Game Changer (24 page)

It seemed to Rachel that Wortzman was about to say more but
had stopped himself. She suspected he was going to remind the president that
Kovonov also had intimate knowledge of how the US conducted manhunts, which
made it easier for him to elude them, but had decided not to pick at this sensitive
scab yet again.

Ori Kish cleared his throat and all eyes turned in his
direction. “I think we should stop here for now. We’ve now disclosed what we
came to disclose. So I wanted to make a proposal.”

Everyone around the virtual table gave him their undivided
attention.

“We’re prepared to give you everything we have on the fly
drone technology. Full specs. No need spending years reverse engineering any
drones you find.”

“And in exchange?” said Davinroy.

“First, you agree to institute extraordinary measures to
keep this technology closely held and secret so we can both benefit from it as
long as possible.”

“Again,” spat Davinroy, shaking his head, “do you really
have the balls to sit there and lecture
us
?”

“Yes, I get the irony,” said the Israeli Prime Minister. “We’ve
been breached. But we have to operate under the assumption we’ll take out
Kovonov and return to full stealth mode.”

“Go on,” said the president.

“We’ll be giving you at least four major breakthroughs. Nano-scale
computer chips and electronics, miniaturized and advanced sensors, miniaturized
and more efficient energy systems, and advances in flight mechanics. You agree
to let us file patents when our governments decide—jointly—to go public with these
advances, to the benefit of the Israeli economy.”

Davinroy rubbed his chin in thought. “Since these were your
inventions, we wouldn’t have a claim anyway. Go on.”

“You rush to build your own factory, so between us we’ll
have two. Again, we’ll give you the exact specifications. Most importantly, you
help us find the Russian. But we need you to agree to pull out all the stops.
We want this to be a very, very, very high priority for you.” Kish paused.
“Have I used enough verys to get my point across?”

“Believe me,” said Henry, “we understand how dangerous it is
to have Kovonov on the loose.”

“Good,” said Ori Kish.

“Not to interrupt the prime minister,” said Wortzman, “but
it’s vital I make it clear that if your side does find him, this is to be a
kill on sight
mission. Kovonov pulled
off some real magic when he made his move against us, and he’s proven more
clever and dangerous than any man we’ve ever hunted. So there is no capture—only
elimination.”
 

Rachel found it interesting that the prime minister had outlined
every other term of his proposal, but it had fallen to Wortzman to insist that
Kovonov be assassinated. Wortzman’s delivery of this requirement must have been
planned ahead of time so Kish wouldn’t have to sully himself.
 

“One last thing,” said the prime minister, retaking the
stage. “We propose placing our man Regev in charge of a joint US-Israel op
aimed at stopping whoever is behind the false memory implantation. We’ll get a
bigger task force together, but for now we believe it’s critical that Rachel
Howard be part of our efforts. As we’ve said, that was what Regev was doing in
the States. We’re convinced she’s our best hope of discovering how these false
memories were implanted and developing detection methods and countermeasures. Provided
she’s willing, we’re prepared to accommodate her however she would like, at
whatever compensation she would like. Given her stature, I’m sure Harvard would
be willing to let her go on a year sabbatical, beginning yesterday, as long as
they think they’ll get her back.”

Rachel still couldn’t fully assimilate the magnitude of this
meeting, of these people, but no one could ever have convinced her that she
might one day be part of a proposal made by the Prime Minister of Israel to the
President of the United States. She couldn’t quite get it to sink in that these
powerful men were deciding her future. If she was willing.

“Is that everything?” said the president.

“Oh, sorry,” said Kish. “Not quite. We’d also like you to
assign Kevin Quinn to this effort. He’s already in place, he has an extremely personal
interest in this matter, and Agent Regev tells me he’s as good as it gets.”

Davinroy waited for several seconds to make sure Kish was
really finished this time. “You’re asking an awful lot in exchange for sharing technology
we’ll be able to crack on our own,” he said in disgust. “And tech you should
have given us anyway. Or do I need to remind you of what we give to you?”

