been admitted to Medic Ecosse as transplant recipients at all. They were the donors.
Dunbar rubbed his forehead as he struggled to come to terms with the discovery. Amanda’s marrow puncture had been carried out to obtain stem cells for surgical introduction into the unborn foetus of the Omega patient. That’s why she had been taken up to the Omega wing. In the intervening weeks, the Omega baby had been developing Amanda’s immune system and it must now be ready to accept Amanda’s tissue as its own. Dunbar guessed at an operation timed to coincide with a Caesarian delivery when the baby was large enough to receive a child’s heart.
It also seemed a fair guess that Ross had put out a request to the black market for a suitable kidney for Amanda, knowing that if the price were high enough one would be found. At some point before or during Amanda’s operation, he would substitute an incompatible kidney, an animal organ, knowing that she would reject it and die. He would then steal her heart for the Omega baby. At autopsy he would put the correct donor kidney into Amanda to make everything neat and tidy. Her death, like those of Amy and Kenneth before her, would be just another one of those things… unless two nurses said otherwise!
Dunbar thought back to McVay’s report on Amy Teasdale. He’d said that not only her kidney but also her heart had been removed; they had both assumed at the time that this had been part of a routine earlier autopsy. McVay had been asked to examine Amy’s transplanted kidney. If only he’d been asked to examine the heart too. He would almost certainly have discovered that it was not her own but the previous Omega patient’s baby’s heart. It was odds-on that Amy’s heart was currently beating inside the offspring of some unknown Omega patient in a foreign land. This could be proved with a second exhumation of Amy, but Dunbar prayed that that wouldn’t be necessary. In the meantime, the prime objective was to save Amanda Chapman’s life.
His immediate thought was to inform Sci-Med and call in the police. That would put an immediate stop to everything. The problem was that ‘everything’ included Amanda’s chances of a transplant in time. Despite everything, it was true that a real, compatible kidney had been found for her. It just wasn’t Ross’s intention to use it until after her death. There must be some way of allowing things to continue so that the kidney arrived safely and was given to Amanda. He’d contact Clive Turner at the Children’s Hospital but first he’d tie up a last loose end. He’d call Hasselhof at the Mayo Clinic again.
‘Who is this?’ asked an American voice after a short wait.
‘My name is Steven Dunbar. I’m calling from the Medic Ecosse Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland.’
‘You’ve got a nerve!’ retorted Hasselhof.
‘I’m sorry?’ said Dunbar, recoiling slightly from the earpiece.
‘The medical profession has enough problems without carpetbaggers like you in it.’
‘I’m sorry, there must be some kind of mistake. I really don’t understand what you’re talking about, Doctor. I’m calling about one of your patients who was transferred here from the Mayo Clinic.’
‘I figured that,’ said Hasselhof. ‘You people promised that man and woman something that can’t be done. There is no operation that could save that woman’s baby. The malformation is far too great for corrective cardiac surgery to be of any value, but you people obviously convinced them otherwise. That, sir, is fraud in my book. And you now have the nerve to call me for advice!’
Dunbar was about to explain to Hasselhof that he hadn’t called for advice and that he wasn’t part of the Medic Ecosse set-up, but he changed his mind. There wasn’t time. He simply asked one question. ‘What if the baby were to have a heart transplant, Doctor?’
‘A transplant? The child wouldn’t survive long enough for a donor to become available. Even if one did, the necessary steroid suppression of the immune system would lay the child open to every infection under the sun. It’s just not possible.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said Dunbar. ‘I’m obliged.’
He put down the phone, muttering to himself, ‘Oh yes it is, Dr Hasselhof, if you know how to make sure the baby accepts the heart as its own flesh and blood so you don’t have to use steroids and if you’re prepared to murder the donor for her heart.’
Dunbar called the Children’s Hospital and asked to speak to Clive Turner.
‘Dr Turner’s in theatre at the moment,’ he was told.
