He released his grip on Bianca’s wrist, but she kept hold of his hand, squeezing it in sympathy. ‘What did Harper do then?’
An almost sarcastic exhalation. ‘He offered me a job.’
‘What?’
‘Not right away. First he ordered me back to Tampa — SOCOM headquarters — to be debriefed. In isolation; I wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody except the intelligence officers doing the debriefing. I couldn’t even call my mother. And the agents were nearly as bad as Harper, just saying over and over again that I’d screwed up the mission. I was practically on suicide watch by the time Harper saw me again.’
‘And that’s when he told you about the Persona Project?’
‘Yeah. He said it was a way that I could… God, he actually used the word “atone”, for my mistakes and go on serving my country — and have my pain and guilt taken away. And I was hurting so much that I took him up on it. I would have…’ He cleared his throat, the very feelings that had been erased along with his past returning. ‘I’d have done anything to make it stop.’
‘So you let them wipe your memory,’ Bianca said quietly.
He nodded, saying nothing for several seconds before finally whispering: ‘Does that make me a coward?’
‘No,’ she told him. ‘It makes you human.’
A bitter smile. ‘Good to know there’s something human about me. The cyborg secret agent without a past.’
‘But you do have a past. Now, I mean. You know who you are again.’
‘Only until I fall asleep.’
She gestured towards the PERSONA equipment. ‘I can imprint you with it again tomorrow. Since it’s your own personality rather than somebody else’s, I don’t think it’ll be nearly as risky. Then we can get out of Washington.’
He shook his head. ‘It might make a good TV show, but I don’t think the two of us going on the run in a black Mustang’ll work out in real life.’
‘So what are we going to do?’
He wiped his eyes, then straightened. ‘Harper was determined to wipe my memory. Even after I’d agreed to join the Persona Project, he kept up the pressure — he even once had me come see him at his house to make sure I wasn’t going to back out. But he wasn’t doing it to save me from any emotional pain — that’s not how he works.’
‘He’s more the type who likes to cause it,’ Bianca said.
‘Right. So he had a reason for doing it. But what was it? He wanted me to forget what happened in Pakistan — my mission to give false information to al-Qaeda. So if I didn’t remember it…’
She completed his thought. ‘You couldn’t tell anyone else. He’s trying to cover it up!’
‘Looks that way.’
‘But why?’
Adam stood, filled with a new sense of purpose. ‘There’s one way to find out.’
The sun was setting over Washington as the luxurious Cadillac CTS crawled north-west out of central DC along the traffic-clogged Massachusetts Avenue. In its back seat, Harper shouted incredulously into his phone. ‘You’ve still got nothing? How the hell is that possible! You’ve got the entire resources of the US government at your disposal, and you can’t find one man?’
Morgan’s voice at the other end of the line was tired, beaten down after a long and stressful day. ‘With all due respect, Admiral, Adam Gray is a highly trained agent in his own right, even without the help of the PERSONA system. If he’s gone to ground—’
‘Morgan, I’m getting fed up of your excuses,’ the older man snapped. ‘Gray is your man — and your responsibility. And right now, he’s an ongoing threat to national security. Find him!’
He disconnected, then immediately scrolled through his lengthy contacts list to make another call. ‘Baxter,’ came the reply.
‘STS still has nothing, and nor do the cops. What about you?’
‘No joy, sir. I’ve got men watching Gray’s apartment and Childs’ hotel, but they haven’t shown. Nothing on their credit or ATM cards either. Sir,’ he added, ‘are you sure you don’t want to block their cards? They’ll need money sooner or later — if we cut them off, it might force them into the open.’
‘No, leave them active,’ said Harper. ‘Gray won’t just be hiding — he’ll be planning something. If we track any financial transactions they make, it could give us a clue to what that is. We have to assume that Childs gave him back his memories, so now he knows everything up to when the recording was made. He’ll be trying to put the pieces together.’
Baxter sounded uncomfortable. ‘Could he expose us?’
‘No — he doesn’t know anything more than he did before, remember. The risk is if he causes the wrong people to start asking questions.’
‘Morgan?’
‘I can handle him, and anyone else in the intelligence community. It’s people outside the chain of command who are the problem.’
‘Like Sternberg?’
The mention of his rival’s name provoked a scowl. ‘Yeah. I’ve already had demands for updates on the situation from the White House. But even if Gray remembers everything, he still doesn’t know anything that directly links us to what happened.’
‘I’ll make sure he never does, sir. Now that he doesn’t have any more inside help, we’ll find him. What’s happening with Carpenter, by the way?’
‘He’s locked up at STS. Once Gray’s been dealt with, I’ll decide what to do with him. It might be that I’ll need you to handle him.’
‘Understood,’ Baxter replied with malevolent meaning. ‘I’ll call you with any updates, sir.’
‘Good.’ Harper disconnected again, then sank back into the plush leather, thinking.
It took another fifteen minutes before the Cadillac finally pulled into the driveway of his house. The leafy neighbourhood was both expensive and exclusive; amongst its residents were a number of embassies, as well as the Washington homes of several major politicians. ‘Will you be needing the car again tonight, sir?’ the driver asked as he opened the rear door for his passenger.
Harper shook his head. ‘Pick me up at the usual time tomorrow morning.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ll see you at six.’ The driver waited until Harper had opened the front door of the house, then climbed back into the Cadillac and drove away.
Harper entered the hall, going to the alarm panel and checking that everything was as it should be. The Director of National Intelligence was not granted round-the-clock protection by the Secret Service, but he still required a high degree of security. The fact that he had once summoned Adam Gray to his home — meaning that Gray surely now remembered where he lived — had been weighing on his mind, but requesting a bodyguard would have raised questions about his past connections to the rogue agent.
However, the display told him that the house remained secure. Satisfied, he entered a disarm code. The system chirped in confirmation. He headed down the hall, going into the kitchen—
A savage kick slammed into his stomach, knocking him breathless to the floor.
Despite her loathing of Harper, Bianca couldn’t help but wince at the violence of Adam’s ambush. ‘Don’t move,’ the agent ordered, drawing a gun — the DNI’s own, taken from a cabinet in his study.
Harper clutched at his midsection. ‘How — how did you get in here without tripping the alarms?’ he rasped, struggling to draw breath.
‘It turns out I was trained by the best,’ Adam replied. ‘Now, I want answers.’