Game Changer (28 page)

44

In
Quinn’s opinion, Regev had done a thorough and unflinching job of telling them
the hideous truth. He was sure the Israeli wasn’t withholding anything on
purpose, but had just forgotten that he still knew things that they didn’t.

“What
am I missing?” said Regev, genuinely confused.

“Current
events,” replied Quinn. “How did I get involved? Why does Kovonov want to kill
Rachel?”

“Right,”
said Regev, looking a little embarrassed to have left this off. “There is that.”

He
paused to gather his thoughts. “With respect to you, Kevin, we had heard rumors
that Kovonov had managed a less invasive technique for messing with people’s
minds. Given your case this must be true. A cause for even more alarm. We believe
that you are one of his first attempts at implanting false memories. One of his
first guinea pigs.”

“But
why? Why me?”

“When
I spoke with Wortzman earlier he had some compelling analysis on this, which
makes a lot more sense than I would have guessed. First, Kovonov despises your
president. Many in Israel aren’t big fans. You aren’t aware of Davinroy’s
interactions with Kish behind the scenes. Even though your president portrays
himself as a true friend of Israel, he is not. In many ways the opposite.”

“Actually,
I am aware,” said Quinn. “He sees the drive for a global caliphate as a
ravenous beast and wants to placate it in the hope of keeping it calm. Proving
he has no clue about its nature. How he can possibly believe it can be reasoned
with or appeased is beyond me.”

 
“Which is why Kovonov would love to see him
dead. And while Kovonov may be insane, we believe he remains fiercely loyal to
Israel. Which brings us to you.”

Regev
paused. “Wortzman reminded me that you’re known to the Mossad as well, for more
than your recent attempt on Davinroy’s life. You were also the agent who saved the
president of Syria a few years back, weren’t you?”

Quinn
gritted his teeth. “I was,” he said bitterly, the mixed emotions he felt over
this action not having diminished with time.

Rachel
turned to him in surprise. “That was
you
?”
she said.

Quinn
nodded. His identity as the man who had saved Zahir was never disclosed, but
the controversy of the Syrian president’s visit to the US was well known, as
was the fact that he had been saved by a Secret Service agent who many in
America believed shouldn’t have done so.

“The
assassination attempt on
Zahir
was
our
op,” continued the Israeli,
addressing Quinn once again. “It was disguised so it couldn’t be traced back to
us, but it was ours. One of the few that failed. After the fact, Mossad made it
our business to hack into your file. We learned that it wasn’t our incompetence
that caused the failure, but your proficiency. We learned that you were very
good at what you did.”

 
Regev pursed his lips, remembering. “Our
decision to mount the op in the first place was highly contentious. Almost as
many were against it as were for it. All agreed Zahir was a monster. But
history has shown that the removal of a monster in our part of the world can
lead to even worse outcomes.”

“How
has it come to this?” mused Rachel. “When did keeping a genocidal mass murderer
in place become the
best
outcome we
can conceive of?”
 

“When
hordes of people passionately believe their god has called on them to destroy
the world,” replied Regev. “When this happens, rational options go by the
wayside. I was in the camp who opposed the assassination attempt,” he added,
nodding at Quinn. “Those of us in this camp believe we owe you a debt of
gratitude for stopping it. Others in my country will never forgive you.”

“Let
me go out on a limb here,” said Quinn dryly, “and guess which camp Kovonov is
in.”

Regev
smiled. “Let’s just say that you aren’t his favorite Secret Service agent.”

“We
had the same two factions in the US when it came to Zahir,” said Quinn. “About
half would have seen me as a hero, and half a villain. To avoid backlash from this
second half, we decided to keep my name out of it.”

“Good
choice,” said Regev. “Did you also believe that removing Zahir would have made
things worse in the region?”

“To
be honest, I wasn’t sure. I was only certain of one thing: I had agreed to do
my best to protect him. So I did.”

Regev
nodded. “I admire that, I really do. But getting back to current events, Kovonov
must have figured that by turning you into the instrument of Davinroy’s death,
he got to kill two hated birds with one stone. And what a great experimental test
of his capabilities, both the memory implantation and his new less-invasive
technique.”

“It’s
hard to imagine I’m the first person he used this on,” said Quinn.

“We
aren’t sure,” said Regev. “But you were
among
the first, that much is clear. And you would have been the sternest test of his
capabilities. You’re a highly trained agent. Smart. Confident. Strong-willed. So
he programmed you with memories that were so far-fetched, so improbable, that
if the procedure wasn’t absolutely flawless it would never work.”

“He
definitely didn’t shy away from extreme field conditions,” said Rachel, almost
approvingly.

“No
he didn’t,” agreed Regev. “And don’t forget that Kevin had also sworn to
protect the president with his life. So Kovonov’s tampering had to be powerful
enough to overcome even this. To transform Kevin from a protector to a killer using
false memories that Kevin should have found absurd.”

“His
technology worked like a charm,” said Quinn, disgusted with himself for not
being stronger, not being smarter. “Except that Davinroy got lucky. I failed. As
it turned out,
I
got lucky, although
that’s not what I thought at the time.”

He
paused. “So why did Kovonov come after me later?”

“As
you discovered, he had a fly drone watching his weapon
—
you
—
in
action. He must have been furious when he saw you fail. On the other hand, I’m
sure he was thrilled when you accused Davinroy of the exact atrocities he had
implanted in your mind. Regardless, he expected you’d be caught or killed afterward.
When you escaped, this opened attractive possibilities.”

“Like
what?” asked Quinn.

“Like
obtaining additional data,” said Rachel, answering for the Israeli. “Irresistible
to the scientist in him. I’d be just as eager to get my hands on you.”

