The Shadow Protocol (31 page)

“No, it’s okay,” Adam told her. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

After what he had told her, though, she knew it would be hard not to.

“I can’t believe this,” Bianca snapped at Tony as he drove her through Washington. “Since when has going for a drink with a colleague been a matter of national security?”

“Hey, I agree with you,” he replied. “I don’t know why
Harper made such a big deal of it. But he did, and he’s in charge, so …”

“It’s still idiotic. Paranoid, even. But I suppose I should expect that by now.” She pursed her lips. “Speaking of paranoid, how did those two know we were at that bar? And how did you know we were at his apartment?”

“Adam’s comm system has a tracker built into it. So long as he’s not too deep underground or in a shielded building, STS always knows where he is.” He caught her appalled look. “Yeah, paranoid is only the beginning when you work in US intelligence.”

“Jesus.” Another, more worrying thought. “You don’t listen in through his earwig when he’s off duty, do you?”

“Why, have you been trying to persuade him to sell secrets to the Chinese?”

“I’m being serious, Tony. He might be a government agent, but he still has rights. You know, privacy and all that. I’m not even American and I know that’s supposed to be one of the amendments.”

“The fourth. Although when it comes to national security, rights get a bit fuzzy. Hey, I didn’t say I approve,” he added, seeing her darkening expression. “That’s just the way it is. Trust me, it isn’t any better in England. Or any other country.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“Maybe not. But just to give you some reassurance that we’re not all cogs in an Orwellian surveillance machine: No, we don’t listen in on Adam. When he turns the earwig off, it’s off.”

“Except for the tracker. And the beeper.”

“Hah! Don’t get me started on the beeper. I just hope they toned it down for Adam. The damn thing was like an airhorn going off in my ear.”

“You had one too?”

“Yeah. I’ve got the same implanted gear as Adam. They deactivated the earwig—and the beeper, thank God—but it’s all still in there. I would have needed surgery to get it out, and since it wasn’t causing any trouble we decided,
hey, just leave it. You never know, I might need it again someday.”

“After what you said PERSONA did to you, I really hope you don’t,” she said. That thought took her back to what Adam had told her. “Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened to Adam when he joined the project?”

“What do you mean?” There was already reticence in his voice.

“Why did they wipe his memory? They didn’t do that to you.”

“I don’t really know.”

“You don’t know, or you can’t tell me?”

He gave her an apologetic look. “Some from column A, some from column B. What I do know is as much as you’ve obviously figured out for yourself—they did something to him that they didn’t do to me. What they did, or why they did it, I honestly don’t know.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” she asked, already suspecting she knew the answer.

“Kiddrick. And Roger Albion.”

She had been right. “Roger …”

“Yeah. If you want to find out anything more, you’ll have to talk to him.”

“Oh, I will,” she said, setting her jaw.

Albion shifted uncomfortably under Bianca’s stony stare. “I don’t suppose playing the helpless invalid card would get me any sympathy?”

“Not really,” she said.

“I thought not. Still, it was worth a try.”

A lengthy silence. “Well?” Bianca prompted.

“Well what?”

“Are you going to tell me what happened to Adam before he joined the Persona Project, and why you and Kiddrick wiped his memory and brainwashed him into not thinking about it?”

“Oh,
that
.”

Another long pause. “Roger,” Bianca finally said, exasperated, “I told Adam yesterday that if you didn’t tell me what I wanted to know, I was going to poke your bullet hole until you started talking. I was joking then, but now I’m starting to consider it.”

“Look, what can I say?” Albion protested. “That whole part of the project is classified as need-to-know, and you don’t need to know.”

“I disagree. I’m standing in for you—”

“Temporarily.”

“So what? You might think that I’m only here to keep your seat warm, but there are real people involved, real lives at stake. Whatever it was you and Kiddrick did to Adam, it’s seriously affected his mental state. You must realize that.”

“Of course I realize that,” he snapped. “I’m not blind—and I’m not devoid of empathy either. But those were the orders we were given, so we carried them out.”

“So you were
ordered
to erase his memory?”

“It’s hardly something we’d do for shits and giggles.”

The mere fact that he had sworn in front of her told Bianca that he was becoming stressed by her questions. She felt a stab of sympathy for the old man, trapped in his hospital bed, but knew she had to get closer to the truth. “Who ordered it? Harper?”

He regarded her with suspicion. “You seem to know so much already, I don’t know why you’re bothering to ask me. Yes, Harper.”

“You told me that Adam came from some Special Forces unit. But what was he like? As a person, I mean.”

Albion was reluctant to reply. “He was …,” he finally said, “how best to put it?
Damaged
.”

“In what way?”

“Angry, disturbed. Very guilty.”

“Guilty?” The word came as a shock. “About what?”

“I don’t know. And I was specifically told not to ask. My diagnosis would be some kind of recent emotional trauma. But as for the cause, I have no idea.”

“So what you did to him was to erase this trauma?”

“Partly, yes. Although the main reason was to test the theory that the problems Tony had—I assume you know the basics?” She nodded. “That Tony’s problems were caused because the imprinted personas were clashing, for want of a better word, with his own memories. I created a modified version of Mnemexal to block specific protein kinases during the act of recall, effectively suppressing Adam’s memories. Do that, and the imprinting process should work without the same risk of side effects.”

“But you weren’t just suppressing the memories,” she said, appalled. “You were wiping them! Do you even know if it’s possible to recover them?”

“Adam didn’t
want
to recover them,” said Albion. “He volunteered for this, remember? Whatever happened to
him, whatever it was he experienced, he wanted all memory of it
gone
.”

