The Trusted

by Michelle Medhat

  Chapter 87

  Greene was as good as his word. Minutes after his talk with Sam, he sanctioned surveillance on the three locations. Much of the success of surveillance is down to dogged tenacity. But there is a small proportion that is down to luck. Someone must have dealt Sam a good hand of the L-word that day. The agent assigned to the surveillance of one of the three locations, a DIY store, had only been parked in a back street for a few minutes when a tall, youngish man stuck his head out the back door of the shop. He looked around furtively, and then emerged fully into the yard. The agent watched as the man placed a case in the back of a car.

  Maybe it was the man’s shady movements, but something about his behavior appeared odd to the agent. He called back to Greene and recorded his suspicions. Everything he saw was being captured through his camera in real time and being sent back for analysis. It didn’t take long for a sudden burst of activity.

  Although the agent didn’t know it, the man he had seen had been positively identified as Hans Stein-Muller, a rogue nano-technologist in Al Nadir’s employment. Despite his disguise to make him look younger, the CIA’s powerful artificial intelligence system had analyzed the various vector points on his face, and had run analytics on possible hostiles in systems databases. The AI system had given a probability factor of the man being Stein-Muller. It was over ninety-percent probability, and this was more than enough to secure a hit.

  Soon after, a raid followed. After a brief gunfight, the operatives were captured. There had been six in all. Three had been shot and the other three had been tranquilized with a fast-acting sedative.

  Greene swallowed down his pride and rang Sam back with the news.

  “We got them all. They behaved as if the location was lilywhite.”

  Sam detected the tension in Greene’s voice. He would have loved to have said to Sam, ‘Well that was a non-starter. You’ve just wasted a whole bunch of tax dollars.’ But instead, he had to admit that Sam’s intuition had been right. There had been a new nano-bomb, activated by a secondary signal sent at the point of detonation, and his people had almost been duped into believing otherwise. “We’ve scanned all three and none were loaded.”

  “As we say here in Blighty, ‘they got caught with their trousers down.’” Sam laughed at his own humor, and Greene issued an awkward smile. This was a score to MI6, and he knew it. Sam could see Greene was uncomfortable, so he pulled back on the hubris. “Have the interrogations begun?”

  “Not yet. We’ve isolated them. Make them sweat a bit.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that. Al Nadir operatives are hard fuckers. They won’t break easily. If they’re not loaded, they’ll have other defenses.”

  Greene stiffened his back. He glared back at Sam. Who the hell did that hotshot think he was? “You may be good, Sam, but I have still been in this game longer than you. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  Sam knew he’d pissed off Greene. He backed down several notches. “I learnt what I know from the best. You’ve been a good teacher.”

  Greene harrumphed a little at the praise. “Yeah, well, right!”

  “All I’m saying is watch them. These guys aren’t clean.”

  “When are terrorists ever clean?”

  Sam nodded in agreement.

  “We will start with sodium pentothal,” said Greene, “and if that doesn’t yield any meaningful breakthroughs, we’ll initiate neural magnified stimuli. A little NMS and they’ll sing like birds.”

  “And if not, they’ll be dead,” added Sam darkly.

  Greene severed the connection on a brief goodbye. Sam poured himself a brandy and sat back. A small conceited grin formed on his face as the warm liquid slipped down his throat.

  Chapter 88

  Neural Magnified Stimuli, NightMareScene, or simply NMS, was regarded as a godsend in the intelligence community. Engineered by brilliant scientists at the cutting edge of genetic manipulation, NMS was a highly-effective drug that recreated and played out a captive’s darkest fear with absolute clarity. Forced to experience what they had banished to the deepest recesses of their mind, the captive always talked. On divulging their treasured secrets, a trap door that had been built into the drug instantly brought the captive back to reality.

  It was, however, the drug’s customization that made it so special. During an interrogation, a sample of blood was taken from the captive and used as raw material for the drug’s synthesis. The sample was then analyzed using genetic-sensing technology and the genes that will be augmented are identified.

