So instead he said, "Why hasn't anyone heard of this? It's tailor-made for the tabloids."

"Other people have stumbled upon it, as I did, but the news has been suppressed. All I did was send out a few e-mails on some preliminary findings and suddenly a member of a government agency which I may not name was knocking on my door. And no, they weren't dressed in black suits and fedoras."

"That's good." Jack had dealt with the real men in black and knew they didn't work for any government. "What did they want?"

"My silence. I could A: come work for them; B: keep my mouth shut and direct my research to another area; or C: stay on my present path and find my reputation trashed to the point where the only place I'd ever get published was Fortean Times, if there."

"You chose A."

Levy nodded. "Just like a lot of others. It was a win-win offer. I got automatic funding to do the kind of groundbreaking work most researchers only dream of. No filling out reams of application forms or going around begging—just research."

Scary and fascinating, but a connection was missing.

"What's all this got to do with Bolton?"

"Jeremy Bolton is loaded with oDNA—the highest score on record."

"Where'd he get it all?"

Levy shrugged. "Who can say? He was born in Louisiana to Elizabeth Bolton. The father is listed as Jonah Stevens but there was no marriage and Elizabeth raised Jeremy alone."

"Could Jonah Stevens be the source of his mystery money?"

Levy shook his head. "He's dead. We traced him because we wanted to see if he was the source of his son's oDNA, but he died in a weird elevator accident."

"Weird how?"

"The police suspected foul play, but nothing was ever proven. Unfortunately for us, his body was cremated, so we never got to check his remains for oDNA."

"What about the mother?"

"Dead too. Cancer. We managed to get an order of exhumation to check her DNA. Elizabeth Bolton carried a significant amount of the o variant, but nowhere near her son's."

"So this Jonah Stevens, whoever he was, must have been a gold mine of the stuff."

Levy nodded. "He was most likely a human monster, because he was also a carrier of the trigger gene."

"What the hell is that?"

"As I said, the oDNA is a cluster of pseudogenes amid the other junk, but unlike most pseudogenes, these are fairly complete. Just dormant. And they remain dormant unless a certain mutation is present on one of the X chromosomes. In times of stress, this gene can awaken the oDNA and transform it from noncoding to coding."

"I don't understand what you mean by coding."

"Genes carry codes—templates, if you will—that the cell uses for making specific proteins. When the oDNA is stimulated from pseudogene status to an active gene, its codes start producing unique proteins that alter neurotransmit-ter levels in the brain, triggering violent impulses. We haven't worked out the exact mechanism yet, but we're pretty sure that's what happens."

"So you're saying these oDN A types can't help it if they're violent."

"I didn't say oDNA triggered violent behavior, I said violent impulses. There's a world of difference. One is the act itself, the other is a tendency toward the act. Other genetic and environmental factors that affect an individual's impulse control come into play here.

"The upshot is that all of us have some of oDNA in us, but the amount varies, so some are more 'other' than the rest. But the amount of oDNA has no effect on an individual unless he or she has the mutation that acts as a trigger.

"But take a large amount of oDNA, add the trigger mutation, mix with poor impulse control—or anything like alcohol or drugs which lower the impulse threshold—and you have a potentially lethal combination."

"Like Jeremy Bolton."

Levy nodded. "Jeremy Bolton is a perfect example."

"And that's why you need him for this clinical trial."

"Exactly. We don't know how to remove his oDNA—although someday we might be able to do just that—so we've targeted the mutated trigger gene. If we can suppress that, the oDNA will remain dormant, and Jeremy Bolton will be just like you and me."

"Speak for yourself, doc." Jack rubbed his eyes. "Your agency can't keep this oDNA a secret forever."

"It knows that. And when the news does hit, it will have devastating effects. Look at the problems caused by differences in pigmentation. Imagine what's going to happen when it's leaked that there are people among us with large amounts of alien DNA—and believe me, the o in oDNA will be quickly replaced by alien in the popular press. Not to mention what it will do to the criminal justice system. Chaos. Everyone behind bars or in court will be claiming their genes made them do it and will want to be declared not guillv hy reason of defective DNA."

Jack hadn't thought of that. Jeez.

He said, "And since we no longer believe in personal responsibility in this country, the lawyers will have a field day."

Levy shook his head. "We're talking genetics here, not—"

"It always comes down to personal responsibility," Jack said. "Like you said, the oDNA triggers violent impulses. But there's one more step before the violence: You still have to decide whether or not to act on the impulse. And even if you're drunk or coked up at the time, you're responsible for deciding to drink or snort. So even though you have an impulse to drop a cinder block off an overpass, you don't cross the line until you release it."

Levy gave him a funny look. "Cinder block…?"

"Forget it." Jack had a flash of a gray mass crashing through a windshield, smashing into… "Just an example that came to mind."

"All that aside, the government wants to be ready to offer a remedy. That's why the urgency to find a way to suppress the trigger. But there's a more practical use. We'll be able to formulate this into injections that will last three months. A condition of parole for oDNA positives will be the therapy. Imagine the reduction in recidivism."

Jack stared at Levy. Something in his voice didn't ring true…

"Is that the real reason?"

"Of course. What other reason could there be?"

Yeah. Definitely lying. But Jack figured it would be a waste of time to ask. Besides, he had a much more pressing question.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

Levy blinked. "Why… because we agreed to trade information: I'd tell you about oDNA and you'd tell me where you heard of it."

Jack didn't buy that. Levy had told him way too much. Could be he'd got carried away with his story, but that didn't wash. He hadn't prodded Jack once for his source on oDNA.

And then he knew.

"You want Bolton back in Creighton, don't you. And you want me to put him there."

Levy looked flustered. "I want nothing of the sort. I told you, this clinical trial is of momentous importance. Nothing must jeopardize it."

"Yeah, but you think it should be tried first on someone less volatile. You've got a wife and a daughter. Bolton knows you, knows where you live, and you know he's a Tate-LaBianca waiting to happen. Admit it: Bolton on the outside scares the crap out of you."

"1 admit to nothing of the sort. As I told you—"

Jack waved him off. "Save it. You're looking for a patsy. You're hoping I'll do something to tip off the cops that Bolton's out—like maybe getting myself offed by him—and that'll solve your problem and leave your hands clean. Or at least looking clean."

Levy stared out through the windshield and said nothing.

"Okay," Jack said. "Let's do it."

Levy turned to him, looking puzzled. "Do what?"

"Out Jerry Bethlehem as Jeremy Bolton. But we do it so that neither of us is downwind when the shit hits the fan."

"How?"

Jack thought about that. Dawn was too gaga to be useful, and he couldn't use Christy to drop the dime because the agency overseeing all this would assume the source of the info was the guy she'd hired. Jack didn't want to be on their hit list.