The Persona Protocol

by Andy McDermott

  He left the room, moving briskly down the corridor. He had ten seconds, fifteen at most, before Kiddrick summoned the courage to get up and scream for help. There was a security door ahead. He inserted his ID. The wait for the green light felt interminable. He snatched the door open and hurried through, moving at a trot now. Any moment . . .

  ‘Help!’

  He looked back, seeing through the door’s reinforced glass that Kiddrick had left his office. ‘Security, get security!’ the scientist yelled. ‘Help me!’

  Adam broke into a run. ‘Clear the way!’ he barked. The people in the corridor hurriedly moved aside to let the agent through.

  He rounded a corner, Kiddrick’s yells fading behind him. Another security door. ‘Coming through, move!’ he shouted. More STS personnel cleared his path. He reached the barrier and jammed his card into the slot. Waiting, waiting—

  Green light.

  He barged through the door – barely a second before an alarm sounded, a strident two-tone klaxon signifying a security breach. All the security doors were now locked, every exit from the building sealed, and STS’s squad of security protective officers placed on full alert to hunt him down.

  It wouldn’t take them long to find him. And if Bianca hadn’t held the stairwell door open, their job would be even easier . . .

  Another corner, and he entered the short passage leading to the emergency stairs. Bianca was there, with the PERSONA cases – and one foot in the doorway. ‘Open it!’ he shouted.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, confused and scared.

  ‘We’re in trouble! Go!’

  She picked up the cases and entered the stairwell. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I persuaded Kiddrick to open his safe,’ he said as he followed. She was about to start down the stairs. ‘No, go up! They’ll be coming from below.’

  Bianca reversed direction. ‘Who will?’

  ‘Security.’

  ‘I take it your persuasion wasn’t the gentle kind!’

  ‘Like they say, flattery gets you nowhere. Here.’ He took one of the cases from her as they reached the next landing. ‘Keep going, all the way to the top.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘The roof.’

  ‘Ah . . . why?’

  ‘It’s the only exit that won’t have armed men guarding it.’

  ‘But – it’s the roof! How are we supposed to get down?’

  Adam didn’t answer. They reached the top landing. A utilitarian door marked with a DANGER: NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT AUTHORISATION sign awaited them. He pointed to the corner of the landing. ‘Wait over there.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He took a hemispherical object the size of an orange from the bag. ‘It’s locked. I’m going to open it.’ He peeled a plastic sheet from the item’s flat side.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A bomb.’

  Bianca spluttered in disbelief. ‘A – a what?’

  ‘A bomb.’ He slapped the half-sphere against the door beside the card lock. It stuck fast. There was a small switch set into the curved casing; he flicked it. A red LED started to flash. ‘Cover your ears.’

  He ran to her and shielded her with his body. The light flickered faster, then turned solid as a shrill bleep sounded. Adam pressed his hands to his head—

  A piercing bang shook the stairwell as the shaped charge detonated. Adam looked round. A ragged hole the size of a fist had been blown through the door. ‘Okay, come on,’ he told Bianca as he picked up the case again and hurried back to the exit. He pulled at the door handle. It rattled, but didn’t open. For a moment, he thought they were trapped – then something inside the frame gave as he tugged again.

  He waved Bianca through. The echoes of the explosion had faded – but he could now hear another sound.

  Charging footsteps. A security team was clattering up the stairs after them.

  ‘Adam!’ Morgan’s voice boomed from the building’s PA system. ‘Whatever it is you’re doing, I want you and Dr Childs to stop and turn yourself in, right now!’

  Adam had no intention of doing so. He went through the door after Bianca. The rumble of machinery surrounded him as he entered the maintenance level. ‘Follow the yellow line,’ he told her, pointing at a painted marking on the concrete floor. ‘It goes to the roof access.’

  She saw that he had stopped, and paused to wait for him. ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘I need to slow them down. Go on, keep moving!’ He took out another charge and placed it facing the doorway at the base of a large metal tank.