  First, the gene that works on the hippocampus and handles memory was removed. Second, the gene that drives the amygdala, the area of the brain responsible for fear, was also taken out. These genes are treated with protein super-enhancers, and then incorporated into a biotech compound with a hallucinogenic base.

  Without fail, when administered, the drug reaped the desired results. It was often remarked, amongst the intelligence elite, that if there was a temple built to NMS, agents around the world would probably make a pilgrimage there to pray.

  Chapter 89

  Ellie tossed and turned, but she couldn’t sleep. Every few minutes, her eyes opened to stare at the red LED of her alarm clock. The minutes were edging closer to Sunday morning. Ellie watched television until late. Sam had called twice. When he got on the plane, he promised he’d call her on touchdown in Washington.

  Ellie had been drowsy after watching a late-night film, but when she’d switched off the TV, her drowsiness faded like the picture on the screen. She was, at once, alert. She couldn’t help but stare at the lights embedded in the ceiling. Although Sam had swept the apartment again, at her behest, before he left and had confirmed no devices were in the apartment, she still had the feeling of being under surveillance. Ellie had even changed for bed in the bathroom with the lights out. Stepping into the bedroom, she felt exposed. She pulled the hem of her sloppy t-shirt down farther to cover her thighs, and crawled into bed, snatching the duvet cover tightly around herself.

  Ellie knew her sudden insomnia was due to the feeling of being watched. She never believed she could feel so awkward in her own home. Eventually, after a fitful, restless few hours, Ellie drifted into an agitated sleep.

  Chapter 90

  Salim was the first to know. He threw down his phone on receiving the news. Then he stared into space for a minute or two, and seemed not to register his surroundings. His faithful acolytes around him ventured to speak, but with no reaction from Salim. Then, like his personality had carved in two, from the silence came an insane roar. He flipped open the satcomm channel and the massive screen buzzed into life in front of him.

  In her office, back in the Cambridgeshire plant, Sabena saw the light on the satcomm channel flash. She flicked a switch to receive the transmission. Salim’s face greeted her, seething and angry.

  “Sabena, you know what’s fucking happened?”

  Sabena didn’t. But she didn’t want to admit she didn’t know. “I’m sorry, the channel cut out. What did you need, Salim?”

  “Don’t fucking give me that, you stupid fucking bitch. They’re caught. All of them. Stein-Muller. Lupez. Even my fucking cousin, Rasheed.”

  Sabena’s eyes widened and her lips trembled. “How did this happen?”

  “How? Because of you, you fucking idiot. You and your second level deployment. I told you it wasn’t fucking ready. I warned you the fucking frequencies weren’t locked down. But no, you knew best. And now because of your incompetence, my cousin is in their fucking hands.”

  “I don’t understand how they could possibly have…” Sabena was bemused. Had the CIA really upped their intelligence capability?

  “I’ll tell you how, Sam Noor, nano-tech scientist turned agent. He was at the R and D facility in Dubai. Remember, you told me. He must have seen the demo you and Rasheed were doing with the test subject. He made the connections. He’s behind their incarceration.”

  Salim put his hands together, closed his eyes, and raised h
is head to heaven as if to pray. No one moved. The world was silent, joining Salim in his impromptu meditation. Then he opened his eyes and screamed his command at Sabena.

  “I want Sam Noor dead!”

  Chapter 91

  The debrief had begun. Morgan Greene ran through the identities of the subjects that had been captured. Agent Jonson sat on his right. Fellow agents, Bergman and Taylor, who took part in the raid, sat on his left. They all encircled the table and watched the faces of the three Al Nadir operatives flash up on the main screen with their background intel.

  “All three are known terrorists,” Greene began.

  He positioned his light pointer to the first face.

  “Sacha Lupez. Graduate from MIT. Top explosives expert. A really nasty little guy. Killed his own brother over a woman. After MIT, he went back and joined Carlos Penla’s crew. He did most of his military training in Columbia. He’s thought to be the mastermind behind the mall bombing campaign of Al Nadir a couple of months back. Lupez graduated north of the border when Al Nadir took over the drug cartel from Penla three years ago.”

  Greene moved his pointer to the right-hand image.

