The First Patient

CHAPTER 35

Alison spent a sluggish morning in the White House clinic, wondering if it was metaphysically and psychologically possible to be absolutely obsessed with two men at the same time.

Her attraction to Gabe had been smoldering since the moment they first met. Now she had trouble focusing her thoughts on anything else-anything, that was, except for Treat Griswold or Don Greenfield, or whoever the Secret Service icon was today.

Actually, this was a Griswold day, or at least a Griswold morning. She had seen the man take the elevator up to the residence and return soon after with the president's widely beloved dog, a handsome, powerful pit bull terrier, following dutifully at his heel. The two of them had gone into the Rose Garden for a time and then returned. It all seemed so typically normal. But nothing involving that man would ever be normal again.

Restless and feeling scattered and distracted, Alison ran meaningless errands and made two trips to visit with friends in the clinic on the first floor of the Eisenhower Building next door. It was a blessing that, to this point in the morning at least, nothing medical had happened to the president or to any of the visitors to the White House. There was no predicting how she might have responded.

The physician on duty with her, a humorless Army major, who looked too young to be a doctor, let alone a White House doctor, kept his nose buried in journals most of the morning.

Her thoughts about Griswold inevitably included memories of L.A., her friend Janie, and the 4Cs surgeons. She was hardly prepared yet for the fallout that was sure to accompany any effort to expose the agent. And in fact, his perversion, assuming that was what Beatriz represented, might well have nothing to do with the president or the bronchodilator inhaler, in which case there was really nothing to expose. But then again, because of her refusal to accept what seemed like a fairly minor break in protocol, a path had opened. Now it would be foolish not to follow that path to the end.

As the morning had worn on, Alison had became more and more fixated on the consideration, however remote, that the inhaler Griswold was using might have more inside it than simply Alupent. At this point, the notion made little sense, but it had moved in and taken up residence in her mind. Rumors-the very rumors that had led her chief to send her into the White House undercover-had been whispering that Drew Stoddard was mentally unstable. True or not, it was her job, quietly but quickly, to investigate anything related to that possibility. If nothing else, she decided, in addition to fleshing out Donald Greenfield and his relationship to the women of Beechtree Road, she had to examine the contents of the inhaler Griswold carried in the inner breast pocket of his suit coat.

Piece of cake, she thought, grinning sardonically as she checked supplies and certified that the defibrillator was ready and waiting. If Treat Griswold wasn't the toughest and sharpest of the president's protectors, he was close. Short of coming on to him in a manner she was absolutely averse to, there was no way she was going to get near that inhaler, let alone switch it for a duplicate.

In his transformation from Treat Griswold to Donald Greenfield, he had either left his suit coat locked in Griswold's car in the Fredericksburg garage or placed it in the luggage compartment of Greenfield's Porsche. It seemed like somewhere in that transformation there might be a moment, but no approach was lighting up for her. She considered and discarded several other possibilities, each time coming back to the one scenario she had absolutely rejected, an all-out come-on, taken far enough to get Griswold's jacket off.

No way! she decided emphatically. As a Secret Service agent, she had vowed to sacrifice all for president and country. But allowing a beast like Treat Griswold to-

Her thoughts were interrupted abruptly by the germ of an idea. For several minutes, like an enophile with a new wine, she did nothing but explore the possibility from every aspect. Then she began to savor it. At that moment, the idea was still a remote possibility-nothing more. To make it work would require a number of pieces falling into place, followed by a hell of a lot of luck. But the best alternative she had been able to come up with to this point was unacceptable.

She approached the studious young physician in his office and asked to take the rest of the day off to deal with a nearly incapacitating migraine.

"Need anything for it?" he asked, barely glancing up from his New England Journal of Medicine.

"No, no. I have exactly what I need at home."

In truth, what she needed was right in her purse, her address book, and in her jacket pocket, her cell phone. Somewhere in that book was the initial step in converting a remote possibility into a plan-the phone number of Seth Owens of San Antonio. FBI agent Seth Owens.