“We’ve already been through this,” said Kish. “I could
remind you of what you get in return.”

“With all due respect, Mr. President,” said Wortzman,
jumping in to help defray the growing tension, “we spent a decade on this fly
drone tech, getting out the, ah . . .
bugs
.
And there are tricks that reverse engineering won’t teach you. You might crack
this on your own, but it really will take years.”

“Look,” added Kish, “we aren’t asking anything that isn’t in
your own best interest, that we wouldn’t expect you to
want
to do in the first place. These were our problems. But you
know that they’re now yours as well.” He paused. “And I’m sure you don’t need
to be reminded again, Mr. President, that whoever is behind the memory
implantation seems to be gunning for
you
.”

The president’s demeanor remained ice-cold. “I believe we
understand your proposal, Prime Minister Kish,” he said. “I’m going to have my
side temporarily sign off so we can discuss this privately. I’ll have my answer
for you when we return.”

37

The massive virtual conference table collapsed once again
into Eyal Regev’s small square table and Rachel and her two companions were now
alone with their thoughts. The call had been even more remarkable than she had
expected. This time
she
had been the
fly on the wall when some seriously historical discussions were taking place.

“What do you think, Kevin?” she said. “Will the president
agree?”

Quinn nodded. “Absolutely,” he said, not caring that Regev
was privy to his analysis. “He’s just pissed off at the entire situation and
doesn’t want to seem to be caving too easily. But don’t let him fool you, he’d give
Israel the state of
Texas
to get such
game-changing technology. And the prime minister was right, he’s only asking
the US to do what it should want to be doing anyway, for its own best interests.”

Rachel considered. “If the Mossad is so legendary,” she
said, this time directing her question at Regev, “why do you need our help with
Kovonov?”

The Israeli laughed. “Are you kidding? The resources America
can bring to bear on something like this are staggering. The Mossad is a
miracle of efficiency and cleverness. But if we’re the best bantamweight fighter
who ever lived, the US is a dozen heavyweight fighters in one.”

They continued discussing what they had just witnessed for
about twenty minutes, when the president signaled that his party was ready to
return to the meeting. When everyone reappeared around the virtual table,
President Davinroy wasted no time getting to the point.

“Prime Minister,” he began with a look of contempt, “I want
to make it clear that I’m outraged by the actions you’ve taken. And I have to
assume your country has spied on me and my government over many years. This is
something I will not forget, and something we need to address further.”

Davinroy paused for effect. “But given the position your mistakes
have put us in, and in the interest of our two countries, I am forced to agree
to your proposal.”

Kish was clearly chomping at the bit to respond to
Davinroy’s barbs, but visibly stopped himself. “Good,” he said, managing to
keep any anger from his voice. “I think this is the wisest course of action.”

“I assume you have this proposal in writing?” said Davinroy.

“We’ll have a version for you and your team to consider in a
few hours. It will mostly outline the broad principles of our understanding. A
battle plan that will leave ample room for the heads of the various initiatives
to react with maximum flexibility to changing conditions on the ground. My hope
is that we can incorporate any changes you have and arrive at a finished
product by the end of the week.

“In the meanwhile,” continued the prime minister, “if you
could begin deciding what resources you intend to apply to the Kovonov manhunt,
and putting together a fly drone team, we’ll have our scientists ready to fly
out and smooth the technology transfer over the next several months.”

“That is acceptable,” said the president.

“There is one last issue we need to resolve,” said Henry.
“What to do about Kevin Quinn.”

“Sir?” said Quinn in surprise. “In case it wasn’t clear, I’m
eager to be assigned to Regev’s operation. As the prime minister said, I
couldn’t have a more personal interest.”

“I’m well aware,” said the head of DHS. “But that isn’t the issue.”
He turned to face Coffey. “Cris, could you jump in here?”

Coffey frowned, and it was clear from his demeanor that he
had been elected to be the bearer of bad news. “The issue,” he said, “is that
you’re the most wanted man in America. Not only is half the law enforcement in
this country actively hunting you, but your face is now widely known.”

