Game Changer (35 page)

56

Kovonov made it to Knoxville by noon the next day,
pleased with the progress he had made on any number of important fronts. The
city
turned out to be quite appealing, with modern architecture, lush
green areas throughout, and the Tennessee River, which sliced through downtown,
complete with four different vehicle bridges that crossed the river at
different points.
 

He joined Mizrahi on a park bench in direct line of sight
to the secret interrogation facility, designed to look like a small
manufacturing site, with its own loading dock where prisoners were no doubt
dropped off and picked up in industrial trucks designed for this purpose.

Mizrahi wasted no time beginning his briefing. He
explained that he had, indeed, found a file on a
lieutenant colonel
named Stephen Hansen, complete with his habits, where he fit in the chain of
command, as well as information about the off-the-books interrogation facility.

Hansen was a rising star within
PsyOps and had a record of achieving better interrogation results than anyone
else, including the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. This group
had been created by a Barack Obama executive order in 2009, which was seconded by
Congress in 2015. It was a small interagency group tasked with secret
interrogations using methods based on the latest psychological research. While
it was under the auspices of the FBI, it drew on elite interrogators from the bureau,
Defense Department, CIA, and other agencies.

According to Mossad analysis,
though, certain intelligence shops preferred to keep their top people to
themselves, sending along second-tier interrogators to join the HIG. Once
again, human nature had corrupted what would have otherwise been a highly
effective organization.

Hansen’s record spoke for itself,
and Mizrahi conjectured that the powers that be were well aware that he was the
man to go to with the highest value prisoners. A high-level official had almost
certainly arranged for Hansen to get the first crack at this prisoner, behind
HIG’s back, and this latter group wouldn’t be brought into the loop until Hansen’s
allotted time had expired.

“Hansen reports to a full bird colonel,”
said Mizrahi. He quickly consulted his phone. “By the name of Jeffrey
Siperstein.”
 

“And Siperstein’s superior?” said
Kovonov.

“The head of PsyOps. General Angela
Reader.”

Kovonov nodded. “Go on.”

“The file suggests Hansen’s major
weakness is an addiction to Starbucks. Prefers the Iced Caramel Macchiato.
Tends to drink at least one a day, two or more if he can manage it.”

“Did he have one this morning?”

Mizrahi nodded. “He did. And as
luck would have it,” he added, brightening, “there is a Starbucks within a half
mile of the interrogation facility.”

Kovonov rolled his eyes. “I’m
pretty sure there’s a Starbucks within a half mile of every location in this
country. But why is that lucky?”

“Because he can indulge his craving
easily. He can take a twenty-minute coffee break anytime he wants.”

“I see. So you expect him to get
another of these iced drinks later today.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s
why we’re here. Think of this not only as a briefing, but also a stakeout.”

Kovonov was clearly pleased. “Excellent
work, Yosef,” he said. “I have plenty of work to do on my computer anyway. So I
think I’ll go ahead and get myself a coffee and settle in. If he does show up
to get his fix, we’ll be ready for him.”
 

57

Colonel Stephen Hansen neared the
entrance to Starbucks in a foul mood. He needed this pick-me-up more than
usual.

He had used all the tricks he knew
of and was getting nowhere. Haji A
hmad
al-Bilawy
was smart and tough, and Hansen could tell already that
success was unlikely. He would complain to Siperstein that he had only been
given three days, not nearly enough time, but the truth was he doubted if he
could get anywhere with al-Bilawy if he had three
years
.

He hated his job with a passion but
couldn’t bring himself to battle for reassignment. First, he was very good at what
he did, which was a curse. The more competent you were, the more work you got.
And he knew what he was doing was critically important. So he had found a way
to suck it up for the past two years and travel to sites like this one when the
need arose.

But very soon this would change. At
minimum he would insist he be assigned to training
others
how to extract information from these rabid extremists. He
couldn’t take it anymore. And by training others, extending his reach, he was
arguably doing an even greater service to his country.

The Starbucks store was a hive of
activity, having become as much a social destination in the area as a retailer.
Hansen was reaching for the door, calculating how quickly he could expect the
line inside to move, when a tall stranger crashed into him from the side, as
though Hansen had been in his path but temporarily invisible.

