A further advantage of using animal organs, according to Ross, was that the donor animal could be kept alive until the very moment the organ was needed. It would therefore be well oxygenated and ‘fresh’. There would be no more rushing to and fro across the globe with tissue decaying in transit with each passing hour. There would be no more hoping against hope that unforeseen delays would not render vital organs useless. An added bonus was that the social and moral problems associated with hospitals ‘delaying’ the death of putative donors by keeping them on life-support machines, solely to keep their organs in good condition, would become a thing of the past.
The main focus of the research was the immunological problem associated with the introduction of foreign tissue. Like tissues from any other source, animal organs had to be made compatible with the patient’s own immune system, otherwise they would quickly be rejected as alien material, causing the transplant to fail and the patient to die. Ross’s experimental work had shown that it was possible to breed pigs with the immune system of a human patient in addition to their own. This scenario would ensure that the pig’s organs would be perfectly acceptable to the patient whose immune system the pig had been given. This was all experimental, of course, qualitative work performed to establish the validity of theory. The idea of preparing a pig donor for each and every human being in case they should need a transplant at some time in their life was beyond practicality. The morality of it was another issue.
Dunbar wondered if it could possibly have been attempted for selected individuals at Medic Ecosse, but concluded not. The timescale would have been all wrong for cases like Amy Teasdale or Kenneth Lineham. These patients had come to Medic Ecosse already very ill and needing transplants quickly.
The more he read, the more depressed he felt. Unless Ross had made some great secret leap forward in technology there would have been no point in attempting to transplant pig organs into human patients. Rejection would have been almost guaranteed. Had Ross made such a breakthrough? He hoped to find out at Vane Farm.
Douglas was already in the Crane when Dunbar arrived at five to eight. They shook hands and sat down on the same seats as last time.
‘How’d you get on?’ Dunbar asked.
‘It looks possible. The staff are all gone by ten o’clock. That just leaves two security men in the gate-house. They’re supposed to patrol the grounds every half-hour but they were a bit lax after midnight. They probably rely on the electric fence doing its job.’
‘Electric fence?’ exclaimed Dunbar.
‘Nothing too desperate,’ said Douglas. ‘It’s more of an alarm than a line of defence. Low voltage. We can bridge it easily.’
‘How about the building itself?’
‘That’s our biggest problem. We can’t use a window — there aren’t any — and the door has an electronic lock.’
‘But you said it was possible.’
‘I think it’s possible,’ said Douglas. ‘It’s going to depend on this.’ He took from his pocket a small piece of plastic the size of a credit card. It was unmarked save for a strip of magnetic tape across it.
‘A key?’
‘We’ll call it that if it works.’
‘Did you make it?’
‘Let’s say an acquaintance did. I persuaded him to take time off from giving the Bank of Scotland a hard time to manufacture it for me.’
‘Won’t there be a code number attached to the lock as well?’ asked Dunbar.
Douglas nodded. ‘The code is entered on tone buttons. I recorded the tones when one of the guards went into the building. I know the number.’
‘And if the key doesn’t work?’
‘Then it’s up to you. We could take out the guards and use their passkey.’
‘No violence,’ said Dunbar.
‘Please yourself.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight, if you’re up for it.’
Dunbar nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘When and where?’
Douglas looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Have you done anything like this before?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I have,’ replied Dunbar. He didn’t volunteer anything else and Douglas didn’t ask. He simply nodded and gave directions on how to get to the yard of a disused suburban railway station on the north side of the city. He could leave his car there and they would go on to Vane Farm in Douglas’s Land-Rover.
‘Just in case we have to rough it across country later,’ said Douglas. ‘Do you need clothing?’
‘I’ve got dark stuff,’ replied Dunbar. ‘I could use a balaclava, though.’
‘No problem. Gloves?’
‘I’ve got gloves.’
‘One o’clock, then.’
Dunbar returned to his hotel room and turned on the television while he looked out the clothing he was going to wear later and laid it on the bed. He needed some noise as a distraction from thinking about the repercussions if something should go wrong. Scottish Television was showing an episode of Taggart. A body was being pulled from the Clyde to the accompaniment of glum faces and bad jokes. This was not the sort of distraction he needed; he switched off the television and turned the radio on instead, tuning it to Classic FM. Mozart’s Horn Concerto would do.
At half-past midnight Dunbar checked his pockets for the last time, then left his room and walked quietly along to the lift. Adrenalin was starting to flow. He handed his key to the night clerk, who acknowledged it with a nod before returning to his paperback. Dunbar was pleased at his lack of interest.
The directions Douglas had given him were excellent; concise and to the point. He had no difficulty in finding the station yard; it was seven minutes to one when he turned into it. The traffic at that time of night had been negligible. He drove slowly round the yard, his lights illuminating the undergrowth that was encroaching on the pot-holed tarmac. He backed into a secluded corner where he could watch the entrance, and turned out his lights.
The moon slid out from behind a thin cloud curtain to light up the ribbon of road leading uphill from the car park and out into the country. It was nearly full tonight. The last time he’d watched the moon like this had been in the Iraqi desert. He and the others had been waiting for it to disappear before moving off. He was trying to recall the names of his companions that night when he heard the sound of a car approaching. At first he thought the vehicle was going to pass by, but at the last moment it slowed and turned into the car park. Dunbar was momentarily blinded by its headlights as it swung round, then turned slightly to the side. He switched on his own lights and saw that it was a darkgreen Land-Rover. He got out, locked his car and hurried over to join Douglas.
‘Found it all right, then?’ asked Douglas.
‘No problem.’
They drove in silence until Douglas said, ‘That’s it coming up on our left. We’ll drive past. There’s a farm turn-off about three hundred yards ahead. We’ll leave the Land-Rover there.’
Dunbar saw the headlights pick out the sign ‘Vane Farm Animal Welfare Institute’ as they passed. He smiled wryly.
‘That is the place?’ asked Douglas, sounding a little worried.
‘Oh yes, that’s the place. I was just taken with the name, that’s all.’
‘They’re all doing it these days,’ said Douglas, catching on. ‘I suppose it would be asking for trouble to call it Vivisection House or the Institute for Cutting up Wee Furry Things for No Good Reason.’
‘Quite so.’
‘What do they work on there?’
‘Pigs.’
‘Not quite as appealing as bunny rabbits in the emotional stakes, but I guess it doesn’t matter too much to the nutters.’
‘Has there been much trouble with animal activists up here?’ asked Dunbar.
‘A fair bit. They burned down a lab over in Edinburgh a few months ago and a couple of researchers got parcel bombs sent to them. They’re going to kill somebody soon.’
Douglas turned the Land-Rover off the road and parked it a little way down the farm track. He turned out the lights and said, ‘Time to go to work.’ He reached behind him and lifted over a small rucksack and two black balaclavas. He handed one to Dunbar and both men put them on.