Frameshift

by Robert J. Sawyer

  Avi nodded again.

  “But some of the lines are the same, aren’t they? Here’s a thin line, and—look!—the other person has a thin line at exactly the same point.”

  Avi sounded impatient. “So he does.”

  “Now, have a good close look at the two fingerprints, and tell me by how much you think they overlap.”

  “I don’t see what this—”

  “Just do it, will you?”

  Avi sighed in resignation and squinted his tiny eyes at the film. “I don’t know. Twenty or thirty percent.”

  “About a quarter, in other words.”

  “I guess.”

  “A quarter. Now, you must know something about genetics—everybody does. How much DNA do you get from your parents?”

  “All of it.”

  Pierre grinned. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, what proportion comes from your mother and what proportion from your father?”

  “Oh—it’s half and half, isn’t it?”

  “Exactly. Of all the DNA that makes up a human being, precisely half comes from each parent. Now, tell me this: do you have a brother?”

  “Yes,” said Avi.

  “Okay, good. Now if you’ve got half of your mother’s DNA, so does your brother, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “But is it the same half?”

  Avi ran a hand over the stubble on his face. “How do you mean?”

  “Is the DNA you got from your mother the same or different from what your brother got?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I guess if I got a random selection of my mother’s genes, and Barry got a random selection, they’d overlap by—what?—fifty percent?”

  “That’s right,” said Pierre, not nodding deliberately, but his head bobbing in a way that looked as though he was. “An average of fifty percent overlap. So, if I put DNA fingerprints for you and your brother side by side, what would you expect to see?”

  “Umm—half of my bars at the same places as half of his bars?”

  “Exactly! But what have we here?” He pointed to the two pieces of film on the illuminated panel.

  “A twenty-five percent overlap.”

  “So these two people are highly unlikely to be brothers, right?”

  Avi nodded.

  “But, still, they do seem to be related, don’t they?”

  “I guess,” said Avi.

  “Okay. Now there’s something I read when I first looked into this case that has stuck in my mind. On his application for refugee status, John Demjanjuk put his mother’s maiden name as Marchenko.”

  “Yeah, but that was wrong. Her maiden name was Tabachuk. Demjanjuk couldn’t remember it, he said, so he just put down a common Ukrainian name.”

  “And that always struck me as strange. I know my mother’s maiden name, Ménard—and her mother’s maiden name, Bergeron. How could someone not remember his own mother’s maiden name? After all, Demjanjuk filled out that form in the 1940s, while he was still in his twenties. It’s not like he was an old man with a failing memory.”

  Avi shrugged. “Who knows? The point is he couldn’t remember it at the time.”

  “Oh, I think he remembered very well—but rather that he didn’t understand the question.”

  “What?”

  “He didn’t understand the question. Tell me—what does the term ‘maiden name’ mean?”

  Avi frowned, irritated. “The name a woman was born with.”

  “Right. But suppose Demjanjuk—who, according to the articles I read, only had a fourth-grade education—suppose he thought it meant simply the name his mother had before she’d married his father.”

  “That’s the same thing.”

  “Not necessarily. It’s only the same thing if his mother had never been married before.”

  “But—oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

  “You see? What was Demjanjuk’s mother’s first name?”

  “Olga. She died in 1970.”

  “If Olga had been born Olga Tabachuk, but had married a man named Marchenko and then later divorced him before marrying John Demjanjuk’s father—”

  “—Nikolai Demjanjuk—”

  “—then when asked his mother’s maiden name, and interpreting it as meaning his mother’s previous name, John Demjanjuk would have answered ‘Marchenko.’ And if Olga had had one son named Ivan in 1911 by this elder Marchenko, and another son named Ivan nine years later by Nikolai Demjanjuk, then—”

  “Then Ivan Marchenko and Ivan Demjanjuk would be half brothers!” said Avi.

