The DNI was caught between fury and fear as she crouched beside him. ‘If you get it wrong and you kill me, it’ll be on your hands. You’ll be a murderer, Childs! I read your file — you went into medicine to save lives. Is that what you want? To be a killer?’
‘Like you?’ Adam said, voice cold.
‘I’ve never killed anyone in my life!’
‘Not yourself. But you gave the orders — to people like me. I want to find out what other orders you gave.’ He nodded to Bianca. ‘Do it.’
‘No!’ Harper roared, trying to scramble to his feet. Adam kicked him back down. Before he could recover, Bianca fired the injector into his neck. His yell was abruptly choked off as his entire body convulsed.
Adam quickly returned to the chair as Bianca tapped the keyboard.
ACTIVE: PERSONA TRANSFER IN PROGRESS.
With more nervousness than usual, she flicked her gaze between the flaring colours on the screen and the two men before her. Guessing the drug dose really was a gamble; there was leeway in Albion’s overly theatrical calculations, but not so much that some degree of accuracy was unnecessary. She had estimated Harper’s height and weight as best she could, but if the dose of Hyperthymexine was too low, it could affect Adam’s ability to access the stolen memories.
If it was too high… Harper was right. It could kill him.
But the readings on the screen seemed in line with what she had seen with Zykov, al-Rais, the Russian pilot and Qasid. Reassured, slightly, she removed the vial from the injector and replaced it with one of Mnemexal. Adam did not want Harper to retain any memory of their visit — though it would be impossible for him to dismiss the cut on his head. She eyed the tiled kitchen floor. Maybe they could make it seem as if he had slipped and banged his head, as they’d done in Macau…
The screen’s swirl and scroll slowed. The transfer was almost complete. She gave Harper a cursory check, then ran the final diagnostic before turning her full attention to Adam. ‘Did it work?’ she asked as he stirred.
He opened his eyes — and regarded her with the same cold, reptilian intensity as the Admiral himself. A brief chill ran through her. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It did.’
‘I’ll do a memory check anyway—’
‘No!’ He jumped from his seat. ‘We’ve got to get out of here, right now!’
‘Why? What’s wrong?’
He pointed across the kitchen. Beside a door leading outside was an alarm panel, a smaller version of the one by the front entrance. ‘There’s a secondary system. If it’s not deactivated within three minutes after the main alarm, it sends an alert to the Secret Service. They’ll already be on their way!’ He tore off the skullcap, then hurriedly rummaged through Harper’s pockets to find his phone. ‘Come on!’
‘What about the PERSONA?’ Bianca cried as he ran for the hall.
‘Leave it! There’s no time! Bianca, move!’
She looked helplessly at the equipment on the table, then turned to follow him — before impulsively stopping to fire the dose of Mnemexal into Harper’s bloodstream. Then she tossed the injector on to the table and hurried after Adam.
They reached the front door and rushed outside. The drive was not yet filled with SUVs and sharpshooters, which was something, but Adam knew — Harper knew, from a false alarm when the DNI had once forgotten to deactivate the secondary system — that the Secret Service would only take a few minutes to arrive. He pictured the neighbourhood in his mind as the pair ran down the driveway. There were two roads out of the exclusive little enclave; the Secret Service would be coming from the south-west.
The obvious exit route was north-east, then. But the agents knew that too…
They ran through the gates to the Mustang. Adam listened for approaching vehicles. Nothing yet — but they would not be coming with sirens wailing. If there was an intruder in the Director’s home, the agents’ orders were to capture or kill, not scare away.
He used the override to start the engine. ‘Wait, wait!’ Bianca gasped as she scrambled into the passenger seat.
Adam revved up, slamming the car into gear and making a rapid getaway — then abruptly jerked the wheel, flinging the Mustang into a 180-degree handbrake turn. Bianca shrieked as she was thrown against the door. He straightened out and headed south-west.
To her surprise, rather than accelerating, he slowed to the legal speed limit. ‘What’re you doing?’ Bianca asked.
‘Making us seem less suspicious. Look relaxed.’
‘Oh, nothing could be easier!’
Vehicles appeared ahead. A pair of black Lincoln Navigators, red and blue lights pulsing behind their radiator grilles. They rushed towards the Mustang — and whipped past, continuing to Harper’s home.
Bianca turned to look out of the rear window. ‘Do you think we fooled them?’
‘Their first priority is Harper’s safety,’ said Adam. ‘Or rather, his security. They need to make sure he hasn’t been compromised.’
‘I think they’ll work that out pretty quickly once they see what we left on his kitchen table.’ She gave him a doleful look. ‘Adam, the disk — your disk. We left it behind! It’s still in the recorder.’
‘I know.’
‘But it’s the only way to get your own memories back.’
‘Harper was more important.’
‘Is that you saying that, or him?’
He gave her a sharp look. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s evidence against Harper. If his persona made you leave it behind…’
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m in control. If we’d taken another ten seconds to get out of there, the Secret Service would have seen us leave. I had to do it.’
‘I hope it was worth it.’
‘So do I. But once we’re somewhere safe, we’ll find out the truth.’
‘Sir, are you all right? Admiral Harper!’
Harper struggled back to wakefulness, painfully opening his eyes to see two men in dark suits standing over him. He squinted, making out coiled wires running from behind their ears into their collars. Secret Service agents.
But why were they here?
‘What happened?’ he grunted. More pain rolled through him as they helped him to sit up. His head was throbbing like the mother of all hangovers, but he hadn’t been drinking. He’d been…
What had he been doing? He remembered being in the car, talking on the phone, and then… he was here, lying on his kitchen floor. The orange glow of sunset was still visible outside, so not much time had passed.
He glanced at the panel by the door. A small red light was on, indicating that an alarm had been tripped. That explained the Secret Service’s presence — he must have not switched off the secondary system. Had he slipped and hit his head?
‘We don’t know what happened, sir,’ said one of the agents. ‘We’re doing a sweep of the house and grounds, but haven’t found anyone else here. Although… we did find something unusual. We don’t know what it is, though.’
‘What thing?’ He touched his forehead, wincing at a sharp pain.
‘On the table, sir. Can you stand?’
‘Yes, damn it, I can stand.’ He shook off their helping hands and struggled upright…
And froze, staring at the table.
The PERSONA device told him everything he needed to know.
‘You were wearing this when we found you,’ said the second agent. He held up the skullcap. ‘Sir, do you know what it is?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Harper growled, using anger to cover his fear.
Adam Gray had got what he came for.
Chapter 45
The Traitor
The Mustang was parked outside an apartment building on a tree-lined street in Washington’s north-western quarter. It attracted no attention from passers-by; indeed, there was an almost identical vehicle a few spaces away. If a search was under way for the black Ford, it had yet to reach this part of the capital.