“And you went ahead and did it? Rather than try to help him deal with his problems, you just
deleted
them? Jesus, Roger! How can you possibly think that’s in any way ethical?”

“Don’t you preach to me about ethics, Miss Childs!” he fired back, his heart monitor warbling in early warning. “The world I’m working in—that we’re
both
now working in—puts ethics way down the ladder. This is about national security. It’s about
results
. Whether something is ethical or not is a very low consideration.”

Bianca shook her head. “What the hell happened to you? You never used to be like this.”

“It’s called going through the looking glass. Only you find that what’s on the other side is actually the real world. And it’s not pleasant.”

She stared at him, disgust giving way to another emotion—a deep disappointment in her former mentor. “I don’t want to end up like that, Roger,” she eventually said. “And I think I should get out before I do.”

For a moment he looked angry … then his expression sank into a resigned sadness. “No, you’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry I got you involved. This is a very cynical little universe I’ve found myself in, and I’m afraid it’s infected me. No reason you should catch anything too.”

“It’s a bit late for that.”

A melancholy smile. “There’s still time to find a cure. Yes, you should go back to England. After all, you’ve got a very rewarding future waiting there.”

Grim pragmatism stepped on her idealistic outburst. “It won’t be if I don’t stay here until you’re back on your feet.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, puzzled.

She told him about Harper’s blackmail. “That son of a bitch!” he erupted when she finished, setting the heart monitor trilling again. “I can’t believe he’d … no, actually
I can,” he decided. “He’s one of the most unpleasant men I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.”

“No arguments there,” said Bianca wholeheartedly.

“That’s a new level of pointless malevolence, though. Especially when you’d already agreed to help.”

“His justification was something like ‘When you’ve got no choice, you have to give the other person even less.’ ”

“Yes, that sounds like him,” he said, with a short, sarcastic laugh. “Oh Bianca, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” she replied, but lightly. “Although there’s another reason to stay other than just being forced to by a loathsome old man.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Adam.”

“You want to help him?” She nodded, and Albion smiled. “You know, there’s still hope for the world yet. As long as there are people like you in it, rather than everyone being like Harper.”

“Thanks. Although sometimes I feel extremely outnumbered.”

“One good deed can outweigh fifty bad ones. So how do you want to help him?”

“I’m not sure. But I’m sure the real Adam Gray is still in there somewhere, underneath this … this
robot
they want to turn him into. If I can help him find those memories …”

Albion appeared unsure. “Be careful, Bianca. I wasn’t kidding when I told you that Adam
wanted
to have his memory wiped. Getting them back might not be the best thing for him.”

“But he lost
all
his memories,” she countered. “That can’t possibly be what he thought he was signing up for. He doesn’t even remember his parents, for God’s sake. Was erasing everything a deliberate part of the process?”

“I don’t know. I devised the drug, but I wasn’t involved with the actual procedure.”

“Who was? Oh, let me guess,” she said, before he could answer. “Kiddrick.”

“Afraid so.”

She huffed. “That man is an absolute arse.”

Albion laughed. “Oh, you noticed?” He became more serious. “That said, he might be an arse”—he rolled his tongue around the British pronunciation—“but he’s not stupid. And he has connections.
And
he’s petty and vindictive. So, again, be careful.”

“I’ll watch out for him. Anyway, I have to get over to STS.”

“So where do we stand?” Albion asked. “Are we still okay?”

“We’re still okay,” she replied.

Bianca was expecting a joke, but instead he said, “I’m glad. Thank you.”

She gave him a smile. “See you soon.”

From the frosty reception she received in the Bullpen, the staff of the Persona Project had obviously received the email Tony had mentioned the previous night, and figured out that she was part of the reason for it. “So,” said Kyle loudly as she walked past his workstation, “anyone want to go bowling tonight? Oh wait, we can’t. That’d breach protocol.”

Tony looked up from a discussion with Levon. “All right, knock it off. Bianca, hi. Glad you’re here.”

“Hi. Where’s Adam?”

“In the Cube.”

She started for the door, but Tony called her back. “Martin needs to see you.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see if I can guess why,” she said with a sigh as she reversed course.

Morgan was in his office—along with Kiddrick, who had postioned himself next to his desk like some sort of
twitchy henchman. “Good morning, Dr. Childs,” said Morgan. “Please, take a seat.”

She did so. Kiddrick remained standing. “You’re not going to sit down?” she asked him. “Run out of Preparation H?”

The scientist bridled, but Morgan preemptively raised a hand to silence him. “Dr. Childs, that’s enough. Now, we need to discuss last night’s … incident.”

“You mean when two goons aggressively interrupted a perfectly innocent conversation?”

“That’s hardly what happened,” Kiddrick sniffed.

“Oh, were you there? Funny, I didn’t see you.” She turned back to Morgan. “Look, what happened was—”

“Adam already gave me his account,” he interrupted. “And Spence and Fallon gave theirs. I think the best way to deal with this is to say that both sides overreacted and escalated the situation unnecessarily, but since nobody was hurt beyond the odd bruise, the matter is now considered closed.”

She was taken aback, not expecting it to be concluded so quickly. “Okay …”

“That’s far from the end of it, though,” said Kiddrick, glaring down at her. “We’re going to—”

“Dr. Kiddrick,” Morgan interrupted. Kiddrick reluctantly fell silent. “However, as a result of this incident, all members of the Persona Project have been given a reminder to adhere to the USIC black-agency rules and regulations on social interactions, to the letter. Normally, this is an area where I personally would allow some leeway in the interests of team morale, but a directive has been issued by the director of national intelligence, and it will be followed. By
all
team members. Do I make myself clear?”