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The voice on the other end of the line sounded tired, almost bored. “Sara, we need to discuss this. We need to get you straightened out. Trust me, you don’t want the cops to find you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen to me Sara, this is very important: You’re a terrorist. You’re a member of the IRA and you have a criminal record going back to elementary school. And now you’re a wanted assassin. Within an hour, the square will be locked down by a hundred cops and a dozen Feds, all looking for you.”

“You’re lying,” Sara said. “I’m a lawyer. I was at work just this morning. I’m not what you say.”

“No, Sara. Everything you believe is false. That life, that person you think you are… she doesn’t exist. The Sara Murphy you’re thinking of is dead. You’ve been living in a dream. The truth is what I have just told you. When the police get your fingerprints and learn your identity, I will no longer be able to help you. Then it will be too late. Come to us and we’ll protect you. We can get you somewhere safe. We can help you understand what’s happening to you.”

“You’re lying,” Sara said again, as if hearing the words would help her to believe.

“Sara, listen to me carefully. Your family is gone. If you don’t come to us, you’ll never see them again.”

That got her attention. “What do you mean? What did you do to them?”

“Don’t worry, they’re safe. But you’re not. This is your only chance. You need to come with us, now. We’re your only hope.”

Sara hung up the phone. The man wasn’t telling the truth. He couldn’t be. Something didn’t make sense, something he’d said. He seemed to be contradicting himself. Or was it just her imagination?
Sara Murphy is dead.

Sara put her fist to her forehead.

“Logic,” she muttered. “You’re a goddamned lawyer, use your head!”

You’ll never see your family again.

Logic is the first thing students learn in law school. Logic can solve any problem. For Sara, it had always been second nature. In Debate, she’d always been able to turn an argument upside down and use it against her competitors like a master. She could do it so quickly and so forcefully that they were left speechless. It wasn’t hard to do. It was simply a matter of analyzing the facts. She could undermine any argument by simply placing emphasis on the flaws in that argument. In some cases, it worked by skirting the subject and undermining related facts upon which the initial argument had been constructed. Sara knew how to do that well. But the logic of her situation was remarkably absent. Nothing could explain what had happened to her.

The man on the phone had known her, had called Sara by name. Was it someone Sara knew? Not necessarily. The man hadn’t disclosed any personal details about Sara’s life other than the fact she had a family. Or
used to
. Everything else had been vague, the sort of things you could learn by watching a person, or by hacking into their computer.

It occurred to her that her identity could have been stolen. This could have been some sort of elaborate scheme to… to what?

She put a hand to her forehead. She needed help. She needed to call the cops. No, she couldn’t do that. Not after being seen on that rooftop. All the evidence pointed right at her. No one would believe her story. Sara couldn’t blame them; she wouldn’t have believed it, either. And what if the man’s words were true? What if they had somehow hacked into the police records and turned her into a wanted criminal, a terrorist? Sara shook her head as if she could shake out the confusion.

Come to us
, the man had said.
We can help you
. Sara wondered how many of them there were. Enough to drug her or knock her unconscious, and carry her to that roof. How many of them could that be? How could they have gotten away with it, in broad daylight no less? And why had they chosen her?

These people had framed her, she realized. The man on the phone was trying to find her now, so he could silence her. If the truth got out, if Sara could somehow prove her innocence…

That was it, of course. That was why they had called. If they got their hands on her, Sara knew they would kill her. They would do anything to make sure the truth never got out.

A thought struck her as Sara gazed up and down the street. They were looking for her, but they didn’t know where she was. They wouldn’t have bothered calling if they had known where she was. That meant her disguise had worked. They were getting desperate. They were trying to trick her into giving away her position.

Sara flinched as her phone began to ring again. She glanced at the screen and saw the name
unknown
appear again. It was him. She silenced the ringer and stared at the phone for a moment. It was then that she realized they could be tracking her using her phone’s GPS. She’d seen enough movies to know it could be done. In fact, it was a selling point when she’d bought the phone.

