The Persona Protocol

5


No Reception


The others watched in fascination as Albion continued to ask questions. ‘Your date of birth?’

‘The eighth of March 1982.’

‘Place of birth?’

‘Mushtarzi.’

‘Where is that?’

‘It is a small town about ten kilometres south-west of Peshawar.’

‘Okay. Your mother’s name?’

‘Hadeel.’

‘When is her birthday?’

‘The fifteenth of September.’

‘What is your most guilty secret?’

Adam hesitated, shamefaced, before answering. ‘I . . . I watch pornography. Western pornography. There is a man in Islamabad who sells me DVDs. They are . . . they are foul, whores debasing themselves, but I cannot stop myself.’

‘So he watches some good old American porno,’ said Kyle. ‘Nothing wrong with that!’

Holly Jo gave him a tired look of disgust. ‘Knock it off, Kyle,’ said Tony firmly. ‘And find that other guy.’ There were still only two blue symbols on the screen. ‘Roger, is he ready?’

Albion asked Adam a few more questions, all purely factual queries about Syed’s past. The answers were prompt, without hesitancy. ‘I think the transfer’s fine.’

‘What about you, Adam? How do you feel?’

Adam stood, brushing dust from the dirty floor off his coat. His accent was not the only thing that had changed; even his body language was subtly different. Toradze’s rolling swagger had gone, replaced by hunched wariness. He regarded the Americans around him almost with suspicion. ‘I’m fine. I’m ready for questioning.’ He gazed down at Syed, who was now still and staring blankly upwards, mouth agape. ‘Or he is. We are.’

Holly Jo shifted uncomfortably. ‘It’s too weird when you do that. You sound just like him.’

‘I think like him, too.’ Adam’s intense stare did nothing to ease her discomfort.

‘Hopefully not too much like him,’ said Tony. ‘Okay, we’ve got what we need. Time to put Syed back where we found him.’

‘We should just kill the son of a bitch,’ rumbled Baxter. ‘Now that we know everything he knows,’ a glance at Adam, ‘we’d be doing the world a favour.’

‘If Syed’s group doesn’t realise they’ve been compromised, they’ll carry on with their current operations – which we’ll soon know all about. We can take out the entire cell in one go.’ Tony looked at his watch. ‘Eleven minutes since we bagged him. John, turn his watch back . . . eight minutes.’

‘Kind of a long gap,’ said Holly Jo, as Baxter crouched and lifted Syed’s left wrist.

‘We’ll have to live with it. Roger, the amnestetic.’

Albion replaced the injector’s vial with one containing a paler liquid. ‘I assume you want the blackout to start before he was captured?’ Tony nodded. ‘Five millilitres of Mnemexal should do it.’

The big man waited for Baxter to adjust the watch, then injected the terrorist’s neck. Syed’s eyes closed and he went limp.

‘How long before he wakes up?’ asked Perez.

‘Ten minutes or so, but you’ll have adequate warning.’

‘Get those ties off him and take him back to the van,’ Tony ordered. ‘Kyle, is the square clear?’

‘A couple of people went through, but I don’t think they were Syed’s guys,’ Kyle reported. ‘Neither of the two I can see have line of sight on the square.’

‘What about the third one?’

‘He hasn’t come back out.’

Tony examined the screen. The surrounding structures directly abutted each other. The missing man could be anywhere inside. ‘The clock’s ticking – we’ve got to move him now. We’ll keep the op centre running until you’ve made the drop. Roger, go with John and keep an eye on Syed.’

Albion removed the skullcap from the terrorist. He gestured at the machine. ‘What about the PERSONA?’

‘I’ll pack everything up.’

Adam plucked the tiny tracker from Syed’s sleeve. ‘I’ll open the front door.’ He left the room. Baxter and his men picked up Syed and followed, Albion behind them.

Tony looked back at the images from the drone. Khattak and Marwat were checking the nearby buildings.

The third terrorist was still nowhere to be seen.

