The Persona Protocol

by Andy McDermott

  ‘Take this,’ said Adam, passing the bag to her.

  With the case in her lap, she had to perch the extra baggage on top of it – making it all but impossible for her to fasten her seat belt. She struggled to brace her legs in the footwell as Adam took a corner at speed, the station wagon’s roll making her slither sideways in her seat. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We need to get underground.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To block the tracker. If we stay in the open, they’ll box us in.’

  ‘But – if we go into an underground car park or whatever, they’ll still know where we are. It won’t take them long to find us.’

  ‘That’s why you’ll have to work fast.’

  ‘At what?’

  He glanced at the bag. ‘There’s an emergency surgical kit in there. I need you to cut me open and disable the tracker.’

  She gawped at him. ‘You couldn’t have told me all this before we jumped off the roof?’

  ‘Would it have changed your mind about helping me?’

  ‘It might! I’m a neurochemist, not a surgeon!’

  ‘I’ll tell you what to do.’ He swerved the car on to the wrong side of the road to overtake some slow-moving traffic, then skidded through an intersection, eyes scanning the street ahead.

  ‘Everything’s back online,’ Levon reported, checking a system diagnostic on one of his monitors. The video wall lit up again, showing the views from various STS security cameras.

  The images were well behind the action, however. ‘They did what?’ Morgan barked, listening to a call on his cell phone.

  ‘They jumped off the roof!’ reported the leader of the security team. ‘They used one of those trick umbrellas to land in a tree, then took some woman’s car.’

  ‘Did you get the licence plate?’

  ‘We couldn’t see it from up here. Some sort of station wagon, light blue, fairly old.’ He paused as someone spoke to him. ‘Thomson thinks it’s a Hyundai. They went south down 20th, then turned east.’

  ‘Hook us into the DC traffic cameras,’ Morgan barked to Levon. ‘We’re looking for a light blue station wagon, heading east.’ He turned to Baxter, who had just arrived and received a rapid briefing from Tony. ‘John, get your team and go after him. The Admiral wants you to handle this personally. I’ll link you in with DC police.’

  ‘On it,’ said Baxter. He took out his own phone as he hurried to an exit. ‘Spence! Get the guys geared up and down to the parking garage – we’re moving out!’

  ‘You’re sending our tac team after him?’ asked Tony. Holly Jo also looked concerned.

  ‘In case you’ve forgotten,’ said Kiddrick, face tight with anger, ‘he attacked me and stole classified information! Then he wrecked half the building while resisting arrest!’

  Tony ignored him. ‘You are going to try to capture them, right?’ he said to Morgan. ‘Not shoot them on sight? We need to find out why Adam’s done this.’

  ‘That’s what I’m going to ask him, right now,’ Morgan replied as he donned a headset. ‘Holly Jo, patch me through to Adam.’

  She entered commands. ‘You’re on, sir.’

  ‘Adam! Whatever it is you’re doing, I want you to—’

  Holly Jo shook her head. ‘Sorry, sir. He’s turned off the earwig.’

  ‘Damn it,’ Morgan muttered. He went to her workstation. ‘Use the alert bleeper, see if that gets his attention.’ She pushed the button, but there was no response.

  ‘Do we have the tracker?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Holly Jo told him. Another flurry of commands. ‘Putting it on the wall.’

  A block of screens switched to a map of Washington. A green square appeared on the street grid, heading across the city. It was already several blocks from the STS building.

  ‘I’m tied in with Metro,’ Levon announced, pudgy fingers rattling across his keyboard. More markings appeared on the map. ‘We’ve got live LoJack trackers of all the MPD patrol cars in the city.’

  ‘The nearest one’s four blocks from him,’ said Kyle.

  ‘Holly Jo, link in with the police and give them Adam’s position,’ Morgan ordered. ‘But tell them just to corral them, not arrest them – I want our people to make the capture. Maybe we can find out what the hell’s going on.’

  Kiddrick stared at the green square as it turned north at an intersection. ‘Where’s he going? Is he trying to get out of the city?’

