“Louisa, I’m sorry…so sorry. I was just obeying orders. I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with you. That’s real. I’m crazy about you. I need you.”
The anger came from nowhere, a tidal wave which swept through her body, carrying power and energy to every cell in her muscles. One minute she was sitting there listening to him tell her just how much he loved her, the next she was an animal, jumping at him and hitting him hard, her arms flaying and lashing out at his chest. Screaming. Shouting. Crying.
“You bastard…you bastard…you lied to me…you raped me…you RAPED me! You cheated me… ”
And then before the Professor could reach forward and pull her back, she was a pile of rags on the floor in front of Mike, weak and empty.
“I loved you Mike…I loved you....why? WHY?…I loved you…”
Mike reached out and tried to spread his arms around her shoulders to embrace her, but she pushed him back violently.
“Leave me alone…leave ME ALONE!”
She scrambled to her feet and ran out of his office. Mike started to move after her but suddenly the Professor was there, between him and the door. He was an old man now, but in the past week since his miraculous cure, strength had returned to his weakened bones and when he drew himself up to his full height of six feet he was still a force to be reckoned with. The hand that reached forward and pushed on Mike’s chest was strong and powerful, and sobering. Mike stopped and stared into the Professor’s eyes.
“…let me go to her…I love her...”
The Professor spoke slowly, his words clear and enunciated.
“I will say this only once. If you ever try to see her again...” He left the threat hanging in the air and turned and walked away without looking back.
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The Ambassador’s Office.
The American Embassy
London, England
.
“What? What do you mean you’ve been found out? She woke up in the middle of the hypnosis? Be in my office first thing tomorrow morning. Without fail.”
The Ambassador slammed the phone down. He couldn’t believe his ears. He knew only too well the importance of this mission. The President himself had taken a personal interest in the whole affair.
He was also acutely aware that the whole thing had got such high visibility within the CIA that failure to carry out the rest of the mission successfully could seriously affect the rest of his career. He only had another two years to run before he was due to retire.
If he messed this one up, or at least if Mike messed it up, he could end up spending those two years in some hell hole like South Africa or Australia.
“They say the death toll from AIDS in South Africa is one in three nowadays!” He thought to himself. He would be lucky to make it back alive. The Ambassador was not a happy man.
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The next morning Mike dragged himself into his office at 8am as ordered. His hair was drab, and his youthful good looks seemed to have evaporated. The man who sat before him now was not the same man that had brought the news of the Haissem project so enthusiastically to him just a few months before.
“What the hell has happened to you man? You look as if you’ve been dragged through hell and back? Pull yourself together!”
The debriefing was a nightmare. Just trying to get any good information out of the man was like pulling teeth. Mike was in a bad way. It was now obvious to the Ambassador that Mike was suffering from a broken heart: Mike had been telling the truth when he had insisted that he had fallen for his contact in the Haissem team in Oxford. For a second he considered going easy on the man, then he remembered that South Africa was not a safe place to go nowadays, especially not for someone used to luxury and fine English living.
“Your orders are clear Mike. You will return to Oxford and you will get the information we need. I don’t care how you do it. It’s vital we have it. This is a Code Green project. Do you have any concept of what that means? No? Well, it means that you won’t get a second chance. If you fail to get the information we need within seven days, I will call you in and send you home. I’ll close the Oxford operation down. You’ll spend the rest of your days pushing a pen in some office in Washington. Understand?”
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It was mid afternoon by the time Mike got back to his flat. It was raining again, and the sun hadn’t shone all day. He had stopped by the off-licence on the corner on the way home and bought himself a bottle of thirty year old Scottish Whisky. He had finished his last bottle of Bourbon the night before and on the way home he had decided that the time had come to get hammered in style. So why not on some of the world’s finest malt?
.
They say that you never know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it. Well, in the space of the past twenty four hours he had lost the best person he had ever met, his career was coming to an untimely end, and he had been given a week left in the country that had become his home.
He had lost his heart, his job, and was just about to lose his home.
How could he start again? Go back to America? Two weeks ago he had thought it was his home. Only two weeks ago, but in that short space of time he had come to realise just how much a sham his whole dream had been. How stupid and naive and how brainwashed and childish he had become. America? What a joke that was! There was nothing for him there. His life was here…here… with Louisa…and without her? …Without her, he had nothing!
Yes, now that he had lost it all, he knew exactly just what it was that he had lost. And without it there wasn’t much point in going on.
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Chapter Forty
Oxford, England
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Louisa didn’t come back into the lab for the rest of the week. The Professor told her to rest, and take some time out to look after herself. He stopped by her house twice a day to see how she was, and by the Friday she was ready to join the others for drinks in the Lamb and Flag after work. The rest of the team rallied round her, and through the whole thing they became even closer than they were before.
