Implant.

What if this whole situation was another elaborate scam by Duncan?

He"d already undermined her credibilityand made Gerry look like a fool. What if he"d. pulled the same on her? A double reverse? Slip her a Mickey, steal her key, sneak into her apartment, and jab an empty trocar into her leg while she was unconscious? Who"d expect him to pull the same stunt twice?

But he might be counting on that sort of thinking, counting on her to go running to Gerry, crying about bad old Duncan sticking a drug-filled implant in her leg. And if and when she finally convinced Gerry to check out her leg, they"d come up with another negative MRI.

And anything she said after that would be dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic.

So she couldn"t go to Gerry empty-handedor, in this case, empty-leggedEither way, she had to know.

If only she had a syringe and some anesthetic.

Lidocaine! Lidocaine/ My kingdom for some lidocaine!

But there"d be no lidocaine. Only ice.

Gin grabbed a washcloth from the counter and wadded it into her mouth.

Then she used her left hand to stretch the skin over the bruise while she tightened her grip on the razor blade in her right.

Not too deep, now, she told herself. Don"t want to slice the implant.

She took a deep breath and held it. With one quick move, she drove the corner of the blade"s cutting edge into the skin half an inch distal to the bruise, then yanked it toward her.

She doubled over and screamed into the washcloth. Shuddering with the pain, she clung to the safety bar with her free hand and pressed her face against her knees as her eyes filled with tears and a cold sweat erupted from every pore.

And then, after a small eternity, the pain pa.s.sed its crescendo. Her bunched muscles relaxedslightly. She straightened, spit out the washcloth, and gasped for air. When she"d caught her breath, she leaned over and took a look.

Blood poured from the two-inch gash in her thigh. Thick crimson drops, startlingly red against the white ceramic finish, splashed along the inside of the tub and oozed down to the water swirling toward the drain.

She felt faint and swayed back. For an instant she thought she was going to topple backward, but she hung on until the room stopped wobbling around her.

Gin allowed herself a tight, wry smile. She thought she was used to seeing blood. Other people"s blood. Not quite the same as seeing her own.

She touched the wound edge and jerked her hand back. Exquisitely tender. Those severed nerve ends were screaming. This was when she really could have used some anesthetic.

Replacing the washcloth between her teeth, she clamped down on it and groaned as she separated the wound edges. The subcutaneous fat wasblood-red instead of its natural yellow. Gingerly she probed the fat with her pinky. A strange, curious, slightly sickening sensation, this groping among her own fat cells. Painful, but it wasn"t the pain that was making her queasy. She"d never touched human fat with her bare hands before. Like playing with greasy tapioca.

The pain increased as she pressed deeper, searching for an opening, a depression, a channel, any clue that would tell her what course the trocar had followed.

And then her fingertip slipped a little deeper into one area of the fat. She stiffened. Could that be it? She probed further, but gently, feeling the fat give way easily before her. Yes. Something had been this way before. And recently.

And then her fingertip came to rest against something soft but firmer and smoother than fat.

Gin didn"t know whether to be relieved or terrified. At least she hadn"t imagined all this. There was an implant in her leg and only one man could have put it there.

And it had to come out. Now. And she had to remove it without breaking it. If she ruptured it, or even caused a tiny leak, she"d have done Duncan"s job for him.

Biting down harder on the washcloth, Gin dug her finger deeper into the fat. Propelled by pain, air hissed in and out of her nostrils as she worked to get around the implant. Had to get behind it. Gently .

. . . gently . . .

Gerry slammed the phone down in the middle of Gin"s instructions to leave a message after the beep. He"d already left two on her machine.

Where is she?

He glanced at his watch again. What for, he didn"t know.

Only half a minute had pa.s.sed since the last time he"d looked.

He stretched his neck to relieve the growing lump of tension between his shoulder blades. She should have been here by now. Visions of Gin wandering around the District, dazed and confused, replayed in his mind.

Or worse yet, huddled behind a Dumpster in some alley, hiding fromimaginary enemies.

d.a.m.n it. He couldn"t concentrate on anything. All he could think about was Gin. The way she"d sounded . . . like her world was coming to an end.

Only one thing to do. Go out and look for her.

He picked up his car keys and called the switchboard. He left instructions that if a Gin Panzella or a Dr. Panzella called, or anyone called about her, or if she showed up in person, to put her through to his car phone.

On the chance that she might be hiding in her apartment, afraid to pick up the phone, refusing to answer the door, he grabbed the Electropick on his way out. Just in case.

