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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 do you know at the FBI?" Berrington said impatiently.

"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."

Chapter 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