Implant. Part 15

"Right.

What a great memory you have." . "Where's Mrs. Snedecker? "

"She's away. That's why I'm here." Am I doing this right? she wondered. If Martha were sick Gin would know exactly what to do, butshe'd never had any younger sibs, so she wasn't too sure of herself here. Getting her back to sleep seemed like the best thing. She straightened the covers.

"Here. Why don't you just lie back down and close your eyes. I'll be right downstairs. If you need anything, you just call and I'll be right here. Okay? " Martha didn't say anything as she lay back and pulled the covers up.

Gin adjusted them around her and then, on impulse, leaned over and kissed her cheek.

"Good night, Martha." As she rose and turned toward the door, she heard a sob from the bed. She knelt back down again.

"What's wrong, Martha? " "I get scuh-scared when my daddy's not here at nuh-nuhnight." She started to cry.

"He'll be home soon, Martha, " she said, searching for a way to comfort her. "What if I stay here with you? " Martha sniffled and sat up.

"Can you? " "Sure. It'll be fun."

"Will you get under the covers?

" She wriggled over to make room. Her fears seemed to have evaporated.

"This'll be like a sleep-over." Gin hesitated, then shrugged. Not much room in that little bed, but what the heck. She kicked off her sneakers and slid under the covers. Martha immediately nestled into the crook of her arm and snuggled against her. In minutes she was asleep.

Gin lay there and listened to the gentle sound of Martha's breathing.

She stroked her soft hair and felt strangely content, at peace.

Peace . . . what a strange sensation. It seeped through her like warm water through a dry sponge. Throughout her brain and her body she sensed all the various engines that were driving her begin to downs.h.i.+ft, finally going into neutral, idling.

And through the peace crept an ancient need, long unnoticed amid the adrenalized buzz of her day-to-day life.

She squeezed Martha closer. Is this what I'm missing? Isn't this what it's all about? Her throat tightened. A child of my own? G.o.d, I'll be thirty next year . . .d.a.m.n! Where are my priorities? What is better than this?

Gerry pulled into his parking s.p.a.ce in front of the house. Night was leaching from the eastern sky. Dawn wasn't far off. Somewhere in the trees a bird called.

He headed for his front door, bounding over the curb and up the steps.

He was pumped. And relieved. A successful operation tonight. At the last minute the Bureau had called out every available agentthe kidnapper had made a mistakeand they got the little Walker boy back safe and sound.

Gerry could have stayed and celebrated with the rest of the guys, but this case had made him anxious to get back to his own child.

And it reinforced his determination to move up to a position with regular hours. And soon.

em"K Gerry stood inside his front door and surveyed the empty living room. Gin's raincoat was there, but where was she?

"Gin? ' A little louder.

Upstairs with Martha? Had to be. But an unreasoning fear made him pad up the stairs, taking them three at a time as silently as he could, hurrying to Martha's bedroom. He stopped at the door, struck dumb by the sight of his child curled up under Gin's protective arm. Both were asleep, both faces so smooth, so relaxed, so innocent in the growing light.

He'd taken a chance asking Gin tonight. He hadn't known how she'd react, how it would work out, but he'd sensed a rapport between Gin and Martha during their first meeting and, well, he'd longed to see her.

And who better than a trained physician?

But this?

He stood staring, captured by the nghtness of the scene. It was as if their little duplex, his and Martha's little world, had changed, their fragmented family briefly made whole again.

He realized that tears were sliding down his cheeks.

You belong with us, Gin, he thought.

He wiped the tears away and had to fight the urge to crawl in with them. Besides, there was no room left in that tiny bed.

So Gerry pulled up the rocker Karen had bought for nursing Martha and sat there watching the two women in his life until the sun came up.

THE WEEK OF OCTOBER THE HEARING RELAX, GINA, SENATOR MARSDEN SAID AS HE.

GATHered the papers on his desk. "You look as if you're about to jump out of your skin." His desk was piled high with folders, reprints, charts, graphs, and detailed a.n.a.lyses of medical statistics. Joe Blair had been in earlier, reviewing his last-minute strategies on networking with other chiefs of staff. He was cool and professional toward Gin but decidedly distant.

And Alicia was a whirling dervish, darting in and out of the office like an overweight hummingbird. She'd conscripted a couple of the officer's legislative correspondents to field the endlessly ringing phones. This was her big day and she seemed to thrive on the pressure.

The past four days had been a whirlwind of activity. Gin felt as if she'd moved into these offices. She'd met Charlie and Zach, the other two legislative aides a.s.signed to the Guidelines committee, and had been impressed with the amount of research they'd collected. They had copies of guidelines and codes of ethics from every state medical board in the country.

