The Persona Protocol

43


Know Thyself


Morgan’s mood had not improved by the time he reached his office.

‘Right,’ he said, glowering at the three young specialists lined up before his desk. ‘I want answers, and I want them now. All three of you were working to help Adam get away. Why?’

Holly Jo, Levon and Kyle exchanged unhappy looks, none wanting to be the first to speak. ‘Let me spell it out for you,’ Morgan continued. ‘You deliberately impeded an operation to capture a rogue agent who had stolen highly classified information – and assaulted a senior STS official in the process, in case you’d forgotten. That means you can be charged under the Espionage Act! We’re talking a good thirty years in federal prison here – assuming you aren’t all packed off to Guantanamo. So this is your last chance. Why did you help Adam?’

Tony spoke before any of them could answer. ‘Because I told them to.’

It took Morgan a moment to fully process what he had heard. When he did, his tone was calmer, yet more dangerous than ever. ‘Would you care to explain that?’

‘I ordered,’ Tony placed emphasis on the word, ‘them to help Adam evade capture. They were acting under my instructions as their superior, so the responsibility for everything they did is mine.’

‘Very noble of you,’ said Morgan. He looked at the trio. ‘And would you all back up that statement?’

‘Yeah, totally,’ Kyle gabbled. ‘I mean, it’s Tony – he’s our boss, we all trust him, and we do what he says, right?’ He took in the disapproving expressions of his companions. ‘What?’

‘He’s right,’ said Tony, before Holly Jo or Levon could add anything. ‘They were following my orders.’

‘While disobeying mine,’ Morgan replied. He regarded Tony in silence for several tense seconds. ‘All right, if that’s how you want to play it . . . You three,’ he snapped, turning back to the specialists. ‘You’re all relieved of duty pending further investigation. Report to the security office and turn in your IDs, then get out of my agency. I’ll deal with you later.’

They mumbled shamed affirmations, then left the room. ‘You a*shole,’ Holly Jo hissed at Kyle.

‘What?’ he protested. ‘That’s what Tony wanted!’

Morgan waited for the door to close behind them. ‘So, what do you want, Tony? Why have you decided to risk your career – your freedom – for Adam?’

‘Because he deserves to know the truth about himself,’ Tony answered.

‘But you don’t know what that truth is.’

‘Do you?’

‘No,’ Morgan admitted. ‘But the Admiral vouched for him as an ideal candidate to replace you – and whatever the reasons Adam had for wanting to forget his past, he asked to forget it.’

‘But he’s changed his mind. Now he wants to remember – or at least to find out why he wanted to forget. He wants to learn who he really is, and what we took away from him. I think he has a right to know.’

‘You don’t have the authority to give him that information,’ Morgan said sternly. ‘And nor do I, for that matter.’

‘You’re saying it’s entirely Harper’s call?’

‘It is.’

‘You can’t tell me you agree with that.’

‘Whether I do or not is irrelevant. And for God’s sake, Tony, even if I sympathise with Adam’s motives, he’s gone about this in the wrong way. He assaulted Kiddrick, stole classified data, sabotaged a government facility and wreaked havoc in the capital! You know we can’t tolerate that. And I can’t tolerate insubordination.’

Tony took a deep breath, then nodded. ‘I understand. What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know yet. For now, you can wait in holding until I figure that out.’ The phone on his desk rang. ‘Yes?’ He listened, expression hardening. ‘Right.’ He put it down and regarded Tony grimly. ‘Speak of the devil. Harper is here.’

The Director of National Intelligence was in Morgan’s office barely a minute later. ‘I want to know what in the name of the good Christ is going on,’ he snarled. ‘How the hell did Gray get away?’

‘I helped him,’ Tony said.

Harper seemed about to explode. ‘What?’

‘Tony just admitted to me that he was passing information to Adam that allowed him to evade capture,’ explained Morgan – the truth, but not in its entirety. Tony gave him a brief look of gratitude on behalf of his three co-conspirators. ‘I put him under arrest just before you arrived.’

Harper stared angrily at Tony. ‘Then why is he still here and not in a cell?’

Morgan picked up the phone. ‘Get security to my office,’ he ordered.

The white-haired man marched up to Tony, almost nose to nose with him. ‘What the f*ck are you playing at, Carpenter?’

