The First Patient

CHAPTER 36

Well, Doctor," Lily said, "I can't begin to tell you what a pleasure this has been, getting to drink tea and break bread with the most talked about man in D.C."

"The most talked about man in D.C.? Now that's a little hard to believe."

"Well, it's true-not even a contest. In Washington it is all about proximity and access to the president. Nothing more, nothing less. Proximity and access. In lesser cases, it becomes proximity and access to the ones with proximity and access. You, sir, are not only the new man on campus, but you are handsome, unassuming, and have total access to the big guy. Now, if that doesn't get you talked about, I don't know what does."

She shrugged matter-of-factly and held her hands out as if to say, That's the way it is.

No, Gabe thought. The way it is, is that you have a relationship with Jim Ferendelli that you're willing to lie to protect.

The two of them sat across from one another on fine leather sofas in Lily's richly paneled den, sipping tea from ample Oriental mugs and sampling a variety of tiny pastries and wafers.

"Remember, we still have tuna steak and salad waiting," Lily said. "Save some room."

"No problem. I'm ready for lunch and I'm very ready to feel a saddle beneath my butt. I'm grateful to you for this day, Lily. I haven't felt this at ease since the president showed up at my place with the suggestion that I come out here."

"Why, Doctor, what a very kind and very gracious thing for you to say."

"Okay, no more 'Doctor,' unless you want me to start calling you that. I'm sure you know it, but a Ph.D. in just about any field is much harder to get than an M.D. anyway. If anyone deserves to be called Doctor, it's you guys."

"More tea… Gabe?"

"I guess one more cup. I don't usually love tea, except iced, and then only outside on the hottest days, but this is really delicious."

"It converted me from coffee. I discovered it on a trip to western China, and now I have it shipped in regularly. From what I've been told, it's a variety of Camellia sinensis that doesn't grow anywhere else in that country, and maybe in the world. The closest I've encountered to it is Keemun black tea, but they really aren't that similar."

She picked up a small bell from the coffee table and shook it once. In seconds, the smiling, robust black woman who had been serving them materialized with another cup of the remarkable brew. It was a rich, translucent rusty brown, with an aroma and taste that reminded Gabe of… of what? Cinnamon? Honey? Some sort of nut? All three guesses were good ones, he acknowledged, but none of them was quite right.

He breathed in, then exhaled contentedly-almost a sigh. It had been his intention to move any conversation to the dual subjects of interest to him-Jim Ferendelli and nanotechnology. But now he realized that his sharp sense of urgency was gone.

He took another sip of tea, then forced himself to sit more upright and to push back against the euphoria and complacency that seemed to have overtaken him. Helping to bring him back on task was the realization that the unique turquoise necklace Lily was wearing today was precisely the one Ferendelli had drawn in the charcoal rendering of her. Why was she lying?

"Ready for some lunch?" she asked, reaching for the bell.

"In a moment."

"Are you okay? You look a little glassy-eyed."

"No, no. I'm fine. A little tired is all."

"Would you like to postpone our ride for another time?"

"Hardly. I've been looking forward to it. What was the horse's name? Intensive Care?"

"Close. He's named Serious Therapy. You'll love him."

Gabe was beginning to feel a bit more in control.

"So, here's what happened," he managed. "Ever since I arrived at the White House, I've been trying to piece together the life of Jim Ferendelli-to try and get some clue as to what might have happened to him. Did you know that not only has Ferendelli disappeared, but his daughter as well? She was going to school in New York."

"Oh, I didn't know. That's very frightening."

"You said you had met him?"

"Just once. We didn't have time to get to know one another."

"From what I can tell, he seems like quite a guy-sort of a Renaissance man, into art, photography, medicine, music."

"Fascinating."

"Yes. Well, I know that both the FBI and Secret Service investigators are very involved in the search for him, but I decided to walk through his place looking for anything that might have meant something to me as a doc, but that the investigators might have passed by. And believe it or not, I found something on his bookshelf-at least I might have."

