The Shadow Protocol (30 page)

Spence let out a startled yelp, losing his hold and falling back with an echoing crash. Twin explosions of swearing told Bianca that he had knocked Fallon down with him. Adam dropped to the ground beside her. His expression as he pulled her back upright was nothing short of mischievous glee. “Come on!”

They ran to the street. Adam almost seemed to be dancing as he crossed the road, dodging and weaving through the cars. Bianca followed with rather more apprehension. They reached the other side and ran down the next block.

“Stop, stop!” Bianca gasped as they rounded a corner.
While she tried to exercise as often as she could at home, the sheer unexpectedness of the chase had caught her unprepared.

Adam slowed to let her catch up. He was almost buzzing with energy. “Damn!” he said, laughing. “That was fun.”

“That’s your idea of fun?” she complained. “Being chased by—okay, I don’t want to call them ‘goons,’ because you work with them, but … by goons?”

“They wouldn’t have hurt you.”

“I don’t know, they seemed pretty angry.”

“I wouldn’t have let them.” There was a matter-of-factness to the statement that made her very glad he was on her side.

“Won’t that cause you a lot of trouble at STS, though?”

He shook his head. “Those two stepped over the line. Anyway, don’t worry about it. Are you okay?”

She recovered her breath. “More or less. Oh!” She twisted to check her trousers, and found a dirty mark across her buttocks. “Bloody hell. I landed in some mud.”

“Sorry. I’ll take you somewhere you can get cleaned up.”

She was about to suggest her hotel, when impulsive curiosity took over. “Your place?”

Adam appeared briefly surprised, but then nodded. There was not a trace of lascivious intent, though. “Sure. We can carry on our conversation.”

“About?”

Another smile, but one tinged with disquiet. “About why that was literally the most fun I can ever remember having.”

They took a cab to Adam’s apartment. He received three phone calls en route, all of which he ignored. Once there, he watched Bianca’s reaction as she looked around the living room.

“What do you think?” he asked. It was not the tone of someone awaiting praise for their taste, more that of a patient expecting the worst.

“Hmm,” she said.

“That bad?”

“It’s very … minimalist.” She felt as if she had entered some sort of avant-garde art installation. The room was almost completely devoid of color: white walls and ceiling, black furniture, the carpet a nondescript gray. Even the Apple laptop on a desk was monochrome aluminum.

There was something else unusual, but it took her a few seconds to work out what. When the answer came, it was startling in its obviousness. “You don’t have a television?”

Adam shook his head. “I don’t have a radio, either.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. It just never occurred to me to buy one.”

“It reminds me of the Cube, back at STS.”

“Yeah, I know. And that’s something else that hadn’t occurred to me before—at least, not until you started making me think about it.”

She peered into the kitchen. It was as plain as the
lounge; no mess, no clutter, everything neatly stored. “Did you choose this place?”

“No. After I joined the Persona Project, they arranged it for me. All the furniture was already here.”

“And you didn’t bring any of your own stuff with you?”

“I didn’t have any stuff, now I think about it. Just clothes.”

“
Nothing
else? No books or CDs, anything like that?”

Another shake of his head. “Now, I’m fairly sure that’s not normal.”

“Not unless you’re secretly a Trappist monk. And I can’t picture you in a robe.”

“Maybe on a mission …” His phone rang again. He checked the screen. “Tony.”

“You’re still not going to answer?”

“Not yet. I want to see how panicked they get about all this.”

“Is that wise?”

“Probably not.” He cocked his head toward her. “Well, there’s something we’ve found out about my personality. Apparently I’m reckless.”

“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” she assured him. “Maybe you like to test the boundaries, though.”

The ringing stopped. “I’ll get something so you can clean yourself off. Please, have a seat.”

She sat in a black leather armchair as he went into the kitchen. “This apartment, then—have you ever done anything here except eat and sleep?”

“No. And you’re actually my first social visitor.”

