"Hmmm? Why do you ask? " "Because you don't look so hot. I mean, you looked fine when you picked up that manual, now you look like you're gonna be sick." Maybe I am.

Gin rubbed her upper abdomen. "My stomach's bothering me." That was no lie.

"You're working too hard. You're gonna give yourself an ulcer. "

"Maybe I already have. ' "I've got some Mylanta" "That's okay. '

Barbara pointed to the FDA database manual. "You finished with that?

" "Yes. Thanks."

"I'm getting ready to leave, " Barbara said as she picked up the manual.

"You want me to lock you in? " "No. I've done all I can do here. I'm on my way." As Barbara went back upstairs, Gin shut off the terminal and got to her feet. She felt weak, confused as she trudged upstairsninety years old at least.

She was barely aware of her surroundings. Somewhere along the way she said good-bye to Barbara, but when she reached her car, she didn't start the engine. She sat behind the wheel and stared at the back of Duncan's officer building.

Vincent . . . Allard . . . but what about Schulz? He jumped off his balcony. Was that psychotic? Maybe, maybe not. But it certainly wasn't rational. And Congressman Lane. He died in a car accident with a high blood-alcohol level. She couldn't link that to Duncan. But shecouldn't rule it out, either. What if the TPD reacted with alcohol?

Or what if it kicked in while he was driving? The same disorientation that could make you fall could make you drive off the road.

I hate this, she thought. She pounded her fist against the steering wheel. Hate it!

Duncan couldn't be involved in this. Couldn't Listen to me. Involved in wha? No evidence that there was anything for Duncan to be involved in.

Then why the TPD? What legitimate reason could Duncan have for keeping a psychosis-inducing compound locked in his desk drawer?

Okay . . . Oliver used to work for GEM Pharma, the company name on the label. That would explain how the bottle found its way to Duncan. But why have it at all? Why keep something of no therapeutic value, something that was a proven toxin?

And what about the trocar, perfect for inserting one of Oliver's large-size implantsloaded with TPD, maybe? under someone's skin, where it could nestle in the fat until Duncan zapped it with an ultrasound beam?

Wait a minute. Ultrasound. That was where this whole insane scenario broke down. Sure, Duncan had been at the Guidelines committee hearing when Senator Vincent went off the deep end, but Gin hadn't noticed him wheeling an ultrasound machine through the room.

And yet . . with microchips and printed circuits, it was certainly possible to have an ultrasound transducer small enough to fit in one's pocket and . . .

Gin rubbed her throbbing temples. She hated what she was thinking.

She began remembering Louisiana and wishing she'd stayed there.

If only she could know!

She shook herself and started the car. One thing she did know Come Thursday morning she was going to be on duty and she was not going to let Senator Marsden out of her sight for one second.

PRESURGICAL DUNCAN POURED A SECOND CUP OF COFFEE FROM. THE carafe and settled behind his desk. He liked Wednesday mornings in the cool stony quiet of the officer, especially when, like today, he could get in early and have the place to himself. With no surgery scheduled, he could dawdle with his coffee, savoring the silence and the aroma as he watched his koi meander around their pool in the rock garden, and catchup on his dictation, tidy up any loose ends from Monday's and Tuesday's procedures, then have the rest of the day to himself. Maybe he'd call Brad and convince him to take the afternoon off from cla.s.seshe figured Brad would need about ten sc-conds of convincing. Maybe they could get in a round of golf. He hadn't played in ages.

He picked up the remote and aimed it at the TV across the room. He switched from CNN to Today to Good Morning America to This Morning and then back to CNN. Apparently nothing newsworthy had happened yesterday, and the morning shows seemed interested only in movie stars.

C-SPAN was rerunning footage of presbyopic senators droning over long speeches to an empty chamber in support of or in opposition to some inconsequential bill.

