The Magic Bullet

by Andrew Neiderman

Overview

From the bestselling author of THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE.

"A very good, very tight thriller." —BOOKLIST

Dr. Allan Parker may have found the Magic Bullet the world has been waiting for all these years—the cure for cancer in the blood of fifteen-year-old Taylor Petersen. But there's only so much blood in Taylor's body, and so many desperate people.

One of the most desperate is Frankie Vico, a mobster who faces the death sentence of inoperable, terminal cancer for which there is no reprieve. And with time running out, he's learned of one last hope. Now he'll stop at nothing, including kidnapping and murder, to get his hands on Taylor's precious blood. Caught in a deadly chase with only Dr. Parker to help him, Taylor will have to fight to save his own life...and millions of others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626817883
Publisher:	Diversion Books
Publication date:	02/06/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	289
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Andrew Neiderman was born in Brooklyn and grew up in New York’s scenic Catskill Mountains region. A graduate of the University at Albany, State University of New York, from which he also received his master’s in English, Neiderman taught at Fallsburg Junior-Senior High School for twenty-three years before pursuing a career as a novelist and screenwriter. He has written more than forty thriller novels under his own name, including The Devil’s Advocate, which was made into a major motion picture for Warner Bros., starring Al Pacino, Keanu Reeves, and Charlize Theron, and is in development as a stage musical in London. Neiderman has also written seventy New York Times–bestselling novels for the V. C. Andrews franchise. He lives with his family in Palm Springs, California. Visit him on Facebook and at www.neiderman.com.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Allan Parker had chosen to specialize in oncology like a man bent on vengeance. Just at the start of his second year of medical school, his father called him to tell him his mother had been diagnosed with a malignant breast tumor. A radical mastectomy was performed, but the cancer cells had traveled to her pancreas and liver. It was only a matter of months.

Allan's mother never saw him receive his diploma, nor was she there to celebrate when he was offered a position at the U.S.C. Medical Center. He interned and began to study under Dr. Thornton Carver, a world- renowned oncologist and surgeon, and quickly became his most promising prodigy. No young doctor had ever shown Carver more dedication, more determination. Allan's intensity not only impressed Dr. Carver, it actually frightened him a bit. He wasn't sure whether Allan Parker was an overachiever or simply a man obsessed.

Although Allan stood a little over six feet tall, maintained a trim figure, and was strikingly handsome in a mature way; even though he was only in his late twenties, he had few romantic involvements with women during the period he studied under Thornton Carver. Carver was convinced Allan wasn't gay; it was more like he was asexual most of the time. If, during one of those rare occasions, he did date and start to become involved with someone, he always seemed to have a built-in shutoff valve that caused him to abruptly end the relationship.

Once, when they discussed it briefly over coffee, Allan confessed he didn't want anything or anyone distracting him. A relationship, especially a marriage and a family, would certainly do just that.

"A wife, children, require and deserve at least half your energy and attention. I'm not willing to commit to that right now."

"Well, I would humbly suggest I'm a fairly successful doctor and have a family, Allan," Thornton told him.

"I respect that, Doctor Carver. It's just not for me at the moment."

If anyone else had told him to his face that his life wasn't enough for them, Thornton Carver would have taken offense, but he was continually intrigued by his prodigy. He sat back, smiling, and softly asked, "What do you expect to accomplish, Allan?"

"I expect to find a cure for cancer," he replied nonchalantly, as if the answer couldn't be more obvious. It had the sound of a juvenile's dream, but there was nothing in Allan's face that suggested it was a fantasy. He was damn serious. "I expect to discover the magic bullet."

He was indeed spending every spare waking hour either reading about other cancer researchers or doing his own research.

"Everything tells us that this just isn't going to be one bullet, Allan. You know that some cancers act completely different from others, that some patients who contract lung cancer or colon cancer, melanomas, sarcomas react differently," Dr. Carver said.

"There's a common thread to it all, some starting point, something that initiates the uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells."

"Well, yes, but ..."

"The Wake Forest work with cancer-resistant mice strongly suggests the possibility that we are all constantly getting cancer, one cell at a time, but our immune systems detect and kill them."

"I understand that, Allan, however ..."

"If we can just pin down why and understand our own immune system much better, we could unlock the box that contains the secrets we need," Allan insisted. "Even you have concluded that unexpected spontaneous remissions aren't simply explained away by claiming incorrect diagnoses."

Carver nodded. Who knows, he thought, maybe this young man will make a significant discovery someday. He was certainly relentless. He lived alone in a modest Los Angeles apartment, choosing the location and the apartment simply on the basis of its proximity to work. His friends, if you could categorize them as such, were only people he met at work and people with whom he could discuss or share his labor. Most of them eventually backed away because he simply exhausted them. No matter what the movie or play was that they saw together, he found a way to bring their work into it. If they went to dinner, he talked about the significance of food, the research on nutrition. The same result followed attendance at a concert, the discussion of a new novel, even a walk in the park. Something always led him back to his topic, his work.

