The Persona Protocol

31


Dominate the Mind


Bianca didn’t dare move. Curled into a tight ball, she flinched with every gunshot and scream. Who was shooting at whom? Had Adam been hit, or even killed? Was she stranded in the Russian wasteland with a group of angry terrorists?

Even after the shooting stopped, she heard activity around the buildings. Petrified, she stayed hunched in the snow. Was she about to be saved – or shot?

‘Bianca!’ Adam’s voice. ‘Bianca, where are you?’

Relief rose in her heart – almost immediately stamped back down by paranoia. Was it a trick? Had he been captured, forced to draw her out of hiding? She peeked fearfully round the trunk. There were men with guns near the jetty, but she couldn’t make out their faces. Oh God, he’d been caught . . .

‘Bianca!’

Another voice. Tony’s. The feeling of relief returned with full force, overcoming her coldness and fear. ‘Here!’ she cried, jumping up. ‘I’m over here!’

Figures hurried through the woods: Adam and Tony. ‘Are you okay?’ the latter called as he approached.

‘I’m fine,’ she replied gratefully. ‘Is everyone all right?’

‘We’re all okay,’ said Adam. ‘We’ve captured al-Rais.’

Tony regarded the cases. ‘Is the PERSONA gear okay?’

‘As far as I know,’ she replied.

‘Good. We’re going to need it.’

‘Soon as we make the recording, we should just kill this a*shole,’ muttered Baxter. Al-Rais had been secured with flex-cuffs, as had Qasid and the Beriev’s terrified co-pilot, the three survivors held at gunpoint inside the stone building. ‘These two as well.’ He pointed his G36 at Qasid, who recoiled.

‘No!’ Adam said firmly, interposing himself. ‘He knows something. I want to find out what.’

‘That’s not the mission. We got al-Rais, that’s all that matters. Everyone else . . . well, I know my orders. Eliminate the terrorists and anyone helping them.’

‘What?’ exclaimed Bianca, who was taking the repaired recorder from its case. ‘But they’re prisoners – that’s murder!’

‘It’s war. And the only prisoner we were supposed to take was al-Rais. Everyone else should have been shot, if we’d all been following orders.’

‘Nobody gave me that order,’ Adam replied.

Baxter’s only response was a look of contempt. Tony stood beside Adam. ‘Well, we’ve got prisoners now, so we’ll treat them by the book, okay? Besides, we can use this guy,’ he indicated the co-pilot, ‘to fly the plane back to the airport.’

‘Seriously?’ said Baxter in disbelief.

‘The RTG weighs over half a ton. You want to carry it all the way back? Adam, what was your assessment of it? Browning’s, I mean.’

After finding Bianca, Adam had boarded the Be-200 with the Geiger counter to examine its cargo. ‘It’s not in the best condition,’ he said, his borrowed persona’s clipped speech patterns unconsciously returning. ‘But there was no sign of radiation leakage. The casing is intact.’

‘Good.’ Tony reactivated his headset. ‘Holly Jo? Put us through to Martin.’

Morgan’s distorted voice came on the line. ‘What’s the situation?’ he asked.

‘We’ve secured al-Rais and the RTG,’ said Tony. ‘It seems to be intact and safe – as safe as these things get, anyway.’

‘Good. Will you be able to bring it back to the States?’

‘Yeah. They’d already loaded it into their seaplane.’

‘In that case, transfer it to our jet and bring it back home. Better we have it than it’s left lying around in the Russian countryside until they can be bothered to collect it. What about al-Rais?’

‘Dr Childs is prepping the PERSONA right now.’ Bianca glanced up at the mention of her name. ‘We’re going to make the transfer as soon as she’s ready.’

‘And a recording.’ It was a reminder rather than a question.

‘Yes, the recorder’s ready.’ Tony’s gaze moved to Qasid and the co-pilot. ‘There’s, ah . . . something else. We have two additional prisoners.’

Morgan was not pleased. ‘What?’

‘A pilot, and one of al-Rais’s men. Adam captured him.’

‘I see. Adam?’

‘Yes?’ said Adam.

‘Care to explain?’

