The Messiah Conspiracy - A Gripping Medical Suspense Thriller (Book One)

By Ian C.P. Irvine

For all thriller fans, but especially for fans of Dan Brown, Sam Bourne, Scott Mariani and John Lyman!
The Messiah Conspiracy is a fictional thriller which takes place in the field of genetics and human cloning.

Hugely controversial, you will either love this book or hate it.

Some will feel challenged and uncomfortable by the topic it deals with, and others will be drawn into it and unable to put it down... the question is, what will you think? A young student at Oxford University has an idea for his doctor's thesis (Ph.D.), which fulfills not only the criteria for 'originality', but goes far beyond it. For if Jason Dyke is right, his idea will soon change the world and shift the delicate balance of power from one nation to another.

Jason's idea is simple: In the genetics laboratory at Oxford University, he will clone Jesus Christ.

But when the CIA finds out about his plan, the President of America realizes that if the UK succeeds, the balance of power will shift from the USA to Europe. And he realizes that the only way to stop this happening is for America to create its very own clone of Jesus Christ.

The race is on...

Genetics is the future. In the coming years, or maybe even months, the single most important scientific development in the history of mankind will be the development of human cloning. This book is based upon a simple idea, which takes the inevitable science of human cloning, one step further.

What makes this book stand out from other novels that deal with a similar concept is the way the author makes the science seem plausible, by explaining simply what genetics is and how cloning works. By leading the reader through the latest advances in cloning techniques until even the impossible seems possible, the reader cannot help but get sucked into the story. Right to the very end the author successfully maintains the thrill of the ride, and manages to keep a surprise up his sleeve...

Whoever reads this book will never forget it. And they will ask....one of two questions:-

1: Is it really possible?
2: When will it happen?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian C.P. Irvine
• Release date: Jul 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310810749

Ian C.P. Irvine

Ian Irvine was brought up in Scotland, and studied Physics for far too many years, before travelling the world working for high-technology companies. Ian has spent a career helping build the internet and delivering its benefits to users throughout the world,...as well as helping to bring up a family. Ian enjoys writing, painting and composing in his spare time. His particular joy is found in taking scientific fact and creating a thrilling story around it in such a way that readers learn science whilst enjoying the thrill of the ride. It is Ian's hope that everyone who reads an Ian.C.P.Irvine novel will come away learning something interesting that they would never otherwise have found an interest in. Never Science fiction. Always science fact. With a twist.The first of Ian's novels is a Genetic Conspiracy Thriller which explores the world of Stem Cell Research and encourages us all to ask some very searching questions about the advances that science is making, and how much we, or others, should let it affect society. A contemporary adventure, "The Orlando File" takes the reader around the world and back, and creates a unique moral dilemma that the reader cannot help get embroiled in: at the end, the reader must ask themself, what they would do in that situation?"The Orlando File" asks many questions, one in particular being, will advances in technology that extend our lifespans be limited to the rich and only those who can afford it? This is one of the main questions that is asked in the new Justin Timberlake film "In Time". "The Orlando File" does not give an answer to these questions, but encourages the reader to debate the question and provide their own response.

Book preview

Prologue

The Oval Office

The White House

United States of America

4th November AD 2018

1.

The President of the United States of America switched the cup of coffee into his right hand before picking up the ringing phone. President Jamieson was tired. The coffee was barely keeping him awake, but he couldn’t sleep until he had heard from Tim Curts. He had to know whether or not the operation had succeeded.

Mr President? the voice echoed down the scrambled satellite connection from somewhere in Oxford, England.

Tim! How did it go? the President asked, nervously.

Like a dream. We've got it. We’ll be back in Delaware tomorrow night, and within a few hours we’ll start the second phase of the operation. It’s looking good.

Excellent, Tim. Will anyone know it’s gone? the President asked, wondering how soon the French would miss their most important religious relic.

They’ll never know. We swapped it for an identical copy. Tim chuckled.

I can’t wait to see it. Tim, I’ve just decided, I’m flying down tomorrow to meet you. I want to see this baby for myself… the President paused You know, if this project works, we're never going to lose a war again. For Christ’s sake Tim, and I mean that literally, if you’re right about this, we’re going to rule the bloody Universe, let alone the world…

Tim hesitated for a second. He recognised the tone in the Presidents voice. And he didn’t like it.

It’ll be good to see you again, Mr President. I’ll brief you on the other details then.

Look forward to it Tim.

The President relaxed back into the big mahogany chair behind his desk of office. He switched the cup back to his other hand, and took a sip of the coffee.

Rule the Universe? Yes! he thought to himself. With God on our side, nothing will be impossible!

Part One

. .

