"We're investigating a case of arson."

"I'm glad I have an alibi."

She found it unnerving to hear Steve's voice and know she was listening to a stranger. She wished she could see Henry King, to check the visual resemblance. Reluctantly she drew the conversation to a close. "Thank you again, sir. Good night." She hung up and blew out her cheeks, drained by the effort of deception. "Whew!"

Lisa had been listening. "You found him?"

"Yes, he was born in Fort Devens and he's twenty-two today. He's the Henry King we're looking for, sure enough."

"Good work!"

"But he seems to have an alibi. He says he was working at a bar in Cambridge." She looked at her scratch pad. "The Blue Note."

"Shall we check it out?" Lisa's hunting instinct had been aroused and she was keen.

Jeannie nodded. "It's late, but I guess a bar should still be open, especially on a Sat.u.r.day night. Can you get the number from your CD-ROM?"

"We only have residential numbers. Business listings are another set of disks."

Jeannie called information, got the number, and dialed it. The phone was answered right away.

"This is Detective Susan Farber of the Boston police. Let me speak to the manager, please."

"This is the manager, what's wrong?" The man had a Hispanic accent and he sounded worried.

"Do you have an employee named Henry King?"

"Hank, yeah, what he do now?"

It sounded as if Henry King had been in trouble with the law before. "Maybe nothing. When did you last see him?'

"Today, I mean yesterday, Sat.u.r.day, he was working the day shift."

"And before that?"

"Lemme see, last Sunday, he worked the four-to-midnight."

"Would you swear to that if necessary, sir?"

"Sure, why not? Whoever got killed, Hank didn't do it."

"Thank you for your cooperation, sir."

"Hey, no problem." The manager seemed relieved that was all she wanted. If I were a real cop, Jeannie thought, I'd guess he had a guilty conscience. "Call me any time." He hung up.

Jeannie said disappointedly: "Alibi stands up."

"Don't be downhearted," Lisa said. "We've done very well to eliminate him so quickly-especially as it's such a common name. Let's try Per Ericson. There won't be so many of them."

The Pentagon list said Per Ericson had been born in Fort Rucker, but twenty-two years later there were no Per Ericsons in Alabama. Lisa tried P * Erics?on in case it should be spelled with a double s, s, then she tried then she tried P*Erics$n to include the spellings "Ericsen" and "Ericsan," but the computer found nothing.

"Try Philadelphia," Jeannie suggested. "That's where he attacked me."

There were three in Philadelphia. The first turned out to be a Peder, the second was a frail elderly voice on an answering machine, and the third was a woman, Petra. Jeannie and Lisa began to work their way through all the P. Ericsons in the United States, thirty-three listings.

Lisa's second P. Ericson was bad tempered and abusive, and she was white-faced as she hung up the phone, but she drank a cup of coffee then carried on determinedly.

Each call was a small drama. Jeannie had to summon up the nerve to pretend to be a cop. It was agony wondering if the voice answering the phone would be the man who had said, "Now give me a hand job, otherwise I'll beat the s.h.i.t out of you." Then there was the strain of maintaining her impersonation of a police detective against the skepticism or rudeness of the people who answered the phone. And most calls ended in disappointment.

As Jeannie was hanging up from her sixth fruitless call, she heard Lisa say: "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. Our information must be out-of-date. Please forgive this intrusion, Mrs. Ericson. Good-bye." She hung up, looking crushed. "He's the one all right," she said solemnly. "But he died last winter. That was his mother. She burst into tears when I asked for him."

She wondered momentarily what Per Ericson had been like. Was he a psychopath, like Dennis, or was he like Steve? "How did he die?"

"He was a ski champion, apparently, and he broke his neck trying something risky."

A daredevil, without fear. "That sounds like our man."

It had not occurred to Jeannie that not all eight might be alive. Now she realized that there must have been more than eight implants. Even nowadays, when the technique was well established, many implants failed to "take." And it was also likely that some of the mothers had miscarried. Genetico might have experimented on fifteen or twenty women, or even more.

"It's hard making these calls," Lisa said.

"Do you want to take a break?"

"No." Lisa shook herself. "We're doing well. We've eliminated two of the five and it's not yet three A.M. A.M.. Who's next?"

"George Da.s.sault."

Jeannie was beginning to believe they would find the rapist, but they were not so lucky with the next name. There were only seven George Da.s.saults in the United States, but three of them did not answer their phones. None had any connection with either Baltimore or Philadelphia-one was in Buffalo, one in Sacramento, and one in Houston-but that did not prove anything. There was nothing they could do but move on. Lisa printed the list of phone numbers so they could try again later.

There was another snag. "I guess there's no guarantee that the man we're after is on the CD-ROM," Jeannie said.

"That's true. He might not have a phone. Or his number could be unlisted."

"He could be fisted under a nickname, Spike Da.s.sault or Flip Jones."

Lisa giggled. "He could have become a rap singer and changed his name to Icey Creamo Creamy."

"He could be a wrestler called Iron Billy."

"He could be writing westerns under the name Buck Remington."

"Or p.o.r.nography as Heidi Whiplash."

"d.i.c.k Swiftly."

"Henrietta p.u.s.s.y."

Their laughter was abruptly cut off by the crash of breaking gla.s.s. Jeannie shot off her stool and darted into the stationery cupboard. She closed the door behind her and stood in the dark, listening.

She heard Lisa say nervously: "Who is it?"

"Security," came a man's voice. "Did you put that gla.s.s there?"

"Yes."

"May I ask why?"

"So n.o.body could sneak up on me. I get nervous working here late."

