BOX SET of THREE TOP 10 MEDICAL THRILLERS

by Ian C. P. Irvine

  It didn't take long for Peter to make a few calls to the military museum at Edinburgh Castle, where luckily he got hold of a curator before he was leaving for home.

  After Peter had explained the situation, the curator had made a quick search of the records, identified the Victoria Cross that Mr Wallace had been awarded, and then emailed the details to Peter.

  As Peter read the email, his respect and liking for the old man deepened.

  It seemed however, that the story that Mr Wallace had told the Sergeant about how he won the medal was not quite the truth. In fact, it was only a portion of the truth.

  Whereas Mr Wallace had told Sergeant Angus that he had been under fire when he had run forward and blown up a bunker, it turned out that when he had jumped up and ran towards the bunker he had already been shot in the left arm and was bleeding.

  Whilst running he had been shot again, this time in the leg and he had gone down. Bleeding heavily, in tremendous pain, and still under fire, he had then managed to get himself to a standing position, stumble forward and fall just in front of the bunker. He had tossed the grenade in and wiped the position out, saving the lives of ten of his colleagues who had been pinned down under the heavy fire, and which had already killed five in his unit. By the time they had got Mr Wallace to the field hospital unit, he was almost dead from blood loss. Amazingly, he had survived.

  That was on 8th October 1954, only months before the war had finished in January 1955. The young Mr Wallace had only been 19 at the time. Which also made Mr Wallace 77 years old now.

  .

  He wrote the article in one hour, choosing his words carefully, extolling the virtues of the Craigmillar Community and focusing on one of the many unsung heroes within the community. Edinburgh should be proud of its inhabitants, and should not judge a community or its members solely by the shape, size, colour or condition of its houses.

  By the time any reader would have finished reading the article, they would definitely be outraged by how someone had victimised a hero of the community and stolen from him his only prized possession: a Victoria Cross which was earned in the defence of their country and its values. They would be amazed by the story that old Mr Wallace had kept quiet for so many years, and respectful of his humility. And, Peter was sure, that if any law abiding citizen read the article and knew anything or had heard anything about the whereabouts of the Victoria Cross, they would report it as soon as they read the story.

  The Edinburgh News published the article on the following Monday evening. It ran on the front page, with a photograph of Mr Wallace, and offered a £5,000 reward for its safe return, which the Edinburgh Evening News offered to pay in gratitude for the sacrifices and service that Old Mr Wallace had provided to his country.

  The news article was put out on the wire, and was picked up and carried by many of the newspapers in Britain the very next day. Including the Daily Mail and the Express.

  On the 10 p.m. news on Tuesday night, the BBC spent three minutes dedicated to the story.

  The story was read by tens of thousands of people throughout the UK.

  Including Big Wee Rab.

  .

  --------------------

  .

  The day after Peter had emailed the story to his editor at the News, Peter was sitting at home, thinking about everything that had happened. He needed to talk to someone. It was Sunday afternoon, and Peter knew, that from their three years of being together, that his ex-girlfriend at the Evening News would be sitting at home getting quite depressed with PMB (Pre Monday Blues).

  "Susie, how are you?" he asked.

  "You know already, so why ask?"

  "It's only four o'clock, there's still tons of time to do something interesting today. Why are you worrying about tomorrow?" he teased her.

  "Don't, Peter....you know I hate Sunday evenings. It's almost Sunday evening."

  "So, it's Sunday. Fancy seeing a miracle?"

  "What do you mean?" she asked, the tone of her voice changing slightly.

  "I mean, how about you come over here, right now, and witness a miracle. I promise you, if I don't make you stand and stare and become speechless, I will give you my next big story. On a plate."

  "Done..."

  "Just keep your mobile switched on. Be here in thirty minutes exactly..."

  .

  "So, where are you?" Susie asked, standing at the front door of his flat on the 2nd floor of his Edinburgh tenement and talking to Peter on her mobile.

  "Not in the flat. Turn around, come downstairs, and walk into the garden. You'll find me there."

  "What..."

  "Just come..."

  .

  Susie walked down the stairs, turned left at the bottom and walked into the communal back garden that all the apartments in the building shared.

  Apart from a few trees, the garden was empty. Peter was nowhere to be seen.

  She called Peter on the phone again.

  "So, where are you. You're not here either."

  "I am, I promise you. I can see you from here. You're wearing that nice green jacket I bought you...and from where I am, I can see right down your cleavage."

  Susie looked around the garden again, then ruling out everything else, looked up into one of the trees that were directly in front of her.

  Peter was sitting on one of the branches at the very top.

  Smiling, waving and laughing.

  Susie just stared. Speechless. She couldn't believe her eyes.

  .

  --------------------

  .

  They were sitting upstairs in his flat, drinking tea, and Peter was explaining to Susie where he had been for the past week.