Chapter 1

Carlisle, England

August AD 2012

.

It was a hell of a place to die. After fifty years of life, Paul Dyke had hoped that he would have ended up somewhere better than this.

Their small flat was filthy. The wallpaper was beginning to come off the walls, and the rooms smelt of damp.

Not that Paul could smell anything anymore. The fever was burning out of control, and for the past two days he had been slipping in and out of delirium, shivering violently and sweating continuously, his body fluids drenching the bedding on which he lay.

The man on the television had described the symptoms well, and Paul had got them all. It wouldn’t be long now.

.

Outside, the sun was setting and the street lights had just come on. The sound of thunder rolled across the distant hills, and a flash of lightning lit the room. The humidity in the air was oppressive and even though the fan hanging from the ceiling was spinning as fast as it could, it did nothing to lessen the heat.

Jason, Paul’s sixteen year old son, came back into the bedroom carrying a fresh bucket of ice and their last dry towel. He knelt down beside his father and tried to mop some more of the sweat from his glistening, emaciated body.

His father turned his head towards him, his eyes trying to focus on Jason’s face. His lips began to move, and Jason knelt closer so that he could hear his words. When he tried to speak, he coughed and spluttered, and blood oozed out of the corners of his mouth.

As Jason reached out to wipe away the blood, he felt his father's hand grab his wrist.

Jason…I’m sorry…

He whispered the words quietly, but Jason understood.

The grip on his wrist relaxed, the hand falling lifelessly onto the wet towel covering the bed. A long, slow sigh came from his father’s chest, and a trace of froth gathered round the edges of his lips.

Jason’s father was dead.

.

As Jason knelt beside his father’s body, tears rolled down his face and blurred his vision. He listened in disbelief as the man on the television excitedly announced the discovery of the long awaited vaccine for the 'SARs 2' virus. At the end of the bulletin the man mentioned that the death toll in the UK had now reached one million.

Surely they meant ‘one million and one.’

Chapter 2

Somewhere in the Egyptian desert,

Six years later,

May AD 2018

.

As the plane rose into the sky, Jason waved out of the small cockpit window at Dr Simons, his new girlfriend Lydia, and all the others gathered at the end of the runway. Quickly falling away far below him, the group which had assembled to bid him bon voyage soon turned into little black specks, and were swallowed up by the vast plain of the Egyptian desert.

Jason settled back into the seat, his eyes staring blankly at the waves of undulating sand dunes beginning to roll beneath them across the desert floor. The pulsating drone of the twin propeller engines washed over him hypnotically, and he fought with the urge to sleep. There was so much to think about. So much to remember.

He had spent the past six months digging up and living in the past. It had been an incredible time. A time full of new friendships, adventure and romance, but as soon as he stepped off the plane in Cairo he would be thrust back into the land of the living, and of science and the future.

He cast his mind back to the lab at Oxford, and to the discoveries and developments that would make cloning of the Pharaoh possible.

The progress that Professor Wainright’s team had made in the past few years was nothing short of remarkable. Thankfully, the cloning process that had been developed at Professor Wainright’s privately funded Institute for Genetic Evolution for the Greater Good of Mankind was still a well kept secret, and no one outside of the core I.G.E.G.G.M. team knew of its existence.

Rightly so. It was considered too dangerous to make public that Wainright’s team had discovered a way of recovering and regenerating prime DNA samples from damaged genetic material previously considered unfit for use in the cloning process. The implications were incredible.

Until now, it had been believed that DNA had an inbuilt sell-by date, which prevented mankind from tinkering with the seeds of its past. But in some revolutionary, painstaking research, Wainright had found the key that unlocked the blueprint within the DNA itself, allowing them to take DNA samples which were centuries, even thousands of years old, repair them, reproduce them, and then introduce them to a donor egg to create an embryo which could be cultivated and grown to maturity.

Using this process Wainright’s team would revolutionize the field of genetics.

It had already worked in the laboratory, and they had secretly succeeded in creating clones from genetic material extracted from three consecutive generations of humans, stretching back from 1900 to 1800 AD.

The three cloned embryos were now beautiful bouncing babies, all thriving and doing well, having been adopted by infertile loving couples.

Pushing back the boundaries of science even further, Wainright argued that there was no reason why genetic material couldn’t be extracted and cloned from anyone, regardless of when they had died, so long as the required genetic material had not been contaminated by certain chemicals which rendered the whole process impossible. However, the process was still in its infancy, and although the first three babies born to couples within the program were doing well, there was admittedly still a thousand things that could go wrong.

Still, it was an incredible discovery, made by an incredible man.

Undoubtedly, Professor Wainright was one of, if not the leading geneticist in the world. His research over the past twenty years had completely revolutionized the world of genetic reproduction.

