Origin in Death (23 page)

"Maybe it's both. But smart's a factor. Dress, hairstyle identical. That's calculated."

"Yeah." She nodded. She took out her communicator, buzzed Peabody. "Privacy mode," she ordered, waited. "Leave them there for now, come out, turn right, come in through the first door."

"Yes, sir."

"They'll know you're watching," Roarke pointed out. "They're used to being watched."

"Hey," Peabody said as she came in, saw the observation window. "More frost in a series of frosty events and happenings. Is it just me, or does that have a very high creepy factor?"

"Imagine how it is for them," Eve countered. "Whitney?"

"He's coming in, as is Chief Tibble. He's requested Dr. Mira attend."

Eve felt her back tighten. "Why?"

"I don't make a habit of questioning the commander." She said it piously. "I like being a detective."

Eve paced the length of the glass. There wasn't so much as a murmur from inside. And the women sat, relaxed. "We ID them through prints first, request they voluntarily provide DNA samples, test those. We're going to make damn sure what we're dealing with. We can start that before the observation team arrives."

Putting it into order in her head, Eve shrugged out of her coat. "Let's separate them while we're running the ID. They won't like that."

As she expected, she saw the first crack in composure when she returned and ordered Peabody to escort one of the women from the room.

"We want to stay together."

"Routine. You'll need to be identified and questioned separately at this time." She tapped one of the two remaining on the shoulder. "If you'll come with me."

"We're here to cooperate. But we want to stay together."

"This won't take long." She took her Avril out and into a small parlor where she'd placed an ID kit. "I can't question you until I verify your identification. I'm going to ask you to submit to print scan, and to give me a DNA sample."

"You know who we are. You know what we are."

"For the record. Do you agree?"

"Yes."

"Are you the Avril Icove I spoke with after Wilfred Icove Jr.'s murder?"

"We're the same. We're one."

"Right. But one of you was there. One was at the beach. Where was the third?"

"We can't be together physically often. But we're always together ~

"That's starting to sound like Free-Ager pap. Prints verified is Icove, Avril. DNA. Hair or spit?" she asked.

"Wait." Avril closed her eyes, drew a breath. When she opened her eyes again there were tears. She picked up a swab, coated it with her own tears, handed it to Eve.

"Neat trick." Eve inserted the swab into her portable scanner. "Art all your emotions manufactured?"

"We feel. We love and hate, laugh and cry. But we're well trained."

"I bet. We broke Icove's code on his personal logs. This is going to take a few minutes." She let the scanner hum, studied Avril. "What about your children? Did he create them?"

"No. They're only children." Everything about her softened. "Conceived in our body. They're innocent, and have to be protected. If you give us your word you'll protect our children, we'll believe you."

"I'll do everything I can to protect the children." She read the scanner.  "Avril."

All three were tested. According to scanners and readouts, all three were the same person.

Eve joined the observation team, which included Reo. Once again, she had Peabody remain in the room with the reunited women.

"DNA matches. No question to the ID. What we've got in there are all legally, biologically Avril Icove."

"It should be unbelievable," Tibble commented.

"What it is, is fraught with legal minefields," Reo put in. "How do you question a witness and/or suspect when you have three who are the same ?"

"By using the fact they're coming here as a single unit," Eve said to Reo. "That's their stand, so we use it."

"Physiologically that may be true. But emotionally . . ." Mira shook her head. "They haven't had the same experiences, they haven't lived the same lives. There will be differences between them."

"DNA samples. One gave me a tear. Rolled it out on command. The other two went with saliva. Number one was showing off. But all three made identical requests that the children be protected."

"The relationship between mother and child is one of the most primal. While only one gave birth . . ."

"Two kids," Eve interrupted. "We don't know, unless they agree to an exam, if two of the three gave birth."

A fresh flicker of horror ran over Mira's face. "Yes, you're right. If. . . in any case, with the intimate connection between these women, their primal instinct toward the children could very well be just as intimate."

"Could they communicate telepathically?"

"I can't say." Mira lifted her hands. "Genetically, they're identical. It's likely their early environment was as well. But at some point they were separated. Identical siblings are known to have a unique bond, to sense each other's thoughts. Even those separated by years of time or miles of distance have proved to have this connection. It's also possible they might be sensitives. That this quality was either inherent in the cell used to create them or evolved due to their extraordinary circumstance."