"You remind me of Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick," Gloria Alford told him over cocktails one night. The twenty-four-year-old woman in accounting had dated him twice before, each time waiting for him to ease up and enjoy what they were doing together, to truly enjoy each other.

"Oh? How so?" he asked.

"A white whale bit off his leg and gave him his only reason to live: revenge."

He nodded. She meant it as a negative, but he just saw it as an objective, true observation. It turned out to be their last date — a mutual conclusion.

Oddly enough, even though Allan was a man fully concentrating on the science and devoted to the research, he was not a doctor with a poor bedside manner. He truly empathized with his patients, especially older women. They felt and believed he was in this with them, that their battle was his personal battle. They swore by him; they had faith in him.

"You've got to focus all your mental energies and power on this cancer," he told them, "and think of it as the enemy within. Nothing else should involve your attention. Chant slogans of hate. Will it dead. Hate it!" he advised, with such enthusiasm that they worked to please him more than to please themselves.

After his internship, he had remained at U.S.C. Medical Center as an associate of Dr. Carver's, but whenever Allan lost a patient, he took it far too personally for Thornton Carver, who chastised him continually.

"It's good to give your patients the sense that you care about them, that you see them as people and not as objects, but if you mourn every one of them, you'll burn yourself out, Allan. It will eventually affect your work," Carver advised.

There wasn't a man Allan respected more than Dr. Carver, but this was one bit of wisdom Allan refused to accept.

"When I mourn them, I grow stronger," he replied. Carver nodded. Incredibly enough, there was evidence of that. During the days following the loss of one of his patients, Allan was always at it longer, harder. One of Carver's interns nicknamed Allan "Doctor Sisyphus," and the name caught on. Sisyphus was the mythological king of Corinth whom Zeus punished for disrespect. He was condemned to push a boulder up the side of a pit eternally. It always rolled back down the hill before he could get it out, but he never gave up trying. After a while, his punishment, his tragedy, became his sole purpose for living. Was that true for Allan Parker as well?

Eventually, Allan did hang onto one friend, Joe Weber, another one of the young physicians who studied under Thornton Carver. Joe was a five- foot-seven, stout, dark-haired, but blue-eyed man who was somewhat in awe of Allan. He admired him for his dedication and wondered if he was lacking in that area himself, for, unlike Allan, he was very interested in women and good times and could easily put the work aside and party all weekend.

However, Joe was an excellent student and a fine physician. Thornton was proud of him and strongly recommended him when the Desert Cancer Group in Palm Springs interviewed him for a position. They hired him; he met the daughter of a patient the following year, and four months later, got married. Eleven months afterward, they had their first child and bought their first house. Joe was living about as normal a life as an oncologist could in an age when cancer, in one form or another, appeared to be the plague of the century.

Meanwhile back in Los Angeles, Allan, now in his mid-thirties, remained unmarried, unattached Doctor Sisyphus. He maintained his good looks and trim figure and was at the top of everyone's "Most Eligible Bachelors" list. New interns assumed he was some sort of genius who had already been practicing far longer than anyone else his age. He was odd, but a genius. They saw that he spent as much time in research as he did in the practice of medicine. It seemed he never slept. Was he human?

Despite other romantic opportunities, Allan Parker continued to ride alone, a medical bounty hunter in pursuit of the world's most detested, abhorrent villain. He never shied away from a confrontation with the disease. He moved through the rows of terminally ill like a battlefront medic, angry at his inability to stop the dying, furious at a world that would permit it to go on, raging at the enemy, and remaining more determined, more willing to sacrifice, waiting for his precious magic bullet to reveal itself.

So when Joe Weber called him late in the morning one day to report on an unexplainable, spontaneous remission of a child suffering with leukemia, Allan resembled someone who thought he had been chosen to hear a divine revelation.

"She was diagnosed with acute myeloblastic leukemia nine months ago. She went into remission but relapsed only a month afterward."

"You did a bone marrow transplant?" Allan asked.

"Yes. Ineffective. During the past month or so, I was trying to keep her comfortable, stop the bleeding and infections with platelet transfusions. The condition degenerated. Frankly, I was looking at a few weeks at the most."

"Uh-huh," Allan said, gritting his teeth and clenching and unclenching his fist. He had just lost a leukemia patient who was only in his mid- thirties. He had been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia. Present statistics showed that there were only about two new cases of it diagnosed per 100,000 people in the United States each year, and he had one of the cases. To him it seemed as if the monster taunted him, brought his most cherished victims to Allan's doorstep.

"Two days ago, the girl's cousin donated platelets. I wanted to try some white blood cells to fight her infections as well. She wasn't responding to the antibiotic protocols," Joe continued. "I transfused them immediately that morning. I thought I detected some improvement in her, so I ran the tests immediately. Her white cell count was way up of course, but the numbers made no sense. It was almost as if ... they cloned themselves. I couldn't make heads or tails of the result. The next day, by two o'clock, her white and red cells were normal, as were her platelets. But here's the big news, Allan. There was no evidence of blasts in her bone marrow. Not a single immature white blood cell. She was full of energy, had an appetite, and looked like she could get right off the bed and walk out. I don't know how to explain this."

