F Wilson - Implant

Monday offered no chance. Duncan stayed uncharacteristically late and Gin couldn't hang around because she had a meeting with the other legislative aides in Senator Marsden's office.

But today Duncan had stayed true to form, finishing his surgery and making a beeline for his club, so he said.

That was another thing that bothered her. Where did he really go? And who was the mysterious Dr. V. he'd been meeting with? Secrets and more secrets. How could she help but be suspicious?

She heard footsteps approaching. High heels. Only one person here wore heels. Casually, Gin stepped out into the hall.

"Hi, Barbara, " she said.

The blonde started, then smiled. "Jesus God, you scared me. I thought you were gone." I will be in about two minutes. ' Gin hurried down the hall and ducked into Duncan's office. Plenty of light from the afternoon sky filtering through the rock garden. Perfect lock-picking conditions.

"I've got to be crazy, " she muttered. Tension was a cold hand tightening on the nape of her neck. She tried to shake it off.

Do it. Now.

She knew if she hesitated, if she gave herself time to think, - she might allow a spasm of sanity to change her mind. She if pulled the Electropick from her lab-coat pocket and knelt before the drawer. On the remote chance that it might be unlocked, she tugged on the pull.

No such luck.

Okay. Electropick, do your thing.

She probed the keyhole with one of the raking tools but it wwldn't fit.

She needed a smaller one. No problem. She'd spent much of Sunday switching rakes. A lot like switching drill bits, only easier. She inserted the next smaller size, adjusted the thumbscrew, then tried again. This time it slipped in easily. Half a minute later she had the tension bat in the keyhole and was slowly twisting it. She heard a click as the little bok slipped back inside the lock.

"Yes! " she whispered.

She exttacted the tension bar and pulled open the drawer.

And there they were, the oversized trocar and the mystery bottle.

She hesitated, then picked up the trocar and sighted down its bore, little more than a hollow stainless steel tube with a sharp, beveled point at one end and a hilt at the other.

Something like a giant hypodermic needle. Just about big enough to hold one of those giant economy-size implants she'd seen Oliver dissolving with ultrasound. She slipped the obturator into the trocar, filling the bore with more stainless steel.

She remembered the puncture wound on Senator Vincent's thigh in recovery. It could have been made by something like this. She imagined Duncan positioning the trocat's sharp beveled point against the skin along the outer aspect of Vincent's thigh, then punching it through on an angle. He'd advance the trocar about three inches into the subcutaneous fat, then withdraw the solid obturator, leaving the hollow outer tube in the thigh. He'd slip the implant into the bore of the trocar. With the blunt end of the obturator he'd ease the implant to the far end of the bore, retract the trocar along the shaft of the obturator, then remove both instruments as one.

Leaving the implant behind, nestled in the subcutaneous fat of the thigh.

She shuddered. The whole idea gave her the willies.

She separated the trocar and obturator and laid them aside, then picked up the mystery bottle. An injection vial. She examined its top and spotted multiple punctures in the center of the red rubber stopper.

It's been used, she thought. But what's in it?

A thin, dear, amber fluid sloshed on the other side of the glass. She twisted the bottle until she could read the label. The GEM Pharma colophon huddled in the upper left corner. Two words were typed across the center, TRIPTOLINIC DlETHSfLAMIDE "Well, ' she muttered, "that dears up everything." What the hell was triptolinic diethylamide?

She'd never heard of it.

She studied the name, committing its spelling to memory, then she placed the bottle on the desktop and began rummaging through the drawer.

Not much there. The most prominent object was the little handheld recorder that Duncan used for his consults and operative reports.

Gin's heart revved a little when she spotted a tape in it. She pressed the rewind, then hit PLAY. A tinny version of his voice buzzed forth, droning an incisionby-incision, suture-by-suture recap of the tip graft they'd done on an eighteen-year-old girl's nose Monday. She spotchecked through the tape and found only more of the same.

In the back of the drawer she found a slightly faded photo of a teenage girl. Blond hair, a forced smiie, and bright blue eyes. Duncan's eyes.

Gin's fingers trembled. Lisa Lathram. Had to be. She stared at the innocent, seemingly untroubled face that offered no hint of the troubled soul harbored within. Who'd ever guess she'd attempt suicide three times?

Gin sighed and put the photo aside.

What else in the drawer? No other tapes. A few business cards, a two-year-old schedule for the Orioles, a brochure from a coffee importer, some blank index cards, and a nail dipper.

That was it.

Gin leaned against the desk, relieved, but still unsettled. Lisa's photo was here, but no legislator death list with names crossed off, no morbid collection of newspaper clippings. But still there was the trocar and the triptolinic diethylamide, whatever that was. Probably harmless . . . but why was it in his locked drawer? Maybe for the same reason an old Orioles schedule and a nail clipper were locked up along with them, This simply was where certain items ended up.

No. That didn't wash. Duncan had been a little too quick to close this drawer when he'd found her staring into it that time And he seemed religious about keeping it locked. Obviously he wanted to keep this stuff private.

She replaced the photo and the incidental items, then the trocar and obturator, then, after one last look at its label, the bottle of triptolinic diethylamide, arranging them all as closely as possible in their original positions. Then she slid the drawer closed and was reaching for the Electropick to lock up again when she heard a voice outside.

Duncan!

She snatched up the pick, ducked under the desk, and crouched in the kneehole.

Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod! Her heart pounded, her mind raced. Where'd he come from?

Thankfully the desk had a so-called modesty panel that shielded the front of the kneehole, but she knew her feet were visible in the gap between the panel and the floor. She held her breath as Duncan approached, apparently calling back to Barbara as he entered.

". . . only for a minute. I'm not staying." Gin huddled in a ball, trembling, rationalizing with herself, What was the worst that could happen? If he discovered her, she'd be terminally embarrassed, she'd blurt something unintelligible, bolt from the room, and never show her face around here again. And that would be it. Not as if she was in any real danger. But then, considering the humiliation she'd feel, she wondered if she just might prefer death to being caught here.

She watched the carpet along the edges of the kneehole and saw Duncan's shoes appear under the modesty panel. She held her breath. Maybe she'd get through this. Hadn't he said he was only going to be a minute? As long as he didn't sit down . . .

An awful thought struck, My God, what if he checks his drawer and finds out it's unlocked?

She huddled breathless and statue-still as he shuffled through the papers on his desk. She heard him grunt, heard a piece of paper being folded, then listened to him turn and walk out.

Gin slumped back and almost sobbed with relief as she gasped for breath. She'd made it. She didn't move just yet. She stared at her watch and forced herself to wait a full two minutes.

Stiffly, she rolled from under the desk and began guiding the business end of the Electropick toward the keyhole in the drawer. Her hands trembled from the adrenaline still burning through her bloodstream.