"Go on."

"Jim Ferendelli had become fascinated with nanotechnology-especially the medical aspects of nanotechnology. He has a collection of books on the subject in his library, from Nanotechnology for Dummies to some fairly sophisticated scientific texts. I thought I remembered you mentioning the field when we spoke, so I figured I might kill three birds with one stone by seeing you, going riding, and picking your brain on the subject."

"Well, I assure you, Gabe, while I may have mentioned nanotechnology as one of the interests of the administration, I am far from an academic expert on the subject." Lily surprised Gabe at that moment by once again ringing the tiny bell, as if she was dropping the subject altogether. "Maddy," she said to her servant, "is lunch ready?"

"All set, Ms. Lily."

"Good. We'll be there in just a minute. I know you've got business in town. You can leave for the day as soon as you've taken care of the dishes."

"Thank you, Ms. Lily."

"And Maddy, please call William at the stables and tell him we'll be ready to ride in thirty-five minutes."

"Yes, ma'am."

Gabe tried quite unsuccessfully to imagine himself so at ease dealing with servants. He couldn't even deal with his horses on anything but a strictly even basis. If Lily Sexton wasn't born into the role of mistress of the manor, she had certainly succeeded in the adaptation.

It wasn't until they were settled in at one end of her impressive dining room table that she finally brought the subject back to nanotechnology.

"I suppose if you've been studying, you have some grounding in the field," she said.

"Well, I know about the Eric Drexler talk that sort of started it all. And I know some of the very basic chemistry and a bit about the potential of the science and how it stands to impact all of our lives. But I really still don't know where speculation and potential stop and reality begins."

"Well, neither does the president, or any other government agency for that matter, from Capitol Hill down to the smallest town. It's one thing to be excited that nanosilver shoe disinfectants is becoming a new industry. It's another to try and determine what the effect of aerosolized or ingested nanosilver particles would be on human organs."

"So you think new public health laws are needed?"

"The president does, and that's what counts."

"But what happens if every governmental agency from Congress to the East Podunk City Council starts drafting control legislation-especially when they're operating with outdated or little or even no scientific information?"

"That's exactly what the president is trying to head off at the pass by forming this new cabinet post, centralizing control of the new sciences, and drafting well-thought-out, comprehensive legislation, with curbs on unbridled research. We know that industry and especially big pharma would always rather ask forgiveness than permission. We'll be trying to circumvent that without stifling creativity and without smothering what will probably be the most important development in our civilization since fiberoptics, and may turn out to be the linchpin of science for the next several centuries."

"The ability to construct beginning with atoms. That's some power," Gabe said, as much to himself as his hostess.

"The truth is, I don't particularly want the sort of clout and responsibility that would go along with being the Secretary of Science and Technology," Lily said, "but the other truth is, I don't want anybody else to have it, either."

"Any ideas why Jim Ferendelli would have developed such an intense interest in the field?"

Lily shook her head.

"He never contacted me about it. But you should know that except for maybe understanding the organic chemistry surrounding fullerenes and nanotubes, I am no expert, and if Dr. Ferendelli had been studying as hard as you say, I may not even know as much as he did-I mean does."

"I certainly hope does is right," Gabe said.

It would have been great to have Kyle Blackthorn there to help him sort out how much of what Lily had been saying was a lie. The meeting tonight in Anacostia would surely help straighten things out, but as his euphoria gradually abated and his focus sharpened, Gabe found himself wishing more and more for an unencumbered hour or two to look around Lily's mansion for any evidence that she knew Jim Ferendelli more intimately than she claimed.

"Want seconds?" Lily asked, gesturing to Gabe's empty plate.

"Um… no, thanks. I'm done."

She rang one of the ubiquitous little bells and Maddy materialized to clear the table.

