All Fall Down by Louise Voss Read Free Book Online

normally again so she could tell him what had happened.
    He spent the next ten minutes fussing over her, telling her to sit down, asking her over and over if he could do anything, get her anything. She sat at the breakfast bar and stared at her hands. They were trembling. But mostly, she felt numb. Then she remembered.
    ‘I need to call Harley. He’s been trying to ring me. Can you see if Jack needs anything while I call him?’
    ‘Sure.’ He looked at her with wide eyes. Paul wasn’t usually very good with big emotional scenes. He never knew what to say. Anything that didn’t require fixing or have a solution flummoxed him. But he had been good friends with Isaac too. He shared her pain – and her fear.
    She called the MI6 officer.
    ‘Dr Maddox,’ he said, as soon as he answered, ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you. Have you heard …?’
    ‘About the bomb? Yes. It’s … Do you have any idea who did it?’
    He paused, as if he was wondering how much he could tell her. ‘No, no, we don’t. No one has claimed responsibility. None of the survivors saw anything, and the room in which the CCTV was recording was on the ground floor and was destroyed in the blast. I’m very sorry about your research partner.’
    ‘I should have been there with him.’
    ‘I know. But luckily for us—’
    She interrupted him. ‘What do you mean, “for us”?’
    ‘Listen, a lot of top people in your field died in that attack. If you’d been killed too, when you’re the leading expert in Watoto … It doesn’t bear thinking about. Kate, Dr Maddox, we really need you to join this team to find a cure for the virus. Please reconsider.’
    ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Do you think they are connected? The outbreak and the bomb?’ In all the grief and confusion, it hadn’t struck her before.
    Harley took a breath. ‘We had a phone call. A message. An hour after the bomb went off.’
    ‘What did it say?’
    Harley recited the message.
‘And She sent a plague upon the Earth, a plague born in the cradle of mankind, and those who would stand in Her way were consumed by the fire of Her wrath. None should dare stand in Her way.’
    ‘Is that it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And you think it’s genuine?’
    ‘We’re taking it seriously, yes.’
    ‘Can’t you trace these things?’
    ‘The call was made from a throwaway mobile phone. Impossible to trace.’
    ‘The cradle of mankind,’ Kate said, echoing the message. ‘That’s meant to be in Tanzania, where Watoto originates.’
    ‘Yes.’
    She took a sip of the sweet tea Paul had handed her. ‘It’s a warning, isn’t it? Anyone who tries to stop the plague will be killed.’ She felt a chill run down her spine.
    Harley said, ‘I realise that telling you this will probably make you more reluctant to help, but …’
    ‘I have a responsibility.’
    He made a noise as if he was waiting for her to continue.
    ‘I do have a responsibility. Isaac’s already been killed. I knew some of the other scientists at the conference, too. And these terrorists, whoever they are … we can’t let them win. The virus is only on the Indian reservation at the moment, isn’t it?’
    Harley hesitated for a moment. ‘Yes.’
    ‘But surely the terrorists are going to try and spread it beyond there, if they’re threatening a plague?’
    ‘That’s why it’s even more vital that we find a vaccine as quickly as possible. And why we need you.’
    Kate took another sip of tea. She could hear the TV in the other room, the high-pitched blare of a cartoon. She had almost made up her mind. She had to go. If the World Health Organization was now putting its resources into finding a cure, she owed it to Isaac to do everything she could to contribute.
    But what about Jack? Did she really want him to accompany her to America, a country that was under threat of a killer virus? Paul too. She herself was immune to the original Watoto virus, but not necessarily a mutated one. She knew Paul would insist on