"I need to get started."

They looked up, as one, as Eve entered the room. For form she walked to a recorder, engaged.

"Interview with Avril Icove regarding the unlawful deaths of Wilfred B. Icove, Sr., and Wilfred B. Icove, Jr. Mrs. Icove, have you beer. informed of your rights and obligations?"

"Yes."

"Do you understand these rights and obligations?"

"Yes."

"It would make it easier, for the purposes of this interview, if you would speak one at a time."

They glanced at each other. "It's difficult to know what you expect from us."

"Let's shoot for the truth. You." She pointed to the woman at the corner of the table. "For now, you can answer. Which one of you lived at the location where Wilfred Icove, Jr., was murdered?"

"We've all lived there, at one time or another."

"Through your choice or because you were directed into this situation by your husband or father-in-law?"

"It was the arrangement our father dictated. Always. Choice? It isn't always an option."

"You call him your father."

"He was the father. We're his children."

"Biologically?"

"No. But he made us."

"As he did Deena Flavia."

"She's our sister. Not biologically," Avril added. "But emotional'. She's like us. Not us, but like us."

"He created you, and others like you, through illegal procedures."

"He called it Quiet Birth. Should we explain?"

"Yeah." Eve sat, kicked back in the chair. "Why don't you?"

"During the wars, the father became friends with Jonah Wilson, the noted geneticist, and his wife, Eva Samuels."

"First, what's your relationship to Eva Samuels? You have the same maiden name."

"There's no relation. We're not of her. The name was a convenience for them."

"Were your biological parents those listed as such on your official data?"

"We don't know who our parents were. But it's doubtful."

"Okay, go on. Icove, Wilson, and Samuels hooked up."

"They were very interested in each other's work. Though the father was, initially, skeptical and wary of Dr. Wilson's more radical theories and experiments-"

"Even then, you see," the second Avril continued, "there were experiments. Though he was skeptical, he couldn't deny his fascination. When his wife was killed, grief took him. She was carrying their daughter, and both were lost. He tried to reach them in time, to get to her body. But nothing was viable. He was too late."

"Too late to attempt to preserve her DNA, and potentially re-create her."

"Yes." The third Avril smiled. "You understand. He couldn't save his wife and the baby she carried. For all of his skill and knowledge, he was helpless, as he'd been to save his own mother. But he began to see what could be done. How many loved ones might be saved."

"By cloning."

"Quiet Birth." The first took over again. "There were so many dead, so many lost. So many in pain. So many children, orphaned, injured. He intended to save them. Was driven to."

"By extraordinary means."

"They, the father and Wilson, worked in secret. The children, after all, so many of the children would never have real lives. They'd give them better. They'd give them the future."

"They used children they found in the wars?" Peabody demanded. "They took kids?"

"This appalls you."

"Shouldn't it?"

"We were a child in the war. Dying. Our DNA was preserved, our cells taken. Should we have died then?"

"Yes."

They looked back at Eve. And each nodded. "Yes. It's the natural order. We should have been allowed to die, to stop being. But we weren't. There were failures. And the failures were destroyed, or used for further study. Again and again, day after day, year after year, until there were five who were viable."

"There are two more of you?" Eve asked.

"There were. We were born in April."

"Back up a minute. Where did he get the women who were implanted?"

"There weren't any. We weren't developed in a human womb. We weren't given even that gift. The wombs are artificial, a great achievement." Now her voice hardened, and the anger simmering under it flashed into her eyes. "Every moment of development can be monitored. Every developing cell can be engineered, adjusted, manipulated. We have no mother."

"Where? Where is it done?"

"We don't know. We don't remember the first years. It was eraser Drugs, treatments, hypnosis."

"Then how do you know what you're telling me?"

"Will. He shared some of this. He loved us, was proud of what we are. Was proud of his father and the achievements. Some we knew from Deena, and some we learned when we began to question."

"Where are the other two?"

"One died at six months. We were not able to sustain. The other.

They paused, linked hands. "We learned the other lived for five years. We lived five years. But we weren't strong enough, and our intellect wasn't developing according to the required levels. He killed us. He injected us as you might a terminally ill pet. We went to sleep, and never woke. And so, we're three."

"There's documentation of this?"

