the Third Twin (1996)

by Ken Follett

  When he was thirteen Steve had been taken on a visitor’s tour of the place by a tall young man with an impossibly short haircut. The building consisted of five concentric rings linked by ten corridors like the spokes of a wheel. There were five floors and no elevators. He had lost his sense of direction within seconds. The main thing he remembered was that in the middle of the central courtyard was a building called Ground Zero which was a hotdog stand.

  Now his father led the way past a closed barbershop, a restaurant, and a metro entrance to a security checkpoint. Steve showed his passport and was signed in as a visitor and given a pass to stick to his shirtfront.

  There were relatively few people here on a Saturday evening, and the corridors were deserted but for a few late workers, mostly in uniform, and one or two of the golf carts used for transporting bulky objects and VIPs. Last time he was here Steve had been reassured by the monolithic might of the building: it was all there to protect him. Now he felt differently. Somewhere in this maze of rings and corridors a plot had been hatched, the plot that had created him and his doppelgängers. This bureaucratic haystack existed to hide the truth he sought, and the men and women in crisp army, navy, and air force uniforms were now his foes.

  They went along a corridor, up a staircase, and around a ring to another security point. This one took longer. Steve’s full name and address had to be keyed in, and they waited a minute or two for the computer to clear him. For the first time in his life he felt that a security check was aimed at him; he was the one they were looking for. He felt furtive and guilty, although he had done nothing wrong. It was a weird sensation. Criminals must feel like this all the time, he thought. And spies, and smugglers, and unfaithful husbands.

  They passed on, turned several more corners, and came to a pair of glass doors. Beyond the doors, a dozen or so young soldiers were sitting in front of computer screens, keying in data, or feeding paper documents into optical character recognition machines. A guard outside the door checked Steve’s passport yet again, then let them in.

  The room was carpeted and quiet, windowless and softly lit, with the characterless atmosphere of purified air. The operation was being run by a colonel, a gray-haired man with a pencil-line mustache. He did not know Steve’s father, but he was expecting them. His tone was brisk as he directed them to the terminal they would use: perhaps he regarded their visit as a nuisance.

  Dad told him: “We need to search the medical records of babies born in military hospitals around twenty-two years ago.”

  “Those records are not held here.”

  Steve’s heart sank. Surely they could not be defeated that easily?

  “Where are they held?”

  “In St. Louis.”

  “Can’t you access them from here?”

  “You need priority clearance to use the data link. You don’t have that.”

  “I didn’t anticipate this problem, Colonel,” Dad said testily. “Do you want me to call General Krohner again? He may not thank us for bothering him unnecessarily on a Saturday night, but I will if you insist.”

  The colonel weighed a minor breach of rules against the risk of irritating a general. “I guess that’ll be okay. The line isn’t being used, and we need to test it sometime this weekend.”

  “Thank you.”

  The colonel called over a woman in lieutenant’s uniform and introduced her as Caroline Gambol. She was about fifty, overweight, and corseted, with the manner of a headmistress. Dad repeated what he had told the colonel.

  Lieutenant Gambol said: “Are you aware that those records are governed by the privacy act, sir?”

  “Yes, and we have authorization.”

  She sat at the terminal and touched the keyboard. After a few minutes she said: “What kind of search do you want to run?”

  “We have our own search program.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be glad to load that for you.”

  Dad looked at Steve. Steve shrugged and handed the woman the floppy disks.

  As she was loading the program she looked curiously at Steve. “Who wrote this software?”

  “A professor at Jones Falls.”

  “It’s very clever,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” She looked at the colonel, who was watching over her shoulder. “Have you, sir?”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s loaded. Shall I run the search?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Lieutenant Gambol pressed Enter.

  49

  A HUNCH MADE BERRINGTON FOLLOW COLONEL LOGAN’S black Lincoln Mark VIII when it emerged from the driveway of the Georgetown house. He was not sure whether Jeannie was in the car; he could see only the colonel and Steve in the front, but it was a coupé, and she might have been in the back.

  He was glad to have something to do. The combination of inactivity and pressing anxiety was wearying. His back ached and his legs were stiff. He wished he could give it all up and go. He might be sitting in a restaurant with a good bottle of wine, or at home listening to a CD of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, or undressing Pippa Harpenden. But then he thought of the rewards that the takeover would bring. First there would be the money: sixty million dollars was his share. Then the chance of political power, with Jim Proust in the White House and himself as surgeon general. Finally, if they succeeded, a new and different America for the twenty-first century, America as it used to be, strong and brave and pure. So he gritted his teeth and persisted with this grubby exercise in snooping.

  For a while he found it relatively easy to track Logan through the slow-moving Washington traffic. He stayed two cars behind, as in the gumshoe movies. The Mark VIII was elegant, he thought idly. Maybe he should trade in his Town Car. The sedan had presence, but it was middle-aged: the coupé was more dashing. He wondered how much he would get trading in the Town Car. Then he remembered that by Monday night he would be rich. He could buy a Ferrari, if he wanted to look dashing.

