" She stuck the key in the slot and relocked the drawer. Then she held out her hand for the Electropick.

's Let me try." Gerry was hesitant, but then showed her how to use it.

Under his guidance she unlocked and relocked the cabinet three times.

Gin knew then that she had to have an Electropick.

"Where can I get one of these things? " '"Not at Wal-Mart, that's for sure. They cost a couple of hundred bucks, but if you really want one I can give you the address of a mail-order place."

"That's okay, " she said, disappointed. No time for mail order. "I mean, how many times would I need something like that? " And then it was time for dinner. They went out to a Thai place in the neighborhood where she couldn't talk Gerry into trying fish stomachs in peanut sauce. Then they caught the new Kevin Costner flick. She could tell Gerry wasn't crazy about it, and she might not have liked it either if Kevin Costner hadn't been the star. Just watching him move and listening to his voice made up for a mult.i.tude of shortcomings in the rest of the film.

And finally it was back to the apartment for more lovemaking. Slow and deliberately languorous this TIME "Strange, isn't it? " Gin said as they lay together at the end. She was thinking how she might want to be with Gerry forever. "So much hashappened to each of us since we went to high school. We hardly knew each other when we spent most of the day in the same building. And now after all those years and miles we run into each other in a city of millions and wind up like this. I don't believe in fate, but you've got to admit . . . " "Fate, " he said sofddy. "That has a nice ring to it." Gerry left about I , 00 A. M. Without the Electropick.

Desperate, Gin had removed it before llanding him his jacket. She felt like a creep, but consoled herself with the thought that she was only borrowing it.

Gin was warm and contented as she dozed off, vowing to spend most of Sunday morning becoming an expert with the Electropick, then tackling Duncan's drawer in the afternoon.

Only a nagging apprehension about what she'd find there disturbed her repose.

THE WEEK OF OCTOBER GINA r IT WAS TUESDAY AFTERNOON BEPORE GINA GOT A chance to use the Electropick on Duncan's drawer.

I should have been done with this days ago, she thought as she stood inside the door to the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs. She was waiting for Barbara to leave her desk on one of her frequent trips to the copier or the printer, both of which were downstairs, or to the patient education room across the hall from her desk.

Sunday would have been perfect. Gin had practiced all morning with the Electropick and had become fairly adept. She'd used it on every cylinder lock in her apartment, even on her car.

Gerry had called Sunday afternoon, and they'd talked about how wonderful the night before had been. Finally he asked about the Electropick. He couldn't find it. Had he left it there? Gin told him he had and joked about it, telling him he didn't need to pull that old stunt of leaving something behind just so he could have an excuse to come back. When he mentioned stopping by later to pick it up, she begged offsaying she had a million errands to run before pulling a shift at the hospital. Which was sort of true. Luckily, Gerry didn't seem to be in a big rush to get it back. They had a number of the things at the Bureau.

More practice, and by midafternoon Gin felt ready. But when she arrived at the office she found a dark blue Buick Park Avenue parked in the lot. Oliver's car. What was he doing back? And on a Sunday when he should have been home watching football? Except Oliver wouldn't know a Redskin from a Mighty Duck. All he cared about were his lab and his implants.

So Gin drove off and returned in two hours. The Buick was stillthere.

Two hours after that it was gone but night was falling and the cleaning service had arrived. She had to call it quits. She was due at the hospital.

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 clubso 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 G.o.d, 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 borelittle 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 w.i.l.l.i.e.s.

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 gla.s.s. 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 h.e.l.l was triptolinic diethylamide?

She'd never heard of it.

She studied the name, committing its spelling to memory, then sheplaced 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 incis...o...b..-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 s.n.a.t.c.hed up the pick, ducked under the desk, and crouched in the kneehole.

OhmiG.o.d, ohmiG.o.d, ohmiG.o.d! 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 embarra.s.sed, 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 G.o.d, 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.

She fumbled The tool into the opening and thumbed the switch. The tool did its thing. When she felt the pins slide into line, she removed the Electropick, inserted the tiny tosion bar, and twisted. She heard the bok snap into the lock position.

But when she tried to remove the bar, it wouldn't budge.

She moaned softly. "Oh, no! " What else could go wrong?

