The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,103
right. The drive out of Provideniya and up into the hills took some time. While the Vityaz was extremely capable off-road, it was not fast.
Nor was it comfortable. ‘I feel seasick,’ Bianca moaned after a particularly rough series of lurches almost pitched her from the bench. It was taking the pair’s full effort to stop the cases from skittering about like pinballs.
Adam pulled back the canvas to look outside. ‘At least this is as high as we’re going.’ The Vityaz had reached the end of a particularly steep climb and was now on more or less level ground as it rumbled across a hilltop. Provideniya was still visible on the far side of the inlet, though the weather was deteriorating, a light snowfall rendering the view hazy.
‘Yeah, but I’m getting the horrible feeling we might never go back down.’
‘We’ll be okay.’
‘Really? Really? We’ve jumped into the back of a snowmobile-tank thing full of terrorists on their way to buy a nuclear weapon, and it’s not as if we’ve got anywhere to hide in here. If they find us, they’ll kill us!’
‘Then we’ll have to make sure they don’t find us.’ Adam nudged the tarps with one foot. ‘The only person who knows what’s in here is the driver, and he doesn’t seem to want to get out of his nice warm cab. We can lie under the benches and cover ourselves with these. It’s pretty dark; we should be okay.’
‘And if they put the RTG in here, and it has radiation pouring out of an enormous crack in one side?’
‘Then we’ll have to hide on the other side.’
It took a moment for her to realise that he was joking. ‘That’s not very funny.’
‘But “not very” still means “a little”, doesn’t it?’
A tiny, reluctant smile appeared on her lips. ‘A very little.’
‘That’s still enough. Browning’s good at reassuring people. He has to be, considering his line of work. He always had to convince his kids that he wasn’t going to come back home radioactive.’
‘Browning has kids?’ He nodded. ‘Is that . . . does that feel weird to you? Knowing all the everyday little details of somebody’s life when it’s so completely different from yours?’
‘It does now that you’ve brought it up. Thank you!’
She smiled again. ‘Sorry. But once you mentioned his kids, what happened in your mind? How does it work for you? Do you just know the details about them, like their names and their birthdays, or do you . . . feel how he does about them?’
‘I feel it,’ he replied, after a moment – one filled with a rush of memories that weren’t his. A summer afternoon in the garden, whooping as he jumped into the paddling pool with his son and daughter and the sluice of displaced water sent a plastic duck whirling across the lawn, Janey and Bobby squealing and giggling at the sight . . .
Not his daughter, or his son. Browning’s. It took a conscious mental effort to stop the flow of images and sounds and smells—
‘Adam?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, snapping back. ‘It’s strange. When I’ve got someone’s persona in my head, some memories bring back emotions. Sometimes really strong ones. But once the persona’s gone, it’s different. I still have the memories I accessed, but . . . they’re just facts. I was at a place, I was with a particular person, I did this or that – but I don’t remember how it felt.’
‘But you do remember that the persona did feel something?’
He nodded. ‘I remember that Zykov was mad as hell when I took all his money. But the actual anger itself . . . no, it’s gone.’ That thought suddenly took him back to the dock. When he’d seen al-Rais emerge from the ship, a feeling almost of rage had struck him, nearly overpowering. It couldn’t have come from one of the personas he had used in the past. But he had never encountered the terrorist leader himself.
As far as he knew.
‘Holly Jo?’ he said. ‘I’m going off-comms. Bleep me if anything happens.’ He pushed the little bump behind his ear, cutting her off before she could reply. A faint click told him that the radio channel was closed.
‘What is it?’ asked Bianca.
‘Something happened on the dock, when I saw al-Rais. Just for a moment, I got mad. Really mad. I was ready to pull out my gun and put a bullet in his head before I got myself back under control. The thing is, I have no idea why.’