Implant

  But how in the world did he know how much she knew? Unless he had a security camera in the office or something.

  My God! Was that possible? Then he would have seen her picking the lock on his desk drawer, seen her peeking behind that book two days ago. She groaned. No wonder he wanted her out of the way.

  She pulled on a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door. She stuttered to a halt at the threshold.

  Where am I going?

  Home? But that was the first place he'd look for her. And she did not want to get her folks involved.

  Gerry? He had awful doubts about her reliability. But this time she had proof. Right here in her leg. An implant nestled there in the fatty layer.

  She leapt back to the phone and dialed Gerry's home. He'd still be there now. At least she hoped so. As the phone began to ring, she worked to keep her voice under control. She wanted to sound sane while she explained something insane. How to say it all in as few words as possible? And make it believable. She had to make Gerry believe.

  "Gerry, it's Gin." Gerry felt a small glow of pleasure at the sound of her voice, also a stab of guilt and, in a way, relief. He'd wanted to talk to her but had been hesitant about making the call. He'd been pretty rough on her last week. He was glad she'd taken the first step.

  On the other hand, he couldn't help being more than a little apprehensive about what she might have to say, especially since her voice sounded strained.

  "Hello, Gin. I've been meaning to call."

  "I don't have much time, so please listen to what I have to say. Last night Duncan put one of those implants in my leg while I was asleep. It's still in there."

  He groaned. Not again. "Oh, Gin. You've really got to get,"

  Her voice rushed on. "Listen to me, Gerry. I beg you. This isn't fantasy. There are two hard facts you can check out. One is, obviously, the implant in my leg. I know it's there. I can feel it. We can get a scan to prove it, but what I really want is someone to operate and remove it. The second is the reason Duncan did this to me, He's doing cosmetic surgery on the president tomorrow morning."

  Gerry closed his eyes. Poor Gin. Duncan Lathram strikes again, first Senator Marsden, now the president.

  "I know what you're thinking, Gerry," she said, "and I don't blame you. But just check it out. You've got to know someone in the Secret Service."

  "Yeah. I know a couple of guys." Bob Decker immediately came to mind. He was on the White House detail. If anyone would know the president's hour-to-hour whereabouts, it would be Bob.

  "Good. Call one of them. Call them all. Confirm what I said about the surgery. Once we've established that, maybe you'll be more willing to believe that I'm not completely . . crazy.

  "I don't think you're crazy, ' he said, hoping he sounded convincing.

  "You're a terrible liar. But please don't leave me hanging. Check this out. Then we can get on with removing this thing from my leg and put a stop to Duncan before he does something catastrophic. Please. I'm begging you." The note of plaintive desperation in her voice cut through all his rational objections to getting sucked in again.

  She's frightened, he thought. Deeply frightened.

  "Okay. I'll call the White House." It was the least he could do. And what would it hurt? "But it may take me a while to get an answer. Those guys aren't just sitting around waiting for calls. If the president's out somewhere, they'll be with him."

  "It's still early. Maybe you can catch somebody."

  "I'll try."

  "Thanks. That's almost more than I could hope for." She sounded not only frightened, but lost. Not a friend in the world.

  "Where will you be? Home?"

  "God, no. He's coming for me. I've got to get moving. I'll call you back in a little while. When I get to a safe place."

  Oh, Gin. "Do you want to stay at my place?" he said. "Martha will be in school. You could stay here till I hear from the Secret Service guys." He wanted her safe. What should he do with her? He had to get some help. Maybe get in touch with her parents, let them know she was having a breakdown.

  "Maybe later. After we get this thing out of my leg, I'll need a place to rest up. Right now I'd better keep on the move." Gerry chewed his lip. He didn't want to push her, not in her mental state.

  "Okay. Do what you have to do. But stay in touch. Keep calling in."

  "You can count on that." She paused, then, "And you will call, won't you? You're not just humoring me?"

  "I'll call. I promise."

  "Thanks, Gerry." Her voice softened. "Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt here. After last Friday, that can't be too easy."

