The Shadow Protocol (40 page)

“We don’t need you to tell us anything,” Tony countered. “Bianca, wire him up.”

She took out the skullcap and unwound the cable. “Aren’t you going to examine him first?” Adam reminded her.

“Hmm? Oh, oh yes! That would help, wouldn’t it?”
The stress—she hesitated to call it excitement—had completely thrown her. She quickly went through the motions of Albion’s spurious procedure. Al-Rais snarled at her, making her flinch; one of Baxter’s men kicked him hard in the side. “Hey, hey!” she protested.

“This piece of shit deserves a lot worse than that,” Cope replied sourly.

“Maybe so, but I can’t examine him if your boot’s in the way, can I?” She completed her checks, the two guards pulling him upright so she could measure him, then used the scales in one of the cases to weigh him. Al-Rais resisted, getting a punch in the stomach for his troubles. “Okay, thank you.”

The terrorist leader was dropped back to the floor. Bianca calculated the drug dosage in a notebook, then began to fit the skullcap over his head. Even with Trenton and Cope pinning him, he struggled, trying to strike the back of his skull against the floor to break the electrodes. Tony took hold of his coat collar to pull him up. “This bloody thing,” Bianca complained, repositioning the cap. “Why couldn’t Kiddrick have just designed it as a hat?”

“I’ll put that on the requirements list if he builds a Mark Two,” said Tony with a wry smile.

She secured the Velcro strap, then took the Neutharsine from the case and turned to Adam, who was sitting facing al-Rais. “Are you ready?” He nodded. “Okay. Hold still …” While the drug did its work, wiping the memories and personality of Eugene Browning from Adam’s mind, she put the other skullcap in place on him. Seeing all expression drain from his face at such close range was even more unsettling than before.

Baxter came back in to watch as the final preparations for the transfer were made, taking distinct pleasure in pinning al-Rais down with a foot on his chest as Bianca gave the terrorist his injection. That done, she activated the PERSONA. The transfer and recording process started. Minutes passed as the machine processed the vast amount of data flowing through it.

Finally it stopped. Bianca checked the readings, then powered it down. Unfastening the skullcap, she asked Adam: “Can you hear me?”

Adam’s eyes slowly opened. For a moment they were unfocused—then they locked onto her with a malevolent, hawk-like sharpness. “Yes, I hear you,” he said quietly. His accent was now several time zones removed from that of a West Coast scientist. His gaze flicked past her to al-Rais. His startled reaction reminded Bianca of someone who had glanced in a mirror to discover something unexpected stuck to his face. “Wait, I am—” He looked back at her, anger briefly burning in his eyes before he brought himself back under control. “Bianca?”

“Are you all right?” she asked, concerned. She had never seen him so intense following a transfer.

“Yes, but … it’s different, somehow. Al-Rais’s persona, it’s … 
stronger
than anything before.”

Tony crouched beside him. “Like it’s fighting with you?”

“Yes.”

“You can beat it. Take it from me, I know.” He put a reassuring hand on Adam’s shoulder. “I had the same thing with Najjar. These guys aren’t mooks—they’re leaders, they’re strong-willed, they have to be. But you’re stronger. Trust me.”

“I’m stronger,” Adam repeated. “I can beat him.” He clapped one hand over Tony’s, then looked back at Bianca. “I don’t think we need a cheat sheet to know that the transfer was successful.”

“I guess not,” she said. “Are you
sure
you’re all right?”

“I’ll be fine.” He stood, Bianca and Tony helping him up. “I’ll just … need a minute.”

“We’ll get al-Rais onto the plane,” said Tony.

“What about the Mnemexal?” Bianca asked.

“It doesn’t matter if he remembers what we did now that we’ve got him.” He faced the two men holding the dazed terrorist. “You two, with me.”

“You’re
seriously
going to commandeer that Ruskie
boat-plane out there?” said Baxter incredulously. “Why don’t we just use the snowcat?”

“I want to get out of here as quick as we can. Rossovich speaks Russian—get him to make that pilot fly us back to Provideniya airport. Bring him to the plane when you’re done.”