  “Exactly! Half brothers, having about twenty-five percent of their DNA in common. In fact, it even makes sense that they’re both bald. The gene for male-pattern baldness is inherited from the mother; it resides on the X chromosome. And it explains why they look so much alike—why witness after witness mistook one for the other.”

  “But wait—wait. That doesn’t work. Nikolai and Olga Tabachuk were married January twenty-fourth, 1910, and Ivan Marchenko was born after that—on March second, 1911. That means he would have been conceived in the summer of 1910—after Olga had already ended up with the legal last name of Demjanjuk.”

  Pierre frowned for a moment, but then, thinking briefly of his own mother and Henry Spade, he exclaimed, “A triangle!”

  Avi looked at him. “What?”

  “A triangle—don’t you see? Think about John Demjanjuk’s own marriage from 1947. I remember reading that he’d been fooling around with another man’s wife while that man was away.” Pierre paused. “You know, we sometimes sum up the geneticist’s creed as ‘like father, like son’—but ‘like mother, like son’ is just as valid for many things. My wife the behaviorist doesn’t like to admit it, but particular kinds of infidelity do run in families. Let’s say Olga Tabachuk married the senior Marchenko, divorced him, and then married Nikolai Demjanjuk.”

  Avi nodded. “Okay.”

  “But Nikolai leaves their village and heads out to—what town was Demjanjuk born in?”

  “Dub Macharenzi.”

  “To Dub-whatever. He goes there, looking for work or something like that, saying he’ll send for his wife once he’s got a place. Well, while the cat’s away…Olga goes back to sleeping with her ex, Marchenko. She gets pregnant and gives birth to Marchenko’s child, a child they name Ivan. But then Nikolai sends word for her to come join him in Dub-thingie. Olga abandons baby Ivan, leaving him with the elder Marchenko. In fact—well, here’s one my wife would like: Ivan Marchenko grew up to have a predilection for slicing off women’s nipples. Call that his revenge for having been abandoned by his mother.”

  Avi was nodding slowly. “You know, it makes sense. If Olga really did abandon the baby Ivan Marchenko, and if her second husband, Nikolai Demjanjuk, never knew about that incident, when she finally had a son of her own by Nikolai, that could explain why she decided to name him Ivan, too—so that she could never give herself away by accidentally referring to her legitimate son by the bastard child’s name.” Avi looked down at the autorads. “So—so one of these was made from the tissue specimen I sent you that we’d taken from John Demjanjuk, right?”

  Pierre nodded, and touched the one on the left. “This one, to be precise.”

  “And the other one—not Abraham Danielson?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “How’d you manage to get a tissue sample from him? I thought you’d only seen him from a distance.”

  “I had a little device built.” He slowly got up from his stool and, holding on to the rounded lip of the countertop for support, made his way over to a shelf and picked up a small object from it. He returned to where Avi was sitting and extended his shaking hand so that Avi could see what he was holding. It was impossible to get a good look at it the way Pierre’s arm kept moving; Avi reached in and plucked the small device from Pierre’s palm. It looked like a tiny beige thumbtack, with a very short, very narrow spike.

  “I call it a joy buzzer,” said Pierre, sitting down again. “It sticks to the palm of
your hand with a minuscule drop of cyanoacrylate glue, and when you shake hands with someone, it takes a sample of a few skin cells. The pressure of the handshake is enough to distract from the minute pricking sensation.” He held up a hand. “I can’t take full credit for it—I got the idea from a special pen Condor Health uses; it seemed poetic justice to employ a similar device. A fellow I know, a newspaper reporter—same one who took the photo I originally faxed you of Abraham Danielson—wore it going into a meeting with Danielson, and shook his hand in greeting.”

  Avi nodded, impressed. “Can I have copies of these…these—what do you call them?”

  “Autorads.”

  “These autorads?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “When we’re through, I want to send them to Demjanjuk’s lawyer in Cleveland. Maybe they’ll help him get his U.S. citizenship back.” He looked at Pierre, then shrugged a little. “It’s the least I can do.”

