Game Changer (21 page)

33

Since the Mossad agent was using his newly acquired home as
a military outpost, it was exactly what Quinn had expected. Barren. Undecorated
and unlived in. But with enough televisions, computers, monitors, weapons, and
electronics to supply a Walmart. He had one black leather couch facing the
biggest of the monitors and a chair pushed under a large glass desk.

Regev gave Quinn an aerosol can that he explained contained
an experimental wound sealant. The can was small enough to easily be included
with other gear taken into battle, but contained all the sealant any solider
might need, kept under considerable pressure. It didn’t act immediately, and it
didn’t staunch the flow of blood entirely, but in conjunction with bandages it
was proving to be an excellent stopgap measure that had already saved Israeli
lives.

Quinn used his host’s sink to clean his wound, and while he
ordinarily would have required five or ten stitches, Regev assured him that the
sealant and bandages would obviate this need.

Once this was complete, Quinn sat next to Rachel on the
Israeli’s couch, ready to pick up the discussion where they had left off. Regev
sat in the desk chair facing them.

“Over the past few months,” began the Israeli, “two of our
agents, Mossad agents, have been compromised. It took a while for us to
discover what was going on, and even longer to convince ourselves of the truth,
but their memories had been tampered with. For malicious ends.”

“Which is exactly what happened to Kevin,” noted Rachel
unnecessarily.

“That’s right. And I don’t need to tell either of you how
alarming this is. What a game changer it represents.”

“What memories were implanted in your agents?” asked Quinn.
“And to what end?”

Regev frowned. “You know I can’t answer that. We may have forged
something of an alliance . . . Kevin . . . and I am reading you in here, but
you know I have to keep the classified information I tell you to a minimum.”

“Fair enough,” said Quinn. “But I take it this is why you
guessed what had happened to me?”

“Yes. We know Secret Service agents get frequent psych
evaluations, so we felt this was the most likely explanation, especially since
you sought out Professor Howard.”

“And yet you still tried to kill me.”

“Our plan was to incapacitate you if possible. But if we had
to kill you to protect Rachel, we were willing, yes. Because we couldn’t know
for certain we were right. And we couldn’t know what other memories had been
implanted. Maybe you had false memories of Rachel slitting your sister’s throat
two days earlier, and were planning to torture and kill her in revenge.”

He raised his eyebrows. “It isn’t like you haven’t shown a
willingness to kill in the name of getting even.”

Quinn frowned but had to concede the Israeli made a valid point.

“We investigated what happened to our agents but got nowhere,”
continued the Israeli. “No idea who or why. According to our research such a
capability was five or ten years beyond the current state of the art, at
minimum. We only identified a single scientist who had the slightest chance of
making such a breakthrough.”

“Let me guess,” said Quinn. “She’s sitting right next to
me.”

“Good guess.”

“So you came here to make sure she wasn’t responsible?”

“Yes. That was one reason.” He turned to face Rachel. “I’m
afraid we were quite thorough. We had to be. We hacked your computer, read your
e-mails and texts, and surveiled you. As I’ve said, I’m truly sorry about this.”

“So don’t keep me in suspense,” said Rachel dryly. “Did I
turn out to be the bad guy?”

“Of course not. We didn’t think you were, but we had to rule
this out.”

“Then why are you still here?” said Quinn.

“Because this was only one of the reasons I came. We didn’t really
think she was behind what happened to our agents. But if she wasn’t, we wanted
to enlist her help.”

“To find out who
is
behind it?” asked Rachel.

“Yes, but even more importantly, to develop countermeasures.
We know you’re big on these. Big on finding ways to counteract the uses bad
actors might make of scientific advances.”

“So you had a bug in my classroom also?” said Rachel.

“Your views are well known. And I was at your last lecture in
person, remember? I heard every word you said.” A guilty look crossed his face.
“But yes, your classroom was bugged. My boss wanted to listen in. We were both
very impressed.”

“Why pretend to be a grad student? And how did you even manage
that?”

“To answer your second question, it wasn’t easy. I took a
crash course in neuroscience over two weeks while the Mossad doctored records,
pulled strings, and called in favors to get me into your class.”

“As a transfer from Johns Hopkins?”

Regev nodded.

“Hard to imagine you could really pull that off,” said
Rachel.

“The results speak for themselves. I was registered in your
class, as you know. The Mossad is very good at what it does.”

