BOX SET of THREE TOP 10 MEDICAL THRILLERS

by Ian C. P. Irvine

  Sadly, it would seem that Peter had not got off so easily. The reporter from the Evening News had been in a coma since the ambulance team had scraped him out of the car. For a few days it had been touch-and-go. The car that Big Wee Rab had been chasing him in had slammed head-on into the side of the reporter's Volkswagen, and caved in the side of the car. The side-impact bars of the VW had definitely saved Peter's life, but the impact was so great that it had still bent inwards, and some of the metal from the doors and cage had splintered into spikes that had rammed into the side of the reporter.

  Peter had lost a lot of blood, and if it were not for the quick thinking of the policeman who came to his rescue and administered life-saving first aid by putting a tourniquet on his leg and applying pressure to the wounds in his side, Peter would certainly have died.

  There was an electronic beep from somewhere, coming from one of the myriad of electronic screens and devices that surrounded Peter's bed. Mr Wallace looked up, but after a few minutes of nothing special happening, returned to his paper and his thoughts.

  After several blood transfusions, and a few operations, Peter had stabilised. But only with the help of the life-giving 'machines' that now surrounded the reporter in his bed.

  The largest one of them all was the kidney dialysis machine. It now sat there anonymously in the background, mechanically filtering and cleaning the toxins from Peter's blood, before pumping it all back in again.

  Mr Wallace didn't like doctors. And he certainly didn't like this machine, especially the way you could see the contents of Peter's body pumping around tubes and pipes and flowing in and out of the man. It wasn't natural.

  But, he knew it was helping to keep Peter alive.

  The impact of the car had smashed Peter's side, crushing and bruising several of his vital organs. His right hand kidney had been pulverised, and had stopped functioning after several days. A small infection and the sudden burden placed on the remaining kidney was causing severe problems and Peter's mother had told him, that there was a possibility that the second kidney may not make it either.

  A man can survive on one kidney. Mr Wallace knew that. But he also knew that a man could not survive without both.

  There was another electronic beep, and Mr Wallace sat up again, scanning the bank of flashing instrumentation, then looking at Peter's bruised face.

  Again, after a few moments, nothing more happened, and Mr Wallace relaxed back into his chair.

  Mr Wallace was really worried. He was worried that the reporter might not survive. Others were worried too. In a way, he wished that if one of them had to go, perhaps it should be himself. He was getting old now, and at his age in his small council flat, there was not a lot to look forward to. The only thing that kept him going was the hatred and anger that raged within him.

  Nobody seemed to care about Craigmillar anymore. Nobody. The only person who had tried to do anything for Mr Wallace and the rest of the decent folk on the estate, was the young man lying in front of him now.

  During the Korean war, Mr Wallace had killed several men, one in hand-to-hand combat. It had not been pretty. It was nothing like you saw on the films or on the TV, there was no glory, or pleasure in it, nothing honourable or special...Mr Wallace had been lucky, and he had been bigger than the Chinese man. He was stronger, and better fed. And he had lived to fight another day, to continue with his life.

  He had not known the man who had tried to kill him. He never knew where he had lived, or where he had really come from.

  But the fucking shites that had tried to kill him that night in his flat in Craigmillar...and the bastard that had crashed into young Peter...he knew where they lived. He knew who they were.

  And Mr Wallace had sworn to himself, that if Peter died, even if it was the last thing that an old man like him would ever do, Mr Wallace was going to kill them 'wee shites.'

  .

  Just then, there was another electronic beep from the 'radar' equipment in the room, and a minute later there was another, and then another.

  The door opened, and a nurse ran in.

  She took one look at the array of flashing lights and computer displays, glanced briefly at Peter's face, and then pressed a big red button on the wall.

  Chapter Eleven

  .

  .

  StemPharma Corp Development Laboratories

  3rd Level

  Underground Bunker

  Dover, Delaware

  Present Day

  September 6th

  .

  .

  Nic White was a tall man. At college he was the fastest runner on the football team. If it wasn't for the automobile accident in his sophomore year at the University of Delaware, he would almost certainly have gone professional, hopefully then later fulfilling his life's dream by playing in the Super Bowl for one of America's top teams.

  His broken leg had never fully returned to its former glory, and although he could walk and jog, he was no longer destined to become the athlete life would otherwise have seen him be.

  But, as one door had closed, another had opened. All through high school Biology had been his favourite subject and the accident and subsequent desire to understand fully what had happened to his body had fuelled an increased interest in learning more. His studies began to fascinate him, and soon he was showing the same passion for understanding the workings of the human body as he had previously spent in developing the potential of his own. In his last two years of college he got a 4.0 GPA, almost unheard of for a former jock, and he was the top student and pride of his department. By the time he had left university he had been offered two different fellowships, one at MIT and another at Berkeley. $20,000 a year, free education and accommodation, and an office of his own.