The amount of material to be reviewed and absorbed was daunting. But she'd waded in with the rest of them.

"I'll be fine, " Gin told the senator.

And she would be. It was just that not only was this her first day of actually attending a congressional hearing as a partic.i.p.ant, but the chairman of the committee would be depending on her medical knowledge to interpret the testimony being given, all of which would occur before cameras broadcasring the proceedings to the nation.

Nothing to it.

Right. That was why her hands were cold and her palms were sweaty and her stomach had shrunk to a walnut-sized knot.

But she was all set to go, She had a pad, a supply of pens, and she had her brand new photo-iD badge slung on a chain around her neck.

"I know you will. Remember, Your job is to listen and take notes.

Alert me immediatelypa.s.s me a note, tap me on the shoulder and whisperwhenever you think someone's blowing medical smoke my way. And I do mean immediately. I don't want to find out days later that someone was running double-talk by me. Your responsibility is to keepthe medical testimony honest." She held up her steno pad and pens.

She didn't know shorthand but the steno pad was a convenient size.

" I'm ready." She hoped she sounded confident. She was beginning to feel the weight of the responsibility she'd taken on. And she'd be shouldering it in public.

She'd watched congressional hearings on TV before and seen aides pa.s.sing notes or whispering in committee members' ears, hard to believe people would be watching her doing. the same today. Her father was staying home from the store this morning to watch C-SPAN.

Senator Marsden winked at her. "And maybe when this is over you can write a more evenhanded op-ed piece for the Tiones-Piaaygne." Gin stiffened. "You know about that? " "Sure. Joe showed it to me shortly after the interview. It's his job to background anyone joining my staff."

"I was afraid it might put you off." He rose and tucked a bulging file folder under his arm.

"I spent forty years in business. I learned the worst thing you can do is surround yourself with yes-men. That's why I like to keep a devil's advocate around." Gin felt a burst of warmth for this man. Alicia had called him "one of the good guys" and now Gin believed her.

"I'll be it."

"Then let's go." The hearing room was gorgeous, paneled floor to ceiling in gleaming mahogany. The carved ceiling would have been at home in Versaillesnearly twenty feet high, white with delicate, hand-painted blue designs. Rich red carpet stretched wall to wall.

Three tall windows ran almost to the ceiling and were trimmed with black crepe in honor of the committee's departed member, Congressman Lane. Set between the windows and all around the room were giant bra.s.s sconces, designed like ornate torches that would not have been out of place in the Roman Senate. Each flared a wedge of light against the paneling above it. All the furniturethe curved dais where the committee members sat like knights of the semicircular table, the witness table, the visitor chairs was fas.h.i.+oned of mahogany perfectly matched to the paneling. The red leather on the seats and backs of the chairs arranged in neat rows for visitors and witnesses and lined against the wall behind the dais for the committee members' aides matched the carpet, as did the leather inlays in the tops of the press tables flanking both sides of the room.

Chaos reigned. Photographers were jockeying for position in the s.p.a.ce allotted them, reporters were weaving through the mix of legislators,witnesses, and visitors, looking for comments, sniffng for rumors, while the C-SPAN technicians made final adjustments on their cameras, one near the front and the other midline at the rear.

Gin followed Senator Marsden to the daiswhy did it feel so special to stroll past the "Staff Only" sign? and staked out a chair behind his spot at the apex of the semicircle. Zach would be with her. Charlie had stayed behind at the office. While Marsden began arranging his papers, she looked out over the milling crowd and was shocked.

Duncan.

"Senator, do I have time to talk to someone? " "Of course, ' he said, glancing up at the disorder before him. "We won't come to order for at least another ten or fifteen minutes." As she stepped off the dais, someone tapped her on the shoulder.

Another familiar faceone she was very glad to see.

"Gerry! What are you doing here? " "Just stopped by to say h.e.l.lo. "

"But how'd you get in? " He flashed his FBI ID. "Never underestimate the power of the Department of Justice. I knew this was your big day and I just wanted to wish you luck. I'dtve brought flowers but" "Oh, I'm glad you didn't. I wouldn't have known what to do with them." He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. "Knock em dead, Gin. "

She gave him a hug. "Thanks. That means a lot." And it did. No one else had wished her luck, or thought she should even be here. She watched him go, then spotted Duncan on the far side of the room. He was talking to one of the committee members, Senator Vincent. Both looked to be about the same age, wore suits of similar cut, but Duncan's trim figure and aristocratic bearing somehow left the senator looking like a poor relation. And what had the senator done to his hair? A permanent?

