Implant

  He shook off the irritation and reviewed the last element of -- his plan, keeping Oliver out of this. Oliver usually took Wednesdays off and today was no exception. But just to be sure, he'd called him and told him that he must not, under any circumstances, mention their conversation of last night to Gin. Not until Duncan had a chance to talk to her today.

  This was crucial because if Gin ever learned that Duncan was aware that she already knew about the president, his credibility would crumble, and with it, his plan.

  Now he had only to keep them apart until dinner tonight.

  After that, it wouldn't matter.

  Duncan rubbed his tired, burning eyes. If only there were another way out of this. He'd walked the floor most of the night trying to come up with one. He couldn't.

  A wave of nausea rippled across his stomach.

  Lord, he wished this night were over.

  The phone rang. It was Duncan.

  '"Are you ready?"

  "Of course I'm ready," Gin said. "You said seven-thirty, didn't you? Don't tell me you haven't left yet."

  "I'm crossing the Ellington as we speak. I'll be there momentarily." The wonder of the cellular phone, Gin thought as she hung up.

  She assumed from the call that Duncan didn't want her to keep him waiting. The Duke Ellington Bridge was less than minute away and no doubt he expected her to be standing downstairs in the vestibule when he arrived. Oliver would probably be glad to run up and escort her down, but why make him go to the trouble?

  She checked herself one last time in the mirror. The little black dress Mama always told her to keep in her wardrobe certainly had come in handy today. When she'd returned from Louisiana she'd invested in a slinky little Donna Karan number, nicely fitted, with a jewel neckline.

  She'd added a short string of pearls and pearl earrings. Simple but elegant. The perfect look for all those receptions on Capitol Hill she'd dreamed of attending. So far the dress hadn't left the closet.

  Tonight would be its coming out. At Galileo. Not too shabby a spot for its debut.

  The forecast was wet so she threw her raincoat over her shoulders and headed downstairs. Duncan's black Mercedes pulled up a moment later.

  He got out and opened the front passenger door for her. As she slid in she glanced in the back. Empty.

  "Where's Oliver?"

  "A little under the weather. That stomach thing that's going around. He sends his regrets and says, Galileo or not, he can't even think of food tonight."

  "Oh, that's terrible. Let's call him right after dinner and see how he feels."

  "I think he was going to crawl into bed and pull the covers over his head until morning."

  "No one to take care of him?" She couldn't resist seizing the moment to satisfy her curiosity about Oliver. Have I no shame? "No friends to look in on him?"

  "Oliver is one of the most self-sufficient people I know. He has a maid come in once a week, otherwise he's alone and . . . quite happy to be so. No wife, no kids, no mistress, and no, he's not a homosexual."

  "I never thought,"

  "If you did, you wouldn't be the first."

  "Poor Oliver. I feel bad for him. Didn't you say this dinner was his idea?"

  "I was going to call it off but he insisted that we not stand you up. So tonight I'll have to be myself and Oliver as well."

  "Does that mean you're going to be eating for two?"

  "Yes. With lots of garlic." Gin noticed that Duncan's smile seemed a little forced. He looked tense, his posture stiff. He seemed generally uneasy. Because of her?

  Could it be he was uncomfortable taking a young female employee out to dinner?

  But Duncan rarely gave a damn what anyone else thought of him.

  The Mercedes cruised down Connecticut like a battleship on a lake. She'd never been in Duncan's car before. She felt invulnerable as she watched the shops and hotels along Connecticut roll past on the other side of the tinted glass. They cruised around Dupont Circle, then turned right onto M Street A left on Twenty-first Street and they were there.

  "Galileo," he said as they pulled into the garage next door. A simple maroon canopy jutted out from what looked like an officer building.

  "Where the effete elite meet to eat." Gin decided to go him one better. "Where the voracious and edacious mendacious can wax loquacious while looking gracious, sedacious, and perspicacious." There. That was two or three better.

  Duncan stared at her a moment, then said, "That, my dear, was a thing of beauty." But he wasn't smiling. His expression was strange.

