Read Online The Gulf Conspiracy by Ken McClure - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ken McClure
Tags: Fiction, Medical, Thrillers, Political, Physicians, Persian Gulf War; 1991, Dunbar; Steven (Fictitious Character), Persian Gulf Syndrome
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for most of his life if truth be told.
He had first experienced it in his youth when climbing in the mountains of the Lake District – he had been brought up in the small village of Glenridding on Ullswater. Youthful exuberance and a lack of forethought had on occasion taken him into situations it might have been wiser to avoid but he and his friends had learned much about themselves and each other on these occasions and Steven had been smitten with the buzz that danger brought with it. He had re-acquainted himself with it on many occasions when serving with the military and had noticed that it could become as addictive as a drug - something to which many fighter pilots and racing drivers would testify. There was something about being on the edge of disaster that heightened human senses to otherwise unattainable levels. As one fellow soldier had once put it, you don’t know what being alive is until you’re very nearly not.
But there were downsides to chasing the buzz. Not only was there the prospect of an early death but even if that was avoided, it could lead to an inability to ever fit in again to the nine-till-five existence of ‘normal’ life. This, in turn, could lead to marriage difficulties and even conflict with the law as Steven had seen happen to a number of ex-SAS colleagues.
Steven had qualified as a doctor but had never practised medicine, deciding that he had no real vocation for it and not wishing to become a second rate practitioner if his heart wasn’t in it. Like many children of middle class parents, he’d done medicine at university in order to please them and perhaps ambitious schoolteachers as well – former pupil medical graduates always looked good on the school record. Unlike many before him, however, he had faced up to the problem before drifting too far into a career he wasn’t suited to. He completed medical school and served out his obligatory registration year as a hospital houseman before joining the army where, after basic training, he had served with the Parachute Regiment before being seconded to Special Forces.
As a tall, strong, naturally athletic man, military life had suited him down to the ground and he had enjoyed the challenge and camaraderie of it all. His service had taken him all over the globe and placed him in situations where his every faculty had been tested to the limit, something that most men would never experience throughout their entire lives. Although they might not realise it, these men would live and die without ever really knowing themselves. They might imagine that they were heroes; they might even end up singing ‘My Way’ down the pub and believing it, but, without ever having been tested, it simply wouldn’t be true.
Steven knew that the most unlikely people could turn to out be heroes under pressure and, conversely, those who’d been champions on the sports field could equally well prove to be craven cowards when life’s contests were played out for real and the stakes were infinitely higher.
Steven had been sad when it came time for him leave the army – the operational life of an SAS soldier not being much longer than that of a professional footballer. During his service he had become an expert in field medicine and had acquired many military skills but little to commend him or equip him for a life as a civilian other than his original medical degree. The prospect of life as an in-house physician with some large corporation had been looming when he had been rescued from what almost certainly would have been a life of structured boredom by John Macmillan, who had offered him the job of medical investigator with the Sci-Med Inspectorate.
Sci-Med was Macmillan’s brainchild: it operated as a small independent unit within the Home Office, its remit being to investigate potential problems and possible wrong-doing in the hi-tech worlds of science and medicine, areas where the police had little or no expertise. This was no reflection on them.
He had first experienced it in his youth when climbing in the mountains of the Lake District – he had been brought up in the small village of Glenridding on Ullswater. Youthful exuberance and a lack of forethought had on occasion taken him into situations it might have been wiser to avoid but he and his friends had learned much about themselves and each other on these occasions and Steven had been smitten with the buzz that danger brought with it. He had re-acquainted himself with it on many occasions when serving with the military and had noticed that it could become as addictive as a drug - something to which many fighter pilots and racing drivers would testify. There was something about being on the edge of disaster that heightened human senses to otherwise unattainable levels. As one fellow soldier had once put it, you don’t know what being alive is until you’re very nearly not.
But there were downsides to chasing the buzz. Not only was there the prospect of an early death but even if that was avoided, it could lead to an inability to ever fit in again to the nine-till-five existence of ‘normal’ life. This, in turn, could lead to marriage difficulties and even conflict with the law as Steven had seen happen to a number of ex-SAS colleagues.
Steven had qualified as a doctor but had never practised medicine, deciding that he had no real vocation for it and not wishing to become a second rate practitioner if his heart wasn’t in it. Like many children of middle class parents, he’d done medicine at university in order to please them and perhaps ambitious schoolteachers as well – former pupil medical graduates always looked good on the school record. Unlike many before him, however, he had faced up to the problem before drifting too far into a career he wasn’t suited to. He completed medical school and served out his obligatory registration year as a hospital houseman before joining the army where, after basic training, he had served with the Parachute Regiment before being seconded to Special Forces.
As a tall, strong, naturally athletic man, military life had suited him down to the ground and he had enjoyed the challenge and camaraderie of it all. His service had taken him all over the globe and placed him in situations where his every faculty had been tested to the limit, something that most men would never experience throughout their entire lives. Although they might not realise it, these men would live and die without ever really knowing themselves. They might imagine that they were heroes; they might even end up singing ‘My Way’ down the pub and believing it, but, without ever having been tested, it simply wouldn’t be true.
Steven knew that the most unlikely people could turn to out be heroes under pressure and, conversely, those who’d been champions on the sports field could equally well prove to be craven cowards when life’s contests were played out for real and the stakes were infinitely higher.
Steven had been sad when it came time for him leave the army – the operational life of an SAS soldier not being much longer than that of a professional footballer. During his service he had become an expert in field medicine and had acquired many military skills but little to commend him or equip him for a life as a civilian other than his original medical degree. The prospect of life as an in-house physician with some large corporation had been looming when he had been rescued from what almost certainly would have been a life of structured boredom by John Macmillan, who had offered him the job of medical investigator with the Sci-Med Inspectorate.
Sci-Med was Macmillan’s brainchild: it operated as a small independent unit within the Home Office, its remit being to investigate potential problems and possible wrong-doing in the hi-tech worlds of science and medicine, areas where the police had little or no expertise. This was no reflection on them.
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