  He chose Berkeley. And while others had to support themselves through their PhDs by working as research assistants, or helping to teach classes during term-time, Nic was able to focus on his studies and his research. Courses in Biology, Medicine and Genetics occupied him by day and private research often occupied him late into the night.

  Secretly, at the beginning of it all, he had still nurtured a hope, that by understanding medicine, biology and the advancements being made almost every day, that he would find a way to help his body recover fully: one day, perhaps, he would still make it to the Superbowl.

  But as time progressed and his knowledge grew, his dream began to change. No longer did he yearn for physical glory on the field. No longer was a six figure salary from a football team his goal after graduation. Now it was a professorship, a lab of his own, and funding to develop new research into the emerging world of stem cells and their applications in medicine.

  Stem cells fascinated him. Instinctively Nic knew that they held the secret to the future of mankind, and he wanted to be one of the first to understand and harness their power.

  .

  After leaving Berkeley with his doctorate he returned to Delaware, where for a year he had worked for DuPont in a laboratory with good funding and close ties to his former Alma Mater.

  But when one of the world's most eminent professors in Nic’s field of research had read one of the frequent white papers Nic produced, an offer was made to move to Brown University, where three years later he was given the professorship he had always dreamed of, that name plaque on his own door, and enough funding and sponsorship from the StemPharma Corporation of America to develop a new line of medical research focussed on exploring the potential of stem cells.

  Two more years passed before StemPharma made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Nic then left Brown and moved back to Delaware to head up a new line of research within StemPharma, where he began to develop the potential for treatments that integrated stem cell technology with several new ranges of drugs that StemPharma Corp were pioneering.

  Which was how Nic now found himself on the 3rd level beneath the ground in one of StemPharma's secure laboratories, locked in his office, poring over the latest results from the most recent trials.

/>   .

  The third level of the underground bunker was all his. There were three secure laboratories here, all using the most up-to-date technology on the planet. Each one costing StemPharma over $55million dollars and staffed by people Nic had hand-picked from scientists around the world.

  Secure was perhaps an understatement. StemPharma and Nic knew that their research held much potential for mankind, but at the same time also harboured great risk. To minimise the risk of anything live and dangerous escaping in the air, on clothing or on the skin of visitors to the laboratories, each shift by each researcher within the laboratory was two months in duration, followed by a detox and incubation period of two weeks on the luxurious second level above.

  Strict decontamination procedures were observed by all researchers as they moved from one laboratory to any other part of the third level. Each laboratory was self-contained and linked to living quarters, exercise rooms and entertainment facilities, with Michelin standard food served in each of three attached restaurants.

  Whilst life within the 3rd floor was easy-going and relaxed, security was ever-present. In every laboratory and above each interconnecting secure iron-plated 40cm thick door, was a big red button behind a security coded glass panel. The same red button that sat on the desk of the Director of Security on the 1st floor above the ground.

  Everyone knew what would happen if an accident happened in a laboratory, if something undesirable leaked into the atmosphere through a broken seal or leaking doorway, and a Code Red Emergency was declared.

  Everyone knew that each person in the laboratory was obligated and sworn to pressing one of the red buttons, should the need ever arise.

  And everyone knew that to do so would initiate a Flash Incineration process where everything, ...and everyone...in that area would be incinerated and obliterated within seconds. Nothing would survive. No mutant spores, no unwanted viruses, and nothing that could escape and threaten humanity above.

  And yet, perhaps surprisingly, finding scientists that would accept an offer of employment from Nic was never hard. StemPharma Corp simply made sure that any offer the company made to the world’s best scientists was impossible to turn down. And no one did.

  Until recently money had never been an object. The board and investors into StemPharma knew the potential reward that the drugs they were developing could provide, both to humanity, and to their bank balances.

  Of all the projects that StemPharma had committed resources to, Nic's project had offered the most potential. The projected revenue returns from the new SP-X4 drug treatment that his team had just developed and released were huge. Beyond their dreams.

  Consequently StemPharma had initially shown no hesitancy in investing in the research.

  Unfortunately, several of the other investment projects that StemPharma had relied upon for a substantial return had recently failed. Furthermore, so much capital -$500 million- had now been invested in the research and development of SP-X4, that should the treatment no longer deliver according to its promised revenue projections, StemPharma would potentially find itself in very difficult financial circumstances.

  SP-X4, the wonder-child of Nic White, had to succeed. Or the company may not survive.

  .

  Which was why Nic White was now sweating, and studying for the tenth time the incredible results that had just come back from the field and the first commercial round of public usage.

  .

  Apparently, there was a problem...

  Chapter Twelve

  .

  .

  Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Renal Unit

  The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

  Dr Jamieson's Office

  Two months before the present day

  July

  11.25 a.m.

  .

  .

  The wheelchair that Peter was sitting in had been lent to him a month ago, when his condition had begun to deteriorate and he had started to find it too tiring to walk and get around unaided. His mother sat in the chair beside him, holding his hand.

