‘You’ve been told everything I have, Alan,’ said Harper. ‘As soon as STS gets anything more, you’ll be copied in on it.’
‘Good. The President wants to be kept fully informed — after all, he has to smooth things over with our Russian friends. In the meantime, get as much as you can from al-Rais’s persona.’ He leaned forward, face filling the screen like a gargoyle before he disconnected.
‘Well,’ rumbled Harper, ‘looks like you all get a stay of execution — for the moment. Get to it, then. Re-imprint al-Rais’s persona and get everything you can out of him.’
‘I still think that’s potentially dangerous,’ Bianca objected.
‘You’ve made it very clear what you think, and right now I don’t care. A second imprint isn’t going to kill him.’
‘But what about a third? Or a fourth, or fifth?’
‘Just get it done,’ snapped Harper. He gathered his papers and stood up to leave.
‘What about Qasid?’ asked Adam.
‘What about him?’
‘He knows the identity of a mole in Pakistani intelligence, sir. We need to find out who that is.’
‘Al-Rais is top priority. You heard the man.’ He jerked a sarcastic thumb at the screen. ‘Let’s gut the big fish before we bother with the small fry.’ He turned to Morgan. ‘Where is this guy Qasid?’
‘In holding,’ Morgan replied.
‘Get a team over here to do a prelim and process him, then render him to Gitmo on the first available flight. Cuba’s the best place to interrogate these people, not DC. Whatever he knows, we’ll find out there.’
Adam started to protest. ‘Sir, I don’t think—’
‘We need to get as much as we can from al-Rais’s persona while the intel is still actionable, Agent Gray! If we waste time and resources on nobodies like Qasid, al-Rais’s people will find new rocks to hide under, and the men who died in Russia will have done so for nothing. Get your priorities straight. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Adam replied emotionlessly.
‘Good.’ Harper headed for the door. ‘Keep me posted,’ he said without looking back.
Uncomfortable looks passed around the table after the door closed. ‘Well, that was… pleasant,’ said Levon. ‘And I wasn’t even in Russia!’
‘What’s happening about recovering the bodies of our guys?’ Baxter demanded.
Morgan shook his head dolefully. ‘That’s all in State’s hands at the moment.’
‘We can’t just leave them there to rot.’
‘I know, I know. I’ve already pushed for an answer. But until we get one, let’s get on with the job in hand. Dr Kiddrick, Tony, Adam, Dr Childs — use the recording of al-Rais’s persona and start a debriefing. And yes,’ he added, raising a hand to block any objections, ‘I know some of you have problems with that. They’ve been noted.’
‘Are they also going to be ignored?’ said Bianca.
‘Dr Kiddrick thinks it’s safe, and he’s the senior adviser, so we’ll proceed on that basis. Now, are there any further questions?’
‘I had one about hazard pay?’ said Kyle. All eyes turned to him, none approvingly. ‘But… I can put it in an email, I guess.’
‘I look forward to reading it,’ said Morgan scathingly. ‘Okay. Let’s get back to work.’
Everyone filed out. In the corridor, Adam was about to follow Tony and Bianca to the lab when Holly Jo stopped him. ‘Adam?’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s, er… something I want to say.’ She glanced down the corridor to check that Morgan was out of earshot.
‘Yeah, me too,’ added Kyle.
‘What is it?’ Adam asked. Bianca and Tony halted, watching with curiosity.
‘I know the mission didn’t go all that well,’ said Holly Jo. ‘But you… well, you saved us. When you flew in and scared off those Russian planes—’
‘That was absolutely awesome, brah!’ Kyle exclaimed. ‘Seriously, an unarmed seaplane taking on two Flankers? You are…’ He was briefly lost for words, settling for raising his right hand in a fist and making a bumping motion with it towards Adam’s chest. ‘The man!’
‘What he said. Only less Jersey Shore,’ Holly Jo added, peeved at being interrupted. ‘But that really was amazing. And you kept us from a diet of prison borscht and cabbage, so thanks!’
‘Anything you need, brah,’ said Kyle. ‘Any time.’
‘Thanks,’ said Adam. ‘But I was just doing my job.’
‘Speaking of jobs…’ said the amused Tony.
‘Yes, I guess we’d better get back to the Bullpen,’ Holly Jo said. ‘But I just wanted to say—’
‘We just wanted to say,’ Kyle cut in.
‘All right, God! We just wanted to tell you how we felt. Thank you.’ The pair headed down the corridor. ‘You are such a child,’ she snapped at Kyle.
‘What? What’d I do?’ he replied, bemused.
‘Looks like you’ve got a fan club,’ Bianca told Adam with a smile.
‘It’s better than the opposite, I suppose.’ He watched Holly Jo and Kyle go, then turned back towards the lab. ‘Okay. Let’s get this over with.’
‘Bianca.’ The word drifted in through a languid fog. ‘Bianca?’
Bianca jerked awake as something touched her arm. She looked round in startled confusion before awareness fully coalesced, finding herself on a couch in one of STS’s soundproofed debriefing rooms. Tony stood over her, a cardboard cup in each hand. ‘Oh! Tony, hi. What… how long was I asleep?’
‘I’m not sure — I dozed off for a while myself,’ he admitted with a smile. ‘Here.’
He passed her a cup of coffee. Bianca looked at her watch. It was approaching six in the morning. ‘Where’s Adam?’
‘In the Cube. Asleep.’
‘I’m not surprised after all that.’ She waved a hand at the battery of recording equipment. The interrogation had gone on for over fourteen hours before its participants finally succumbed to exhaustion.
‘You sat through most of it with him. You didn’t have to — I said you could have gone back to your hotel as soon as the transfer was complete. Hell, Kiddrick left the second he’d packed up the PERSONA gear.’
‘I wanted to make sure Adam was okay.’ She sipped the coffee.
‘Not good?’ Tony asked, seeing her grimace.
‘It’s vending machine coffee — is it ever?’ They both grinned. ‘Thanks, though. I needed it, whatever it tastes like. God, I can’t believe I actually fell asleep while you were questioning Adam.’
‘You were very tired,’ he pointed out. ‘You’ve been through a lot in the past couple of days, so I can’t blame you for taking a nap. I just hope that when they play back the tapes, they can filter out your snoring.’
‘I don’t snore,’ she protested, before realising that he was teasing.
Another grin. ‘You do drool, though.’
‘I do not!’ she cried, putting a hand to the side of her mouth — and finding it damp. ‘Oh. Apparently I do. Ugh.’
He chuckled, then sipped his coffee. ‘It’s kind of cute, so don’t worry about it. Anyway, I wanted to say thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For everything you’ve done. However the mission turned out, the fact remains that we did stop al-Qaeda from getting hold of nuclear materials. And we still got a lot of actionable intel from al-Rais’s persona.’
‘You didn’t get the man himself, though.’
‘We will. Next time.’
‘If there is a next time. The way Harper was carrying on, it sounded like he wanted everyone at STS court-martialled, or whatever it is you do.’
‘We’ll see. But you… you’ve got absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. You should be proud, in fact. We asked you to do things that were way beyond what you expected — what we expected — and you came through amazingly.’