“What about the other prisoner?”

“We’re taking him too,” Adam said firmly. Baxter looked to Tony, who nodded. With a disgruntled shrug, the ex-marine went into the other room. Cope and Trenton picked up al-Rais and dragged him out of the building after Tony.

Bianca watched them go, then looked back at Adam. His fingertips were pressed to his temples, eyes closed. “Are you okay? Does it hurt?”

He opened his eyes. “No, it’s not like a headache. But it’s …” A deep breath. “Not pleasant.”

“None of this is,” she said, starting to pack away the equipment. She pulled the memory module out of the recorder and regarded it ruefully. “After what happened to Tony with Najjar, now they want to do the same to you with al-Rais. It’s mad.”

Adam glanced toward the doorway through which Baxter had gone, checking that nobody was listening. “Holly Jo, I’m going off-comms,” he said, pressing his finger behind his ear to deactivate the link before lowering his voice. “To be honest, I’m worried. This isn’t just finding out someone’s guilty secret about an affair. Al-Rais controls a terrorist group that’s killed thousands of people. It’ll take a lot more than a single interrogation session to break him—and the same will be true of his persona. I can tell. He’ll be fighting me all the way.”

“When you say ‘fighting,’ ” Bianca asked hesitantly, remembering the fleeting moment of hatred in his eyes immediately after the transfer, “do you mean that literally? Is his persona … is it trying to take control of you?”

“No, but there’s … 
resistance
.” Seeing her questioning expression, he expanded: “Remember what I said on the
plane about Vanwall’s fear of heights? When I was using his persona to play cards, I could call up his memories as easily as my own—I wasn’t doing anything against his interests, or his instincts. But when his fear of heights kicked in, it took effort to overcome. It’s the same thing here, like a kind of mental wrestling. I can overpower him, but … it takes work.”

“But you’ll be okay?”

“I’ll be fine—for now. If they imprint al-Rais’s persona on me again, I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I really don’t know.”

“I’ll do everything I can to stop them from doing it,” she assured him. “However much
that’ll
be worth.”

“It’s worth a lot to me,” he said. “Thank you.”

She smiled at the unexpected compliment. “No problem.” He returned it, faintly. “So, this other guy you took prisoner—”

“Qasid.”

“Bless you. You said he recognized you?”

“Yes. But I don’t know why.”

“Well, you’ve got al-Rais’s memories now. Maybe
he
knows.”

Adam nodded thoughtfully. “He probably does. So ask me.”

“What?”

“It’s easier for me to remember things spontaneously by being asked direct questions than by making random associations. Ask me something about Qasid.”

“I’m not really a master interrogator, but … okay. What does Qasid do in al-Qaeda?”

“He’s one of my most … reliable men,” Adam said, hesitating midsentence. “One of
al-Rais’s
men, I mean. Qasid’s one of
his
best people. He has contacts in Pakistani intelligence, in the government—” He suddenly stopped, shocked.

“What is it?”

“There’s a mole. Qasid was given information by a high-ranking mole! It’s how they knew the secretary of
state’s route in Islamabad, how they were able to set up an ambush. Qasid got it from someone working in intelligence.”

“Who?”

He frowned in concentration. “Al-Rais doesn’t know. Qasid kept all his sources secret so they couldn’t be exposed if someone else in the organization got captured. But he knows it was someone with access to highly classified information.”

“That should narrow things down, though, shouldn’t it?”

“Definitely. The secretary’s entire
visit
was top secret, never mind the route she was taking to the meeting. They’ve
got
to let me take an imprint from Qasid. He knows who the mole is!” He reactivated the earwig. “Holly Jo, put me through to—”

Two sharp cracks came from somewhere outside. Adam’s head snapped around at the noise. “Kyle! That was gunfire—what’s happening?”

“I dunno,” said Kyle, confused. “I landed the UAV to save power—the camera’s off.”

Adam drew his SIG and ran to the door. Baxter had also heard the noise, hurrying up behind him with his rifle raised. “What was it?”

