by Ben Bova
“You really think this will give us an insight on what’s going on at North Lake?” I asked her.
“It will at least tell us the common denominators among the scientific staff there. If it turns out that they’re all specialists in building hydrogen bombs, for example, do you think the labs’ main interest would be in air pollution studies?”
“Nobody likes a wiseass,” I said.
Vickie grinned and started to rub the back of her neck. Hank was over behind her like a shot, kneading her shoulders.
“Learned massage from an ol’ Indian,” he drawled. Vickie moaned happily and I broiled medium-rare.
The computer screen came to life. A list of words appeared on it. A damned short list. We all huddled around the glowing screen, like kids peeking into a store window. The list read:
MAJOR FIELDS OF COMMON INTEREST
INPUT CODE 042205-B2 19-004
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY
INFECTIOUS DISEASES
BIOCHEMISTRY
VIRAL BIOLOGY
GENETICS
IMMUNOLOGY
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY
INFORMATION THEORY
We stared at the list for a long time. At last Hank exploded, “That don’t tell us diddley-shit!”
“Wait a minute,” Vickie said. She sat at the keyboard again and tapped out a query, explaining as she typed the cryptic shorthand words. “I’m asking what kinds of capabilities these fields of interest could produce.”
The machine considered this problem for only a few seconds, then flashed a new list on the screen. It was a lot longer, and full of technical terms that I’d never seen before. But three items stuck out and hit me just as if they’d been printed in letters of fire:
BIOLOGICAL WARFARE
GENETIC ENGINEERING
CLONING
TWELVE
Before either of the others could say anything, I told Vickie, “Ask the computer for a definition of cloning.”
She looked up at me quizzically, but her fingers tapped out the query. The computer screen immediately showed:
CLONE: The descendants produced vegetatively or by apomixis from a single plant: asexually or by parthenogenesis from a single animal; by division from a single cell. The members of a clone are of the same genetic constitution, except insofar as mutation occurs amongst them.
“That’s it,” I said. “Somebody’s made clone copies of the President.”
“Hey now, slow down a minute fer us ol’ country boys,” Hank said. “What’re yew—”
Vickie explained, “Scientists can take a cell from your body… any cell, like from your skin or a fingernail clipping, and reproduce exact copies of you from it. The babies grown from your cells would turn out to look exactly like you. You could make as many copies of yourself as you want, that way.”
“Exact duplicates,” I said. “As many as you want.”
Hank wasn’t as slow as he liked to pretend. “Y’all mean I could make a roomful of copies of me?”
“Right.”
“Without sex? Just by takin’ a few cells off the end o’ my nose or somethin’?”
I nodded.
“Sheeit… First place, I don’t want more copies o’ me runnin’ around. Second place, I like the old way of makin’ babies a helluva lot better.”
Vickie was grinning at him, but I said, “It’s obvious that somebody wants a lot of copies of the President running around.”
“But nobody’s cloned human beings,” Vickie said. “That whole line of research was shut down years and years ago. The biologists themselves stopped the experiments.”
“Nobody’s reported cloning human beings,” I shot back, jerking a thumb at the computer screen. “But the capability’s there.”
Hank asked slowly, “Y’all think somebody’s taken some cells from th’ President’s body and grown extra people from them? People who look jest like th’ President?”
“That can’t be,” Vickie objected before I could answer. “It would still take forty-some years to grow those cells to the same level of maturity as the President.”
It was all clicking into place in my mind. I asked Vickie, “How much do you want to bet that the biologists outlawed human cloning experiments right around the time the General bought out North Lake Labs?”
She stared at me, speechless.
“James J. Halliday was cloned in infancy,” I said, the words coming fast and eager, “and his father bought the North Lake Labs specifically for that purpose.”
“When th’ kid was born?”
Vickie said,“ Before the child was born. General Halliday bought the labs before the President was born.”
“He did it deliberately,” I said. “He planned it all out some forty-five years ago!”
“We’re seeing the results of a plan that’s been in operation for nearly half a century.” Vickie looked and sounded just as awed and frightened as I felt.
Hank tried to pull us back to reality. “But why? Why th’ hell would he want t’ make extra copies of his own son? And what’s happenin’ to those copies now?”
I had no answer. Yet. “All right, let’s put together the pieces we have and see if any of this really makes sense,” I said.
They both waited for me to say more. I leaned my rump against the edge of the desk and started ticking off points on my fingers.
“One: when the President’s father was a major in the Army Research Office, he pulled a deal that got him major ownership and complete control of the North Lake Research Laboratories.”
They both nodded.
“Two: he brings Dr. Alfonso Peña in to head up North Lake. Peña had been working in biological warfare at Fort Detrick.”
“Halliday prob’ly knew Peña already,” Hank threw in.
I agreed with a nod. “Three: Halliday retires to Colorado and becomes filthy rich. He keeps a commission in the National Guard and becomes a big hero when Denver’s threatened by food rioters.”
“And in th’ meantime he has a son,” said Hank.
“Right. What about his wife?” I wondered.
