of the CRU, when Gaunt had first started to experiment with flu strains. It had become his obsession. Now, after many years of sculpting this work of beautiful art, the final piece of the puzzle was in place, the breakthrough coming after Sampson liberated the AG-769 virus from Dr Twigger’s lab. AG-769 performed a clever trick, the protein in which the virus was wrapped effectively turning off the immune response of the host’s cells. Gaunt was able to emulate this effect in Pandora, massively increasing the fatality rate. Now she was complete. She was perfect.
And when she made herself known, the world of science – no, the entire world – would gasp in awe.
Just before they drew their last breath.
MI6 officer Jason Harley had been working towards this moment for a long time, the culmination of Operation Castle, the first substantial war crimes case he’d been involved with, a case that had led from Serbia back to London, via a human trafficking investigation.
It was 2.30 am, English summer rain gleaming on black asphalt in this Tottenham back street, the windscreen wipers of his car pausing, then sweeping, their ponderous rhythm at odds with his own thumping pulse. Inside the ordinary-looking terraced house, with its peeling bay window frames and crumbling brickwork, women from Eastern Europe were kept prisoner and forced to work as prostitutes. Most of them were from Serbia, from dirt-poor families, coming to England in search of a dream but finding a nightmare.
‘They’re going in,’ said Simon Donahoe, the SOCA agent Harley was working alongside, nodding towards the van, out of which poured half a dozen police officers. They watched them ascend the steps, bang on the door, then batter it down. Lights flicked on in neighbouring houses.
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