Tony didn’t blink. ‘Why is it so important that Adam doesn’t remember his past, Admiral?’

Harper’s fury rose at being challenged. ‘That’s not your goddamn concern!’

‘My concern is the people under my command – and Adam is one of them.’

‘And my concern is the security of the United States! By taking that disk, Gray is a direct threat to that security. If it gets into the wrong hands—’

‘It’s in Adam’s hands,’ Tony cut in, raising Harper’s ire still further. ‘They’re his own memories! How can finding out about his past be a threat to national security?’

Before Harper could reply, there was a knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ Morgan barked. Two security officers entered. ‘Take Mr Carpenter to holding and keep him there until further orders.’

‘What did Adam know?’ Tony demanded. ‘What’s on that disk, Admiral?’

‘Get him out of my sight,’ Harper growled.

‘And what about Adam?’ asked Tony as the two men ushered him to the door.

‘We’ll catch him,’ replied Morgan.

‘And if he’s used the PERSONA to re-imprint his own memories?’

Harper said nothing – but the concern clearly visible even through his mask of anger was an answer in itself.

Bianca watched the rush of data on the PERSONA’s screen subside. She checked that the diagnostic readings were in order, then turned to Adam. ‘Are you okay?’

He opened his eyes. ‘Yeah. I think.’

‘I’ll try to do a memory check. What’s your full name?’

‘Adam Peter Gray.’

‘So you are really you, then.’ She remembered something he had said a few days earlier. ‘What was your dog called?’

‘Grover,’ Adam replied, a smile breaking. ‘I did have a dog, I remember him! He was an Irish setter.’

‘Where did you grow up?’

‘Crescent City, Florida.’

‘Your parents’ names?’

‘Steven and Lucia.’ Brief gloom crossed his face. ‘My dad passed away in 2004 – but my mom’s still alive! She’s still in Florida, she moved to Fort Lauderdale.’ His downcast look was completely swept away by delight. ‘My God, I can remember her! I can remember everything, my fam—’

He flinched as if he had taken a physical blow. His exhilaration instantly vanished, replaced by horror. ‘What is it?’ Bianca said, alarmed.

‘I have a brother,’ he mumbled. ‘I – I had a brother, a twin. He looked just like me. The dream, it wasn’t – oh God.’ He fumbled at the door handle, trying to get out of the car. The cord attached to the skullcap pulled tight. He clawed at it, tearing it off. ‘Oh God, no!’

He staggered from the Mustang, almost collapsing against the wall of the loading dock. Now genuinely scared, Bianca jumped out and ran to him. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘The dream’s not a dream,’ he gasped. ‘My brother, Michael – he worked for the State Department, he was one of Secretary Easton’s staff. He was with her in Islamabad when – when al-Qaeda blew up her convoy. I was waiting to meet him, we were going to catch up . . .’ He tried to stand, but reeled again, overpowered by the rush of memories pummelling his mind. ‘I heard the explosion – I ran down the street to help, but I found him, I found him . . .’ He slumped to his knees, retching.

‘Oh God,’ whispered Bianca, a hand covering her mouth in dismay as she realised the truth. Adam’s recurring ‘dream’ had been reality, an image so shocking and traumatic that it had resisted the purge of his memory, searing itself into his subconscious.

But now it had been brought back into the open. And Adam was feeling the pain of that moment all over again.

She crouched beside him, a hand on his back. ‘Adam, I’m here for you. What can I do to help?’

‘Nothing, there’s nothing you can do,’ he replied, stricken. ‘Oh, God! It’s all my fault!’

‘No it isn’t,’ she said, trying to reassure him. ‘You couldn’t have—’

‘But I did!’ He raised his head, tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘I really did sell the information to Qasid. I gave al-Qaeda the Secretary’s route – and I killed my own brother!’





44


A Life Lost


Bianca stared at Adam in disbelief. ‘You mean . . . everything you found out from Qasid’s persona was true?’

He struggled to regain control over his emotions as he answered. ‘Some of it. I was – I was on a CIA-SOCOM joint op. It was meant to be a sting operation. The idea was that I’d pose as a disaffected embassy worker. My grandfather was Syrian, so I looked the part enough for it to be plausible that I’d have local sympathies. They wouldn’t have bought it if I’d been blond-haired and blue-eyed like Tony.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I had to establish myself as a credible source, so I gave them classified information. It was all part of the plan,’ he quickly clarified. ‘It caused some diplomatic blowback, but it did its job.’