“If
you were ruthless and psychotic, you mean?” said Quinn.

Rachel
allowed herself a smile. “Of course,” she replied. “But Kovonov must have been
eager to interview you about what you remembered
—
or
thought you did. Before you escaped from his men you never guessed these
memories were false. He could find out what percentage of his implanted
memories took, how cleanly, how well connected to your rage centers, and so on.
Then he could put you in an MRI. After that he’d probably . . .”

Rachel
trailed off and Quinn realized she had no plans to finish the thought. “He’d
probably what?” he prompted.

“Well,
given his disregard for life, he’d probably, you know . . . dissect your
brain.”

Quinn
raised his eyebrows. “Then all things considered,” he said, “I’m glad I
escaped. You know, as fun as brain dissection sounds.”

Rachel
laughed.

Quinn
faced the Israeli once more. “But if I wasn’t the first subject,” he pressed,
“couldn’t he have done these experiments on someone else?”

“All
of this is guesswork,” said Regev, “but I suspect he needed any others he was
manipulating alive. You were expendable. And he really, really isn’t a fan. In
his condition, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was looking forward to torturing
you to death
—
very slowly. You know,
before he removed your brain for further study.”

Quinn
shuddered. “Have I mentioned I’m glad I escaped?”

Regev
nodded.

“Good,”
said Quinn. He paused in thought. “Okay, this explains me. But what about Rachel?
Why would Kovonov try to kill the scientist he worshiped?”

“We
can’t be sure,” replied Regev, “but we think he guessed how badly we wanted
her.”

“But
she’s his only hope for a cure,” said Quinn.

Rachel
shook her head. “That’s probably the
last
thing he wants. Despite global changes to his personality he’s almost certain
to be quite happy with the new him. Many psychopaths
know
they’re psychopaths, for example, but would never want to be
cured. They see themselves as superior. Unshackled from the ethical bonds that
hold others. It’s likely Kovonov feels the same way.”

Quinn
eyed the Israeli. “So he’s trying to kill her
because
she might cure him?” he said.

“That’s
our guess,” said Regev. “And also because she has the best shot at developing
countermeasures against the neurotech he plans to deploy. But after he went
rogue, we failed to predict Rachel would be on his radar, or that he would make
the effort to eliminate her.”

“No
kidding,” said Quinn. “Which is why you were caught so off guard.”

“You’re
right, of course,” said Regev. “As embarrassing as it is, if you hadn’t been
able to escape from the two mercenaries to warn her
—
and us
—
they
probably would have succeeded.”

 
“You’re welcome,” said Kevin evenly. “I could
sense your gratitude when you tried to kill me.”

“Like
I said, we still thought you might be dangerous to Rachel. Once you proved
otherwise, you became very important. Kovonov might have made a critical
mistake leaving you alive. Rachel might be able to use you to reverse engineer
his new technique.”

Quinn
considered this for several seconds. “Why did you suddenly decide to make the
disclosures you made during our recent vid-meet with Washington?” he asked. “To
have a better chance to recruit Rachel?”

“When
you burst onto the scene we realized Kovonov had improved his neurotech, making
him even more dangerous. As if just having the fly drones wasn’t bad enough. When
I leveled with you
—
partially
—
in
the neighbor’s basement, and disclosed that the fly drones were ours, you
admitted you had sent one to Cris Coffey for analysis. These two new factors
made the decision easy. We would have needed to get the US involved soon,
anyway, but given that the fly drone game was up this was the perfect time.”
  

“And
your execution was flawless,” said Rachel.

Regev
issued a short, self-critical laugh. “Not quite,” he said in disgust. “None of
us had any idea Kovonov had taken an alias, not to mention one representing the
exact number of neurons in an apparently famous
worm
.”

Quinn
looked amused. “We have an expression,
the
worm has turned.
Seems to me you’re living it.”

“If
not for this one flaw,” said Regev with a frown, “it would have worked. Nothing
could have convinced Rachel to join our efforts more than the events of the
past few days, especially seeing living proof of memory implantation and having
the president bless this assignment. She would have joined us in Israel. She would
have come to know and trust the team while we determined the best way to ease
her into the deep end of the pool.”
 

“You
did succeed in enlisting US help in hunting down Kovonov,” noted Quinn. “Given he
has sympathizers in
your
camp, this is
an important step.”

Regev
didn’t respond.

“And
now it’s clear why you insisted Kovonov be killed at first sight,” continued Quinn.
“If he was captured and had the chance to talk, Israel would have some explaining
to do.”

“Having
the US involved in the manhunt is critical,” said the Israeli, “but it only addresses
the symptom
—
and only one of many. Nothing
we achieved is nearly as important as persuading Rachel to join our efforts.”

Regev
turned to the brilliant neuroscientist. “Rachel, you spotted our attempted
deception, but it all would have come out soon anyway. Maybe it’s for the best
it happened this way. When I said I would give my life to protect yours, I
wasn’t being gallant or heroic. I honestly believe that you could help stave
off massive destruction and bloodshed. Prevent the misuse of game-changing
technology that you lecture about. And help prevent my country from tearing
itself to pieces as its leaders go mad.”

Regev
gazed deeply into her eyes. “So what do you say?” he continued. “I’m
begging
you. Not only on behalf of my
country, but on behalf of America and the entire world. This will impact you, I
promise. Your president should already be dead because of Kovonov. And his
grand plans are sure to be massively destructive. Come to Israel with me. We
can share our neurotech advances. Give you time to fully digest the
implications of what is happening. Then you can decide if you’re willing to
help us. Since we need your best work, your
willing
work, we can’t coerce you. If you refuse, you refuse.”