The Persona Protocol

by Andy McDermott

  ‘No, I won’t need it.’

  ‘Good. The damn thing weighs a ton.’

  He smiled. ‘Then meet me outside briefing room C in five minutes.’

  ‘Briefing room C, that’s, ah . . .’

  ‘Out of the back-left exit from the Bullpen, turn left, then right.’

  ‘Gotcha.’ She rose and went to the door – then hesitated, looking back. ‘Adam . . .’

  ‘Trust me,’ he said. She nodded and left the room. Adam followed her out, going to one of the unoccupied workstations. A surreptitious check to make sure none of the night-shift staff were paying him any particular attention, then he started to enter commands.

  36

  You Know My Name

  Bianca went to the lab, feeling as though everyone she passed was regarding her with deep suspicion. She almost expected her ID card to be rejected when she put it into the lock, but the light turned green as normal.

  Heart pounding, she entered and opened the cabinet to collect the equipment. It was the first time she had done so without Kiddrick watching hawkishly over her shoulder, and she still couldn’t escape the sense that there was someone right behind her.

  But a glance round assured her that she was being paranoid. Relieved, she turned back to her task, collecting everything she needed. She picked up the cases and was about to nudge the cabinet closed with her knee when she paused, noticing something. One of the memory modules containing the recorded personas of the test subjects was labelled with a familiar name: CARPENTER, A. Tony was short for Anthony, obviously. She looked along the cases for a GRAY, A., but saw none.

  No time to wonder about the omission. She shut the cabinet and hurried out, heading through the building to briefing room C.

  Minutes passed as she waited outside it, feeling increasingly conspicuous and nervous. If anyone wandered by and wondered why she was hanging around with the PERSONA cases at her feet . . .

  She heard someone approaching. Wishing that she had spent the time devising a semi-plausible excuse for being there, she turned – and to her relief saw Adam. ‘What kept you?’ she demanded in a half-whisper.

  ‘I had to get something from the equipment room. You’ve got everything?’ She gestured at the cases. ‘Okay, good. Come on.’

  He picked up the large case and started down the corridor. Bianca collected the medical equipment and followed him to a security door bearing the sign HOLDING. Adam inserted his ID card. The light on the lock turned green, and he opened it.

  Beyond was a short, windowless corridor with three heavy doors leading off it. A uniformed security guard sat at a desk beside the entrance. Monitors showed the interiors of the cells; one was occupied. He hurriedly put down his newspaper, evidently not expecting visitors this early in the day. ‘Mr Gray, sir. Morning. Uh . . . what can I help you with?’

  ‘We need to talk to Qasid,’ Adam told him, matter-of-factly. ‘Mr Carpenter’s authorised it.’

  ‘Okay, sir, let me just check …’ He tapped at the computer on the desk. ‘Ah, yeah, here we go. He’s in number one.’ He indicated the nearest of the three doors, then pushed a button on a control panel. A loud clack came from the door as the lock was released. ‘He’s all yours. Just wave at the camera when you want to come out.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Adam opened the cell and entered, Bianca behind him. The door swung shut.

  Qasid lay on the bed. A metal toilet bowl and a tiny washbasin set into the wall were the only other furnishings. The terrorist had been asleep, the noise of the lock rousing him. He looked blearily at the new arrivals – then sat bolt upright, scrambling back as he recognised Adam. ‘Gray!’ he snarled. ‘You bastard, you traitor! You set us up!’

  Adam put down the case. ‘Do you know me?’

  ‘Of course I know you! What sort of stupid question is that?’

  ‘Where did you meet me? Before Russia, I mean. Where do you know me from?’

  Confusion joined anger on Qasid’s face. ‘Why are you asking me things you already know?’

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘I won’t tell you anything!’

  ‘Yes, you will.’

  ‘Are you going to torture me?’ he sneered. ‘And you Americans call us animals!’

  ‘I’m not going to torture you,’ said Adam, taking something from a pocket. ‘But that doesn’t mean I won’t hurt you.’ Before Qasid could react, he pushed the prongs of a stun gun hard against the terrorist’s chest and pulled the trigger. There was an electric flash. Qasid instantly slumped into a twitching heap.

