The Persona Protocol

by Andy McDermott

  Lak took the cigarette from his mouth. ‘Yes. I didn’t see where he went, though – I wasn’t really looking. That way, I think.’ He gestured vaguely over one shoulder.

  Khattak scowled, then peered past him to check that his quarry was not hiding in the back of the van before jogging away. Lak watched him in the wing mirror. The terrorist crossed to the other side of the square to investigate the concrete stairs leading up the side of one building, but found the metal gate at their bottom locked. He spun in sheer exasperation, then took out his phone and continued down the narrow street.

  ‘He’s left the square,’ said Lak. ‘But I don’t think he’s going far.’

  ‘Watch him,’ Tony ordered. ‘If everything works here, we’ll be ready to move Syed in a few minutes. We can’t let this guy see us.’

  ‘Roger.’ Lak sat back, eyes still fixed on Khattak’s image in the mirror as the terrorist made a call.

  4

  Change of Mind

  Adam and Tony followed Baxter’s team into the makeshift operations centre, the high-tech equipment incongruous against the peeling paint of what had once been the owner’s office. The former Marine clicked his fingers, and Syed was dumped on the floor.

  ‘Careful,’ chided Albion. ‘We can’t let him get too banged-up.’

  ‘The cover story’ll explain away a few bruises,’ said Tony with dark humour. ‘Are you ready?’

  Albion nodded towards two metal cases, one large, one small. ‘I need to calculate the dose.’ He took out a notebook bound in black leather. ‘Mr Baxter, can you and your men help me weigh our friend, please?’

  There was an electronic scale on the floor beside the cases. Baxter’s men hauled Syed to his feet – producing a groggy moan. Holly Jo gave him a worried look. ‘He’s waking up.’

  ‘Thought he’d be out for longer,’ said Tony.

  Albion shook his head. ‘It won’t make any difference.’ Syed was manoeuvred on to the scale. He mumbled something, trying to move, only to find his limbs restrained. ‘Okay, let go for a moment, see if he can stand up on his own . . . excellent. One hundred sixty-four pounds.’ Albion noted the figure, then produced a tape measure and quickly ran it up Syed’s body. ‘And five feet ten inches. Just one more to get . . .’

  He wound the tape around Syed’s head at forehead height, pulling it tight. The Pakistani’s eyes opened. Alarmed – and angry – he struggled against the ties, almost falling off the scales in the process.

  Two of Baxter’s men grabbed him. ‘Okay, put him back down, please,’ said Albion. ‘Face-up, and hold him in place. I need to check his overall condition.’

  Syed was lowered back to the floor, far from gently. ‘Americans!’ he croaked. ‘You – you bastards!’ A string of curses followed.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Albion, unconcerned. He knelt and shone a penlight torch over the prisoner’s face. ‘A bit scrambled from the shock, obviously, but the eyes look fairly clear, no broken blood vessels. Dark rims around them, but coloration looks healthy, so . . .’ He made more notes, muttering to himself. ‘Now, if I can just see your gums?’

  ‘I won’t give you anything, you shit-eating dog!’ Syed snarled.

  Albion swept the spot of light over his mouth. ‘Thank you. I’d suggest a breath mint, but otherwise . . .’ More writing, then he stood. ‘All right, gentlemen, hold him there, please.’

  Lak’s voice came through the team’s headsets. ‘Two more men are approaching me.’

  Kyle looked up from his console. ‘Tony! The drone’s back. I’ve got eyes outside.’

  Tony and Adam regarded the screens. ‘There’s Khattak,’ said Adam, spying a figure at the intersection. ‘And those are Umar and Marwat.’ The other two men jogged through the square. They passed Lak’s van to meet their comrade.

  Tony’s face tightened. ‘We can’t move Syed if they’re hanging around.’

  Albion snapped his notebook shut. ‘Okay, I’ve got the dosage.’

  ‘Do it,’ said Tony. ‘Adam?’

  Adam found room alongside Syed in the limited floor space, lying down. The Pakistani glared at him. ‘Muhammad was right! You are not Toradze! You bastard, you shit! You son of a whore! I will cut off your balls and feed them to you!’

  Baxter raised a booted foot as if to stamp on Syed’s head. ‘Can I shut this clown up?’

  ‘He’ll be quiet enough in a minute,’ said Albion amiably as he opened the larger case. Inside was a piece of equipment resembling a laptop computer, but with a much bulkier base. He raised the screen. The machine came to life, fans whining as the display lit up. Diagnostic tests flashed on it, replaced after several seconds by a simple statement: PERSONA READY.

  Albion took something from a pocket in the case’s lid: a skullcap, a mesh of thick black nylon dotted with dozens of coin-sized grey electrodes. Wires ran from each one, joining up at the cap’s back to form a thick umbilicus.

  Syed stared at it. ‘What is this? What are you doing?’ He tried in vain to break free. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just stay calm,’ said Albion as he pulled the cap down over Syed’s skull. The terrorist resisted, but one of the men forced his head up so the doctor could tug it into place. A strap was fastened under his chin and secured tightly with Velcro. Albion fussed with the electrodes, nudging them into alignment, then took a second skullcap from the case.

