The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,141

kinda hard to cover all this up if our prisoner dies because of it.’

‘He’s fine,’ said Bianca. ‘I don’t know what went wrong, though. Maybe I miscalculated the drug dose.’

‘You’re damn lucky things didn’t turn out worse, then,’ Tony said sternly. ‘I’ve been into the system and made sure everything looks to be in order, but like I said, it won’t stand up to higher-level scrutiny. This needs to end right here.’

‘I think that’s a very good idea.’

‘What about you, Adam?’

Adam said nothing for a moment, then nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Good. Let’s hope this doesn’t come back to bite us all in the ass.’ Tony checked his watch, suppressing a yawn. ‘Okay. It’s been a hell of a long day. Once I’ve wrapped everything up, I’m going to go home and get a few hours’ sleep, and I’d advise you both to do the same before it starts all over.’

‘You’re going to imprint Adam with al-Rais’s persona again?’ Bianca asked. ‘After what just happened to him?’

‘Well, unless you want to go explain to Martin and Harper that your unauthorised transfer went bad, we don’t have much choice. All right, I’ll see you later.’ He turned to leave.

‘Tony?’ said Bianca, stopping him. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘What?’

‘When I got the PERSONA gear from the lab, I saw a disk with your name on it. Did you have your persona recorded?’

‘Yeah, not long after I joined the project.’

‘Before you had the surgical implants?’

‘Yes. They wanted it as a backup, for comparison if there were any after-effects from the procedure, but they never used it. Why did you want to know?’

She shrugged. ‘Just curious. I wondered why you had a disk and Adam didn’t.’

‘No idea. I guess Roger and Kiddrick felt confident enough second time around not to need one.’

‘I guess. Okay, see you later.’

‘What was that about?’ Adam asked after Tony left.

‘I was just thinking . . . what if there is a disk with your persona on it, from before you had your memory wiped? If we imprinted you with that, then you’d know for sure what happened in Pakistan.’

‘Maybe, but there isn’t a disk like that.’

‘Well, it’s not something they’re going to leave lying around the office, is it? Especially now that you’ve started trying to find out more about your past.’

‘So where would they keep it?’

Bianca glanced towards the Bullpen. ‘I think there’s a way we can find out.’

38

Safe Keeping

When Levon arrived at his workstation, he was surprised to find two people waiting.

‘Wow, you guys look terrible,’ he told Adam and Bianca as he sat. ‘You been here all night?’

‘Afraid so,’ said Bianca. ‘But then, we had a lot to cover with interrogating al-Rais.’

‘Yeah, I guess you’re not going to get everything out of the world’s most wanted terrorist in time for Letterman. Still, pulling an overnighter’s hard work. Darleen hates it when I do ’em.’

‘Darleen?’

‘My wife.’ He saw Bianca’s look of surprise, and raised an eyebrow over his thick glasses. ‘Oh, what? Just ’cause I’m a big fat nerd, I can’t find true love? I got my moves.’

‘No, that’s not what I was thinking at all!’ she lied. ‘It’s just that you never mentioned her before.’

‘You never asked. You want to see her picture? I got a whole bunch on my phone.’

‘No, that’s okay, thanks. But there was something we wanted to ask you.’

‘Yeah? What is it?’

Adam leaned closer to him, dropping his voice. ‘Tony said that you know how to bypass the system’s security.’

Levon shrank into his chair, eyes darting furtively. ‘I don’t know why he’d tell you that. What is this, some sort of loyalty check?’

‘Yes, I’m actually Harper’s mole,’ said Bianca sarcastically.

Adam remained serious. ‘This is off the record, Levon. In fact, it’s off the books. Can you do it?’

The bald man was still reluctant to answer. ‘Why would you want to know?’

‘Because I need you to find something for me – without Tony or Martin or anyone else knowing about it.’

‘Seriously?’ Levon glanced at the nearby workstations to make sure nobody was eavesdropping. ‘What kind of thing?’

‘I need to know if I had my persona recorded when I first joined the project. And if I did, then I also need to know what happened to the disk containing it.’

He was startled by the request. ‘For real? You’re actually asking me to hack into the system?’

‘Yes. And nobody else can know about it. It has to stay completely under the radar.’

‘Hell yes, it has to remain under the radar!’ Levon insisted. ‘You know what would happen to