“She died while the boy was still an infant,” Vickie said. “I checked that out earlier. Natural causes, although there was some gossip in the underground press around Aspen that she drank herself to death.”
“Okay,” I said. “Now where the hell are we?”
“Point four.”
I saw that my hands were trembling slightly. Nobody seemed to notice. “All right. Four: General Halliday had his son cloned at North Lake, either right at birth or very soon afterward. Vickie, is there any info on where the President was born?”
“At the General’s home in Aspen.”
“So he flew the kid to Minnesota right after birth?” Hank asked.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “All they had to do was ship a few cells from the baby’s body out to the labs. A little sliver of skin would do.”
“Maybe when they circumcised him,” Vickie suggested, a trace of a smile on her lips.
“How do you know was circumcised?”
“I could try to find out.”
“Never mind. They only needed a few cells. That would be enough to grow as many extra’ James J. Hallidays as they wanted. Each of them only nine months or so younger than the original.”
“It still don’t make sense.” Hank was shaking his head doggedly. “Why would th’ General clone his son? How could they keep th’ thing a secret? Cryin’ out loud—they’d have a dozen little James J. Hallidays crawlin’ all over th’ place!”
“No wonder his mother drank herself to death,” Vickie said. But there was no smile this time.
“The General’s hideout at Aspen is big enough to stash a battalion of James J. Hallidays,” I said.
“But the secrecy they’d need t’ carry it off!” Hank insisted. “Why, th’ General’d have to have a staff of people who looked up t’ him like he was God, fer cryin’ out loud.”
I grinne
d humorlessly. “Ever meet the General?”
“Nope.”
“Or some of his employees… like Robert H.H. Wyatt?”
“Oh.” Hank had met Wyatt, it was apparent. “Maybe I see what yew mean.”
“Okay then… putting it all together…”
Vickie took over. “The General had his son cloned, and then trained him for a life in politics. He was programmed to be President from the instant he was born.”
“Before that,” I said.
“But why clone him?” Hank asked again. “And why’re th’ clones droppin’ dead? Who’s killin’ them? And why?”
“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” I said.
“How?”
“There’s one guy who knows the whole story, and he might be pressured into telling us: Dr. Peña.”
Vickie said, “McMurtrie and Dr. Klienerman talked with Peña just before they… they crashed.”
“I know.” That’s why my hands were shaking, and why I belatedly looked up at the ventilator grill in the ceiling and started to wonder who else had heard our think-tank session.
THIRTEEN
General Halliday beat us to the punch.
I got into my office early the next morning and dove into the pile of accumulated paperwork that Greta had left on my desk—until 9:00 Central Time. Then I put in a call to Dr. Peña.
And got Peter Thornton. On the phone’s picture screen, he looked even fussier and more officious than he had in person.
“Dr. Peña’s not available,” he said. “He’s been under enough strain recently.”
“This is important,” I said. “I want to fly out there this afternoon and—”
“Absolutely not! Out of the question. Besides, he won’t even be here by this afternoon. He’s going away for a complete rest.”
“Away? Where?”
Thornton’s normally frowning face wrinkled even further into a scowl. “Oh, come now, Mr. Albano. Why can’t you leave the old man alone? He’s very frail, and quite upset about all this… this notoriety.”
I leaned closer to the phone screen. “Listen. Would you rather have him talk to me or to the Federal goddamned Bureau of Investigation?”
“Really! I—”
“Where’s he going?” I demanded. “To the General’s place in Aspen?”
Thornton looked shocked. “How did you know?”
“I’ve got spies, too.”
“But…”
“I know,” I said. “Dr. Peña needs a complete rest. You just make sure he doesn’t get the kind of rest that Klienerman and McMurtrie got.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“Nothing. Just take good care of that old man.” I clicked off before he could say anything else.
And called Vickie into my office. In the few minutes it took to get her down the hall I signed half a dozen memos and canceled three meetings that I was supposed to chair.
Vickie came in quietly, without any announcement from Greta, and took the seat in front of my desk. She was wearing a forest-green one-piece jumpsuit, with a yellow scarf tied loosely at her throat.
“Looks like you’re ready to go skydiving,” I said as I initialed a couple more memos.
She grinned at me. “It’s a comfortable outfit. I don’t have any outside appointments today, so I can wear what feels best.”
“Looks good,” I said.
She made a thank-you bob of her head.
“I’m going to Aspen,” I said. “The General’s got Dr. Peña there.”
Vickie’s face went from pleased to surprised to scared to thoughtful, all in a couple of eyeblinks. She was terrible at keeping secrets. “What good will that do?” she asked in a level, practicality-above-all tone. “The General probably won’t even let you into his house, and even if he does, he certainly won’t let you interrogate Dr. Peña.”
“Can you think of anything better we can do?”
She pursed her lips for a moment. “Yes. Call a press conference and tell the newshawks what you know.”
“Blow the lid off.”
“Exactly.” Her face was dead serious now.