  "It's okay." After he hung up, Gerry sat and stared at his phone.

  He didn't want to sound like a jerk calling up Bob Decker and asking if the president was having plastic surgery tomorrow. He'd yet to live down the Marsden debacle. Guys were still coming up and offering to sell him the Brooklyn Bridge.

  He looked up Decker's extension at the White House and made the call. Years ago he and Decker had become casual friends after an FBI racketeering case turned out to involve counterfeiting as well and the Secret Service was called in. Every so often they got together for a drink.

  He was surprised how relieved he felt when he was told that Decker wasn't in. Gerry left his office number for the return call.

  Decker's call came in shortly after Gerry got to his desk. After the standard how's-it-going' preliminaries, Gerry took a deep breath and jumped in with both feet.

  "Listen, Bob. The reason I called is that I heard a rumor that the president's getting a face-lift or something tomorrow. Any truth to that?"

  Decker cleared his throat. "A face-lift? Tomorrow? That's a good one. Where'd you hear something like that?"

  "The usual roundabout way. Somebody heard from somebody whose second cousin's mother overheard it at the Laundromat, and so on. I thought I'd check it out with you and lay it to rest. Or if it is true, I figure you'd want to know that the word is out and spreading."

  "Thanks, Gerry. I appreciate that."

  "Well?"

  "Well what?"

  "Is it true?"

  "The president's heading for Camp David tomorrow morning for a long weekend, and I'm going with him." He chuckled. "Christ, he's going to be pissed when he hears about this. I know he doesn't want anyone to think he's having a face-lift. How do these crazy stories get started?"

  "Crazy people, I guess, " Gerry said glumly.

  "Well, thanks for thinking of me. You can put the kibosh on this one, but let me know if you hear any others

  "Will do." Just great, Gerry thought as he hung up. The president's not even going to be in town.

  At least according to Bob Decker. But Decker could be covering for the president. If he'd been instructed to tell no one, he'd do just that, even if the FBI was asking.

  Who to believe? A week ago there'd be no contest. But after the Marsden mess . . .

  Coffee splashed over the rim of his cup as Gerry pounded his fist on the desk.

  Damn it, what was he going to tell Gin?

  And where was she now? Racing around the city in her car? Or hunched over a cup of coffee at the rear table of some diner?

  He had to get her help. And fast.

  Gin sipped a cup of cappuccino and watched the street. She'd found a Moroccan coffee shop on Columbia Road with a booth that offered a view of the eastern corner of Kalorama, half a block uphill from her apartment. If Duncan or an ambulance arrived, they'd turn that corner.

  So far, no ambulance, no black Mercedes. But Duncan was tricky. He'd certainly proven that in the past week. Who said he had to come in his Mercedes?

  Rather than run all over the city with no definite destination, she'd left her car parked in front of her building and walked up here to sit watch. Was Duncan really calling an ambulance, or coming himself?

  God, she wished she knew. The only thing she knew for certain right now was that she had to stay as far as possible from Duncan
Lathram.

  She glanced at her watch. Time to give Gerry a call. Another good thing about this little coffee shop was the location of the phone, right inside the front door. She could call and still keep watch on the corner.

  Gerry sounded tired when he said hello.

  "Did you call the Secret Service?"

  "Yes."

  "And?"

  His sigh was full of angst. "They say he's not having surgery tomorrow or any other day. As a matter of fact, he's leaving in the morning for Camp David for a long weekend."

  "To recover from the surgery!"

  "According to the Secret Service, there's no surgery, Gin."

  "But how . . . ?" Oh, God, why hadn't she thought of that? "Gerry, of course they're going to deny it. It's all hushhush. He doesn't want anyone to know it's being done."

  "I already thought of that. Look, Gin, you can't keep doing this. You're a doctor. Don't you see a pattern here? There's no surgery on the president, just like there was no implant in Senator Marsden's leg."

  "Well, there's one in mine! I can show you!"