‘I think Qasid’s got valuable information. Once we’ve got what we need from al-Rais, we should interrogate him too.’

‘What kind of information?’

Adam hesitated before answering. ‘He recognised me. But I’ve never met him before. At least . . . I don’t remember doing.’

That brought surprised reactions from Tony, Bianca and Baxter. Although Morgan was out of sight half a world away, the silence from the other end of the line suggested that he shared the feeling. ‘Okay,’ he finally said. ‘Bring him back as well. But al-Rais takes priority. We need to get as much as we can from him as soon as possible, before al-Qaeda realise he’s missing.’

‘We’ll start the debriefing as soon as we leave,’ said Tony.

‘Good. Oh, and . . . one more thing.’ Morgan sounded uncomfortable. ‘Considering al-Rais’s importance as an intelligence source, approval has been given to imprint Adam with his persona as many times as necessary to extract information from him.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Tony, as startled as Adam at the news. ‘What about the rule on multiple imprints? It’s too risky.’

Bianca looked up again. ‘What is?’

‘They want to imprint al-Rais on to me more than once,’ said Adam.

‘But – I thought that was too dangerous?’

‘So did I. John? Headset.’ He clicked his fingers and held out a hand. Baxter was affronted, but at a nod from Tony took off his headset and gave it to Adam, who passed it on to Bianca. ‘Martin, Bianca’s on the line.’

‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ she said, adjusting the microphone, ‘but wasn’t the rule about only imprinting Adam once with a particular persona put in place because of the risk of his suffering the same side effects as Tony?’

‘That’s correct,’ said Morgan, not appreciating her confrontational tone, ‘but in this case, the value of the information we can get from al-Rais has been deemed to outweigh other considerations. We’ve captured al-Qaeda’s leader – we can cripple the entire organisation.’

‘And the price is Adam’s health?’

‘Dr Kiddrick is sure it’ll be possible to do it within the bounds of safety.’

‘I don’t suppose anyone asked Dr Albion’s opinion, did they?’

Morgan’s patience had already run out. ‘Dr Childs, this is not a discussion. The decision has been made. We will use every possible means to attack al-Qaeda. Your job is to make that happen – while monitoring Adam’s condition, of course. If it looks as if there are going to be problems, we’ll decide whether or not to continue. But for now, we need to know what al-Rais knows. So make the transfer, please.’

‘Martin,’ said Tony, ‘I want to state on the record that I don’t approve of this decision.’

‘Noted, and understood. But you have your orders. Out.’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ Bianca snapped, pulling off the headset and returning it to Baxter. ‘Tony, you’re not going to go through with this, are you?’

‘Right now, we don’t have much choice. Besides,’ he added, ‘at this stage all we’re doing is a standard transfer. I’ll take this up again with Martin once we’re back at STS, but until then he’s right: we need that information. Are you both ready?’

‘Yes,’ said Adam. Bianca reluctantly nodded.

‘Okay.’ Tony indicated Qasid and the co-pilot. ‘John, take those two into the other room. No point in them seeing more than they need to.’

‘I still say the only thing they need to see is a bullet,’ Baxter told him.

‘Just move them, okay?’

Scowling, Baxter and a couple of his team hauled the two prisoners through a doorway into another part of the derelict building. Tony turned back to Bianca. ‘All right. Let’s do this.’

Al-Rais was guarded by two of Baxter’s men, Cope and Trenton, their guns trained on him. He had maintained a defiant silence, glaring at his captors. The sight of the PERSONA equipment as Bianca set it up prompted a reaction, however. ‘You will never make me talk,’ he rasped. ‘It does not matter for how long you torture me. I will not tell you anything.’

‘We don’t need you to tell us anything,’ Tony countered. ‘Bianca, wire him up.’

She took out the skullcap and unwound the cable. ‘Aren’t you going to examine him first?’ Adam reminded her.

‘Hmm? Oh, oh yes! That would help, wouldn’t it?’ The stress – she hesitated to call it excitement – had completely thrown her. She quickly went through the motions of Albion’s spurious procedure. Al-Rais snarled at her, making her flinch; one of Baxter’s men kicked him hard in the side. ‘Hey, hey!’ she protested.

