Trifecta (49 page)

They slipped out of the doorway, one at a time, propping
the door closed again, and walked noiselessly on bare feet to the car.  It was in
a smelly alley between a fish store and a grocery.  They did not know how lucky
they were that Mark had parked behind a giant dumpster.  There had been an intense
search for the car during the hours they had been dismantling the lab. 

No one talked on the way back to Sabrina's apartment. 

When they finally had the door safely closed behind them,
Mark and Sabrina went to the couch and plopped down like puppets.  Sabrina felt
like she had just regained her breathing ability after a prolonged period of abstinence. 
She sighed and, looking at her soiled feet, said, "I lost two pairs of my favorite
shoes."

"Do you know how lucky we were?"  Mark said.

"I liked them a lot.  Wore them all the time."

"We didn't get caught and we didn't fall off that
goddamned roof."  Mark collapsed back on the couch.

Eve sat down on a chair, opened her purse and took out
the bottle of syrup.  She took a few sips.

"Even so..."  Sabrina said.

"Breaking, entering, trashing a whole laboratory,
hiding on the roof while the place was searched."

"I guess we were lucky,"  Sabrina acknowledged.

"Damn lucky,"  Mark said, starting to smile. 
"We go through all that, and all you think about is your shoes?"

"But they were nice shoes,"  Sabrina said, smiling
back at him.

Eve knew that they were joking and watched with interest.

"Small sacrifice,"  Mark said.

"Maybe to you." 

"I'll buy you some new shoes." 

"No.  It's okay."  Sabrina said perversely. 

Eve watched them laugh with interest.  She didn't realize
the relief they were feeling was so tremendous that they were on the edge of hysteria. 
She found herself joining.  She recognized the laughter was a release of some type
of pressure they had been feeling.  The laughter was contagious, like a flu humans
were prone to, or fire in dry wood, like the passion she had felt this evening,
or the anger that could build on a silly incident when she was pushed. 

Eve thought living was a very marvelous and interesting
experience.

M
alcolm flipped on the tape recorder when Ivar
got into the car.  Ivar sat there listening, dumbfounded at the implications. 

"Imagine! One of the two is a robot,"  Malcolm
said after the tape had played out.  "I wonder which one it is, the redhead
or the brunette.  Did you get close enough to see?"

Ivar shook his head, "Not really."

"What was the dark haired one doing all that time?"

The thought of saying anything was distasteful.  Ivar made
up a story about following Eve during a shopping spree to cover the time he had
spent with her.  He hoped his lies would be believed, and there weren't agents also
spying on him.  His job inspired paranoia.

"I called Whitcomb,"  Malcolm said.  "Played
the tape for him.  I guess we'll pick up the women pretty soon.  Maybe they're both
computers.  They look so real, don't you think?"

"Yes.  Very real."  Ivar was thinking that the
Americans now had more information than the Russians.  It was up to him to fill
in his operative.  Then there would be a race for Russia to get the women, or the
android, or whatever, first.  They would be drugged and interrogated, not tortured. 
But there would be experiments, possible surgery to make sure that one of the women
was, in fact, a computer.  They would probably be spirited out of the country to
do this.  Some kind of mind altering job would be done on the one who was not a
computer, so that she could go back and resume her life without a memory of what
had transpired.

"Mark Ponti called the dark haired one Sabrina, so
I think the computer is the redhead,"  Malcolm said.

Ivar could feel his stomach spasm.  He had eaten too much
food tonight.  He didn't think the Americans would do anything without further proof. 
He would have to do some damn fast investigating. 

"Old Hood Eyes wants this, now."  Malcolm waved
the small tape recorder.  He started the car and they worked their way east to the
freeway. 

The clouds and fog were rolling in.  The city in the distance
appeared like a fairy land of lights enshrouded in mist, unlike the skyline normally
encased in a brown smoggy haze.

Ivar wished he could destroy the tape machine that encased
the damning conversation.  A automobile accident that would smash it to smithereens. 
He was beginning to question his own motives.  He had known for a long time that
he felt no loyalty to the to the KGB, or to Russia, for that matter.  He was grateful
that he could be here, living in freedom, but he didn't feel particular loyalty
to this country either.  It was a wonderful country, but he thought that its government
might be as corrupt as his own.  He did not want to think of what would happen if
either regime got hold of the two women.

In the past, Ivar had contemplated defecting to the United
States.  He could become a triple agent, working for the United States, leaking
disinformation back to his superiors in Russia.  He would be highly prized, but
regarded with suspicion and used accordingly, never totally accepted in his loyalty. 
Of course, they would be right. 

Ivar liked to think of himself as peace loving, even though
he had had lethal training for what was quaintly called 'wet work' by both the KGB
and the CIA.  He did not want to be working for either government.  He did not wish
to defect.  Neither did he want to return to Russia.  Maybe he could disappear and
go live in Canada.  The notion was rather simplistic, but he had gathered information
about how to obtain false identification papers.  Ivar kept that knowledge in a
part of his brain that searched for comfort. 

