘
He was in Glasgow at the time of the murder; he could prove it beyond doubt.’

Steven nodded. ‘Did you ask him why he went to see Sebring?’

‘
He thinks the boffins at Porton know more about Gulf War Syndrome than they’ve ever let on. His latest tack has been trying to call on them individually, hoping they’ll admit as much.’

‘
How did he manage to find out who they were?’ asked Steven. ‘I shouldn’t think it’s something they go out of their way to advertise.’

‘
He claims he was a member of something called the 1st Field Laboratory Unit during his Gulf War service and that he and the others had actually been trained at Porton Down. He claims he knew several of the scientific staff from his time there.’

‘
Did it check out?’ asked Steven.

Norris shook his head. ‘Ministry of Defence say they’ve never heard of Maclean or the 1
^st
Field Laboratory Unit.’

‘
So Maclean’s lying?’

‘
One of them is,’ replied Norris. ‘And Maclean is no doubt as to who the “lying bastards”, as he put it, are in this instance.’

‘
You sound as if you believe him,’ said Steven.

‘
He was very convincing. He rhymed off names, times, dates, places, says there were forty of them, split into teams of five, all medics and technicians who were trained to detect evidence of chemical and biological attack in the Gulf War. ’

‘
So why would the MOD deny it?’ said Steven.

‘
I think it’s something to do with the ruling classes,’ said Norris, pushing the loud pedal on a working class accent as emotion got the better of him. ‘They’re taught at public school to deny everything. It’s their way of preventing others finding out what a bunch of screwed-up, anally retentive fuck-wits they actually are.’

‘
It’s obviously not working too well in your case,’ said Steven. ‘You seem to have found them out.’

Norris seemed to wonder for a moment or two how he should take Steven’s comment then he said, ‘My brother-in-law fought in the Gulf. Tank commander, he was. He was invalided out the army within six months of coming home.’

‘
I’m sorry. What happened?’

‘
Absolutely nothing, according to the MOD. There’s no good reason at all for my sister now being the only breadwinner in that family. The fact that her husband now weighs four stone less than he did when he went to war and can’t walk the length of himself without falling down exhausted is all in his mind according to them.’

‘
I’ve come across a more than a few stories like that in the past few days,’ said Steven.

‘
Well, whatever,’ said Norris. ‘Maclean’s no longer in the frame for George Sebring’s murder. He was on duty in a hospital in Glasgow at the time. Staff and patients testified to that.’

‘
So where does your inquiry go from here?’ asked Steven.

‘
Unless we can come up with a secret double-life for Sebring - and between you and I, I don’t think we’re going to - it’s going to hit the wall,’ said Norris. ‘It’s the worst possible scenario for an investigating force; murder by a stranger without motive.’

Steven nodded sympathetically and got up to go. ‘Well, I won’t take up any more of your time,’ he said. ‘Best of luck.’