the Third Twin (1996)

by Ken Follett

  Her legs went weak, and she slumped on the couch. She had felt in terrible danger. Now she knew the danger had been imaginary, but she still felt profoundly grateful that it had passed. Her body felt swollen with unfulfilled desire. She touched her crotch: her leggings were damp. “Soon,” she breathed. “Soon.” She thought about how it would be the next time they met, how she would embrace him and kiss him and apologize, and how tenderly he would forgive her; and as she envisioned it she touched herself with her fingertips, and after a few moments a spasm of pleasure went through her.

  Then she slept for a while.

  46

  IT WAS THE HUMILIATION THAT GOT TO BERRINGTON.

  He kept defeating Jeannie Ferrami, but he was never able to feel good about it. She had forced him to go sneaking around like a petty thief. He had surreptitiously leaked a story to a newspaper, crept into her office and searched her desk drawers, and now he was watching her house. But fear compelled him. His world seemed about to fall around him. He was desperate.

  He would never have thought he would be doing this a few weeks from his sixtieth birthday: sitting in his car, parked at the curb, watching someone else’s front door like a grubby private eye. What would his mother think? She was still alive, a slim, well-dressed woman of eighty-four, living in a small town in Maine, writing witty letters to the local newspaper and determinedly hanging on to her post as chief flower arranger for the Episcopalian Church. She would shudder with shame to know what her son had been reduced to.

  God forbid he should be seen by anyone he knew. He was careful not to meet the eyes of passersby. His car was unfortunately conspicuous. He thought of it as a discreetly elegant automobile, but there were not many silver Lincoln Town Cars parked along this street: aging Japanese compacts and lovingly preserved Pontiac Firebirds were the local favorites. Berrington himself was not the kind of person to fade into the background, with his distinctive gray hair. For a while he had held a street map open in front of him, resting on the steering wheel, for camouflage, but this was a friendly neighborhood, and two people had tapped on the window and offered to give him directions, so he had had to put the map away. He consoled himself with the thought that anyone who lived in such a low-rent area could not possibly be important.

  He now had no idea what Jeannie was up to. The FBI had failed to find that list in her apartment. Berrington had to assume the worst: the list had led her to another clone. If that were so, disaster was not far away. Berrington, Jim, and Preston were staring close up at public exposure, disgrace, and ruin.

  It was Jim who had suggested that Berrington watch Jeannie’s house. “We have to know what she’s up to, who comes and goes,” Jim had said, and Berrington had reluctantly agreed. He had got here early, and nothing had happened until around midday when Jeannie was dropped off by a black woman he recognized as one of the detectives investigating the rape. She had interviewed him briefly on Monday. He had found her attractive. He managed to remember her name: Sergeant Delaware.

  He called Proust from the pay phone in the McDonald’s on the corner, and Proust promised to get his FBI friend to find out whom they had been to see. Berrington imagined the FBI man saying, “Sergeant Delaware made contact today with a suspect we have under surveillance. For security reasons I can’t reveal any more than that, but it would be helpful to us to know exactly what she did this morning and what case she was working on.”

  An hour or so later Jeannie had left in a rush, looking heartbreakingly sexy in a purple sweater. Berrington had not followed her car; despite his fears, he could not bring himself to do something so undignified. But she had come back a few minutes later carrying a couple of brown paper sacks from a grocery store. The next arrival was one of the clones, presumably Steve Logan.

  He had not stayed long. If I’d been in his shoes, Berrington thought, with Jeannie dressed like that, I would have stayed there all night and most of Sunday.

  He checked the car’s clock for the twentieth time and decided to call Jim again. He might have heard from the FBI by now.

  Berrington left his car and walked to the corner. The smell of French fries made him hungry, but he did not like to eat hamburgers out of fast-food containers. He got a cup of black coffee and went to the pay phone.

  “They went to New York,” Jim told him.

  It was as Berrington had feared. “Wayne Stattner,” he said.

  “Yup.”

  “Shit. What did they do?”

  “Asked him to account for his movements last Sunday, and like that. He was at the Emmys. Had his picture, in People magazine. End of story.”

  “Any indication what Jeannie might be planning to do next?”

  “No. What’s happening there?”

  “Not a lot. I can see her door from here. She did some shopping, Steve Logan came and went, nothing. Maybe they’ve run out of ideas.”

  “And maybe not. All we know is that your scheme of firing her didn’t shut her up.”

  “All right, Jim, don’t rub it in. Wait—she’s coming out.” She had changed her clothes: she was wearing white jeans and a royal blue sleeveless blouse that showed her strong arms.

  “Follow her,” Jim said.

  “The hell with that. She’s getting into her car.”

  “Berry, we have to know where she goes.”

  “I’m not a cop, goddamn it!”

  A little girl on her way to the ladies’ room with her mother said: “That man shouted, Mommy.”

  “Hush, darling,” her mother said.

  Berrington lowered his voice. “She’s pulling away.”

  “Get in your damn car!”

  “Fuck you, Jim.”

  “Follow her!” Jim hung up.