  ‘No, he’s trying to find cover,’ said Tony. ‘He knows we can track him – so he’ll be looking for somewhere to block the signal so he can disable it.’

  ‘How can he do that?’ Kiddrick demanded. ‘The tracker’s implanted in his body!’

  There was a brief silence as the answer came to everyone simultaneously. ‘Ew, gross,’ said Holly Jo, wrinkling her nose. ‘I hope he’s got some Band-Aids.’

  Morgan crossed to Kyle’s workstation. ‘Have we got a drone available?’

  ‘Yeah, one of the new ones,’ the younger man told him.

  ‘Get it in the air. When Adam goes to ground, I want us to have eyes on every possible exit from his location. We can’t let him get away.’

  While Morgan was talking, Tony went to Holly Jo and leaned over her shoulder. ‘Do you trust Adam?’ he whispered.

  ‘Of course I do,’ she answered, surprised. ‘Tony . . . do you know what he’s doing?’

  ‘No – but I trust him too. Do what you can to help him. I’ll try to get Levon and Kyle on board.’ He moved away, leaving her staring after him in surprise before she returned her attention to the screens . . . with a surreptitious glance at Morgan to see if he was watching her.

  He wasn’t, instead finishing giving instructions to Kyle. The UAV pilot hopped from his seat and headed across the Bullpen – to be intercepted by Tony. ‘Kyle, hold on.’

  ‘What is it?’ Kyle asked.

  Now it was Tony’s turn to check that Morgan wasn’t eavesdropping. ‘You trust Adam, don’t you?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Course I do. The dude saved my life!’ It took a moment for him to realise that the question had a subtext. ‘Whoa, hold on, brah. You asking what I think you’re asking?’

  ‘There’s more going on here than we think. Adam and Bianca are the only ones who know what that is. Try to help them if you can.’ Another sidelong glance, and he saw that Morgan was glaring impatiently at them. ‘Use the computer’s auto-tracking to tag all the MPD vehicles,’ he said, more loudly. ‘Their trackers aren’t as accurate as ours – we need to know the exact positions of everyone involved in the pursuit.’

  ‘Huh? Oh, yeah – sure, brah,’ Kyle said, finally getting it. He hurried from the room.

  Tony went back to Morgan, just as the director’s phone rang. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Baxter,’ came the reply. ‘We’re just leaving STS. Where is he now?’

  ‘I’ll tie you in,’ Morgan told him. ‘Levon! Relay all our tracker data to the mobile units – and put their positions on the screen.’

  Levon nodded, then turned back to his computer. A couple of seconds later, new symbols appeared on the map: three green triangles. They moved east, then quickly turned north, heading after Adam.

  But another symbol was much closer. One of the DC police cars was now less than two blocks from the Hyundai’s position, racing to intercept it.

  ‘I can hear a siren,’ Bianca warned.

  ‘I’m surprised it took this long,’ Adam said, grim-faced. He looked ahead. There was a red light at the approaching intersection. The street they were on was one-way, all four lanes filled with stationary vehicles. ‘Hold on!’

  He pressed one hand on the horn and swung the station wagon up on to the sidewalk. The well-worn shock absorbers compressed with a bang as they mounted the kerb, the steering wheel jerking in his hands.

  He kept control and straightened out. The sidewalk was only narrow, a tree at its edge forcing him to smash through some small bushes beside a building to avoid it. Another yank on the wheel to d
odge a fire hydrant, and the station wagon pounded back on to the road. Bianca shrieked.

  ‘You should put your seat belt on,’ he told her.

  ‘I would if I could!’ she protested, still trying to keep hold of the luggage on her lap.

  He brought the Hyundai back on to the northbound street. There was another set of traffic lights not far ahead, but these had just turned green. Only two lanes were occupied. A twist of the wheel took the Elantra into an empty one. He accelerated.

  The siren was getting closer. On the left—

  They shot through the intersection at over sixty. The other traffic had just pulled away from the lights – only to stop abruptly as a police car, strobes pulsing, tore through the red in front of them and made a screeching, skidding turn to pursue the station wagon.

  Bianca looked back in dismay. ‘I don’t think we’ll outrun them in this thing!’