‘This piece of shit deserves a lot worse than that,’ Cope replied sourly.

‘Maybe so, but I can’t examine him if your boot’s in the way, can I?’ She completed her checks, the two guards pulling him upright so she could measure him, then used the scales in one of the cases to weigh him. Al-Rais resisted, getting a punch in the stomach for his troubles. ‘Okay, thank you.’

The terrorist leader was dropped back to the floor. Bianca calculated the drug dosage in a notebook, then began to fit the skullcap over his head. Even with Trenton and Cope pinning him, he struggled, trying to strike the back of his skull against the floor to break the electrodes. Tony took hold of his coat collar to pull him up. ‘This bloody thing,’ Bianca complained, repositioning the cap. ‘Why couldn’t Kiddrick have just designed it as a hat?’

‘I’ll put that on the requirements list if he builds a Mark Two,’ said Tony with a wry smile.

She secured the Velcro strap, then took the Neutharsine from the case and turned to Adam, who was sitting facing al-Rais. ‘Are you ready?’ He nodded. ‘Okay. Hold still . . .’ While the drug did its work, wiping the memories and personality of Eugene Browning from Adam’s mind, she put the other skullcap in place on him. Seeing all expression drain from his face at such close range was even more unsettling than before.

Baxter came back in to watch as the final preparations for the transfer were made, taking distinct pleasure in pinning al-Rais down with a foot on his chest as Bianca gave the terrorist his injection. That done, she activated the PERSONA. The transfer and recording process started. Minutes passed as the machine processed the vast amount of data flowing through it.

Finally it stopped. Bianca checked the readings, then powered it down. Unfastening the skullcap, she asked Adam: ‘Can you hear me?’

Adam’s eyes slowly opened. For a moment they were unfocused – then they locked on to her with a malevolent, hawk-like sharpness. ‘Yes, I hear you,’ he said quietly. His accent was now several time zones removed from that of a West Coast scientist. His gaze flicked past her to al-Rais. His startled reaction reminded Bianca of someone who had glanced in a mirror to discover something unexpected stuck to his face. ‘Wait, I am—’ He looked back at her, anger briefly burning in his eyes before he brought himself back under control. ‘Bianca?’

‘Are you all right?’ she asked, concerned. She had never seen him so intense following a transfer.

‘Yes, but . . . it’s different, somehow. Al-Rais’s persona, it’s . . . stronger than anything before.’

Tony crouched beside him. ‘Like it’s fighting with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You can beat it. Take it from me, I know.’ He put a reassuring hand on Adam’s shoulder. ‘I had the same thing with Najjar. These guys aren’t mooks – they’re leaders, they’re strong-willed, they have to be. But you’re stronger. Trust me.’

‘I’m stronger,’ Adam repeated. ‘I can beat him.’ He clapped one hand over Tony’s, then looked back at Bianca. ‘I don’t think we need a cheat sheet to know that the transfer was successful.’

‘I guess not,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘I’ll be fine.’ He stood, Bianca and Tony helping him up. ‘I’ll just . . . need a minute.’

‘We’ll get al-Rais on to the plane,’ said Tony.

‘What about the Mnemexal?’ Bianca asked.

‘It doesn’t matter if he remembers what we did now that we’ve got him.’ He faced the two men holding the dazed terrorist. ‘You two, with me.’

‘You’re seriously going to commandeer that Ruskie boatplane out there?’ said Baxter incredulously. ‘Why don’t we just use the snowcat?’

‘I want to get out of here as quick as we can. Rossovich speaks Russian – get him to make that pilot fly us back to Provideniya airport. Bring him to the plane when you’re done.’

‘What about the other prisoner?’

‘We’re taking him too,’ Adam said firmly. Baxter looked to Tony, who nodded. With a disgruntled shrug, the ex-Marine went into the other room. Cope and Trenton picked up al-Rais and dragged him out of the building after Tony.

Bianca watched them go, then looked back at Adam. His fingertips were pressed to his temples, eyes closed. ‘Are you okay? Does it hurt?’