 “If you ever lose it, we can find it,” the salesman had told her. “And if you run off the road where no one can see you, all we have to do is track your GPS signal. This phone can save your life.”

This phone is going to get me killed,
she realized. Sara dropped the phone on the ground and walked away.

Sara got the Roadrunner and left the parking garage without any trouble. She pulled onto Geary and headed for 101. Traffic was jammed up for blocks. There were police everywhere. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to be looking for her. Not yet anyway. They probably thought she was still hiding somewhere in the department store. Even more reason for her to get out of town as fast as possible.

Sara didn’t spot the big black Suburban trailing her until she turned onto Van Ness. As she rounded the corner, Sara glanced into the rear view mirror looking for cops. That was when the SUV caught her eye. It was four cars back, in the same lane. It was a mean looking vehicle with a suspension lift and big, knobby tires. It had a big steel bumper that looked like a grimacing face.

The SUV stood out because it wasn’t the kind of vehicle that she often saw in San Francisco. There were plenty of SUV’s in the city, but locals mostly drove the smaller kind, the ones that could navigate San Francisco’s narrow roads and steep hills. Finding a place to park a rig like that would have been like getting a root canal. Not to mention trying to drive it in rush hour traffic. Everything about the SUV was suspicious.

Sara gave the Roadrunner some throttle and moved over a lane, then she pulled back. The giant SUV mimicked her actions. She slowed down, allowing a few cars to pass, and the Suburban slowed as well. When Sara turned left and headed towards the Golden Gate Bridge, the Suburban stayed right on her tail. Sara no longer had any doubt. She was being followed.

It wasn’t the police, though. Logic dictated that much. If they were the police, the lights would have already been on. Sara would have been surrounded already. That could only mean one thing: It was
them
. It was the man on the phone. She knew if he caught her, he would kill her.

Sara clenched her jaw and gripped the wheel. She was going to have to outrun them.

Chapter 13

Stryker was concerned. He had spoken to Sara Murphy over the phone, and she hadn’t responded. He’d used the Mourningbird catch phrase, the series of words that were programmed into Sara’s psyche, and she hadn’t even reacted. Until now, the phrase had always worked flawlessly. Every time Sara Murphy heard those words, her dominant personality retreated and her programmed alter ego took control. Only now, for some reason, the programming wasn’t working. Something had happened to Sara Murphy on that roof, and now she was out of control. And she was running. Stryker had never seen that happen.

There was no telling what might happen to Sara now. She might forget the entire incident, or subconsciously fabricate some story to make sense of it all. The worst-case scenario was that she’d remember everything, including the severe treatment she had undergone when the secondary personality was created. If that happened, she might even remember Stryker’s face. Of course, it was impossible to tell how the police might react to such a story. They’d probably lock her up in a psyche ward.

Projects like Mourningbird were inherently safe because of their seeming implausibility to law enforcement. The OSS had worked long and hard -hand in hand with the CIA- to discredit the concepts of post hypnotic suggestion, mind control, and subliminal messaging. The truth was that they all worked. In fact, when done correctly, the results could be downright terrifying.

It was impossible to guess how much damage Sara’s alter ego had sustained. It was entirely possible that her second identity had been destroyed. Stryker had heard of such things happening in extreme situations, but had never witnessed it himself.

Chaz successfully tracked Sara’s cell phone moving through the area, and Stryker followed the directions until he located the phone on the ground on the west side of the square. Sara Murphy was nowhere to be seen. After that, almost ten minutes passed without a word from anyone. Stryker returned to the truck and started pacing again, like a caged lion.

Finally, Konrad’s voice came over the Com: “I’ve found her,” his voice buzzed. “She’s headed north, looks like towards the bridge.”

Stryker smiled. “You just made my Christmas list, Konrad!”

Konrad laughed hollowly. “No need, Stryker. My reward is the privilege of serving my country.”

There was a momentary pause and then he spoke again: “We’re getting close to the bridge. I could take her out but traffic’s pretty heavy. I’m worried about civilians. What do you want me to do?”

“How are you equipped?”

“I have an EMP, if that’s what you mean. No laser, though.”