He got his car out of the Bureau"s underground lot and drove up Pennsylvania toward the White House, trying to backtrack along the most logical route for her to follow from Adams Morgan. She"d have to come down Connecticut, but after that it was anybody"s guess.

He worked his way up to K Street where he saw a couple of cops standing outside their unit at the top of Farragut Square watching a sanit man sweep up some broken gla.s.s. He flashed his ID and asked what had happened. The older of the pair, heavyset with a mustache, leaned in the window. His breath reeked of old coffee.

"A one-car M.V.A. n.o.body hurt. Driver hopped out and took off. You can bet what that means." Gerry nodded. "Hot."

"You got it." Just so no stone was left unturned, Gerry said, "You remember what make it was?

" The cop shrugged. "Nh. It was already towed when we got here.

They"re running the plates, though. Somebody you looking for? " "Not likely. Just thought I"d ask." As he drove away, he made a mental note of the location. If he couldn"t find Gin, he"d check with the locals later on the registration of that car.

He turned back and headed up Connecticut. Maybe the best place to start was Gin"s apartment.

Gin leaned, gasping, trembling, against the side wall of the tub alcove. When the pain receded from excruciating to merely brutal, she opened her hand and looked at the b.l.o.o.d.y little lump Lying in her palm.

G ha.

She was safe. Even if Duncan bathe the entire hotel with ultrasound, he couldn"t harm her. But she wasn"t out of the woods yet. She had a deep, wide gash in her leg that had to be closed.

But first, Save the evidence.

She reached over to the counter and grabbed the Coricidin bottle.

Carefully she sc.r.a.ped the sticky implant off her palm with the lip of the bottle. She"d already learned the hard way how much more fragile these things became once they"d been implanted. The implant slid down the inside of the bottle, slowly, like some sort of scarlet slug, and came to rest on the bottom. She capped the bottle and returned her attention to the incision in her leg.

Bleeding had slowed considerably. The blood oozing around the growing clot was thick, almost syrupy. She reached for the sewing kit and began threading a needle. The adrenaline tremor from the pain and stress caused her to miss S.

on the first few tries. She was beginning to fear that she"d never get it threaded, but finally the tip slipped through the eye.

She considered sterilizing the needle with the Cricket but discarded the idea. She couldn"t sterilize the thread that way, and the wound was already grossly contaminated. She was covered for teta.n.u.s, but she had to get herself some antibiotica broad-spectrum cephalosporin preferablyto fend off the inevitable infection that would follow this egregiously unsterile little surgical procedure.

By way of compromise, she doused the needle and soaked the thread with hydrogen peroxide. She laid that aside and replaced the washcloth in her mouth. Then she expressed the clot from the wound and poured the peroxide directly into it. She groaned into the cloth as pink foam erupted from the opening. She writhe from the sharp, stinging agony of the nest of enraged hornets trapped inside her thigh.

When that pa.s.sed, she wiped the sweat and tears from her eyes, pressed the wound edges together, and began suturing. She started at the distal end, figuring it would be easier to work her way up.

Gin winced as she forced the needle through her skin. Painful, but nothing compared to what she"d already put herself through. The needle was sharp enough, but it was designed for fabric, not the toughness of human skin. And it was straight, which made the job all the more difficult .

Forget the lidocaine, she thought. I"ll settle for a hemostat and a curved needle now.

A few subcutaneous sutures and a vertical mattress repair would have been ideal, but out of the question without gut and a curved needle.

She had to settle for a simple, single loop.

She tied the first suture carefully, afraid to pull too hard and break the thread. She"d bought the heaviest she could find, but still this wasn"t silk or nylon, this was plain old thread. If this repair was going to hold, she"d have to place the sutures close together, no more than an eighth of an inch apart.

She finished the first knot and cut the free ends with the little scissors from the kit. There. One done. Only fourteen or fifteen more to go.

Half an hour later, she was done. She foamed the blood off her skin with peroxide and examined her handiwork. Sixteen puckered sutures in a neat row. She blotted it dry, smeared some bacitracin ointment over it, then covered it with gauze. She held that in place with a few strips of adhesive tape, then wound the six-inch Ace bandage around her thigh to make a pressure dressing. Then she swung her legs out of the tub and stood up.

And almost fell as black spots exploded in her vision and a diesel-engine roar filled her head. She went down on one knee and clung to the vanity until the room stopped swaying and spinning.

She pressed her forehead against the cool marble and gathered her strength.