Adam opened the door and looked out cautiously into the little square. Nobody was in sight. A chatter came from the van as Lak restarted the engine. ‘Where are the bad guys?’ he said.

‘Two of them are still on the next road,’ Tony replied via the earwig. ‘Can you see the third one?’

He surveyed his surroundings. The rain had picked up again, but other than that there was no movement. ‘Nobody in sight.’

‘Okay. Go if you’re sure.’

Another check of the exits from the square. Still no sign of Umar. ‘Looks clear.’ Baxter strode past him to the back of the Mercedes and pulled the doors wide.

The three other men from the snatch team pressed close together to hide Syed’s slack form between them. They quickly climbed into the van. Adam stayed in the doorway, but it was not wide enough for the oversized Albion to squeeze past him. He stepped outside to let the bigger man through.

‘Sorry,’ said Albion, smiling. ‘Guess I could stand to lose a couple of pounds.’

Adam made no comment. His gaze followed the doctor as he passed.

Movement through the rain, a face behind a second-floor window. Umar—

Adam threw himself back through the doorway as gunshots echoed across the square. One bullet struck the wall behind him.

Another hit Albion.

Blood spurted from a hole in his lower back. He fell to the wet mud, too shocked even to scream.

Baxter and his team were already reacting to the attack with highly trained efficiency, dropping Syed and drawing their own weapons. Perez and Ware jumped from the Mercedes as Baxter and Spence stood at its open rear doors. All four had their pistols up, firing as one.

Umar had pulled back, but that did not save him. The wall around the window was wood and plaster – giving no protection against the hail of .45 calibre rounds from the team’s handguns. A chunk of his forehead exploded away from his skull amid a spray of brain matter.

‘Shots fired!’ roared Baxter, free hand pressed to his earpiece. ‘Man down!’

Adam stared at the motionless figure on the ground. Part of him felt a sudden, malicious glee: an American is dead! It wasn’t even exultation that a specific target had been hit – the death of any American would have received the same response. He angrily drove the thought back, jumping up and rushing outside.

Perez was already checking Albion’s neck for a pulse. ‘He’s still alive!’

‘Get him back inside!’ Tony ordered.

But Adam spoke over him. ‘Baxter! Get Syed to the drop point! We’ve got to complete the mission.’ He looked past the bullet-pocked building towards the road. Khattak had heard the shots and raced back to the intersection to investigate.

Their eyes met.

Khattak shouted a warning to Marwat, then ran, disappearing from view.

Adam made an instant decision. He drew his own gun and sprinted after the fleeing terrorist. Marwat flashed through the intersection ahead, following Khattak.

‘Adam, what are you doing?’ Holly Jo said in concern.

Tony’s voice was far harder. ‘Get back here! Roger needs medical help!’

‘We can use the emergency persona—’

Adam cut her off. ‘We’d have to wipe Syed’s. And if you don’t get him to the drop point before he wakes up, Roger will have been shot for nothing.’ He reached the intersection and rounded the corner. The two men were still running from him. Khattak took something from his clothing.

Not a gun; a phone.

‘Levon!’ Adam shouted as he ran. ‘The cell network – shut it down! Khattak’s going to warn the others!’

The satellite delay meant that Levon took a moment to respond. ‘What? I can’t— Adam, I haven’t got that much access yet!’

‘Anything you can do to jam his phone, anything!’ Khattak was struggling to enter a number from memory as he ran, his group’s contacts too risky to commit to a SIM card – but it still would not take him long to thumb in eleven digits.

Tony spoke. ‘Levon, can you give us a map of the local cell towers?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Do it, quick! Kyle, find the nearest cell tower – and use the UAV’s self-destruct to take it out.’

‘Seriously?’ said Kyle, surprised – and thrilled. ‘Awesome!’

‘Is Syed moving yet?’ Adam asked.

Holly Jo gave him the answer. ‘The van just left. But what about Roger?’

‘Either you can stabilise him, or you can’t.’ He didn’t know if the coldness of the statement was from Syed’s persona or his own.