  “Hans Stein-Muller. Graduate of Stanford. Area of expertise is nano-technology. Worked as a legitimate scientist until a year ago. We believe Al Nadir bought him. He’s thought to be one of the team who built the first nano-bomb.”

  Greene stopped speaking. He had reached the third image. He turned to face the table.

  “This guy, if the rumors are right, could lead us straight to Salim Al Douri.”

  The agents around the table raised their eyes in amazement. The notorious and highly illusive Salim Al Douri was the global leader of Al Nadir. He, and only he, had been responsible for architecting the strategies that enabled the unbelievable rise of Al Nadir over the past five years. He was the most wanted man on the planet.

  “We only know him as Rasheed. Rumor says he’s Salim’s first cousin. Little is known about him except that he has been sighted at some of the most vicious bombings the world has ever seen. Middle East origin. If he is Salim’s cousin, he could either be Syrian or Iraqi, depending upon which mother he has. Of course, nationality makes no difference. He’s a terrorist, that overrides everything, and we have him. He’s free of cyanide and he’s not loaded. We couldn’t ask for more.”

  “Why didn’t anyone grab them at control?” asked Agent Taylor, amazed that immigration security hadn’t picked them up. Greene laughed rudely in his face. Taylor reddened.

  “Jesus, Taylor, we don’t know how they got in, but we do know they weren’t standing in line to get their passport stamped. What do you think? They’re day trippers?”

  Taylor shuffled his papers uncomfortably and didn’t make eye contact with anyone.

  “We’ve got solid gold assets, thanks to Sam Noor’s quick thinking,” Greene muttered begrudgingly. “So let’s get this show on the road.”

  Chapter 92

  The prisoners were removed from their individual cells and escorted to the interrogation rooms. Blood samples were taken from each and NMS was synthesized. The agents tried interrogating with sodium pentothal, but the captives remained infuriatingly silent. All three were schooled in the art of avoiding interrogation. NMS was administered. The agents sat back in their respective rooms and waited for the painful illusions to manifest. They commenced questioning. No answers came forward. They persisted. NMS was not having any effect at all. The three Al Nadir operatives glared back at the agents, their expressions surly and smug. Whatever the terrorists were seeing through their eyes, it certainly wasn’t their darkest fear.

  Agent Bergman was the first to notice there was a problem. He’d been interrogating Stein-Muller and was only getting a face of full-blown arrogance. He got up, ran out of the interrogation room and contacted Morgan Greene.

  “Sir, we have a problem. NMS is not working. These guys have a tolerance to it. They’re not making a beep.”

  “Shit!” Greene was crestfallen. NMS was their white knight in the war against terrorism. If Al Nadir had found a way around NMS, they really were screwed. “Bergman, take them back to their cells until we work out how to proceed.”

  Greene dialed Sam’s satcomm. Although he hated to admit it, and would never, ever tell him publicly, but the British agent was a great sounding board at times like this.

  “We got ourselves a problem.” Greene’s face was grave.

  Sam moved forward, his eyes sharp and focused. “What is it?”

  “Those guys we caught, you were right about other defenses. They’ve got a tolerance to NMS.”

  “It has to be that RNA synaptic inhibitor.”

  “What RNA synaptic inhibitor?” snarled Greene, piercing Sam with his dark eyes.

  “Rikard, the Al Nadir lieutenant we caught in Oslo, had a phial of something. The full analysis has only just come through. It’s an anti-agent that uses genetically modified RNA proteins on a bioengineered base. The anti-agent appears to inhibit synapse functions in hippocampal neurons. As RNA is responsible for activity-dependent changes in synaptic transmission in hippocampal neurons, a genetically engineered RNA-based inhibitor drug does the opposite. The fact that the amygdala, the center for fear in the brain exhibits theta-oscillation activity that phase-locks with hippocampal theta-oscillation during retrieval of some memories, gave the creators of this new anti-agent the link-in between the hippocampus and the amygdala that they needed. You see, interneurons in the amygdala are able to entrain rhythms and, therefore, can facilitate interactions of the brain’s nuclei with other parts of the brain during the retrieval of fear memory. The Chinese cracked this neurological code, forging the connection through the theta phase-lock, and developed an RNA synaptic inhibitor that stops an operative’s darkest fears from being brought to the fore and visualized around them.”

