The Multiple Man

TWELVE

Before either of the others could say anything, I told Vickie, “Ask the computer for a definition of cloning.”

She looked up at me quizzically, but her fingers tapped out the query. The computer screen immediately showed:

“That’s it,” I said. “Somebody’s made clone copies of the President.”

“Hey now, slow down a minute fer us ol’ country boys,” Hank said. “What’re yew—”

Vickie explained, “Scientists can take a cell from your body… any cell, like from your skin or a fingernail clipping, and reproduce exact copies of you from it. The babies grown from your cells would turn out to look exactly like you. You could make as many copies of yourself as you want, that way.”

“Exact duplicates,” I said. “As many as you want.”

Hank wasn’t as slow as he liked to pretend. “Y’all mean I could make a roomful of copies of me?”

“Right.”

“Without sex? Just by takin’ a few cells off the end o’ my nose or somethin’?”

I nodded.

“Sheeit… First place, I don’t want more copies o’ me runnin’ around. Second place, I like the old way of makin’ babies a helluva lot better.”

Vickie was grinning at him, but I said, “It’s obvious that somebody wants a lot of copies of the President running around.”

“But nobody’s cloned human beings,” Vickie said. “That whole line of research was shut down years and years ago. The biologists themselves stopped the experiments.”

“Nobody’s reported cloning human beings,” I shot back, jerking a thumb at the computer screen. “But the capability’s there.”

Hank asked slowly, “Y’all think somebody’s taken some cells from th’ President’s body and grown extra people from them? People who look jest like th’ President?”

“That can’t be,” Vickie objected before I could answer. “It would still take forty-some years to grow those cells to the same level of maturity as the President.”

It was all clicking into place in my mind. I asked Vickie, “How much do you want to bet that the biologists outlawed human cloning experiments right around the time the General bought out North Lake Labs?”

She stared at me, speechless.

“James J. Halliday was cloned in infancy,” I said, the words coming fast and eager, “and his father bought the North Lake Labs specifically for that purpose.”

“When th’ kid was born?”

Vickie said,“ Before the child was born. General Halliday bought the labs before the President was born.”

“He did it deliberately,” I said. “He planned it all out some forty-five years ago!”

“We’re seeing the results of a plan that’s been in operation for nearly half a century.” Vickie looked and sounded just as awed and frightened as I felt.

Hank tried to pull us back to reality. “But why? Why th’ hell would he want t’ make extra copies of his own son? And what’s happenin’ to those copies now?”

I had no answer. Yet. “All right, let’s put together the pieces we have and see if any of this really makes sense,” I said.

They both waited for me to say more. I leaned my rump against the edge of the desk and started ticking off points on my fingers.

“One: when the President’s father was a major in the Army Research Office, he pulled a deal that got him major ownership and complete control of the North Lake Research Laboratories.”

They both nodded.

“Two: he brings Dr. Alfonso Peña in to head up North Lake. Peña had been working in biological warfare at Fort Detrick.”

“Halliday prob’ly knew Peña already,” Hank threw in.

I agreed with a nod. “Three: Halliday retires to Colorado and becomes filthy rich. He keeps a commission in the National Guard and becomes a big hero when Denver’s threatened by food rioters.”

“And in th’ meantime he has a son,” said Hank.

“Right. What about his wife?” I wondered.

“She died while the boy was still an infant,” Vickie said. “I checked that out earlier. Natural causes, although there was some gossip in the underground press around Aspen that she drank herself to death.”

“Okay,” I said. “Now where the hell are we?”

“Point four.”

I saw that my hands were trembling slightly. Nobody seemed to notice. “All right. Four: General Halliday had his son cloned at North Lake, either right at birth or very soon afterward. Vickie, is there any info on where the President was born?”

“At the General’s home in Aspen.”

“So he flew the kid to Minnesota right after birth?” Hank asked.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “All they had to do was ship a few cells from the baby’s body out to the labs. A little sliver of skin would do.”

“Maybe when they circumcised him,” Vickie suggested, a trace of a smile on her lips.

“How do you know was circumcised?”

“I could try to find out.”

“Never mind. They only needed a few cells. That would be enough to grow as many extra’ James J. Hallidays as they wanted. Each of them only nine months or so younger than the original.”

“It still don’t make sense.” Hank was shaking his head doggedly. “Why would th’ General clone his son? How could they keep th’ thing a secret? Cryin’ out loud—they’d have a dozen little James J. Hallidays crawlin’ all over th’ place!”

“No wonder his mother drank herself to death,” Vickie said. But there was no smile this time.

“The General’s hideout at Aspen is big enough to stash a battalion of James J. Hallidays,” I said.

“But the secrecy they’d need t’ carry it off!” Hank insisted. “Why, th’ General’d have to have a staff of people who looked up t’ him like he was God, fer cryin’ out loud.”

I grinned humorlessly. “Ever meet the General?”

“Nope.”

“Or some of his employees… like Robert H.H. Wyatt?”

“Oh.” Hank had met Wyatt, it was apparent. “Maybe I see what yew mean.”

“Okay then… putting it all together…”

Vickie took over. “The General had his son cloned, and then trained him for a life in politics. He was programmed to be President from the instant he was born.”

“Before that,” I said.

“But why clone him?” Hank asked again. “And why’re th’ clones droppin’ dead? Who’s killin’ them? And why?”

“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” I said.

“How?”

“There’s one guy who knows the whole story, and he might be pressured into telling us: Dr. Peña.”

Vickie said, “McMurtrie and Dr. Klienerman talked with Peña just before they… they crashed.”

“I know.” That’s why my hands were shaking, and why I belatedly looked up at the ventilator grill in the ceiling and started to wonder who else had heard our think-tank session.