“In how long?”

“In, ah … seven months. That’s when I moved in here.”

“Really? Wow. And you haven’t felt lonely?”

“Like I said, it didn’t occur to me.” He came back into the lounge, bearing a cloth. “Here.”

“Thanks. Damn, I shouldn’t have sat down first, should I?” She stood and rubbed the dirt off her trousers, then turned to wipe away the marks she had left on the chair.

“Leave it,” said Adam. She looked at him, questioning. “Maybe this place could use some disorder.”

“I still have to sit somewhere,” she pointed out. He gestured at the couch. “Over here.”

“Okay.” She took a place on it. He sat beside her. “I suppose the question that has to be asked is: What
do
you remember about your past? If you think back, what’s the first thing that you can specifically recall?”

“I’m not sure.” He stared at the wall, but not in the blank way Bianca had seen in the Cube. He was making a genuine effort to probe his memory. “I remember the first time I went into the Bullpen at STS, for sure.”

“Who else was there?”

“Roger, Kiddrick, Martin, Tony … some of the support staff too. Holly Jo, Levon, Kyle, a few more. There weren’t many other people there, though. The project was suspended after Tony took medical leave—they were only just gearing back up to operational status.”

“When was this?”

“About seven months ago. After I’d recovered from the surgery to put in the PERSONA implants. Then I had five months of testing and training to make sure everything was okay, and after that we started warm-up missions. Low-level intelligence gathering, to bring the team up to speed.”

“So what do you remember before that? Do you know how you actually joined the project?”

Another long moment of deep thought. “No,” he finally said.

“Not at all? Roger told me that you volunteered for it.”

“I volunteered?”

“You didn’t even know
that
?”

“Looks that way.” A resigned shrug. “But I remember … I’m not sure what, actually. Bits and pieces. They must have been after the operation, because I was in a hospital. Kiddrick was there, and Roger. Tony, Harper … I think John Baxter, maybe?”

“But coming into the Bullpen is the first thing you definitely remember?”

“Yeah. Before that …” He shook his head.

“I don’t get it,” said Bianca. “It seems as if they deliberately affected your memory as some sort of conditioning for the PERSONA process. But they didn’t do that to Tony. Unless they thought it would stop …” She paused, remembering that Tony had asked her to keep the details of his breakdown to herself, and not knowing how much Adam knew. “Maybe they thought it would make the process work better.”

He frowned deeply. “But why would I volunteer to have literally everything I knew about my past erased? Your memories make you who you are, so if you take them away, what’s left?” He noticed her reflective expression. “What?”

“It’s funny—I said pretty much exactly that about the reason I went into Alzheimer’s research.”

“So you’re saying I’ve gotten artificial Alzheimer’s?” He let out a sardonic huff. “Maybe you were right—maybe I
don’t
have a personality, because it got wiped.”

“That’s not true,” she told him firmly. “What I’ve seen of you in the past hour proves that. The real Adam Gray is definitely in there.”

“It still doesn’t explain why I’d agree to go through with it. Unless …”

Whatever thought had occurred to him was clearly not one he liked. “Unless what?” she asked.

“Unless there was something I didn’t
want
to remember. But that would mean there was something that … that I couldn’t face up to. And that would make me a coward.”

She put a hand on his arm. “No. No, it wouldn’t,” she insisted. “Besides, you don’t even know what might have happened.”

“I guess not. Although …”

“Do you remember something else?”

“I don’t know. It’s …” He seemed troubled, even worried.
“Okay. I have this recurring dream. Only I don’t know how much of it actually
is
a dream.”

“You think it might be a memory?”

“I don’t know. Some of it can’t be real, though.”

“Why?”

He took a deep breath, working up the resolve to reveal some great secret. “All right. I haven’t told anyone this before.”

“It’ll be just between us,” she said.