  Adam pushed the accelerator down harder, but he knew she was right. He could hardly have chosen a less suitable getaway car. The Hyundai had been far from over-powered even when brand new, and the general poor condition of the elderly vehicle implied that maintenance and tuning had not been high on its owner’s agenda. The engine was already straining to reach seventy.

  Another intersection at the end of the block. The lights were green. Only one of the lanes was empty. He wove round a slower car to get into it, feeling the Elantra wallow on its suspension. A glance in the mirror. The MPD Crown Victoria grew larger even in the brief flick of his gaze.

  This was going to be a very short chase.

  He shot through the intersection – and realised in a split second that something was wrong. Even though the lights were green on the northbound street, the cars heading east and west were also moving . . .

  Bianca gasped as an SUV pulled out of the side road on a collision course, halting abruptly as the speeding Hyundai cut in front of it. ‘Oh my God!’

  Adam looked in the mirror. More vehicles were crossing the junction behind him, stopping sharply in panicked confusion as their drivers realised that traffic was still coming the other way. The police car skidded under hard braking and slammed into the side of a van.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ Bianca cried.

  He turned his eyes back to the road ahead. ‘I think someone’s giving us some help.’

  41

  Race and Chase

  Bewilderment spread through the Bullpen. The symbol representing one of the MPD vehicles was right behind the green triangle on the map . . . then came to a sudden stop, Adam’s Hyundai leaving it behind. ‘What’s going on?’ demanded Morgan.

  Holly Jo was monitoring police frequencies. ‘The cops just crashed!’

  ‘Have we got the traffic cameras yet?’ said Tony as he put on a headset.

  ‘Coming up,’ said Levon, hurriedly closing the window on his monitor from which he had been overriding the traffic lights at the intersection. A view appeared on the video wall. Cars were scattered like a bored child’s toys across the centre of the crossroads. The police cruiser tried to move, but one of its tyres was flat, battered bodywork cutting into the rubber. ‘Damn! That’s a mess.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tony, giving him a tiny nod of thanks.

  Kyle ran back in and hurried to his workstation. ‘Man, there’s a lot of water upstairs!’ he said as he brought the UAV on line. His screens lit up, displaying the roof of the STS building. The viewpoint rose sharply as the drone took off. He looked up at the traffic chaos. ‘Did I miss something?’

  ‘Way too easy,’ said Holly Jo quietly. A couple of people smiled at the joke even through the tension.

  Morgan was not one of them. ‘Minds on the job, people!’ he snapped. One screen now showed the view from the drone’s camera; his gaze fixed on it. The vehicles on the streets below were little more than coloured specks. ‘Kyle, why are you flying so high?’

  ‘So I don’t crash into anything,’ Kyle replied, as if it were self-evident. ‘Sir,’ he quickly added as Morgan’s glare turned on him like a laser.

  ‘What?’ said Kiddrick incredulously. ‘The buildings in DC have a height limit – there’s hardly anything more than seven storeys. You’d be looking down on the Washington Monument from that altitude!’

  ‘I told him to go that high,’ said Tony. ‘So we can use the computers to tag and track all the vehicles involved in the chase. We need maximum situational awareness to avoid any more incidents like that.’ He jerked a thumb towards the scene at the intersection – not adding that with the drone flying far higher than necessary, it would make the job of tracking Adam and Bianca much harder if they left their car.

  Morgan appeared dubious, but accepted the explanation. ‘Just find them,’ he said, before turning back to the map. The three green triangles representing the positions of Baxter and his men were now racing diagonally through the city along Rhode Island Avenue. The tactical team’s SUVs were fitted with strobe lights and sirens to help them carve through the Washington traffic.

  They would not catch up with the Hyundai before the police did, however. Two more MPD cruisers were rapidly closing on the green square from different directions.

  Holly Jo gave Tony a conspiratorial glance, then her hand moved to the button for the emergency bleeper.

  Adam twitched as a tone sounded inside his ear – three shrill beeps, a second of silence, then a repeat. Bianca saw his irate reaction. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Someone’s using the alert beeper, and they won’t shut up.’