  Then the Mark VIII went through a light and around a corner, the light turned red, the car in front of Berrington stopped, and he lost sight of Logan’s car. He cursed and leaned on his horn. He had been woolgathering. He shook his head to clear it. The tedium of surveillance was sapping his concentration. When the light turned green again he screeched around the corner and accelerated hard.

  A few moments later he saw the black coupé waiting at a light, and he breathed easier.

  They drove around the Lincoln Memorial, then crossed the Potomac by Arlington Bridge. Were they heading for National Airport? They took Washington Boulevard, and Berrington realized their destination must be the Pentagon.

  He followed them down the off-ramp into the Pentagon’s immense parking lot. He found a slot in the next lane, turned off his engine, and watched. Steve and his father got out of the car and headed for the building.

  He checked the Mark VIII. There was no one left inside. Jeannie must have stayed behind at the house in Georgetown. What were Steve and his father up to? And Jeannie?

  He walked twenty or thirty yards behind them. He hated this. He dreaded being spotted. What would he say if they confronted him? It would be unbearably humiliating.

  Thankfully, neither of them looked back. They went up a flight of steps and entered the building. He stayed with them until they passed through a security barrier and he had to turn back.

  He found a pay phone and called Jim Proust. “I’m at the Pentagon. I followed Jeannie to the Logan house, then trailed Steve Logan and his father here. I’m worried, Jim,”

  “The colonel works at the Pentagon, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah,”

  “It could be innocent.”

  “But why would he go to his office on a Saturday evening?”

  “For a poker game in the general’s office, if I remember my army days.”

  “You don’t take your kid to a poker game, no matter what age he is.”

  “What’s at the Pentagon that could harm us?” “Records.”

  “No,” Jim sai
d. “The army has no record of what we did. I’m sure of that.”

  “We have to know what they’re doing. Isn’t there some way you can find out?”

  “I guess. If I don’t have friends at the Pentagon, I don’t have them anywhere. I’ll make some calls. Stay in touch.”

  Berrington hung up and stood staring at the phone. The frustration was maddening. Everything he had worked for all his life was imperiled, and what was he doing? Following people around like a grubby private eye. But there was nothing else he could do. Seething with helpless impatience, he turned around and went back to his car to wait.

  50

  STEVE WAITED IN A FEVER OF ANTICIPATION. IF THIS WORKED, it would tell him who raped Lisa Hoxton, and then he would have a chance of proving his innocence. But what if it went wrong? The search might not work, or medical records might have been lost or wiped from the database. Computers were always giving you dumb messages: “Not found” or “Out of memory” or “General protection fault.”

  The terminal made a doorbell sound. Steve looked at the screen. The search had finished. On the screen was a list of names and addresses in pairs. Jeannie’s program had worked. But were the clones on the list?

  He controlled his eagerness. The first priority was to make a copy of the list.

  He found a box of new diskettes in a drawer and slid one into the disk drive. He copied the list onto the disk, ejected it, and slid it into the back pocket of his jeans.

  Only then did he begin to study the names.

  He did not recognize any of them. He scrolled down: there seemed to be several pages. It would be easier to scan a piece of paper. He called Lieutenant Gambol. “Can I print from this terminal?”

  “Sure,” she said. “You can use that laser printer.” She came over and showed him how.

  Steve stood over the laser printer, watching avidly as the pages came out. He was hoping to see his own name listed alongside three others: Dennis Pinker, Wayne Stattner, and the man who raped Lisa Hoxton. His father watched over his shoulder.

  The first page contained only pairs, no groups of three or four.

  The name “Steven Logan” appeared halfway down the second page. Dad spotted it at the same time. “There you are,” he said with suppressed excitement.

  But there was something wrong. There were too many names grouped together. Along with “Steven Logan,” “Dennis Pinker,” and “Wayne Stattner” were “Henry Irwin King,” “Per Ericson,” “Murray Claud,” “Harvey John Jones,” and “George Dassault.” Steve’s elation turned to bafflement.

  Dad frowned. “Who are they all?”

  Steve counted. “There are eight names.”

  “Eight?” Dad said. “Eight?”

  Then Steve saw it. “That’s how many Genetico made,” he said. “Eight of us.”

  “Eight clones!” Dad said in amazement. “What the hell did they think they were doing?”

  “I wonder how the search found them,” Steve said. He looked at the last sheet out of the printer. At the foot it said, “Common characteristic: Electrocardiogram.”

  “That’s right, I remember,” Dad said. “You had an electrocardiogram when you were a week old. I never knew why.”

  “We all did. And identical twins have similar hearts.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” Dad said. “There are eight boys in the world exactly like you.”

  “Look at these addresses,” Steve said. “All army bases.”

  “Most of those people won’t be at the same address now. Doesn’t the program pull out any other information?”

  “No. That’s how come it doesn’t invade people’s privacy.”

  “So how does she track them down?”

  “I asked her that. At the university they have every phone book on CD-ROM. If that fails they use driving license registries, credit reference agencies, and other sources.”

  “The heck with privacy,” Dad said. “I’m going to pull these people’s full medical histories, see if we get any clues.”