  ‘Jesus!’ gasped Bianca, nearly as shocked as the Pakistani. ‘You didn’t tell me you were going to do that to him!’

  ‘Did you want to put the cap on him while he was still awake and resisting?’

  ‘Well, when you put it that way, no. But—’

  ‘We don’t have a lot of time,’ said Adam, stepping back.

  Still shaken, Bianca booted up the PERSONA before taking out the first skullcap and pulling it over the stunned man’s head. ‘What about the camera?’ she asked, glancing at the lens staring glassily down from above the door. ‘The guard’ll be watching us.’

  ‘We won’t be doing anything he hasn’t seen before.’ Adam started to put on his own skullcap.

  ‘You know, I don’t find that very reassuring.’ She secured Qasid’s cap and connected its cable to the PERSONA. ‘Okay, now I need to work out the drug dose . . .’

  ‘Don’t go through the full routine,’ said Adam. ‘We don’t have time.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked hesitantly.

  ‘I mean, the whole charade Roger asked you to do so he can stay on the project.’

  She looked up at the camera again. ‘I, uh . . . I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘It doesn’t have audio. Your secret’s safe with me. I said you can trust me.’

  Bianca glared at him. ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘Well, you just confirmed it.’ On her horrified realisation that she had dropped herself and Albion in it, he went on: ‘But I suspected in Macau. You did things in the wrong order, missed out steps – but it still worked, so it got me wondering. After Russia, I was sure.’ He handed her his skullcap’s cable. ‘Is this on right?’

  ‘Do you even need me to check any more?’ she replied, both relieved by his discretion and irked at the amusement he was taking from her embarrassment.

  ‘I’d rather be safe.’ He dropped lower so she could examine the electrodes.

  ‘Looks fine,’ she said, plugging in the cable. ‘But if it gives you an electric shock, don’t expect any sympathy.’

  ‘I trust you not to let that happen. The drug?’

  ‘Yes, yes. How much would you say he weighs?’

  Without the need for pretence, the correct dose did not take long to calculate. Bianca took out the jet injector. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

  ‘I’ve never been more sure of anything. At least,’ he added, ‘that I can remember.’

  ‘You’re starting to develop quite a smart-arsed sense of humour, did you know that?’

  ‘Maybe I’m picking it up from you. Okay, give me the shot.’

  She put the nozzle against his neck. ‘Let’s hope it’s worth—’

  Clack!

  They both whirled at the sound of the lock. The door opened – and Tony entered the cell. His expression was the coldest Bianca had ever seen it. ‘Morning, guys,’ he said, the casual greeting not reflected by his tone. ‘How’s it going?’

  Bianca was frozen with fear, but Adam simply asked: ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Because the system logs everything, and sends out “Hey, did you really authorise this?” warnings if an order’s issued under somebody’s login from a terminal they don’t normally use. If you were going to hack it, you should have waited for Levon to come in. I should probably ask how you got my login in the first place, but that can wait. Right now, what I want to know is: what the hell are you doing?’
>
  ‘What I have to,’ Adam replied. He looked down at the semi-conscious Qasid. ‘He knows something about my past. I need to know what.’

  ‘Harper said to leave him to the interrogators at Guantanamo.’

  ‘Do you agree with him?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether I do or not. If the Director of National Intelligence gives an order, it gets followed. End of discussion.’

  ‘But I’ve got to know, Tony!’ Adam cried with sudden desperation. ‘Qasid’s met me before – but I don’t know where, or why. This is the only way I can find out.’

  ‘Look, I completely understand why you want to do it,’ said Tony, with more sympathy, ‘but this isn’t the way to go about it.’

  ‘It’s the only choice I had! He’ll be in Cuba by the end of the day.’

  ‘Where he’ll be interrogated. They’ll find out what he knows.’

  ‘And how long will that take? A week? A month? A year? Tony, I can find out everything he knows in five minutes! And not just about me – he knows who leaked the Secretary of State’s route in Islamabad. Qasid gave it to al-Rais – and a mole gave it to Qasid. I can get the name of that mole right now.’