  ‘Can you switch it off?’

  ‘No. I’ll just have to not let it distract me.’ The pattern continued, more insistently.

  A pattern . . .

  The rising sound of a siren elbowed the thought aside. The police were getting closer – but he couldn’t tell from which direction, the electronic wail echoing off the surrounding buildings.

  The Hyundai was fast approaching an intersection. The siren didn’t sound close enough to be coming from one of the side streets, so the police car was probably at least another block away. If he turned now, he had more chance of evading it.

  Which way? Left or right?

  He chose the former, braking as little as he dared to sweep the station wagon through the apex of the corner. Bianca gasped, trying to hold herself in her seat as the Hyundai listed. No sign of the cops ahead, or in the mirror. He swung across to the left side of the road to overtake a couple of cars.

  The sound in his ear became more frantic. The pattern had changed, now four beeps. Short, long, short, short . . .

  Morse code!

  Adam had already committed to turning right at the next crossroads as the realisation struck him, the lanes ahead full of traffic – but even as he made the move he knew it was a mistake. Morse code was obsolete, but he had still been trained in it, and some recess of his mind told him that the signal represented the letter L.

  L for left.

  ‘Adam!’ cried Bianca, but he had already seen the danger. There was a police car dead ahead, running silent with strobes but no siren. It turned sideways to block their path. Parked cars lined both sides of the street, not enough space for him to get past.

  Instead of braking, he accelerated—

  Bianca screamed – but Adam was not planning to ram the obstruction. Instead he yanked the handbrake lever, simultaneously flicking the steering wheel to full right lock. The Hyundai’s tail end swung wide – and clipped the Crown Victoria’s front wing.

  The impact threw Bianca against him. Metal crunched, the station wagon’s rear window bursting apart. But it was still driveable, smoke pouring from its front tyres as they scrabbled for grip. The Elantra’s mangled rear bumper was ripped from its body as it lurched away.

  The police car started to follow – but didn’t get far.

  Like a supermarket trolley with a bad castor, it suddenly veered off course and slammed into a stationary car. The Crown Victoria’s right front wheel bounced free and wobbled away down the street, the stub of the broken axle
protruding from its hub.

  Bianca recovered from her shock and looked back. ‘What – what happened? Why did they crash?’

  ‘I took out their front wheel,’ Adam told her.

  ‘You mean you deliberately hit them when you skidded?’ He nodded. ‘Where did you learn how to do that?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ The bleeper sounded in his ear again. Dot-dash-dot-dot: L. He turned the car back down the road along which they had come. ‘I’ll tell you what I do know, though – Holly Jo’s helping us.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The beeper. She’s sending Morse code, telling me which way to go.’ Another message came through, this time three beeps. Dot-dash-dot: R. Right. He followed the instruction. Only normal traffic ahead.

  ‘You think Tony asked her?’

  ‘Yeah. And Levon, too – he must have hacked the lights at that intersection.’

  ‘So we’ll be able to get away from the cops?’

  ‘Not until we deactivate the tracker – and we need more of a lead to do that. But I think our chances just went up.’

  ‘From what baseline?’

  ‘You know when we jumped off the roof?’

  She gave him a pained look. ‘How could I forget?’

  ‘The odds weren’t much better than if we’d jumped without the Mary Poppins.’

  ‘Oh. Now I see why you didn’t tell me any of this before we started.’

  Another signal came through the bleeper, telling him to go left. Adam put the Hyundai through a tyre-torturing turn, listening for sirens. He heard one – but it was a few blocks away, fading with every moment.

  Morgan glared up at the video wall. The map had turned into a bizarre version of Pac-Man, Washington’s streets representing the maze and the symbols of the pursuing vehicles the ghosts moving through it.

  The green square was the avatar of the person playing the game. And at the moment, he was winning.

  ‘Damn it, he’s got past them!’ he growled, watching the square make another turn. The nearest MPD vehicle was now two blocks away from the fugitives, and heading in the wrong direction. ‘Tell the cops he’s heading north again! They’re reacting too slowly.’