department is invading people’s privacy. A Dr. Ferrami.”
Thank God, Berrington thought jubilantly; Hank Stone came through! He made his voice solemn. “I was afraid of something like this,” he said. “I’ll be right over.” He hung up and sat for a moment, thinking. It was too soon to celebrate victory. He had only begun the process. Now he had to get both Maurice and Jeannie to behave just the way he wanted.
Maurice sounded worried. That was a good start. Berrington had to make sure he stayed worried. He needed Maurice to feel it would be a catastrophe if Jeannie did not stop using her database search program immediately. Once Maurice had decided on firm action, Berrington had to make sure he stuck to his resolve.
Most of all, he had to prevent any kind of compromise. Jeannie was not much of a compromiser by nature, he knew, but with her whole future at stake she would probably try anything. He would have to fuel her outrage and keep her combative.
And he must do all that while trying to appear well intentioned. If it became obvious that he was trying to undermine Jeannie, Maurice might smell a rat. Berrington had to seem to defend her.
He left Nut House and walked across campus, past the Barrymore Theater and the Faculty of Arts to Hillside Hall. Once the country mansion of the original benefactor of the university, it was now the administration building. The university president’s office was the magnificent drawing room of the old house. Berrington nodded pleasantly to Dr. Obell’s secretary and said: “He’s expecting me.”
“Go right in, please, Professor,” she said.
Maurice was sitting in the bay window overlooking the lawn. A short, barrel-chested man, he had returned from Vietnam in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. Berrington found him easy to relate to, perhaps because they had a background of military service in common. They also shared a passion for the music of Mahler.
Maurice often wore a harassed air. To keep JFU going he had to raise ten million dollars a year from private and corporate benefactors, and consequently he dreaded bad publicity.
He spun his chair around and rolled to his desk. “They’re working on a big article on scientific ethics, she says. Berry, I can’t have Jones Falls heading that article with an example of unethical science. Half our big donors would have a cow. We’ve got to do something about this.” “Who is she?”
Maurice consulted a scratch pad. “Naomi Freelander. She’s the ethics editor. Did you know newspapers had ethics editors? I didn’t.”
“I’m not surprised the
“It doesn’t stop them acting like the goddamn Gestapo. They’re about to go to press with this article, they say, but yesterday they got a tip-off about your Ferrami woman.”
“I wonder where the tip came from?” Berrington said.
“There are some disloyal bastards around.”
“I guess so.”
Maurice sighed. “Say it’s not true, Berry. Tell me she doesn’t invade people’s privacy.”
Berrington crossed his legs, trying to appear relaxed when he was in fact wired taut. This was where he had to walk a tightrope. “I don’t believe she does anything wrong,” he said. “She scans medical databases and finds people who don’t know they’re twins. It’s very clever, as a matter of fact—”
“Is she looking at people’s medical records without their permission?”
Berrington pretended to be reluctant. “Well … sort of.”
“Then she’ll have to stop.”
“The trouble is, she really needs this information for her research project.”
“Maybe we can offer her some compensation.”
Berrington had not thought of bribing her. He doubted it would work, but there was no harm in trying. “Good idea.”
“Does she have tenure?”
“She started here this semester, as an assistant professor. She’s six years away from tenure, at least. But we could give her a raise. I know she needs the money, she told me.”
“How much does she make now?”
‘Thirty thousand dollars a year.”
“What do you think we should offer her?”
“It would have to be substantial. Another eight or ten thousand.”
“And the funding for that?”
Berrington smiled. “I believe I could persuade Genetico.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. Call her now, Berry. If she’s on campus, get her in here right away. We’ll settle this thing before the ethics police call again.”
Berrington picked up Maurice’s phone and called Jeannie’s office. It was answered right away. “Jeannie Ferrami.”
“This is Berrington.”
“Good morning.” Her tone was wary. Had she sensed his desire to seduce her on Monday night? Maybe she wondered if he was planning to try again. Or perhaps she had already got wind of the
“Can I see you right away?”
“In your office?”
“I’m in Dr. Obell’s office at Hillside Hall.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “Is this about a woman called Naomi Freelander?”
“Yes.”
“It’s all horseshit, you know that.”
“I do, but we have to deal with it.” “I’ll be right over.”
Berrington hung up. “She’ll be here momentarily,” he told Maurice. “It sounds as if she’s already heard from the
The next few minutes would be crucial. If Jeannie defended herself well, Maurice might change his strategy. Berrington had to keep Maurice firm without seeming hostile to Jeannie. She was a hot-tempered, assertive girl, not the type to be conciliatory, especially when she thought she was in the right. She would probably make an enemy of Maurice without any help from Berrington. But just in case she was uncharacteristically sweet and persuasive, he needed a fallback plan.
Struck by inspiration, he said: “We might rough out a press statement while we’re waiting.”
“That’s a good idea.”
Berrington pulled over a pad and began scribbling. He needed something that Jeannie could not possibly agree to, something that would injure her pride and make her mad. He wrote that Jones Falls University admitted mistakes had been made. The university apologized to those whose privacy had been invaded. And it promised that the program had been discontinued as of today.
He handed his work to Maurice’s secretary and asked her to put it through her word processor right away.
Jeannie arrived fizzing with indignation. She was wearing a baggy emerald green T-shirt, tight black jeans, and the kind of footwear that used to be called engineer boots but were now a fashion statement. She had a silver ring in her pierced nostril and her thick dark hair was tied back. She looked kind of cute, to Berrington, but her outfit would not impress the university president. To him she would appear the kind of irresponsible junior academic who might get JFU into trouble.
Maurice invited her to sit down and told her about the call from the newspaper. His manner was stiff. He was comfortable with mature men, Berrington thought; young women in tight jeans were aliens to him.
“The same woman called me,” Jeannie said with irritation. “This is ludicrous.”
“But you do access medical databases,” Maurice said.
“I don’t look at the databases, the computer does. No human being sees anyone’s medical records. My program produces a list of names and addresses, grouped in pairs.”
“Even that …”
“We do nothing further without first asking permission of the potential subject. We don’t even tell them they’re twins until after they’ve agreed to be part of our study. So whose privacy is invaded?”