Ivar felt he had nothing at all, having been placed to
observe the workings of the CIA for Russian Intelligence.  He'd had years of hiding
his heritage and his native language.  A pantomime of living. 

The mist enshrouded fantasy was becoming a reality as the
freeway took Ivar and Malcolm past buildings looming out of the fog, which were
now walls on either side of the car; walls of dirty gray or beige, defiled with
graffiti.  There were wino's on the streets, which were garish with neon signs for
liquor stores and pawn shops, grocery stores and ugly department stores with numerous
filthy parking lots.  The only fantasy left was in the rainbow halos around the
street lights in the lowering night fog.

Los Angeles, the City of the Angels; known for Hollywood
films, gang wars, decadent living, illegal aliens, the L.A.  Lakers, and earthquakes;
the city which worshiped designer clothes, film stars, youth, and people wealthy
enough to live in Beverly Hills.  Swindlers fed off the tired and lonely adolescents
who flocked here with wild dreams of becoming film stars, and who would inevitably
end up on the streets, addicted to drugs. 

Ivar wondered if he was clinically depressed or if he just
wanted out as they parked near the light grey, federal building's facade, slightly
cracked from the last earthquake.  They hurried up the stone steps and showed their
badges to the night security guard.

Burgess Whitcomb, Old Hood Eyes, was on the telephone in
his inner office when they arrived.  His exhausted assistant, Willard Modert, bade
them wait. 

When they finally were ushered in, Burgess let the silence
grow and looked at them without moving, from behind his oddly hooded eyes.  His
loud, "Well?"  cut the silence. 

Ivar, double agent, and as such, consummate actor, almost
flinched.  He began a monotone recital of the day's activities, repeating the lies
he had told Malcolm, covering the time he had spent with Eve.

Burgess Whitcomb had the disturbing ability of maintaining
a totally neutral expression.  He sat impassively through his agent's monologue
and the presentation of the audio tape recording.  He let the silence run. 

Finally, Burgess said, "Your backup agents didn't
intercept or even find the Miller women.  Or Mark Ponti.  Right now their whereabouts
is unknown.  You should have followed and kept radio contact.  Right now, we're
combing the Fairfax district."

Ivar was thinking, Christ, We are in deep shit. 

Malcolm, a very facile talker, quickly surprised Ivar by
taking the blame.  Knowing his own car had been identified, he had made the decision
not to follow Sabrina and Mark.

Burgess finally said he thought he had made it very clear
that they were to break cover.  He wondered aloud why Ivar had not been able to
do this with Sabrina Miller after following her all evening in public places.  Ivar
knew he had taken the bait from the remark Mark had made and believed that Sabrina
was Eve.  He didn't know if it mattered or not. 

T
he three people in Sabrina's apartment slept the sleep
of the deeply emotionally and physically fatigued, oblivious of watchers outside
the building.  Sabrina had been up since four a.m.  the morning before, and she
was totally unaware of Mark's arm around her, giving comfort in the night, except
on a subconscious basis. 

Eve, sleeping in the living room on the couch she had carried
across the room the day before, did have dreams, but they involved Ivar and were
pleasant.  She did not cry out during the night.  Even during sleep, Eve's computer
was checking the surroundings, noting shifts in body and room temperature, making
slight adjustments in her metabolism to compensate, and taking over the function
of the autonomic nervous system by slowing the heart beat and respiration to the
lowest possible levels so that the body would conserve energy. 

Morning came too quickly.  Mark had to rush to dress in
the clothes he had worn the day before.  He had a quick cup of coffee and left Sabrina
with a peck that landed near her chin.

As Sabrina was cooking breakfast she saw Eve sip the coffee
and grimace. 

"I hope you don't feel too bad about what Alexander
said."  Sabrina spoke a little hesitantly.  "About your mother."

"Why?"  Eve asked.

"I mean, she sold you."  Sabrina flipped the
eggs.

"I don't have a mother."

"Well, you did." 

"Not any more.  Nothing is left of the baby.  Genetically,
I am your twin."

Sabrina shook her head.  "I can see you sometimes
know what I'm thinking."

"I receive more and more of your thoughts as time
goes by.  I usually obey them, but sometimes they don't apply."

"I don't understand."  Sabrina sat down at the
small round table across from Eve, sipping her coffee.

"Well, yesterday I had a Sabrina Thought that I should
not walk alone on the street after dark.  That someone might try to take the purse. 
I knew no one could do it, so it did not apply to me."

Sabrina laughed and then sobered quickly, "But someone
might have tried to take the purse at gun point.  Or maybe a gang would try to hurt
you."

