Still, it was an incredible discovery, made by an incredible man.
Undoubtedly, Professor Wainright was one of, if not the leading geneticist in the world. His research over the past twenty years had completely revolutionised the world of genetic reproduction.
His contributions to the Human Genome Project, the worldwide effort of the late twentieth century to map human DNA, had been key to the overall success of the project.
After the Human Genome project had been ‘completed’ it had been Wainright that had later spotted the flaw in the research of all the other scientists, and it had been Wainright that had found the way to correctly reinterpret the data without having to repeat the whole Human Genome experiment again.
Then a year after winning the Nobel prize for his outstanding contribution to science, Wainright had led the first team in the world to successfully clone a human being. Whereas at the turn of the millennium such efforts would have resulted in public outcry, public opinion towards genetic research was now very, very different.
When the Al-Qaeda group had successfully released a new biologically engineered airborne version of the SARs virus into the Olympic Stadium in London, England, during the Olympic closing ceremony in 2012, the spread of the unseen terrorist organism had been swift. Within days commuters had spread the virus around the globe, and the ensuing mind numbing death toll of thirty two million had resulted in a fundamental change of public opinion: it was genetics that had found the antidote to the virus, and saved the remainder of the population from almost certain death.
Wiping out seven million in Europe and eleven million people in North America, the modified corona virus had changed the course of history. In the wake of its path across the world, a new age had evolved, the Age of Genetics.
Genetics was the only hope to prevent another mutation of the original virus returning and claiming the rest of humanity. Genetics gave hope. Genetics was the future. And Jason was at the forefront of that future.
Ever since then funding for Genetics had rocketed, and governments and venture capitalists rushed to support any company that had the word ‘genetic’ or ‘genome’ in its title. It was like the ‘dot.com’ revolution of 1999 and 2000. Fortunes could be made in a matter of weeks as new companies reported successful genetic trials and their stock soared ten or a hundred times its true value in a single month.
Since then, the treatment of diseases and physical disabilities had been revolutionised with the use of genetic stem cell technologies for growing replacement nerves, muscles, organs and human tissues. Processes for which Wainright held many of the commercial patents.
.
Jason too, had done well for himself, although it had admittedly taken years of struggling for him to get where he was now.
His mother had never been able to cope with his father's spasmodic binges of drinking, and had left them when he was only five. He had never seen her again.
When his father had died of the 'SARS 2' virus at fifteen, Jason had gone to stay with an uncle in London. For years he had been an angry teenager, experimenting with drugs and roaming the streets at night, working through a hidden, suppressed anger at the world…and at God for allowing his father to die…only days before the cure had been found.
Jason had almost become an atheist, denying the existence of God, but secretly wanting to believe in something.
In the end, with the help and support of a good teacher at school, Jason had turned to science, finding comfort in the knowledge that although the vaccine had been too late to save his father, through studying genetics Jason might be able to help and save others…and prevent them from going through the hell he had.
For many years Jason had become an introvert, studying hard and playing little. But after a couple of years at Oxford University, he had begun to mellow and soon found a better balance between working and enjoying life.
After graduating from Oxford he had gone to work for Professor Wainright at the I.G.E.G.G.M. and over the years Jason had become close to the old man. To a large extent the Professor had replaced the father Jason had lost to the terrorist's biological attack, but now Jason worried at how quickly Dr Wainright’s health was deteriorating.
Until just last year Wainright was fully independent, mobile and vibrant. But within the past twelve months he had found it increasingly difficult to walk without a large amount of discomfort, the pain of a slow growing cancer beginning to cripple him and restrict all but the most necessary of movement.
The Professor’s brain was as sharp as ever, but Jason knew that his time was limited. The Professor's spirit had turned increasingly to flights of fancy and to wondering what his legacy on this planet would be. Professor Wainright had always been a romantic, and Jason knew that the project to create a clone of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Rahipti-Ani, was his last great romantic gesture. Something to capture the imagination of a world that had long since lost the ability to romance and dream.
.
Chapter Three
.
Professor Wainright had met Dr Simons at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Sweden, when Wainright had picked up an unparalleled second Nobel prize for his successes in human cloning and his contribution to the development of stem cell technology. Dr Simons was there receiving his own Nobel Prize for his contribution to archaeological achievement.
The two had got on famously, and over dinner Dr. Simons had told a rapt Professor Wainright all about his dream to find the tomb of Rahipti-Ani, the long lost Pharaoh of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Dr Simons had argued that there was every reason to believe that once found, wherever it was, the Pharaoh’s tomb would be sealed and intact: a virgin tomb, never touched by grave robbers or modern day archaeologist alike.
It was Dr Simons use of the words “sealed and intact” that had inspired the romantic within the geneticist Professor Wainright.
“A sealed and intact tomb would…”, Wainright later explained to an excited young Jason back in Oxford “…likely contain a virgin mummy, untouched by the air and genetic material of the twenty-first century. And within that mummy,” he continued, “you would find the genetic material of a man mummified in the OLD ways, before they introduced the oils and acids into the mummification process which destroyed the cell-structure we need…”
The meaning of the professor’s words had immediately been clear to Jason.