  Morgan spoke again, his tone more sombre – and threatening. ‘Adam, this is your last warning. If you don’t surrender immediately, I’ll have no choice but to declare you a category one security threat.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Bianca asked.

  He flicked the switch and raced after her. ‘It means they’re authorised to use deadly force.’

  Her reply was almost a shriek. ‘What?’

  ‘Just get to the roof. Quick!’

  ‘Agent Gray! Dr Childs!’ someone shouted from the landing. ‘Put your hands in the air and show yourselves! This is your only warning!’ Red laser lines lanced through the machine level – then suddenly converged on one spot, drawn by an electronic trill. ‘Oh shit! Back, get ba—’

  The bomb exploded.

  Adam had placed it on a seam running up one of the tanks containing the building’s emergency water supply. The steel split along the welded join – and the pressure of the thousands of gallons of water behind it ripped the metal wall open.

  A deluge burst out, sweeping through the doorway on to the landing. The security team, already reeling from the detonation, were knocked off their feet by the frothing flood. They crashed against the railings, a couple of luckless tail-enders tumbling back down the stairs.

  That was not the only damage. A waterfall cascaded over the edge of the landing down into the building, another wave sweeping through the maintenance level and dashing against banks of humming machinery.

  Sharp bangs rippled through the space as equipment short-circuited in showers of sparks. The lights went out. A moment later, yellow emergency bulbs came to life, casting a sickly glow over the churning water.

  The wave raced after Adam and Bianca, but too late to catch them as they reached the stairs to the roof and pounded up them. He opened the door. ‘Come on.’

  Bianca followed him outside, squinting at the bright light of day. Her eyes focused on the flat expanse of the roof – and the drop beyond each edge. ‘You haven’t got a helicopter, have you?’

  Adam took something else from the bag. ‘Just an umbrella.’

  The Bullpen was in chaos.

  The video wall had been switched to show views from the STS building’s internal CCTV cameras, tracking the fugitives as they made their way to the uppermost floor. The coverage was not total, so none of the observers had seen Adam planting the charge on the water tank . . . but it was impossible for them to miss its effects.

  ‘God damn!’ Morgan exclaimed as he saw the water sweep away his men – then all the screens went black. The overhead lights flickered and died, plunging the room into darkness for several seconds.

  ‘My system’s down!’ Levon cried as illumination returned.

  ‘Mine too,’ added Holly Jo in dismay. The computers were linked to a backup battery system that was supposed to keep them running long enough to allow the emergency power supplies to kick in, but something had clearly gone very wrong.

  Kyle was the first to realise the cause. ‘The hell? I’m gettin’ rained on!’

  Everyone looked up. Water was dripping from several points on the ceiling. One of the lights buzzed furiously before going out with a crack and a small puff of smoke. Kiddrick, standing beside Morgan, flinched. ‘That maniac’s destroying the entire building!’

  Desktop monitors started to flick back to life as machines rebooted. ‘Martin!’ shouted Tony in alarm as he checked one of h
is screens, then entered frantic commands. ‘The security system’s gone into failsafe mode!’ He looked at one of the doors. The green light was flashing, telling him that the lock had been deactivated. In dire emergencies, the failsafe was intended to allow people to evacuate the building without fear of being trapped behind a security barrier. ‘I can’t reset it, everything’s— Shit! Qasid!’ He ran for an exit. ‘Martin, get security to the cells!’

  Morgan had already picked up a phone from a nearby desk, stabbing at one of the keys. There was no response. ‘Phones are down,’ he reported. ‘Levon, we’re deaf and blind! How long before all the systems are back up?’

  Levon gestured helplessly at his screens. ‘I’m still rebooting! Couple of minutes, at least.’

  ‘Damn it!’ Morgan slammed the receiver back down and took out his cell phone, swiping through the contacts list to find a particular number. ‘This is Martin Morgan. I need to speak to Admiral Harper – it’s an emergency.’ He waited impatiently for the call to be transferred. Finally, he got a reply. ‘Admiral! It’s Morgan – we have a major situation at STS.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Harper demanded.