  Susie was an attractive girl. Very attractive. Tall, slim, long, curly black hair that cascaded and tumbled down around her shoulders, with the most beautiful eyes that Peter had ever seen: light green irises with a ring of orange around the pupil that glowed and sparkled in the sunlight, and made people want to take a second look...When she smiled, you couldn't help but smile back. If she was happy, you were happy too. People liked to be with her. She was dressed down today, casual, not trying to impress anyone, but still she was more attractive than any other woman that Peter had known.

  Of all the people in the world, Susie was the one person that Peter knew he could trust. They had been together for a long time, and had only split up almost eighteen months ago because both had felt that they had become more like 'best friends' than 'lovers'. Truth be told, perhaps there was still some element of sexual attraction, but both of them knew that if anything more happened between them it could ruin the stability of what they had.

  The important thing was that for now, Susie was exactly the right person for Peter to have by his side. She knew him.

  For four years, when they had been together, she had had to put up with the ridiculous limitations that going out with an acrophobic had imposed on their relationship. Over time, she had adapted her way of life to his.

  Which is why, when she had seen him sitting in the uppermost branches of the tallest tree in the garden, smiling and waving, she had been completely and utterly stunned.

  She had even looked for the hidden camera, to see if the whole thing was some elaborate kind of hoax. Was she going to be on television?

  When Peter had started to climb down the tree, obviously enjoying it, and enjoying her reaction even more, she had laughed, and then spontaneously applauded.

  She had never seen anything like it.

  .

  Susie was sitting beside Peter on the sofa and listening intently. He was telling her all about his transformation and miraculous cure: from acrophobic to mountaineer. He told her everything about his trip to Switzerland: the good, the bad, the ugly ...and the bloody. When he told her about 'room 326', and then having a vision of a woman having had her throat cut, she reached out and held Peter's hand, squeezing it tightly as Peter relayed what the waiter had said in the restaurant.

  "I tried to read more about th
e case in the newspapers online from the hotel, but everything was in German. I couldn't really understand a word, even though I learned some German at school, and I couldn't find anything in English."

  "Why not ask Dieter, the German exchange student in Classifieds to read them for you, and then to translate them for us?" Susie suggested. "He's been dying for a bit of experience on the news desk."

  "Dieter? Wow...that's a brilliant idea!" Peter exclaimed. "But I'm not going back for another week...Can you ask him to do it for me tomorrow, when you go in? Please?... but don't make a big deal about it though."

  Peter smiled and squeezed her hand back. He liked the way she had said, 'us'.

  --------------------

  .

  A few hours later, Susie had still not left the flat. Peter had cooked dinner, they had eaten, and for the first time since the operation, Peter had laughed with a friend and was having a great social evening.

  They had talked, quite frankly, about a lot of different things. Susie had apologised for not being around more whilst the accident and operation 'thing' had been happening. She had been going through a break up with her latest boyfriend, and had been keeping quite a low profile.

  Then she had asked what it was like to come so close to death, and Peter had been quiet for a minute, thinking about it.

  After a while, he just said. "I don't know...at the time, I wasn't really able to think clearly anyway...most of it was just a blur...but looking back, it was all pretty scary. It really makes you think and it helps put everything else into perspective. Does that make sense...?"

  "I understand, " she nodded. "Do you mind if I make myself a coffee? I'm falling asleep and I'll need to drive home soon.

  Susie got up and went to the kitchen, boiled the kettle and opened the fridge to get the coffee out.

  "Wow..." she spoke aloud, coming back into the front room, still holding the milk in one hand, and a very large, long spicy sausage in the other.

  "Peter..." she said, "Do you know that there are ten massive spicy sausages in the fridge...?"

  "Yes," he replied. "I went shopping this afternoon, and I had this sudden craving..."

  .

  Susie was sitting at the table, Peter's laptop fired up, and the mouse hovering above the Google search bar.

  "Okay," she said. "Let's see if you are the only one."

  It was Peter's suggestion. It had been sitting at the back of his mind ever since he had come back from the meeting with the consultant. Just a thought, which had grown and grown, until he had suggested it to Susie just now.

  "All this started happening since I had the transplant. The doctor said that it's not unusual for the drugs that I'm taking to alter or affect my behaviour. Which implies, doesn't it, that maybe this also happens to other people who have had organ transplants?"

  Susie had looked at him, nodded, and reached for his laptop on the bookcase. They sat down side-by-side at the dining room table. "It's at times like these, I think, that Mr Google could prove his worth," she said.

  "What shall we search for?" she asked.

  "I don't know..."

  They tried putting in a mixture of different keywords to do with organ transplantations and donors, but Google came back with thousands of links, none of which seemed relevant to what they were looking for, but linking to everything you ever needed to know about kidneys, transplants, alcohol and kidneys. If they read it all, they would be doctors by the time morning came.

  "Shit..." Peter shouted in frustration, banging the table loudly with his fist. "There must be something! I can't be the only bloody one!"

  Susie jumped, turned and looked at him, surprised by his sudden outburst. Peter had always been one of the calmest and most patient people she had known. And he hardly ever swore. She knew he had been going through a lot, but it still took her by surprise...