‘It got Qasid to trust you.’

‘Yes. So the next stage of the plan was to give him information about the Secretary of State’s secret visit to Pakistan.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You mean your bosses deliberately told al-Qaeda about it?’

‘No! That’s not what happened – not what was supposed to happen,’ he replied, correcting himself. ‘I was supposed to give them misinformation. They wouldn’t get the real itinerary. They’d get a fake route, one we’d be watching. There were only a couple of places along it where they’d be able to carry out an effective attack – and we’d cover them. When they showed themselves, we’d take them out all at once – captured or killed, either way would be a win.’

‘But it didn’t work out like that . . .’

‘No. And I don’t know why.’ The anguish returned. ‘I did everything I was supposed to. I followed my orders to the letter, gave Qasid the fake information – but somehow they saw through it. I wasn’t good enough to convince them. So they found a way to attack the real convoy. And they murdered over a hundred people. They killed the Secretary, and . . . and . . .’ His voice cracked. ‘And Michael. They killed my brother. I killed him – I gave them what they needed to do it!’

He slumped again, head buried in his hands, shaking as he wept uncontrollably. Bianca tried to comfort him. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?’ She looked back at the car. The door was open, the medical case visible inside. ‘I could give you another injection of Neutharsine. It’d wipe the memories, take the pain away—’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t want it to go away.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t deserve it to. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault . . .’ He curled into a tighter ball, shuddering.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Bianca insisted. ‘You were on a mission – you did exactly what you were ordered to do. There’s no way you could have known what would happen. And,’ she went on, more forcefully, ‘I’m not going to let you torture yourself over it out of some sort of misplaced guilt. I’m getting the injector.’ She stood.

Adam’s hand snapped up and gripped her wrist. He raised his head. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Please. It hurts, but . . . it’s all I’ve got left of him. If you wipe it, some of the memories will still be there, but . . . none of the feelings.’

‘Then don’t just think about what happened in Pakistan,’ she pleaded. ‘Think about all the other times with him – with your parents. With your dog! Try to remember the good stuff, the times when you were happy.’ His hand was still around her arm; she wrapped her other hand over it as she crouched again. ‘Get all the other memories while you can – and all the feelings that go with them too. Tell me about them.’

Despair returned to his face. ‘I want to, but . . . it’s too hard. All I can see is Michael lying in the street. I can’t – I can’t get back past it.’

‘Then go forward,’ she said. ‘What happened afterwards? How did you join the Persona Project?’

His shivering subsided as he focused on recalling the memories. ‘I was taken back to the US embassy. I . . . I had to identify Michael’s body. But I couldn’t even phone my mom to tell her what had happened, because I was on a classified operation – officially I wasn’t even in Pakistan.’

‘I’m so sorry. It must have been terrible. I’m sorry.’

He wiped his eyes, and sighed. ‘Thank you. After that . . . Harper came to see me.’

‘What, at the embassy?’

‘Yeah. And . . .’ He frowned, puzzled. ‘Baxter was with him.’

‘What was he doing there?’ Bianca asked, surprised.

‘I don’t know. I didn’t speak to him, but he arrived with Harper – I’m certain it was him.’

‘What did Harper say to you? That what happened wasn’t your fault?’

A pause. ‘No. The opposite.’

‘What?’

‘He blamed me for it. He said . . .’ Adam’s tendons tightened in a mixture of resurgent guilt, and anger. ‘He said I must have done something wrong. I made Qasid and his cell suspicious, so they realised the information I gave them was a trap. He said everything was my fault.’

‘That – that bastard!’ Bianca cried. ‘What did you do?’

‘I believed him. He’s the Director of National Intelligence – the only person above him in the chain of command is the President. If he says you’ve screwed up . . .’

‘But did you screw up? Did you do anything wrong?’

‘No – not that I can remember. But . . .’ He fell silent, deep in thought. ‘Qasid wasn’t suspicious of me. He believed my cover story – and he believed that the information I gave him about the Secretary’s visit was genuine. He and al-Rais used it to plan the attack.’