His contributions to the Human Genome Project, the worldwide effort of the late twentieth century to map human DNA, had been key to the overall success of the project.

After the Human Genome project had been ‘completed’ it had been Wainright that had later spotted the flaw in the research of all the other scientists, and it had been Wainright that had found the way to correctly reinterpret the data without having to repeat the whole Human Genome experiment again.

Then a year after winning the Nobel prize for his outstanding contribution to science, Wainright had led the first team in the world to successfully clone a human being. Whereas at the turn of the millennium such efforts would have resulted in public outcry, public opinion towards genetic research was now very, very different.

When the Al-Qaeda group had successfully released a new biologically engineered airborne version of the SARs virus into the Olympic Stadium in London, England, during the Olympic closing ceremony in 2012, the spread of the unseen terrorist organism had been swift. Within days commuters had spread the virus around the globe, and the ensuing mind numbing death toll of thirty two million had resulted in a fundamental change of public opinion: it was genetics that had found the antidote to the virus, and saved the remainder of the population from almost certain death.

Wiping out seven million in Europe and eleven million people in North America, the modified corona virus had changed the course of history. In the wake of its path across the world, a new age had evolved, the Age of Genetics.

Genetics was the only hope to prevent another mutation of the original virus returning and claiming the rest of humanity. Genetics gave hope. Genetics was the future. And Jason was at the forefront of that future.

Ever since then funding for Genetics had rocketed, and governments and venture capitalists rushed to support any company that had the word ‘genetic’ or ‘genome’ in its title. It was like the ‘dot.com’ revolution of 1999 and 2000. Fortunes could be made in a matter of weeks as new companies reported successful genetic trials and their stock soared ten or a hundred times its true value in a single month.

Since then, the treatment of diseases and physical disabilities had been revolutionized with the use of genetic stem cell technologies for growing replacement nerves, muscles, organs and human tissues. Processes for which Wainright held many of the commercial patents.

.

Jason too, had done well for himself, although it had admittedly taken years of struggling for him to get where he was now.

His mother had never been able to cope with his father's spasmodic binges of drinking, and had left them when he was only five. He had never seen her again.

When his father had died of the 'SARS 2' virus at fifteen, Jason had gone to stay with an uncle in London. For years he had been an angry teenager, experimenting with drugs and roaming the streets at night, working through a hidden, suppressed anger at the world…and at God for allowing his father to die…only days before the cure had been found.

Jason had almost become an atheist, denying the existence of God, but secretly wanting to believe in something.

In the end, with the help and support of a good teacher at school, Jason had turned to science, finding comfort in the knowledge that although the vaccine had been too late to save his father, through studying genetics Jason might be able to help and save others…and prevent them from going through the hell he had.

For many years Jason had become an introvert, studying hard and playing little. But after a couple of years at Oxford University, he had begun to mellow and soon found a better balance between working and enjoying life.

After graduating from Oxford he had gone to work for Professor Wainright at the I.G.E.G.G.M. and over the years Jason had become close to the old man. To a large extent the Professor had replaced the father Jason had lost to the terrorist's biological attack, but now Jason worried at how quickly Dr Wainright’s health was deteriorating.

Until just last year Wainright was fully independent, mobile and vibrant. But within the past twelve months he had found it increasingly difficult to walk without a large amount of discomfort, the pain of a slow growing cancer beginning to cripple him and restrict all but the most necessary of movement.

The Professor’s brain was as sharp as ever, but Jason knew that his time was limited. The Professor's spirit had turned increasingly to flights of fancy and to wondering what his legacy on this planet would be. Professor Wainright had always been a romantic, and Jason knew that the project to create a clone of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Rahipti-Ani, was his last great romantic gesture. Something to capture the imagination of a world that had long since lost the ability to romance and dream.

.

Chapter 3

.

Professor Wainright had met Dr Simons at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Sweden, when Wainright had picked up an unparalleled second Nobel prize for his successes in human cloning and his contribution to the development of stem cell technology. Dr Simons was there receiving his own Nobel Prize for his contribution to archaeological achievement.

The two had got on famously, and over dinner Dr. Simons had told a rapt Professor Wainright all about his dream to find the tomb of Rahipti-Ani, the long lost Pharaoh of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Dr Simons had argued that there was every reason to believe that once found, wherever it was, the Pharaoh’s tomb would be sealed and intact: a virgin tomb, never touched by grave robbers or modern day archaeologist alike.

It was Dr Simons use of the words sealed and intact that had inspired the romantic within the geneticist Professor Wainright.