“So...” Jason interrupted the professor, “...if we can get a fresh sample of the Pharaoh’s mummified flesh before it is exposed to the air of today’s world, with all of its intrinsic pollutants and floating genetic dust, we would have everything we need to…” Jason paused as the enormity of the plan hit him.
“Yes, my boy…you’ve got it. With a tiny portion of the newly found Pharaoh’s cells we would have enough genetic material to clone a Pharaoh! Once again Rahipti-Ani will walk again. ‘The Mummy will return’...so to speak!”
Dr Wainright’s words had remained with Jason, rattling around in his head and conjuring up pictures of tacky B-movies, starring a badly bandaged corpse with outstretched arms stumbling through the Egyptian desert searching for his next victim. Try as he might he couldn’t get rid of the image, and he hated it.
The thing was, although Wainright had cracked a joke about it, the whole thing belittled what the great man was trying to achieve. Taking a sample of DNA, thousands of years old and recreating a long lost member of the human species was going to be no small feat. Even four years ago such a thought would have been laughed out of town by any serious geneticist. But thanks to the recent discoveries made by Wainright’s team, now such things were entirely possible.
And when, through a combination of luck and painstaking archaeology, Dr Simons had finally found the location of Pharaoh Raphiti Ani's tomb, it was sealed and intact just as they had hoped for. Hidden deep beneath the ground in the barren desert outside the old Egyptian town of Timseret, the Pharaoh's tomb had remained undiscovered and forgotten by the rest of the world.
Outside of the t
omb’s walls civilisations had spawned, grown and flourished, then withered and died; kingdoms had come and gone, mankind had evolved and the world had changed. But inside the cold and dark burial chamber, the Pharaoh's mummy had lain undisturbed and alone, surrounded only by statues of four large golden warriors who stood patiently in the darkness, protecting their charge and watching over their Pharaoh.
.
As the plane made a slow bank to the north, a brief cackle of radio traffic between the pilot and Cairo interrupted Jason's train of thought. When the plane levelled off again and the only sound was once again the monotonous pulsing of the twin engines, Jason cast his mind back to the excitement of the past weeks, reliving once more the moment in his mind when the group had finally broken through the false wall which had sealed the Pharaoh's burial chamber.
As the wall had fallen inwards into the intact tomb, the team of excited archaeologists had gathered round the entrance, each peering into the dark empty space ahead.
At first their torch lights had struggled to cut through the cold dry air, their beams blocked by swirling columns of dust swept upwards by the collapsing tomb wall. As they stood in silence waiting for the dust to settle, their eyes had strained through the darkness ahead, searching for their first glimpse of what lay beyond.
Gradually, the seemingly impenetrable curtain of dust had thinned, and for the first time in three thousand years, light had filled the tomb of Rahipti-Ani, the long lost Pharaoh of the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
In front of them was a large room, their torch lights bouncing off shining, golden panels, which covered the walls and floor of the chamber.
Coloured hieroglyphs, painted and embedded with semi-precious stones ran along the walls, the jewels embedded in the hieroglyphs diffracting the torch lights into coloured beams that criss-crossed the chamber and filled it with beautiful coloured light.
Flashing their lights upwards, golden suns and bright stars had shone down from a painted blue ceiling, embedded with small gold discs and large semi-precious stones. As the torch lights caught the precious stones in their paths, the stones had come alive and twinkled back like stars, casting reds and greens and blues around the room.
In each of the four corners of the room a two metre tall golden statue had stood brandishing a spear and a shield. Each of the warrior’s heads was slightly bowed, facing towards a raised golden platform in the centre of the chamber upon which lay the immense golden sarcophagus of the Pharaoh.
Brightly coloured and inlaid with coloured stones and jewels, the top of the golden coffin bore the three-dimensional likeness of the king’s face. He wore the traditional head-dress and the long black curved beard of the Pharaoh, and the arms that crossed his chest held the symbols of Egyptian power and authority: the flail and the sceptre.
Dr Simons had walked across to the side of the Pharaoh. Resting his hands on the outer coffin lid, he had looked down onto the Pharaoh’s face and announced,
“Rahipti-Ani, Pharaoh of Old Egypt, we have come as friends.”
Jason had looked up at Lydia then and caught her eyes. They had both noticed that Dr Simons was crying, but Jason had been moved himself to find that Lydia was crying too, the tears streaming down her cheeks as she watched Dr Simon's moment of glory.
Dr Simons had waited all his life for this, searching for over fifty years in the desert wastelands of Egypt to fulfil his lifetime’s dream of finding Rahipti-Ani’s tomb. Truth be told, without Lydia’s encouragement, Dr Simons would probably have given up, and would have abandoned the search.
Lydia had been his first graduate student at Edinburgh University, and had spent the past four years since graduation working at his side. Jason knew that just before Dr. Wainright had agreed to finance the current expedition, and when their existing funding had all run out, she alone had believed in him when no one else had.