“Thanks.” Another long breath. “Okay. It’s always the same—I’m in a street somewhere, but I don’t know where. Something bad’s happened—there are people running and screaming all around me. Then I see a body on the ground.”

“Who is it?”

He looked at her, distress in his eyes. “It’s me.”

“You?”

“Yeah. I’m … I’m lying dead in the street. That’s got to be a dream. Hasn’t it?” His tone was almost pleading.

“It must be,” she said, trying to reassure him. “I mean, you look very much alive to me.”

“Yes, I’d figured that much out,” he said, briefly sarcastic. “But the rest of it feels … well, like a memory. And it’s always the same, every time I have the dream.”

“How often do you have it?”

A grim look. “Every night.”

“Do you remember any details about the street?”

“Not really. I don’t think it’s in America, but there’s a lot of smoke in the air, so I can’t really see. It might be somewhere—” He broke off, suddenly irritated. “I’d wondered how long it’d be before they did that.”

“Did what?”

He pointed at his right ear. “STS is trying to call me through my earwig. The transceiver’s off, but there’s a beeper they can use to alert me in emergencies—and somebody’s holding down the button. I guess I’ll have to answer just to shut it up.” He tapped at a spot behind his ear. “Yes, what?” Several seconds passed as he listened to
the message being broadcast directly into his skull. “Yeah, okay, Holly Jo,” he said with annoyed resignation. Another tap switched the earwig back off.

“What is it?” Bianca asked.

“Tony’s on his way over. It seems that business with Fallon and Spence put a fox in the henhouse. Mad panic, everyone wants to know what’s going on.”

“I can imagine it might worry them. I’m sorry if I’ve got you into trouble.”

He managed a half smile. “I’m not. It’s been an interesting evening.”

“It certainly has!”

The smile widened. “We should do this again sometime. Assuming they don’t put me under house arrest.”

The doorbell rang. Bianca looked around in surprise. “When you said Tony was on the way, you weren’t kidding.”

Adam stood. “I’ll get it.”

It was indeed Tony, looking rather more harassed than when they had last seen him. “So much for not doing anything crazy, then,” he said as he entered. “Want to tell me what happened?”

“Spence and Fallon stepped over the line,” Adam replied, becoming business-like. “They were aggressive and threatening, and when Fallon was about to manhandle Bianca, I stopped him. He overreacted, so I shut him down. With minimum force.”

“You probably won’t be surprised if I tell you that’s not how their version of events goes.”

“It’s what happened, though,” said Bianca, getting up. “We were just chatting when they marched in like the Gestapo and said they had orders to take Adam back to STS.”

“They did have orders, though,” Tony said.

She gave him a cold look. “From you?”

“No. From Admiral Harper.”

Adam’s eyes widened. “Harper?”

“That’s right,” said Tony. “Kiddrick complained to him
directly—and Harper gave the order to bring you back. Then, after you both ran off …” He sighed. “You know how two minutes doesn’t sound like a long time? Believe me, when you spend it being yelled at by the director of national intelligence, it’s a goddamn eternity.”

Bianca shuffled her feet guiltily. “Oh. Sorry …”

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault. I just didn’t think Kiddrick would do an end run around Martin—or that Harper would back him up.”

“Why
did
he back him up?” asked Adam.

“Beats the hell out of me. But the upshot is that everyone at STS is going to get an email tomorrow reminding them of the rules on after-hours fraternization—which,” he added to Bianca, “are normally overlooked by supervisors because they’re ridiculously restrictive. I don’t agree that it’s necessary, but it’s not my call.”

Adam turned to Bianca. “Sorry I dragged you into this.”

“No need to apologize. Like you said, it’s been an interesting evening.”

“Unfortunately, you’ll have to call it a night,” said Tony. “Adam, Martin wants to see both of us tomorrow at eight sharp. Bianca, I’ll take you back to your hotel.”

“You don’t have to act as a chaperone, Tony,” she said. “We were just talking.”