The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,138
it too good to be true. Was Gray a double agent, trying to draw the al-Qaeda cell into a trap? But the more he checked, the more certain he became that the information was genuine.
Muqaddim al-Rais himself made the final decision.
Go.
The bomb was prepared, over a hundred kilograms of high explosive jacketed by ball bearings and ragged fragments of scrap metal in the trunk of a nondescript Toyota parked near the location of the meeting. Because the Secretary of State’s visit to discuss the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons was secret, the roads were not blocked off or cleared of other traffic. This allowed a confederate in a truck to get ahead of the three-vehicle convoy, controlling its speed as it approached the kill zone.
Qasid was half a kilometre away, watching through binoculars from a high rooftop. Adam felt his nervous anticipation, reliving the terrorist’s growing excitement as he took phone calls from spotters along the route.
‘This is Azim, they’ve just passed me . . .’
‘Salim here – they just turned right at the junction, like you said they would.’
‘It’s Imran, they’re coming up to me now . . .’
The truck deliberately dropped to a crawl, backing the convoy up behind it on the busy street. According to Gray’s information, Sandra Easton would be in the middle car, SUVs driven by undercover agents ahead and behind.
He shifted his gaze back and forth between the Toyota and the approaching vehicles, the movement shorter each time. Less than a hundred metres to go.
Fifty. ‘Get ready, get ready . . .’ he whispered into his phone’s headset. The operation could not be trusted to radio control. There was a man in the car holding a switch directly wired to the detonators. The first SUV passed the waiting Toyota. ‘Here she comes . . . now!’
He held his breath. Time seemed to freeze, for a moment nothing happening—
Then the Toyota and the car beside it vanished in a cloud of dust.
It took over a second for the sound of the explosion to reach Qasid. When it did, it was shockingly loud, a single sharp basso crack that shook the building beneath him. Other noises followed: shattering glass, splintering concrete, the thunderous echoes of the detonation.
Adam felt Qasid’s surge of exultation overpower his own horror at the sight. The memories kept coming, even though he no longer wanted them. The terrorist looked back through the binoculars. Nothing was visible except swirling dust and smoke.
Then shapes began to resolve.
Mangled wreckage. Shredded bodies. Rubble and debris surrounding a crater at the roadside, flames gouting from a severed gas main. More sounds reached him – distant screams of panic and pain. Those people on the street who had not been cut down by the blast started to flee.
There was nothing left of the Toyota, and the trailing SUV was barely recognisable as a vehicle. The leading 4x4, which had been moving away from the bomb, lay on its side, ripped open, its occupants spilled out like sardines from a can. The Secretary of State’s car had been reduced to burning fragments.
As had everyone inside.
We did it!
‘No,’ gasped Adam, reeling. He couldn’t stop the flood of images from Qasid’s mind.
He had been responsible. He had given the information to al-Qaeda. He had betrayed his country.
The more he tried to deny it, the stronger the memories became, taunting him. It was him. The face, the voice of the man Qasid had met – they were his.
He was a traitor.
‘No!’ It was a cry of pure anguish.
Panic rose in him. Conflicting thoughts warred in his mind – a desperate urge to escape, to run from the punishment that awaited if the truth was discovered versus the need to confess to what he had done. He had to turn himself in. He was a security risk, an al-Qaeda sympathiser.
A traitor.
He looked around frantically. The exit—
I have to run.
His thought, or Qasid’s? He didn’t know. This is my only chance, I have to get out of here before they catch me . . .
The door opened. He jumped in alarm. It was Bianca, having returned the PERSONA equipment to the lab. She held something in one hand. The Englishwoman immediately picked up on his fear. ‘Are you okay?’
She’s the only other person who knows the truth.
Qasid. It had to be. It couldn’t be his own mind regarding as a threat the woman who had done nothing but try to help him. It couldn’t!