Tham Cheng-E - Surrogate Protocol

His natural choice would be Cheok. But he knows it won’t do either of them any good. Raymond would be next in line if he were alive. That leaves only the doctor. But weekly therapy sessions over eight months is hardly sufficient time to know someone. He needs to find out if Dr Peck can be trusted.

“Can we speak in private?” he asks.

Dr Peck looks at him over his writing and then at his assistant. “Casey?”

She lifts her chin and leaves the room without casting another glance at them, closing the door behind her. Dr Peck leans his elbows over the edge of his desk and wisely refrains from speaking. Landon takes another moment to steel himself, propping his arms stiffly against the sides of his chair.

“Those pictures,” he nods at a pastiche of photographs pinned to a board behind the doctor. “Your grandchildren?”

Dr Peck looks over his shoulder. “They live in Perth.”

Landon finds it difficult to meet the doctor’s eyes. “I’m sorry if I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

“Take your time.”

“Do you think someone could live forever?”

Nothing in the doctor’s disposition suggests incredulity. “Biologically?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“There are organisms called planarians,” Dr Peck explains, with the poise of an unbiased academic. “Their ability to regenerate their cells makes them resistant to ageing. There are studies being done on them but we’re still a long way from eliminating human senescence.” His gaze softens as he surveys Landon’s dour visage. “Why do you ask?”

“I think I’ve been living longer than I ought to.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I have memories of a very distant past.”

“So you’re remembering?”

Landon nods.

“How distant?”

“Decades, maybe a century.”

For a moment they study each other and Landon thinks he sees a glint of interest in Dr Peck’s aged eyes. The doctor’s lips part and there is hesitation before he speaks.

“The drug tests came back. You’re clean.”

“Nice to know.”

“There’s another thing.” The doctor lowers his gaze to a document on his desk. “It says here you have azoospermia. In other words,” he says, pulling off his glasses, “you’re sterile.”

The news fails to make a dent. Landon had anticipated worse. “I might have an explanation for it,” he says.

“We should find a better place to talk.”

It isn’t a reply that Landon expects. He watches as Dr Peck consults his schedule on his computer and jots a note in his diary. He then scribbles something on a slip of paper, tears it off and hands it to him. It contains a mobile phone number.

“Give me a call on Friday after five. I’ll arrange to receive you at my home.”

Landon’s heart swells with a flood of warmth. “You don’t think it’s ridiculous?”

Dr Peck hoots in laughter. “Friday. Let’s talk more then.”

It is a regular weekday evening and by eight o’clock the Cantonment Police Complex is dead, the last of its staff having bled out to the subway station. The only detectable movements are the security cameras swivelling on their braces.

John waits another two hours before he makes his move. Behind an electrical panel in a service shaft he closes the circuitry and activates a recurring, 12-minute video clip of an empty office. With that in place he works his way past the lobby and into the Intelligence Department. The card reader responds to his access pass and the glass door opens for him. The unlit office is silent, its air stale without the air-conditioning.

Marco’s desk is located at the far corner of the room. A sudden flicker of a desk lamp sends John edging into a nearby workstation. Between slits in the partitions he sees a tall, studious young man shuffling documents by lamplight and packing them into a leather case, along with an empty plastic water bottle. He is wearing headphones and appears not to have noticed John as he shuts down his computer. He turns off the desk lamp and shuffles across the carpeted floor towards the lobby.

Something white falls from his pocket.

John hears the glass doors roll and the ring of an arriving lift. He creeps out of hiding and passes the workstation. A tag on a low partition reads: Julian Woo, Forensic Executive. Farther down the aisle John picks up what Julian dropped. It’s a lunch receipt, seemingly worthless until he turns it over and finds a single handwritten word.

UNSAFE.

A tingle radiates down John’s back. He drops the note into a shredder and races over to a row of workstations assigned to senior investigation officers, his nerves stretched too taut to consider who this Julian might be. The tag on the one that’s most secluded from the rest of the office reads: Marco Bey, Deputy Director, Field Research (Special Duties).

Despite Julian’s warning, John still sets to work. He flips open a terminal and remotely accesses the CPU of Marco’s computer so it won’t leave any traces of log in. The remote terminal hacks the hard drive and retrieves Marco’s profile by means of a virus that self destructs upon completion of its task. It bypasses the computer’s firewalls in seconds and logs into a secured network. From there he clicks a nine-pixel-large corner of a police emblem and enters a Cloud. Another inconspicuous cluster of pixels inside the frame of a dialogue window brings him to a password-encrypted cache titled “Templog.”

It is one of many CODEX profile repositories, and one to which Marco belongs. John navigates to a folder and browses through a list of names and serial numbers that would make no sense to the untrained eye. He accesses one of them and a mugshot of Landon appears, taken perhaps in the sixties. In a section of text he sees the name Qara Budang Tabunai , as well as a link to the profile of someone named Alpine-One . He clicks on Alpine-One and the borderless screen of the terminal fills up with a monochromatic picture of a beautiful young woman. She is looking into the camera with a pensive, lugubrious smile that John had frequently encountered in suicidal victims.

It is her .

Fear prickles his skin. The recognition is unsettling and ghostly. It’s the same woman at the café, and most recently outside his hotel room. Death had been that close. Inwardly he shudders at the date of the photograph— May 1955 .

His mobile vibrates and he dons an earpiece, and an urgent sounding voice cackles through. “Moonbeam! Tracker dispatched!”

He plugs in a thumbdrive and works as he speaks. “We’re bringing the Chronie in, but I need time to get to you.”

“Tracker is inbound I tell you! They’re going to do him. The residence. Come quick!”

John checks his watch and looks at the download status. “Stick to the protocol; get him out and leave a message the usual way. I’ll get to you as soon as I can.”

The voice replies with something inaudible and the line goes dead.

John unplugs the drive, shuts down his terminal and berates himself for failing to download all the data he is supposed to. Marco’s computer stalls during shutdown. He waits, tapping his fingers impatiently on its cold, steely surface. The CPU indicator light flashes alive as the shutdown resumes. From the lobby he hears the ring of an arriving lift.

He shuffles out of the cubicle and plants himself against the opposite wall, his chest constricting with the familiar grip of panic. The light on Marco’s CPU goes off and a long, slow breath calms him. Good. All he needs now is a good reason for snooping around an hour before midnight. He grabs a stack of files and walks to the glass door. He turns the corner of the wall separating him from the lobby and comes right up to Marco’s little pirate grin.