The Third Twin Part 15

"It bothers me, too," Jeannie said. "I know you wouldn't have done it if you didn't feel sure."

"How can you be so certain I'm wrong?"

"I'm not certain about anything. I just have a strong feeling about Steve Logan."

"It seems to me that you should weigh a feeling against an eyewitness certainty, and believe the eyewitness."

"I know. But did you ever see that Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k show? It's in black and white, you catch reruns sometimes on cable."

"I know what you're going to say. The one where four people witness a road accident and each one sees something different."

"Are you offended?"

Lisa sighed. "I ought to be, but I like you too much to be mad at you about it."

Jeannie reached across and squeezed Lisa's hand. "Thanks."

There was a long silence, then Lisa said: "I hate it that people think I'm weak."

Jeannie frowned. "I don't think you're weak."

"Most people do. It's because I'm small, and I have a cute little nose, and freckles."

"Well, you don't look look tough, it's true." tough, it's true."

"But I am. I live alone, I take care of myself, I hold down a job, and n.o.body f.u.c.ks with me. Or so I thought, before Sunday. Now I feel people are right: I am am weak. I can't take care of myself at all! Any psychopath walking around the streets can grab me and hold a knife in my face and do what he wants with my body and leave his sperm inside me." weak. I can't take care of myself at all! Any psychopath walking around the streets can grab me and hold a knife in my face and do what he wants with my body and leave his sperm inside me."

Jeannie looked across at her. Lisa was white-faced with pa.s.sion. Jeannie hoped it was doing her good to get these feelings out. "You're not weak," she said.

"You're tough," Lisa said. tough," Lisa said.

"I have the opposite problem-people think I'm invulnerable. Because I'm six feet tall and I have a pierced nostril and a bad att.i.tude, they imagine I can't be hurt."

"You don't have a bad att.i.tude."

"I must be slipping."

"Who thinks you're invulnerable? I don't."

"The woman who runs the Bella Vista, the home my mom's in. She said to me, straight out, 'Your mother will never see sixty-five.' Just like that. 'I know you'd prefer me to be honest,' she said. I wanted to tell her that just because there's a ring in my nose it doesn't mean I have no G.o.dd.a.m.n feelings."

"Mish Delaware says rapists aren't really interested in s.e.x. What they enjoy is having power over a woman, and dominating her, and scaring her, and hurting her. He picked someone who looked as if she would be easily frightened."

"Who wouldn't be frightened?"

"He didn't pick you, though. You probably would have slugged him."

"I'd like the chance."

"Anyway, you would have fought harder than I did and you wouldn't have been helpless and terrified. So he didn't pick you."

Jeannie saw where all this was heading. "Lisa, that may be true, but it doesn't make the rape your fault, okay? You're not to blame, not one iota. You were in a train wreck: it could have happened to anyone."

"You're right," Lisa said.

They drove ten miles out of town and pulled off the interstate at a sign marked "Greenwood Penitentiary." It was an old-fashioned prison, a cl.u.s.ter of gray stone buildings surrounded by high walls with razor wire. They left the car in the shade of a tree in the visitors' parking lot. Jeannie put her jacket back on but left off her panty hose.

"Are you ready for this?" Jeannie said. "Dennis is going to look just like the guy who raped you, unless my methodology is all wrong."

Lisa nodded grimly. "I'm ready."

The main gate opened to let out a delivery truck, and they walked in unchallenged. Security was not tight, Jeannie concluded, despite the razor wire. They were expected. A guard checked their identification and escorted them across a baking-hot courtyard where a handful of young black men in prison fatigues were throwing a basketball.

The administration building was air-conditioned. They were shown into the office of the warden, John Temoigne. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and a tie, and there were cigar b.u.t.ts in his ashtray. Jeannie shook his hand. "I'm Dr. Jean Ferrami from Jones Falls University."

"How are you, Jean?"

Temoigne was obviously the type of man who found it hard to call a woman by her surname. Jeannie deliberately did not tell him Lisa's first name. "And this is my a.s.sistant, Ms. Hoxton."

"Hi, honey."

"I explained our work when I wrote to you, Warden, but if you have any further questions I'd be glad to answer them." Jeannie had to say that, even though she was itching to get a look at Dennis Pinker.

"You need to understand that Pinker is a violent and dangerous man," said Temoigne. "Do you know the details of his crime?"

"I believe he attempted to s.e.xually a.s.sault a woman in a movie theater, and killed her when she tried to fight him off."

"You're close. It was at the old Eldorado movie theater down in Greensburg. They were all watching some horror movie. Pinker got into the bas.e.m.e.nt and turned off the electric power. Then, while everyone was panicking in the dark, he ran around feeling girls up."

Jeannie exchanged a startled look with Lisa. It was so similar to what had happened at JFU on Sunday. A diversion had created confusion and panic, and given the perpetrator his opportunity. And there was a similar hint of adolescent fantasy about the two scenarios: feeling up all the girls in the darkened theater, and seeing the women running naked out of the changing room, if Steve Logan was Dennis's identical twin, it seemed they had committed very similar crimes.

