Here was the real key to Duncan's phenomenal popularity. He had the best hands in the business, but that was only part of his appeal.

These implants did the rest, allowing his patients the fastest recovery time, speeding them back into circulation to show off their new faces.

The brainchild of Duncan's younger brother, the implants were a crystal-protein matrix consisting of magnesium and albumin. Shortly after Gin came on staff, Oliver had shown her serial magnetic-resonance images of the implants after surgery. Each successive MRI showed a shrinking, shriveling membrane as the implant released its enzyme contents into the subcutaneous tissues to reduce scarring and post-operative edema. The final MRI a few weeks post-op showed nothing, After the implant had done its work, the crystals dissolved and the body's enzymes broke down the albumin to its component ammo acids, those were absorbed along with the magnesium into the surrounding tissues and eventually into the bloodstream, leaving no trace.

With a probe, Gin nudged one of the implants onto the special narrow, oblong spoon Duncan had custom-made after too many implants ruptured in the grip of an ordinary forceps. She reached over and gently deposited it in the incision. Duncan used a probe to position the implant where he wanted it, then signaled for another. When he had four of them placed deep in the incision, he moved his field closer to the surface.

"He looks younger already, ' Gin said.

Right, Duncan thought as he trimmed a wedge of platysma. Just what I want to do, make this bastard look younger.

What he really would have liked to do was restructure Vincent's features into a configuration that reflected the man within. Not too hard with Vincent . . . slant the eyes, tilt up the nose, spread the nostrils, flare the lips . . . and find some way to make him say "I'm

Senator Harold Hogg, potentate of the pork barrel.

He smiled under the mask. He'd had so many of Congress's Old Boys on the table, he could have changed the face of American politics by now, literally.

I could be Dr. Moreau in reverse. Instead of vivisecting animals into men, I'd recast pols into the animals and reptiles they emulate. I could wear a mask and skulk through the halls of the Capitol, Duncan Lathram, the anti-Moreau, demon doctor of devolution, Phantom of the Longworth Building, scourge of the Senate shuttle. A peal of insane laughter now and I'll be ready for Hollywood .

He sighed. Nothing so melodramatic for Senator Vincent. But Duncan did have definite plans for him.

Don't worry, Senator. You'll get yours. Trust me.

As he was placing the final implants he heard Gin's voice but didn't catch what she said.

"Hmmm? " "I said, what is it exactly that so irks you about the joint committee?

Gin's dark, dark eyes were fixed on him expectantly, as if his answer mattered very much to her. Under that cap and mask was a sultry Mediterranean beauty with wild, glossy black hair, full lips, high cheekbones, and flawless skin. A narrow waist and a perfect bust.

Nothing at all like the pimply, pudgy adolescent who'd worked in his file room a dozen or so years ago. In fact, when she'd shown up last June looking for part-time work as a physician, and told him who she was, he'd half considered having her investigated as an impostor.

The ugly duckling had returned as a swan. A dark swan. A cygnet.

But if he had been twenty minutes later in getting to that emergency room nineteen years ago, she wouldn't be anywhere now. That had been the great perk of his former life, saving someone who might make a difference in the world.

And he loved the way she'd started coming up with new words for him.

One day she'd stump him, but that was all right.

Seems I did us all a favor when I put your insides back together, Gin.

Not for the first time, he questioned having changed his field of practice, but only for a heartbeat. The choice had been made for him.

No going back.

But where was Gin going with all her brains and hardwon education?

"What irks me? " he said slowly as he began restructuring Vincent's trimmed platysma. "I don't think too much of the Joint Committee on Medical Ethics and Practice Guidelines." He made a point of enunciating the committee's name in its entirety. Simply saying the joint committee didn't do justice to the pretentiousness of its title.

"I don't like its name, I don't approve of its mission, and I think it is staffed with arrivistes, parvenus, Pecksniffs, and bumptious ... yanoos He watched Gin's dark eyes crinkle at the corners.

I made her smile.

'"Hey, don't hold back, " she said. "Tell me what you really think. ' He would have liked to tell her the truth about what they did to his life, his family, but that would serve no purpose.

Never complain, never explain.

"Do you know what they're up to? " he said.

"Well, I understand it was the president's idea to revive the old McCready committee." Duncan straightened and paused in his suturing.

He didn't trust himself with a scalpel in his hand and McCready on his mind.

"Alas, our dear president didn't get his health-care plan, so he's taking it out on the medical profession. A medical guidelines bill wasn't good enough7 wasn't broad enough. No. Now it's mandates on medical ethics." Duncan closed his eyes to control his fury.

"Can you imagine it? Mark Twain said there's no distinct American criminal class except for Congress. And yet this collection of edacious, minatory pharisees is going to deliver ethical guidelines to a profession'that has had a code of ethics since the time of Babylon. " "We're not all so perfect, either, ' Gin said.

'"If all you've got is larceny in your heart, you don't spend four years in premed, four years in med school, three to ten years in postgraduate training working hundred-hour weeks at slightly more than minimum wage, all for the privilege of being six figures in debt by the time you hang out your shingle."

"Of course not, " Gin said. "You do it SQ you can work seventy-hour weeks for the rest of your life." Duncan smiled and felt his muscles relax. My dear cygnet. It's good to have you around.

He'd finished resecting and tightening the platysma. Time to close.

He asked for 6-o gut on a curved needle. Using a continuous subcutaneous technique, he began suturing.

"Anyway, " she said, "since Senator Marsden is McCready's successor, he's been asked to chair the joint committee. Got any dirt on him? ' Why was she so interested?

"Actually7 no7 Duncan said. "But he hasn't been around all that long.

Give him time You know what the committee's up to, don't you? " "Holding public hearings to gather information to help them write the bill? " "Their stated purpose, at the president's behest, is to set rigid standards for medical practice. What they're really out to do is parade a bunch of horror stories before the public present a lot of one-sided testimony on the worst cases of negligence and medical malfeasance they can find and paint the whole medical profession as a cartel of reckless, irresponsible, knife-happy, money-grubbing brigands who must be brought to heel."

"Um? don't you think you sound just a little paranoid? " With good reason7 he thought.

"Even paranoids have real enemies7 Gin. They're out to get us, pure and simple. I know how that sounds, but that's how I see it. They're at the bottom of the heap in public confidence, and they want to draw attention away from their own unwillingness to police themselves. " '"But their ethics committees go after people all the time" Duncan laughed. "Congressional ethics, there's an oxymoron for you. Only on those rare occasions when the press turns up the heat, only when their backs are to the wall and they have to do something."