Quinn nodded at Rachel beside him. “This is true,” he acknowledged.
“This probably wasn’t even that much of a challenge for them in the scheme of
things.”

“So that’s the
how
,”
said Rachel. “What about the
why
?”

“My job was to clear you of any suspicion and then recruit
you to help us. Which would entail giving you highly classified, sensitive
information. And also asking you to work with a foreign government. Not an easy
ask.”

Regev paused. “So we wanted to get to know you. Establish a
rapport. Gain your trust. But also understand you the best we could. The better
we could understand your drives, your motivations, your loyalties, your ethics,
your—”

“The better you could manipulate me,” interrupted Rachel.

“That’s one way to put it. I was going to say, the better we
could make our case. I don’t think you appreciate just how much we’d be asking.
Working in secret with a foreign intelligence agency could be construed as
treason.”

“Why not share this with the US government?” said Quinn.
“Get the help of CIA or DHS to recruit Rachel?”

“Given what’s happened with you, that
is
the new plan. But only because this problem seems to have spread
to your shores. Before this we thought it was confined to Israel. So your
government would have been less inclined to join our efforts. And what would we
tell them? How would we make a convincing case that this was really happening? Not
easy to wrap your head around, especially given that your experts would conclude
what our experts concluded: this can’t be done. Not given the state of current
knowledge and technology.”

“You’re right,” said Rachel. “They wouldn’t have believed
you.”

“And even if we were able to convince them,” continued the
Israeli, “we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot. How could they trust us if
the memories of our agents could be tampered with for malicious purposes? Our
agents serve on a number of teams with US counterparts, joint initiatives. And
we provide considerable intel to you. Trust is hard enough to come by in the
intelligence community when agents
can’t
be tampered with. How disruptive do you think
this
disclosure would be?”

“So you chose to keep it in-house,” said Quinn. “But now
that’s changed. Now it’s become our problem too.”

“Yes. So even now, the head of Mossad and the Prime Minister
of Israel are setting up a vid-meet for later today. A very high-level
vid-meet. To start a discussion between our two governments. Turns out you’ve
become a very important man to us, Kevin.”

“Because I’m living proof of what you’re claiming?”

“Yes. I was slow to appreciate just how important you are. Not
only in convincing your government that this tampering is real, and that it
represents a potentially devastating threat, but in convincing Rachel of the
same. My superior just chewed me out for my lack of foresight, and for taking
any chances with your life.”

Quinn shook his head in wonder. “So what are you saying,
Eyal? That I’ve become as important to the Mossad as Rachel is?”

“Not even close,” said Regev with a good-natured smile.
“You’re very important, no question. But not
Rachel Howard
important.”

He paused and stared intently at the professor. “So what
about it? Before this vid-meet happens, I’d like to know your thoughts. If your
government is amenable, are you in? Will you help us?”

Rachel considered. “I won’t commit to anything now, but
almost certainly yes.”

The Israeli closed his eyes and blew out a heavy sigh of
relief. “Thank God,” he mumbled.

“Everything you’ve said makes a twisted sense to me,” said
Quinn. “At least given this bizarre reality we find ourselves in. But it seems
to me the Russian must be the scientist behind this capability. Why else would
he try to capture me? Or want Rachel dead? He has to be key.”

“Oh, he’s key all right,” said Regev. “Your logic is sound.
But there’s a different player behind the memory tampering. The Russian didn’t
develop the technique. Because he knows absolutely nothing about neuroscience.”

Quinn’s eyes widened. “Does that mean you know who he
is
?” he said.

“Yes. This is more intel we plan to share during our
upcoming vid-meet. But before this happens, you and I need to be honest with
each other. I’ll tell you what I know about fly drones, for example, and you tell
me just what it is you did with the one you discovered.”

“Are you willing to go first this time?” asked Quinn.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

34

Dr. Carmilla Acosta
paced in front of the hotel
room door like a giddy schoolgirl, dressed in a revealing black lace-and-mesh
teddy. After ten minutes of this, fearing she might wear a hole in the carpet
and ready to jump out of both the teddy and her skin from anticipation, she sat
on the edge of the hotel’s king-sized bed and tried to calm herself.

And failed miserably.

All she could do was fantasize about what would soon
occur on what she thought of as a cushiony playground. Dmitri’s vise-like arms
wrapping around her, pushing her down, first nibbling at her lips unhurriedly,
and then slipping his tongue inside her mouth, at first gently and then with
growing urgency.