Both men grunted from the shock and
physical impact of the collision. The incoming human battering ram, who had
been walking briskly with his eyes glued to a phone, had jet-black hair and moved
like an elite athlete.

“Sorry,” he said in an accent
Hansen couldn’t quite place after both had recovered their composure.

Hansen’s hand shot up to inspect his
own neck as if it had a mind of his own. Had he been stabbed?

If he were anyone else he wouldn’t
have even noticed it, given the distraction of the man plowing into him like a
football lineman, but he was one of the few people to have experience taking
injections using a microneedle array. This was fairly new injection technology
that used hundreds of nearly microscopic needles, each filled with drug, so
small that they penetrated the skin too shallowly to trigger a pain response.

His neck had felt a tingling
sensation for just a moment. Not pain, but something that reminded him of how
he felt after previous injections with a microneedle array.

“Hold on!” he said immediately to
the man who had slammed into him before he could move on, reaching out and seizing
his arm. “Don’t move!”

Something wasn’t right. Hansen was
sure of it. And until he got to the bottom of it this man wasn’t going
anywhere.

He checked to be sure he hadn’t
been pick-pocketed. A purposeful collision was a classic technique for
separating a mark from his watch or wallet, but Hansen confirmed that both were
still in place.

The man waited patiently, not
seeming to take affront at having his arm held and in no hurry to leave the
crime scene, if that’s what this was. And he didn’t ask why Hansen was delaying
him, which he should have done no matter what, guilty or innocent.

As Hansen was considering this
strange behavior he lost his train of thought. In fact, he lost all trains of
thought, almost as if he had blacked out for a fraction of a second. He blinked
rapidly in confusion and disorientation. For a moment he wasn’t even sure how
he had come to be just outside the Starbucks door.

A blank look spread across his face.
He felt certain he had been considering something important, but whatever that might
have been refused to come to him. He shook his head to clear it, realizing he
was holding on to someone’s arm.

“Thanks,” said the arm’s owner. “If
you hadn’t caught me, I might have done a faceplant on the concrete.”

Hansen immediately released the
arm, as confused as he had ever been. He must have caught this guy out of
instinct, because he couldn’t remember the stranger stumbling or beginning to
fall, or that he had reached out to prevent this from happening. Hansen had
been lost in thought before, but never
this
lost.

“Glad I could help,” mumbled the
PsyOps colonel, and then shaking off the entire strange experience, entered the
shop.

He ordered his usual caffeine delivery
system and sat at one of eight outdoor tables to enjoy it before getting back
to his duties. A man three tables down was working on the most futuristic-looking
laptop he had ever seen, connected to his phone. Hansen tried to catch his eye
to ask him what kind it was, but the man seemed to be in a fugue state, utterly
focused on whatever work he was doing.

After five minutes the man finished
and left, never glancing back.

Hansen, still sipping at his
coffee, turned his thoughts to Haji A
hmad
al-Bilawy
. Was there an angle he had failed to consider? One that could
somehow create even the tiniest of cracks in the terrorist’s dike?

Hansen shook his head vigorously as
he realized he was due at Volunteer Landing Park at five thirty to meet with a
mysterious Black Ops operative. How had this slipped his mind for even a
moment? Wow, forgetting the only order he had ever been given personally by the
head of PsyOps would have been career limiting. This should have been the
only
thing he was considering.

But it had suddenly all come back
to him. General Angela Reader herself had called him earlier in the day. The
head of PsyOps had bypassed the chain of command, purposely as it turned out,
not wanting anyone in the loop, including Colonel Siperstein.

Now that this had become top of
mind again, he remembered the exact words of the conversation with unusual
clarity.

“I’ve never contacted you before,
Colonel Hansen, as you know,” she had said, “so take this as a measure of the
importance of this communication.”

“What can I do for you, General?”
he had responded.

“To be honest,
I’m
not even sure. I hate to be so cloak-and-daggerish, but I need
you to meet with a man who goes by the alias of Darryl Dorton. A high-ranking
Black Ops operative. Be at Volunteer Landing park at five thirty. I assume you
know the place?”
    

“I do.”