  This was the third time in the past month that Peter had come to see Dr Jamieson, the Nephrology Consultant in the Renal Unit. It was 11.25 and the consultant was late. Apparently he was delayed in surgery, and would be with them as soon as he could.

  They sat in silence. Every now and again his mother would squeeze his hand, and when he looked across at her, she would smile, but Peter knew she was fighting back the tears.

  Peter knew that things were not looking good, he didn't need the consultant to tell him that. What he needed now was for the consultant to tell him that he was going to get better. To be able to play football again. To play tennis, to scuba dive...

  Or simply to be able to walk around Edinburgh without getting tired and confused.

  To be able to do his job again and return to the Edinburgh Evening News. To get his old life back.

  .

  He remembered little of the accident. One minute he was driving away from the Craigmillar Estate, having got enough material from Mr Wallace to write a fantastic article on life on the estate and to name the gang members who were terrorizing the lives of the decent people who lived there. And then the next he was waking up in hospital and emerging from a coma, with Mr Wallace sitting beside him.

  Since then he had been simply fighting to stay alive, with no energy to focus on anything else.

  He had lost the function of a kidney as a result of the crash. They had operated and tried to save it, but unsuccessfully. It had been crushed by the impact and pierced by a metal shard, which had subsequently infected the area around where it penetrated. The kidney had ceased to perform its function, and was now effectively useless. His injuries had been life threatening, and he had been in a coma for several weeks. In retrospect, the coma had probably saved his life. As one doctor had described it, it was nature's way of shutting down all the unnecessary systems so that the body could focus on healing and repairing what was broken.

  When he had woken up he had been stable...just...but losing one kidney had placed a huge burden on the one that remained, unfortunately at a crucial time when the lone kidney was working overtime trying to help Peter's body fight infection and survive.

  Tragically, it had been too much, and within a week, Peter's second kidney had also begun to fail.

  For the past two months he had been having 'haemodialysis treatment' here at the haemodialysis service department up at the Royal Infirmary. Three times a week, each time for a couple of hours. When he first started having the kidney dialysis he came in feeling shit, and left still feeling shit. But alive.

  Nowadays, he came in feeling shit, but thankfully left feeling a lot better.

  Peter was only thirty two years old.

  He was still alive, true, but how much longer could he go on like this? He was desperate to get his old self back.

  .

  The door opened, and the Nephrology Consultant hurried in, apologizing profusely for keeping them waiting.

  "Don't worry about it," Peter replied, trying to make light of it. "It's not as if I've got anything more important to do."

  The consultant sat down opposite them.

  "Actually, that's perhaps true." He said. "We have something really important to discuss this morning," suddenly getting quite serious and adopting that classic demeanour of a doctor on TV when he is just about to utter some earth shatteringly bad news...The consultant picked up the folder on the table, opened the file and scanned it quickly, then set it down on the table again.

  "I won't beat about the bush Peter. I think you know that the news is not good."

  There was a pause.

  "...Peter, the last time I saw you,...did I explain to you properly what the kidneys do? Why they are so important?"

  Peter shook his head.

  "Okay, I thought not. Perhaps it's worthwhile just describing to you first, maybe in a little more detail than you already know, what the kidney's function is within the body. Is th
at okay with you?...Good."

  The consultant's face relaxed a little. He had done this part a thousand times before.

  "The human kidney is a pretty amazing piece of machinery. A vital piece of machinery. So important that you have two of them to share the job... As well as filtering the blood and getting rid of any waste products in your system, they also help balance the levels of vital chemicals called electrolytes within your body, control blood pressure, and stimulate bone marrow to make red blood cells when the amount of oxygen in your blood falls too much."

  "When you go to the toilet, sensors within your kidneys decide how much water to excrete as urine, and decide what the concentration of electrolytes should be within the urine that you excrete. In other words, when you are really thirsty or dehydrated, perhaps because of an illness, you don't pee a lot...and your urine may look darker. Normally though, your urine is much more dilute, and your urine looks clear. That whole process is controlled by something we call 'renin', which is a hormone produced in the kidney that is part of the fluid and blood pressure regulation system of the body."

  "When things start to go wrong, through disease or injury, the ability of the kidney to perform these functions may decrease. When that happens, we may see symptoms appear in your body that are related to your inability to regulate water and electrolyte balances, to promote red blood cell production and also to clear waste products from your body. You will feel tired, weak, lack energy and have less desire to do much, perhaps also have a shortness of breath. Your body may begin to swell up. Or any number of other things might occur..."

  The consultant paused. He could see that Peter was trying his best to concentrate but was struggling to take it all in.

  "Okay, enough of that. I'll try and make it all simpler...but I know you are a reporter, and you live for the facts. These are the facts that I am giving you... does that make sense?"

  Peter nodded.