  Berrington cradled the phone.

  Jeannie’s red Mercedes went by and turned south on Falls Road.

  Berrington ran to his car.

  47

  JEANNIE STUDIED STEVE’S FATHER. CHARLES WAS DARK haired, with the shadow of a heavy beard on his jaw. His expression was dour and his manner rigidly precise. Although it was Saturday and he had been gardening, he wore neatly pressed dark pants and a short-sleeved shirt with a collar. He did not look like Steve in any way. The only thing Steve might have got from him was a taste for conservative clothes. Most of Jeannie’s students wore ripped denim and black leather, but Steve favored khakis and button-downs.

  Steve had not yet come home, and Charles speculated that he might have dropped by his law school library to read up on rape trials. Steve’s mother was lying down. Charles made fresh lemonade, and he and Jeannie went out on the patio of the Georgetown house and sat on lawn chairs.

  Jeannie had woken up from her doze with a brilliant idea in the forefront of her mind. She had thought of a way to find the fourth clone. But she would need Charles’s help. And she was not sure he would be willing to do what she had to ask him.

  Charles passed her a tall, cold glass, then took one himself and sat down. “May I call you by your first name?” he said.

  “Please do.”

  “And I hope you’ll do the same.”

  “Sure.”

  They sipped their lemonade, then he said: “Jeannie—what is this all about?”

  She put down her glass. “I think it’s an experiment,” she said. “Berrington and Proust were both in the military until shortly before they set up Genetico. I suspect the company was originally a cover for a military project.”

  “I’ve been a soldier all my adult life, and I’m ready to believe almost anything crazy of the army. But what interest could they have in women’s fertility problems?”

  “Think of this. Steve and his doubles are tall, strong, fit, and handsome. They’re also very smart, although their propensity to violence gets in the way of their achievements. But Steve and Dennis have IQ scores off the scale, and I suspect the other two would be the same: Wayne is already a millionaire at the age of twenty-two, and the fourth one has at least been clever enough to totally evade detection.”

&n
bsp; “Where does that get you?”

  “I don’t know. I wonder if the army was trying to breed the perfect soldier.”

  It was no more than an idle speculation, and she said it casually, but it electrified Charles. “Oh, my God,” he said, and an expression of shocked comprehension spread over his face. “I think I remember hearing about this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was a rumor, back in the seventies, that went all around the military. The Russians had a breeding program, people said. They were making perfect soldiers, perfect athletes, perfect chess players, everything. Some people said we should be doing the same. Others said we already were.”

  “So that’s it!” Jeannie felt that at last she was beginning to understand. “They picked à healthy, aggressive, intelligent, blond-haired man and woman and got them to donate the sperm and egg that went together to form the embryo. But what they were really interested in was the possibility of duplicating the perfect soldier once they had created him. The crucial part of the experiment was the multiple division of the embryo and the implanting into the host mothers. And it worked.” She frowned. “I wonder what happened next.”

  “I can answer that,” Charles said. “Watergate. All those crazy secret schemes were canceled after that.”

  “But Genetico went legitimate, like the Mafia. And because they really did find out how to make test-tube babies, the company was profitable. The profits financed the research into genetic engineering that they’ve been doing ever since. I suspect that my own project is probably part of their grand scheme.”

  “Which is what?”

  “A breed of perfect Americans: intelligent, aggressive, and blond. A master race.” She shrugged. “It’s an old idea, but it’s possible now, with modern genetics.”

  “So why would they sell the company? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe it does,” Jeannie said thoughtfully. “When they got the takeover bid, perhaps they saw it as an opportunity to move into high gear. The money will finance Proust’s run at the presidency. If they get into the White House they can do all the research they want—and put their ideas into practice.”

  Charles nodded. “There’s a piece about Proust’s ideas in today’s Washington Post. I don’t think I want to live in his kind of world. If we’re all aggressive, obedient soldiers, who’s going to write the poems and play the blues and go on antiwar protest marches?”

  Jeannie raised her eyebrows. It was a surprising thought to come from a career soldier. “There’s more to it than that,” she said. “Human variation has a purpose. There’s a reason we’re born different from both our parents. Evolution is a trial-and-error business. You can’t prevent nature’s failed experiments without eliminating the successes too.”

  Charles sighed. “And all this means I’m not Steve’s father.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  He opened his billfold and took out a photo. “I have to tell you something, Jeannie. I never suspected any of this stuff about clones, but I’ve often looked at Steve and wondered if there was anything at all of me in him.”

  “Can’t you see it?” she said.

  “A resemblance?”

  “No physical resemblance. But Steve has a profound sense of duty. None of the other clones could give a darn about duty. He got it from you!”

  Charles still looked grim. “There’s bad in him. I know it.”

  She touched his arm. “Listen to me. Steve was what I call a wild child—disobedient, impulsive, fearless, bursting with energy—wasn’t he?”

  Charles smiled ruefully. “That’s the truth.”