"I'll tell you what, I'll answer any questions that occur to you during or after our ride. Maddy, just leave the house open when you go. We'll be back in an hour-two at the most."

The servant smiled cheerily, nodded at her boss, then at Gabe, and quietly receded to the kitchen.

Gabe wondered in passing if Maddy was as content with her life as she seemed to be. One thing he strongly suspected was that the woman wouldn't be able to remember the last time she caught someone in a lie as monumental as the one Lily Sexton seemed to be caught in now.

Maybe Lily had a man in her life, Gabe mused, and was having an illicit affair with Ferendelli. He followed her downstairs to a lower level that didn't exist on the front side of the house, then out a back door to the stables. An illicit affair would fit most, if not all, of the facts.

As Lily had ordered, the horses were ready and waiting. Serious Therapy was a sturdy bay quarter horse with a distinctive blaze along his nose from high on his forehead to his muzzle.

"I like him already," Gabe said, checking the tightness of the cinch and the length of the stirrups before swinging easily onto a hand-tooled saddle that might have cost as much as his car.

Lily eschewed the offer of a leg up from William, the stable man, but did use a low step to mount Belle Starr, an elegant steel gray mare. Side by side, Lily and Gabe began a slow walk past the corrals and out along a slightly shaded trail heading toward denser forest and the hills. For five minutes, perhaps even longer, little was said between them. As advertised, Serious Therapy was special-powerful, alert, and responsive. Later, when Gabe had the chance to reflect on these qualities, he concluded that they might well have been responsible for saving his life.

Lost in the perfection of the moment and in thoughts around the mysterious, unfathomable woman riding a few feet to the left and in front of him, he wasn't certain whether or not he had seen movement ahead of them and to the right, quite far into the woods. The possibility triggered a small jet of adrenaline-enough of a rush so that, when the threat became clear, his reaction was quick.

The horses had slowed as they headed up a modest rise. The man dressed in black and wearing a black ski mask materialized from behind a tree, twenty-five yards or so to their right. His rifle, with what might have been a hunting sight, was aimed directly at Gabe.

"Lily!" Gabe barked.

He reflexively pulled his reins back and sharply to the left. Serious Therapy went straight up on his hind legs and pirouetted like a ballet dancer, spinning to the left.

At the same instant, the rifle spit off one shot, then another. Gabe heard the second bullet snap into a tree somewhere to his left.

Belle Starr reared, as had Gabe's horse, but Lily was totally unprepared. She lost her seat and was airborne before she could respond, twisting ungracefully, then landing heavily on her left side, crying out in pain as she hit the hard-packed dirt.

Gabe clambered to the ground, thinking that she had been shot. Hunched low and weaving, he raced to where she lay, groaning and in obvious pain. Belle Starr stood dutifully nearby. The gunman was gone. Far to his right, Gabe thought he saw movement through the distant trees, but then there was nothing. Cautiously, his eyes still fixed on the forest, he turned to Lily.

She was conscious but in severe pain.

"Are you shot?"

"I… I don't think so. My shoulder. I think it's broken or-"

"Easy, Lily. Your neck hurt?"

"No… not really."

"Well, try not to move it anyway."

Her face was ashen, and already she was showing the early signs of shock. Careful to keep her left shoulder as stable as possible, Gabe checked her quickly for any gunshot wounds, then had her move her legs and left arm and finally turned his attention to the shoulder that, if she was lucky, was fractured just below the head of the humerus and, if she was quite unlucky, was both fractured and dislocated. Either way, she was shocky and in need of attention.

He slipped off Belle Starr's saddle and used it to elevate Lily's legs. Then he stabilized her shoulder with the saddle blanket. Finally, he eased off her boots and slid them, toe first, one on each side, under her neck. When he was certain there was at least some splinting action from the boots he warned her not to turn her head or move unless she absolutely had to.

Then he swung up into the saddle, with Serious Therapy galloping the moment his feet were firmly in the stirrups, and bolted back down the trail.