  Tony seemed conflicted. ‘If there’s a mole, I can’t deny that we need to know who he is sooner rather than later. But this isn’t the way to go about it.’

  ‘There isn’t any other way,’ Adam insisted. ‘And I’m willing to take the consequences for it.’

  ‘But it’s not just about you.’ Tony looked at Bianca. ‘If you drag her into this too . . .’

  ‘He didn’t drag me,’ said Bianca firmly. ‘I want to help him.’

  He sighed and shook his head. ‘I wish you hadn’t said that. I don’t think you realise how serious this is.’

  ‘No, I do realise,’ she replied. ‘And I’m still willing to help him, because – because he’s had part of his self taken from him. To me, that’s one of the most horrible things that can happen to somebody. I’ve spent my whole career trying to save people from that. This might be the only way to help Adam remember who he really is. Please, Tony. If anyone can really understand what’s happened to him, it’s you.’

  A long silence. ‘If you do this,’ Tony finally said, ‘or rather, if I let you do this, we could all end up in jail.’

  ‘If you weren’t going to let us,’ Adam pointed out, ‘you would have arrested us by now.’

  ‘I still might. But are you absolutely certain Qasid knows the identity of the mole in Pakistan?’

  Adam nodded. ‘Al-Rais was.’

  Another pause. ‘Okay,’ Tony said, ‘if there’s actual, actionable intelligence you can get from this, that’s the angle I’ll use to justify it.’

  ‘You’re letting us do it?’ Bianca asked.

  ‘As head of field ops, I’ve got the authority to make snap decisions critical to a mission’s outcome.’

  ‘But the mission’s over,’ said Adam.

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’ll have a hell of a job spinning it! But if it changes the outcome from “near disaster” to “partial success”, maybe we’ll get away with it. It’s results that count.’

  ‘And what if we don’t find the mole?’ said Bianca.

  ‘Well, then we’re all screwed! But if you don’t get any useful intel, I’ll do what I can to make it look like none of this ever took place. If Martin or anyone higher up hears so much as a whisper, though, there’s no way I’ll be able to cover it up.’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,’ said Adam, with a faint smile.

  Tony looked at his watch. ‘Okay. You’ve got ten minutes, and then you’re out of here, no matter what. Just don’t forget to give him the Mnemexal after you’re done, okay?’ He stabbed a finger at Qasid, who was starting to recover. ‘I’ll get back on the system and confirm that I authorised you to come in here so it doesn’t get kicked up a level for a security check.’ He looked up at the camera, signalling to the guard. The lock clacked. ‘Ten minutes, no more.’

  ‘That’s all we’ll need,’ said Adam. ‘Thanks.’ Tony nodded, then opened the door. ‘One thing – what changed your mind?’

  Tony looked back at him. ‘“Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge,” said Khalil Gibran. And in this business, we need all the knowledge we can get.’

  Bianca was impressed that he could quote the Lebanese poet. ‘That’s very philosophical. Especially for this early in the morning.’

  ‘I’m full of surprises. Now do what you need to do.’ He left, closing the door behind him.

  ‘We’d better get on with it, then,’ said Adam.

  ‘I just hope we’re not making a horrible mistake,’ Bianca replied.

  ‘Me too. Do it.’

  Bianca injected both men, then activated the transfer process, watching the PERSONA’s screen carefully for any signs that the unplanned procedure had gone wrong. There were none. Minutes passed before the flood of electrical impulses began to slow. She made the last checks. The computer told her that everything was normal. She gave Qasid a dose of Mnemexal, then knelt beside her companion. His eyes were shut. ‘Adam? Did it work? What’s your name?’

  ‘My name is . . . Mohammed Nithar Qasid,’ said Adam, a Pakistani lilt to his accent.

  ‘When were you born?’

  ‘The twelfth of Ramadan, 1407.’

  ‘What?’ she gasped.

  He opened his eyes and smiled crookedly. ‘Islamic calendar. May tenth, 1987.’

  ‘God, for a minute there I thought you’d taken on his past life or something.’ She unfastened his skullcap. ‘Come on, we’ve got to pack all this up.’