"You transferred white cells, too?" Allan asked to be sure he heard it all correctly.

"Yes. I've concluded all other therapies, Allan. I lost all hope of prolonging this child's life. The leukemia was raging."

Allan sat up.

"And now she's in complete remission?"

"A healthier, happier little girl you've never seen. Appetite, energy. I feel like a fool keeping her in the hospital. You believe in miracles?"

"Not in the religious sense," Allan replied. "How old is the girl's cousin?"

"Fifteen. We were raking the area for donors and finally decided to include him with his parental permission. Everyone's nervous about blood transfusions these days as it is, but his blood is O/Rh negative, close as they come to a universal donor."

"You know that there have been some isolated cases of spontaneous remission with this type of cancer," Allan said.

"Yeah, but none of the cases I've read about were this far along. I'm talking days away from the Grim Reaper," Joe said, lowered his voice, and added, "maybe even hours."

Joe's obvious amazement impressed him. He had come to hate false promises and leads that led to nowhere, however, and practiced a healthy skepticism.

"Can you get the boy in again, get a sample of his blood?"

"I suppose. Do you really think it was the cause?"

"From what you're telling me, it's the most logical place to look," Allan said.

"What am I going to look for?" Joe asked. "Do you know about something new?"

Allan considered and looked at his schedule. "I'll take a ride out there. I want to examine the girl, so don't release her."

"That might be hard considering her condition at the moment, but okay. And?"

"And then we'll see," Allan said cryptically. He checked his watch. "I'll be there as soon as I can. Get at least twenty cc's from the boy," he said.

"Great. You'll stay with us. Toby's always asking why you never come down, and you'll be surprised at how the girls have grown."

"Thanks," Allan said.

After they hung up, Joe thought a moment. He and Allan spoke periodically, but he wasn't kidding about Toby's comment. Up until now, he couldn't get Allan out to Palm Springs, even for a weekend. Actually, what bothered him the most was that Allan rarely asked about his family. He didn't just now either, and Allan had been his best man!

What he didn't tell Allan was that Toby couldn't imagine why he and Allan had even remained acquaintances, much less friends.

"Let's just say I get beside him once in a while and push that boulder up the side of the pit," he replied when she asked him about it once.

"What? What pit? Never mind. Doctors," she said disdainfully and walked away.

Frankie Vico had just hit the big Five-O a little less than three months ago. He knew he drank a little too much and he had smoked too much, but as the half-century mark loomed over him, he began to make significant cutbacks and pay attention to his doctor's prescription to improve his chances for a healthy final trimester on the planet. He left the bowling alley and restaurant like clockwork at 2:15 P.M. and worked out with his personal trainer at his home. He had already made some strides improving his blood pressure, and just by cutting down on booze and eliminating chunks of bread at every meal, he had lost nearly twelve pounds off his 190-pound, five-foot-ten-inch frame the first month. He had his chef, Eddie, buy a variety of low-fat food products and even put some of the diet dishes on the regular menu at the restaurant, not caring if customers wanted them or not.

The restaurant made a small profit, even as other restaurants in Palm Springs and the immediate area went bankrupt during the economic recession, but it was only a front for his cocaine distribution. He was part of Danny Vico's organization emanating from Chicago. It was practically a franchise operation. Danny's father was Frankie's father's first cousin, and of course, despite the satirical way the movies treated it, crime families really did exist and really did care about each other. Blood was blood.

Frankie's customers were all high rollers. Many were snow birds who got his address and made contact before leaving the north or the east for the spectacular desert winters and spring. Frankie was sure the CIA didn't check an applicant any closer. He was proud of how tightly he ran his part of the operation, and he knew Danny was very satisfied with him as well.

"You're not greedy, Frankie," Danny told him last time he had come to Palm Springs. "That's good. You won't make the big mistake."

Frankie knew Danny wasn't referring to a drug bust. Many of Danny's associates were busted and walking the streets soon afterward; he was referring to embezzling the organization or trying to do something independently. That was worse. In a drug bust, you had rights, legal representation, a trial by jury. When Danny busted you, you went directly to sentencing, which was inevitably capital punishment, family or no family.

But it was true. Frankie wasn't greedy, at least when it came to Danny and the operation. Comfortable, even-tempered, optimistic — he enjoyed his life. He had been married and divorced twice, but he paid no alimony. With his second wife, Jackie, he had a son, Chipper, whom he was sending through law school, joking that he would have his personal mouthpiece soon. Recently, Frankie had met a new woman, Marilyn Chan, an ex-Las Vegas chorus girl. Her father was Chinese, but her mother was Italian. At forty-seven, she was still very attractive, with a drop-dead figure. He kept her on the payroll as a hostess. She had a great sense of humor, too.

"You know how an hour after you eat Chinese, you're hungry again?" he told his friends. "Well, an hour after Marilyn and me make love, we're at it again!"

"Don't believe him," she said. "He needs more than an hour."

Lots of laughter followed. There was always lots of laughter around Frankie Vico.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Magic Bullet"
by .
Copyright © 2008 Andrew Neiderman.
Excerpted by permission of Diversion Publishing Corp..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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