He was closing on Marwat, but not quickly enough, the young man’s fear fuelling him. Beyond him, Khattak was forced to lower the phone to keep his balance as he wove between people coming the other way, but he brought it back up the moment he cleared them, his thumb finding another digit on the keypad.

In the office, Perez and Ware began first aid on Albion’s wound. Tony reluctantly looked away to Kyle’s screens. ‘Levon, where’s that damn map?’

‘It’s coming, it’s coming!’ came the frantic reply. ‘Okay, it’s on stream seven . . . now!’

Holly Jo overlaid the incoming data on the satellite image of Peshawar. Dozens of dots popped up. She zoomed in on those around the green symbol marking Adam’s position. ‘Kyle, I’m sending the nearest towers to you.’

‘Got ’em,’ Kyle replied. ‘Okay, closest one is . . . rooftop, a hundred and twenty metres west of the drone.’ He glanced at Tony for confirmation.

‘Take it out,’ Tony snapped.

‘All right!’ He took the UAV’s controls, re-angling its camera so that instead of looking down it showed the view ahead, and swung the drone round on a new course. ‘Can’t believe you’re finally letting me do this . . .’

The little aircraft dropped towards the rooftops. ‘There,’ said Tony, pointing. A six-storey building was home to a skeletal tower.

‘I see it.’ The phone mast grew rapidly as Kyle swept the drone in on its kamikaze run, aiming for the crown of antennae. But instead of crashing, he slowed the quadrotor sharply just before impact. It was built of lightweight materials, so simply ramming it into a target would have done little more than glancing damage.

The self-destruct unit would deliver far more. The explosive running through the UAV’s fuselage was intended not merely to wreck the machine but to completely obliterate it, preventing its sophisticated camera and computer systems from falling into the wrong hands.

Kyle flipped up a protective cover on the control console to reveal a red button. He stabbed it down, hard. ‘Bickety-boom!’

The feed from the drone’s camera went blank.

Khattak entered the final digit. He clamped the phone to his ear, looking back as he raced into an alley. Marwat was not far behind him; Toradze was catching up fast.

A voice from the other end of the crackling line. ‘Hello?’

‘Nasir, it’s Muhammad!’ Khattak gasped. ‘Tor—’ He broke off as a loud bang came from somewhere nearby, echoing off buildings. A grenade? ‘Toradze is working with the Americans! They’ve captured Syed!’

There was no answer. ‘Nasir? Nasir, can you hear me?’ Still only silence; even the crackle had gone. He looked at the phone’s screen. NO NETWORK. But he was in the middle of the city!

The explosion. Toradze’s associates must have destroyed the nearest phone mast, cutting him off.

But they would only have taken such drastic measures if they had been unable to shut down the entire network. If he got close enough to another mast, he could get a connection. The towers were dotted all over Peshawar – surely one couldn’t be far . . .

A rooftop! If he were clear of the surrounding buildings, he would get a better signal. Khattak reached the end of the alley, emerging on a street. He looked up.

An apartment block across the road stood five floors high, taller than its neighbours. Rain-soaked washing hung heavily from a line on its roof. There was a way up there. He swerved around a passing autorickshaw and ran for the building’s entrance. ‘Don’t let him get to the roof!’ he called back to Marwat.

‘The cell tower’s down,’ Holly Jo told Adam. ‘We cut off his call.’

Adam didn’t reply. It wouldn’t take Khattak long to get into range of another mast.

Marwat angled right as he ran out from the alley’s far end, following Khattak. Adam was only seconds behind, gaining on the two men. He had the SIG in his hand, but knew that the chances of hitting a running target while he himself was sprinting were practically zero, even with his training. Instead, he rushed into the open—

To see a car coming at him.

The battered Nissan was barely doing twenty miles per hour, but still slithered on the wet road, ill-maintained brakes shrilling. Adam banged both hands down on its hood to absorb some of the impact, taking a painful blow to his hip. He staggered before regaining his balance and continuing after Marwat. The driver yelled angrily as he ran past.

