F Paul Wilson - Novel 02 (22 page)

           
"Committed suicide. I think
so. He said something about an eighteen-year-old named Lisa. Had to be
her."

           
Gerry was silent a moment, then,
"On the subject of Lisa, I dug a little deeper after reading her death
certificate. Got a copy of the coroner's report."

           
Gin's heart kicked its rhythm up a
notch. "You have it with you?"

           
"No. It's back at my office.
But I read it through a couple of times. It summarized her whole medical
history. Let me tell you, Lisa Lathram was one troubled kid."

 
          
"You
mean she tried it before?"

           
He nodded. "Twice. Once with
pills. Once with a razor to the wrists."

           
Gin slumped in her chair. "How
awful."

 
          
"Apparently
neither attempt was that serious."

 
          
"But
she got it right the third time"

 
          
"That
was the real tragedy. According to the report, Lisa had been doing extremely
well on Prozac, which I understand was pretty new at the time Then suddenly,
boom, something happened and she went over the edge. Gulped all the old
antidepressants she'd squirreled away over the years. But the worst part was
she didn't take enough to kill her. Just enough to make her dopey and clumsy.
She toppled over a balcony and landed on a hard the floor. Doctor Lathram came
home and found her."

 
          
"Oh,
God. Poor
Duncan
." That explained it then, the sudden
radical change in
Duncan
's life. Everything must have fallen apart for him.

 
          
But
it didn't explain his mentioning Lisa to Allard two weeks ago.

 
          
"Any
hint in the report of a connection between Lisa and Congressman Allard?"

           
Gerry shook his head. "Not
that I saw. Of course, I wasn't looking for one. I'll make you a copy. But in
the meantime . . ." He leaned forward." I understand Lathram's
putting some sort of implants into his patients."

 
          
"How
. . . how'd you know about that?"

           
He shrugged. "It's no secret.
The FDA has him down as approved to do a clinical study. What's in those
implants anyway?"

           
"Just some enzymes and such to
reduce scarring."

 
          
"Well,
could there be something wrong with,?"

           
She gave in to a sudden urge to
defend
Duncan
. "Gerry, he does a dozen or more cases
a week. Very visible people. If there were something wrong with the implants,
there'd be nobody left to go to all those embassy parties."

 
          
"What
if he puts something different in certain implants . . . so he can get to
certain people . . . ?"

           
"Do you hear yourself, Gerry?
Dr. Duncan Lathram is lacing his implants with some mystery substance that
causes people to get drunk and wreck their car, commit suicide, fall down
steps, or have seizures. That's one hell of a versatile drug."

 
          
"Who
says it has to be one drug?"

           
"All right. I'll give you the
benefit of the doubt on that. But let's take Senator Vincent today. You're
saying that
Duncan
has such control over whatever drug he
supposedly used that he can make it go into effect on command, right in the
middle of a committee hearing. Is that what you really think?"

           
Gerry leaned back in his chair. Gin
could feel the frustration pouring out of him.

 
          
He
sighed. "Does sound pretty far Out, doesn't it?" He was silent for a
while, then he leaned forward again. "But something doesn't smell right,
Gin. I can't tell you how I know, or why, but my gut tells me something's going
on here."

 
          
"I
know what you mean, but it's just a string of coincidences.
Duncan
has his eccentricities, but he's not . . .
he isn't . . . "

           
"Look, just to shut me up,
could you bring me a sample of whatever it is he puts in those implants?"

           
"No, Gerry. I can't. That's
Oliver Lathram's concoction and it's not patentable. What do you want to do,
have it analyzed?"

           
"Just to see if there's
anything toxic in it."

 
          
"I
can assure you there's nothing toxic in that solution."

 
          
"Ever
hear of a binary poison?" Gerry said.

 
          
"No.
I don't know much about poisons."

 
          
"They
come in two parts. Neither half is toxic by itself, but when they meet in the
bloodstream and bind, wham."

 
          
"Very
interesting. But I'm still not getting you a sample. I couldn't. It would be a
breach of trust."

           
He nodded slowly. "Okay. I can
respect that. But keep your eyes open up there. And be careful. I don't want
anything happening to you."

           
Something happen to her? Absurd.

 
          
Gin
tried to lighten the mood by smiling and saluting him. "Aye, Captain
Queeg. And how would you like your strawberries, sir?"

           
Finally a smile broke through.
"You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

           
"No crazier than
I.
"

           
"See? We were made for each
other. Have dinner with me tonight?"

           
"Sure. How about my place?
I'll cook."

           
His eyes lit. "Really?"

           
"Bring Martha."

           
A little of that light faded in his
eyes. "Oh. I thought maybe you,"

           
"Surely you've figured out by
now that I only put up with you so I can see Martha."