As planned, Jason had handed the Crown of Thorns back to the Cardinal’s assistant on the Tuesday afternoon, and as soon as the assistant had checked the contents of the big metal security box, and the paperwork was signed and secure, he’d left without so much as an ‘Adieu’ or an ‘Au Revoir’. The only positive sign of gratitude or acknowledgement had come when Jason had handed over the files containing the reports verifying the Crown’s authenticity. The Cardinal’s assistant had smiled in spite of himself.
“Ah, I told you it was real. You English do not believe anything we French say!”
“The Professor has asked that you pass his regards on to the Cardinal. With his best wishes for the Papal election, when it comes.” Jason replied, but couldn't help but smile at the irony of what the Cardinal's assistant had said.
No, we believed that the Crown of Thorns you gave us was real. It's just that the one we gave you back wasn't!
Apart from that, the rest of the week had gone past without incident. The work had progressed well. Jason and Don, working together, had first managed to create the full chromosome sets from both the A-type and G-types of blood, and had then created several artificial nuclei for each blood group. They would be ready to try and combine them with the enucleated egg cells the following week. By Monday they would know whether or not the process was going to work. And by Thursday they would have their first clone of the A-type blood implanted in a host ‘surrogate’ mother.
They had agreed to start with the A-type blood first and perfect the process on a blood group they understood and were familiar with. Then when, and only if, the process worked well and they completely understood what was happening, would they apply the process to the G-type blood chromosomes.
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.
The Saturday dragged by. Don spent the day walk
ing along the canal on the outskirts of Oxford, which ran between the two famous pubs, The Perch and The Trout. He was trying to fight the restlessness within himself but try as he might he couldn’t get himself to relax. He was completely swallowed up by this project now. Even though they no longer had the Crown in the lab, he still felt its presence. At nights he slept with the vial containing the thorn stolen from the Crown under his pillow, and whether or not it was connected or not, his dreams had become vivid and emotional. He now dreamt each night that he was moving towards something…a light of some sort…and the closer he got the warmer and happier he felt…Each morning came too soon and he looked forward to falling asleep again that night and returning to that feeling as soon as possible.
Don pulled out the phone from his coat pocket and selected a number from its memory.
“Jason, it’s Don. What you are doing?”
“Hi Don! I’m not doing anything…watching television…just trying to kill time. And you? Where are you?”
“I’ve just had lunch at the Trout. I can’t stop thinking of work. Do we have to wait till Monday? Why not start tonight?”
“My thoughts exactly. I’ll see you at the lab at eight.”
“Great.”
“And Don, bring that micro disk with you, you know that one of that old group called Queen? I love that album. We can stick it on the MD player and have some fun while we work!”
.
Don picked up some fish and chips from the take away near his flat in Jericho Street and washed it down with a can of ginger beer. He could have done with something a little stronger, but he needed his wits about him if they were going to start the next stage of the project that night. Alcohol was a complete no-no. He showered, searched through his piles of micro disks and eventually found the MD that Jason loved. A good choice. Queen was one of his favourite groups. Slightly ‘histo’ or ‘historical’ as the young geeks called twentieth century music nowadays, but excellent all the same. The walk to the lab was only about fifteen minutes. Not too far, and it was a clear crisp night. He would leave the car at home.
As he approached the lab down past Keble College he noticed the man for the first time, standing quietly on the opposite side of the road opposite to the entrance to the lab. He didn’t think anything of it at first, but as he got closer the man turned towards him slightly and watched him come. Don crossed the road, and as he passed him on the opposite side of the street he looked over his shoulder at the dark figure watching him from the opposite pavement . He hadn’t moved and was just standing there quietly. He smiled at Don, and Don looked away.
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“Did you see a man standing on the pavement outside the lab on the other side of the road?” Don asked Jason when he came through the third airlock a few minutes after himself.
“No. There wasn’t anybody there. Did you bring the MD? Good! Why? Who was he?”
“Don’t know. He must have been waiting for someone...it doesn’t matter.”
They worked late into the night, starting the work on the first egg cell. By eleven o’clock they were ready to proceed.
The Professor had completed Louisa’s work for her, and the enucleated egg cells were all ready for them. Jason went to the wall refrigerator and opened it, removing the first of the prepared egg cells. He carried it across to the bench and inserted the container into the apparatus especially designed and built for the Professor several years before. The container with the egg went in one side of the ventilated hood, and the artificial nucleus with the full chromosome set went in the other.
Jason inserted his arms into the robot grips which controlled the mechanical arms inside the hood, and peering through the sights of the microscope, he carefully manipulated the container with the egg, removing the lid and taking the egg cell out. Slowly he lifted the micropipette and after increasing the magnification a thousand times, he carefully sucked up the donor nucleus and moved it across to the egg cell. The artificial donor nucleus they had created was in an artificial genetic state very similar to the ‘GO state’ of the treated egg cell, which meant that both donor nucleus and recipient egg cell were synchronised with each other. The process should now be quite simple.
With the sharp pointed tip of the micropipette, Jason pierced the wall of the egg cell and released the donor nucleus inside the wall of the cell. He slowly withdrew the pipette, being careful not to further damage the cell membrane.