“Good. Appear to be enjoying the
park and before too long this Dorton will approach you and introduce himself.
After that the first thing he will say is that I sent him. Provided that he
does this and then gives you his alias, I need you to follow his orders as if
they were my own—whatever they are.”
 

“And you have no idea what these orders
might be?”

General Reader had smiled. “I have
an idea, but not a certainty. I think some other hotshot within a Black Ops research
group has come up with a superior interrogation method, and wants a crack at
al-Bilawy before HIG gets its hands on him. But whatever he wants, do it, and
tell no one of this. Not of my call, the meeting in the park, or Dorton’s orders.
And I mean no one. Even Colonel Siperstein. Understood?”

“Understood, General,” he had said
as the call ended. “You could not have made this any clearer.”

58

Consciousness slowly returned to Carmilla Acosta along
with her memory.

She was alive, she realized. Lying on her back on
something soft, her eyes closed.

How could this be?

She still felt devastated by the loss of what she had
been certain was the love of her life, but the effect wasn’t quite as
suffocating as before, perhaps because she felt so weak. Confusion and
disorientation had replaced some of the anguish that continued to torture her.

She opened her eyes and waited as they adjusted to the
light.

She was in what looked like a makeshift hospital room,
with an infusion pump on a pole beside her bed, the plastic tubing of an IV line
snaking into her arm and held in place with tape, and bandages wrapped around
her head. She was vaguely aware of an assortment of other cuts and bruises
along her entire body, but the pain was almost entirely muted, meaning the IV must
be delivering a potent opioid.
 

And her hands had been strapped to poles running along
the bed. Was she now a prisoner?

“Thank God you’re awake,” said a petite young woman,
startling her. She had been seated about six feet from the bed, reading
something on a tablet, and must have realized Carmilla had awakened when she
had tried to free her hands, rattling the poles. “How are you feeling?”

“Where am I?” said Carmilla, ignoring the question.

“You know what, I’m going to get two people in here who
can answer all of your questions. All I can tell you is that you’re safe here,
and you’re going to be okay.”

The woman proceeded to text someone on her phone while
she watched Carmilla. “I’m not authorized to give you any information,” she
said when she had finished, “but I am trained as a nurse, so while we’re
waiting for this pair to arrive, I’d love to know how you’re doing.”

Carmilla looked into the woman’s eyes and saw genuine
concern. So she told her what she wanted to know. They discussed how she was
feeling and her level of pain while the nurse changed her bandages.

Ten minutes later a man and a woman entered and asked
the nurse to free Carmilla’s hands. Once this was done the nurse wished her
patient well and left the room.

“My name is Rachel Howard,” began the woman who had
just arrived. “I’m a neuroscience professor at Harvard.” She gestured to the
man beside her. “And this is an associate of mine, Kevin Quinn.”

“Okay . . . Rachel. I assume you know that my name is
Carmilla Acosta.”

“We do.”

“The nurse said that you would be able to answer my
questions.”

“That’s correct,” said the woman, one who was almost
surely pretending to be a Harvard professor, although her reasons for doing so were
entirely unclear.

“Then where am I? Why am I here? How am I still
alive?”

“I promise we’ll tell you everything,” said the woman,
Rachel. “But this will take a while. The situation is somewhat complicated. And
there is a lot you don’t know.”

“Like what?”

“Like
everything
,”
said the man named Quinn.

“We can tell you that you’ve been unconscious for over
fifteen hours,” said Rachel. “It was touch and go there for a while, but you’re
going to be fine. At least physically. How are you feeling emotionally?”

Carmilla suddenly understood why the young nurse
wouldn’t leave her until these two had arrived, and why her hands had been immobilized.
The nurse had been on suicide watch. For obvious reasons.

“I honestly have never felt more miserable,” she
replied. “The greatest sense of loss and despair I’ve ever experienced. But I
don’t think I’m suicidal anymore.”

Rachel blew out a relieved breath. “That’s
 
good to hear. We’ve given you pain killers, along
with a cocktail of antidepressants and other pharmacological agents I put together
that I thought might at least take the edge off.”

“At least tell me how I’m alive. How did I survive a
train collision?”

