The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,40
Conrad? Who was the man in front of her?
‘Everything we learn using the PERSONA process remains top secret,’ Morgan said. ‘For reasons of national security. Nothing we discover can be used in a court of law, because we don’t officially exist.’
If he had been trying to reassure her, it had almost entirely the opposite effect. ‘That implies you’re operating outside the law.’ Morgan said nothing.
‘Ah, we have a bleeding heart in our midst,’ said Kiddrick. ‘I suppose you’re going to say we should reach out to terrorists,’ an airy wave of one hand, ‘and try to empathise with their issues – rather than putting Hellfire missiles through their windows.’
‘I suppose you’re going to say we should bomb them because “they hate us for our freedoms”, or something equally idiotic,’ she shot back. Morgan was less than impressed, but Tony seemed to have a more nuanced outlook, giving her a small smile.
‘We’re not here to argue about politics,’ Morgan said impatiently. ‘Dr Childs, what do you think of PERSONA? The results, I mean – not the ethics.’
‘Damn, and I was just about to start a ten-minute rant about that,’ she replied, before turning back to Adam. ‘It’s still hard to believe. I mean, I can’t imagine why you would, but you might just be acting.’ If he was, she had to admit, he was delivering an Oscar-worthy performance. His anguish at exposing Wilmar’s affair had appeared utterly genuine and heartfelt.
‘It’s not an act,’ said Kiddrick. ‘To all intents and purposes, right now Adam Gray is Conrad Wilmar. Whatever Wilmar knows, he does. That’s one reason I picked Wilmar’s persona for this test. He doesn’t work in quite the same field as you, but there’s some crossover. Agent briefings don’t go so far as to give them a doctorate in biochemistry, so test him for yourself.’
‘If he’s now Conrad Wilmar, then where’s Adam Gray?’
‘Oh, I’m still Adam,’ said Adam, swinging himself off the table and standing up. ‘It’s not as if I’ve, y’know, disappeared? Or been subsumed, anything like that. I’m still me, I’m always in control. It’s just that now there’s this whole temporary other me in here too.’ His hands flicked excitedly in time with his words, as if trying to fan them towards her more quickly. ‘So, yeah, test me. What do you want to know?’
He certainly had Wilmar’s mannerisms and rat-a-tat speech pattern. ‘Okay,’ Bianca said hesitantly. ‘You said you were working on treatments for biological weapons?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘Specifically, meningitis?’
He nodded. ‘We’ve encountered a strain of N. meningitidis that’s a lot more virulent than normal, and resistant to the standard vaccines. Nasty little SOB! Not sure where it came from, but we’ve got our suspicions. Da, comrades!’ He tapped the side of his nose.
‘What’s the effect on the brain?’
‘What you’d expect; swelling of the meninges, particularly concentrated in the pia mater. It has a tendency to spread to the spinal pia too, but only once the initial infection is firmly established.’
‘What’s the treatment?’
‘Straight in with empirics, of course, backed up by an adjuvant course of corticosteroids. The doses need to be higher than normal, but at this stage we’re just trying to stabilise things.’ His speech quickened. ‘Then we’ve got a suite of new antibiotics that we can tailor to the exact results of the CSF test – I can’t tell you the specific compositions, though. You don’t have clearance. Sorry.’ He seemed genuinely apologetic.
‘That’s okay.’ What he had told her was accurate enough, rattled out without hesitation, but Kiddrick clearly wanted to test her as much as she was supposed to test Adam. She drew on her own memories to devise something particularly probing. ‘There was a paper that came out about two years ago, on the effects of new-generation cephalosporins on brain chemistry, particularly enzyme—’
‘Oh, yeah, yeah!’ Adam interrupted, with great enthusiasm. ‘Hartmann and Yun’s paper. Yes, I read it. Helped a lot with the transpeptidation issues of our new drugs. Smart guys.’
‘Yeah, they are.’ Bianca was startled that not only had he heard of a decidedly esoteric scientific paper, but also that he had correctly – and instantly – identified its authors based on only a most general description. That was definitely beyond anything she could imagine his having been briefed on.
Kiddrick regarded her smugly. ‘Convinced?’
‘I’d have to say . . . yes,’ she admitted.
‘Good. Adam, there’s nothing else we should know about Wilmar, is there? He’s not selling secrets to the Chinese or plotting to release anthrax on the New York subway?’