Ken Follett - the Third Twin (1996)

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 goddamn 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 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, for God’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-butter 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 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.”

“Nobody had even heard the goddamn words 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 blustered 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.”

“That’s all very well,” said Preston. “But what are we going to do? The Landsmann organization has a goddamn ethics panel, you know.”

Berrington swallowed some snapper. “The first thing to realize is that we do not have a crisis here, we just have a 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 documents.”

Jim said sarcastically: “But you can’t order her, because it’s a university, not the fucking 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 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?”

“Single, no boyfriend.”

“A dog?”

“No, she’s a looker. But hard to handle.”

Jim nodded thoughtfully. “We still have many loyal friends in the intelligence community. It wouldn’t be so difficult to make such a girl vanish.”

Preston looked scared. “No violence, Jim, for God’s sake.”

A waiter cleared away their plates, and they fell silent until he had gone. Berrington knew he had to tell them what he had learned from last night’s message from Sergeant Delaware. With a heavy heart, he said: “There’s something else you need to know. On Sunday night a girl was raped in the gym. The police have arrested Steve Logan. The victim picked him out of a lineup.”

Jim said: “Did he do it?”

“No.”

“Do you know who did?”

Berrington looked him in the eye. “Yes, Jim, I do.”

Preston said: “Oh, shit.”

Jim said: “Maybe we should make the boys vanish.”

Berrington felt his throat tighten up as if he were choking, and he knew he was turning red. He leaned over the table and pointed his finger at Jim’s face. “Don’t you ever let me hear you say that again!” he said, jabbing his finger so close to Jim’s eyes that Jim flinched, even though he was a much bigger man.

Preston hissed: “Knock it off, you two, people will see!”

Berrington withdrew his finger, but he was not through yet. If they had been in a less public place he would have got his hands around Jim’s throat. Instead he grabbed a fistful of Jim’s lapel. “We gave those boys life. We brought them into the world. Good or bad, they’re our responsibility.”