  Pierre nodded. “So where do we stand?”

  “We’ve got two eyewitness identifications, both positive. But, well, the witnesses are old, and one of them is legally blind. I wish we had more. Still, this half brother stuff to some degree rehabilitates the positive identifications made during Demjanjuk’s denaturalization and his trial in Israel.”

  “So have you got enough to move against Marchenko?”

  Avi sighed. “I don’t know. Danielson wasn’t even suspected of being a Nazi. He’s done a great job of covering his tracks.”

  “He’s doubtless been able to pay off people over the last few years—make any records he wants disappear.”

  “More than likely.” Avi shook his head. “The Israelis are going to be very wary about taking him on, especially after what happened last time.”

  “So what else would you need to make the case?”

  Avi shrugged. “In the best of all possible worlds? A confession.”

  Pierre frowned. Of course, Molly could confirm Danielson’s guilt easily enough, but there was no way Pierre wanted her to have to testify in court. “I could meet with him while wired for sound.”

  “What makes you think he’ll agree to see you?” The way Avi said “you” grated a little—it was almost as if Avi were saying, “What makes you think he’ll see someone in your condition?”

  Pierre gritted his teeth. “We’ll find a way.”

  “Even if he is willing to see you,” said Avi, spreading his arms, “what makes you think he’ll confess to you?”

  “He doesn’t have to confess then and there. He just has to say something incriminating enough to justify you arresting him. Then you can interrogate him properly.”

  “I suppose. It would take some paperwork.”

  “Do it. Set it up.”

  “I don’t know, Pierre. You’re a civilian, and—”

  “I’m a volunteer. You want to see that bastard go free?”

  Avi frowned, considering. “All right,” he said at last. “Let’s give it a try.”

  C h a p t e r

  41

  “Abraham Danielson’s office,” said a woman’s voice.

  “May I speak to him, please?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Dr. Pierre Tardivel.”

  “One moment.”

  Silence.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Tardivel, Mr. Danielson is unable to take your call just now. Would you like to leave a message?”

  “Tell him a woman from Poland named Maria Dudek suggested I call him. Give him the message now; I’ll hold on.”

  “He’s really quite busy, sir, and—”

  “Just give him the message. I’m sure he’ll want to take this call.”

  “I really can’t—”

  “Do it.”

  There was quiet for a moment while the secretary mulled this over. “Just a sec.”

  A click as Pierre was put on hold. Three minutes went by.

  Another click.

  “Abraham Danielson speaking.”

  “Hello, Ivan. Maria Dudek sends her regards.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Meet me in one hour at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. You’re a crazy person—”

  “You can talk to me, or I’ll start talking to other people. I understand the Department of Justice has a special office devoted to exposing war criminals.”

  Silence for almost thirty seconds. Then: “If we’re going to talk,” said Danielson, “it will be here, on my turf.”

  “But—”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  Pierre looked over at Avi Meyer, who was listening on an extension phone. Avi held up three fingers.

  “I’ll be there at three o’clock,” said Pierre. “Make sure your gate guard knows to let me in.”

  “Pierre Tardivel,” said Pierre. He was standing in front of the secretary’s desk in the founder’s outer office on the thirty-seventh floor of the forty-story Condor Building. “Here to see Abraham Danielson.”

  The secretary was two decades older than Rosalee, the knockout who worked elsewhere on this floor for CEO Craig Bullen. She was clearly startled by Pierre’s dancing limbs and facial tics, but she quickly recovered her composure. “Have a seat, please. Mr. Danielson will be with you in a few moments.”

  Pierre understood that he was being put in his place, that Abraham wanted the upper hand psychologically—you don’t sleep with a psychologist every night for three years without picking up a thing or two. Still, his palms were sweaty. With the aid of his cane, Pierre made his way slowly over to the lobby couch. Several current magazines were on the glass-topped coffee table, including Forbes and Business Week; there was also a copy of the yellow-and-black Condor annual report.