  “I’d appreciate that in plain English some time, Sam. But I get the gist. You’re basically saying that as far as NMS goes, we’re fucked!”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. If Rikard had the anti-agent delivered to him, other lieutenants and high net worth operatives like Stein-Muller would already have been injected with it.”

  Maddened that Al Nadir had found an anti-agent to their star drug, Sam thumped the seat.

  NMS was politically correct. Human rights protestors couldn’t say the captives’ rights had been violated, and this gave security agencies in the West carte blanche to get away with horrific interrogations. NMS wasn’t deemed torture because physically, they weren’t touching the captives. But everyone on the inner track knew what the drug produced was ten times worse than water-boarding or electrode stimulation. And it never failed to deliver results.

  But if Al Nadir really had cracked its neurological key, they’d have to go back to their old ways. It was something, Sam wasn’t averse to. To hell with the PC brigade.

  “We knew it was going to happen soon enough,” said Greene. “It’s a miracle we kept it going for so long. Now we’ll have to get the lab boys working on a new alternative.”

  “But what about now, Morgan? We need answers,” said Sam.

  “I know we do. But you know we have to tread carefully, Sam. We don’t want to annoy anyone unnecessarily. You know the boys on the Hill are always watching.”

  Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He whipped around to confront him. “For fuck’s sake, Morgan. Are you an agent or a politician? Because you sure as hell can’t be both.”

  “Sam, you know what it’s like.” Greene was ashamed. Sam was right. Recently, he was more a politician than an agent. His integrity had slipped.

  “You want answers, yes or no?” Sam stared with coldness at Greene. His mentor’s nod barely registered. “Then when I arrive, let me do my job.”

  “We have to keep it in line with protocol,” Greene reminded Sam.

  “Fuck protocol. These guys are terrorists. You want answers. I’ll get you answers.”

  “Now, Sam…” Greene began. But one look at Sam and h
e knew his words were pointless. “I’ll email you the headlines so you can be ready to roll when you arrive.”

  “Good. See you later.”

  It was going to be a long night. He’d better snatch some shuteye before he arrived. Sam had to be his very best for Al Nadir’s boys.

  Chapter 93

  The plane touched down on time. Sam sped down the steps towards the waiting helicopter. He ducked his head to avoid the blades, climbed in, settled into the seat and strapped himself in. He pulled the door shut and gave the pilot the thumbs up. The helicopter lifted swiftly off the ground. Sam dug into his bag and removed the papers he’d printed out on the plane. He scanned the operatives’ details. He lingered on Rasheed’s file. So this was Salim’s cousin. The interrogation was going to be very interesting.

  Sam stepped out of the helicopter and ran towards the back entrance of Langley. Greene was waiting for him by the toughened glass and metal double doors. Sam shook his hand hurriedly and continued walking with Greene through the doors. The foyer was yawning, bright and clinical. White walls, devoid of pictures or any paraphernalia, grey granite flooring and gleaming stainless steel combined to create an air of elitist, secretive superiority. Further inside, Sam could see a sheet of seemingly unbroken glass stretching across from one side of the foyer to the other.

  On approach, Greene placed his right hand on the glass. A pale turquoise light appeared from inside the glass and scanned Greene’s hand, moving up, down, left, and right, then finally diagonally from corner to corner. An image of Greene’s hand was imprinted on the glass by a violet light. No message came up. No “cleared” or “access permitted.” Greene waited for a few seconds. The solid sheet of glass gently and silently slid apart to allow Greene to enter, and then rapidly closed just as silently behind him. Sam placed his right hand on the glass and awaited the scan. The glass opened to allow him passage. He looked over his shoulder. The glass slotted back into place, once again giving the appearance of a single pane. Sam was impressed. The cut down the middle couldn’t be detected. He hadn’t seen that at Langley before. They were obviously increasing their security measures, given that the US was on constant orange alert for terrorist attacks.