"But you didn't buy that."

"Once I began to sense what she wanted, I couldn't believe the president wasn't going to be harmed anymore. So I took off. At the very least I knew what she had done. I didn't think Lily and her people would do anything to harm the president as long as I was on the loose and hadn't said anything to anyone about her."

"What did she want you to do?"

"I don't know for certain, but from pieces of what she said, I had the feeling that at some time in the near future they were going to ask me to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment and spearhead the movement to replace Drew because of his mental illness."

"Oh, man. But why? Do you think Bradford Dunleavy could be behind this?"

"Possible, I suppose."

"How about Tom Cooper?"

"I don't know. He seems sincere enough, and he's been a loyal vice president, but I also know he's very ambitious, and we're talking about the presidency of the United States."

"Very folksy, but very smart. I agree. A couple of days ago he came by the office and pumped me for information on Drew's mental health."

"Did you tell him anything?"

"No, no, I certainly didn't. Jim, why did you stay around D.C.?"

"I've been waiting."

"For what?"

"For you-for this meeting. I don't trust anyone, Dr. Singleton-anyone, that is, besides you."

"Explain."

"Someone close to the president is involved in this. I mean someone very close-closer to him than Lily. I have no reason to believe Drew has been having tea with her-certainly not enough to account for all the attacks he has had. According to Lily, the chemicals have to be delivered over time-multiple doses. That means somebody has been dosing Drew continuously with the drug-loaded fullerenes, and also has been causing them to break open and deliver their payload, probably on cue. Someone has to trigger the transmitter to do that."

Gabe couldn't bring himself to tell the man that there was every reason to believe that, like Ferendelli and the president, he was now a walking time bomb, too, at least to the extent that a couple of cups of Lily's tea could deliver.

"What people are you talking about? Who might be in a position to do this to Drew?" he asked.

"The list is an imposing one. The president's wife and children, the twenty-five or so people in the kitchen, the chief of staff and his office, the staff secretary and her office, the cabinet, the Military Office."

"That would be my pal Ellis Wright."

"Ah, yes, the admiral," Ferendelli said. "I hope your relationship with him is cheerier than mine."

"No chance," Gabe said. "He clearly can't abide anyone he can't control. This list of yours is getting quite long."

"Oh, I'm just getting started. There are thirty or so in the medical office, and think of the dozens of housekeepers and other servants-people who just come and go virtually unnoticed."

"And the Secret Service."

"I don't know any exact numbers for them, but probably a few hundred have direct access to the president at one time or another."

"And of all these people you just listed, it only takes one."

"It only takes one," Ferendelli echoed sadly. "And I think he or she has got to be pretty close for the transmitter to work."

"How do you know that?"

"A man has been after me-a professional hit man."

Gabe felt a chill.

"How do you know he's a professional?"

"He uses a silencer. A week or ten days ago, I stopped by my place in Georgetown for some papers. I hadn't been there for twenty minutes when I heard him opening the front door with a damn key. Probably one Lily had made. I managed to get out the basement and down to the Potomac, where I hid along the bank. Then, just a couple of days ago, he showed up at a hobo village where I was hiding while I figured out how to contact you. He killed one of the guys there. Shot him in the face just like that. Again I got out before he found me. Later, I went back. The guys told me he used a transmitter. I couldn't have been more than fifty or seventy-five yards away when he did, but nothing happened."

"Fifty yards," Gabe said, now consumed by a sense of foreboding. "Jim, is there anything else you can tell me about the man? Anything at all?"

"I only saw him in the tunnel-not in the house. And it's pretty gloomy down there. But there was one thing-he was southern. No doubt about that. Heavy accent. Georgia maybe, maybe Alabama. I'm not good at those things."

Trouble. The same man had gone after both Ferendelli and Blackthorn.

Instinctively Gabe scanned from the river across the field to the street and back.

At that instant, from somewhere far behind them came a soft, almost inaudible, crunch of glass.

A homing device! Gabe thought suddenly. The killer had to have fixed some sort of homing device to his car.

"Jim," he whispered urgently, "he's here-somewhere behind us. Get ready to run toward my car. It's way to the left, near that streetlight."

"But-"

Gabe could wait no longer. He grabbed Ferendelli by the arm and pulled him out into the field.

"There they are!" a southern voice behind them called out loudly. "Over there! Right over there!"

CHAPTER 48

There they are. Over there! Right over there!"

There were at least two of them, Gabe thought as he half-guided, half-dragged Ferendelli across the field of the Anacostia River Basin. A homing device on the Buick! That had to be it. That explained how the killer had found Blackthorn's hotel. And if the shooter on the trail by Lily's stables didn't directly tail him to Flint Hill, he could have easily followed Gabe using some sort of GPS device.

Gabe couldn't clear the notion from his mind of the mess he had made of things by not being more vigilant.

Although Ferendelli was just a few years older than Gabe was, his weeks of hiding seemed to have broken him physically. His reaction time was delayed, and he was gasping for air after just a few strides.

"I see them!" the southern voice from behind them yelled. "They're headed across the field toward you."

"Toward you!"

Gabe peered ahead to where the Buick was parked. Coming around the rear end of the car was a man, a gun in his right hand-or maybe, Gabe realized, it was the ultrasonic transmitter Ferendelli had told him about, the transmitter that could end either or both of their lives. He glanced over his shoulder. Just emerging from the darkness beneath the bridge was the professional killer Ferendelli had told him about, also holding up something in his right hand.

"Oh, God," Gabe muttered. "Jim, let's head this way, toward the river. It's our best chance."

"Can't."

"Come on, you can! You've got to!"

Ferendelli was staggering now, almost deadweight, grunting and lurching from side to side. Gabe risked another check of their pursuers. Both men were gaining on them. He could feel himself beginning to flag and to panic. A severe stitch in his right side had materialized and with every breath began slicing into him like dagger thrusts.

"Go!" Ferendelli gasped. "I… can't… do… this."

"Come on, Jim. Dammit, come on!"

They were still perhaps fifty yards from the river. Then what? Gabe asked himself. What if they made it? Again he glanced back. There was still some distance between them and each man, but the one coming from the bridge, the hit man, was far closer than the other and closing fast. If it was a pistol in the killer's hand, they were already near being in range. Either the men had instructions not to draw attention to the field with gunshots or they were intent on capturing him and Ferendelli alive.

Of course, there was another possibility. If the range of the transmitters was thirty yards or less, both pursuers would be in range soon.