“Grozny,” repeated Pierre. “What does that mean?”

“Ivan Grozny is Russian for Ivan the Terrible. It’s what the people at Treblinka called Ivan Marchenko.”

Pierre’s head was swimming. “But this is crazy. What could Klimus have against me?” The waitress appeared and deposited Pierre’s Sprite.

“That’s a very good question.”

“And what about Joan Dawson? What could Klimus have against her?”

Avi shook his head. “I have no idea. But if I were you, I’d watch my back.”

Pierre frowned and looked out at the roiling waters of the Bay. “You’re the second person to say that to me recently.” He took a sip of his drink.

“So what do we do now?”

“There’s nothing we can do, until some proof materializes. These cases don’t break overnight, after all; if Klimus is Marchenko, he’s eluded detection for fifty years now. But keep your eyes and ears open, and report anything you find to me.”

Seven months later

“Thanks for letting me come,” said Pierre, keeping his hand steady by holding firmly on to the edge of a desk. Although he still felt as though he didn’t really belong here, Pierre could no longer deny the truth: he was clearly manifesting symptoms of Huntington’s disease. The support-group meeting was held in a high-school classroom in San Francisco’s Richmond district, halfway between the Presidio and Golden Gate Park.

Carl Berringer’s head jerked back and forth, and it was a few moments before he was able to reply. But when he did, his words were full of warmth. “We’re glad to have you. What’d you think of the speaker?”

Berringer was a white-haired man of about forty-five with pale skin and blue eyes. The guest speaker had spoken on coping with the juvenile form of Huntington’s.

“She was fine,” said Pierre, who had tuned out the talk and simply spent the meeting surreptitiously watching the others, most of whom were in much later stages of the disease. After all, besides his father, Henry Spade, Pierre had never really seen anyone else with advanced Huntington’s up close. He watched their pain, their suffering, the contorted faces, the inability to speak clearly, the torture of something as simple as trying to swallow, and the thought came to him that perhaps some of them would be better off dead. It was a horrible thing to think, he knew, but…

… but there, because there is no grace of God, go I. Pierre’s condition was getting steadily worse; he’d broken dozens of pieces of labware and drinking glasses by now. Still, only those who knew him well suspected anything serious was amiss. Just a tendency toward dancing hands, occasional facial tics, a slight slurring of speech…

“You work at LBL, don’t you?” asked Carl, his head still moving constantly.

Pierre nodded. “Actually, it’s LBNL now. They added the word ‘National’ to the lab’s name almost a year ago.”

“Well, we had a guy from your lab give a talk a couple of years ago. Big old bald guy. Can’t remember his name, but he won a Nobel Prize.”

Pierre’s eyebrows went up. “Not Burian Klimus?”

“That’s the guy. Boy, were we lucky to get him. All we can offer speakers is a Huntington’s Society coffee mug. But he had just been appointed to Lawrence Berkeley, and the university was sending him out to speaking engagements.” Carl’s hands had started moving, as if he were doing finger-flexing exercises. Pierre tried not to stare at him. “Anyway,” said Carl, “I’m glad you came. Hope you’ll become a regular. We can all use some support.”

Pierre nodded. He wasn’t sure he was any happier now that he’d finally relented and come here. It seemed an unnecessarily graphic reminder of what his future held. He looked around the room. Molly, hugely pregnant, was off in one corner sipping mineral water with a middle-aged white woman, apparently a caregiver. She was doubtless hearing what was in store for her.

The really bad cases weren’t even here; they would be bedridden at home or in a hospital. He looked around, counted eighteen people: seven obvious Huntington’s patients, seven more who were clearly their caregivers, and four whose status wasn’t easy to determine. They could have been recently diagnosed as having the Huntington’s gene, or they could have been caregivers for patients too ill to attend the meeting themselves. “Is this the normal turnout?” asked Pierre.

Berringer’s head was still jerking, and his right arm had started moving back and forth a bit, the way one’s arm does when walking. “These days, yes. We’ve lost five members in the last year.”

Pierre looked at the tiled floor. Huntington’s was terminal; that was the one unshakable reality. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“We’d expected some of them. Sally Banas, for instance. In fact, she’d held on longer than any of us had thought she would.” Berringer’s head movements were distracting; Pierre fought the irritation growing within him. “Another one was a suicide. Young man, only been to a couple of meetings. Recently diagnosed.” Berringer shook his head. “You know how it is.”

Pierre nodded. Only too well.

“But the other three…” Berringer had reached his left arm over to help steady his right. “World’s a crazy place, Pierre. Maybe it’s not so bad up in Canada, but down here…”

“What happened?”

“Well, they were all pretty new members — only recently manifesting the disease. They should have had years left. One of them — Peter Mansbridge — was shot. Two others were knifed to death, six months apart. Muggings, it seems.”

“God,” said Pierre. What had he done, coming to the States? He’d been assaulted, Joan Dawson had been murdered, and every time he turned around he heard about more violent crime.

Berringer tried to shake his head, but the gesture was obscured by the jerking motion. “I don’t ask for pity,” he said slowly, “but you’d think anyone who saw one of us moving the way we do would leave us in peace, instead of killing us for the few bucks we might have in our wallets.”

At last, the long-awaited day came. Pierre drove Molly to Alta Bates Hospital on Colby Street. In the Toyota’s trunk, as there had been for the last two weeks, were Molly’s suitcase and a video camcorder — an unexpected gift from Burian Klimus, who had insisted to Pierre and Molly that videotaping the birth was all the rage now.

Alta Bates had beautiful delivery rooms, more like hotel suites than hospital facilities. Pierre had to admit that one thing missing from Canada’s government-run hospitals was any touch of luxury, but here — well, he was just thankful that Molly’s faculty-association health plan was covering the expenses…

Pierre sat on a softly padded chair, beaming at his wife and newborn daughter.

A middle-aged black nurse came in to check on them. “Have the two of you decided on a name yet?” she asked.

Molly looked at Pierre, making sure he was still happy with the choice.

Pierre nodded. “Amanda,” she said. “Amanda Helene.”

“One English name and one French,” said Pierre, smiling at the nurse.

“They’re both pretty names,” said the nurse.

“ ‘Amanda’ means ‘worthy of being loved,’ ” said Molly. There was a knock at the door, and then, a moment later, the door swung open. “May I come in?”

“Burian!” said Molly.

“Dr. Klimus,” said Pierre, a bit surprised. “How good of you to come.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said the old man, making his way across the room.

“I’ll leave you alone,” said the nurse, smiling and exiting.

“The birth went well?” asked Klimus. “No complications?”

“Everything was fine,” said Molly. “Exhausting, but fine.”

“You recorded it all on videotape?”

Pierre nodded.

“And the baby is normal?”

“Just fine.”

“A boy or a girl?” Klimus asked. Pierre felt his eyebrows lifting; that was usually the first question, not the fourth.