"Yes. Deena obtained it. He made her very smart and resourceful. Maybe he miscalculated the range of her curiosity, her ... humanity. She learned she'd been two, but one hadn't been allowed to develop past the age of three. When she told us, we couldn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it. She ran away, she wanted us to come, but..."

"We loved Will. We loved the father. We didn't know how to be without them."

"She contacted you again."

"We were always in contact. We loved her, too. We kept her secret. We married Will. It was so important to make him happy, and we did. When we got pregnant, we asked only one thing of him and the father. One thing. Our child-any children we would have together-would never be re-created. They'd never be used this way. They gave their word."

"One of us had a son."

"Another a daughter."

"And a third carries a daughter."

"You're pregnant?"

"The child was conceived three weeks ago. He didn't know. We didn't want him to know. He broke his word. The one sacred thing. Eleven months ago, he and the father took cells from the children. It has to be stopped. Our children must be protected. We've done-and will do-whatever it takes to stop it."

Chapter Fifteen

EVE  ROSE, WALKED TO THE  BAR, PROGRAMMED coffee for herself and Peabody. They were speaking one at a time now, but with the same unity. One picking up the recitation where the other left off. "Want anything?" she

asked them.

"We'd like water. Thank you."

"How'd you find out they'd broken their promise?"

"We knew our husband, and knew something was wrong. While he was out of the house, we checked the logs in his private office, and found the records on the children. We wanted to take them, take our babies and run."

"But it wouldn't protect the ones they'd create. Create, then alter and perfect. Test and evaluate."

"They grew inside us, warm inside us, and they'd take that and make replicas in the cold lab. In his notes Will said it was a precaution only, in case something happened to the children. But they aren't things to be replaced. In all our years, it was the only thing we asked, and he couldn't honor his promise."

"We told Deena, and we knew it had to be stopped. They'd never stop, as long as they lived. We'd never learn all we needed to learn until they were dead and we had more control."

"So you killed them both. You and Deena."

"Yes. We planted the weapon for her. We believed she wouldn't be identified. Or if she was, we'd get to all the records first; we'd be able to shut down the project. And we took the children away, safely away, then came back for Will."

Eve worked with their rhythm, and in a strange way found it efficient. "You drove Deena to the school to kill Samuels."

"She was like us, taken from Eva Samuels's DNA, and designed to continue the work. She's Eva, replicated. You know that."

"Eva helped kill us and Deena when we weren't perfect enough. She terminated others. Many others. Do you see us? We're not allowed a flaw, no physical or biological flaw. This is the father's directive. Our children have flaws, as any child does, should. We knew they would take what they were and alter it."

"They gave us no choice, not from the moment they made us. There are hundreds who had no choice, who were trained every day for up to twenty-two years to become. Our children will have a choice."

"Which one of you killed Wilfred Icove, Jr.?"

"We're the same. We killed our husband."

"It was one hand that held the knife."

Each held up an identical right hand. "We're one."

"Bullshit. You've each got a set of lungs, a heart, kidneys." Eve tipped a water glass so drops fell on the left hand on the one nearest her. "Only one of you has a wet hand. One of you walked into that house, into the kitchen, prepared a nice, healthy snack for the man you intended to kill. One of you sat down beside him where he lay on the sofa. Then stuck a knife in his heart."

"We were one to them. One of us would live in the house, mother to our children, wife to our husband. One would live in Italy, in the Tuscan countryside. The villa's large, the estate beautiful. As is the chateau in France where one of us would live. Every year, on the day of our becoming, we would be switched. And the other of us would be given a year with our children. We thought we had no choice."

Tears glimmered now in three pairs of eyes. "We did what we were told to do. Always, always. One year of every three to be who we were made to be. Two years to wait. Because we were what Will wanted. and what the father deemed he could have. He made us to love, and we loved. But if we can love, we can hate."

"Where's Deena?"

"We don't know. We contacted her when we agreed to cooperate with you. We told her what we intended, what had to be done, and that she should disappear again. She's good at it."

"The school has a second generation."

"Of many. Not us. This was what Will requested of his father. But we know there are more of our cells preserved somewhere. In case."

"Some have been sold."

"Placement. He called it placement, yes. Made-to-order generated * great deal of money. It required a great deal of money to continue the project."