"Well, I ain't gonna sweep it up. I ain't a cleaner."

"Okay, just leave it."

"Are you on your own, miss?"

"Yes."

"I'll just look around."

"Be my guest."

Jeannie took hold of the door handle with both hands. If he tried to open it, she would prevent him.

She heard him walking around the lab. "What kind of work are you doing, anyway?" His voice was very close.

Lisa was farther away. "I'd love to talk, but I just don't have time, I'm really busy."

If she wasn't busy, buster, she wouldn't be here in the middle of the G.o.dd.a.m.n night, so why don't you just b.u.t.t out and leave her be?

"Okay, no problem." His voice was right outside the door. "What's in here?"

Jeannie grasped the handle firmly and pulled upward, ready to resist pressure.

"That's where we keep the radioactive virus chromosomes," Lisa said. "It's probably quite safe, though, you can go in if it's not locked."

Jeannie suppressed a hysterical laugh. There was no such thing as a radioactive virus chromosome.

"I guess I'll skip it," the guard said. Jeannie was about to relax her grip on the door handle when she felt sudden pressure. She pulled upward with all her might. "It's locked, anyway," he said.

There was a pause. When next he spoke his voice was distant, and Jeannie relaxed. "If you get lonely, come on over to the guardhouse. I'll make you a cup of coffee."

"Thanks," Lisa said.

Jeannie's tension began to ease, but she cautiously stayed where she was, waiting for the all clear. After a couple of minutes Lisa opened the door. "He's left the building," she said.

They went back to the phones.

Murray Claud was another unusual name, and they tracked him down quickly. It was Jeannie who made the call. Murray Claud Sr. told her, in a voice full of bitterness and bewilderment, that his son had been jailed in Athens three years ago, after a knife fight in a taverna, and would not be released until January at the earliest. "That boy could have been anything," he said. "Astronaut. n.o.bel Prize winner. Movie star. President of the United States. He has brains, charm, and good looks. And he threw it away. Just threw it all away."

She understood the father's pain. He thought he was responsible. She was sorely tempted to tell him the truth, but she was unprepared, and anyway there was no time. She promised herself she would call him again, one day, and give him what consolation she could. Then she hung up.

They left Harvey Jones until last because they knew he would be the hardest.

Jeannie was daunted to find there were almost a million Joneses in America, and H. was a common initial. His middle name was John. He had been born at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., so Jeannie and Lisa began by calling every Harvey Jones, every H. J. Jones, and every H. Jones in the Washington phone book. They did not find one who had been born approximately twenty-two years ago at Walter Reed; but, worse, they acc.u.mulated a long list of maybes: people who did not answer their phones.

Once again Jeannie began to doubt whether this would work. They had three unresolved George Da.s.saults and now twenty or thirty H. Joneses. Her approach was theoretically sound, but if people did not answer their phones she could not question them. Her eyes were getting bleary and she was feeling jumpy from too much coffee and no sleep.

At four A.M. A.M.. she and Lisa began on the Philadelphia Joneses.

At four-thirty Jeannie found him.

She thought it was going to be another maybe. The phone rang four times, then there was the characteristic pause and click of an answering machine. But the voice on the machine was eerily familiar. "You've reached Harvey Jones's place," the message said, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. It was like listening to Steve: the pitch of the voice, the diction, and the phrasing were all Steve's. "I can't come to the phone right now, so please leave a message after the long tone."

Jeannie hung up and checked the address. It was an apartment on Spruce Street, in University City, not far from the Aventine Clinic. She noticed her hands were shaking. It was because she wanted to get him by the throat.

"I've found him," she said to Lisa.

"Oh, my G.o.d."

"It's a machine, but it's his voice, and he lives in Philadelphia, near where I was attacked."

"Let me listen." Lisa called the number. As she heard the message her pink cheeks turned white. "It's him," she said. She hung up. "I can hear him now. 'Take off those pretty panties,' he said. Oh, G.o.d."

Jeannie picked up the phone and called police headquarters.

53.

BERRINGTON J JONES DID NOT SLEEP ON S SAt.u.r.dAY NIGHT.

He remained in the Pentagon parking lot, watching Colonel Logan's black Lincoln Mark VIII, until midnight, when he called Proust and learned that Logan had been arrested but Steve had escaped, presumably by subway or bus as he had not taken his father's car.

"What were they doing in the Pentagon?" he asked Jim.

"They were in the Command Data Center. I'm in the process of finding out exactly what they were up to. See if you can track down the boy, or the Ferrami girl."

Berrington no longer objected to doing surveillance. The situation was desperate. This was no time to stand on his dignity; if he failed to stop Jeannie, he would have no dignity left anyway.

When he returned to the Logan house it was dark and deserted, and Jeannie's red Mercedes was gone. He waited there for an hour, but no one arrived. a.s.suming she had returned home, he drove back to Baltimore and cruised up and down her street, but the car was not there either.

It was getting light when at last he pulled up outside his house in Roland Park. He went inside and called Jim, but there was no reply from his home or his office. Berrington lay on the bed in his clothes, with his eyes shut, but although he was exhausted he stayed awake, worrying.

At seven o'clock he got up and called again, but he still could not reach Jim. He took a shower, shaved, and dressed in black cotton chinos and a striped polo shirt. He squeezed a big gla.s.s of orange juice and drank it standing in the kitchen. He looked at the Sunday edition of the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Sun, but the headlines meant nothing to him; it was as if they were written in Finnish. but the headlines meant nothing to him; it was as if they were written in Finnish.