Trauma (44 page)

Only Murdoch Tyndall was left alive, and his face was
a mask of fear. As Lafferty got up and started towards him, Tyndall picked up the metal spike that Mace had
been using and flung it at him. Lafferty was too exhausted
to move out of the way quickly enough and the shaft of
the spike caught him on the forehead. Tyndall took to
his heels as Lafferty fell to the floor. Sarah cried out in anguish and dropped to her knees to cradle Lafferty's head in her arms. The wound didn't seem too bad, but Lafferty
was unconscious.

Sarah realised that she and Lafferty were alone. She
could hear the lift taking Tyndall up to the Sigma lab
and relaxed a little. 'We did it,' she whispered as she
looked down at Lafferty. She felt totally exhausted and
let her head slump forward on to her chest. She closed
her eyes for a moment, crooning softly to Lafferty that it
was all over.

Suddenly, Sarah became aware of a fierce crackling
sound. Her eyes jerked open. The short-circuited power
pack had burst into flames and the fire was spreading
rapidly.

Panic replaced exhaustion for Sarah and she struggled
to her feet to start dragging Lafferty's unconscious body
towards the door. The fire had already spread to a coil
of plastic tubing and noxious fumes were beginning to fill
the air.

Sarah found great difficulty in moving Lafferty at all;
he was so heavy. But she managed to clear a path through
the debris round the door and drag him out of the room.
She tried closing the door to contain the fire, but it had
jammed against the bed-frame and the flames were starting
to lick round it. She returned to Lafferty to start dragging
his body down between the patient bays to
the lift corridor.

Frustration and anger vied inside her as her strength
began to fail with the effort required. Progress was now
painfully slow and the fire had spread out of the room into
the main ward. It was catching up on them. If only she had
been able to close the door. It might have given her an
extra few minutes. As it was, the flames had now reached
the first patient bay. The plastic bubble was alight.

Sarah had to lean back fully on her heels to drag Lafferty
along by the arms a foot at a time. The fumes were making
her cough, interrupting her rhythm and heightening her
fear. It seemed likely that the short-circuit Lafferty had
caused had tripped out the ventilation system. As the
smell of burning flesh reached her, she was filled with
panic and given a final surge of adrenaline. She managed
to make it to the swing doors, still dragging Lafferty's lifeless
body. She almost fell through them backwards but with a final
tug, Lafferty was through them too. She just had to
get him to the lift and they would be safe. The fire was
now half-way down the unit but there would be plenty
of time to summon the lift and, if need be, the swing
doors would afford them some protection from the fire.
The air, however, was becoming increasingly foul.

Sarah checked Lafferty's pulse and found it strong.
'Wake up!' she urged. 'We're nearly there!' There was
no response, so she pulled him slowly along to the lift
and pressed the button. Sarah's heart almost stopped
as she saw that the little light above the button had
failed to come on. She stared, unwilling to believe it.
She pressed it repeatedly, but still nothing happened. It
was not just a bulb failure. There was no sound from the
lift machinery.

The truth dawned on Sarah like a knife in the ribs.
Tyndall had turned off the power to the lift. There was
no way out. What little strength Sarah had left in her
legs drained from her and she slumped slowly to the floor
beside Lafferty. Tears rolled down her cheeks for the first
time. It had all been for nothing. They were both going
to die. Lafferty groaned as if he was about to come round
and Sarah shushed him. 'Ssh,' she whispered through her
tears. 'Sleep on Ryan, sleep on.'

It was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. The
fire was using up all the available oxygen and the air was tilled with toxic fumes. Her only comfort was the thought
that they would both be unconscious or even dead before
the flames reached them. Sarah closed her eyes and rested
her head on the wall behind her. Lafferty's head was in
her lap.

She was on the point of losing consciousness herself
when she heard the lift machinery start up. She opened
her eyes and blinked, not sure if she was imagining it.

Lafferty groaned loudly and she said sharply, 'Ssh!'

It
wasn't her imagination; the lift was coming down! She
struggled to her knees and had half-turned round when
the lift doors opened and Paddy Duncan stepped out. Two
policemen were with him. 'Sarah! What the hell?'

'Oh Paddy, thank God you've come. I'd given up
hope. I thought we were going to die,' gasped Sarah.
She tried to stand up but collapsed into Paddy Duncan's outstretched arms.

One of the policemen got Lafferty into the lift while
Paddy helped Sarah inside. The other policeman went
to look through the swing doors at the fire. He held a
handkerchief to his mouth. 'What about the patients?'
he yelled back to the others.

'They're dead,
^’
said Sarah weakly. 'They're all dead.
Leave them be. Let's get out of here.'