  "Gin, you need help." She heard real pain in his voice now. "Let me get you in touch with someone we use at the Bureau. Maybe he can,"

  Tears of frustration welled in Gin's eyes. "I'm not paranoid, Gerry. Duncan has done a beautiful job of manipulating events to make me look that way, but I'm not. And I've got the implant in my leg to prove it."

  "Gin, ' was all he said.

  "All right. That does it." She was angry now. "You don't believe me, so I'll show you. I'm coming down there right now and I'll prove to you that there's an implant in my leg. And you leave word at the desk that I'm coming."

  "I don't think that's a good idea, Gin."

  "Maybe not, but it seems to be my only option now. So get ready, Gerry. I'm on my way."

  "Gina, " She hung up on him and stood inside the door trembling with anger and fright. What if she couldn't get anyone to believe her? She realized how she must have sounded. She had to stay calm and sound rational. She wasn't going to convince anyone if she kept flying off the handle.

  But I'm scared, dammit.

  And worse than the fear was the question that had begun tapping with increasing insistence on the back door of her consciousness.

  Everybody thinks you're crazy, maybe you shouldn't completely dismiss the possibility they might be right.

  Feeling utterly miserable, she leaned against the door and pressed her right temple against the cool glass. The caffeine and a couple of Tylenol had helped, but her head still throbbed. And the doubts only intensified the pain.

  Am I sane?

  Could all this be simply the fabrication of a mind sent off course because her brain had begun synthesizing faulty neurochemicals or producing the right ones in the wrong proportions? How many paranoids had she seen in her psych rounds who were utterly convinced of the veracity of their absurd claims? They'd heard with their own ears, seen with their own eyes. If you can't trust your senses and your own ability to interpret their input, who or what can you trust?

  Gin rubbed her thigh, gently. Maybe that mark was nothing more than a bruise. And maybe the hangover this morning was nothing more than too much amarone and sambuca. And maybe Duncan hadn't asked her to assist on the president's surgery tomorrow.

  God, what was real?

  She slammed her palm once against the pay phone.

  No! She wasn't crazy!

  That's what they all say . . .

  Something black and gleaming caught her eye. Duncan's Mercedes, or one exactly like it, was passing on the street. It turned onto Kalorama.

  Abruptly the doubts were gone, the fatigue and the headache forgotten.

  She ducked back to her booth, threw a couple of dollars on her table, and returned to the door. The car was out of sight now. She stepped outside. The cool, damp air refreshed her. A drop of water hit her forehead. She glanced up. The low, gray, moisture-laden clouds seemed to be sinking under their own weight.

  She begged the rain to hold off a few more minutes.

  She hurried across Columbia and trotted downhill to Kalorama. She stopped under the front canopy of an apartment house on the corner and craned her neck to peer down the street. She could see her building from here.

  Duncan, looking very dapper in his blue blazer and charcoal slacks, was on his way up the front steps.

  She watched him step inside the front door. Unless someone let him in, unlikely because everybody worked, he'd spend the next few minutes waiting for her to answer his rings. As soon as he left, she'd jump in her car and head straight downtown to the FBBuilding.

  She waited. What was he doing in there? Why didn't he come out?

  Then she glanced up at the third floor and gasped when she saw a man standing in her bay window.

  Duncan! He had a key. He must have had a copy made last night. Sure.

  He establishes with Barbara that Gin's acting irrationally, so he rushes down, supposedly to see what he can do. He finds her, zaps the implant in her leg, and then reports that the poor girl was sitting there drooling and babbling incoherently when he found her.

  Well, guess what, Duncan, Gin thought as her jaw muscles bunched.

  Gin's not there. And she's not letting you within striking distance.

  It began to rain. Only a gentle drizzle now, but cold.

  Great. What else could go wrong? She was wearing only jeans, an old Tulane sweatshirt, and no hat. If her hair and her clothes got wet, how convincing would she be if she looked like a drowned rat when she got to Gerry?

  Duncan gazed down at the street from the empty apartment, his right hand gripping the ultrasound transducer in his pocket.

  What am I doing here?