  ‘Agent Gray has gone rogue. We don’t know the full situation, but he assaulted Dr Kiddrick and stole a PERSONA module.’

  ‘Which module? Who’s on the disk?’

  ‘He is, sir. It’s a recording that was made when he first joined the project.’

  There was a long silence from the other end of the line. When Harper spoke again, he sounded both angry and strained. ‘If what Adam Gray knows – what he used to know – gets into the wrong hands, there will be major implications for national security. That disk has to be recovered, Morgan. At any cost. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘You do, sir,’ said Morgan, frowning. ‘If I may ask . . . when you say “the wrong hands”, do they include Agent Gray’s?’

  Another pause. ‘That is correct. Where’s Gray now?’

  ‘We’re not sure. He’s knocked out our systems.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He blew a water tank and shorted out a lot of the building’s electrics. We’re trying to bring everything back online now. We think he’s on the roof, but—’

  ‘Whatever it takes, Morgan, you have to recover that disk. Put Baxter and his team on it. They’re authorised to use any means necessary to take Gray down.’

  Morgan was shocked. ‘Take him down, sir? Are you saying—’

  He broke off, whipping round at a muffled sound from somewhere outside the room. Kyle jumped. ‘Was that a gun?’

  ‘Everyone stay calm,’ Morgan ordered, as more distant retorts reached him. ‘Stay at your posts – we need those cameras! Get our systems online!’ He brought the phone back up. ‘Sir, there have been shots fired. I’ll report back as soon as I know the situation.’ He ran from the Bullpen, following Tony’s path through the building.

  He passed frightened workers rushing the other way. ‘Did you see what happened?’ he asked one woman.

  She shook her head, desperate to get away. ‘No, sir. But I saw Mr Carpenter run past my office – and then we heard the shots.’ She pointed down the corridor.

  ‘Get to safety,’ Morgan ordered, running the way she had indicated. Towards the cells. It struck him that he could be heading straight into danger, unarmed, but he shook off his concerns. He was in charge; he had to know what had happened.

  A security door ahead, the green light flashing. He hurried through. Beyond was the holding area. The door was open – and he caught the sharp scent of gun smoke in the air. ‘Tony!’ he called, going to the entrance. ‘Tony, are you okay?’

  Silence, then—

  ‘Martin? Yeah, I’m all right.’ Tony sounded anything but.

  Morgan looked cautiously through the doorway. Tony was leaning over the guard’s desk, supporting himself with both hands and breathing heavily. The guard himself, a man named Rivers, was sprawled on the floor outside Qasid’s cell – which was open, and empty. A pool of blood slowly swelled around him. He was unmoving, eyes and mouth frozen open.

  Qasid was slumped against the wall by the door. Ragged splatters of blood were splashed across the paint, smeared downwards where the terrorist had fallen. A SIG lay near him, several shell casings glinting on the floor. ‘What happened?’ Morgan asked.

  Tony shook his head. ‘I wish I knew. Maybe Rivers didn’t realise that the failsafe system had unlocked the cell and went to check the door after the lights went out, I don’t know. But Qasid must have caught him by surprise and got his gun.’ He looked down grimly at the dead guard. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I came in just as Qasid was going out – we ran right into each other. We started fighting for the gun. He nearly got me with it, but I managed to take it off him.’

  ‘So I see.’ Morgan checked the Pakistani’s corpse. Three holes had been ripped through his chest and abdomen, blackened and burned by the muzzle flare from point-blank shots. ‘My God. Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Just shaken up, that’s all. What’s the situation with Adam?’

  ‘Right now, you know as much as I do. But Harper wants him taken down.’ Tony reacted with shock. ‘Come on, we’ve got to get back to the Bullpen.’ They left the cells at a run.

  40

  Leap of Faith

  Bianca peered nervously over the edge of the roof. Traffic cruised along the street, a long way below. She looked back at Adam. ‘You must be joking!’ she said as he pushed a button to snap open the very flimsy-looking umbrella.

