Memoria (41 page)

"Dad," Maggie knelt next to him and touched his face
,
black and blue
from a
beating, "Dad, can you hear me? It's me, your teddy bear. Wake up, Dad
...
"

Frank peered at the monitors trying to work out their readings and purpose.
On one, shiny
green
graphs rose and fell showing his heart activity.
Figures appeared in its right upper corner.
They
appeared
to
reflect
heart performance.

Franks studi
ed the other monitors. He hadn't a
clue what all those colored
diagrams and readings were supposed to mean. He needed Bow or one of the techs. Frank glanced at the door. Maggie rose and pressed a button on one of the monitors. It went out.

"Are you mad?" Frank recoiled. "What if-"

"Nothing's gonna happen,'" Maggie said, her voice dry and detached.

"But-"

"
I've turned
the bio
current off." She pointed at
another
monitor. "Look at the neurons activity graph. It's moving up."

Frank stared at the rising gr
aph. "How the hell do you know
?"

Maggie turned her emotionless face to him, her eyes vacant.
She blinked, as if coming to.

"What's wrong with me?" She touched her forehead, her fingers tracing her temple. "It just came up
...
I've no idea how
...
What was that button?" She looked up at the monitors looking for it. "What have I done?"

"You said you'd turned off the biocurrent. I didn't see which button but this mo
nitor went off
when you did it," he pointed. "
Then you kind
of came out of it."

"Frank," she started to shake, "Frank, I'm scared. I must have hurt Dad! Frank, I don't remember
what I was doing! What's wrong with me, Frank?"

He took her by the hand and led her to the door looking into her face
and trying to guess what could have happened.

"Do you remember what they were doing to you in that room?"

She shook her head. Frank stared at the wall trying
to remember the conversation between
Claney
,
Dickens
and Bow.

"They wanted to submi
t us to
a
personality correction." Slowly, he turned back to her. "He said you'd
undergone
t
he first phase and they were no
w prepping you for the second one.
Then I came and knocked the techs out
...
"

Frank looked
into the girl's eyes filled wi
th fear.

"They wanted to set us up.
Claney
and the others, I mean. They wanted to install new memories after the personality correction.
Their story is, we tried to sabotage the Vaccination.
It's already in force. Millions
are about to enroll.
Claney
ta
rgets them
...
and the migrants.
"

Frank
paused
,
musing over
Claney
's every word.

"
Claney
doesn't have the tape. It's still in the camp. But
he
...
"

Frank stopped. Blood pounded in his temples.
The back of his head echoed with
a dull ache. The p
ainkillers must have stopped working.

"
Claney
told Bow to forge a new tape," he said.
"The three of us
—
you, me and
Barney
—
were supposed to
give ourselves up and confess to
the crimes we hadn't committed.
To make it more convincing, we'd have the tape which would show how we'd doctored the mnemocapsule vaccine
."

"What are you talking about?" Maggie's eyes widened. "I don't understand."

"Don't worry. It's not good for you. We'll take
Barney
and get the hell out of here.
Now try to remember which button we should press to wake him up."

"I can't!" Maggie clenched her fists in desperation. "I don't remember!"

She stomped her foot. At that moment,
a
loud snorting came from behind her. Her eyes opened wider. Frank turned around.

Barney
sat up on the bed
dangling his feet. His glazed stare fixed on his daughter.

"Jeez," Frank said.

"I am the one who helped you,"
Barney
moved his bloodied lips.
He pointed his fat finger at Maggie. "You are the one who changed the program."

He looked at Frank. "You are the one who killed Kathleen Baker."

"H
e
is the one who killed Kathleen B
aker,"
Claney
looked into the Mayor's little pig eyes. "Then six hours ago he massacred the camp leaders. Anna
Gautier
is dead.
Even before that, Shelby coerced another Memoria worker, Maggie
Douggan
, into cooperation. Her father
Barney
Douggan
and his friend
Max
—
both former special-force
types
—
are responsible for the Manhattan shootout. Then they helped Shelby to get inside Memoria's building in order to kill the President.
We have casualties among security staff and secret service
agents
.
"

The Mayor tapped his fingers on the de
sk. He jerked his chin
and looked up at
Claney
.
"And you want me to present it as the official version of events?"