‘Damn!’ said Dunbar as he put down the phone. A voice inside his head urged caution. ‘Take it easy. There’s no need to panic. Think it through. The first thing to establish is when they plan to operate on Amanda.’
He would simply go back to Medic Ecosse and inquire, which would be in keeping with his new up-front policy of asking things outright. As he prepared to leave his room, Dunbar wondered if there was anything he’d overlooked. He had the unpleasant feeling that there was but for the moment whatever it was eluded him. He had his briefcase and his computer. He had his notebook in his pocket. As soon as he’d established when the kidney from Geneva was going to arrive, he’d devise a plan of action to intercept it and inform Medic Ecosse. He closed the door with an air of finality and set off to play out the last act in a nightmare.
He got no further than the car park. As he inserted his key into the car door lock he felt a sharp pain in his thigh and the world started to swim. Nausea… a falling sensation. His last conscious thought was the realization that Medic Ecosse knew he’d contacted the Mayo Clinic. He’d phoned the first time from the hospital, and the call would have been logged. He’d given away that his interest in the Omega file was not confined to financial matters.
Dunbar woke up in complete darkness. He had a splitting headache and felt sick but this was partly due to the smell in the room, a strange mixture of excrement and… wet grain was the best he could come up with. It was the smell of harvest time in the fields, a throwback to his childhood. But no, it wasn’t that… It was the smell of animal feed. And animals.
Despite his muzziness it took him only a moment to figure out that he must be back at Vane Farm. He tried to sit up but the pain in his head soared to new heights so he slipped back down again. As long as he lay still he could think clearly. He ran his hands over his body. He had clothes on, shirt, trousers, shoes. One of the sleeves of his shirt, the left one, had been torn away and his upper arm ached. Oh God! They’d been giving him more injections. That meant there was no way of knowing how long he’d been unconscious. It could have been days or even weeks. Amanda Chapman could be dead by now.
His next thought was to wonder why he’d been allowed to regain consciousness at all. Was it deliberate or a mistake? The human body quickly developed a tolerance to narcotics, which meant dosage had to be increased to maintain the effect. Was that it? Had he come round before his next injection was due? If so he probably didn’t have much time. He rolled over on to his stomach and began to drag himself over the floor to explore his surroundings.
The first thing he came into contact with was a sack made of coarse hessian; it was full. He stretched up, put his hand inside the neck and pulled out a handful of small hard round pellets. He smelt them; it was animal feed. He also found a metal scoop inside the sack and put it in his pocket. It was a weapon of sorts, he supposed.
The room was a food store. The only thing other than sacks of feed-stuffs in the room was a floor-standing machine which, judging by feel, was some kind of processor. It had a large loading hopper on top and an exit pipe with a grille over its front lower down. There was a control panel on the front with two buttons on it, one raised and one recessed. The recessed one must be the On switch. It always was on industrial machines; a safety measure.
Dunbar froze as he heard voices. They were quite loud but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He put this down to his wooziness until he realized that they were not speaking English. The throat-clearing sounds suggested Arabic. There were two of them and they were probably coming to give him his next injection — or worse. Feeling as ill as he did, and armed only with a pellet scoop, he could do little to stop them.
A mobile phone started to bleep and the men’s talk stopped, to be replaced by one side of a phone conversation, again in Arabic. When it ended it became apparent that one man had been called away. Both voices receded and Dunbar heard the front door open and close. He waited for returning footsteps and did not have long to wait. At least with only one opponent the odds were a little more even. He lay down again, hiding the metal scoop in his right hand behind the small of his back. He wished his head would clear. He felt as if he were in a drunken stupor.
He opened his eyes fractionally so he could see something when the door was opened. The lock turned, the door swung open and he saw the silhouette of a tall, well-built man with a syringe in his right hand. He seemed to stand still in the doorway for ages, like an executioner contemplating his victim’s neck on the block as some announcement ceremony went on around him.