Her fingertips grew slick as she tried to wiggle it out. She thoughtshe heard someone outside the office door. With one - last desperate, frantic tug she wrested the torsion bar from the lock and almost landed on her back.

Sweating, shaking, she jammed the Electropick and its - accessories into her pocket and hurried to the door. She pressed her ear against it and listened. Quiet. She opened it a crack and sneaked a look at Barbara's desk. Empty. Gin took a breath, stepped through, and walked out.

She pa.s.sed Barbara in the hall, carrying a printout.

"You're still here? " Barbara said.

"Practically on my way out. Say, did I hear Dr. Lathram's voice before? " "Yeah. But you missed him. He's already come and gone. I think he forgot something. Probably back on the golf course already.

" Yeah. Right.

"Barbara, I just have to look something up, then I'm gone. See you Thursday. ".

She hurried to the records room. Carol the file clerk had left for the day, so Gin had the room to herself. Manila foldes lined every inch of wall except for the dictation area in the corner. A computer terminal on the desk there, and a short shelf of medical reference texts. Gin grabbed the PDR and thumbed through the generic and chemical name index.

No listing for triptolinic diethylamide.

Not surprising. It wasn't in a commercial container.

Next was the Mersk Index, a weighty, small-print tome that lisad the name and formula of just about every available chemical compound. But again she struck out.

Gin sat at the dictation desk and stared at the blank face of the computer screen before her, wondering where to look next.

Okay. If the Index didn't list the stuff, it was either brand new or had never been reported to it.

She snapped her fingers. An investigational compound. Something in development. Had to be.

But how to track it down? The properties of new compounds were kept close to the vest during the development stages. But their formulas were registered immediately for patent protection.

Gin picked up the phone.

"Hi, Barbara. Don't we have a linkup to the FDA database? " "Sure.

And NIH, and the American College of" '"How do I access the FDA? "

'"It's kinda complicated. I've got an instruction manual somewhere around here that tells'' "I'll be right up." Gin trotted upstairs where Barbara made a relay team handoff of the manual as Gin pa.s.sed her desk. A minute later she was seated before the records-room computer, logging heself into the FDA computet, and picking her way through the various menus until she got to investigational compDunds in development.

But again no listing for triptolinic diethylamide.

Double d.a.m.n. This was like chasing a phantom. But she wasn't giving up yet. There had to be some other way. The label on the bottle .

. the GEM Pharma colophon. What if she used the company as a starting point and worked back from there?

It took a good forty minutes of running into dead ends and backtracking, but she finally located triptolinic diethyl amide in the vast cybernetic waste bin of discarded registered compounds on which further research had been canceled.

She downloaded the file and tagged it with her initials, RFP for Regina Francesca Panzella, then logged off the database. Back in the Lathram system again, she entered "TYPE RFPMORE" and began reading from the hard drive.

A small file. Triptolinic diethylamidereferred to as TPD in the filestarted off its existence at GEM Pharma as an investigational compound with antidepressant properties. Early animal- trials in mice and rats were encouraging, but when testing moved up to primates, TPD was found to be toxic, inducing psychotic states. All further investigation was canceled and GEM Pharma moved on to more promising compounds.

- A sudden queasy feeling rippled through Gin's stomach.

Toxic . . . psychotic states . . . Senator Vincent's behavior before his seizure was certainly disturbed, might even fit the criteria for psychotic. And from what she'd heard, even though he hadn't had any further seizures, mentally he remained far out in left field.

And Duncan . . . Duncan had been there, right there in the hearingroom when it had happened.

A few feet to her left, she heard the laser printer begin to - hum.

- And Congressman Allard . . . he'd had that nasty fall and cerebral concussion that had left him disoriented, not quite sure of who or where he was. But what if it wasn't the concussion that had scrambled his thoughts? What if his thoughts had been scrambled before the fall . . . as he was going down the steps? What if the scrambled thoughts had cagsed the fall?

Gin's own thoughts began to feel scrambled. She blinked and rubbed her eyes with an unsteady hand as the queasy feeling rippled toward nausea.

Footsteps behind her. Quickly Gin blanked the screen, then looked up to see Barbara retrieving her printout.

"You okay? " Barbara said, staring at her.