‘So you gave them the real itinerary?’

‘No, that’s just it! I gave them exactly what I was supposed to. I was working with one of the embassy staff – a CIA agent. He gave me the files that I passed to Qasid.’

‘Maybe he was the one who screwed up.’

‘There’s no way of knowing,’ said Adam, shaking his head. ‘He’s dead. He died in the bombing.’ Another frown. ‘But he wasn’t directly involved with the Secretary’s visit – he shouldn’t have been in the convoy . . .’

‘Did you actually read these files?’ asked Bianca.

‘Yes – I had to, in case Qasid asked me any questions about them. But . . .’ He searched his newly reacquired memories. ‘I didn’t know what the genuine itinerary was going to be – I didn’t need to.’

‘So if you’d given Qasid the real files rather than the fakes, you’d have had no way to know that, would you?’

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘No, I wouldn’t.’

‘So it wasn’t your fault, no matter what Harper told you. God, the more I learn about him, the more I hate him!’

‘You’re not alone,’ said Adam. ‘It was just him and me in an interrogation room. But he wasn’t interrogating me – it was more like an inquisition. He just kept on and on, hammering it into me that I’d f*cked up. And finally I . . .’ His face filled with shame. ‘I cracked, just broke down in tears in front of him. I couldn’t take it any more. The guilt was too much.’ His voice fell to a whisper. ‘I wanted to die.’

He released his grip on Bianca’s wrist, but she kept hold of his hand, squeezing it in sympathy. ‘What did Harper do then?’

An almost sarcastic exhalation. ‘He offered me a job.’

‘What?’

‘Not right away. First he ordered me back to Tampa – SOCOM headquarters – to be debriefed. In isolation; I wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody except the intelligence officers doing the debriefing. I couldn’t even call my mother. And the agents were nearly as bad as Harper, just saying over and over again that I’d screwed up the mission. I was practically on suicide watch by the time Harper saw me again.’

‘And that’s when he told you about the Persona Project?’

‘Yeah. He said it was a way that I could . . . God, he actually used the word “atone”, for my mistakes and go on serving my country – and have my pain and guilt taken away. And I was hurting so much that I took him up on it. I would have . . .’ He cleared his throat, the very feelings that had been erased along with his past returning. ‘I’d have done anything to make it stop.’

‘So you let them wipe your memory,’ Bianca said quietly.

He nodded, saying nothing for several seconds before finally whispering: ‘Does that make me a coward?’

‘No,’ she told him. ‘It makes you human.’

A bitter smile. ‘Good to know there’s something human about me. The cyborg secret agent without a past.’

‘But you do have a past. Now, I mean. You know who you are again.’

‘Only until I fall asleep.’

She gestured towards the PERSONA equipment. ‘I can imprint you with it again tomorrow. Since it’s your own personality rather than somebody else’s, I don’t think it’ll be nearly as risky. Then we can get out of Washington.’

He shook his head. ‘It might make a good TV show, but I don’t think the two of us going on the run in a black Mustang’ll work out in real life.’

‘So what are we going to do?’

He wiped his eyes, then straightened. ‘Harper was determined to wipe my memory. Even after I’d agreed to join the Persona Project, he kept up the pressure – he even once had me come see him at his house to make sure I wasn’t going to back out. But he wasn’t doing it to save me from any emotional pain – that’s not how he works.’

‘He’s more the type who likes to cause it,’ Bianca said.

‘Right. So he had a reason for doing it. But what was it? He wanted me to forget what happened in Pakistan – my mission to give false information to al-Qaeda. So if I didn’t remember it . . .’

She completed his thought. ‘You couldn’t tell anyone else. He’s trying to cover it up!’

‘Looks that way.’

‘But why?’

Adam stood, filled with a new sense of purpose. ‘There’s one way to find out.’

The sun was setting over Washington as the luxurious Cadillac CTS crawled north-west out of central DC along the traffic-clogged Massachusetts Avenue. In its back seat, Harper shouted incredulously into his phone. ‘You’ve still got nothing? How the hell is that possible! You’ve got the entire resources of the US government at your disposal, and you can’t find one man?’