The collision had cost him several seconds. Khattak had disappeared into a building. Marwat went through its entrance.

A woman cried out. His gun had been seen. He ignored the spreading alarm and ran to the entrance.

A small lobby area floored in dirty red tile. He heard the rapid thud of footsteps from the narrow wooden staircase.

They’ll set an ambush on the stairs . . .

Adam’s own assessment of the situation was the same as Syed’s. But he had to make the ascent to stop Khattak from warning the rest of the terrorist cell. He ran up the stairs, gun at the ready.

When would the attack come? Marwat would be waiting – but on which floor?

The stairwell was confined, dark. He pounded up it, the umbrella’s handle scraping against the wall. Nobody on the first landing. He could still hear hurrying feet above as Khattak headed for the roof.

He continued upwards. Was Marwat waiting for him on the next landing, or the one after?

This one—

The Pakistani lunged into view, pointing his gun down the stairs – but Adam was prepared and had his own weapon raised. He fired just as Marwat saw the danger and jerked back. The bullet narrowly missed and hit a wall, scattering scabs of shattered plaster.

He reached the landing. Marwat’s pistol came up—

Adam swept his own gun arm across Marwat’s chest to knock the muzzle away as the terrorist pulled the trigger. The shot was painfully loud in the confined space. The American drove his shoulder against the other man’s sternum, slamming him back against the wall.

With his right arm holding his opponent’s gun at bay, Adam couldn’t get a shot with the SIG. Instead he drove his left fist into Marwat’s stomach. Two punches, three. The terrorist gasped in pain.

Adam shifted his weight, about to drive his elbow into the other man’s groin—

Marwat threw himself forward.

The impact made Adam stumble. As he fought to stay upright, Marwat charged, forcing him across the landing.

They crashed against a door. It burst open, the lock splintering from the frame. Adam tripped as he reeled into the room. Both men fell, the American taking the brunt as he collided with a small table. It collapsed beneath him. Marwat landed heavily on top of him, knocking the breath from Adam’s lungs . . .

And the gun from his hand.

Marwat immediately saw his advantage. He pushed himself off Adam.

Adam swept his hand over the floor to search for the P228. He found no metal, only wood—

The crouching terrorist brought up his gun – only to screech in pain as one of the broken table’s legs smashed against his wrist like a baseball bat. The shot went wide. Before he could recover, Adam’s heel hit his knee. He tumbled on to his back.

Adam threw the makeshift club at him and rolled to search for his gun. It had ended up a few feet away. He scrambled for it.

Marwat sat up, enraged. He saw his adversary moving and took aim—

Adam was faster, snatching up the SIG and twisting to fire in a single fluid motion. The bullet hit Marwat in the right side of his chest, a rope of dark blood gushing out as he fell backwards.

‘Adam!’ It took him a moment to register Holly Jo’s voice in his ear over the adrenalin surge. ‘Are you okay?’

He got to his feet. ‘I’m fine. One terrorist down. Tag this location – Imran’s people need to get a clean-up team here to remove the body. Third-floor apartment, on the left.’

He went to the door. Marwat lay by it, bloodied hands pressed against the bullet hole. The terrorist groaned, looking up as Adam approached . . .

The SIG roared twice.

Wet starbursts of red and grey exploded across the floor from the exit wounds in Marwat’s skull. Adam stepped over the corpse and returned to the landing, resuming his run up the stairs.

He would have compromised the mission if he had been left alive. Again, Adam and Syed shared the same cold, pragmatic view on the termination. But there was something else; part of it regret at the death of a comrade in the war against the infidels, another part . . .

An almost visceral joy in taking a life.

That was Syed. It was all Syed.

It had to be.

More floors passed, sounds of concern and confusion coming from the apartments as the residents reacted to the shots. On the top landing, a woman peered out timorously through her door, only to slam it shut as Adam rushed past.

The last set of stairs led to the roof. Daylight from above – the door at the top was ajar.

He ran towards it.