Eyes of the Innocent

by Christopher Wright

  Chapter 6

  It seemed like midnight, but Matt's phone said it was early evening. It was strange to think that back in England most people had turned in for the night, while here they were, waiting for Zak to pick them up from the hotel for their evening appointment at the clinic.

  "Matt, please let me go in ahead." Zoé sounded almost cheerful when fifteen minutes later Zak dropped them outside the medical center.

  Well, maybe not cheerful, but certainly more relaxed that she had been when booking into the new hotel south of Central Park. At least Simon Urquet had managed that one okay. He felt almost sorry for the man. Almost sorry. It was going to be hard to ignore the press intrusion. The media circus was probably camping at the original hotel on the west side of Central Park. He had to hope they didn't start looking elsewhere.

  The clinic entrance was extremely expensive, just as Matt had been expecting. Most private clinics in England were in older buildings and didn't look as inviting. Old or new, if this one did the job, that was good enough to him. And there was no media circus waiting outside, which was strange. They probably hadn't expected the examination to take place until tomorrow.

  The receptionist was expecting them, and with Zoé holding Jack in the baby sling around her neck and waist, a nurse led them down a long corridor to a room where the specialist welcomed them with a manner he must have perfected over the years. Not too gushing, not too somber, but with a great air of professionalism.

  "Mr. Rider, Mrs. Rider," he said, coming quickly forward, "so this is little Jack Rider. The nurse will take him now and prepare him for our initial examination."

  Zoé eyed the nurse warily and shook her head, pulling the small body tightly against her chest.

  "Let me introduce myself," the specialist said, apparently ignoring Zoé's reaction. "My name is Dr. Marks. I have all the paperwork here from your hospital in England. I have to say that they were somewhat reluctant to pass it on to me, but you made your wishes very clear. So welcome to our little clinic."

  Not so little, Matt thought to himself as he moved closer to Zoé. "Come on," he said to her, "this is why we came. This may be our last hope to save little Jack's eye."

  Dr. Marks smiled a professional smile. "Mrs. Rider, may I call you Zoé? I believe you've come here because you know about our pioneering instrumentation. All we want to do is to let you return to England with a healthy baby with two healthy eyes. So please, trust me to care for Jack as though he was my own child."

  To Matt's relief Zoé opened her arms and undid the straps holding Jack into the sling on her front. With a smile clearly intended to convey confidence, the nurse quickly slipped from the room with Jack, probably before Zoé could change her mind. She must have seen it all before.

  "Please, both of you take a seat while I tell you a little more about what's going to happen."

  Matt noticed that since Zoé hadn't given permission for the specialist to use her first name, he wasn't using any name.

  "Your English specialist claims to have diagnosed a small but aggressive tumor on the back of the eye." He tapped the open folder on his desk. "I needn't go into details with you. His findings are fully documented in here, although naturally we will be doing our own diagnosis this evening. At this clinic we are helping evaluate a proton beam that can be focused precisely onto tumors, in small children as well as adults." Dr.Marks sounded as though he was repeating a well rehearsed script. "We can target specific cancer cells, assuming of course that your own hospital's diagnosis of the retinoblastoma is correct." He smiled for a moment. "Proton beam therapy was first conceived in 1946, although at that time it wasn't of any practical medical application."

  "Sort of experimental?" Matt said.

  "Very. Of course, in many ways it is still experimental, although one day I am sure proton beam therapy will be in every major hospital throughout the world. You must both decide if the risk is worth taking."

  Matt jumped out of his chair. "There's a risk?"

  Zoé took hold of his hand. "Sit down, Matt. All medical procedures carry a risk," she said quietly. "Surely you knew that before we came here."

  Dr.Marks nodded. "Mr. Rider, your wife is absolutely correct. And I have to tell you that with pioneering procedures like this on the eye, the risks are unknown."

  "So you want our child to be a guinea pig?" Matt shook his head. "Is this a joke?"

  "Of course not, Mr. Rider."

  Mr. Rider? The specialist wasn't asking if he could be called Matt. Dr. Marks didn't instill the confidence he was probably hoping to.

  "If it's any reassurance, our equipment has been developed in conjunction with a Swiss company."

  "Domestic Chemicals International," Matt said. "They're funding Jack's therapy."

  "That's good, but DCI only played a part in actually developing the equipment, although they did play a substantial part financing its development, along with a major industrial company in Israel. A clinic in Israel has the only other proton beam scanner in the world. So far their results have been like ours: exemplary. The scanners have been financed by two wealthy organizations with concerns for our health."

  Matt was going to add that they also had concerns for their shareholders, when a horrible suspicion dawned on him. Not only had Simon Urquet arranged for sympathetic publicity for DCI by paying for Jack's treatment at this clinic, he was also using the Rider family to test out some DCI-financed equipment that could help make DCI even more famous -- if it worked. Great.

  "Now, Mr. and Mrs. Rider, if you would like to wait here in the clinic while we carry out our tests, you are welcome to do so. Do you have phones? If you would like to explore Manhattan I can call you when we're ready."

  Matt asked if it would take long, and was told about two hours. He and Zoé opted to go out and see a bit of the city, leaving the number of his phone which he'd already managed to hook into the American phone system.

  They decided that they could walk for half an hour towards Times Square, have coffee, and make their way back in well under two hours. If the clinic rang earlier than that, all they had to do was take a cab.

  Something felt wrong when they reached Times Square and found a coffee shop. No one was drinking coffee. The customers were gathered around the large television on the wall. A news channel obviously had a major story. While Zoé went to order the drinks, Matt stood at the back of the crowd in front of the screen.