"A sealed and intact tomb would…, Wainright later explained to an excited young Jason back in Oxford …likely contain a virgin mummy, untouched by the air and genetic material of the twenty-first century. And within that mummy, he continued, you would find the genetic material of a man mummified in the OLD ways, before they introduced the oils and acids into the mummification process which destroyed the cell-structure we need…"

The meaning of the professor’s words had immediately been clear to Jason.

So... Jason interrupted the professor, ...if we can get a fresh sample of the Pharaoh’s mummified flesh before it is exposed to the air of today’s world, with all of its intrinsic pollutants and floating genetic dust, we would have everything we need to… Jason paused as the enormity of the plan hit him.

"Yes, my boy…you’ve got it. With a tiny portion of the newly found Pharaoh’s cells we would have enough genetic material to clone a Pharaoh! Once again Rahipti-Ani will walk again. ‘The Mummy will return’...so to speak!"

Dr Wainright’s words had remained with Jason, rattling around in his head and conjuring up pictures of tacky B-movies, starring a badly bandaged corpse with outstretched arms stumbling through the Egyptian desert searching for his next victim. Try as he might he couldn’t get rid of the image, and he hated it.

The thing was, although Wainright had cracked a joke about it, the whole thing belittled what the great man was trying to achieve. Taking a sample of DNA, thousands of years old and recreating a long lost member of the human species was going to be no small feat. Even four years ago such a thought would have been laughed out of town by any serious geneticist. But thanks to the recent discoveries made by Wainright’s team, now such things were entirely possible.

And when, through a combination of luck and painstaking archaeology, Dr Simons had finally found the location of Pharaoh Raphiti Ani's tomb, it was sealed and intact just as they had hoped for. Hidden deep beneath the ground in the barren desert outside the old Egyptian town of Timseret, the Pharaoh's tomb had remained undiscovered and forgotten by the rest of the world.

Outside of the tomb’s walls civilizations had spawned, grown and flourished, then withered and died; kingdoms had come and gone, mankind had evolved and the world had changed. But inside the cold and dark burial chamber, the Pharaoh's mummy had lain undisturbed and alone, surrounded only by statues of four large golden warriors who stood patiently in the darkness, protecting their charge and watching over their Pharaoh.

.

As the plane made a slow bank to the north, a brief cackle of radio traffic between the pilot and Cairo interrupted Jason's train of thought. When the plane leveled off again and the only sound was once again the monotonous pulsing of the twin engines, Jason cast his mind back to the excitement of the past weeks, reliving once more the moment in his mind when the group had finally broken through the false wall which had sealed the Pharaoh's burial chamber.

As the wall had fallen inwards into the intact tomb, the team of excited archaeologists had gathered round the entrance, each peering into the dark empty space ahead.

At first their torch lights had struggled to cut through the cold dry air, their beams blocked by swirling columns of dust swept upwards by the collapsing tomb wall. As they stood in silence waiting for the dust to settle, their eyes had strained through the darkness ahead, searching for their first glimpse of what lay beyond.

Gradually, the seemingly impenetrable curtain of dust had thinned, and for the first time in three thousand years, light had filled the tomb of Rahipti-Ani, the long lost Pharaoh of the Old Kingdom of Egypt.

In front of them was a large room, their torch lights bouncing off shining, golden panels, which covered the walls and floor of the chamber.

Colored hieroglyphs, painted and embedded with semi-precious stones ran along the walls, the jewels embedded in the hieroglyphs diffracting the torch lights into colored beams that crisscrossed the chamber and filled it with beautiful colored light.

Flashing their lights upwards, golden suns and bright stars had shone down from a painted blue ceiling, embedded with small gold discs and large semi-precious stones. As the torch lights caught the precious stones in their paths, the stones had come alive and twinkled back like stars, casting reds and greens and blues around the room.

In each of the four corners of the room a seven foot tall golden statue had stood brandishing a spear and a shield. Each of the warrior’s heads was slightly bowed, facing towards a raised golden platform in the centre of the chamber upon which lay the immense golden sarcophagus of the Pharaoh.

Brightly colored and inlaid with colored stones and jewels, the top of the golden coffin bore the three-dimensional likeness of the king’s face. He wore the traditional head-dress and the long black curved beard of the Pharaoh, and the arms that crossed his chest held the symbols of Egyptian power and authority: the flail and the scepter.

Dr Simons had walked across to the side of the Pharaoh. Resting his hands on the outer coffin lid, he had looked down onto the Pharaoh’s face and announced,

Rahipti-Ani, Pharaoh of Old Egypt, we have come as friends.

Jason had looked up at Lydia then and caught her eyes. They had both noticed that Dr Simons was crying, but Jason had been moved himself to find that Lydia was crying