“Because you weren’t in one,” said Rachel. “Your
injuries are from a car collision. Kevin here had been following you. When your
intention became clear he closed the distance between the two of you and rammed
you off the tracks with his own car. You have him to thank for saving your
life.”

“Or to blame,” said Carmilla, not sure yet if she
meant this or not. “It all depends on your perspective.” She nodded toward
Quinn. “So how did
you
survive? I
take it your car replaced mine on the tracks.”

Quinn nodded grimly. “Pretty much. I survived because
I was eager to
avoid
the train. The
moment your car was clear of the tracks I dived out of my own. I had so much adrenaline
on board I might have been able to fly out. I made it clear in
plenty
of time,” he added wryly. “You
know, with as much as a second, maybe even two, to spare. I only wish someone
had caught it on video.”

“We’ll tell you the rest,” said Rachel, “but before we
do, we need to know everything about your experiences. First, do you recognize
this man?” she asked, manipulating her phone to project a 3-D image at
Carmilla’s eye level.

“
Dmitri!
”
she whispered, shrinking back.

Several tears began to slide down her face as though a
light switch had been thrown.
 

Her two visitors exchanged meaningful glances.

“Can you tell me where he is?” said Quinn gently,
trying to hide his eagerness.

“He was at my home three or four hours before you
rammed me on the tracks. I have no idea where he is now.”

“So you know that his first name is Dmitri,” noted
Quinn. “Do you know his last?”

“Carston.”

Quinn nodded. “Interesting,” he said. “His real last
name is Kovonov. Dmitri Kovonov.”

“Why would he lie to me about his name?”

“I need you to tell us everything you know about him,”
said Quinn, ignoring her question. “And every experience you’ve had with him
—
or at least
think
you’ve had.”

“
Think
I’ve
had? What is
that
supposed to mean?”

Quinn ignored her yet again. “Please. Dr. Acosta. You
can’t imagine how important this is. I promise everything will be made clear to
you. Very soon. Tell me about him.”

Why not? thought Carmilla. Who cared at this point?
She had kept her emotions bottled up for so long, afraid to tell anyone about Dmitri
because she was still married, and because she had promised him she wouldn’t
breathe a word to anyone.

So she told them. She detailed her entire two-year
association with Dmitri. No audience had ever been more attentive, or had hung
on her every word more completely. On occasion they exchanged knowing or
worried glances, but they didn’t interrupt.

She finished by sharing the brutal
manner in which Dmitri had ended things, how he had turned into such a monster that
she had become so distraught, so drained of hope, that killing herself had
become her only escape, shedding additional tears as she did so.

“Thank you,” said Rachel softly
when her story had ended.

Quinn nodded his thanks as well.

“I know that couldn’t have been
easy to tell,” said Rachel. She paused for several seconds. “And what I’m about
to tell you won’t be easy for you to hear. But you need to know who this Dmitri
Kovonov really is, and what he’s been up to.”

For the next thirty minutes, Rachel
Howard spun a tale that was beyond belief. A tale of Dmitri being an
accomplished neuroscientist who had perfecting Matrix Learning, who had used it
on himself and others, and who had then perverted it into a method of tampering
with minds by injecting victims with billions of nanites that took up residence
within their brains. A tale of a man who had gone insane, and who was now wanted
by multiple governments for crimes he had already committed and to prevent
those he was certain to commit in the future.

It was utterly preposterous. All of
it.

Except that it was also clear that
this Rachel was a brilliant scientist. Her answers to Carmilla’s questions
displayed a level of expertise that was staggering, that could not be faked,
especially since she had considerable knowledge of Carmilla’s own field. They
had also allowed her to Google
Rachel
Howard
on a tablet. Sure enough, the image of the woman speaking to her
came up on Harvard’s neuroscience faculty page along with articles in
scientific journals describing her as likely the most accomplished
neuroscientist of the age.

“So do you believe us?” said Rachel
when they had finished.

“I’m not sure,” said Carmilla
honestly. “I believe that
you
believe
it. But let’s say I do. What then? Are you suggesting that this Dmitri Komo . .
.”

“Kovonov.”

“Right. That this Dmitri Kovonov
implanted false memories in my mind?”