  "What's happened?" he asked no one in particular.

  "Wall Street," a man said, turning away from the TV for a moment. "A terrorist attack. Seems they've got hostages." The man turned back to the screen.

  Matt quickly caught on to what was happening. A terrorist group, no one knew who they were, had placed explosives against the door of one of the major financial institutions to get inside, and were now threatening to kill over thirty hostages. The television camera was further up the street, behind a police cordon. Suddenly the interior of the ground floor lit up, and windows and debris flew into the street as the whole downstairs seemed to explode.

  Zoé came back to where Matt was watching. "They are not serving," she said. "There is a terrorist attack."

  Matt pointed to the screen. "That's it. Looks serious. Really serious. They've blown up part of the building." As he spoke, emergency vehicles, their sirens screaming, raced through Times Square going south. Obviously to Wall Street.

  Zoé put her hand to her mouth. "We must go back to England," she said. "Baby Jack is not safe."

  "Wall Street's a few miles south of here. That's where the terrorists are. It's the financial district. It's terrible, but they're holed up in that building, and they may all be dead anyway."

  As he spoke, a reporter on the live news broadcast said that the terrorists were now threatening to shoot the hostages. The police were telling everyone to keep away from the area, but not to panic. They believed the rest of Manhattan was safe, and told everyone to stay calm and not to evacuate the city. In an apparent contradiction to this reassuran
ce, people were told be to be extra vigilant for abandoned luggage on public transport, especially the subway.

  After a few minutes the coffee bar started serving again, perhaps in an attempt to keep up a facade of calm, or more likely to get some money from the customers filling the shop. Zoé joined the line and returned with two mugs. For nearly an hour they stood with the crowd of customers watching events unfold in Wall Street.

  The phone call from the clinic came in slightly less than two hours. Hailing a yellow cab they were quickly back at the clinic.

  News of the terrorist attack didn't seem to have filtered through to the clinic, and Matt wasn't going to waste time discussing it with anyone. They needed to find out as soon as possible the diagnosis on their baby. Hopefully the two consultant specialists they had seen in England had got it wrong. No, that was impossible.

  In the consulting room Dr. Marks' face gave nothing away. Matt had been hoping for at the least a promising smile. "Well, Dr. Marks, what's the news?"

  The surgeon bit his lip. At that moment the nurse came back with baby Jack, and Zoé took hold of him immediately.

  "I think he is hungry," Zoé said. She began to unbutton her blouse. "It is all right to feed him here?"

  Matt noticed that she made the statement sound like a question, as though permission might be denied. Well, blow that, a surgeon could hardly be disapproving of the sight of a female breast.

  Dr. Marks just nodded."

  "Dr. Marks, what's the diagnosis?"

  A moment of silence, then, "It's exactly as your English specialist has said, Mr. Rider. It's a particularly virulent form of retinoblastoma. But..." he shook his head, managing a small smile at the same time, making it difficult to read his body language.

  "Just tell us," Matt said. "Can you fix our baby here or not?"

  "Until recently we've been using a conventional photon beam to treat tumors. But our new proton beam equipment will focus down to single cancer cells. Or close to that. As we told you when you first contacted us, we will be using the proton beam, instead of the older photon beam, and will cause no significant damage to the healthy cells in the surrounding area."

  "I have a feeling that there's a but in this." Matt felt uneasy, and glancing at Zoé he could see she shared his discomfort.

  Dr. Marks nodded slowly. "Yes, there is. As I think I've already explained, proton beam equipment is very new. You could say it's untried on cancer cells in the eye. We've already used it successfully to treat prostate cancer, and cancers in the bowel and stomach, and of course cancers in small children and now babies."

  Zoé looked up from feeding Jack. "So Matt is right, you want our baby so that you can see if your equipment works."

  "Just a minute, Zoé," Matt said. "All we were offered in England was the removal of Jack's left eye. They said older photon beam treatment would be too dangerous."

  "You do not need to tell me that," Zoé said, sounding more than a little impatient. "We discussed all this back in England. We did not want a photon beam. It can cause serious damage to the surrounding tissue. I think you are right. Even if the new proton beam here is not as good as Dr. Marks claims it is, it surely cannot be as bad as photon beam. Or certainly not worse."

  Dr. Marks actually smiled. "So, I take it you'd like to go ahead. You'll both need to sign a waiver of indemnity. It will say that you've had the risks fully explained to you. Is that a yes?"

  Matt looked at Zoé who nodded, although somewhat reluctantly. "Yes, we'd both like to go ahead," he said. "Although I don't know what little Jack will one day think of this decision if he survives."

  "If he survives," Zoé muttered, "I am sure he will be grateful. And if he doesn't survive..." Then she started to cry.

  Matt made some soothing noises and gave her a gentle hug. "Zoé, we don't have any other option unless we want him to lose his eye. And even if they remove it, there's no guarantee that the cancer won't spread to his brain. Those cancer cells need killing off."

  It seemed that the waiver had already been prepared. Dr. Marks removed it from a folder and placed it facing them on his large desk. "I strongly recommend you have a final night of bonding with baby Jack at your hotel."

  "What you mean by final night?" Matt demanded.

  Dr. Marks gave an embarrassed laugh. "I could have phrased that better. I meant a final night before surgery. You need a few quiet hours alone with your baby."

  "Yes, we will take him with us," Zoé said defensively. "He is our baby."

  Chapter 7

  "Go back to sleep, precious. I've made the arrangements. The darling little babykins with the funny eyes will soon be in your sweet arms. But you must promise to be much more careful this time."