"Were all the . . . the base for the project... all from the wars? Eve asked.

"Children, some adults who were mortally injured. Other doctors, scientists, technicians, LCs, teachers."

"All female."

"That we know of."

"Did you ever ask to leave? The school?"

"To go where, and to what? We were taught and trained and tested every day, all of our lives. We were given a purpose. Every minute was regimented and monitored. Even what was called our free time. We're imprinted to be, to do, to know, to act, to think."

"If so, how do you kill that which made you?"

"Because we were imprinted to love our children. We would have lived as they'd wanted us to live, if they'd left our children alone. Do you want a sacrifice, Lieutenant Dallas? Choose any one of us, and that one will confess to it all."

They linked hands again. "That one will go to prison for the rest of our lives, if the other two are free to go, to take the children away where they'll never be touched or observed. Where they'll never have to be stared at, pointed out. Be objects of fear or fascination. Aren't you afraid of us, of what we are?"

"No." Eve got to her feet. "And I'm not looking for sacrifices, either. We're breaking from interview at this time. Please remain here. Peabody, with me."

She went through the door, secured it, then went straight into the observation area. Reo was already on the 'link, having an avid conversation in undertones.

"They'd know Deena Flavia's location," Whitney said.

"Yes, sir. They know where she is, or how to find her. Certainly they have contact information. I can separate them again, go at them individually. With the confession on record, I can get a warrant to have them tested, find out which, if any, is pregnant. If so, that one would be the most vulnerable. Peabody could soft-pedal with them, one on one. She's good at it. Next hit is to push on locations for the labs specifically used for the project, where they've put whatever data they've already taken, and who, if anyone, is on Deena's termination list. They're not done. They haven't accomplished everything they were after, and they're oriented to succeed."

She glanced at Mira for confirmation.

"I agree. At this point they're giving you what they want you to have. They want your help in shutting this down, and your sympathy. They want you to know why they did what they did, and why they're willing to sacrifice themselves for it. You won't break them."

Eve lifted her eyebrows. "Want to put money on it?"

"It has nothing to do with your interview skills. They are the same person. Their life experiences are so minutely different it barely registers. They were created to be the same, then trained and given a routine that ensured they would be the same."

"One hand held the knife."

"You're being literal," Mira said impatiently. "In a very real sense, that one hand belonged to all of them."

"They can all be charged," Tibble pointed out. "Conspiracy to murder. First degree."

"Never get to trial." Reo shut her 'link. "My boss and I are in agreement on this. With what we just heard in there, what we know, we'd never get this to stick. Any defense would whoop our asses long before we got to a murder trail. Frankly, I'd like to defend them myself. Not only a slam dunk, but I'd be rich and famous by the end of it."

"So they walk?" Eve demanded.

"You try to charge them, the media's going to chew it bloody. Human rights groups are going to get in on it, and in five short minutes, we'll have the newly formed Clone Rights organizations. You get them to lead you to Deena, that's chummy, Dallas. I'd like to hear her story. And maybe, if there's only one of her, we manage to cut some deal. But with these?"

She gestured toward the glass, and the three women at the table. "You've got enforced imprisonment, brainwashing, diminished capacity, child endangerment. And if I were going to bat for them, pure old self-defense. I'd make it work, too. There's no way to win this."

"Three people are dead."

"Three people," Reo reminded her, "who conspired to break international laws, and who broke said laws for decades. Who, if you're getting the truth in there, created life, then terminated those lives if they didn't meet certain standards. Who created that which killed them. They're smart."

She walked closer to the glass. "Did you hear what they said? 'We were imprinted to be, do, feel,' and so on. That's a strong, impenetrable line of defense. Because they were created and engineered and imprinted. They acted as they'd been programmed to react. They defended their children against what many will see as a nightmare.'

"Get what you can out of them," Tibble ordered. "Get Deena Flavia, get locations. Get details."

"And then?" Eve asked.

"House arrest. We'll keep them under wraps until we get this closed down. They wear bracelets. Guards-droids-twenty-four/seven. We're going to have to pass this up, Jack."

"Yes, sir, we are."

"Get details," Tibble repeated. "We're going to verify every one of them, cross every T. Twenty-four hours, max, and we're passing this ball. Let's make sure it doesn't bounce up and smash into our faces."