  “So were Dennis Pinker and Wayne Stattner. Such children are almost impossible to raise right. That’s why Dennis is a murderer and Wayne a sadist. But Steve isn’t like them—and you’re the reason why. Only the most patient, understanding, and dedicated of parents can bring up such children to be normal human beings. But Steve is normal.”

  “I pray you’re right.” Charles opened his billfold to replace the photo.

  Jeannie forestalled him. “May I see it?”

  “Sure.”

  Jeannie studied the picture. It had been taken quite recently. Steve was wearing a blue-checked shirt and his hair was a little too long. He was grinning shyly at the camera. “I don’t have a photo of him,” Jeannie said regretfully as she handed it back.

  “Have that one.”

  “I couldn’t. You keep it next to your heart.”

  “I have a million photos of Steve. I’ll put another one in my billfold.”

  “Thanks, I really appreciate it.”

  “You seem very fond of him.”

  “I love him, Charles.”

  “You do?”

  Jeannie nodded. “When I think he might be sent to jail for this rape, I want to offer to go instead of him.”

  Charles gave a wry smile. “So do I.”

  “That’s love, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is.”

  Jeannie felt self-conscious. She had not meant to say all this to Steve’s father. She had not really known it herself; it had just come out, and then she had realized it was true.

  He said: “How does Steve feel about you?”

  She smiled. “I could be modest.…”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “He’s crazy for me.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. Not just because you’re beautiful, though you are. You’re strong too: that’s obvious. He needs someone strong—especially with this accusation over his head.”

  Jeannie gave him a calculating look. It was time to ask him. “There is something you could do, you know.”

  “Tell me what it is.”

  Jeannie had rehearsed this speech in the car all the way to Washington. “If I could search another database, I might find the real rapist. But after the publicity in the New York Times, no government agency or insurance company is going to take the risk of working with me. Unless …”

  “What?”

  Jeannie leaned forward in her lawn chair. “Genetico experimented on soldiers’ wives who were referred to them by army hospitals. Therefore most or all of the clones were probably born in army hospitals.”

  He nodded slowly.

  “The babies must have had army medical records, twenty-two years ago. Those records may still exist.”

  “I’m sure they do. The army never throws anything away.”

  Jeannie’s hopes rose a notch. But there was another problem. “That long ago, they would have been paper files. Might they have been transferred to computer?”

  “I’m sure they have. It’s the only way to store everything.”

  “Then it is possible,” Jeannie said, controlling her excitement.

  He looked thoughtful.

  She gave him a hard stare. “Charles, can you get me access?”

  “What, exactly, do you need to do?”

  “I have to load my program into the computer, then let it search all the files.”

  “How long does it take?”

  “No way of knowing. That depends on the size of the database and the power of the computer.”

  “Does it interfere with normal data retrieval?”

  “It could slow it down.”

  He frowned.

  “Will you do it?” Jeannie said impatiently.

  “If we’re caught, it’s the end of my career.”

  “Will you?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  48

  STEVE WAS THRILLED TO SEE JEANNIE SITTING ON THE PATIO, drinking lemonade and talking earnestly to his father as if they were old friends. This is what I want, he thought; I want Jeannie in my life. Then I can deal with anything.

  He crossed the lawn from the garage, smiling, and kissed her lips softly. “You two look like conspirators,” he said.

  Jeannie explained what they were planning, and Steve allowed himself to feel hopeful again.

  Dad said to Jeannie: “I’m not computer-literate. I’ll need help loading
your program.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “I’ll bet you don’t have your passport here.”

  “I sure don’t.”

  “I can’t get you into the data center without identification.”

  “I could go home and get it.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Steve said to Dad. “I have my passport upstairs. I’m sure I could load the program.”

  Dad looked askance at Jeannie.

  She nodded. “The process is simple. If there are any glitches you can call me from the data center and I’ll talk you through it.”

  “Okay.”

  Dad went into the kitchen and brought out the phone. He dialed a number. “Don, this is Charlie. Who won the golf? … I knew you could do it. But I’ll beat you next week, you watch. Listen, I need a favor, kind of unusual. I want to check my son’s medical records from way back when.… Yeah, he’s got some kind of rare condition, not life threatening but serious, and there may be a clue in his early history. Would you arrange security clearance for me to go into the Command Data Center?”

  There was a long pause. Steve could not read his father’s face. At last he said: “Thanks, Don, I really appreciate it.”

  Steve punched the air and said: “Yes!”

  Dad put a finger to his lips, then went on speaking into the phone. “Steve will be with me. We’ll be there in fifteen or twenty minutes, if that’s all right.…Thanks again.” He hung up.

  Steve ran up to his room and came back with his passport.

  Jeannie had the disks in a small plastic box. She handed them to Steve. “Put the one marked number one in the disk drive and the instructions will come up on the screen.”

  He looked at his father. “Ready?”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Good luck,” Jeannie said.

  They got in the Lincoln Mark VIII and drove to the Pentagon. They parked in the biggest parking lot in the world. In the Midwest there were towns smaller than the Pentagon parking lot. They went up a flight of steps to a second-floor entrance.