Fresh air had never tasted sweeter as Sarah and Lafferty
lay on the ground outside waiting for the ambulance to arrive. The Fire Brigade were doing their best to contain
the blaze, but it was a hopeless task. The very fact that the
secret lift was the only access route to the sub-basement
meant that they could not tackle the seat of the blaze.
The ground floor was now alight and it was more a
question of stopping the fire spreading to other buildings
than attempting to save the Institute.

'How are you feeling?' asked Sarah.

'You saved my life,' said Lafferty, taking her hand.

'It was the least I could do,' replied Sarah, 'after all
you'd done for me
...
Maybe we're good for each
other?'

Lafferty turned to look at her in the light coming from
the fire. 'Maybe we are,' he agreed, squeezing her hand.

He turned away to look at the fire and started to think
about what they would tell the authorities. Would anyone
believe them?

Sotillo and his henchmen were dead. Cyril Tyndall
was dead and all the evidence against Murdoch Tyndall
was going up in flames in front of his eyes. Apart from
that, there was the disturbing question of how easy it
had been for Gelman Holland to obtain a government
licence for the new vaccine. Sarah had pointed out that
the government had put up half the money for the Head
Trauma Unit. Gelman Holland had put up the rest.
Could the partnership have had a deeper significance?
Was it conceivable that the government actually knew
that brain-dead patients were being used as human guinea
pigs for faster vaccine development?

Suddenly he caught sight of Murdoch Tyndall out of
the comer of his eye. Tyndall was at the far end of the building, talking to a group of policemen. They weren't
restraining him in any way. In fact, they seemed quite
deferential, looking occasionally at the flames together
as if sympathising with his loss. As Sarah and Lafferty watched, a distinguished looking man wearing a dark coat was allowed through the police harrier to join the group.
Lafferty didn't recognise him but Sarah did.

'I've seen him on television,' she said. 'He's a junior
minister in the Scottish Office.

Lafferty nodded hut didn't say anything. He was wond
ering if the presence of the newcomer answered his earlier
questions. He could see that Tyndall had recovered all his old self-confidence as he engaged the government
man in conversation. 'Tyndall doesn't know we're alive,'
he said.

‘
The bastard,' said Sarah.

'It may turn out to be our word against his,' said
Lafferty, thinking about the lack of evidence.

'He is not going to get away with it,' said Sarah resolutely. 'Even if it means sifting through the ashes
of that building and checking dental records for the next
year to establish the identity of the patients.'

Lafferty did not reply immediately. He was thinking
about the obstacles that would be put in their way and
the almost certain lack of cooperation they could expect
from the authorities. He became aware that Sarah was
waiting for him to say something. 'Are you with me?'
she asked.

Lafferty looked at her and smiled. 'I'm with you, Sarah.’

The Steven Dunbar Series

LOST CAUSES

DUST TO DUST

THE LAZARUS STRAIN

EYE OF THE RAVEN

THE GULF CONSPIRACY

WILDCARD

DECEPTION

DONOR

Other Novels

HYPOCRITES’ ISLE

PAST LIVES

TANGLED WEB

RESURRECTION

PANDORA'S HELIX

CHAMELEON

CRISIS

REQUIEM

PESTILENCE

FENTON'S WINTER

THE SCORPION'S ADVANCE

THE TROJAN BOY

THE ANVIL

KEN McCLURE is an award-winning medical scientist as well as a global selling author. He was born and brought up in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he studied medical sciences and cultivated a career that has seen him become a prize-winning researcher in his field. Using this strong background to base his thrillers in the world of science and medicine, he is currently the author of twenty-four novels and his work is available across the globe in over twenty languages. He has visited and stayed in many countries in the course of his research but now lives in the county of East Lothian, just outside Edinburgh.

www.kenmcclure.com

'His medical thrillers out-chill both Michael Crichton and Robin Cook.'

Daily Telegraph
.

'McClure writes the sort of medical thrillers which are just too close to plausibility for comfort.'

( Eye of the Raven)
Birmingham Post
.

'Well wrought, plausible and unnerving.'

(Tangled Web)
The Times

'A plausible scientific thriller . . . McClure is a rival for Michael Crichton.'

(The Gulf Conspiracy)
Peterborough Evening Telegraph
.

'Contemporary and controversial, this is a white knuckle ride of a thriller.'

(Past Lives)
Scottish Field
.

'Ken McClure looks set to join the A list at the top of the medical thriller field.'

The Glasgow Herald
.

'McClure's intelligence and familiarity with microbiology enable him to make accurate predictions. Using his knowledge, he is deciding what could happen, then showing how it might happen . . . It is McClure's creative interpretation of the material that makes his books so interesting.'