  Without saying anything, Susie clicked the mouse back above the Google search bar, typed the words, 'Organ transplant and personality change', and hit the return button.

  .

  Bingo.

  They had hit the jackpot.

  When the results came back, Susie and Peter stared at each other.

  In disbelief they read the first five suggested articles.

  By the time they had finished, Peter's life had changed forever.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  .

  .

  Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Renal Unit

  The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

  Monday Morning

  4th March

  .

  .

  Dr Jamieson looked at the case notes of the three patients that had received the new treatment before, during and following kidney transplantation, who had all reported similar postoperative symptoms.

  What the consultant found particularly interesting was that of the six patients that had received the new treatment in his hospital, since the trial began in selected hospitals in the United Kingdom four months earlier, three had reported symptoms. And it was these three patients that had demonstrated the fastest and strongest recoveries. In fact, their post operative progress had been amazing.

  He looked at the email that was in each of the folders, a direct communication from the Head of Research at StemPharma Corp. requesting detailed feedback on any patients that exhibited any unusual symptoms following their operation.

  The email had been sent out two weeks before.

  Dr Jamieson was not a great fan of drug companies. But he needed them, or more correctly, he needed their products for his patients, and it was incredible just how their research in the past few years had completely transformed the lives of his patients. The medical world was evolving faster and faster, and sometimes he wondered, just what the limits were? What would the world be like in twenty, no, ten years time?

  Not all drug companies were the same though. StemPharma was one of the better ones. Their work in Africa and other developing nations had been outstanding, making expensive drugs that had proved immensely profitable in the developed world, available cheaply and easily to those in the poorer nations that needed treatment yet couldn't afford it.

  Interestingly, the email promised a $500 donation to any hospital that submitted a patient report to StemPharma for patients who exhibited interesting post-operative symptoms.

  Dr Jamieson checked his watch. He had thirty minutes free before his next appointment.

  Opening up the template provided by StemPharma, he began to fill in three separate patient reports, ensuring that the patient’s identities were withheld and standard privacy protocols were observed.

  When he was satisfied with what he had written, he attached them to an email to StemPharma. When the email was ready to go, he sat back in his chair, and looked out of the window, hesitating. Something was bugging him, something that was scratching at the back of his mind, but not yet making itself clear. Was there something he was missing?

  The phone rang on his desk. It was his assistant, informing him that his next patient had arrived for their consultation.

  Dr Jamieson put the phone down, looked at the email on the screen for a second, and then hit the "Send" button.

  --------------------

  StemPharma Corp Development Laboratories

  3rd Level

  Underground Bunker

  Delaware

  .

  .

  It was his first day back at work on his new shift. Nic White had spent the past few hours slowly making his way through the mountain of paperwork that had accumulated in both his physical and virtual 'inboxes'.

  Six hundred emails.

  Six hundred!

  Nic often wondered if any benefits that vacations provided were not completely erased within the first few hours of returning to work. Were they really worth it?

  His stress levels were already almost through the roof, and he knew that he would be working late nights for the rest of this week, just to try and catch up on what he had missed whilst he was a
way.

  While he had been topside, he had managed to visit twelve families in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, all of whom had similar symptoms which seemed to have arisen in relation to their treatment.

  In all cases, their response to the treatment had been outstanding. Each of them had thanked him for being part of the process of saving their lives. Yet, each of them had reported symptoms which Nic found both alarming and very, very concerning.

  Frankly, he didn't yet understand the effects they were reporting, but at the back of his mind, he could feel that an idea was beginning to sprout. If left alone, these initial thoughts would most likely begin to gel into an idea, a hypothesis, and hopefully later a fully fledged thesis as to what was causing it all.

  He would need to dedicate some time, a few days or a few weeks...whatever it took, to conduct some research, maybe lots of research, he just couldn't say yet. And he needed to spend more time gathering input from the field, from other patients who had received the treatment.

  Data. He still needed more data.

  As much data as he could get hold of.

  The $500 they had offered for each and every patient case study who exhibited similar symptoms was beginning to yield some significant results.

  In his email box this morning he had already received emails containing information on a further seventeen cases.

  Nic had a good gut feel for most things. He could assimilate data and read it very quickly, and often conclusions that he would draw at the very early stages of research would be the same conclusions that would later be ratified by research that took many months or years to conduct.

  Sometimes, Nic had wondered if he had been blessed with a sixth sense. If he had been a gambling man, perhaps he could have made a fortune by now. Perhaps. But gambling was not a science: it was a vice that he had seen ruin too many of his fellow men. He stayed well clear.

  Shortly before lunch, Nic opened up the email from a Dr Jamieson in Scotland, UK. The Scottish doctor had included case notes from three patients, all reporting various unexpected symptoms in the months following the replacement of their kidneys. As with almost all the patients undertaking the revolutionary treatment, their recoveries had been faster and more successful than they could legitimately have hoped for. For that Nic should be, and was proud. They were saving lives.