“I don’t know. Bianca, stay back,” Adam warned as he surveyed the scene. No movement …

“Tony!” he shouted. Tony was sprawled on the ground near the jetty, blood on his face. Nearby was Trenton, red lines oozing over his coat from a ragged wound in his back. No sign of Cope—but then he saw the other man’s legs at the water’s edge, his upper body half submerged among the broken ice where he had fallen.

Al-Rais was gone.

“Adam!” said Holly Jo. “Zykov’s satphone—someone’s using it!”

“Tap it,” Adam ordered. He heard a shrill whine nearby as the UAV took off. “John, cover me!”

He hurried across the tracks to the fallen men. Tony was alive, but barely conscious, a deep cut on his temple. Both Cope and Trenton were dead, shot. Trenton’s G36 was missing. Adam looked around. Al-Rais had gone to Zykov’s body to get his phone. The nearest cover from there was in the woods to the north.

He signaled for Baxter to watch in that direction. “Tony! What happened?” The only reply was a groan.

“I’ve got al-Rais,” Holly Jo reported. “He’s talking to Sevnik—oh crap.”

“What?”

“He’s turning around. Adam, the gunship’s coming back!”

“Kyle, find the Hind,” said Adam. “I need to know the second you see it. John! Help me with Tony!”

As the rest of Baxter’s men took up positions to watch the woods, their leader ran to Adam. “What the hell happened here?”

“Get him up.” They picked up Tony, who moaned. “We need to get everyone on the plane, now. The Hind’s on its way back.”

The older man regarded his fallen comrades with anguish. “We can’t leave them behind!”

“The living have priority. Get everyone aboard. Did you talk to the pilot?”

“He’ll do what we tell him,” Baxter assured him coldly. They started for the jetty, carrying Tony between them. “Everybody, get to the plane! Rossovich, bring the pilot! Spence, you’ve got the other guy!”

“Stay with me, Dr. Childs,” said Perez as Bianca emerged fearfully from the building, carrying the cases. Rossovich, the XM500 slung from a shoulder, followed them out, one hand clenched on the copilot’s collar as the other shoved his pistol into the young man’s back. Behind him, Spence pushed Qasid at gunpoint. “Okay, let’s move.”

Everyone headed for the pier, eyes sweeping the trees. “Kyle, do you see the gunship?” Adam asked as he reached the jetty.

“Not yet.” They might have enough time to get airborne, then …

Morgan cut in through the earwig. “Adam, where’s al-Rais?”

“In the woods somewhere.”

“You’ve got to recapture him!”

“There isn’t time.” He checked the trees to the north again. Still no sign of the terrorist leader. “We’ve got the imprint, we can—”

A crackle of gunfire—from the
south
.

Rossovich was hit by several bullets and tumbled to the snowy ground. The copilot took another round to his abdomen. He fell, screaming. Everyone else on the shore scrambled for cover, Perez practically throwing Bianca behind a pile of scrap before diving alongside her.

Adam and Baxter, Tony still hanging limply between them, were completely exposed on the jetty. They turned to find the threat, knowing that a second burst would finish them …

It didn’t come. “Go!” said Baxter. They ran back along the pier and jumped down into the meager cover it provided at the shoreline, ice crunching and snapping underfoot
as they landed. Freezing water splashed over Adam’s feet. He ignored it, concentrating on locating their enemy.

I should have known
. Al-Rais was always willing to take calculated risks. Instead of going straight for the nearer trees, he had stayed in the open for the extra seconds needed to cross the tracks and find cover on the cutting’s southern side. Part of him felt a gloating pride at having outsmarted the infidels—

He crushed the feeling. “Where is he?” he called.

“I think he’s in the big building,” someone shouted back.

Adam cautiously peered at what had not long earlier been his own hiding place. Several windows, and the terrorist could be behind any of them—or none.
Never stay still
, said the unwelcome resident in his mind.
A fly that lands gets swatted
.

Seconds passed. Still no further gunfire—but a wail from the wounded Russian told Adam that al-Rais had fired all the shots he needed. Without the pilot, the American team had no way to escape. Some of them, Adam included, had received basic flight training—but none knew how to pilot a jet-powered seaplane.