The Gruinard Project Chapter 44

[khandy]

Chapter 44

The Western General Hospital 01.30

Lucas North thought he had known fear before; well there was no thought about it he had known fear before. In his line of work fear was what kept a person alive, stopped them getting too cocky and slapdash. This was different though, now he was bloody scared and that was a completely different feeling. He assumed it was to do with control. All the times he had known fear he had the element of control; even in Russia they had been unable to take it away.

Here and now though he had relinquished that control. He was sure Kate had realised how scared he had been. It was a huge leap of faith to allow a person who you had met a mere five minutes before to take over control of your life. To say ok sedate and paralyse me. I trust you and your machinery to breathe for me. Especially knowing that the odds of you ever waking up and being able to breathe for yourself again were remote.

Even though he had voluntarily agreed to being ventilated he was sure he had resisted them. Kate had said it was like being anaesthetised but it wasn’t, not really. People who had anaesthetics didn’t normally have any conscious knowledge of what was happening to them but he had. He had felt the sedation start to work almost as soon as the doctor had started administering it. He could feel it going into his vein burning a trail up his arm and he had panicked.

He remembered Kate trying to soothe and calm him thinking he was fighting being intubated. He wasn’t, he was remembering something vitally important. It was the doctor’s name, so similar; Russell Philips to Philip Russell. He wasn’t sure what was really troubling him about Philip Russell but he was the only person at the conference not taken ill, which meant he had not drunk any of the water, Then there was the look that he had seen on the businessman’s face. Satisfaction. Which begged the question that in the middle of all that drama what did he have to be satisfied about?

He realised Kate had thought he meant the doctor when he was calling out the name but before he had been able to say any more he had slipped into this place.

This place, it was strange he knew where he was could hear people talking but he had no control over anything. His muscles felt heavy and rigid, he was unable to move.

Lucas wondered if people didn’t realise he could hear because they were talking about him as if he wasn’t there. He felt like a piece of meat in a window just lying there while people discussed him. It had to be said that what he was hearing didn’t fill him with any confidence. It seemed he was going toxic, the combination of antibiotics they were giving him were barely holding the infection at bay. One of them was extremely painful to have. He had heard the nurse explaining to his parents that it had to be administered slowly because of how irritant it was to the vein. He tensed waiting for the pain as it infused. His whole arm burned, it was as if a bullet had ripped into his flesh; the joints at his wrist, elbow and shoulder screamed in protest. Could something this painful be helping?

It seemed that there was not a body function they were not treating or monitoring. He heard them talking about his kidney function. He knew they were monitoring this because of the tube in his bladder. He had been awake when it had been passed by a young nurse. It had to be the most humiliating thing he had ever been subjected to and given he had spent eight years being tortured that was saying something. Some young nurse barely out of school handling his private parts, putting some freezing gel up it and then passing the tube. He had gritted his teeth, closed his eyes and thought of England praying for the procedure to be over. He longed to rip it out, it was uncomfortable all the time but the worse thing was every time they emptied the bag it twisted and pulled down the length of his cock. He doubted it would ever function normally again after suffering this trauma.

Listening to them talk he heard them explaining how they were giving him drugs to maintain his kidney function. Drugs with impossibly long names. That made everything seem so serious. He had heard them explain that if his renal function did not improve they might have to consider dialysis. This had really upset his mother who had wept; he had felt her tears fall on his hand. He had felt so helpless wishing he could let her know that he was still with her. He tried to squeeze her hand but felt certain his fingers had not moved.

He lay listening to his family talking; chatting about him and Marcus growing up. He supposed it was normal in situations like this for the family to look back, the future seemed so uncertain. There was comfort to be found in childhood memories, those innocent carefree days a million years away from the situation in which they now found themselves. The hospital Chaplin had visited, Lucas had felt strangely calm when the man had taken his hand and prayed.

The nurse was asking his family to leave for quarter of an hour while they did chest physiotherapy. He had known that it was almost time for this because he could hear his chest bubbling and it was as if something heavy was pressing down and stopping his lungs from inflating properly. Of all the things he was being subjected to this was the absolute worse. He tensed as the physiotherapist placed a stethoscope against his chest.

“Left side is slightly worse than right side though neither is very good.”

A towel was placed on his chest and then without warning the tapping and shaking began. Lucas lay wondering how it was possible that slaps and thumps to the chest could rattle the brain but they did.

“Come on Lucas cough the phlegm up for me and then I don’t have to do suction.”

He tried he really tried but he was just too tired to cough. He would have given anything to cough because he had discovered that suction was barbaric.

He felt the suction catheter being fed via the tube in his throat and then as it was slowly withdrawn suction was applied. The problem was the whole of the time this was happening no air was able to reach his lungs as he had to be disconnected from the ventilator. It had scared the shit out of him the first time his oxygen supply was cut of, he had no idea what was happening, all he had known was that he had no longer been breathing. He had coughed violently at the intrusion and after what had seemed like an eternity they had reconnected the ventilator.

He tensed and waited for her to pass the tube.

When she had finished he was shattered as he had been every time but his chest felt less tight and the bubbling and rattling had stopped. He wanted to rest now, stop listening and thinking but he was so scared that if he did he would never wake up again and he had promised Kate that he would keep fighting.