Temoigne went on: "One woman unwisely tried to resist him, and he strangled her."

Jeannie bridled. "If he had felt you up, Warden, would you have unwisely unwisely tried to resist him?" tried to resist him?"

"I ain't a girl," Temoigne said with the air of one who plays a winning card.

Lisa tactfully intervened. "We should get started, Dr. Ferrami-we have a lot of work to do."

"You're right."

Temoigne said: "Normally you would interview the prisoner through a grille. You've specially asked to be in the same room with him, and I have orders from above to let you. All the same I urge you to think again. He is a violent and dangerous criminal."

Jeannie felt a tremor of anxiety, but she stayed outwardly cool. "There will be an armed guard in the room all the time we're with Dennis."

"There sure will. But I'd be more comfortable if there was a steel mesh separating you from the prisoner." He gave a sickly grin. "A man doesn't even have to be a psychopath to suffer temptation with two such attractive young girls."

Jeannie stood up abruptly. "I appreciate your concern, Warden, I really do. But we have to carry out certain procedures, such as taking a blood sample, photographing the subject, and so on, which can't be done through bars. Furthermore, parts of our interview are intimate and we feel it would compromise our results to have such an artificial barrier between us and the subject."

He shrugged. "Well, I guess you'll be okay." He stood up. "I'll walk you along to the cell block."

They left the office and crossed a baked-earth yard to a two-story concrete blockhouse. A guard opened an iron gate and let them in. The interior was as hot as the outside. Temoigne said: "Robinson here will take care of you from now on. Anything else you girls need, just holler."

"Thank you, Warden," Jeannie said. "We appreciate your cooperation."

Robinson was a rea.s.suringly tall black man of about thirty. He had a pistol in a b.u.t.toned holster and an intimidating-looking nightstick. He showed them into a small interview room with a table and half a dozen chairs in a stack. There was an ashtray on the table and a water cooler in the corner; otherwise the room was bare. The floor was tiled in gray plastic and the walls were painted a similar shade. There was no window.

Robinson said: "Pinker will be here in a minute." He helped Jeannie and Lisa arrange the table and chairs. Then they sat down.

A moment later the door opened.

16.

BERRINGTON J JONES MET WITH J JIM P PROUST AND P PRESTON Barck at the Monocle, a restaurant close to the Senate office building in Washington. It was a power lunch venue, full of people they knew: congressmen, political consultants, journalists, aides. Berrington had decided there was no point in trying to be discreet. They were too well known, especially Senator Proust with his bald head and big nose. If they had met in an obscure location, some reporter would have spotted them and written a gossip item asking why they were holding secret meetings. Better to go where thirty people would recognize them and a.s.sume they were having a routine discussion about their legitimate mutual interests. Barck at the Monocle, a restaurant close to the Senate office building in Washington. It was a power lunch venue, full of people they knew: congressmen, political consultants, journalists, aides. Berrington had decided there was no point in trying to be discreet. They were too well known, especially Senator Proust with his bald head and big nose. If they had met in an obscure location, some reporter would have spotted them and written a gossip item asking why they were holding secret meetings. Better to go where thirty people would recognize them and a.s.sume they were having a routine discussion about their legitimate mutual interests.

Berrington's aim was to keep the Landsmann deal on the rails. It had always been a risky venture, and Jeannie Ferrami had made it downright dangerous. But the alternative was to give up their dreams. There would be only one chance to turn America around and put her back on the course of racial integrity. It was not too late, not quite. The vision of a law-abiding, churchgoing, family-oriented white America could be made a reality. But they were all around sixty years of age: they were not going to get another chance after this.

Jim Proust was the big personality, loud and bl.u.s.tering; but although he often annoyed Berrington, he could usually be talked around. Mild-mannered Preston, much more likable, was also stubborn.

Berrington had bad news for them, and he got it out of the way as soon as they had ordered. "Jeannie Ferrami is in Richmond today, seeing Dennis Pinker."

Jim scowled. "Why the h.e.l.l didn't you stop her?" His voice was deep and harsh from years of barking orders.

As always, Jim's overbearing manner irritated Berrington. "What was I supposed to do, tie her down?"

"You're her boss, aren't you?"

"It's a university, Jim, it's not the f.u.c.king army."

Preston said nervously: "Let's keep our voices down, fellas." He wore narrow gla.s.ses with a black frame: he had been wearing the same style since 1959, and Berrington had noticed that they were now coming back into fashion. "We knew this might happen sometime. I say we take the initiative, and confess everything right away."

"Confess?" Jim said incredulously. "Are we supposed to have done something wrong?"

"It's the way people might see it-"

"Let me remind you that when the CIA produced the report that started all this, 'New Developments in Soviet Science,' President Nixon himself said it was the most alarming news to come out of Moscow since the Soviets split the atom."

Preston said: "The report may not have been true-" "But we thought it was. More important, our president believed it. Don't you remember how G.o.dd.a.m.n scary that was back then?"

Berrington certainly remembered. The Soviets had a breeding program for human beings, the CIA had said. They were planning to turn out perfect scientists, perfect chess players, perfect athletes-and perfect soldiers. Nixon had ordered the U.S. Army Medical Research Command, as it then was known, to set up a parallel program and find a way to breed perfect American soldiers. Jim Proust had been given the job of making it happen.