  Almost . . . pained.

  What's eating him tonight? she wondered.

  Her before-dinner manhattan was perfect, the mezze lune di granachio was superb, the service impeccable, and the wine Duncan ordered, a 1984 amarone, as smooth as silk. Galileo's spare decor was not what she'd expected. No heavy Mediterranean drapes and furniture.

  Everything was light and understated. But the mood at their table was anything but light. At times the conversation actually dragged, something she would have thought impossible in Duncan's presence. He didn't rant, didn't launch into a single tirade. Even when Larry King and Senator Rockefeller arrived and were seated three tables away, Duncan managed only a few disparaging remarks. At times she'd find him staring at her, his eyes intent on her face, other times he'd be a million miles away. He picked at his veal and barely sipped his wine, but kept refilling her glass. She wondered if he might be coming down with what Oliver had.

  She wished she could get a grip on this jigsaw puzzle of a man. Every time she thought she had him figured, a new piece would pop up requiring her to rearrange everything and start over again.

  She watched him stare into his half-full glass of wine for the longest time

  "Are you okay?" He looked up.

  "Hmmm? Yes. Fine."

  "You seem down."

  He shrugged. "Just thinking about life, the twists and turns it takes you through. The cruel tricks it plays on you."

  "Some of the tricks are funny, " she said.

  "Sometimes we back ourselves into corners," he said, as if she hadn't spoken, "and we despise the means necessary to extricate ourselves." What was wrong with him tonight?

  "Do you want dessert?" he said as the waiter was clearing the dinner plates.

  "I don't think I could eat another thing. But I could go for some coffee."

  "Leave the coffee to me," he said. "I don't care if this is one of the best restaurants inside the beltway, their coffee can't hold a candle to mine. We'll have real coffee back at the office." She considered begging off, but realized she couldn't deny Duncan his coffee ritual. Maybe it would pull him out of his funk. Besides, it was only a few miles out of the way.

  After Duncan paid the bill, Gin rose and felt a little wobbly. She realized that she'd consumed most of the amarone.

  As she stood staring at the languid koi in the rock garden pool beyond Duncan's office window, Gin wondered if there was any place on earth she'd feel less comfortable than Duncan's officer. This was where she'd broken into his drawer, where just yesterday she'd been sneaking through his bookshelf. And here he was toiling a dozen feet away making her what he called the best coffee in the world.

  She felt like such a rat.

  But at least the prospect of some good coffee seemed to have cheered him up. Maybe that had been his problem all along tonight, caffeine withdrawal.

  "At last," he said, turning from his drip equipment with a steaming cup. "The perfect after-dinner coffee."

  Gin took it from him and sniffed. "Licorice?"

  "I know, I know. You must promise never to mention to anyone that I adulterated my own coffee. But I figured that after an evening of Italian food, I'd break down and add some sambuca."

  Gin sipped and repressed a grimace. Bitter. She could taste the coffee, and the licorice tang of the sambuca, but there was something else there, something she couldn't identify.

  "Mmmm, " she said. "Unusual."

  "A special black sambuc
a, " he told her, sipping his own. "Gives it a unique flavor. Drink up." Gin took another sip. Definitely not to her taste, but she couldn't very well dump it after he'd gone to the trouble of brewing it for her.

  Rather than prolong the agony, she drank it quickly.

  "Another cup?" Duncan asked.

  "No, thanks," she said. "Between the manhattan, the wine, and the sambuca, I think I'm already over my limit." That was an understatement. She was definitely woozy now.

  "Maybe I'd better take you home," Duncan said.

  "Maybe you'd better," she said. "I'm sorry."

  "Nothing to be sorry about. You're not driving, so what difference does it make?" A fine drizzle had begun to fall. In the Mercedes, the swirl of lights from the streets and passing cars refracting through the myriad beads of water on the windows made her stomach begin a slow turn. She squinted and breathe deeply. She would die before she'd throw up in Duncan's car.