           
"I can live with that,"
he said. "Whatever it takes."

           
Gin was touched. She reached across
and laid her hand on his. He gripped her fingers.

 
          
And
then the nachos arrived.

 
          
But
as Gina watched Gerry pile his plate, she heard, Could your Dr. Lathram have it
in for that committee or something?

 
          
Why
had those words come back?
Duncan
did have it in for the Guidelines committee. He ranted against it at
every opportunity.

 
          
But
at one time or another,
Duncan
ranted against just about everything and everyone in the government.
That didn't mean he was waging war on it.

 
          
Did
it?

 
          
She
shuddered briefly. An absurd thought.

 
          
Not
Duncan
. Even if it were possible. And it wasn't.
So why even consider it?

 
          
But
come to think of it,
Duncan
had disappeared right after Senator Vincent's seizure. With no offer of
help. Just like when Allard had fallen. No imagining there. Those were facts.

 
          
And
they bothered her.

GINA

           
FRIDAY GINA WAS BACK IN THE Lathram
OFFICE. SHE’D spent most of the morning assisting
Duncan
with a particularly difficult composite
rhytidectomy, in which all the underlying facial tissues are lifted as one
piece. Normally it would take five or six weeks for the facial swelling to
resolve from such an extensive procedure. With the help of Oliver's implants,
this particular sixty-two-year-old
Washington
doyenne would be back in the social whirl
well before then.

 
          
Duncan
had been in a particularly chipper mood
through the surgery, humming, joking. "No jeremiads about the lamentable
state of the nation today, ladies, " he'd said, sounding apologetic. No
one had complained.

 
          
Later
Gin wandered into Oliver's lab with a cup of coffee, looking to kill a little
time before starting on her presurgical exams for next week's cases. She
noticed he had a tray of large implants sitting on the counter. The empty
syringe and the bottle of normal saline solution sitting next to the tray
explained why the implants looked full.

 
          
She
bent over the tray for a closer look. Were these the new model Oliver had
mentioned? Looked just like the old model.

 
          
'"Hi
there, Gin." She looked up. Oliver was coming through the doorway, pushing
a wheeled cart ahead of him.

 
          
"What've
you got there?"

           
"An ultrasound unit." She
gave it a closer look. Not the diagnostic or imaging kind used in pregnancy.
This type was for deep-heating subcutaneous tissues. A big difference in power,
the former measured output in megahertz, the latter in watts.

 
          
"Going
into physical therapy as a sideline?" He chuckled.

           
"No. Just testing out the
latest batch of the new, improved implants."

           
He'd lost her. "With
ultrasound?"

           
"Sure. Just give me a second
to set up and I'll show you." He set the unit on the counter, plugged it
in, adjusted a few dials, then picked up the handle.

 
          
"Watch."
Oliver took the implant from the end of the row and moved it away from the
rest, placing it on the counter a couple of feet from the tray. He positioned
the ultrasound head over it and pressed the button on the handle. Immediately
the implant began to quiver, an instant later it dissolved, leaving a spreading
puddle on the counter.

 
          
He
placed another implant in the puddle and held the ultrasound head farther back.
The implant dissolved, the saline puddle enlarged.

 
          
He
did this repeatedly, each time backing farther away with the handle, each time
enlarging the puddle until finally it ran over the edge and dripped onto the
floor.

 
          
Gin
watched in wonder. "That's incredible," she said.

 
          
She
stepped to the counter for a closer look. Only minute shreds of the implant
membranes remained floating in the puddle.

 
          
"How
does it work?"

           
"I altered the crystal-protein
matrix," Oliver said as he unplugged the ultrasound unit. "I made it
more stable, more resistant to the body's tissue enzymes, but I rigged it so
that at a certain ultrasonic frequency, the crystals vibrate and dissolve the
matrix. As a result, the implant membrane collapses and releases its
contents."

 
          
"Brilliant."

 
          
"
Duncan
's idea, actually." Somewhere in the
rear of Gin's mind, a bell chimed a sour note.

 
          
"
Duncan
's?"

           
"Yes. He wants more control
over when the implants dissolve. As he says, why leave the ending up to the
vagaries of the circulatory system and the tissue enzymes? Let's develop
implants that empty when we tell them to." She remembered what she'd said
to Gerry after the Guidelines hearing earlier in the week. And not only can
this miracle toxin do all these different things, but
Duncan
has such control over it that he can make
it go into effect on command.

 
          
It
had sounded so absurd then, but the means were staring her in the face.

 
          
"Is
. . . is
Duncan
using these yet?"

           
"Oh, no. The FDA approved us
to do clinical trials with the original implants only." He flashed a
smile. "The Original Recipe, you might say. We'll have to go through the
whole approval process again for the new membrane."

