The Mayan Calendar ends in December 2012. The world expects Armageddon, desolation, horror. The destruction is tempered by the cleansing of the air, water, earth. The One comes in an unexpected form, carrying within his body a virus that can correct the damage in human DNA. It is transmitted in only one shocking way. Those chosen to receive this Gift become younger, their diseases and infirmities gone. The powerful creature visits Moscow, Paris, New York, healing the rich for a great price. He makes his home on the deserted island of Aruba where he shares a special gift with Adam and his wife, one that will change their lives forever.

2012 - The One

It was the End of TimesBy Christopher White

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Christopher White MD.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-7356-9

Contents

1. BEIJING.....................................................12. MOSCOW......................................................133. WASHINGTON, DC..............................................234. SHERAPOVO...................................................375. DAN'S APARTMENT.............................................466. THE ONE.....................................................507. JERUSALEM...................................................588. THE ONE COMES TO MOSCOW.....................................619. THE PRESS CONFERENCE........................................6610. HOPE FOR TOMORROW..........................................7011. MYSTERIOUS MIRACLES........................................7612. THE LURE OF PARADISE.......................................8013. PARIS IN SPRINGTIME........................................9614. THE COLONY OF ARUBA........................................10015. THE PRICE OF WEALTH........................................10716. THE UNITED NATIONS.........................................11217. THE KING OF ARUBA..........................................11718. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD........................................12619. THE CEREMONY...............................................13820. GOING HOME.................................................14921. WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS......................................16122. LOS ANGELES................................................18023. CREATING A BRAIN TRUST.....................................18924. TROUBLE IN PARADISE........................................19525. ISRAEL – THE CENTER OF THE WORLD.....................20326. COMMUNING WITH GOD.........................................20527. IVAN.......................................................20828. ARMAGEDDON.................................................21129. MOSCOW BURNING.............................................21730. THE EASTERN FRONT..........................................22031. THE ONE DEPARTS PARADISE...................................22632. RUSSIA.....................................................23033. IVY........................................................23934. THE WHITE TEAM.............................................24235. THE FIGHT OF THE MILLENIUM.................................25636. RED ROCK...................................................267

Chapter One

BEIJING

Ivy Fan hurried to finish her rounds at the Peking University First Hospital. The old 1400 bed facility had been her home for several years now as she completed her Internal Medicine Residency. The big open bay Intensive Care Unit hadn't changed much during her tenure. She hardly noticed the peeling dirty white paint on the walls or the soot covered windows that looked out over her polluted city.

Ivy warmed her stethoscope, rubbing the cold metal on her palm and gently placing it on the chest of a withered body. She listened to the lungs of bed 14, Mr. Chan, a person, not a number. The rales and rhonchi swirled in her ears confirming that his lungs were rapidly filling with fluid.

She moved the large bell of her expensive cardiologist grade instrument to the left of his bony sternum and found the lub-swish-dub of Mr. Chan's heart. The distant sounds were muffled by the pericardial effusion cushioning the failing efforts of his dilated heart, but the systolic murmur was still audible. The weakened organ was close to fibrillating and certainly was not responding to her diuretics and Digoxin. He needed a heart transplant, but he was too old. No one would operate on a 60 year old man. It was out of the question.

"Ivy, there are many more patients that you can help," Professor Ming Wang said in a soft voice near her ear. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "I'm on my way to a board meeting, or I would stop and continue our debate."

She was not startled by the familiar voice of her mentor. She didn't turn, but continued to listen to the faint surf in Mr. Chan's chest.

Professor Wang smiled and hurried off, his starched white doctor's coat so stiff it did not seem to move as he strode out the heavy double doors of the ICU.

She had entered the field of medicine at the age of 22, believing that she could cure diseases, help people. It was a hope that was slowly fading as her patients continued to die, four this week. She was glad he didn't quote his favorite saying again: "Medicine is an art as well as a science".

"We have limitations," he often told her. "It will help you to realize that you cannot cure everyone."

Yes sir. Thank you, Doctor Wang, she would say. After all he was a very brilliant man, head of the Department of Medicine, and he signed her evaluations.

Ivy knew she was his favorite. They had gone so far as to have dinner once. It had been discrete and Doctor Wang never mentioned it again.

Ivy was attractive, she acknowledged, and she was proud of her full figure when she didn't have to conceal it with an ace bandage. The attention she received from the male members of her team, and from men in general, was a distraction. She did not need any distractions. She stood five feet, two inches and kept her weight under 110 with almost daily exercise. It was one of the few things she did for herself.

A residency in medicine was a full time task master and it was better if she gave it her complete attention and all of her energy. Self denial was a central theme. No sleep, impossible reading and research, endless teaching of the lower level residents and interns, no time for relationships. Dr Wang was a married man. She should forget about the dinner. Still, he did hold her hand, if only for a moment. His hand had been soft and warm. Her heart pounded in her chest as she lost herself in the memory.

The noise of the ventilators and IV alarms brought her sharp mind back into focus.

Ivy refused to admit defeat, even when there was nothing more she could do. It was a debate she carried on with Doctor Wang and any of the Staff who tried to imprint her with their fatalism. Palliation was not in her vocabulary, yet.

She slipped around to bed 15 and looked down at the drawn face, now hardly recognizable as human, his skin sallow and the darkness under his eyes seeming to engulf his face. She fluffed the pillow, his head a dead weight in her strong thin hands. She straightened the wrinkled blue absorbent pad under his bony back, hoping to delay the inevitable bed sores. Some of the Duo-derm gel pads were sticking to it and flaking off, leaving his paper thin skin to abrade on the cotton sheets. Where was the nurse? Dr Wang was right; there was only so much she could do.

She had to move on or she would never finish her rounds. She prided herself on checking each patient personally. Other Chiefs depended upon the junior residents and interns reports. She recognized that the spins put on the presentations by her exhausted team often overlooked something important in an effort to end the shift and find the respite of the little cots in the call rooms where the interns could try to get some sleep.

She finished adjusting the ventilator settings on Wan Li, a 68 year old emphysemic dying of pneumonia, her last patient, and pushed through the CCU doors merging with the crowd of traffic in the narrow hallway.

The service elevator in the center of the hospital was battered from all the...