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Chapter Forty Five
Mount Vernon Hospital
Washington D.C.
Monday 5th Dec 2.00pm
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Sitting in the hospital waiting room on the Monday afternoon, Tim Curts was silent for the first time in ages. His wife sat beside him holding his hand, and studying his face. She hadn’t seen him as worried as this since the election swept General Jamieson into the White House. She noticed a tear slowly forming in the corner of her husband’s eye, but just before it started to make its journey down the rugged contours of his face, she reached forward and dabbed his eye with the corner of her handkerchief. Tim was a good man, and a good husband, and as much as she herself was distraught with worry for her daughter, she was equally overwhelmed with the sorrow she felt for her husband. She knew how much Tina meant to him. When she had been born eight years before, Tim had cried like a baby, and held her in his arms and rocked her to sleep every night for the first two weeks. He had been present at her birth and there was a bond between father and daughter which was stronger than any other father-daughter relationship she knew. Quite simply, Tina was Tim’s life. His reason to live.
“Mr and Mrs Curts?” The nurse asked quietly as she walked into the room, “the doctor will see you now.”
Together they walked hand in hand into the doctor's office and sat down solemnly, going through the motions. They knew that the news was going to be bad.
“Mr Curts, Mrs Curts? Thank you for coming.” The doctor paused, and the half-smile left his face, a professional look of compassion taking its place. “In my experience I’ve come to believe that in cases like these it's best to be frank and honest. Since Tina was admitted into the hospital this morning we’ve run an exhaustive set of tests, and I’m afraid that the results are quite clear. Tina has leukaemia.”
The doctor paused momentarily while he let the significance of his words sink in. Then he continued swiftly.
“Ordinarily if leukaemia is diagnosed in its early stages there would be a number of options open to us, each with a very high survival rate. Unfortunately, the type of leukaemia Tina is suffering from is very rare, and the condition is very advanced. I have spoken to your family doctor by phone, and it would seem that your daughter has not been well for the past few months, and that the local hospital and doctors were not able to diagnose the cause of her weakness. That isn’t unusual with this type of leukaemia. Typically, it’s only when it enters the advanced stage that we are able to tell exactly what the cause is, and by that time it’s unfortunately too late. I am so sorry.”
The tears began to flow from Tim’s eyes, and he leant forward in his chair, covering his face with his hands. Regina, Tim’s wife since college days, reached forward and gently pulled his head into her chest, rocking him back and forward like a baby as he cried.
“How long will we have left with her?” Regina asked through her own choking tears.
“A month, perhaps two. However, she will be very weak, and not able to walk unaided. I would suggest that you may wish to arrange for a doctor and nurse to care for her at home…”
Tim didn’t hear the rest of the conversation between the doctor and his wife. His head was full of visions of his daughter playing and laughing on their mountain trips to the Rockies, and of her last birthday party. Without her he would be nothing. Nothing.
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The car came round to the front of the hospital and picked Tim up. He had spent a little time with his daughter and then left his wife with her. He was heading home to prepare her room, in preparation for his wife bringing Tina back with her in a few hours time. They were going to bring her home. First of all though he was going to swing past his office. There was something bugging him at the back of his mind, and he wanted to pick up the Haissem file and read the latest reports from Vale. An idea was beginning to form in his brain and he needed to follow it up.
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With his car waiting in the car park underneath the White House, Tim rode the elevator up to his office, and locked the door behind him. He crossed quickly to the wall behind his desk, scanned his retina into the security system of his wall safe and removed the ‘Crown of Thorns’ file. He spread the contents of it onto the desktop, and scanned them for the file containing the reports of the healings that had taken place in Vale. He reread the contents twice before he pushed back into his chair, and put his feet on his desk, still deep in thought.
Since the Crown had arrived in Vale, there had now been four reported cases of so-called miracles or healings taking place amongst the scientists and staff of the CBWI, the most recent concerning the restoration of sight to one of the assistants in the centre who was blind in one eye. The report said simply that with word of the other ‘healings’ sweeping through the institute, the lady concerned had sneaked into the lab one night to pray for her mother who was ill. When she had looked at the Crown through its transparent protective casing she had felt a pain in her unseeing eye, followed by a serious of bright flashing lights. Within a few hours full normal sight had returned to her. Her mother on the other hand had shown no sign of improvement.
Tim didn’t necessarily believe in the Messiah, or in Christ. He believed in authority, science and power. Yet, as he reread the files and the reports of the strange occurrences, something stirred within him. He remembered his childhood, when he was about Tina’s age. He remembered the long, hungry mornings he had spent in the Sunday school before lunch, waiting with the other kids for the service in the church hall above to finish so that they could join their parents and go home for Sunday lunch.
He reached forward and pressed the intercom connecting him with the secretary outside his office.
“Janice, can you bring me a copy of the New Testament please…and a coffee please.”
“What version would that be Mr Curts?” and she proceeded to list at least four different types of New Testament.