Weak. She"d figured she"d be weak afterward, but not this bad. She reached for the other little bag she"d picked up in CVS and pulled out a package of Snickers bars. Good old Pasta had always suffered chocolate attacks in times of stress and hadn"t been able to resist all that Halloween candy. Gin was glad she"d given in to her. She"d need some extra calories for healing, some glucose for energy. Another thing she knew she needed was fluids. After wolfing down three of the Snickers, she filled the gla.s.s by the sink with cold water and gulped it down. She washed down four more Tylenols with a second gla.s.sful.

She felt a little better, but no way ready for the road. She pushed herself to her feet and, keeping a hand on the wall for support, made her way to the bed. She turned off the TV as she pa.s.sed.

She yanked down the covers and gingerly, gently, eased herself between the cool sheets. She shivered. Had to get some rest. She was safe now.

Just a nap for an hour or so, then she"d call Gerry. She had theimplant. She could show him hard evidence now. He"d have to believe.

Every one would believe.

After she had some sleep . . .

THURSDAY AFTERNOON GERRY WAS BEGINNING TO FEEL A LITTLE FRANTIC.

He couldn"t help it. He"d been to Gin"s apartment earlier. He hadn"t been able to find her car on the street. He got no response to his repeated knocks on the door, so he"d used the Electropick to let himself in and found the place deserted. No sign of a struggle, no note left, no indication that Gin hadn"t made a routine departure this morning fully expecting to return at her usual time tonight.

He"d even called Lathram"s surgicenter. The receptionist had said Gin wasn"t there and wasn"t expected in today. He thought he"d heard something in her voice, as if she wanted to say more, but that could have been wishful thinking.

He"d checked all eleven of the District"s emergency rooms and even a few in northern Virginia and southern Maryland. No Gin Panzella or Jane Doe fitting her description had come through. Same with all the local police departments. No one named Panzella or anyone like her on the arrest records.

And then he"d remembered the accident over by Farragut , , , , , i, 0", "- , . , z. = Square. He"d placed a call to the D. C. Police and was hanging around his desk waiting for a call-back now. He didn"t have much hope of help from them, but he wasn"t ignoring any possibility.

The phone rang.

"Agent Canney? " said a nasal voice. "We have the ID on the vehicle in that one-car M.V.A you inquired about. Belongs to a Regina Panzella of Kalorama Road here in the District."

"d.a.m.n! " Gerry said. He should have checked this out hours ago. "And the report says she left the scene of the accident? " ""Driver abandoned vehicle, according to the report." ""Nothing else?

"Witnesses said she was female, dark hair, and was the sole occupant.

" That fit Gin.

"Okay. Thanks a lot."

"Any TIME" So where was she? She"d cracked up her car and run away.

Where to? It had rained most of the morning.

How far could she go on foot in the rain?

Gerry reached for his coat. Better go and inspect the scene. But nother thought occurred to him as he was leaving. He called down to the data center and told them to research the credit sources for Regina Panzella. Find out what credit cards she carried and see if she made any charges todayand where.

Who knew? Maybe she rented a car. Or bought a motorcycle. Who could tell what she was going to do next?

Gerry left for Farragut Square. Without knowing Gin"s credit card number or even her card company, it would take a while. The information would be waiting when he got back.

He hoped he wouldn"t need it.

* * * Duncan was exhausted, frustrated, angry, and not a little afraid.

But at least the rain had stopped.

That was about the only good thing Duncan could say about the afternoon. He stood on Seventeenth Street, on the edge of Farragut Square, and eyed the pedestrians. So many more now that it was getting late. Workers, released from their offices, were beginning to crowd the sidewalks. He lifted his gaze to the square"s eponymous statue.

Appropriately enough, a seagull was squatting on its hat.

About time to give it up. He"d patrolled the area for hours on foot and in his car, ranging as far north as Scott Circle and as far south as the White House itself, and had found not a single trace of Gin.

It was fear that kept him from packing up and heading for home. Or for the hills.

What if Gin had managed to convince her FBI boyfriend that she carried an implant in her leg? And what if he"d been able to arrange its removal? The tables might have been turned on him this afternoon while he was wandering around. His role might already have changed from hunter to hunted.

He"d better find out.

Duncan glanced at his watch. Barbara still would be in the officer.He pulled out his cellular phone and called in.

"Did you find her? " were the first words out of Barbara"s mouth.

"No luck yet, " he said. "Just checking in. No word from Gin, I take it."

"Nothing, " Barbara said. "Someone called for her, but" "Who?