It would take all of her willpower not to hurry him,
to let him control the pace when all she wanted to do was feel him inside her
mouth, inside her body.

She knew she was in love with him, romantic love, at a
point in her life when she had been certain she would never feel this emotion
again. At one time her marriage had been relatively fulfilling, but the passion
had died half a decade earlier and the marriage would soon follow.

Perhaps it had been a combination of things. Of
catching her husband in the act with another woman, almost two years
previously, feeling unwanted and betrayed, and eager to return the favor. Of
the appearance of Dmitri Kovonov a few months later, a man of dazzling strength
and self-assurance who wanted her with an unrelenting passion that she had
never experienced, a hurricane who would not be denied.

He was a handsome knight from a storybook. Charming,
but mysterious. Powerful and hard, yet gentle. Brilliant and uncompromising.

Carmilla was thirty-three years old and had come far
since she had left her native Argentina as a girl for the land of opportunity.
Stanford undergraduate, Yale to earn her PhD, and for many years now a full
professor of molecular biology at Princeton, a school whose reputation in this
field was impeccable.

Yes, her marriage was failing. Her husband hadn’t
known she had witnessed his infidelity and she had yet to confront him, or tell
him about Dmitri, but she would very soon. She would trade him in for someone
she cared for a hundred times more, a man who made her feel alive, electric,
each and every instant he was with her.

She would have Dmitri and then a few years down the
road, a Nobel Prize. She had leveraged several inspired insights to perfect a
high-speed automated DNA synthesis procedure, and the paper she had written
describing the process would be published in only five weeks, revolutionizing the
field. CRISPR technology had shaken the biotechnology world less than a decade
before, allowing for unprecedented, pinpoint control of the editing of genes.
And the scientists involved had all received their expected Nobel Prize right
on schedule two years earlier.
 

But what she had done went far beyond CRISPR, far
beyond mere editing. In a day her system could churn out strands of DNA of
virtually any length to exact specifications. Enter into a computer the
equivalent of a thousand pages of nothing but As and Ts and Gs and Cs and the
synthesizer would make a batch of DNA of this precise sequence, without a
single letter out of place. It was the difference between editing a gene or
building it from scratch.

Dmitri was one of the few people outside of her lab to
know what she had accomplished. She had told him about it as a gift to him. A
surprise. She had gone on to explain how she might use this technology to
perfect a designer virus with very special capabilities, one that might save
his sister’s life.

He had wept when she had told him of it. She had never
loved him more than at that moment.

Finally, there was a light tap at the door. He had
arrived!

Carmilla threw open the door and embraced the man of
her dreams. As usual, he showed far more control than she ever could,
extricating himself after less than a minute, much sooner than she could have
managed. She pulled him inside the room and closed the door, breathing deeply
of his aftershave, which had notes of ginger and leather and which had become
like catnip to her.

“I’ve missed you so much, Dmitri,” she whispered.

Kovonov made a show of looking her up and down
approvingly. “I’ve missed you also,” he said. He raised his eyebrows. “I hope
you didn’t start without me.”

Carmilla laughed. “Since I was thinking of
you
, it took all the self-control I have
—
but I managed it.”

“You have the virus?” he said eagerly.

She couldn’t hide her disappointment. He seemed more
excited about the completion of the virus than he did about seeing her.

On the other hand, she knew she was being selfish. His
sister’s life was on the line, so of course he was eager. And his joy at this
project coming to an end reflected well on her, after all. She had proposed it.
And he knew that she was the only one on Earth capable of making it happen. Not
just because she could build a virus from scratch, copying the principal
survival and infectious machinery from a virus that nature had forged and
adding in whatever she chose, but because she was one of only a few who had the
genius to know
what
to add in to
accomplish her goals.

“I have it with me,” she said. “I think you’ll be very
pleased.”

“Give it to me now.”

Carmilla shook her head. “That can wait,” she replied.

She sat on the edge of the bed once again, the same
place she had sat when she had fantasized about being taken by this bear of a
man. “The virus is my gift to you. But before you take it,” she said
suggestively, reaching out to undo his belt buckle, “I need a gift in return.”

Kovonov grinned lecherously. “You drive a hard
bargain, Carmilla,” he said.

He sat beside her and gently lowered her onto the bed.
He brushed his lips against hers and placed his left hand between her legs.
“But if that’s the way it has to be,” he added, rubbing his hand slowly up and
down against the flimsy material of the teddy, “well, I guess I’m prepared to
make that sacrifice.”