Morgan’s voice at the other end of the line was tired, beaten down after a long and stressful day. ‘With all due respect, Admiral, Adam Gray is a highly trained agent in his own right, even without the help of the PERSONA system. If he’s gone to ground—’

‘Morgan, I’m getting fed up of your excuses,’ the older man snapped. ‘Gray is your man – and your responsibility. And right now, he’s an ongoing threat to national security. Find him!’

He disconnected, then immediately scrolled through his lengthy contacts list to make another call. ‘Baxter,’ came the reply.

‘STS still has nothing, and nor do the cops. What about you?’

‘No joy, sir. I’ve got men watching Gray’s apartment and Childs’ hotel, but they haven’t shown. Nothing on their credit or ATM cards either. Sir,’ he added, ‘are you sure you don’t want to block their cards? They’ll need money sooner or later – if we cut them off, it might force them into the open.’

‘No, leave them active,’ said Harper. ‘Gray won’t just be hiding – he’ll be planning something. If we track any financial transactions they make, it could give us a clue to what that is. We have to assume that Childs gave him back his memories, so now he knows everything up to when the recording was made. He’ll be trying to put the pieces together.’

Baxter sounded uncomfortable. ‘Could he expose us?’

‘No – he doesn’t know anything more than he did before, remember. The risk is if he causes the wrong people to start asking questions.’

‘Morgan?’

‘I can handle him, and anyone else in the intelligence community. It’s people outside the chain of command who are the problem.’

‘Like Sternberg?’

The mention of his rival’s name provoked a scowl. ‘Yeah. I’ve already had demands for updates on the situation from the White House. But even if Gray remembers everything, he still doesn’t know anything that directly links us to what happened.’

‘I’ll make sure he never does, sir. Now that he doesn’t have any more inside help, we’ll find him. What’s happening with Carpenter, by the way?’

‘He’s locked up at STS. Once Gray’s been dealt with, I’ll decide what to do with him. It might be that I’ll need you to handle him.’

‘Understood,’ Baxter replied with malevolent meaning. ‘I’ll call you with any updates, sir.’

‘Good.’ Harper disconnected again, then sank back into the plush leather, thinking.

It took another fifteen minutes before the Cadillac finally pulled into the driveway of his house. The leafy neighbourhood was both expensive and exclusive; amongst its residents were a number of embassies, as well as the Washington homes of several major politicians. ‘Will you be needing the car again tonight, sir?’ the driver asked as he opened the rear door for his passenger.

Harper shook his head. ‘Pick me up at the usual time tomorrow morning.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll see you at six.’ The driver waited until Harper had opened the front door of the house, then climbed back into the Cadillac and drove away.

Harper entered the hall, going to the alarm panel and checking that everything was as it should be. The Director of National Intelligence was not granted round-the-clock protection by the Secret Service, but he still required a high degree of security. The fact that he had once summoned Adam Gray to his home – meaning that Gray surely now remembered where he lived – had been weighing on his mind, but requesting a bodyguard would have raised questions about his past connections to the rogue agent.

However, the display told him that the house remained secure. Satisfied, he entered a disarm code. The system chirped in confirmation. He headed down the hall, going into the kitchen—

A savage kick slammed into his stomach, knocking him breathless to the floor.

Despite her loathing of Harper, Bianca couldn’t help but wince at the violence of Adam’s ambush. ‘Don’t move,’ the agent ordered, drawing a gun – the DNI’s own, taken from a cabinet in his study.

Harper clutched at his midsection. ‘How – how did you get in here without tripping the alarms?’ he rasped, struggling to draw breath.

‘It turns out I was trained by the best,’ Adam replied. ‘Now, I want answers.’

‘Go f*ck yourself, Gray,’ came the snarled reply. ‘I’m not going to tell you anything.’

‘I don’t need you to.’ Adam glanced across the kitchen to Bianca, who was setting up the PERSONA on the oak dining table.

Harper saw what she was doing. His eyes widened in alarm, and he tried to get up – only to have Adam’s heel crunch down hard on his sternum, forcing him back to the floor. Even through the pain, however, the older man was still defiant. ‘You just earned yourself a lifetime ticket to Gitmo,’ he gasped. ‘That’s if you’re not executed for treason!’

‘Shut up,’ Adam snapped. ‘I’m going to find out the truth about what happened in Pakistan. That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? That’s why you pressured me into joining the Persona Project – so I couldn’t tell anyone what I knew.’

