"Time?"

"Tonight. No, no, wait. Tomorrow. I'll stop by the hospital to pick it up tomorrow morning."

"Very well," the pharmacist said. "I'll be here."

Alison set down the receiver on the examining room phone and entered the doctor's office—Gabe's office. It was nearing seven and there was no sign of him. She wished that somewhere along the line she had thought to get his cell phone number. There was much for them to talk about. Still, it might have been for the best that she hadn't called him yet. She had time now to think over how much she wanted to disclose—to him or to head of internal affairs Mark Fuller. She had evidence that Treat Griswold was probably involved in a perversion involving young girls—or at least one particular young girl. That in itself made him an easy mark for extortion.

In addition, she had hard evidence that Griswold had broken with unwritten White House law by repeatedly handling the president's medications—specifically his inhaler. Whether or not there was a connection between the inhaler and any psychiatric problems the president might be having would depend on what a sophisticated analysis of the contents revealed.

What she had at this point might have been enough to present to Fuller, but there was no way she was going to put her career on the line and go up against the most powerful and respected agent in the Secret Service without more than indirect evidence and speculation. She needed proof of his relationship to the girls on Beechtree Road, and she needed a positive analysis of the contents of the inhaler he had repeatedly given the president to use. Lester had done his job well, although according to him, his life may have been spared by a fortuitous call on Griswold's cell phone.

If she was to move at all against the president's number-one Secret Service man, she needed absolute proof of wrongdoing. Los Angeles had taught her that having unsubstantiated knowledge, good intentions, and the willingness to engage in a she said/he said confrontation simply wasn't enough to blow the whistle on anyone with clout.

Her plan was to have the contents of several Alupent inhalers analyzed, including the one Lester had taken from Griswold. But there was no way she could risk going through Mark Fuller or anyone else connected with the Secret Service to do so. It seemed Fuller had done a decent job of protecting her identity until now, but despite what he had told her, it was hard to believe no one except Fuller knew that she had been sent into the White House undercover. The Service was very closely knit, and with a man of Griswold's stature involved, sooner rather than later there were bound to be leaks.