"The statistics are slim."  Eve took another
sip of the coffee, frowning.  "I don't think I like this stuff."

"I didn't either,"  Sabrina said.  "The
taste has to be acquired."

"Like wine?"

"Yes."  Sabrina paused and then said, "Eve,
it's dangerous to think you're invincible."

"You worry?"

"I was so scared when you were gone last night."

"Then I want to tell you what's bothering me." 
Eve related the incident at the gym. 

"The man at the gym knocked you down.  But you felt
no pain?"

"None."

To want to kill someone who unintentionally bumped Eve
was a little extreme, Sabrina thought.

"I don't even know if all the hormones are in force
yet.  So I thought I could use a tranquilizer.  I think the brain is not functioning
correctly in the emotional mode."

"The best thing would be to talk to Ferd."

"I tried to sedate myself with alcohol.  I don't know
if it worked, because right in the middle of it this drunk started rubbing my knee."

"Good grief, where were you?" 

Eve told Sabrina about the snooty French hostess, the lecherous
drunk and all about Ivar Cousin. 

Sabrina sat perfectly still, stunned.

"So Alexander was right when he said we were being
followed, because Ivar was following me,"  Eve continued, as though she had
said nothing surprising. 

"You had sex with a government agent?"  Sabrina
asked a little shrilly.

"He was in the bedroom with the door closed, so I
didn't get the whole conversation.  Sex makes me sleepy."

"With all your experience you should know," 
Sabrina said, smiling slightly.  All that had happened to Eve, Sabrina thought,
even before they broke into Ferd's place, demolished the laboratory and hid on the
roof.

"It was my first time,"  Eve said.

"It's just so incredible.  You go to a bar, meet a
man and have sex with him, and he's a spy."

"I was sad about that,"  Eve said.

"He probably liked you a lot, Eve.  He didn't have
to have sex with you.  Not even spies do that to get information."

"Well, we started and then he stopped all of a sudden,
so I asked him to continue."

"He didn't have to.  Begin again, I mean."  Sabrina
sat thoughtful for a moment.  "Who started?"

"He did."

"He wouldn't have started if he didn't want to."

"You're right.  He likes me a lot."

"Are you sure he's a government agent?"

"I overheard him say on the telephone that he had
broken cover.  Then he said that there were some unusual things about Eve Miller,
the dark haired women.  Not the redhead that they had under surveillance, also. 
He said I was very intelligent, strong and unusually heavy."

"Have you weighed yourself?"  Sabrina asked.

"I'm two hundred and fifteen pounds on the scale in
the bathroom.  I am reinforced and my muscles are more compact, so that I can carry
the weight."

"The important thing, though, is that we're being
followed and spied upon." 

"Eventually, we will be picked up,"  Eve said. 
"If someone tries to poke or prod me, to see if I'm different, I'm going to
get angry.  I might hurt someone."

"Let's call Ferd."

"Ferd is being watched too,"  Eve reminded her.

Sabrina nodded and thought that they were already linked
to Ferd, and to his sons Alexander and Stephan.  Hell, the spies were probably watching
Mark by now. 

Sabrina was terrified and angry at the same time.  Maybe
the phones were tapped and people were already listening to their conversations. 

"We can't use a cell phone.  Better go to a pay phone," 
Eve said, almost reading her thoughts.  "Not that it will do much good.  Ferd's
phone in the hospital is probably bugged.  That's a funny expression, isn't it. 
Bugged."  Eve seemed to relish the word and repeated it, smiling and nodding
her head. 

Sabrina went over to the wall phone in the kitchen and
unscrewed the mouth piece.  She wouldn't know a transmitter if she saw one, but
she couldn't find any pieces that looked abnormal or like they could be detached. 
She did the same for the telephone in the bedroom, with Eve trailing behind her.

"Can you see anything wrong with the phones?" 
Sabrina asked.

"No."

"Well, I don't want you to be alone from now on. 
The government will probably bring us in for questioning, like you said.  We need
some documentation for you.  A drivers license, birth certificate, and some credit
cards."

"I want to see Ferd,"  Eve said.  "In person."

"We'll go right now." 

Sabrina had seen Ferd only once, when he had explained
his special filtered tanning device to her.  Now, when she looked at him through
the glass window outside his hospital room, she had the impression of a sweet, gentle
and very sick old man.  His whole face, but particularly his jowls, seemed to sag
with the weight of many years. 

Ferd visibly brightened when they walked into his room. 
His eyes sparkled and his arms trembled, and then he held his hands out to them. 
He looked intensely at them both, as though surprised and pleased at his own creation. 
He squeezed Sabrina's hand and released it.  Looking at Eve, he asked, "How
are you?"

"There are problems,"  Eve said.

Ferd reached to the table at the side of his bed.  He turned
on the television that was hanging in a metal ceiling stand across the room.  The
volume was so loud it was hard to hear him speak. 