‘You didn’t know shit, Gray,’ Harper replied. ‘You didn’t then, and you still don’t. You’ve got your memory back, sure – but what does it tell you? Only that you f*cked up, and got the Secretary killed – and your own brother!’

Adam stared at him for a moment – then bent down and delivered a fierce blow to his forehead with the butt of the gun, drawing blood. Harper let out an agonised cry.

‘Jesus!’ Bianca shrieked. ‘Adam, what are you doing? You’ll kill him!’

‘If I wanted to kill him, he’d be dead,’ he replied coldly. ‘Wire us up.’

She took out the skullcaps – then hesitated. ‘Adam, are you sure you want to do this? It’ll wipe your own memories.’

‘I don’t want to, but I need to. It’s the only way to find out what really happened. And we’ve still got the disk – you can re-imprint them.’

‘In theory,’ she reminded him.

Harper fought back through the pain, squinting up at his captor as Bianca placed the skullcap on Adam’s head. ‘You do this, and it’s all over for you,’ he said. ‘The US government will never allow someone to run around with all the DNI’s secrets in their head. They’ll take you out – both of you.’

‘Seems like that’s what you were trying to do anyway,’ Adam countered. ‘Baxter wasn’t shooting at my tyres. Did you order him to kill us?’

Harper ignored the question. ‘You should think about what you’re doing, Dr Childs,’ he said instead. ‘If you back out now, I’m prepared to be lenient.’

‘I suppose you’ll just drop the whole matter and I can go home, right?’ she said sarcastically.

‘Not exactly. But there’ll still be a possibility of your seeing merry old England again before you die of old age in a federal prison. You get one chance. I’d recommend that you take it.’

‘And I’d recommend that you take your offer and shove it up your arse,’ Bianca replied, drawing a quick smile from Adam – and a glare of furious outrage from Harper. ‘You’ve done nothing but bully and intimidate me ever since I arrived in the States. Well, not this time.’

‘It’s easy to act tough when your boyfriend’s pointing a gun at someone, huh? You think you’re Bonnie and Clyde? Well, remember how it ended for them. It’ll go the same way for you.’

‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ she told him. ‘No offence,’ she added to Adam as she secured the strap.

‘None taken. Okay, sir,’ he said to Harper as he lifted his foot from the other man’s chest, ‘get up and sit in that chair over there.’

Harper scowled. ‘Like hell I will—’

Before he could even finish speaking, Adam’s foot came down again, grinding brutally against Harper’s ribcage. The white-haired man tried to scream, but all that came from his mouth was a choked gurgle. ‘You know what I’ve been trained to do,’ Adam said in a low, level voice. ‘This is nothing. I can make you beg to feel this good again.’

‘Adam, please,’ said Bianca, fearful of how far he might go. ‘Don’t.’

He reluctantly eased the pressure. Harper drew in a deep, whooping breath. Adam bent down and pressed the gun against the gasping man’s head before dragging him across the room and dumping him beside the table.

Bianca hurriedly fitted the second cap as Adam kept the gun pointed at Harper’s face. ‘Okay, it’s ready,’ she announced.

Adam took the Neutharsine injector from the medical case. ‘Keep him covered,’ he said, handing her the gun. ‘If he moves, shoot him in the leg.’

‘What?’ she protested, regarding the weapon as if it were toxic. ‘I can’t do that – I’ve never used a gun in my life. I’ve never even held a real one before!’

‘It’s easy. Hold it with both hands, point, pull the trigger.’

‘But I might kill him!’

‘Aim for the outside of his thigh. It’ll minimise the chances of hitting a major blood vessel. But if he’s smart,’ he continued, as much for Harper as for her, ‘he’ll keep very still. Like you said, you’ve never held a gun before. You might easily rupture the femoral artery – or blow his balls off.’ Harper’s face twitched at the prospect. ‘Just point it at him and count to thirty.’

She was about to object further, but Adam put the injector to his neck and squeezed its trigger. He dropped on to a chair as the Neutharsine swept through his system.

This time, it wasn’t just erasing a borrowed persona. It was erasing him. Bianca had coaxed memories out of him during the wait for Harper to return home, trying to ensure that at least some of what he had rediscovered would remain . . . but it wasn’t enough. The sensation was almost physically painful this time, a lifetime being neurochemically torn away before he had even had the chance to experience it again.

