the Third Twin (1996)

Her menu came up on screen. He picked up her mouse and clicked on Calendar. Her appointments were predictable: lectures and classes, laboratory time, tennis games, dates for drinks and movies. She was going to Oriole Park at Camden Yards to watch the ball game on Saturday; Ted Ransome and his wife were having her over to brunch on Sunday; her car was due to be serviced on Monday. There was no entry that said “Scan medical files of Acme Insurance.” Her to-do list was equally mundane: “Buy vitamins, call Ghita, Lisa birthday gift, check modem.”

He exited the diary and began to look through her files. She had masses of statistics on spreadsheets. Her word-processing files were smaller: some correspondence, designs for questionnaires, a draft of an article. Using the Find feature, he searched her entire WP directory for the word “database.” It came up several times in the article and again in file copies of three outgoing letters, but none of the references told him where she planned to use her search engine next. “Come on,” he said aloud, “there has to be something, for God’s sake.”

She had a filing cabinet, but there was not much in it; she had been here only a few weeks. After a year or two it would be stuffed full of completed questionnaires, the raw data of psychological research. Now she had a few incoming letters in one file, departmental memos in another, photocopies of articles in a third.

In an otherwise empty cupboard he found, facedown, a framed picture of Jeannie with a tall, bearded man, both of them on bicycles beside a lake. Berrington inferred a love affair that had ended.

He now felt even more worried. This was the room of an organized person, the type who planned ahead. She filed her incoming letters and kept copies of everything she sent out. There ought to be evidence here of what she was going to do next. She had no reason to be secretive about it; until today there had been no suggestion that she had anything to be ashamed of. She must be planning another database sweep. The only possible explanation for the absence of clues was that she had made the arrangements by phone or in person, perhaps with someone who was a close friend. And if that were the case he might not be able to find out anything about it by searching her room.

He heard a footstep in the corridor outside, and he tensed. There was a click as a card was passed through the card reader. Berrington stared helplessly at the door. There was nothing he could do: he was caught red-handed, sitting at her desk, with her computer on. He could not pretend to have wandered in here by accident.

The door opened. He expected to see Jeannie, but in fact it was a security guard.

The man knew him. “Oh, hi, Professor,” the guard said. “I saw the light on, so I thought I’d check. Dr. Ferrami usually keeps her door open when she’s here.”

Berrington struggled not to blush. “That’s quite all right,” he said. Never apologize, never explain. “I’ll be sure to close the door when I’m through here.”

“Great.”

The guard stood silent, waiting for an explanation. Berrington clamped his jaw shut. Eventually the man said: “Well, good night, Professor.”

“Good night.”

The guard left.

Berrington relaxed. No problem.

He checked that her modem was switched on, then clicked on America Online and accessed her mailbox. Her terminal was programmed to give her password automatically. She had three pieces of mail. He downloaded them all. The first was a notice about increased prices for using the Internet. The second came from the University of Minnesota and read:

I’ll be in Baltimore on Friday and would like to have a drink with you for old times’ sake. Love, Will

Berrington wondered if Will was the bearded guy in the bike picture. He threw it out and opened the third letter. It electrified him.

You’ll be relieved to know that I’m running your scan on our fingerprint file tonight. Call me. Ghita.

It was from the FBI.

“Son of a bitch,” Berrington whispered. “This will kill us.”

26

BERRINGTON WAS AFRAID TO TALK ON THE PHONE ABOUT Jeannie and the FBI fingerprint file: So many telephone calls were monitored by intelligence agencies. Nowadays the surveillance was done by computers programmed to listen for key words and phrases. If someone said “plutonium” or “heroin” or “kill the president,” the computer would tape the conversation and alert a human listener. The last thing Berrington needed was some CIA eavesdropper wondering why Senator Proust was so interested in FBI fingerprint files.