 
          
"Oh.
So these are brand new." That's a relief,
Duncan
couldn't have used the new implants if they
hadn't existed at the times of the surgeries.

 
          
But
the relief was short-lived.

 
          
"Not
really," Oliver said. "I've been working on them for most of the
year. And they're still not perfected yet."

           
Gin swallowed. "Looks like
they work pretty well to me."

 
          
"Not
good enough yet for
Duncan
. He wants a more stable membrane, one that will last almost
indefinitely until hit with the right ultrasound frequency."

   
        
"Do you see any clinical purpose
in that?" Oliver shook his head.

 
          
"No.
But
Duncan
's the doctor, not me. He knows what he
wants." Gin helped Oliver mop up the saline with paper towels, but all the
while her thoughts were looping in wild circles. She slowed them down,
straightened them out. She had to approach this logically, like a diagnostic
puzzle. Lay out the facts first, then draw conclusions.

 
          
All
right,
Duncan
did have the means to implant a toxin of
some sort inside his patients and release it at will.

 
          
No,
not at will. He had to zap it with ultra-high-frequency sound.

 
          
If
Duncan
had been responsible for what had happened
to Senator Vincent, he'd have had to wheel an ulttasound machine into the
hearing room and point it at the senator.

 
          
Ridiculous.

 
          
Still,
the ultrasound demonstration left a residue on her thoughts, a sour mental
aftertaste.

 
          
She
went looking for
Duncan
. She'd forgotten to check with him about putting in a few extra hours
here until the hearings got underway again.

 
          
And
she needed to talk to him, to reassure herself.

 
          
"Oh,
he's gone," Barbara told her as Gin went to knock on
Duncan
's office door.

 
          
"Out
with the mysterious Dr. V., I suppose?"

           
"No. Dr. V.'s not due back for
a while. Dr. D. said he was heading for the golf course."

           
"Damn. I wanted to catch him
before he left."

 
          
"He's
not gone all that long. I'll try his car phone." Barbara punched in some
numbers, waited, then hung up. "No luck there. I can page him for
you."

 
          
"No.
I don't want him coming off the golf course just to talk to me. It's not that
imporrant. What's the number of his club? Maybe he's still in the
clubhouse."

 
          
"Want
me to call for you?"

           
"No, thanks. I'll call him
myself." Barbara looked it up and wrote it down.

 
          
Gin
used the records-room phone. First she tried the club dining room, but he
wasn't there. Then she tried the pro shop. Maybe she could catch him before he
started his round.

 
          
"Doc
Lathram?" said the chief caddy. "Haven't got a tee time for
him."

 
          
"Maybe
he's playing with someone else."

 
          
"Maybe,
but I ain't seen the Doc round here for months."

           
"Are you sure?"

           
"Missy, I'm here just hour
every day. Doc Larhram's been a member here forever, but it must be six months
since I put his bags on the back of a cart. But if he shows up I'll give him a
message if you want."

 
          
"No,"
Gin said. "Never mind." What's that all about? she thought as she
hung up. When he hasn't been bitching about the kakistocracy, it's been about
his golf, his slice, his bogies, complaining about the condition of the greens.

 
          
So
what's he been up to?

 
          
Not
golf, obviously. What else had he been lying about?

 
          
Gin
was uncomfortable. She didn't like the idea of Duncan Lying, to her or anyone else.

 
          
On
impulse she went back upstairs and returned to
Duncan
's office.

 
          
"I
left some papers on his desk," she told Barbara as she breezed by her.

 
          
Great,
she thought as she swung the door open. Now I'm lying too.

 
          
Tense
and uneasy, feeling like a sneak, she went to the big partners desk and tugged
on the top drawer. It wouldn't budge. Locked.

 
          
Damn.

 
          
She
dropped into his chair and slouched there, swinging back and forth, wondering
what to do.

 
          
What,
if anything, was going on here? And what should she, could she, do?

 
          
Most
likely it was all just nothing, but she had to ask herself, Did
Duncan
have anything to do with those four dead or
damaged legislators?

 
          
Probably
not. Their deaths, accidents, and illnesses weren't really linked . . . just
one of those weird coincidences that sometimes occur. . . the kind of
coincidence that gets conspiracy theories started.

 
          
Still,
why was he lying about where he went when he cut out of here early every
afternoon? Did that really matter?

 
          
But
she had seen an injection vial of something in
Duncan
's top drawer, also some sort of trocar. Why
were they -- there? What was in that bottle? Why did he keep the drawer locked?

 
          
Damn!
She hated doubting
Duncan
like this. But why wasn't he where he'd said he'd be? Where the hell
was he?

 
          
Duncan
removed the dressing from Kanesha's face
and studied his work.