Eve sat on the side of Ferd's bed, still holding his hand. 
Sabrina pulled a chair close and leaned down.  They spoke in whispers.  Sabrina
explained how they had dismantled his laboratory the night before.  Ferd nodded
his head with what looked to be satisfaction. 

Eve told Ferd about her problems.  The nightmares.  The
rages.  Not blinking.  The extreme fatigue and faintness after the healing process.

"Eve also craves bones to eat, and she has memories
that could only come from primitive man,"  Sabrina told Ferd.

Ferd took out a prescription pad and wrote on it.  He handed
it to Eve.  "This is a light tranquilizer.  It won't take the scary dreams
away, altogether, but it should help you sleep through the night."

"But what should we do?"  Eve asked.

"I have given power of attorney to my son, Stephan. 
He is going to open a bank account for you, Eve.  There will be enough money for
you to live for many years, in case something happens to me."

"You are my father,"  Eve said.

Ferd nodded sadly.  "I'll get Stephan to work on providing
you with a driver's license and birth certificate."

Sabrina could see the special bond that the old man and
Eve had.  But did Ferd really believe that Stephan would act in Eve's behalf, opening
a bank account for her and providing the documentation she needed? Just last night
Stephan had been waving a gun at them. 

"Tell me why I'm not performing correctly," 
Eve said.

"I'm trying to weigh the evidence, and I am afraid
that there are some biological predispositions that you can expect to occur in the
future.  You see, through hundreds of thousands of years, the human brain has become
civilized, to a certain extent.  But there is a dark side to the interesting, intelligent
animal called homo sapien.  There are laws because people steal, cheat, lie and
kill.  There are still wars.  Man is an extremely hostile, greedy and aggressive
mammal.

"The thin veneer of civilization might be absent in
you, Eve.  The frontal lobes, behind man's high forehead, expanded most during man's
evolution.  The brain can be thought of as divided into two broad segments, the
paleocortex or the old primitive part of the brain, and the neocortex, or the new
brain.  Man's brain is now about eighty five percent neocortex.  In the older part,
many of the evolutionary functions, like a fishes ability to swim and the bird's
ability to fly, are still believed to be buried.  The paleocortex controls respiration,
movement coordination and the regulation and transmission of impulses like hunger,
thirst and the sex drive.  The frontal lobes of the brain are the sites of memory
and intelligence.

"If your brain is not fully completed, you might have
tendencies like extreme eruptions of anger, and fierce protectiveness to those you
have attachments to.  But, you would probably be an excellent mother, protecting
your babies ferociously.  And you would be more likely to have the racial memories
Sabrina spoke of."

"I am all one gigantic Id?"  Eve asked.

Ferd smiled and shook his head.  "No, not at all. 
You will probably always produce more of the hormone adrenalin, but you have the
computer for logic.  You are a genius.  You can live a normal life.  Sometimes there
will be a whip-saw of emotions, but you can live with that because of your high
intelligence.  The connections between the two parts of your brain might make accessible
the ancient memories, because of the computer."

"How do you know all this, Ferd?"  Sabrina asked.

Ferd told them that if the copy process had really completed,
Eve would have been an exact duplicate of Sabrina.  The machinery copied the molecular
structure exactly, and if it was copying a biological or live structure, it also
made a DNA reproduction so that there would be a perfect living image of the organic
structure.

"My hair was white,"  Eve said.

"That was the DNA reproduction.  If the copy process
had finished, you would have had Sabrina's hair color, exactly."

Ferd went on to say that he had been blinded by years of
research.  He would never let power hungry people have control of the scientific
knowledge to implant computers.  He had no interest in going public, now that he
believed the government might plan to use that information to justify their politics. 
Or to change people. 

"What if Eve faints because she's hurt and can't get
to her syrup in time?"  Sabrina asked.

"The brain maintains the same usage of resources whether
asleep or awake, consuming up to 40% of the total oxygen and nutrients consumed
daily.  So Eve should make sure to get enough calories every day.  Eve will have
strong impulses to overeat, and to be very aggressive, physically and sexually. 
You have probably produced all of the hormones now that you will ever have.  You
don't have to be afraid of losing emotional control." 

As to the agents that were following Sabrina and Eve, Ferd
suggested the women might try to deactivate them by letting the agents know they
were aware of them.  If they continued to do this they might get an idea about the
scope of the investigation, and maybe put a hardship on the inquiry.  On the other
hand, to know who the agents were could be an advantage. 

Ferd seemed to be tiring rapidly, leaning further into
his pillows.  Sabrina was just deciding that they should leave when a doctor walked
into the hospital room.

When Ferd introduced Eve and Sabrina Miller to his doctor,
the microphone in the room picked up their voices and the television monitor over
the bed filmed their images.