He had come immediately to Berrington for help. A few years earlier Berrington had shocked everyone, especially his wife, Vivvie, by joining the army just when antiwar sentiment was boiling up among Americans of his age. He had gone to work at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, Maryland, studying fatigue in soldiers. By the early seventies he was the world's leading expert in the heritability of soldierly characteristics such as aggression and stamina. Meanwhile Preston, who had stayed at Harvard, had made a series of breakthroughs in understanding human fertilization. Berrington had talked him into leaving the university and becoming part of the great experiment with him and Proust.

It had been Berrington's proudest moment. "I also remember how exciting it was," he said. "We were at the leading edge of science, we were setting America right, and our president president had asked us to do this job for him." had asked us to do this job for him."

Preston toyed with his salad. 'Times have changed. It's no longer an excuse to say: 'I did it because the president of the United States asked me to.' Men have gone to jail for doing what the president told them."

"What was wrong with it?" Jim said testily. "It was secret, sure. But what's to confess, confess, for G.o.d's sake?" for G.o.d's sake?"

"We went undercover," Preston said.

Jim flushed beneath his tan. "We transferred our project into the private sector."

That was sophistry, Berrington thought, though he did not antagonize Jim by saying so. Those clowns from the Committee to Re-elect the President had got caught breaking into the Watergate hotel and all of Washington had run scared. Preston set up Genetico as a private limited corporation, and Jim gave it enough bread-and-b.u.t.ter military contracts to make it financially viable. After a while the fertility clinics became so lucrative that its profits paid for the research program without help from the military. Berrington moved back into the academic world, and Jim went from the army to the CIA and then into the Senate.

Preston said: "I'm not saying we were wrong-although some of the things we did in the early days were against the law."

Berrington did not want the two of them to take up polarized positions. He intervened, saying calmly: "The irony is that it proved impossible to breed breed perfect Americans. The whole project was on the wrong track. Natural breeding was too inexact. But we were smart enough to see the possibilities of genetic engineering." perfect Americans. The whole project was on the wrong track. Natural breeding was too inexact. But we were smart enough to see the possibilities of genetic engineering."

"n.o.body had even heard the G.o.dd.a.m.n words words back then," Jim growled as he cut into his steak. back then," Jim growled as he cut into his steak.

Berrington nodded "Jim's right, Preston. We should be proud of what we did, not ashamed. When you think about it, we've performed a miracle. We set ourselves the task of finding out whether certain traits, such as intelligence and aggression, are genetic; then identifying the genes responsible for those traits; and finally engineering them into test-tube embryos-and we're on the brink of success!"

Preston, shrugged. "The entire human biology community has been working on the same agenda-"

"Not quite. We were more focused, and we placed our bets carefully."

"That's true."

In their different ways Berrington's two friends had let off steam. They were so predictable, he thought amiably; maybe old friends always were. Jim had bl.u.s.tered and Preston had whined. Now they might be calm enough to take a cool look at the situation. "That brings us back to Jeannie Ferrami," Berrington said. "In a year or two she may tell us how to make people aggressive without turning them into criminals. The last pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place. The Landsmann takeover offers us the chance to accelerate the entire program and get Jim into the White House, too. This is no time to draw back." This is no time to draw back."

"That's all very well," said Preston. "But what are we going to do? The Landsmann organization has a G.o.dd.a.m.n ethics panel, you know."

Berrington swallowed some snapper. "The first thing to realize is that we do not have a crisis crisis here, we just have a here, we just have a problem," problem," he said. "And the problem is not Landsmann. Their accountants won't discover the truth in a hundred years of looking at our books. Our problem is Jeannie Ferrami. We have to stop her learning anything more, at least before next Monday, when we sign the takeover doc.u.ments." he said. "And the problem is not Landsmann. Their accountants won't discover the truth in a hundred years of looking at our books. Our problem is Jeannie Ferrami. We have to stop her learning anything more, at least before next Monday, when we sign the takeover doc.u.ments."

Jim said sarcastically: "But you can't order order her, because it's a university, not the f.u.c.king army." her, because it's a university, not the f.u.c.king army."

Berrington nodded. Now he had them both thinking the way he wanted. "True," he said calmly. "I can't give her orders. But there are more subtle ways to manipulate people than those used by the military, Jim. If you two will leave this business in my hands, I'll deal with her."

Preston was not satisfied. "How?"

Berrington had been turning this question over and over in his mind. He did not have a plan, but he had an idea. "I think there's a problem around her use of medical databases. It raises ethical questions. I believe I can force her to stop."

"She must have covered herself."

"I don't need a valid valid reason, just a pretext." reason, just a pretext."

"What's this girl like?" Jim said.

"About thirty. Tall, very athletic. Dark hair, ring in her nose, drives an old red Mercedes. For a long time I thought very highly of her. Last night I discovered there's bad blood in the family. Her father is a criminal type. But she's also clever, feisty, and stubborn."

"Married, divorced?"