  He double-parked on Kalorama, took her keys, and walked her up to her apartment. He let her in, then stepped back onto the landing.

  "Are you going to be all right?"

  "I'll be fine. Thanks for dinner. And I'm sorry about . . . "

  "Don't give it another thought. I shouldn't have given you that doctored-up coffee." Something strange in his voice as he said that, but his face was unreadable. Or was that because her vision was blurred?

  "Good night, Duncan."

  "Good night. Go right to bed."

  "Don't worry about that."

  As soon as he closed the door, Gin headed for the bathroom. But she didn't vomit. The nausea was still there, but now that the world around her was no longer in motion, it seemed to have eased.

  She thought about taking a shower, then said to hell with it. What she needed was sleep.

  She took off her raincoat and threw it on a chair. She sat on the bed and peeled off her panty hose, then began working on the buttons of her dress. Before she reached the last she flopped back and closed her eyes. Just for a second . . . no more than a minute . . . then she'd finish undressing . . .

  32

  THURSDAY MORNING

  GINA AWOKE WITH GLUE IN HER MOUTH, SAND IN HER eyes, and heavy metal pounding in her ears. She rolled out of bed and stumbled across the floor with her hand stretched toward the snooze button. She always left her clock radio on a hard-core metal station.

  Never failed to get her up. No way she could stay in bed with that stuff playing.

  Only now she wished she'd spun the dial to something else, anything else, before passing out last night. Noise equaled pain this morning, but speed metal went beyond pain into torture. The throbbing bass and drums were piercing straight through to the center of her brain. One of these groups should name itself Torquemada.

  She banged her fist on SNOOZE, then turned around and headed for the bed again. She looked down and noticed she was still in her dress.

  Damn!

  It looked like hell. So did she, most likely.

  Like a failing tree, she collapsed facedown on the mattress.

  Why did she feel so rotten? She hadn't had that much to drink last night. The combination, maybe?

  Whatever it was, she didn't like it. Her stomach was queasy, and her head . . . God, her head.

  She was just dozing off when the howling guitar riffs filled the room again. This time she got up and turned off the radio. She staggered to the bathroom, removing the dress along the way. She looked at herself in the mirror.

  Yuck. Awful. Simply awful.

  She turned on the shower and stripped. As soon as the water was warm, she stepped in and let it run over her head and down her body.

  God, that felt good.

  She began lathering herself, starting with her face and working down.

  The water and the scrubbing action began to revive her. She was returning from the dead, reentering the world of the, "Ow! " She twisted and looked down at the lateral aspect of her right thigh.

  She'd felt a stab of pain while scrubbing the area. Tender there.

  She ran a hand over the spot and noticed a small bruise. She must have collided with the corner of a table or her nightstand on her way to bed last night.

  But wait . . . this bruise was more toward the rear of her thigh than the front. The only way she could do that was by walking backward.

  She braced her foot on the edge of the tub and took a closer look.

  More than a bruise. The skin had been broken. A little semicircular cut in the center of the bruise. Almost like the one she'd seen on . . . Senator . . . Marsden . . .

  Gin's knees buckled and she grabbed the towel rack to steady herself.

  No, wait, stop, she told herself as the bathroom wobbled around her and she fought to regain her balance. This is crazy. This is impossible.

  But when she looked again the tiny laceration was still there. She probed it. She could feel the fine ridge of the edge. Had to be fresh. She pushed harder. A tiny droplet of blood appeared at its center. She probed deeper around the bruise, palpating the subcutaneous fat, looking for, her fingers froze. Was it her imagination or was something there?

  Something soft like fat but too smooth to be fat. Something oblong, cylindrical. Like an implant.

  The bathroom wobbled again. And even with the hot water coursing over her, Gin suddenly felt cold. And sick. She stepped out of the shower and bent dripping over the toilet and retched. Nothing came up.

  Her head throbbed even more painfully as she sank to her knees. When the room steadied, she took another, closer look at her thigh. She touched the spot again, but gingerly this time If there really was something under it, and if that something was an implant, she didn't want to disturb it or . . . rupture it.