"Exactly,"
Claney
rose and headed for the exit.

"But this doesn't agree with the already-"

"Yes it does!"
Claney
swung round. "Don't forget to let the nation know that Captain Jessup was a
panic
monger and a double agent. Let the world know the truth about him."

"But isn't there supposed to be an official investigation first? I'm not an Attorney General. I can't-"

"You can, and you will,"
Claney
lowered his head
. Hi
s icy stare pierced the Mayor. "
Or you might regret you got involved with the project."

The Mayor shrank, his eyes on the Congressman. Cold sweat
ran down his fat face. He nodded vigorously.

"Try not to leave your office until it's over,"
Claney
added. "I might need you again."

He walked out into the reception, glanced at his watch and hurried to the elevator, accompanied
by his secretary and bodyguard. Both were bald, just like
Claney
himself.

When
Claney
reached the ground floor, his secretary's phone rang.

"Who is it?"
Claney
reached for the phone.

"
Dickens
,
" the secretary whispered placing the
mobile into his hand.

"Speaking. They what?"
Claney
froze. "You-" The words stuck in his throat. He pulled at his tie, loosening up the knot. "You-" He regained his voice and yelled, "Start now! Don't you dare let them go!"

* * *

"Don't you dare let them go!"
Kirk
Dickens
barked into the microphone
in his sleeve and ran down a wide gray hallway
to
ward
the stairs. Beyond them, lay the roof of Memoria's HQ. "
Seal off the elevators and the exits in the building!
Block off all levels!"

He sent the reserve group downstairs and
lunged
to the narrow
doorway
.
P
ress
ing
his bracelet to the scanner
lock
, he
pushed the door open.

It felt as if he'd crashed into a RV vehicle at full speed. A
sledgehammer
punch stopped him in his tracks.
Dickens
almost heard the Kevlar plates of his bulletproof vest crack under his shirt.

For a moment, his heart and his breathing stopped
.
He was hurled back
ward
,
b
lood
seeping
out of his mouth
.
Paralyzed by the
pain in his chest, he tried
to scramble back to his feet
when a huge human shape
loomed out of
the dark behind the doorway. A lamp light fell onto a
broken nose and a
broad
face
disfigured by torture.
Barney
Douggan
.

"You-"
Dickens
gasped.
The only way the outlaws could get to the roof before them was by using the VIP elevator. The only person who had the key to it was William Bow.
He'd always kept it on a silver chain on his neck.

Dickens
didn't have time to give orders.
Barney
lunged forward, about to stomp on his stomach.
A floor tile
crashed with a
clatter
as
Barney
's foot rammed into the floor.
Dickens
rolled off, pulling the gun out of
its
holster.
Before he could shoot, his hand
was squashed in a vice-like gri
p.
Dickens
cried out as his fingers snapped
. His
gun
smash
ed against the wall
.

Dickens
managed to half-rise and
jerked his head to escape another
heavy punch
.
He attemp
ted an upper
cut but failed to keep his balance, dra
gged
to the floor in
Barney
's bear hug
. The radio on his belt b
l
eeped and stopped, smashed against the tiles.

Dickens
stuck his
remaining
good fingers into
Barney
's face going for his eyes
, but missed and hit his nose instead.
Barney
growled like a wounded bear. His arm shot up
to slam
Dickens
in the face. Once again,
Dickens
jerked his head aside
and
Barney
's palm brushed his face, his nails grazing
Dickens'
cheek. Immediately,
Dickens'
return
punch to
Barney
's
throat
made
the boxer
wheeze and
let go of his prey.
Dickens
managed to retrieve his wounded hand
; he rolled away and got back
to his feet.

The gun lay between
Barney
and himself, and the boxer had much better chances of getting to it in time.

Snort
ing heavily through his broken nose,
Barney
rose to one knee
and looked up at
Dickens
.
In the lamplight, t
he remaining eye glistened in his bloodied face smashed
to pulp
. He reached out to grasp the gun.

"Total control,"
Dickens
forced
out
the trigger command
as
loud
as he could
.

Barney
froze. His stare glazed
over
.

"Up,"
Dickens
ordered.