  Adam didn’t move, an odd expression on his face. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  His look slowly became one of dawning horror. ‘I know how Qasid recognised me. He had met me before. In Islamabad, ten months ago.’

  Bianca realised the significance of the date. ‘That was when the Secretary of State was killed, wasn’t it?’ He nodded. ‘What were you doing there? Were you trying to find the mole?’

  He scrambled to his feet, reeling away from her. ‘No, no – you don’t understand!’ he cried, his voice anguished. ‘I gave the Secretary’s route to al-Qaeda! I am the mole!’

  37

  Inside Man

  Adam paced back and forth across the Cube, struggling to keep his head above the rising whirlpool of emotion threatening to swallow him. Horror, panic, shame . . . and guilt.

  And those were only his feelings. Qasid’s were also trying to pull him under, the terrorist filled with gloating pride at having turned an American agent to the cause. He was caught in a downward spiral, the other man’s triumph worsening his own stress and self-loathing.

  The more he tried to deny it, searching Qasid’s memories for some hint of deception, the more he knew it was true.

  Qasid had met him three times. The first had been a sounding-out mission for the al-Qaeda operative, simply to check if the supposed sympathiser could be trusted. The meeting had been in a small café – with five armed men lurking nearby. At any sign of Pakistani or American security forces, the man calling himself Adam Gray would have been the first to die.

  But there had been none. He seemed genuine.

  Adam relived Qasid’s memories, the vision of his own face disorienting, surreal. Nightmarish. The two men had been brought together by a mutual contact, an al-Qaeda supporter within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He listened to himself explain to Qasid why he was there. His grandfather on his father’s side was Waziri, from Pakistan’s mountainous western regions bordering Afghanistan. This family connection was what had brought him to Pakistan, as an intelligence officer – and it had also fuelled his disgust at his own country’s actions, as American drones bombed the tribal lands with impunity. The CIA claimed publicly that only terrorists were being killed by the missiles, but he knew, having seen the raw intelligence reports before they were sanitised, that innocent civilians were being murdered.

  Now, blood demanded blood.

>   Qasid believed him enough not to have him killed, but was still not fully convinced. The American had to provide proof of his sympathies.

  So he did.

  The next time the two men met, this time in a filthy slum house in Sector G-7 of Islamabad, Adam handed over a DVD containing footage of a Reaper drone strike two days previously. The Pakistani government had condemned the attack on a village in South Waziristan, in which the Americans claimed that four al-Qaeda fighters were killed – but the recording not only made it clear that numerous civilians in nearby houses had died in the blast, but also that Pakistani military intelligence officers were working directly with the CIA to guide the attack, picking out targets. The footage was quickly released to Al Jazeera and other news networks. Pakistan and the United States immediately declared the audio portion to be fake, but it still roused popular anger for several days.

  Qasid was pleased – as were his superiors. They wanted more.

  And on the third and final meeting, Adam Gray provided it.

  The memory was as clear as if it had just happened. This time, the two men met in the open, spending barely twenty seconds together. Qasid brought a bag containing fifty thousand US dollars; his contact, a memory stick. ‘The details of the Secretary of State’s visit,’ Adam heard himself say as he handed over the little flash drive. ‘The route, the timing, decoys, security assignments – everything. Make good use of it.’

  ‘We will,’ Qasid replied, giving him the bag in return. ‘Allah be praised.’

  The American nodded, then walked away.

  The drive contained a full itinerary of the politician’s impending assignation – so comprehensive, in fact, that Qasid at first thought it too good to be true. Was Gray a double agent, trying to draw the al-Qaeda cell into a trap? But the more he checked, the more certain he became that the information was genuine.

  Muqaddim al-Rais himself made the final decision.

  Go.

  The bomb was prepared, over a hundred kilograms of high explosive jacketed by ball bearings and ragged fragments of scrap metal in the trunk of a nondescript Toyota parked near the location of the meeting. Because the Secretary of State’s visit to discuss the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons was secret, the roads were not blocked off or cleared of other traffic. This allowed a confederate in a truck to get ahead of the three-vehicle convoy, controlling its speed as it approached the kill zone.