Time to catch up on dictating his surgical reports. He pulled out his key and inserted it into the lock. It wouldn't turn. He tried it again, wiggling it back and forth, sliding it in and out. He checked to make sure it was the right key, then tried again and noticed that the key wasn't going in all the way. Something was wrong with the lock. Jammed somehow.

Now how the h.e.l.l had that happened? It hadn't been sticking or showing any warning signs that something was amiss. G.o.dd.a.m.n. What a world.

Didn't anybody make anything that worked?

He wandered out to Barbara's desk and now wished she were here. He needed to get a locksmith to get that d.a.m.n thing open. He supposed he could call himself but it was probably too early. He grabbed a pen and left a note on Barbara's desk to call one as soon as she got in.

As he straightened and started to turn away, he noticed the manual for the FDA database Lying on Barbara's desk. Probably Oliver had needed it.

At least somebody was getting some use out of it.

He went in search of another minirecorder.

Gin levered up to a sitting position in bed.

"Oh my G.o.d! " She'd been Lying here, wishing she could rest easy and luxuriate. No surgery today, no moonlighting last night, and no meetings at the senator's until the afternoon. Should have been a great morning.

But yesterday's revelations wheeled over the bed like hungry vultures.

The trocar . . . the TPD . . . the information from the FDA . . .

she kept trying to put a fresh spin on them, one , wouldn't make Duncan look bad. Racking her brain, Ig over everything, she remembered the FDA download.

> "RFP" file she'd created on the hard drive.

eye hadn't erased it.

le jumped out of bed and began pulling on her clothes.

could brush her hair in the car, but no time for a shower.

had to get up to the office and erase that file. If Duncan found it, or Oliver ran across it and asked Duncan about he'd know she'd been in the drawer.

he grabbed her car keys and tan out.

" right, Doc, " the locksmith said. He was thin, looked ut forty, reeked of tobacco, and had Bill st.i.tched on his " shirt.

"You're all set."

"Excellent, " Duncan said but didn't mean it. The man spent an hour on what should have been a fifteen-minute job. It hadn't been easy, but after twenty minutes of grunts and muttered curses, Bill finally got the drawer unlocked. Duncan hovered over him the whole time, and as soon as the drawer slipped open, he removed the TPD and trocar and put len in one of the cabinets on the other side of the room.

neither would mean a thing to the locksmith, but Duncan Lnted them safe and out of sight. As for the rest of the drawer's contents, he dumped them on the desktop.

Bill took the empty drawer out to his truck, saying he would work on it better there. Duncan figured he could also have a cigarette.

So now, after an interminable period, Bill was back.

"Had to pUt in a new lock."

"What was the matter with the old one? " "I wanted to know the same thing. Had to take it apart to find out. A little strange." Why did he seem hesitant?

"How so? " He fished in his pocket and brought OUt a piece of Scotch tape. He dropped it on the desktop in front of Duncan.

"This was in it." Duncan picked up the tape, a single piece folded on itself. Caught between the two sticky surfaces was a small shard of metal.

"How did this get in my lock? ' '"Somebody left it there."

"Now why on earth? " "Not on purpose. It looks like it broke off the tip of a tension bar."

"A tension bar? " "You know, something you use to pick locks with. '

No, Duncan did not know. He stared at Bill as a spasm rippled through his intestines. He dropped the tape, then s.n.a.t.c.hed it off the desk.

Had this man actually said . . . ?

"What? " Duncan's expression must have been fierce, because Bill began verbally back pedaling.

"I can't be sure, of course, but that's the first thing I thought of when I saw it drop out of the cylinder."

"But that's ridiculous! ' He realized he'd raised his voice. He hadn't meant to do that.

"Hey, okay, " Bill said, making conciliatory motions with his hands.

"Don't get excited. Makes no difference to me. If you ain't missin'

nothin', then I guess maybe I could be wrong. But it sure looks like the tip of a tension bar." Duncan's mind raced back over the contents of the drawer. The TPD, the trocar, Lisa's photo, the recorder, and some miscellaneous junk. All there when they'd opened. the drawer.