  ‘Trust me, it’ll work,’ he replied. ‘I’ve used one before. I jumped off a four-storey building.’

  ‘Well, that’s great,’ she protested. ‘But this has got more than four floors. And there are two of us, and we’re carrying a lot of heavy cases! There’s no way that’ll get us down to the ground in one piece.’

  ‘We’re not going to the ground. You see that tree?’ He pointed at one of the lindens lining the sidewalk, this one somewhat younger and shorter than its neighbours. Even so, it was still a good thirty feet high.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘That’s what we’re aiming for. It’ll break our fall.’

  ‘It’ll probably break a lot more than that!’

  Adam put down the open umbrella, taking the medical case from Bianca and squeezing it into his bag. ‘We can’t drop straight to the sidewalk,’ he said, as he slung the holdall over one shoulder. ‘The Mary Poppins won’t slow us down enough from this height.’

  ‘The what? Oh, never mind, I get it. But you can’t seriously—’

  ‘The guys with guns will be here any time now.’ Holding the umbrella in one hand, he hefted the heavier of the two PERSONA cases in the other. ‘And they’ve been told they can shoot us. You want to wait for them?’ Her expression made her opinion clear. ‘Then grab the other case and hang on to me as tight as you can.’ He hunched down a little, gesturing for her to move in front of him.

  Bianca put both arms over his shoulders, gripping the case’s handle as hard as she could. The forced intimacy of being nose-to-nose with Adam was the least uncomfortable thing about her situation. ‘Are you ready?’ he said.

  She licked her suddenly dry lips, trying to cover her rising fear. ‘It’s a bit late to back out now, isn’t it?’

  A crash of metal. The access door had been kicked open. Uniformed men, their clothing darkened by water, burst out on to the roof. ‘Over there!’ one shouted, seeing the fugitives. His gun came up. ‘Freeze!’

  Adam looked into Bianca’s eyes, giving her unspoken reassurance – then he swept her with him over the edge.

  Gravity caught them. Bianca screamed as they plunged. The umbrella’s carbon-fibre spokes creaked alarmingly, the tough nylon straining as wind resistance tried to rip it free.

  The floors of the STS building flashed past. Even with the umbrella’s air-braking effect, it wasn’t slowing them enough . . .

  ‘Close your eyes!’ Adam shouted. />
  An order, not fatalism—

  Bianca did as she was told – as they hit the top of the tree with a huge crackle of snapping twigs. Leaves burst around them like confetti, broken wood clawing at their clothes and skin.

  They kept falling, the topmost branches too slender to resist their weight. The fabric and spokes were ripped from the umbrella’s shaft. Bianca felt a slashing pain in her thigh as a wooden shard tore through her trouser leg. She cried out – then the breath was knocked from her as she slammed down on a more solid bough.

  She lost her grip on Adam. The case was jarred from her hands, bouncing through the foliage. She tumbled, hitting another branch side-on. It cleaved from the trunk with an earsplitting snap. More leaves lashed at her hair and face as she dropped—

  A hard impact, this time on something cool and flat and solid. She was on the ground.

  Head spinning, pain messages from different parts of her body competing for attention, she blearily opened her eyes . . .

  And saw a car coming straight for her.

  She screamed—

  The sound was drowned out by the screech of tyres. The car juddered to a halt, the front wheel less than a foot from Bianca’s head.

  A thump nearby told her that Adam had landed. He pulled her up. The bag was still slung from his shoulder, and he had somehow kept hold of the case. Its twin lay on the sidewalk, leaves dropping around it like green snowflakes. ‘Get the PERSONA!’

  She limped to pick it up. Adam ran around the car, an ageing Hyundai Elantra station wagon, and yanked open the door. ‘Out!’ he roared, pulling the startled driver from her vehicle. ‘Bianca, come on!’

  Bianca collected the case and hobbled to the passenger door. ‘Sorry,’ she called to the driver as she climbed in. Adam had already tossed his case on to the back seat, putting the car in drive. The Hyundai peeled away with as much power as it could muster, leaving shocked onlookers in its wake.