She tapped Duncan on the shoulder.

"Excuse me, sir, " she said in an offcious voice. "Do you have a pa.s.s?

" Duncan greeted her with a warm smile and threw an arm around her shoulders.

"I was wondering when you'd show up. Senator Vincent, I'd like you to meet Senator Marsden's newest a.s.sistant, Dr. Gin Panzella. Also my surgical a.s.sistant. In fact, she a.s.sisted me on your procedure. "

Senator Vincent glanced around uncomfortably as he shook Gin's hand.

"I wish you wouldn't" "Don't worry, Senator, " Duncan said. "Gin is the soul of discretion, just like everyone else on my staff. You know that."

"You look great, Senator, " Gin said, and she meant it.

Except for the hair. But as far as the surgery, the improvement was remarkable. Amazing how all that redundant flesh under his chin had aged him. He looked at least fifteen years younger.

But that hair. Ugh.

"So I look okay? No sign that I hadthat anything was done? " "Not a bit, ' Duncan said. "I predict you'll be the next bright star in the C-SPAN firmament." Senator Vincent laughed nervously.

"I'm serious, " Duncan said. "After your performance today, you're going to be on all the networks. Mark my words." Just then a beeper sounded. Duncan had his hand in his coat pocket.

Gin watched him pull out his oversized pager, the same one he'd had on the west portico of the Capitol . . .

. . . the day Congressman Allard fell down the Capitol steps.

He grunted and said, "Now, who could this be? " He looked at the display window and pressed a b.u.t.ton. At that moment the hearing room's PA system began a feedback howl, and Gin noticed Senator Vincent wince and begin ma.s.saging the outside of his right thigh.

"Something wrong? " she asked him.

"I don't know, " he said. "For a second there it was almost like a bee sting. But it's better now." He glanced at the dock high on the rear wall. "We'll be starting soon. Excuse me." Gin turned to Duncan as Senator Vincent wandered off. "Anything important? " Duncan had already pocketed the pager. "One of my golf foursome.

Probably checking on our tee TIME And may I ask, who was that man with whom you were engaging in a public display of affection? " "Gerry Canney. An old friend from high school. He's now an FBI agent. "

"And I suppose you embrace all your old high school friends whenever you see them? " Gin felt herself blush. "He's a little more than a friend."

"I see, " Duncan said, raising his eyebrows. "Well, I'm happy for you." Gin regarded him. Something different about Duncan this morning. He seemed wound up. Like a Thoroughbred owner before a big race.

'"Three guesses who's the last person I expected to see here this morning." -His eyebrows lifted even higher. "Me? I wouldn't miss this show for the world."

"It's the hottest ticket in town. How'd you get in? " '"Consider for a moment the names in my patient files, Gin, and tell me who in this Circus Maximus is better connected than yours truly." He c.o.c.ked his head toward Senator Vincent. "Actually, it was the good senator himself who saw to it."

"You'd probably be better off watching it on C-SPAN."

"Nothing like. actually being there." He sniffed. "Catch that, Gin?

The effluvium of naked power waiting to be unleashed. Heady stuff."

Gin laughed. "Tell me about it." She glanced at the dais and saw the committee members seating themselves. "Got to run. Enjoy yourself, Duncan." His smile was tight. "I hope to." Her palms were moist by the time she regained the dais. She hoped she didn't look a tenth as nervous as she felt.

Let's stop fooling around and get this thing started, foZks.

She knew she'd be fine once the hearing was rolling, it was the waiting that was killing her.

She checked out the dais. All the attending committee members except Senator Vincent were in place. Where was he?

She searched the floor of the hearing room and spotted him, standing next to Duncan again. She saw Duncan say something to him and turn away.

She couldn't see Duncan's face, but Senator Vincent's wore a baffled look.

Gin had a sudden sense of deja vu . . . Duncan . . . his beeper .

a parting comment . . .

Gin chewed her lip as the senator gained the dais and approached his seat. She knew it was all coincidence but she wanted to know what Duncan had said to him.

Now wasn't the time, however. But right after the hearing she'd find a way to ask.Duncan sat quite literally on the edge of his seat, his hands clutched tightly between his knees. He struggled for outer calm, to hide the surging adrenaline within.

No glitchff today. This one had to go according to plan. The setting was absolutely perfect.

He'd waited to see where Senator Vincent was sitting before choosing his own place. When he spotted Vincent settling himself three seats to Marsden's right, Duncan found a chair halfway back with a clear view of the senator.