  Avi Meyer, four other OSI agents, and two officers from the San Francisco Police Department were parked a short distance away, outside the fence around the Condor property. All of them were crowded into a rented van, huddled over the listening equipment.

  After a few minutes, the receptionist’s phone rang. She picked up the handset. “Yes, sir? Right away.” She put the phone down, then looked at Pierre. “Mr. Danielson will see you now.”

  Pierre struggled to his feet and made his way slowly into the office. It was smaller than Craig Bullen’s—it had no conference table—but the furnishings were equally opulent, although Danielson’s tastes were ironically more modern than those of the much younger Bullen, running to black leather and chrome, with turquoise and pink accents.

  “Mr. Tardivel,” said Abraham Danielson, with no warmth in his thin, accented voice. “Now, what’s all this nonsense?”

  “I see you recognized the name Maria Dudek,” said Pierre, slowly taking a seat in front of Danielson’s desk.

  “That name meant nothing to me.”

  “Then why did you agree to see me?”

  “You’re a stockholder; I recognize you from that shameful bit of grandstanding you did at our meeting. Still, I always make time for my stockholders.”

  “I’ve been here once before,” said Pierre. “Oh, not to this room, but to this floor. I had a meeting a while ago with Craig Bullen. But I had the wrong person then—the puppet instead of the puppeteer.”

  “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “And it’s not just being Ivan Marchenko that I’ve got you on—not that that isn’t bad enough. I know you’re also the leader of the Millennial Reich. You’ve done more than just discriminate against people who have genetic disorders. You’re increasing your bottom line by killing off those who would otherwise represent expensive payouts for you, the single largest stockholder in this company.”

  Danielson looked at Pierre, his expression blank. “You’re crazy,” he said at last.

  Pierre said nothing. His hands danced.

  Danielson spread his arms. “You suffer from Huntington’s chorea, isn’t that right? Huntington’s is a degenerative nervous disorder that has a profound effect on the faculties. What
ever you think you know is doubtless just a product of your disease.”

  Pierre frowned. “Is it, now? I’ve been doing a lot of research, looking at unsolved murders in the last few years. A disproportionate number of those who died had genetic disorders, or were waiting for expensive medical treatments. And most of that subset were insured by Condor. And I know you routinely take secret skin-cell samples from new policyholders. If someone you insured has bad DNA, or applies for an expensive treatment, you have them killed.”

  “Come, come, Mr. Tardivel. What you’re proposing is monstrous, and I assure you I am not a monster.”

  “No?” said Pierre. “What exactly did you do during World War II?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was a minor Red Army soldier in the Ukraine.”

  “Bullshit,” said Pierre. He let the word hang between them for several seconds. “Your real name is Ivan Marchenko. You were trained at Trawniki and then stationed at Treblinka.”

  ‘“Ivan Marchenko,’” said Danielson, pronouncing each syllable with care. “Again, that’s an unfamiliar name.”

  “Is it, now? And I suppose you don’t know the name Ivan Grozny, either.”

  “Ivan—Ivan the Terrible that would be, wouldn’t it? Wasn’t he the first czar of Russia?” Danielson’s face was composed.

  “Ivan the Terrible was a gas-chamber operator at the Treblinka death camp in Poland where eight hundred and seventy thousand people were killed.”

  “That has nothing to do with me.”

  “There are eyewitnesses.”

  “To events that took place half a century ago? Come now.”

  “I can prove both charges against you—the insurance-related murders, and that you are Ivan. The question is, which one do you want to admit to? Do you fancy your chances are better here in a California court, or in Israel in a war-crimes trial?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “You’ve said that before.”

  “Any good defense attorney could make mincemeat of someone with a brain disorder on the witness stand.”

  Pierre shrugged. “Well, if my story doesn’t interest you, I’ll take it to the newspapers. I know Barnaby Lincoln at the Chronicle.” He started the slow process of getting out of his chair.