"Senator Impatience here couldn't wait, " Duncan said as he worked.

"An emergency, he told me. Had to have it immediately. Any one care to guess what the emergency is? " "Has to be TV, " Marie said from her spot at the top of the senator's head.

"Bingo. Give that woman a cigar." Marie didn't miss a beat, "Not while the o2 is running, thank you."

"It's the Joint Committee on Medical Ethics and Practice Guidelines, of course, " Duncan said.

Gin stifled a groan. Here we go again. The joint committee was on Duncan's Permanently-Ticks-Me-Off list. He hated it and everything it was set up to do. He could go on for hours. Today the subject was a particularly uncomfortable one for Gin, what with no word from Senator Marsden's office, and her pending interview with Congressman Allard tomorrow.

"I've seen Senator Vincent on TV plenty of times, " Gin said, sponging the blood that began pooling in the incision.

"Sure. C-SPAN. But who besides you and I watches CSPAN? This boy has his eye on a much larger audience. Suction. Daily sound and video bites for all the network news shows, even looking for some live prime-time coverage. And our self-styled Champion of the Working Person' wants to look pretty for the nation. Clamp." Gin glanced at Joanna who rolled her dark eyes as she slapped the handles of the clamp into Duncan's gloved palm. He' olf to the races.

All right, so Duncan had a few fixations. Everybody had one or two.

His just happened to be the Old-Boy network in the federal government and its intrusion into the practice of medicine. But even from his ramblings you could learn something.

"Some champion, " he continued.