The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,22

the water, Tony,’ Morgan snapped. ‘I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but there’s more to it than just Adam. And the other man it depends upon took a bullet to the back!’

Tony glanced back towards Albion’s bed. ‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

‘Good. Then I hope you also haven’t forgotten that he’s the only person who knows how to calculate the drug doses so they don’t kill the subjects. Without him, we don’t have a project. And his chances of going back into the field any time soon don’t look good.’

‘He’s currently stable.’

‘Stable isn’t the same as healthy.’ He looked down at something below the camera’s field of view. ‘I see from the mission transcripts that Ms Voss suggested using the pre-recorded emergency persona so that Adam could perform field surgery on Roger. That might have improved his chances – why didn’t you consider it?’

‘That was my decision,’ said Adam before Tony could reply. ‘Doing that would have erased Syed’s persona, and let his men escape. It would have cost us the mission.’

‘Not doing it might have cost us the entire project,’ Morgan countered. ‘Why wasn’t Syed’s persona recorded during transfer?’

‘We needed to get Syed back into play as fast as possible,’ explained Tony. ‘All the encoding and compression needed to record a persona would have taken too long. Also,’ he added, before his superior could respond, ‘doing that would have meant imprinting Adam with the same persona twice. You know we can’t risk the potential side effects.’

Morgan was annoyed at being challenged, but acquiesced. ‘Okay. But I want recording of subjects’ personas to be standard operating procedure from now on unless absolutely necessary.’

‘Understood.’

‘That is, assuming there’s ever another mission. We can’t do anything without Roger to administer the drugs.’

‘There might . . . be a solution to that problem.’

Everyone looked round at the weak voice. Albion was awake and trying to lift his head, despite the efforts of his nurse to keep him still. ‘Roger, you should be trying to rest,’ said Tony.

‘Rest is for babies and the idle,’ Albion replied, forcing a thin smile. ‘No, I’ve been listening; to some of it, anyway. I’m not sure what drugs this young lady’s given me, but they make me . . . drift in and out. They are . . . rather good, though.’

‘I guess I haven’t given you enough,’ the nurse complained. ‘Please, lie down.’

‘In a minute. Look, Martin, I know someone who . . . might be able to stand in for me – to be my locum tenens, so to speak.’

Morgan’s expression turned probing. ‘I thought determining the drug doses was too complicated for anyone but you?’

‘She has the necessary training to . . . assess the subject’s condition and make the appropriate calculations.’ Albion’s head sagged on to the pillow, to the nurse’s relief. ‘I’m sure I can . . . teach her.’

‘I’ll consider it,’ said Morgan. ‘But right now, you need to get some re— some sleep.’

‘I’ll see that he does, sir,’ said the nurse. Albion made a ‘Bah!’ sound, but settled back into the bed.

Tony looked back up at Morgan’s image. ‘Are we done for now, Martin? Because I need to get back to the debrief. We’ve already found a connection between Syed and Muqaddim al-Rais—’

‘Al-Rais?’ Morgan interrupted. Baxter also reacted with surprise at the name. The Saudi was the most wanted terrorist in the world, the current leader of al-Qaeda – which ten months earlier had taken revenge for the loss of its previous commander, Mahjub Najjar, by detonating a massive car bomb in the Pakistani capital Islamabad. The explosion had not only killed over a hundred people, but also assassinated its primary target: the US Secretary of State, Sandra Easton. ‘How strong a connection? Anything that would give us his location?’

‘No – at least, not yet. But we do know that he’s personally overseeing something. “Operation Lamplighter” is what Syed says it’s called.’

‘It doesn’t ring any bells,’ said Morgan. ‘But I’ll pass it straight up to the Admiral so we can get the entire USIC on it. Anything that gives us a shot at al-Rais . . .’

‘I’d be happy to take the shot personally against that son of a bitch, sir,’ said Baxter.

‘I’m sure we all would. All right, Tony, get back to work on Syed. The rest of your chewing-out can keep until you get back to Washington.’ His image disappeared.

‘So, uh, are we done, Tony?’ Levon asked drowsily from the other half of the screen. ‘Not that I don’t mind being dragged