  “I could use a cup of coffee,” Steve said. “Is there any around?”

  “No beverages are allowed in the data center. Spilled liquids play havoc with computers. There’s a little rest area with a coffee maker and a Coke machine around the corner.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Steve left the data center with a nod to the guard at the door. The rest area had a couple of tables and a few chairs, and machines selling soda and candy. He ate two Snickers bars and drank a cup of coffee then headed back to the data center.

  He stopped outside the glass doors. Several new people were inside, including a general and two armed military policemen. The general was arguing with Dad, and the colonel with the pencil-line mustache seemed to be speaking at the same time. Their body language made Steve wary. Something bad was happening. He stepped into the room and stood by the door. Instinct told him not to draw attention to himself.

  He heard the general say: “I have my orders, Colonel Logan, and you’re under arrest.”

  Steve went cold.

  How had this happened? It was not just that they had discovered Dad was peeking at people’s medical records. That might be a serious matter, but it was hardly an arresting offense. There was more to this. Somehow Genetico had arranged it.

  What should he do?

  Dad was saying angrily: “You don’t have the right!”

  The general shouted back at him: “Don’t lecture me about my goddamn rights, Colonel.”

  There was no point in Steve joining in the argument. He had the floppy disk with the list of names right in his pocket. Dad was in trouble, but he could look after himself. Steve should just get out of there with the information.

  He turned and went out through the glass doors.

  He walked briskly, trying to look as if he knew where he was going. He felt like a fugitive. He struggled to remember how he had got here through the maze. He turned a couple of corners and walked through a security checkpoint.

  “Just a minute, sir!” the guard said.

  Steve stopped and turned, heart racing. “Yes?” he said, trying to sound like a busy person impatient to get on with his work.

  “I need to log you out on the computer. May I see your identification?”

  “Of course.” Steve handed over his passport.

  The guard checked his picture, then keyed his name into the computer. “Thank you, sir,” he said, handing back the passport.

  Steve walked away along the corridor. One more checkpoint and he was out.

  Behind him he heard the voice of Caroline Gambol. “Mr. Logan! One moment, please!”

  He glanced back over his shoulder. She was running along the corridor behind him, red-faced and puffing.

  “Oh, shit,” he said.

  He darted around a corner and found a staircase. He ran down the steps to the next floor. He had the names that could clear him of the rape charge; he was not going to let anyone stop him getting out of here with the information, not even the U.S. Army.

  To leave the building he needed to get to ring E, the outermost. He hurried along a spoke corridor, passing ring C. A golf cart loaded with cleaning materials went by in the opposite direction. When he was halfway to ring D he heard Lieutenant Gambol’s voice again. “Mr. Logan!” She was still following him. She shouted down the long, wide corridor. “The general wishes to speak with you!” A man in an air force uniform glanced curiously through an office door. Fortunately there were relatively few people around on a Saturday evening. Steve found a staircase and went up. That ought to slow the pudgy lieutenant.

  On the next floor he hurried along the corridor to ring D, followed the ring around two corners, then went down again. There was no further sign of Lieutenant Gambol. He had shaken her off, he thought with relief.

  He was pretty sure he was on the exit level. He went clockwise around ring D to the next corridor. It looked familiar: this was the way he had come in. He followed the corridor outward and came to the security checkpoin
t where he had entered. He was almost free.

  Then he saw Lieutenant Gambol.

  She was standing at the checkpoint with the guard, flushed and breathless.

  Steve cursed. He had not shaken her off after all. She had simply got to the exit ahead of him. He decided to brazen it out.

  He walked up to the guard and took off his visitor’s badge.

  “You can keep that on,” Lieutenant Gambol said. “The general would like to speak with you.”

  Steve put the badge down on the counter. Masking his fear with a show of confidence, he said: “I’m afraid I don’t have time. Good-bye, Lieutenant, and thank you for your cooperation.”

  “I must insist,” she said.

  Steve pretended to be impatient. “You’re not in a position to insist,” he said. “I’m a civilian; you can’t command me. I’ve done nothing wrong, so you can’t arrest me. I’m not carrying any military property, as you can see.” He hoped the floppy disk in his back pocket was not visible. “It would be illegal of you to attempt to detain me.”

  She spoke to the guard, a man of about thirty who was three or four inches shorter than Steve. “Don’t let him leave,” she said.

  Steve smiled at the guard. “If you touch me, soldier, it will be assault. I’ll be justified in punching you out, and believe me, I’ll do it.”

  Lieutenant Gambol looked around for reinforcements, but the only people in sight were two cleaners and an electrician working on a light fixture.

  Steve walked toward the entrance.

  Lieutenant Gambol cried: “Stop him!”

  Behind him he heard the guard shout: “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

  Steve turned. The guard had drawn a pistol and was pointing it at him.

  The cleaners and the electrician froze, watching.

  The guard’s hands were shaking as he pointed the gun at Steve.

  Steve felt his muscles seize up as he stared down the barrel. With an effort he shook off his paralysis. A Pentagon guard would not fire at an unarmed civilian, he was sure. “You won’t shoot me,” he said. “It would be murder.”