By EMP, Konrad meant a wireless transmitter that could hammer a vehicle with powerful electro-magnetic pulse waves. The invisible waves could send jolts of electricity through a vehicle’s wiring, thereby destroying the automobile’s computer and permanently disabling it. The only problem with the technology was that it affected a broad area. The EMP wouldn’t only disable Sara’s car, but also everything else in front of the SUV for a quarter mile. The resulting lack of power steering and brakes could be deadly, especially in a crowded suburban scenario.

There was a better EMP system that used a laser to focus the energy to a confined area instead of radio waves, but Konrad didn’t have it. The beauty of the laser system was that it could deliver the same power, but directly to the target alone. Unfortunately, the laser system’s power requirements made it impractical for most urban vehicles.

“All right then,” Stryker said. “Do what you have to.”

A moment passed, and then Stryker heard the sounds of horns and screeching tires. “Goddammit!” Konrad shouted through the COM. “Look out! Look out!”

“Konrad, what’s going on?” Stryker shouted. “Konrad?”

It took a while to get a response. Finally, Konrad’s voice came over the speakers. “We lost her,” he said.

“What the hell happened? I thought you used the EMP!”

“We did! It killed everything in sight, but she’s still going.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Um, excuse me,” said Chaz. Stryker shot him a look of warning. He already didn’t like the green hair. Whatever the kid had to say, it was probably just going to piss him off.

“What is it?” he hissed.

“Murphy’s car, it’s an old muscle car, right?”

Stryker spoke into his headset. “Can you confirm that, Konrad?”

“Yeah, it’s an old one. Looked like a Dodge. A Charger, maybe? Something similar, anyway.”

“It’s a Plymouth Roadrunner,” Lisa said. She had Sara’s file pulled up on her computer. “1968.”

“I thought so,” said Chaz. “Old cars like that, they don’t have an electronic ignition. No computer, no circuit boards. Nothing for the EMP to fry.”

Stryker nodded absently. He should have known that. In fact, as soon as the kid pointed it out, he realized how stupid his mistake was. Early ignition systems were completely different than modern fuel injected vehicles. They used something called “points,” something akin to a motor with brushes. Stryker didn’t know much about the details of it, other than having seen a diagram once. What he should have remembered though, was that a points system was virtually invulnerable to electromagnetic radiation. Konrad’s EMP was completely useless against a car that old.

Stryker put a hand to his forehead. “Next time say something
before
we create a goddamned fifty car pile-up.”

“Sorry, sir.”

Stryker gazed out the window of the truck, and saw the fog rolling over the bay. “She’s going home,” he muttered. “Get into the police mainframe and put out an APB on that car. Get the plate numbers from her file.”

“Problem,” Chaz said. Stryker cringed and began massaging his temples.

“Yes?”

“We’re locked into the SFPD mainframe right now. Doesn’t Sara Murphy live in Mill Valley?”

Stryker raised his head, glanced at the three of them. “You’re right, we’re going to need access to the Mill Valley PD. Can you get into their local network?”

“I can,” said Chaz, “but it’ll take a while.”

“Give me a phone,” said Lisa. “I’ll call in an anonymous tip.”

“Good girl,” said Stryker. He pushed the button on his Com headset. “Everybody else, back to the Warehouse. We’re going to let the police handle this chase.”

Stryker didn’t like that decision but it was the only choice he had left. Because of Konrad’s EMP, northbound traffic was shut down. They’d never catch up with Murphy. They could try to wait her out, but that gave Sara too much opportunity to vanish. Stryker didn’t want that to happen. Sara Murphy was too smart. He had to keep the pressure on, keep her running. Hopefully she’d run right into the police’s hands.

Stryker gazed at the traffic outside the window as the truck began weaving its way down Geary. He thought back over the weeks and tried to figure out what had gone wrong. They had tested Murphy several times, and she had conclusively proven to be their best subject. Her programming had stayed intact and her consciousness moved fluidly from Sara’s personality to her deadly alter ego. Somewhere along the way, something had gone wrong.