  This one he placed on Adam. It took him longer to secure it, positioning the electrodes with more care. Finally he opened the smaller case. He took out a jet injector, a glass vial containing a colourless liquid already loaded, and gently pushed the blunt stainless-steel nozzle against Adam’s neck. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Albion’s finger tightened on the trigger. There was a sharp phut, then he withdrew the injector, leaving a faint pink mark.

  Adam flinched at the sharp pain as the drug was blasted through the pores of his skin. But the brief discomfort that had briefly registered on his face quickly faded . . .

  Followed by all other expression, leaving him blank as a mask. His eyes defocused. Albion watched him closely, every few seconds glancing at the sweeping hand of his watch.

  Even with his head restrained, Syed observed what was happening with a mix of fascination and fear. ‘What are you doing to him?’ he said, with more trepidation than before. ‘What are you going to do to me?’

  Albion ignored him, still counting off time. Thirty seconds. He held a hand above Adam’s face, waving his fingers from side to side. Adam blinked, eyes tracking the movement.

  Albion leaned closer. ‘Adam, can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, I hear you.’

  ‘I’m going to do a memory check. I want you to tell me . . . the name of Giorgi Toradze’s best friend when he was a child.’

  For a moment there was no reaction, then a slight frown creased Adam’s brow. ‘I . . . I don’t remember.’ His accent was now a neutral American, all traces of the Georgian’s inflection gone.

  ‘What about the name of the first girl Toradze fell in love with?’

  Another frown. ‘I don’t remember.’

  Albion gave him a reassuring smile. ‘Okay, that’s good. Toradze’s persona has been wiped. I’ll give Syed the Hyperthymexine.’

  The terrorist thrashed and screamed, but could not get free, his captors pushing down with painful force. Albion took out a second jet injector, this one with a red stripe around its body. He inserted a vial of a faintly amber liquid and turned a dial marked in millilitres to a particular number.

  ‘What is that?’ Syed shrieked, staring at it in horror. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just relax,’ said Albion, bringing the injector to the terrorist’s neck. The Pakistani tried to twist away, but had nowhere to go. ‘You’re going to have a brainstorm.’

  He pulled the trigger.

  Syed screamed, face contorting as if he had been burned – then the sound faded to a gurgle in his throat as every muscle in his body tensed, tendons straining under hi
s skin.

  Albion tapped a key on the black-cased machine. The words on the display changed. ACTIVE: PERSONA TRANSFER IN PROGRESS. Columns of rapidly changing numbers scrolled up a window on one side of the screen. An oval object appeared beside it; a stylised graphic of a human brain, seen from above. It shimmered, each pixel subtly shifting in hue.

  The changes suddenly became anything but subtle.

  Syed’s eyes went wide, pupils constricting and flicking from side to side with unnatural speed. Adam also reacted, fingers clenching. His eyes began to flicker just like Syed’s – as if in time to their movements.

  Albion watched the screen. The graphic was now flaring, swathes of colour sweeping across it. The scrolling numbers moved ever faster, barely legible, but he took in enough from them to nod in satisfaction. ‘The transfer looks good,’ he announced.

  ‘How much longer?’ Tony asked.

  ‘The usual amount of time. Two or three minutes.’

  Tony turned to Kyle. ‘What are our friends outside doing?’

  ‘They’re checking the next street,’ Kyle answered. The three men being watched by the hovering drone had split up, a blue symbol generated by the automatic tracking software highlighting each. Khattak was still at the intersection looking back at the square, seeming unwilling to accept that his quarry had left it. One of his companions was heading right along the road, while the other skirted the buildings to the left, checking for unlocked doors.

  Tony jabbed a finger at Khattak. ‘As long as this guy’s still watching, we can’t take Syed out of here.’

  ‘What’s he gonna do, just stand there staring at the van?’ said Baxter. ‘He’ll move.’

  ‘He’ll have to, otherwise—’ Tony broke off, finger moving to the leftmost blue symbol as the man within it moved out of sight behind a building. ‘Where’s this guy going? Kyle, get him back in view.’

  Kyle was already working the controls. ‘I can’t get an angle on him. I think he’s gone inside.’

  ‘Damn. Keep watching, we need to find him – but zoom back out. We can’t lose track of the other guys either.’

  Kyle did so. The computer reacquired Marwat. Khattak had not moved from the intersection – but he had at least turned away from the square. ‘He looks pissed. I think he’s gonna leave soon.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Tony turned back to the strange tableau on the floor. ‘Roger?’

  ‘Not long now,’ Albion replied. He checked the screen again. The colour changes on the graphic gradually slowed. He watched the scrolling figures as they too reduced in speed, then tapped commands on the keyboard. CALCULATING LATENCY ESTIMATES. A new set of numbers appeared.

  They were to Albion’s satisfaction. ‘That should do it,’ he announced, turning back to Adam and unfastening the skullcap’s strap. ‘Can you hear me?’

  Adam blinked several times, then sat up sharply. ‘Roger! Did it . . .’ His voice had changed again, a new and different accent discernible even in a mere three words.

  ‘Let’s find out, shall we?’ Albion looked the younger man straight in the eye. ‘What is your name?’

  The reply was immediate. ‘Malik Syed.’

  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 squar
e. 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.