CHAPTER TWELVE
After meeting Kevin and procuring some handguns so we could be more covert, though we 'could have got them just about anywhere in this country', as John kept pointing out, we proceeded from the airport to Agent 4s first known port of call, the field.
From the timing of the loss of his signal, it seemed that he'd not had time to do anything but drive straight from the car hire office to the field. There was then a worrying gap of about four hours between that and him arriving at the first motel, which was an hours drive at the most. With no time to drive back to Washington and make it to the motel, the options all seemed nonsensical. Had he stayed in the field for three hours or sat in the car? Had he driven straight to the motel then sat in the parking lot for three hours?
Nothing on the drive seemed to jog his memory so we just chatted. It was definitely overkill for all five of us to be on this trip but I think White wanted enough of us there to reassure Arthur. Either that or he still didn't trust his implant for some reason.
This was entirely new territory for all of us. At the time of the operation it was never even considered a possibility that we were creating a bionic man, or that he would ever be anything other than somebody with an artificially supported memory. The Firewire socket was a rather crude necessity, simply a way to access the implant in the future without having to open up his skull again. It was only afterwards that they discovered Arthur could assimilate digital information in an organic way, allowing him to search information from his sticks as he could his own memories and thoughts.
Obviously this had proved massively useful over the years and been made subject to the Official Secrets Act. Even Arthur's wife didn't know about his enhanced capabilities.
But somebody appeared to, somebody who shouldn't, and that was worrying everybody.
Being such an unprecedented situation, we were all scrabbling about in the dark. There was simply no way anybody outside the organisation could have found out about Arthur, never mind get access to his sticks and our tech lab. It could have been an inside job but there were currently zero candidates and, unless we uncovered something that Arthur had done during the lost two days, there was no connection to anybody or any reason for what had happened.
In short it was a seemingly unsolvable mystery, but solve it we had to. We needed initially to establish where Arthur had gone during those three hours and whether he had spoken to anyone once he arrived at the motel and seemingly stayed in his room for two days. Even if there had been no problems or security breaches, we still had to find out who had doctored his implant, why and how, and if it could happen again.
When the GPS told us we were about ten minutes from the field, Arthur suddenly became agitated. I was driving and he was in the passenger seat so I noticed him wringing his hands and shaking slightly.
"What's up?" I asked.
"This part of the road looks familiar," he said, "but it's still hazy. It's just frustrating, that's all."
"If you relax and just look around it'll come back eventually, don't force it."
"Even if I do remember, how do we know they're real memories and not a digital blip?"
Nobody answered because that was something else that had to be factored into our investigation - how reliable could Arthur's recall of his time with the virus ever possibly be?
"Sorry I was a bit down back there," said Arthur as we pulled up beside the field, "but having this memory lapse feels a bit like being shot again. I'm fine now so come on, let's get on with our job."
John enthusiastically volunteered to remain with the car - it would be disastrous if it were stolen; five people hitching would look very suspicious. With his case of duty free fags he was like a kid in a sweet shop.
The rest of us walked through the gate and into the field.
"You were within two hundred meters of where we've parked when your stick was removed," said Adam.
Arthur nodded and looked around. He began walking in a purposeful manner so we silently followed.
"Leaving aside the tangle of philosophical questions about false memories and so forth, I remember walking over to that tree in the far corner. I can't remember removing my stick though."
"We're you alone?" I asked.
He turned to me with a puzzled look. "Of course."
We hadn't discussed explicitly with Arthur the possibility that he'd been kidnapped and it didn't seem to have occurred to him. I let it go for now as his memory seemed to be partially returning.
"Can you remember why you came across the field?" I asked.
"No. I can remember walking here but my thoughts were all over the place, and I can only remember it as a series of short snippets, if that makes sense."
"No memory is ever a hundred percent reliable," I said, "it's always a re-presentation rather than a video tape. We just need to know if you met anyone or said anything during your blackout."
"I think I spent some time here," he said quietly, "but I don't know why."
He looked a bit shaky again so I tried to reassure him. "We still don't know what the code did to your short term memory. You could have thought you were on a mission or looking for something. Or, more likely, you just wandered off and got lost and it took you three hours to find the car again."
"Let's hope so," said Arthur, "I don't like not knowing what I did. White obviously thinks I did something bad or we wouldn't be here."
He said this as a statement rather than a question. Hannah, Adam and I exchanged a glance. He hadn't been present during our briefing for this expedition. The director hadn't said anything specific but he was clearly worried, as we all were, that an agent with 4's knowledge running about not knowing what he was doing or saying could be disastrous.
We reached the tree in question and paused. We were faced with a vista of even more fields, all seemingly leading nowhere in particular. No cattle or evidence of farming was in view, they were just empty fields.
Arthur looked around for a couple of minutes without speaking. I took the opportunity to survey the horizon with my binoculars. A tiny plume of smoke caught my eye about a mile away beyond a copse of trees. I handed the binoculars to Arthur and pointed towards the smoke. He stared at it for a while.
"Shit, I did meet somebody. I remember the smell of the smoke."
Nobody spoke for a minute.
"Come on then," Arthur finally said, "we'd better go and find out what I did."
We set off, all putting our phones on silent. I rang John and told him to look for a road to the location of the smoke and be ready to pick us up if possible.
After twenty minutes we arrived at the trees. About a quarter of a mile beyond them we could now clearly see a rundown old farmhouse. I scanned the area with the binoculars. Although there was no sign of life the smoke must be coming from somewhere, and a rusty yet serviceable looking pick-up truck sat nearby.
I put the binoculars away and we all took out our hand guns.
"Anything else coming back to you?" I said to Arthur.
"I remember a gun," he said. "Sorry, nothing else yet, just the smell of smoke."
We moved on cautiously towards the edge of the trees. From there we would have no cover and the glint of binoculars in the sun would give us away to anyone inside the house.
We stopped under our last piece of cover. The house was now only a hundred yards away. We all listened intently for any human sounds.
As we were about to circle around the house, a dog wandered out from behind it. We froze but he saw, heard or smelt us anyway. An enthusiastic barking ensued and I motioned for everyone to move back a few paces and hit the ground.
Within seconds of us settling on the leafy floor and aiming our weapons the front door flew open and an angry looking middle aged woman with a tangle of greying hair stepped out holding a shotgun.
"That's the gun," whispered Arthur, "but it was a man who tried to shoot me."
Hannah, Adam and I processed this information without taking our eyes off the woman.
; She shouted something that sounded like 'go fetch' and the dog ran directly towards us. Adam fired a warning shot into the air, at which the dog yelped and ran back towards its owner.
As the sound of Adam's pistol faded into silence the scene froze like a tapestry. Luckily for us the woman had the sun in her eyes and so couldn't see us or tell how many of us there were.
"Come back to finish the job have you?" she shouted. "You won't get me so easily."
With that she and the dog ran back into the house, the door slamming shut behind them.
"Adam, Hannah watch that building like a hawk."
I took Arthur a few steps back into the miniature forest. I tried my phone but there was no signal.
"Do you know what she means?"
"Yes," he said in dismay, "I think I killed her husband."