He modulated his tone. "Well, I'm not missing anything.

And I don't keep anything in there worth stealing in the first place.

So I guess that means the lock wasn't picked." Bill shrugged, averting his gaze. "You could say that. Could also say that the piece might've chipped off and jammed in there before whoever it was got the drawer open." Duncan winced as the spasm tightened its grip on his gut. He's right.

But who in the world . . . ?

"Yes, well, since nothing is missing, I think I'll just forget about it. But I'm certainly glad you brought it to my . . .

attention."Hey, no problem." When Bill left, leaving a set of keys for the new ock, Duncan went to the appliance cabinet and checked the TPD bottle.

He hadn't memorized the previous fluid level but it appeared unchanged.

The autoclave envelope was still sealed around the trocar. He replaced both in the drawer and locked it. Then he leaned back in his desk chair and felt his gut slowly uncoil as he willed himself toward calm.

All right. Let's be rational. Very strange. And very unsettling.

But where was the logical reason for anyone to try to get into that drawerand by picking the lock, of all things?

And what was there, really, to worry about? Even if someone had found the TPD, what could they do? They wouldn't know what it was. TPD was an orphaned, abandoned compound. The only record of its existence was in the dead files of GEM Pharma, and in the cavernous data banks of the .

FDA.

Good Lord!

Duncan bolted from the chair and hurried out to the reception area.

'"Barbara! Did you use the FDA database yesterday? " "No, I" "I saw the manual on your desk this morning." She leaned back from him, a startled expression on hex face. He hadn't intended to speak so harshly.

"II gave it to Dr. Panzella yesterday. She asked for it, so I dug it out for her." He was stunned. Gin?

"That was all right, wasn't it? " Gin?

"What? Oh, yes. Fine." Time for a little damage control. "I was just looking for it. I have to use it . . . need some data from the FDA myself." Barbara handed it to him and he returned to his office, shaking his head at the image of Gin attempting to pick a lock.

Absurd. Laughable.

And yet . . .

She certainly had access and opportunity. But why would she? No. Noway.

And yet . . .

The jammed lock, Gin asking for the FDA manual . . . the juxtaposition was just a little too close.

Duncan returned to his desk and turned on his computer terminal. Maybe there was some way to find out just what she was after from the FDA.

Gin stiffened behind the wheel when she saw Duncan's car in the lot.

Not that unusual for him to be here on a Wednesday morning, but she'd been hoping and praying he'd have done whatever it was he did and be gone by now.

Well, she couldn't let that stop her. She jumped out of her car and hurried for the rear entrance.

She'd use the old, as yet untried Forgot-my-Senate-lDbadge excuse if anyone asked why she was here. The whole -ocedure would take ten seconds, log into the hard drive Del the file with the triptolinic diethylamide data, log out, , en get the h.e.l.l out of Dodge.

Simple.

G.o.d, it better be.

. uncan had logged in to the FDA database but that was no elp. No way to tell what Gin had done. He'd even called the FDA, but three different clerks hadn't the vaguest idea ow to help him.

Seething with frustration, he exited the program and back, staring at the C-prompt. There had to be a way . . but what if there wasn't anything to find? And even if eye had been searching for TPD, she may never have found it. ars back, Duncan himself had had a devil of a time ccessing it and he'd known where to look. But if she had and it and simply read the information on the screen, There'd be no trail, no way for him to know. Only if she'd downloaded the file Duncan straightened in his chair.

Download. She'd have to create a download file, have to a the incoming data before it could be written to the hard drive. He punched in DIR/OD and entered it. The entire contents of the hard drive, every directory and free file scrolled up before him at an unreadable pace.

No matter. If , in had downloaded directly to the hard drive, he'd find it >e, somewhere near the end of the list. If she'd routed the into one of the directories, he'd have to search it OUt srectory by directory. And if she'd erased it . . . well, then e'd just bewasting his TIME And how would he recognize it, anyway? Would she have Lbeled it TPD?

Hardly.