Jim went pale. “Will it work?”
“It worked on dental records, why wouldn’t it work on fingerprints?”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Jim said feelingly.
“How many prints do they have on file?”
“More than twenty million sets, as I recall. They can’t be all criminals. Are there that many criminals in America?”
“I don’t know, maybe they have prints of dead people too. Focus, Jim, for Christ’s sake. Can you stop this happening?”
“Who’s her contact at the Bureau?”
Berrington handed him the printout he had made of Jeannie’s E-mail. As Jim studied it, Berrington looked around. On the walls of his office, Jim had photographs of himself with every American president after Kennedy. There was a uniformed Captain Proust saluting Lyndon Johnson; Major Proust, still with a full head of straight blond hair, shaking hands with Dick Nixon; Colonel Proust glaring balefully at Jimmy Carter; General Proust sharing a joke with Ronald Reagan, both of them laughing fit to bust; Proust in a business suit, deputy director of the CIA, deep in conversation with a frowning George Bush; and Senator Proust, now bald and wearing glasses, wagging a finger at Bill Clinton. He was also pictured dancing with Margaret Thatcher, playing golf with Bob Dole, and horseback riding with Ross Perot. Berrington had a few such photos, but Jim had a whole damn gallery. Whom was he trying to impress? Himself, probably. Constantly seeing himself with the most powerful people in the world told Jim he was important.
“I never heard of anyone called Ghita Sumra,” Jim said. “She can’t be high up.”
“Who
“Have you ever met the Creanes, David and Hilary?” Berrington shook his head.
“He’s an assistant director, she’s a recovering alcoholic. They’re both about fifty. Ten years ago, when I was running the CIA, David worked for me in the Diplomatic Directorate, keeping tabs on all the foreign embassies and their espionage sections. I liked him. Anyway, one afternoon Hilary got drunk and went out in her Honda Civic and killed a six-year-old kid, a black girl, on Beulah Road out in Springfield. She drove on, stopped at a shopping mall, and called Dave at Langley. He went over there in his Thunderbird, picked her up and took her home, then reported the Honda stolen.”
“But something went wrong.”
“There was a witness to the accident who was sure the car had been driven by a middle-aged white woman, and a stubborn detective who knew that not many women steal cars. The witness positively identified Hilary, and she broke down and confessed.”
“What happened?”
“I went to the district attorney. He wanted to put them both in jail. I swore it was an important matter of national security and persuaded him to drop the prosecution. Hilary started going to AA and she hasn’t had a drink since.”
“And Dave moved over to the Bureau and did well.”
“And boy, does he owe me.”
“Can he stop this Ghita woman?”
“He’s one of nine assistant directors reporting to the deputy director. He doesn’t run the fingerprint division, but he’s a powerful guy.”
“But can he do it?”
“I don’t know! I’ll ask, okay? If it can be done, he’ll do it for me.”
“Okay, Jim,” Berrington said. “Pick up the damn phone and ask him.”
27
JEANNIE SWITCHED ON THE LIGHTS IN THE PSYCHOLOGY LAB and Steve followed her in. “The genetic language has four letters,” she said. “A, C, G, and T.”
“Why those four?”
“Adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. They’re the chemical compounds attached to the long central strands of the DNA molecule. They form words and sentences, such as “Put five toes on each foot.’ “
“But everyone’s DNA must say “Put five toes on each foot.’ “
“Good point. Your DNA is very similar to mine and everyone else’s in the world. We even have a lot in common with the animals, because they’re made of the same proteins as we are.”
“So how do you tell the difference between Dennis’s DNA and mine?”
“Between the words there are bits that don’t mean anything, they’re just gibberish. They’re like spaces in a sentence. They’re called oligonucleotides, but everyone calls them oligos. In the space between ‘five’ and ‘toes,’ there might be an oligo that reads TATAGAGACCCC, repeated.”
“Everyone has TATAGAGACCCC?”
“Yes, but the number of repeats varies. Where you have thirty-one TATAGAGACCCC oligos between ‘five’ and ‘toes,’ I might have two hundred and eighty-seven. It doesn’t matter how many you have, because the oligo doesn’t mean anything.”
“How do you compare my oligos with Dennis’s?”
She showed him a rectangular plate about the size and shape of a book. “We cover this plate with a gel, make slots all across the top, and drop samples of your DNA and Dennis’s into the slots. Then we put the plate in here.” On the bench was a small glass tank. “We pass an electric current through the gel for a couple of hours. This causes the fragments of DNA to ooze through the gel in straight lines. But small fragments move faster than big ones. So your fragment, with thirty-one oligos, will finish up ahead of mine with two hundred and eighty- seven.”
“How can you see how far they’ve moved?”
“We use chemicals called probes. They attach themselves to specific oligos. Suppose we have an oligo that attracts TATAGAGACCCC.” She showed him a piece of rag like a dishcloth. “We take a nylon membrane soaked in a probe solution and lay it on the gel so it blots up the fragments. Probes are also luminous, so they’ll mark a photographic film.” She looked in another tank. “I see Lisa has already laid the nylon on the film.” She peered down at it. “I think the pattern has been formed. All we need to do is fix the film.”
Steve tried to see the image on the film as she washed it in a bowl of some chemical, then rinsed it under a tap. His history was written on that page. But all he could see was a ladderlike pattern on the clear plastic. Finally she shook it dry then pegged it in front of a light box.
Steve peered at it. The film was streaked, from top to bottom, with straight lines, about a quarter of an inch wide, like gray tracks. The tracks were numbered along the bottom of the film, one to eighteen. Within the tracks were neat black marks like hyphens. It meant nothing to him.
Jeannie said: “The black marks show you how far along the tracks your fragments traveled.”
“But there are two black marks in each track.”
“That’s because you have two strands of DNA, one from your father and one from your mother.”
“Of course. The double helix.”
“Right. And your parents had different oligos.” She consuited a sheet of notes, then looked up. “Are you sure you’re ready for this—one way or the other?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.” She looked down again. “Track three is your blood.”
There were two marks about an inch apart, halfway down the film.
“Track four is a control. It’s probably my blood, or Lisa’s. The marks should be in a completely different position.”
“They are.” The two marks were very close together, right at the bottom of the film near the numbers.
“Track five is Dennis Pinker. Are the marks in the same position as yours, or different?”
“The same,” Steve said. “They match exactly.”
She looked at him. “Steve,” she said, “you’re twins.”
He did not want to believe it. “Is there any chance of a mistake?”