Earlier on in his career the Professor had discovered that a small electric charge applied just after the nuclear transplantation was complete would provide a useful little kick-start to the cell which could help to turn it into a living embryo. Without it, the embryo may still develop, but it would take longer.
“Don, here goes!”
Jason pressed the little green button on the outside of the equipment and a minute pulse of electricity flowed across the cell. It only lasted a millionth of a second.
“That’s all we can do for now!” Jason said quietly, with Don nodding in acknowledgement.
After the nuclear transfer had taken place, it would normally take up to seven hours for an implanted cell to divide, if it were going to divide at all. After that the new cells would continue to divide at seven-hour intervals.
In the old days the same process would have taken up to two days, but over the years the Professor had speeded up the rate of cell division considerably, by finding a way to stimulate the cell chemically and priming it by bathing it in a genetically enhanced solution of key nutrients which allowed the cell to absorb more of the ‘genetic nutrients’ that it would need.
“Okay, so let's get back here first thing tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed and it’ll work!” Don suggested.
.
At six o’clock in the morning both of them were back in the lab, after having slept fitfully during the short night. Both Don and Jason’s eyes were glued to the plasma screen on the wall above, scanning the magnified image of the cell for the first signs of cell division taking place. The seconds ticked by and the time came which marked the normal seven hour period at which cell division would most often be seen. For another fifteen minutes they watched, hoping the cell would divide any second soon, but nothing happened.
“I always think that little pulse of electricity is like the little slap you give to a baby when it's first born... you know, the one that makes it cry and burst into life!” Don whispered quietly as they watched the screen.
A few more minutes passed, and still nothing happened. There was no movement. Nothing. The little cell seemed to be totally unimpressed by all the effort that was being focussed on it.
Then suddenly, there was movement. Neither Jason or Don breathed. Before their eyes, and as if by magic, the cell split into two and divided.
“Look! Can you see that? LOOK!” Don screamed aloud.
“Incredible!...It’s working!” Jason screamed back.
On the big plasma screen on the wall, where previously there had just been one cell, there were suddenly two.
“It works! It actually works!” Jason repeated, standing mesmerised before the projected image of the dividing cells.
Don walked across to the MD player and flicked a button on the display panel, scanning quickly through the tracks on the album. He turned the volume up. A second later the lab was filled with best Queen track of all.
“We are the champions, my friends...We are the champions…”
The Jason-Wainright Process worked.
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Chapter Forty One
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On the Sunday afternoon they came back and repeated the experiment with a new nucleus and a fresh egg-cell to make sure the first attempt was not a one-off.
The cells from the night before were still multiplying and had now divided into four cells. It was important to let the cells continue multiplying for a few days to see if the process was free-standing and would continue unaided. When the second experiment with the nucleus built from chromosomes of the A-type blood had worked eq
ually well, their confidence was high that the process was repeatable. They would let the cells continue dividing until the Monday evening and they would then gradually lower the temperature and freeze them.
On the Tuesday morning, with the rest of the team present they would repeat the experiment again with another fresh nucleus and enucleated egg cell, and after leaving the new cells to reproduce in a nutrient rich solution for 48 hours by which time the cell would have divided into about one hundred and twenty eight cells, they would take the ‘embryo’ and implant it into the first of the host mothers.
The operation would be performed in the theatre adjoined to the lab, purposely built for such occasions. The implantation would be performed by the last member of the team to be appointed, a qualified doctor that had worked with the Professor on many such embryo implantations in the past, the most recent being the embryos of the cloned Pharaoh Rahitpi Ani.
Loudon MacIver, a Scotsman from Glasgow was a gentle man, happy and content, and about fifty years of age. He had graduated from the University of Edinburgh, got his PhD. in Imperial College in London, and then worked in medical practice for a number of years before joining Wainright at the I.G.E.G.G. M..
Professor Wainright hadn’t told him the true nature of the clones that were to be implanted, just informing him they were related to the Pharaoh project. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust him, it was just that there didn’t seem to be the need to expose so many people to the truth, when after all, knowledge of the truth could prove to be dangerous.
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By now Louisa had resumed her duties in the team, and although it was obvious to everyone that she was still suffering badly from the breakdown of her relationship, she was a true soldier and she did her best to get on with the task in hand.
One of her responsibilities over the past few months had been to work with their ‘adoption’ agency and select the host mothers for the cloned embryos. Louisa would be the team’s contact with the host mother during the coming pregnancy and it was vital she established a good rapport with the women she had selected. She would assist Doctor MacIver during the implantation of the clone into the host mother, and she would provide the female touch and act as a nurse within the theatre during pre-op and post-op activities. Once the pregnancy came to term and the baby was born, the responsibility of continually monitoring the child and building a relationship with the host family and mother would be taken over by a foster nurse attached to the I.G.E.G.G.M. .
BOX SET of THREE TOP 10 MEDICAL THRILLERS Page 113