Kate, what must this be doing to her? Why in God’s name had he involved her? He had thought he had loved Elizaveta but he hadn’t, not really. He had desired and lusted after her but there was not the depth of feeling he felt for Kate.

She was out there looking for a cure. Was that why he had involved her? Had he known that she was the one person who might have a chance to save him, had it been fate? He wished somebody just anybody would give him an update on how that was going, some glimmer to hold on to, some reason to keep fighting.

A hand took his, not one he recognised perhaps it was another nurse.

“Lucas, the nurse said you might be able to hear me. Harry sent me. He thought you should know that Kate and Ros are chasing up a lead. It seems that somebody may have been exposed to the Anthrax and survived. I don’t understand the science but it seems that if this is true Kate may have a cure.”

Lucas realised it was Jo. Harry must have realised that he would need to know what was going on and had sent her to tell him.

“So you just hang in there Ok. I can’t stay we are on the trail of Mr Big so I have loads of CCTV footage to look at to see if we can track Sands movements. Trust you to get the easy gig just lying there while we run around doing all the work.”

The joke seemed forced to Lucas’ ears, he sensed Jo was close to tears but he was impressed that she had tried to keep it light.

He lay there taking in what Jo had said and then he prayed that there would be time to find the cure.

Rockwell Terrace Leeds. 01.30

The door was very stiff, Pavel had to push hard to open it. It certainly wasn’t a quiet entrance; Kate only hoped that whoever they were here to see had not done a runner at the sound of the door being pushed open. Pavel stood aside and let her Mike and Ros enter.

The door opened directly on to a lounge. The place was basically furnished but clean, obviously a rental place. On an old sofa sat a man. The way he cowered back in the corner was evidence of how scared he was. His eyes were wide and darting wildly about. The sight of Pavel calmed him slightly.

“Is ok Andre. They are friends.” Pavel spoke in Polish. “They have closed down the lab. They believe what you say about the gas.”

“Andre is my brother,” Pavel explained.

“Pavel I need to know what happened to him and we have little time. Can you ask him to explain?” Kate asked quietly.

Pavel translated as the man spoke, hesitantly at first but then gaining in confidence.

It seemed he had been recruited to trial some new drug, the money he had been promised was excellent. Too much to turn down. They had all been placed in a room that looked like a hospital and connected to IVs. Nobody had come to them. He had heard a hissing sound coming from an air vent. Nobody believed that anything was wrong, they wouldn’t listen to him. They had all got sick even him. So sick, he had never felt so ill before. They cried for help but nobody came. All night he lay listening to the others. It sounded like they were drowning. The first one died in the middle of the night. By morning they had all died, all except him. Men had come but they were scared and had not checked that everybody was dead. They were all placed in a van. They had been taken deep into some woods. He had managed to crawl away and hide while the men were smoking and discussing how to get rid of the bodies. At this point in his narrative he became distraught and it took him a few moments to calm himself.

“They burn them on bonfire. The smell was …” He spoke in English for the first time.

“Sweet Jesus,” Ros said.

Mike was shaking violently, struggling to accept what he was hearing.

“How come you didn’t go to the police?” Kate asked.

He shuffled on his seat but didn’t answer.

“You’re illegal aren’t you?” Ros said. “Were you all illegal?”

He nodded slowly.

Andre continued talking, explaining how he managed to crawl away and hitch hike back to Leeds.

“How long were you sick for?”

The illness which had been like a severe respiratory problem had lasted for several weeks. He had not taken anything, he had just got better on his own.

“Ok, Pavel we need Andre to come with us. We need to analysis his blood and run some tests. It looks like he has a natural immunity to the disease he was infected with. Two men were infected with this disease and are very sick. He holds the key to them surviving,” Kate told the two men.

“What about immigration?” Pavel asked.

“Don’t worry we will take care of that,” Ros said. "Mike well done this is vital information. Now we need you to come with us as well Ok.” Ros held out her hand to the young man. He took it and shook it briefly

“Yeah ok.” Funny he didn’t feel clever or as if he had done well. He felt sick; somebody had deliberately infected and killed these people in England. It was just unbelievable. “Did you find more of the disease at the lab?”

“Some but we don’t think all, we think they must have moved it,” Ros said.

“To say a storage facility?”

“Yeah something like that,” Ros said.

“I am so stupid. I think I know where that might be. I saw them moving stuff in the middle of the night. It wasn’t the usual firm but it all looked above board. I was just leaving for the day they went to an industrial unit on the other side of Leeds.” Mike looked round at them all.

“Ros I realise that what Mike is saying is important but not as important as getting Andre to Edinburgh. We need to go,” Kate urged.

“Absolutely I will get the helicopter on standby. Let’s move.”

[Annie]

Oh, poor Lucas! Not even in artificially-induced-coma land can he find peace! The poor thing is not going to be further traumatized by this experience, I hope?

(And not to nitpick (OK, so it is nitpicking), but wouldn't it be spelled "Andrzej" in Polish?)

[BravoNine]

So we have discovered the villainous perpetrator of Lucas-in-coma is Philip Russell, would it be possible then for.....say a young servant/maid to "accidently" bash his head in with a baseball bat or a metal plate as he is trying to escape when MI5 finally catches up to him?

That would just give me great satisfaction and joy!

[HellsBells]

Loved the first of Lucas still actually feeling things, so sad but so well written. The Mike guy is really on the ball isn't he.
Come on Kate find a cure.......quick!