  He hated this. He'd regretted implanting Gin with the TPD almost as soon as he'd done it. But performing the act was like burning a bridge behind you. Once done, there was no going back. He had to follow through and dissolve it.

  He seemed to be spiraling out of control. It was never supposed to turn out like this. But he couldn't stop himself. He had to keep going until he got to the president. After that he didn't care.

  The situation was deteriorating, as well. Gin had been scheduled to show up at the surgicenter this morning, they were to go through their usual routines, then, somewhere around lunchtime, he'd intended to give her leg a burst of ultrasound and leave for the day. He'd have been miles away before she began to show the first effects. Maybe some visual hallucinations, maybe auditory, maybe both. She'd become disoriented, incoherent, might even start pulling at her hair and screaming. Or she might simply withdraw into a catatonic state, curled in a fetal position and drooling in a corner of the records room.

  The images nauseated Duncan. He swallowed back the acid creeping up from his stomach.

  Why couldn't you have stayed out of this, Gin?

  Bad enough he'd have to pull the trigger on her. But she'd somehow discovered what he'd done to her last night. So now he had to hunt her down. That implant was a two-edged sword. Knowing it was there, she could use it against him, if she could get someone to believe her. He had to catch up with her before she had it removed.

  Where was Gin now? Couldn't be too far. Her car was parked on the street below. Maybe she was out there, watching him, waiting to see his next move.

  He nodded slowly. Yes . . . that would be just like her. Let him find her gone, then return to her place and ponder her next move calmly and in comfort while he ran around in circles.

  All right. He'd do a circle. Circle the block and see if he could catch sight oњ her.

  Lord, he hated this. The whole idea sickened him. He wanted to have it all over and done with.

  And after that he'd have to find a way to live with himself.

  Gin watched Duncan hurry down her front steps and get into his car.

  Where to now, Duncan? A little worried, perhaps, now that your pigeon has flown?

  She watched him drive away. She waited until he turned off Kalorama onto 18th, t
hen she sprinted for her Sunbird. She jumped in and started her up.

  The drizzle graduated to full-fledged rain as she headed down Kalorama, following Duncan's path. Only she wasn't following him. He was probably on his way back to Chevy Chase, she was headed downtown.

  She peered up and down 18th, very possibly the most colorful street in the District. No sign of Duncan. She made a right and raced down to Florida where she hung another right. That brought her to a red light at Connecticut Avenue.

  Gin searched Connecticut uphill and down, but no sign of Duncan. She allowed herself to relax. She had to forget about Duncan for the moment and figure out a way to convince Gerry that she, Gin jumped in her seat as she glanced in her rearview mirror. Through the rain and the slightly fogged rear window she saw a black Mercedes ease to a stop two cars behind her. She stared at the Mercedes's windshield, but the rain and the sweeping wipers prevented her from seeing the driver.

  She swallowed. Her mouth was dry. She couldn't make out the plates, but that could be Duncan back there. . . could easily be Duncan.

  But why would he be following her? Had to be more than simply to see where she was going. What did he have in mind? Running her off the road?

  Hardly. She was sure the last thing he wanted was to be placed in her vicinity. So what was he up to? What did he hope to, Ultrasound.

  An icy hand clamped down hard on the back of her neck as she remembered the specialty electronics store he'd visited. Did Duncan have a device that could send an ultrasonic pulse into her car and dissolve the implant? She didn't see how. What she knew of the physics of sound said it wasn’t possible, but a lot of events connected with Duncan didn't seem possible. Maybe he had a way . . .

  Another glance in the rearview mirror.

  How convenient to have her begin to hallucinate while driving.

  The Honda directly behind her gave a polite toot. She looked up and saw the light was green. She also saw the NO LEFT TURN sign. One way to find out if that Mercedes was following her . . .

  Gin floored the Sunbird and swung left onto Connecticut. She saw the startled face of the driver of a yellow VW coming the other way as Gin dodged in front of him. The VW stuttered to a halt with an angry horn blast as Gin swerved past. She felt her back end slip a little on the wet pavement but the front-wheel drive pulled her out of it and seconds later she was speeding downtown.