And his feelings were being eradicated too. The resurgent pain of the grief and guilt that had almost destroyed him ten months earlier was fading . . . but so too were all the flashes of brightness to which his thoughts of Michael had led him. His brother, father, mother, other family members, friends, lovers – countless moments of happiness, love, pleasure, laughter, warmth, joy . . .

All leeching away, flattening to bland cardboard. Nothing left but second-hand descriptions of emotions, not the emotions themselves.

Michael was gone. He knew he had once had a twin brother, closer to him than anyone else, and that his loss had been shattering. But he could no longer remember how his brother’s death – or his life – had made him feel. It was merely a fact.

Another emotion rose in him. Anger. Not for what he had lost, but that it had been taken from him. Stolen. He opened his eyes, seeing the cause of the anger. Harper.

‘Thirty,’ said Bianca, the gun still shaking in her hands. She glanced at Adam. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes,’ he said, trying to control his feelings. He stood. ‘Give me the gun, then inject him.’ She passed the weapon back to him with great relief.

‘Dr Childs!’ said Harper. ‘This is your last chance to save yourself. You’ve got your whole life in front of you – don’t throw it away.’

‘Adam had his whole life ahead of him too, until you threw away his past,’ she responded, taking the other injector from the case. It was loaded with a vial of Hyperthymexine.

The Admiral eyed it with concern. ‘Wait – aren’t you going to do an examination? What about all the measurements you need to take? If you get the dose wrong, it could kill me!’

Bianca smiled sardonically. ‘I’ve done a whole four transfers from unwilling subjects now; I think I can wing it. Six foot two, about ninety-five kilos, wouldn’t you say, Adam?’

‘Call it ninety-eight,’ Adam said.

She looked Harper up and down, then adjusted the dial. ‘Yeah, that’s probably about right. Sitting at a desk all day adds a bit extra, no matter how hard you try.’

The DNI was caught between fury and fear as she crouched beside him. ‘If you get it wrong and you kill me, it’ll be on your hands. You’ll be a murderer, Childs! I read your file – you went into medicine to save lives. Is that what you want? To be a killer?’

‘Like you?’ Adam said, voice cold.

‘I’ve never killed anyone in my life!’

‘Not yourself. But you gave the orders – to people like me. I want to find out what other orders you gave.’ He nodded to Bianca. ‘Do it.’

‘No!’ Harper roared, trying to scramble to his feet. Adam kicked him back down. Before he could recover, Bianca fired the injector into his neck. His yell was abruptly choked off as his entire body convulsed.

Adam quickly returned to the chair as Bianca tapped the keyboard.

ACTIVE: PERSONA TRANSFER IN PROGRESS.

With more nervousness than usual, she flicked her gaze between the flaring colours on the screen and the two men before her. Guessing the drug dose really was a gamble; there was leeway in Albion’s overly theatrical calculations, but not so much that some degree of accuracy was unnecessary. She had estimated Harper’s height and weight as best she could, but if the dose of Hyperthymexine was too low, it could affect Adam’s ability to access the stolen memories.

If it was too high . . . Harper was right. It could kill him.

But the readings on the screen seemed in line with what she had seen with Zykov, al-Rais, the Russian pilot and Qasid. Reassured, slightly, she removed the vial from the injector and replaced it with one of Mnemexal. Adam did not want Harper to retain any memory of their visit – though it would be impossible for him to dismiss the cut on his head. She eyed the tiled kitchen floor. Maybe they could make it seem as if he had slipped and banged his head, as they’d done in Macau . . .

The screen’s swirl and scroll slowed. The transfer was almost complete. She gave Harper a cursory check, then ran the final diagnostic before turning her full attention to Adam. ‘Did it work?’ she asked as he stirred.

He opened his eyes – and regarded her with the same cold, reptilian intensity as the Admiral himself. A brief chill ran through her. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It did.’

‘I’ll do a memory check anyway—’

‘No!’ He jumped from his seat. ‘We’ve got to get out of here, right now!’

‘Why? What’s wrong?’