"I've got to head in, start strategizing what we do when and if we do it." Reo picked up her briefcase. "You get anything I can use, I need to know. Day or night."

"I'll show you all out." Roarke stepped to the door.

"I need to speak with the lieutenant." Mira stayed where she was. "Privately, if you don't mind."

"Peabody, go in. Give them each a bathroom break, offer them food, drink. Then pick one. Take her out and start working her. Soft sell."

When she was alone with Mira, Eve walked to the large coffeepot Roarke must have put on a table. She poured a cup.

"I'm not going to apologize for my comments and reactions of earlier today," Mira began.

"Fine. Me, neither. If that's it-"

"Sometimes you seem so hard it's difficult to believe anything gets through. I know that's not true, and still. .. If Wilfred and his son did the things they-she-claims, it's reprehensible."

"Look through the glass. See them? I think that goes a long way toward corroboration of the statements given."

"I know what I see." Her voice trembled a little, then strengthened. "That he used children-not consenting, informed adult volunteers, but innocents, minors, the injured, the dying. Whatever his motives, whatever his goals, that alone condemns him. It's difficult, Eve, to condemn someone you considered a hero."

"We've been around that lap already."

"Damn it, have some respect."

"For who? Him? Forget it. For you, okay, fine. I do, which is why you're pissing me off. You got any dregs of respect left for him, then-"

"I don't. What he did was against every code. Maybe, maybe I could forgive what he started to do, out of grief. But he didn't stop. He perpetuated it. He played God with lives, not just in the creating of them, but in the manipulation of them. Of her, and all the rest. He gave her to his son as if she were a prize."

"That's right, he did."

"His grandchildren." Mira pressed her lips together. "He would have used his own grandchildren."

"And himself."

Mira let out a long, unsteady breath. "Yes. I wondered if you'd realized that yet."

"A man has the power to create life, why bow to mortality? He's got cells preserved somewhere, with orders to activate on his death. Or he's already got a younger version of himself working somewhere."

"If so, you have to find him. Stop him."

"She's already thought of that." Eve gestured toward the glass. "She and Deena. And they've got a big jump on me. She'd like the trial."

Eve moved to the glass, studied the two women still in the meeting room. "Yeah, if the kids were away, protected, she'd fucking love to face trial, and spill all this out. She'd spend her life in prison without batting an eye to make sure what was done is in the open. She knows she'll never spend a day in a cage, but she'd do it if she had to."

"You admire her."

"I give her an A for balls. I admire balls. He put her in a mold, and imprint or no, she broke it. She broke him."

She knew what it took to kill your jailer. Your father. "You should go home. You're going to have to spend time with them tomorrow it we're going to cross all Tibble's T's. It's too late to start that tonight."

"All right." Mira started for the door, paused. "I'm entitled to some degree of upset," she said. "To my irrational outbursts earlier, to anger and hurt feelings."

"I'm entitled to expect you to be perfect, because that's how I see you. So if you go around acting flawed and human like the rest of us lower beings, it's going to throw me off."

"That's so completely unfair. And touching. Do you know there's no one in this world who can annoy me so much as you, other than Dennis and my own children?"

Eve slid her hands into her pockets. "I guess that's supposed to be touching, too, but it sounds like a slap."

A smile whispered around Mira's lips. "That's a mother's trick, and one of my favorites. Good night, Eve."

Eve stood at the glass, watched the two women. They nibbled on what looked to her like a grilled chicken salad, sipped water.

They spoke little, then only about the innocuous. The food, the weather, the house. Eve continued to study them when the door opened and Roarke stepped in.

"Does having a conversation with your clone constitute talking to yourself?"

"One of the many questions and satirical remarks that will be made if and when this becomes public knowledge." He moved to her, behind her, laid his hands on her shoulders. And found exactly the spot where the worst of the tension knotted.

"Relax a bit, Lieutenant."

"Gotta stay up. I'm giving it about ten more minutes, then we'll juggle them around again."

"I take it you and Mira have made up."

"I don't know what we did. I guess we're down to irritated rather than supremely pissed."

"Progress. Did you discuss the fact that Reo told you what you'd hoped to hear?"

She let out a sigh. "No. I guess she was irritated enough that one got by her." She glanced over her shoulder, met his eyes. "Not you, though."