He opened his eyes. ‘No, it’s not like a headache. But it’s . . .’ A deep breath. ‘Not pleasant.’

‘None of this is,’ she said, starting to pack away the equipment. She pulled the memory module out of the recorder and regarded it ruefully. ‘After what happened to Tony with Najjar, now they want to do the same to you with al-Rais. It’s mad.’

Adam glanced towards the doorway through which Baxter had gone, checking that nobody was listening. ‘Holly Jo, I’m going off-comms,’ he said, pressing his finger behind his ear to deactivate the link before lowering his voice. ‘To be honest, I’m worried. This isn’t just finding out someone’s guilty secret about an affair. Al-Rais controls a terrorist group that’s killed thousands of people. It’ll take a lot more than a single interrogation session to break him – and the same will be true of his persona. I can tell. He’ll be fighting me all the way.’

‘When you say “fighting”,’ Bianca asked hesitantly, remembering the fleeting moment of hatred in his eyes immediately after the transfer, ‘do you mean that literally? Is his persona . . . is it trying to take control of you?’

‘No, but there’s . . . resistance.’ Seeing her questioning expression, he expanded: ‘Remember what I said on the plane about Vanwall’s fear of heights? When I was using his persona to play cards, I could call up his memories as easily as my own – I wasn’t doing anything against his interests, or his instincts. But when his fear of heights kicked in, it took effort to overcome. It’s the same thing here, like a kind of mental wrestling. I can overpower him, but . . . it takes work.’

‘But you’ll be okay?’

‘I’ll be fine – for now. If they imprint al-Rais’s persona on me again, I don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘I’ll do everything I can to stop them from doing it,’ she assured him. ‘However much that’ll be worth.’

‘It’s worth a lot to me,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

She smiled at the unexpected compliment. ‘No problem.’ He returned it, faintly. ‘So, this other guy you took prisoner—’

‘Qasid.’

‘Bless you. You said he recognised you?’

‘Yes. But I don’t know why.’

‘Well, you’ve got al-Rais’s memories now. Maybe he knows.’

Adam nodded thoughtfully. ‘He probably does. So ask me.’

‘What?’

‘It’s easier for me to remember things spontaneously by being asked direct questions than by making random associations. Ask me something about Qasid.’

‘I’m not really a master interrogator, but . . . okay. What does Qasid do in al-Qaeda?’

‘He’s one of my most . . . reliable men,’ Adam said, hesitating mid-sentence. ‘One of al-Rais’s men, I mean. Qasid’s one of his best people. He has contacts in Pakistani intelligence, in the government—’ He suddenly stopped, shocked.

‘What is it?’

‘There’s a mole. Qasid was given information by a high-ranking mole! It’s how they knew the Secretary of State’s route in Islamabad, how they were able to set up an ambush. Qasid got it from someone working in intelligence.’

‘Who?’

He frowned in concentration. ‘Al-Rais doesn’t know. Qasid kept all his sources secret so they couldn’t be exposed if someone else in the organisation got captured. But he knows it was someone with access to highly classified information.’

‘That should narrow things down, though, shouldn’t it?’

‘Definitely. The Secretary’s entire visit was top secret, never mind the route she was taking to the meeting. They’ve got to let me take an imprint from Qasid. He knows who the mole is!’ He reactivated the earwig. ‘Holly Jo, put me through to—’

Two sharp cracks came from somewhere outside. Adam’s head snapped round at the noise. ‘Kyle! That was gunfire – what’s happening?’

‘I dunno,’ said Kyle, confused. ‘I landed the UAV to save power – the camera’s off.’

Adam drew his SIG and ran to the door. Baxter had also heard the noise, hurrying up behind him with his rifle raised. ‘What was it?’

‘I don’t know. Bianca, stay back,’ Adam warned as he surveyed the scene. No movement . . .

‘Tony!’ he shouted. Tony was sprawled on the ground near the jetty, blood on his face. Nearby was Trenton, red lines oozing over his coat from a ragged wound in his back. No sign of Cope – but then he saw the other man’s legs at the water’s edge, his upper body half-submerged amongst the broken ice where he had fallen.

Al-Rais was gone.