“I’m not suggesting it,” said
Rachel. “I’m stating it as a fact. For all but the last month of the time you
think you’ve known him, he was never even in America, let alone Princeton. So all
of your memories of him prior to this time must have been implanted, and quite
recently.”

Carmilla struggled to grasp what
Rachel was saying. How could this be so? Her memories of their meetings were
crystal clear. “I’ve loved this man for almost two years,” she said. “Now
you’re telling me I never even
met
him until this month.” She shook her head. “It just can’t be true.”
 

“I know how you feel,” said Quinn
grimly. “I know better than anyone.”

For the next ten minutes he
described his own experiences. He told her how Dmitri had programmed his memory
so he would be desperate to kill the president. She had gasped when she
realized she did recognize his face. He was the Secret Service agent she had
seen on TV who had tried to kill Matthew Davinroy and who had later died in an
accident in a Cincinnati suburb called Finneytown.

When Quinn had finished describing
his ordeal and his own realization that his memories were not his own, Carmilla
was too stunned to speak. She broke eye contact and turned toward the IV tubing
in thought, as though mesmerized by the steady flow of fluid still entering her
arm. Both of her visitors waited patiently for her to come to grips with what
had happened to her.

“So what
is
real?” she said finally. “If he can do this, how can I know
anything
is real? How can I know I’m
actually having this conversation?”

“You can’t, I’m afraid,” said
Quinn. “As you probably know, Descartes wrestled with this same problem, before
anyone with Kovonov’s capabilities was around. He concluded the
only
thing one could be certain of was
one’s own existence.”

Carmilla nodded, but this was
something she hadn’t known. She was well-versed in all aspects of molecular
biology but remembered almost nothing from her philosophy class.

“But for the sake of your sanity,”
continued Quinn, “I’d encourage you to accept everything you experience or
remember as real. All except the memories you have of Kovonov that date back
prior to a month or so ago, which we’re certain never happened.”

Carmilla considered this as she gingerly
adjusted her position on the hospital bed.

Rachel gazed at her with palpable
concern. “You told us you were drawn to Dmitri at first because your husband
was unfaithful,” she said softly. “But I suspect this isn’t true. I suspect you
just have a memory of catching him with another woman. A false one. Think hard
about when this happened.
How
it
happened. Is there texture? Does any of it make sense in a broader framework?”

As Carmilla replayed these events
out in her mind and really focused on the logic, it all began to break down.
How could she have gone almost two years without ever confronting Miguel? There
were other memories she should have had, that should have arisen as she decided
what to do about his infidelity. But it was all a house of cards, a western
town built on the lot of a Hollywood studio. Seen from the front it fooled the
eye beautifully, but peek even a millimeter behind the facade and there was
nothing there at all.

She hadn’t been certain this was
really possible until this exercise. But now she was a true believer. Poor
Miguel. She had treated him so badly recently, and he had never deserved any of
it.

Quinn could tell she was now fully
on board. “Lack of texture is the key, isn’t it?” he said. “I was certain I had
a pregnant wife. Until I realized I didn’t have any memories of the wedding, of
the pregnancy—of anything. It’s a jarring realization.”

“Yes it is,” said Carmilla.

“So Kovonov manipulated your wiring
so you thought you were in love with him,” said Rachel. “Which means you
were
in love with him. Unfortunately,
you still are. He modified the connections in your brain, your memories, your
brain’s reward system. And he probably did actually sleep with you and interact
for real during the last month to bolster the artificial implanting.”

As horrified as Carmilla was by
this intellectually, the thought of sex with Dmitri began to arouse her against
her will.

“I can soften what he did to you
with drugs,” continued Rachel, “but I can’t reverse it. The brain is plastic
and reshapes itself. So even though the nanites trigger neuronal pathways
artificially, once they’ve been triggered they strengthen connections and build
new ones. And these can’t be so easily undone, although they will fade through
time and inattention. I’m also confident that as I get a better and better handle
on the technology I’ll find ways to at least weaken them. Hopefully, knowing
these feelings for Kovonov aren’t real can aid you in your recovery, along with
copious feel-better drugs. But I really don’t know.”