‘Who gave Numan Aaqib’s location to Syed?’ Tony asked. Five weeks earlier, the safe house where a double agent who had infiltrated an al-Qaeda cell was being debriefed had been attacked. The informer and four agents from Pakistani and US intelligence were all killed. The safe house was supposed to be top secret; there was almost certainly a mole within the Pakistani government.
‘I won’t—’ Adam began, defiant anger in his voice before he regained control. More calmly, he spoke again. ‘I don’t know the name of the mole, but Syed was given the address by…’ He stopped again, faint twitches of his facial muscles betraying the internal conflict as he forced out the information. ‘By Mohammed Qasid.’
Holly Jo typed the name into her laptop. A file appeared on its screen after a few seconds, the machine connected via satellite link to the US intelligence network’s enormous database. ‘Qasid,’ she read. ‘He’s… wow. He’s one of Muqaddim al-Rais’s lieutenants.’
‘Al-Rais?’ exclaimed Tony, surprised. ‘You mean Syed’s only two steps removed from the head of the organisation? No way we got that lucky on the first go.’ He looked back at Adam. ‘Did Syed ever meet al-Rais?’
The younger man shook his head. ‘No. And he only met Qasid once — he came with Syed’s usual contact.’
‘Sloppy security,’ Holly Jo commented. ‘A cell leader at Syed’s level shouldn’t ever have come into direct contact with somebody that high up the chain.’
‘Bad for them, good for us,’ said Tony. ‘Who did Syed normally deal with?’
‘A man called…’ Again, it took a moment for the name to emerge, the other persona within him not wanting to give up the secret. ‘Hanif Fathi.’
Another, much shorter file came up in response to Holly Jo’s request. ‘Not much on him, not even a photo. The Pakistanis might be able to give us more.’
A sour note entered Tony’s voice. ‘Assuming they haven’t been completely infiltrated by al-Qaeda sympathisers. Okay, go back to Qasid. Did he tell Syed anything else we can use? Names, future plans?’
Adam thought about it. ‘Nothing specific, they didn’t spend much time together, but… there was something. A code name. Qasid called it “Operation Lamplighter”.’
‘Lamplighter?’ Holly Jo echoed as she entered the name into the laptop. A list of possible meanings appeared. ‘None of the hits look relevant.’
‘Does Syed know what it is?’ Tony asked Adam.
He shook his head. ‘Just that it’s something major — al-Rais is handling it personally. Qasid only mentioned it in passing.’
‘No indication of dates or possible targets?’
‘No.’
‘Something else for Langley and Fort Meade to listen out for, then,’ said Tony. ‘If it’s important to al-Rais, it’s twice as important to us. All right, so about Fathi—’
He was interrupted by a knock on the cabin door. It opened before he could reply, Kyle leaning in. ‘Morgan wants to talk to you.’
‘We’re kind of in the middle of a debriefing,’ said Holly Jo.
‘He says it’s important. Wants everybody there. Like, now.’
Tony checked his watch. ‘Okay, we’ll take a break. A short one.’
The trio followed Kyle back through the main cabin. Midway along it was a bed, on which lay Albion. The big man was asleep, one of the plane’s flight crew — also a trained nurse — looking up as they approached. ‘How is he?’ Tony said quietly.
‘Stable at the moment,’ she replied. ‘I’ve done as much as I can. But he would have been far better off if he’d been taken to the US consulate. They have full medical facilities—’
‘This is a black operation,’ Tony reminded her sternly. ‘We couldn’t risk linking it to US civilian agencies.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’
His tone softened. ‘No need to apologise. I’m not wild about the situation myself.’
‘I sure as hell bet the Doc isn’t, either,’ Kyle added.
Holly Jo was more rueful. ‘Or Mr Morgan.’
‘We’ll find out soon,’ said Tony.
The group continued up the cabin. At its forward end was a small conference table. Baxter and his team were already seated at it. A large screen on the bulkhead displayed a live teleconference link. The screen was divided in two; Levon was on one side, his thick round glasses crooked as he rubbed sleepily at one eye.
The other half held the image of Martin Morgan, Tony’s superior. Late forties, black, wearing a pair of slim silver-framed glasses that blended almost perfectly into his greying sideburns and hair.
And not in a good mood. ‘Do you know what time it is here in DC?’ he asked, before the late arrivals had even taken their seats.
‘I’m guessing around six a.m.,’ said Tony.
‘That’s right. Which means that three hours ago, I was getting a preliminary report on the Persona Project’s first full mission with its new lead agent. Which means that one hour ago, I was getting my ass chewed off by the Admiral for waking him up to tell him there had been complications. Although that wasn’t how he described them. His terms were a lot more colourful. The main one started with the word “cluster”.’
Kyle smirked. Morgan’s glower deepened. ‘Something amusing you, Mr Falconetti?’
The smirk hurriedly vanished. ‘Uh, no, sir.’
‘Damn right it shouldn’t be. What the hell was going on over there? Shots fired, three people dead, the CIA’s local assets working in overdrive to clean up after you. You were meant to achieve your objective using stealth and subtlety, not this James Bond bullshit!’
‘With all due respect, sir,’ said Baxter, ‘the hostiles fired on us first. We were defending ourselves.’
‘And we did achieve the objective,’ Tony pointed out. ‘We successfully implanted Syed’s persona into Adam — we’re in the middle of debriefing him,’ he added, with emphasis, ‘and then put Syed back on the street without his realising what had happened.’
‘And when he finds out that three of his people have mysteriously vanished, then what?’ demanded Morgan.
To everyone’s surprise, Adam answered — almost in Syed’s voice. ‘He will be suspicious, but will accept it as a natural risk of fighting the holy war. He has lost other members of his cell before. In Pakistan, people do sometimes just… disappear.’
Morgan was faintly unsettled, as if he were being briefed by the terrorist himself. ‘Even three at once?’
‘It is the price of jihad. And there are many more to take their place.’
‘Well, that’s reassuring to know,’ Kyle muttered sarcastically.
‘As you can see,’ said Tony, ‘Adam’s got Syed’s knowledge on tap. So, if you’re going to chew us out, wait until we get back to DC so we can keep extracting it while we still have time. Once we’ve done that, then you and the Admiral can decide if the Persona Project is a success or a failure.’
‘Right now, the Persona Project is dead in the water, Tony,’ Morgan snapped. ‘I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but there’s more to it than just Adam. And the other man it depends upon took a bullet to the back!’
Tony glanced back towards Albion’s bed. ‘I hadn’t forgotten.’
‘Good. Then I hope you also haven’t forgotten that he’s the only person who knows how to calculate the drug doses so they don’t kill the subjects. Without him, we don’t have a project. And his chances of going back into the field any time soon don’t look good.’
‘He’s currently stable.’
‘Stable isn’t the same as healthy.’ He looked down at something below the camera’s field of view. ‘I see from the mission transcripts that Ms Voss suggested using the pre-recorded emergency persona so that Adam could perform field surgery on Roger. That might have improved his chances — why didn’t you consider it?’