He pointed across the kitchen. Beside a door leading outside was an alarm panel, a smaller version of the one by the front entrance. ‘There’s a secondary system. If it’s not deactivated within three minutes after the main alarm, it sends an alert to the Secret Service. They’ll already be on their way!’ He tore off the skullcap, then hurriedly rummaged through Harper’s pockets to find his phone. ‘Come on!’

‘What about the PERSONA?’ Bianca cried as he ran for the hall.

‘Leave it! There’s no time! Bianca, move!’

She looked helplessly at the equipment on the table, then turned to follow him – before impulsively stopping to fire the dose of Mnemexal into Harper’s bloodstream. Then she tossed the injector on to the table and hurried after Adam.

They reached the front door and rushed outside. The drive was not yet filled with SUVs and sharpshooters, which was something, but Adam knew – Harper knew, from a false alarm when the DNI had once forgotten to deactivate the secondary system – that the Secret Service would only take a few minutes to arrive. He pictured the neighbourhood in his mind as the pair ran down the driveway. There were two roads out of the exclusive little enclave; the Secret Service would be coming from the south-west.

The obvious exit route was north-east, then. But the agents knew that too . . .

They ran through the gates to the Mustang. Adam listened for approaching vehicles. Nothing yet – but they would not be coming with sirens wailing. If there was an intruder in the Director’s home, the agents’ orders were to capture or kill, not scare away.

He used the override to start the engine. ‘Wait, wait!’ Bianca gasped as she scrambled into the passenger seat.

Adam revved up, slamming the car into gear and making a rapid getaway – then abruptly jerked the wheel, flinging the Mustang into a 180-degree handbrake turn. Bianca shrieked as she was thrown against the door. He straightened out and headed south-west.

To her surprise, rather than accelerating, he slowed to the legal speed limit. ‘What’re you doing?’ Bianca asked.

‘Making us seem less suspicious. Look relaxed.’

‘Oh, nothing could be easier!’

Vehicles appeared ahead. A pair of black Lincoln Navigators, red and blue lights pulsing behind their radiator grilles. They rushed towards the Mustang – and whipped past, continuing to Harper’s home.

Bianca turned to look out of the rear window. ‘Do you think we fooled them?’

‘Their first priority is Harper’s safety,’ said Adam. ‘Or rather, his security. They need to make sure he hasn’t been compromised.’

‘I think they’ll work that out pretty quickly once they see what we left on his kitchen table.’ She gave him a doleful look. ‘Adam, the disk – your disk. We left it behind! It’s still in the recorder.’

‘I know.’

‘But it’s the only way to get your own memories back.’

‘Harper was more important.’

‘Is that you saying that, or him?’

He gave her a sharp look. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s evidence against Harper. If his persona made you leave it behind . . .’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m in control. If we’d taken another ten seconds to get out of there, the Secret Service would have seen us leave. I had to do it.’

‘I hope it was worth it.’

‘So do I. But once we’re somewhere safe, we’ll find out the truth.’

‘Sir, are you all right? Admiral Harper!’

Harper struggled back to wakefulness, painfully opening his eyes to see two men in dark suits standing over him. He squinted, making out coiled wires running from behind their ears into their collars. Secret Service agents.

But why were they here?

‘What happened?’ he grunted. More pain rolled through him as they helped him to sit up. His head was throbbing like the mother of all hangovers, but he hadn’t been drinking. He’d been . . .

What had he been doing? He remembered being in the car, talking on the phone, and then . . . he was here, lying on his kitchen floor. The orange glow of sunset was still visible outside, so not much time had passed.

He glanced at the panel by the door. A small red light was on, indicating that an alarm had been tripped. That explained the Secret Service’s presence – he must have not switched off the secondary system. Had he slipped and hit his head?

‘We don’t know what happened, sir,’ said one of the agents. ‘We’re doing a sweep of the house and grounds, but haven’t found anyone else here. Although . . . we did find something unusual. We don’t know what it is, though.’

‘What thing?’ He touched his forehead, wincing at a sharp pain.

‘On the table, sir. Can you stand?’

‘Yes, damn it, I can stand.’ He shook off their helping hands and struggled upright . . .

And froze, staring at the table.

The PERSONA device told him everything he needed to know.

‘You were wearing this when we found you,’ said the second agent. He held up the skullcap. ‘Sir, do you know what it is?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Harper growled, using anger to cover his fear.

Adam Gray had got what he came for.