“Oh, I don’t know...bring me the Gideons 'New International Version'. That sounds good.”
Tim recognised the Gideons name. He was always seeing the Gideons bibles lying around hotel rooms whenever he travelled.
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The coffee arrived steaming hot, with a fresh blueberry muffin, an extra which was typical of the initiative that had made Tim hire Janice in the first place. The Gideons was brand new and as he bit deeply into the muffin and washed it down with a mouthful of his favourite Blue Mountain coffee, he skimmed through the pages of the little red book.
He wasn't looking for anything in particular. He flicked through the pages of the New Testament, remembering his teenage years when the possibility of belief in something supernatural had been almost acceptable to him, and he remembered some of the Sunday school stories which he had heard all those years ago from the roly-poly Sunday school teacher called Mrs Duffie.
He had experienced many things in life since then, and Tim had long ago lost any of the innocence he might ever have had. This was a tough and a cruel world and on a day to day basis he fought with the realities of life. There had been little time to contemplate the 'supernatural'.
Yet, when Tim thought again of the Crown and the events in Vale it was becoming obvious that the Crown of Thorns had some incredible power that went beyond anything that Tim had ever encountered before. He had felt it himself when he had seen and touched it at Dover Air Force base, and now he came to face the feelings that had been brewing in his subconscious he realised that he had developed a healthy respect for the person behind the Crown. The man who had worn that crown at his crucifixion had power. Real power.
And if, as the report stated so clearly, there had already been 'supernatural healings ' in Vale associated with the Crown, then there was every possibility that that same power could heal his daughter too.
For a second it occurred to him that maybe he was grasping at straws, but he dismissed the thought quickly. He had tried the powers of modern science, to no avail. I
f he had to turn to the supernatural to save his daughter, he would.
Suddenly a phrase flashed into his mind, part of a sentence that Mrs Duffie claimed that Jesus had once said when he was alive; "Suffer the little children to come unto me..."
He knew what he had to do. He would go to Vale and search for the essence of the man who wore the Crown…he would touch the 'Crown of Thorns' again with his own fingers, and he would pray for his own private miracle.
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Chapter Forty Six
I.G.E.G.G.M Laboratory
Oxford
Monday 5th Dec 8.30pm
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In theory, since the cloning of the A-type blood had gone according to plan, there should be no problem in cloning the G-type blood.
In theory.
Except for one thing : the theory had only been developed for known blood types.
They hadn’t reckoned with a blood type that no one had ever seen or encountered before. So when it came to cloning with the G-blood DNA, they didn’t really know if the process would work. They didn’t even really know if the blood behaved the same way as other types of blood. All the samples of the G-type blood that they had regenerated exhibited the same incredible phenomenon of the modulating variable wavelength light emission (MVWLE). The very fact that the DNA from the G-blood behaved this way proved that it was fundamentally different to normal human blood. Exactly what other properties it possessed or how it behaved differently chemically or genetically still had to be determined.
They had already implanted the embryo from the A-clone into the surrogate mother and after two weeks a low intensity NMR scan confirmed that the foetus was progressing well and developing normally. It was time to take the G-blood and to try and make the first 'G-clone embryo' by implanting the reproduced chromosome set into the recipient enucleated egg cell.
There had been no problem in creating the full chromosome set, and hence the artificial nucleus. They had taken a protein from a G-type blood cell, broken it down into its DNA constituents and extracted the sequencing information from the DNA cells which told them how to construct the entire chromosome set using Jason’s new genetic process, the so-called ‘J-W Process’. From the experience gained on working on the A-clone, Jason had refined the process, and was now able to perform the whole operation faster and more efficiently.
After the Monday morning meeting Jason, Don, Louisa and the Professor started the procedure. It went well, and by midday they were ready to take the egg cell and inject the G-chromosome set into it. As Jason carried out the microscopic surgery on the egg cell, breaking the outer membrane of the cell and depositing the G-chromosomes within the cell walls, the rest of the team followed the procedure on the large plasma screen on the wall, onto which all of Jason’s movements were projected.
Even at this level of magnification it was still possible to see the faint rainbow-like glow of colour being emitted from the bag of chromosomes within the tip of the pipette, the classic MVWLE effect the G-blood so characteristically exhibited.
Louisa had her hands clasped in front of her, and the Professor was tapping the table lightly with his fist, whispering to himself 'C’mon boy...you can do it!'. Don stood motionless, his mouth wide open, still in awe of the basic process even after he had seen it a hundred times.
Jason withdrew the pipette from the egg-cell and the bag of G-chromosome sat in the middle of the egg-cell, suspended in the cytoplasm. Jason looked up and the others turned to him expectantly.
“Louisa…would you like to do the honours?” Jason smiled, stepping away from the incubator and motioning towards the little green button on the outside of the equipment which would send the minute pulse of electricity flowing across the egg.
“Thanks.” Louisa smiled back jubilantly, stepping across to stand beside the hooded incubator. She pressed the button, and a tiny electronic pulse flowed across the cell.