Quinn looked confused. “I had assumed you’d just call off
the manhunt and clear my name,” he said. “With the president’s help.”

“We discussed this just now,” said Coffey. “And it isn’t
that easy. Too many people saw you try to kill the president. Too many people
heard what you accused him of. So we’d have to go public with memory tampering.
It’s the only way you could be seen as completely innocent. Even if you turned
yourself in and claimed temporary insanity, you’d be tied up in the courts and
with psychiatrists for ages, with no guarantee you’d go free at the end of it.”

“Okay, so we’ll have to go public with what happened, like
you said,” replied Quinn, who suddenly had a very bad feeling about this.

Coffey shook his head. “I’m
afraid we can’t do that. The public will think it’s bullshit unless the
government convinces everyone that it’s true. But do we really want to raise
this specter? Do we really want people to worry that false memories can be
implanted into their own minds, or the minds of others around them? Even if we
forget the anxiety this will cause, the day after it’s disclosed lawyers for
every criminal in the country will have a new defense strategy. Their poor clients
were manipulated into their crimes by heinous false memories. And at the
moment, there is no way to prove they weren’t.”

Rachel nodded appreciatively.
While the news couldn’t have been worse for Kevin, Coffey was absolutely
correct. Even without memory implantation, advances in neuroscience were
bringing a number of legal issues to the fore. And these would only get thornier
the more the inner workings of the human brain were decoded.

The legal system in the West was
based on free will, on blameworthiness. If a man intentionally drove off the
road to hit and kill an innocent pedestrian, he’d rot in jail. But what if he
drove off the road and killed an innocent pedestrian because he was in the
throes of a heart attack? What if he blacked out and lost control of the
vehicle? Should he still go to jail?

Of course not. Because it wasn’t
his
fault
. The first driver killed on
purpose. He exercised free will and made a
choice
.
The second driver had no free will. It was an accident.

But what if the first driver was
later found to have a tumor like that of Charles Whitman? Perhaps he didn’t
have as much choice as it might have seemed.

The more science discovered
biological drivers behind certain actions, the more the definition of
blameworthiness might change. Not that criminals shouldn’t be found guilty and incarcerated
in most cases. But this did introduce new and fascinating ethical and legal
vistas for consideration.

Rachel could see in Quinn’s face
he agreed with Coffey’s points. Convincing the population that their inner
sanctums, and those of people they trusted, might be open to tampering would be
a disaster. At least until such tampering could be detected. She had pondered
these scenarios more than anyone but had failed to consider the future of her
new friend in this context.

“So what do you propose to do?”
said Quinn. “Feed me to the wolves?”

Coffey shifted in his seat uneasily.
“There is really only one workable solution,” he said. “And you’re not going to
like it. Although compared to the wolf thing . . .” he finished, leaving the
thought hanging.

“I have to die, don’t I?” said
Quinn, as the solution suddenly became clear.

“I’m afraid so. And soon. It’s
the only way to take you completely off the grid. What do you say?”

“I’m in, of course. Everything
you said is correct. I have no other choice.”

“Good. I’ll take responsibility
for staging it. I have some Black Ops folks I’ve worked with previously who can
help. It’ll have to be a fire, naturally. We’ll make sure
our
doctors are called in, so we don’t have to worry about a
perfect dental and skeletal match.”

“Where will you find the skeleton?”
asked Quinn.

“We’ll figure something out,”
replied Coffey, and then with a grin added, “assuming they don’t have them at
Amazon. You know, for one-hour delivery.”

Quinn couldn’t help but smile.

“Here’s what we’d like you to do,
Kevin,” said his former boss. “Sit tight where you are and check the news
periodically. We’ll try to make this happen very soon. When your death has been
reported to every corner of the globe you’re free to join Eyal Regev to find the
jackass responsible for what happened to you.”

“Now
that
is something I’m looking forward to,” said Quinn, his
expression darkening. “And when I do find him, he’s going to wish like hell
he’d killed me when he had the chance.”