.
For a few minutes no one had spoken. Then one by one they had removed their shoes and walked across to join the Dr, stroking the cool smooth gold of the outer coffin lid, and using the sensation of touch to convince them that what they were seeing was real.
They had stood in a group around the sarcophagus of the Pharaoh, each person capturing the moment and storing the sensations they were going through so that in the future they could replay in exact detail to their children and their children’s children, the moment they found the body of Rahipti-Ani, long lost Pharaoh of Kemet, the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
.
Chapter Four
.
The next day, the team had risen early. Over breakfast they had excitedly discussed the events of the night before, and made plans for the day ahead.
By 8am they had all assembled in the tomb below, where it was agreed that the most important thing to be accomplished was to open the sarcophagus and help Jason get his genetic samples from the dead Pharaoh.
When moved from the dry and barren desert, the risk to the ancient mummy of genetic contamination from the 21st century would be far too great. Therefore, though reluctantly, Dr Simons had agreed to opening up the Pharaoh’s mummy as soon as it was found and allowing Jason to take a number of in situ samples from the corpse before closing the sarcophagus again and shipping the finds to the city.
The plan had been to insert an especially developed sample retriever directly through the bandages of the mummy. The sample retriever would penetrate the layers of bandages doing minimal damage to the mummy’s wrappings, and take a number of shallow core samples of the mummy’s flesh from several different locations on the corpse.
But before they could work in the tomb without damaging the soft golden panels which lined the floor of the burial chamber, they first had to lay down several layers of hastily improvised thick rubber matting, onto which a number of wooden planks were placed to create a new artificial raised floor. This had taken the best part of the morning.
By mid-afternoon they had set up their hydraulic lifting devices and proceeding slowly they had managed to gently raise the lid off the outer sarcophagus, revealing a golden gilt wooden coffin within. The weight of the golden outer sarcophagus had been immense and it was another hour before the outer coffin lid had been carefully lowered onto the floor in the corner of the tomb, with Lydia photographically documenting the progress as it was made. It was four o’clock in the afternoon before the team was finally ready to raise the inner coffin lid, and after Dr Simons had nodded the signal to proceed, the hydraulic lifters had taken the strain and it had begun to move.
Slowly but surely, for the first time in thousands of years, the death mask of the Pharaoh Rahipti-Ani came into view. As beautiful as the mask of Tutankhamun, but significantly larger, the golden death mask rested serenely on the linen wrapped mummy of the king.
This time it was Lydia’s turn to cry.
“It’s so beautiful!” she said softly.
“Can we move it?” Jason had asked quietly, not wanting to destroy the moment, but eager to proceed. He had been looking forward to this for months. He had come here with a job to do, and now he just wanted to get on with it.
Wearing special padded gloves, he and the rest of the team had slowly lifted the mask away from the mummy and had moved it onto the special padding they had placed on the floor to support the mask.
Jason’s job wasn’t too difficult and it hadn't taken long to complete. The tools developed for the job did minimal damage to the mummy wrappings, penetrating through them cleanly leaving only the smallest of holes.
In total, Jason had inserted five probes into the mummy’s wrappings, gently pushing each one home until he had felt the slight click which indicated that the head of the probe had penetrated the mummy’s wrappings and taken a small core sample from the mummified flesh and body of the Pharaoh. Then slowly he had withdrawn the probes and inserted them into the specially designed airtight protective containers.
The first sample had been taken from just behind the head of the mummy, the second from the muscles in the arm, and a thi
rd from the chest cavity. The other two came from the buttocks of the king, and from where Jason anticipated the calf muscle should be.
When Jason’s work was complete, and Lydia had taken all the photographs she needed, the death mask and the outer coffin lids were replaced. It was ten o’clock in the evening, and without realising it, except for taking a few necessary breaks on the surface to change respirator cylinders, quench their thirsts or visit the toilet, they had worked from 8am in the morning without stopping to eat.
.
Chapter Five
.
Even though Jason had completed his work, it was another two days before the supply plane had been able to come and pick him up from their airstrip.
As his last day on the site sped by he had realised just how much he was going to miss the team. He had finished packing early in the morning and spent the rest of the day helping below ground, erecting the air pumps and extraction fans which swept out the old poisonous stale air from the underground chambers and replaced it with fresh air from the desert above.
In the late afternoon, with special extraction fans continuing to cycle the air and remove the moisture their breathing created, they were at last allowed to enter the treasure chambers without their cumbersome respirators, enabling them to start the long and laborious yet exciting process of cataloguing the finds.
Although Jason would soon be speeding back to civilisation and the land of hot baths, television and large, cold beers, the work of the others had just begun.
The burial chamber of the Pharaoh was only one of many rooms they had discovered in the underground tomb. In total there were ten rooms, six of them leading off from the main tunnel that led up to the last sealed door, behind which they had found the final resting place of the Pharaoh.
BOX SET of THREE TOP 10 MEDICAL THRILLERS Page 95