  But how could it possibly be an implant? Duncan had dropped her off, and she'd locked the door . . .

  Wait. Duncan had had the keys. He'd opened the door for her and let her in. And then he'd left. Had he handed her the keys? No. Had she seen him leave them? No. She hadn't seen much of anything. The door latched automatically, and she hadn't bothered with the chain lock.

  All she'd wanted was to hit the pillow.

  Gin pulled herself to her feet, wrapped a towel around her, and shut off the water. She shivered.

  The coffee in Duncan's office last night. She'd believed the bitterness was due to some strange black sambuca he'd said he was trying. But it could have been something else. Could have been chloral hydrate.

  An old-fashioned Mickey Finn.

  He'd had her keys. He could have kept them, driven around the block a few times, come back, let himself in, and stuck an implant in her thigh while she was out cold.

  Still dripping, she stumbled out of the bathroom and went to the front door. The chain wasn't on, but she didn't remember fastening it. And her keys . . .

  She looked around and spotted them on the coffee table.

  But of course he'd leave them behind after he'd finished with her.

  What use were they to him then?

  But why? Why would he do this to her just hours after asking her to assist on the president's surgery? It didn't make sense. Unless . . .

  Unless he thought she knew too much. What if he'd found out about the FBI and the staged accident and the MRI done on Senator Marsden's leg?

  What if Oliver had told him that she'd guessed about the president?

  He'd want to make sure she was out of the way. Before Friday. He'd. The phone rang. Her hand trembled as she lifted the receiver. When she recognized Duncan's voice, she almost screamed.

  "How are you feeling?" Controlling her terror, the hurt, Gin forced herself to reply calmly.

  "Fine. A little headache, maybe."

  "Glad to hear it. You were sailing last night. For a while there I,"

  "Duncan!" Unable to repress them any longer, the words burst from her. "Duncan, how could you do this to me!"

  "Do what?"

  "You know damn well what! You stuck an implant in me last night!"

  "What? Hold on ju
st a minute." He put me on hold! she thought. I don't believe this!

  She was just about to slam the receiver down when she heard a click and pressed it back to her ear.

  "Now, Gin," he said. "I don't understand this. What do you think I've done?"

  "Don't play dumb with me, Duncan. I know all about it. You slipped me a Mickey last night and put an implant filled with TPD in my leg."

  "You think I broke into your apartment and did surgery on you? And what's TDP?"

  "You know damn well what it is! It causes psychotic symptoms."

  "Gin, listen. Think. If I wanted to dose you with something, why bother with an implant? Why not just inject you with it?" That took her back. Why hadn't he just shot her up and been done with it? And then suddenly she knew.

  "Because you were out with me last night. We were seen together. You want a comfortable buffer zone between when you were with me and when I have a breakdown."

  "I fear you're having one now, Gin."

  "Just what you'd like people to think, isn't it? Well, listen, Duncan,"

  "Have you heard enough, Barbara?" And then Gin heard Barbara's voice, husky with pity. "Gin, you've got to calm down. We're you're friends here. We only want to help you. Please. You've got to believe that."

  Gin nearly dropped the phone.

  "Oh my God! Barbara! He's conning you!" The bastard! He'd put Barbara on the line while she was on hold. Now he had a witness that she was making wild accusations before her complete breakdown.

  "Just stay where you are, Gin," Duncan said. "I'm calling an ambulance to come to your place. We'll get you to where you can receive the help you need."

  "NO!" She slammed the phone down and ran for her bedroom.

  "Damn me! How could I be so stupid!" She pulled on her clothes. She had to get out of here. She could see it all now . . .

  He had set all this up, and so cleverly. First the fake-out on Marsden. She must have made it too obvious that she suspected something.

  So he'd pulled a reverse on her by puncturing the senator's thigh with an empty trocar. He'd led her into making a complete fool out of herself. But that was the least of it. Now her rationality and soundness of judgment were suspect.