“I can’t do that, Vickie… not just yet, anyway. I promised The Man that I’d keep things buttoned up—”
“He can’t hold you to such a promise!”
“Maybe not. But I can. I gave The Man my word, kid. I can’t go back on that, not yet.”
“When, for God’s sake? After you’re smashed all across some Colorado mountainside?”
“Don’t get emotional.”
“Don’t get chauvinistic,” she snapped back. “I’m a damned sight more practical than you, Meric. I don’t let Boy Scout oaths straitjacket my thinking. You swore secrecy to the President! Is that worth your life? Or his?”
I tried to stay calm. Vickie seemed more angry than anything else. And she had some accurate thinking on her side.
“Listen… Vickie… when we go to the press, I want to be able to give them the whole story. Who, what, where, when, how. Right now, all we know is that the President was cloned in infancy, and at least two of the clones are dead of unknown causes.”
“And McMurtrie and Klienernian were murdered.”
“Maybe.”
“They’re certainly dead.”
“Okay.” I found myself drumming my fingertips on the desk top. I pulled back my hands and drummed on my thighs instead. Quieter, at least.
“If we release what we know to the press,” I went on, “it will ruin the President. Just blow him right out of office. He’ll be totally unable to do his job.”
“Is that bad?”
“Do we know for sure that it’s not?” I demanded, my voice rising. Has he done anything to deserve being tossed out like a crook or an incompetent? Has he tried to squash us? He could, you know, in about twelve microseconds.”
“Well…”
“He’s been doing a damned fine job, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, but…”
“Vickie, listen to me. We have absolutely no evidence that the President is involved in anything nefarious. For a while there I thought he was—but now, I’m not so sure. For all we know, he was never told about this cloning. It’s the General who’s behind all this. And it’s our job to find out what the General’s doing, and why, without harming the President.”
“But suppose the President is part of it? Whatever it is,” Vickie asked, leaning forward in her chair, earnest, intent, afraid.
If we find out he’s part of it, we blow the whistle. Loud and clear. But not until then.”
She shook her head unhappily.
“I’m going to Aspen,” I said. “I’ve got to see Dr. Peña, one way or the other.”
“It’s a trap,” Vickie said “They’ve been watching every move we make, and they’re setting you up for the same treatment that McMurtrie got.”
“That’s… melodramatic,” I said. Limply.
“They’re using Peña as bait. They want you to go there.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to sound tough, “they’re going to get their wish.”
Vickie sat up straighter and looked at me with calm, serious eyes. “So you’re going to march into the lion’s den, and I’m supposed to stay safely at home and keep your obituary notice handy, in case it comes to that.”
I had to smile at her. “I think I hear a feminist tirade coming at me.”
“You’re not leaving me behind,” she said. “I’m not some simpering hausfrau…”
“No. But you are the person who can call an international press conference if anything happens to me. There’s no sense both of us walking into the lion’s den.”
“Then let me go, and you stay here.”
“Not on your life!”
A quizzical look came over her face. “That’s an interesting choice of words.”
“All right,” I said. “The argument is closed. I’m going to Aspen this afternoon. You hold the fort here.”
She didn’t answer. It was impossible for tha
t elfin face to sulk, but she was damned close to it.
“And I want you to stay with friends while I’m away,” I added. “You’re not immune to an accident here in Washington, you know.”
“I have some friends I could stay with,” she said.
“Male or female?”
Vickie arched an eyebrow. “Does it make any difference?”
“Would I ask if it didn’t?”
She smiled. But she didn’t answer.
* * *
I took the United flight to Denver and the Rocky Mountain Airways bounce-along to Aspen. Deciding that boldness was my best protection. I rented a helicopter and told the pilot to land me at the pad alongside the Generals house.
“I gotta have clearance first,” he told me over the whine of the chopper’s turbines. “Those guys don’t think twice about shootin’ at ya.”
He was a grizzled, fiftyish, hulking bear of a man, the kind who didn’t look as if he scared easily. On the other hand, a man doesn’t earn a living flying in the tricky air currents of the Rockies if he’s inclined to take chances and trust to luck.
We were already airborne and in five minutes we’d be over the General’s estate.
“Okay,” I said to the pilot. “You raise them on the radio, but let me talk to them.”
He gave me a wary glance but did it anyway. I took a headset from his chunky hand as the valley slid below us. The chopper was riding fast and low; the air was smooth enough to make the ride almost pleasant. The snow was still heavy on the ground, broken only by plowed roads and the dark green of big fir trees reaching up toward us. The town was behind us, out of sight. The only signs of habitation I could see were occasional houses or ski lodges sitting low and stony against the snowy fields.
As I clamped the headset on, a tinny voice grated in my ear: “Who’s asking for landing clearance? Repeat, who is requesting landing clearance?” The voice already sounded annoyed.
“This is Meric Albano, press secretary to the President of the United States.” The title always impressed the hell out of me; maybe it would buffalo them a little. “We’ll be landing in a red and white Snowbird Lines helicopter in about three or four minutes. I’m here to see General Halliday and Dr. Peña.”