“Okay, well, that’s that for just now. We won’t be seeing any fireworks until about four o’clock, if there’s going to be any at all. We may as well all take the rest of the day off until then...”
“Look…” Louisa interrupted Jason loudly, pointing to the screen. All eyes turned to the image on the overhead projector where inside the cell, the nucleus was moving slowly from the centre of the cell towards the inside edge of the cell wall...
Without breathing the team looked on, wondering what was happening. The seconds ticked by.
They could hear the sound of a car horn blaring in the street below. A aeroplane flew overhead, the sound of its jet engines droning loudly in the sky above.
The nucleus reached the edge of the cell, where it just sat motionless. For a few moments, time seemed to stand still...then Don noticed something.
“Look! The chromosomes in the cell aren’t glowing anymore. The MVWLE has stopped..
“You’re right!” The Professor confirmed. “Something’s going wrong.”
Then suddenly, without any warning, a hole opened up in the membrane of the cell wall, and the artificial nucleus with the G-chromosomes in it was expelled from the cell, the hole closing behind it.
“I take it you just saw what I just saw, and it’s not my old age playing tricks on me?” the Professor asked aloud.
“I think so...” Louisa nodded.
“The egg cell just rejected the G-chromosomes.” Jason replied after a moment.
“And how! It just kicked them out.” Don added.
“Or the G-chromosomes decided to leave! But one way or another, they didn’t seem to like each other very much, did they?” the Professor replied.
During the rest of the day they tried the same process three different times, each time with a new and fresh egg cell, and each time using up more of the precious genetic chromosome material that Don and Jason had prepared the week before. Yet each time they performed the experiment the result was the same. First the MVWLE light stopped, and then the G-chromosome nucleus was expelled from, or chose to ‘leave’ the egg cell.
By six o’clock they had run out of the egg cells they had prepared, and had to call it a day. Louisa was given the task of preparing some new recipient egg cells, and Jason volunteered to produce more G-nuclei with the G-blood. It was a sad and baffled team that closed up the lab and headed for home that evening.
For the first time since they had started the project, something was going wrong.
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There was nothing on the television on Monday nights. Normally Don would hang out in his local pub and practice on the dart board, but tonight as he launched his personalised darts at the dart board on the back wall of the Crown and Cushion, no matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t concentrate. His darts flew repeatedly wide of his targets and in frustration he packed the darts away into their velvet case and left the pub. He walked without thinking, staring at his feet and trying to sort some things out in his subconscious mind. First of all, he was trying to make that decision, trying to pluck up the courage to go and speak to his minister about the possibility of being baptised or confirmed or blessed, or something. Something by which he could make an outward sign to others that he was now a believer. He felt the desire or need to do something but lacked the courage to do it.
And secondly, there was the problem they had encountered in the lab today. What did it mean? Whatever the problem was, he felt certain that they would overcome it. They had come so far, were so close to achieving what he believed they were destined to do. But in spite of all their efforts, there was something missing. Something important. The only logical conclusion was that they must have overlooked something. But what?
It didn’t surprise Don that when he eventually looked up, he found himself standing outside the doors to the I.G.E.G.G.M labs.
He rode the elevator up to the top floor, and chatted briefly to the two security guards outside the elevator. They were listening to some international football match and were keen to get back to it, so Don l
eft them and let himself into the lab at the end of the corridor. He bunnied up, and worked his way through the airlocks until he emerged, still deep in thought, into the dark lab beyond.
Instead of switching the lights on as he entered, he walked across the darkened room to the bench running around the edge of the lab, and resting his hands on the edge of the bench looked out through the windows to the glowing lights of the city on the other side of the park below. He often did this when he needed to think. The peace and quiet and the soft warming lights of the city relaxed him and cleared his mind, and he found that sometimes the answers to his problems would just pop into his head as he stared out into the space beyond.
His mind wandered back to the image of the nucleus being expelled from the cell.
"Why?" He asked himself for the hundredth time.
The lights of the city danced before him, and as he stared out into night sky he went through the procedure in his mind over and over again, step by step. For the life of him, he couldn't think of anything they had done wrong. There had to be something else...something they hadn't thought about.
He looked down at the small vial in his hands, which contained the thorn he had 'borrowed' from the lab. He had brought it with him deliberately, hoping that it might be able to inspire him somehow during his walk, and give him some answers.
As he looked at it again, he realised that if they had indeed missed something fundamental, then perhaps they would have to start again from scratch.
From the beginning.
As he looked at the thorn through the see-through container a sixth sense told him that somehow the little thorn contained the answer to their problems, and for the first time since he had stolen it, he felt glad that he had.
Yet, if the thorn in his hands somehow did contain an answer to their problems, how was he going to admit to the others in the group that he stolen it in the first place?
The Messiah Conspiracy - A gripping page-turning Medical Thriller - [Omnibus Edition containing Book 1 & Book 2] Page 23